Fish Out of Water

I love my new job!

First of all, let me say how exhilarating it feels to say that. I love my new job! I worked four days this week and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I'm working on a project with the city government, so we've been at City Hall all week. It has been so much more eventful than things ever were in the tiny suburban office where I used to work before.

There were huge protests in support of the Jena 6 - sometimes so loud we could hear them on the 26th floor of the hotel across the street (we rented out a suite so people could come submit online reports that can't be done from inside City Hall - long story). I saw the mayor crossing the street as I was walking back from an errand. I had to get a badge made so I could access the upper floors of City Hall, and the guy in the badge office could not speak because he had some kind of larynx problem, so everything was done with pointing and hand gestures. He looked pretty exhausted to not be able to speak, but he got his points across just fine. He was a really nice guy, and my badge photo turned out really well!

The company seems really awesome. They really take care of their employees and there are systems in place to handle all sorts of things. I've never worked for a large company before, so this is all new to me. Having an official "help desk" to fix things is a luxury I've never had. It's amazing! I send them an email, and then THEY worry about it. In my old incarnation, if something was broken, chances were very good that I had to worry about it. I also signed up for direct deposit - yippee! - and next week I'll be signing up for my very first-ever 401(k) plan.

So all in all, I had a fantastic first week and I can't wait until next week. It's going to be a 50- or 60-hour week because there's a filing deadline for this thing we're doing with the city, but that's OK - it's my kick-ass new job! Woo-hoo!!!!!!!!

Back in the kitchen

Ever since about halfway through this last pregnancy, I've been having a really hard time getting into the kitchen to bake. When I was pregnant, it was tough because my back and legs hurt so much, and since the baby was born, it's been tough because there's a baby in the house who likes to be held all the time. Before the baby, I used to do most of my baking after I had put my older daughter to bed. Now, by the time I get them both to bed, I am so tired all I can think about is sitting down on the couch and reading or watching TV or surfing the Net, and then going to bed. Getting organized enough to actually bake something is pretty much out of the question.

But a few days ago, I was watching Barefoot Contessa while holding the baby on my lap. Ina was making a deep dish apple pie. Now, I've been having trouble with my pie crust for a while, so I was interested to see how Ina made hers. My crust has been hard to roll out, hard to get off the board after rolling it, falling apart, and tasting very dry and bland after baking. Not the way to a yummy pie. So I was interested right away. Somehow I managed to get the recipe written down while perching the baby on my left leg and keeping her from grabbing the pen. When we went to our local farmer's market on Saturday morning, they had beautiful apples, so that reminded me of the pie and I bought a huge bag of them. They weren't Granny Smith, which I always use for apple pies; they were one of those red-and-orange-and-yellow types whose name I can't remember, but the guy said they'd be great in a pie. So I went with it.

So I used Ina's recipe for deep dish apple pie with one modification. She calls for a combination of butter and Crisco, but I've always preferred to do all-butter crusts, so I did 2 sticks plus 1 tbsp of butter, instead of 1 1/2 sticks of butter and 1/3 cup of Crisco. She also calls for 3 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp salt. First you pulse all that together in the food processor 8 times, or until the mixture is about the size of peas. Then you add 1/2 cup of ice water and run the food processor until the whole thing forms a ball. Once it formed a ball, I wrapped it up in plastic and refrigerated it for half an hour.

While that was in the fridge, I prepared the filling, which was crazy simple: 7 medium to large apples peeled and cut into chunks (she calls for 4 pounds, but I don't have a scale so I just eyeballed it at 7 apples), 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup sugar, orange zest and juice, lemon zest and juice, 3/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg and 1/4 tsp nutmeg. When you mix it all together, a lovely sauce forms that coats the apple chunks.

Then I rolled out the crust and already I could see it was behaving itself much better than my old crust did. Also I was much more careful about keeping my board floured, and keeping the crust moving so it wouldn't stick to the board. Here's what it looked like when I got the apples into the pie plate with the bottom crust:

Then I rolled out the top crust and got that one placed on top. Ina demonstrated how to crimp the crust in a much better way than I've ever done it before, and I tried to do what she said. It worked pretty well. I brushed it with an egg wash (one egg beaten with some whole milk) and sprinkled it with sugar (I'm sorry this photo is a little blurry - I loved the way the crimped crust looked):

Then I baked it at 400 degrees for an hour, and I have to say, the most beautiful pie came out of the oven. My husband was my official tester, and when I walked into the living room to see how he liked it, he was already halfway through it and declared it the best pie I've ever made, hands down. I was very proud of myself! Check it out:

The girls, and my new job, and all kinds of changes

I am really looking forward to starting my new job on Tuesday, and of course I'm a little nervous too. But so far the people all seem really nice, and it is going to be great to have some brand-new challenges and a new environment. But I do still keep having weird dreams about my old job - last night I had another one. I guess that's just my subconscious finally realizing I am really am no longer there. I'm in a strange kind of limbo - one more day of vacation on Monday, and then right into the fire, first thing Tuesday morning. I'm getting my hair cut today so I can start off my new job with no split ends.

