Friday Favorites

Favorite WTF News Story.  Oh Toledo.  You guys and your cheeseburgers.

Favorite DIY Rainbow Fan.  Paint each blade a different color.  It's kind of clever.

Favorite Way to Make the Most Out a Broken Wrist.

Favorite Team Shirt via Skreened.  I was last year's Captain.

Favorite Backyard Lazy River.  What!?  I'm totally doing this when I'm rich and powerful.

Moving Pains

We're moving in about two weeks.  This is what we've done so far.  All of this is pretty much equivalent to what we have in a closet.

We have a lot of stuff.

We're in trouble...

My Baby Revelation

So last week, I had the joy of meeting my 5 month old niece for the first time.

She is the cutest little thing and I had some good auntie bonding time. 

And after meeting her, I've come to a realization.  Babies TERRIFY me.

Now, I haven't come around that many babies in my life.  I was going on 11 years when my baby brother was born.  There was a novel interest to see and play with him, but honestly, at the time, I didn't care.  All I knew was, there was this little creature taking away my limelight and I didn't have time for that! 

Once Will, my brother, became a toddler, I warmed up to the idea.  Toddlers are just fun.  They can talk, walk, and are all around entertaining mini humans.  During a year in college, I had a job providing daycare at a martial arts studio.  It was easy money and I got to play with kids for a couple of hours.  So, don't get me wrong, I love kids.  I'm such a kid at heart, I feel like I can relate to them.

Babies, on the other hand, are a different story.  I can't relate to a baby.  I don't know how to interact with them.  As cute as my little niece was, there were moments, I had no idea what to do with her.  But I will say, there was an odd sense of calm within me when Lola fell asleep in my arms.  Which just proves that there's a sensitive person somewhere in me.

The biggest reason why babies terrify me is best explained in the following scenario.  My brother, his wife and the baby arrived at my parents' house pretty late.  The baby was asleep in the car seat and ended up waking up in the commotion of unloading everything.  The poor thing slowly looks at me, my little brother, mom and stepdad, who are essentially strangers to her and are crowding around her carseat trying to get a look.  Then searches for her own mom and dad, and when she realizes they're not around, she starts crying.  And not just soft crying, but loud crying, which progresses into top of the lungs crying.  At least that's how I percieved everything to have gone down.  And to her credit, anyone in their right mind would've started crying if waking up to strangers right in their face.  It was during her crying fit that I had my revelation.  The Holy Spirit left my body and I was terrified.

I think this scared me so much because when a baby cries, you don't completely know the reason for the crying.  I mean, you have an idea, but you're not 100% sure.  It stresses me out to have something happening and not knowing why.  That and the noise of the crying itself would be stressful enough.

I also feel I have no maternal instinct.  And I'm too rough.  And I'm too clumsy.  I AM the reason we can't have nice things.  I can't even count how many things I've dropped because of my butter fingers.  I've dropped the cat and dog plenty of times.  What's stopping me from dropping my own baby? 

I've voiced this concern to other people and they all say, "It's different with your own baby."  Well, I sure hope so.  You know those videos of those dads that ends up throwing a ball, and smacks their kid right in the face.  Yep.  Pretty sure that will be me...

Tasty Tuesday: Avocado Breakfast Pizza

I love, love avocado.  That's all I'm going to say because words cannot express how much I love it.

So, I've been using my avocado love and incorporating that into breakfast lately.  

The basics include:  pocketless pita bread, half of an avocado, and an egg.

I mash up my avocado, mixed it with a little lemon juice and salt and spread it on a toasted pita.  The day of this pic I had some leftover sprouts, so I tossed those on there.  My original intent with the egg was to fry it but I forgot that's what I was doing and ended up scrambling it.  Still worked though!  The other mornings I make this, I do fry the egg instead.  Personally for me, fried egg on top is easier to eat since pieces of egg  aren't falling off the slice.  And of course, I have to add hot sauce because that just wouldn't be me.  

