The Endless Job Hunt

via weheartit

I totally fell for this bullshit.  My first year of college, we had this funny little man with bright yellow sneakers come in and talk to our class about just doing what you LOVE.  I was so into it.  At the end of that day I had scheduled an appointment to talk to the curator of large mammals at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.  She was awesome.  Then somehow my mom's catering company started catering a function called Angels in Flight, for cheetah conservation.  Here my mom was introduced to a cheetah conservationist.  Before I knew it, I had applied to do a student internship in Namibia, at the Cheetah Conservation Fund and I was spending my summer hanging out with cheetahs and tracking leopards.  It was fabulous of course.

Tracking radio-collared mom and cubs in Namibia

Meanwhile, my dad was encouraging me to get a business degree and I was insisting that I just wanted to work with animals.  I started off studying biology, but I got so sick of hearing about the premed kids and their stupid MCAT, that I transferred my major to Environmental Science.  After a stint working with elephants and rhinos at the Cincinnati Zoo I concluded that while these animals were amazingly cool being a professional pooper scooper just wasn't for me.  I honestly enjoyed the physical labor, but I wanted to use more of my sciencey brain than I needed for that job.  I later decided that I wanted to go to vet school, so I ended up taking all the bio classes on top of my envi sci degree.

Which leads me to my current state of getting busy - the job hunt.  I chose my degree based on what I wanted to do, what I thought I would LOVE doing. Now can someone please tell me how the hell I find a job doing it?  Because at this point my magna cum laude Environmental Science degree from a prestigious-ish university is getting me absolutely nowhere as far as gainful employment goes.  Everyone kept telling me, "Kelly with your grades you'll land a great job!"  I'm not one to brag, but my GPA is quite high thanks to a year of studying abroad in Australia (70% and up transferred home to a 4.0 - cha-ching!)

Swimming with wild seals in Australia

Now I've forgotten finding a job I love, I'm on the hunt for just finding a job - ANY job.  But I can't even get an interview.  Surprisingly, "daily maintenance of elephant enclosures" just isn't relevant work experience.  So maybe those do what you love feel gooders are right - I've chosen a career path I LOVE, and from the looks of it, I'll never have to WORK another day because no one will HIRE me.

That business degree is looking good right about now.

Anyone want to read my resume?

A Lazy Boy and Girl

I have been replaced as Nick's chief snuggle partner.  I never thought it would happen this soon into our marriage.....

We've inherited a lazy boy from our bachelor landlord, and no couch.  We left our old one when we moved, because the back had to be cut out of it when a rat decided to make its home there (true story).  So we're on a hunt for a new couch, and we've spent many days Goldiloxing, but one is always too hard, too soft, too ugly, or too expensive.  We have yet to find one that is "just right."

Until we find a piece of furniture that is big enough for the three of us, I think this will be a common sight in our living room.

Look at her in that welcome sailor position! What a little skank!

My Peeps are Totally Failures!!

Hi Friends.  I need to apologize.  Last week I promised that I would have an amazing vegetarian peep recipe up and running.  Unfortunately, I've had a few pitfalls along the way.  I attempted to create vegetarian peeps using this recipe and this recipe, from who else - Martha Stewart of course!

Problem 1 : I needed to get my chubby little fingers on a candy thermometer.  Easier said than done.  After a couple days of fruitless searching, I ended up buying one off Amazon.

On Saturday it arrived so I headed to the kitchen with tons of enthusiasm!  I had purchased food coloring and a new piping set and I recruited the husband as sous chef and figured we would have great fun creating new peep animals.  I had an underwater theme in mind - peep octopus anyone???

First I used used my food coloring to color some sugar.  I only had red and yellow... But I do what I can.

Problem 2 : I added the gelling agent to the water.  I used agar flakes, to replace regular gelatin, and substituted them on a one to one ratio.  We didn't realize anything was wrong at this point, but looking back I don't think agar is a direct substitute for gelatin.

Next we boiled the sugar and water mixture, bringing it to the soft-ball stage as Martha instructs.

Check out our stove- how awful is that?

We took it off the heat, stirring, and then using a hand mixer to attempt to form soft marshmallowy peaks.

Problem 3 : Our hand mixer appears to have been made around the same time they invented electricity.  Thus, it doesn't move too fast, and no soft peaks were formed.  We transferred the syrupy mixture to our food processor with the whipping attachment in place, but no cigar.  We got a few bubbles in the syrup and thats pretty much it.

I'm totally devastated.  I feel like I lied to you, and I can't even eat my feelings with fresh peeps.  I just want to bite off their stale and delicious heads like the rest of omnivorous Christian society the week after Easter, but alas, I'm stuck with nothing more than a gooey pot of sugar water.  Martha has never let me down before, so I am blaming my appliances and agar gelatin replacement.  

I hope you can forgive me!!!

ps.  I found some gelatin free mallow recipes, but not for piping mallow, and none of them used agar.  I will be investigating this matter further.

One Eventful Walk

Everyday I take Heidi for a walk, and we usually hike in the woods along the river.  Today, like we do every weekend, Nick and I got up and took Heidi into the woods.  We were walking along as usual when this tiny little bird flitted past, and Heidi's gun dog genes kicked in.  The bird wasn't a very good flier, I'm not sure if it was a fledgling or it was injured, but it certainly couldn't fly properly and this made it look even more fun for a puppy to play with.  Luckily it jumped behind a fence where it was safe.... or so we thought.

Heidi stared at it intently and ran up and down the fence trying to get to it.  We didn't realize that the fencing stopped about a foot away from a CLIFF.  Heidi got behind the fence, and was chasing this poor little bird.  It was terrified and we were shouting at her to stop (I didn't want to see a bird murder today), but the bird flitted straight off the side of the cliff!  And SO DID HEIDI!

Right into the river!  (She is right in the middle of this picture)  Nick sprung into heroic mode and told me to stay and talk to her while he found a safe way down.  It was about a 20 foot drop!  She seemed to be limping and I was worried she was seriously injured.  So I talked to her and she kept trying to get to me, she even learned to swim!  Nick started to craw down the cliff on a slightly less steep part.  Meanwhile as I was trying to help him navigate his way down, I turn around to find my energetic puppy, who had somehow managed to climb her way back up this cliff!  

(Well not this cliff specifically, but this is near where we were walking)

We have no idea how the hell she managed to get back up!  But the next problem we had was trying to get Nick back up.  He is not a naturally born athlete like our dog.  Heidi was trying to go down and save him, but I wouldn't let her.  Luckily, he finally managed to climb back up.  We thought we'd have to rush straight to the vet, but Heidi had other ideas.  She just wanted to play.  In fact, she was absolutely fine, as demonstrated by this blurry photo...

Cool As a Cucumber

Spring has finally sprung here in England, and along with the house, I think my body can use a little spring cleaning too.  All of winters stodgy meals have taken it's toll on me, so for now, I'm trying to go back to the basics, (and back to my thighs NOT touching) by eating mostly fruit and veggie based dishes.  I will admit that the sugar in this recipe probably isn't the best for my spring cleaning regime, but give me a break will ya?

Ingredients

• 1 cucumber, sliced as thinly as possible
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 4 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp red chili flakes
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Mix salt, vinegar, sugar, chili flakes, and sesame seeds in a small bowl to make a dressing.  Pour over cucumber.  

Bingo, bango, bongo - DONE!

This cucumber salad hit all the right notes.  It's an excellent combination of sweet, sour, and spicy - though it was pretty fiery so you may want to use less chili flakes to tone it down a bit if you're not a real spice lover.