My girls are doing great too - the baby is sitting up a lot, and laughing all the time, and rocking back and forth on all fours. No inclination toward crawling yet, and no teeth in the mouth. Her big sister was crawling by six months old - she was much more interested in doing the next new thing. This second one is much more mellow, much happier to just let things go at their own pace. It's really fascinating to see how different kids can be. She's also not nearly as interested in eating real food as her sister was. I still have to be really persistent to get her to eat baby food, and she's just getting comfortable with those flavored puffs. But I'm just letting her dictate the speed of things, and we'll see when she's ready to do stuff.

The big girl is her usual feisty, energetic self. She is in pre-kindergarten for 4-year-olds this year and seems to love it so far. She can recognize a few words - her name, "the," and the name of a convenience store around here - so we figure she'll have no trouble learning to read. Also we've been reading to her since she was a baby, and she sees us reading all the time, so I have no doubt she'll be a great reader.

Well, there goes the baby. I better see what she needs.

Success!

I got the job!

Last time I posted, I mentioned that I had been interviewing for a business analyst job. Yesterday I had a third interview for that same job (I've never been through a process like this although I know people who had to go through many more than three interviews to get a job - but for me, this was kind of excruciating!), and today they offered it to me. I took it! I start this coming Tuesday.

I am really excited about the opportunity to work somewhere new for the first time in many years, and at a bigger company with a totally different kind of atmosphere from where I've been for so long. It was definitely time for a change and I think this place will be great. They told me they really liked me and thought I had great potential to grow in the organization, and they thought I'd be a great fit for them.

After the last few rather traumatic weeks, this is a welcome change and a sign of stability and good opportunities. I'll be working hard, but it will be more than worth it.

Moving toward new beginnings

I lost my job.

OK, I had to say that in dramatic fashion because it's the first time that's ever happened to me, but a more accurate thing to say would be that I gave my job back. My company, a very small consulting group, is having a rather rough patch, and essentially what I did was relieve the company of its obligation to continue paying my salary. I asked for, and got, a layoff, and applied for unemployment the same day. I'm now submitting lots of resumes and trying to find something new ASAP. It's very stressful but also kind of exciting because it means the start of a new chapter in my career, which is something I've needed for a while.

I've actually been interviewing for a job that sounds a lot like what I want to be doing, and I had my second interview this morning. It was with a project manager who has three or four slots on different projects that he needs to fill, and I thought it went pretty well. The recruiter told me she would be speaking with another operations person about me, and she would let me know about next steps, so I am cautiously taking that as a good sign. I figure if the guy I met with today thought I was a complete lunkhead, the recruiter would have said, thanks, but we don't think it's a good fit. So I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I am also going to schedule an appointment with the career counselor at the university where I got my Master's, and send out more resumes. I know a guy in a pretty high-up position at a big investment firm here, and I put a call out to him to see if he knows of any openings at his firm, and I'm going to contact my husband's lawyer and some other people he knows to see if they can help me make some connections.

So I'm doing all the right things. It's a bit nerve-racking because I've never done a job search before, and especially not with the specter of unemployment hanging over my head at the same time. We pulled our younger daughter out of day care for the time being, and if I can find something before the end of the month, the day care said they'd hold onto her spot in the baby room. If it takes much longer than that, they're going to need to give the spot to someone on the waiting list (which of course I understand). So we'll see. We just can't afford the care if I'm only getting the unemployment benefit (and I don't even know much that's going to be - I applied online and I think they are going to call my boss - who knows when I will actually see any money).

My older daughter's [very expensive] private school starts tomorrow, so that is both exciting and scary. She will be in pre-K for 4-year-olds. The great thing is that it's full-day. Until I get a new job, I'll be able to pick her up at the end of the school day. She is NOT going to be happy when I go back to work and she has to go to after-school care, but she'll have to get over it.

So that's what. It's a time of changes and scary new stuff. I'm excited and nervous and all the things you would expect. I just want to start out 2008 with positive happy good stuff. 2007 has been an unbelievably challenging year. I'm ready for the next phase of things.