My Old Kentucky Home Recap

So last week I went to Kentucky to see my baby niece for the first time...oh and the rest of my family.

It was a solo trip for me.  The BF got to live the bachelor life for a couple of days.

It was a well needed break and it's always good to see family, right?

Recap:
-Caught up on much needed sleep
-Caught up on much needed reading
-Caught up on doing absolutely nothing
-Beat a bunch of levels in Candy Crush
-Ate loads of Korean food
-Added more to my little's brother's Spiderman memorabilia...hahahaha
-Met my 5 month old niece Lola for the first time.  She cried when I first saw her, but she came around after sleeping the trauma away.
-Had a conversation with Lola, fed her, and had her fall asleep in my arms.  So cute!
-Accomplished 2 things off my Before 30 List.  More on that another time.
-Hung out with my high school besties.  We had a cookout and hung out on the porch in the country.  I'm pretty sure we looked a little redneck.  Oh, the South, how I've missed thee...
-Bit by 8 mosquitoes while hanging out with the besties.  I still have the bites.  I consider them my mementos.
-On the plane, sat by a man that could've held the Guinness record for most body hair.  Pretty sure I couldn't see any skin there was so much hair.  And we were armrest buddies.  Yessss.
-Being picked up at the airport by the BF and eating burritos.  Not too shabby a welcome.  Oh and he bought me a Firefly shirt.  Points for him.

Best part of the day!

Still the same since high school.

First World Problem

I want to first start off by stating that as the title states, this post is a complete first world problem.  There are bigger things to gripe about.  And there are people out there that definately have more problems than me.  But I do have family and friends who read my blog and genuinely care for me and the best way I can explain everything is through writing.

So if you've got bigger fish to fry and don't care to hear about my story then stop right now and go onto something else.


Anyway, for those that care or are just plain curious, about two weeks ago, I had a phone interview for a position at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.  In the end, I wasn't offered the position.  And looking back, I'm kind of relieved.  I mean the CDC houses like every single disease known to man...and then some.  There's some scary stuff there, and the job would've had me potentially working around that sh*t!  I had a feeling from the questions I was asked that I wasn't gonna get the job.  I can't remember the questions anymore but I do recall staring at the phone like, "What the eff are they talking about?  Is this Klingon?"  The questions had me clueless and I felt like the women interviewers were "judgy."  A little background:  interviews for federal positions usually involve a panel of interviewers who take turns asking the same set of questions for every interviewee.  Well, I had five people interviewing me, four women and one male.  The guy interviewer was awesome and I had him cracking up, but the ladies...nope.  Judgy.  I get that alot though from female leadership.   But that's another issue I'll save for another day.

So I didn't get the job and I'm still at the one at now.  So, in the end, nothing was lost.  In fact, the week before my interview, I got a promotion that I was actually due for a couple of weeks prior, but didn't get for some reason.  With the promotion now in place, the Atlanta job would've actually been a pay cut (even though it was a lateral position). 

But with that promotion, I'm now "capped out" in my current position.  More background:  with a federal job, you're hired into a certain job series and can go up to a certain level.  Some positions have only one level and some have up to several levels that can be reached with supervisor's approval after a year.  Well, with me, I've reached my highest level for my particular position.  I'll get monetary increases after every couple of years, but career wise, I'm peaked.  The only way to get anything different is to apply and compete for higher positions, which there are at my current place of work.  But those guys don't plan on leaving anytime soon.  So I'm stuck.  I applied for the CDC mainly out of curiosity.  But now, I don't have much incentive for staying where I am and as much I do genuinely like the job I have, I can't stay if I'm like this. 

Besides, I am ready to leave Maryland.  There are nice aspects of this place, but the few negatives are pretty heavy and piss me off...ie. the cost of living and the general agressiveness of everyone.  So, I'm keeping my eyes and ears open.