Holy whirlwind, Batman!

Wow. The past two weeks have been n.u.t.s! What started as a whim as quickly evolved into a non-stop cake baking frenzy. On April 19th (I can't believe it's only been since then!) Sarah and I got together to play around with some cake pops. We baked, we crumbled, we mixed, we frosted, we dipped.

The first few were just....okay. We worked from 4-11pm, and made 110 pops. Talk about diving in headfirst!

So, I brought a few in to work, and my sweet, supportive co-workers immediately jumped on board. I had orders for Easter bunny pops due the following day:

Then came a birthday party for that Saturday:

We could barely catch our breath. Our life became consumed by cake...but it felt good. Over the next few days, we booked a wedding for Memorial Day, two baby showers in May, and made a three layer "farewell party" cake. We create a new round of samples...

 

...that looked and tasted a heck of a lot better than our first attempt...and started to think that maybe this is something we could really do. Last night, we got together and made cupcakes for a first communion, and talked business. We figured out how much each item was costing us...and what we need to try to find online to save on supplies. We talked about new options, testing out new recipes, trying our hand at bread and muffins and brittle and fudge and booking craft shows and dreaming big. 

In the meantime, between and during all of that, our basement flooded...

...twice. Which was awful. We have to call the insurance company next week because a LOT of things are ruined. I also had the health inspector approve our kitchen (but only for non-chocolate, non-dairy goods, which is a long story for another post...if we want to be truly legal we need a commercial kitchen), I stopped sleeping so I could cook and clean and fret... and I totally stopped paying attention to job applications...which I need to remedy, right away. I don't harbor any illusions that I'm going to not have to work ever again and can just bake my life away...although that would be a dream, because I love it so much.

So, that was my whirlwind two-ish weeks. Today, I'm trying to recover and become a human being again, instead of a walking zombie. Tomorrow will be dedicated to the very-important task of job applications...and maybe, thought I should really be taking a break from it, some baking. I just can't seem to stay away.

On resumes and new beginnings

Today was a day of contrasts.

To start, I called about a job I had really, really been hoping would come through...and was told interviews had already been conducted. I opened my e-mail...and saw that I had been rejected for yet another job that I really thought I had a chance at getting. It was a big time blow, one that I should probably get used to after hearing some serious horror stories about extended unemployment in the current economic climate. But oh my, it hurts. I've never had trouble finding employment in my whole life. I've always gotten the job I wanted, nailed the interview, got the callback. Now, I can't even get my foot in the door. To date, I've applied for 5 jobs and been rejected 5 times. It seems like a very small number in comparison to people who have been unemployed for weeks, months, years even. At the same time, I have a sneaking suspicion that that number isn't going to stay small for long. Things are rough and getting rougher, and it's high time I start thinking of some new tactics, because what I've always relied on doesn't seem to be working anymore. It's time for a new game plan--and the name of the game is being aggressive.

I'm going to start by seriously tearing apart my resume and cover letter. I'm not applying for K-12 jobs, because frankly, they don't exist. So, I'm planning to downplay the "elementary" portion of my resume and highlight the "media" angle. I am technologically savvy, and I know I have transferable skills, but something about the image of a primary-grade librarian isn't doing it for the private companies and higher ed positions I'm targeting.
Probably because they're thinking of this:

Storytime, anyone?

As opposed to this:

Hello, Web 2.0!

Not that there's anything wrong with storytime...it's just that it seems to be conspicuously missing from job openings of late, and I've got many other skills to offer. The second thing I'm going to tackle is my reluctance to follow up. I waited almost a month to call on one of the jobs I applied for...and when I finally did, I didn't like the answer I got. I think I was afraid to call because I was afraid I would be told exactly what I ended up hearing today--I didn't get chosen for an interview. But really, what would the harm have been in hearing that a heck of a lot sooner? And even worse, maybe the answer would have been different had I stepped up and been a little pushier than I've been in the past. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?

Tonight feels particularly sad because I know as of this evening's board meeting, I'm officially unemployed next year. My position has been abolished. Gone. No more K-3 library media specialist. Sigh.

On a happier note, Sarah and I got together on Saturday and decided the best way to solve our problems is to make cake. What problems doesn't cake solve? (Well, maybe weight problems. Anyway...) We're really interested in exploring making some baked goods as our livelihood. It started as sort of a joking "wouldn't-this-be-fun" idea, but the next thing you know, there's a few people interested in the possibility of our services, I'm calling the Department of Health about approving one of our kitchens, and we're meeting tomorrow to practice making cake. I promise to post pictures of our adventure tomorrow.

There's something very exciting about the idea of self-sufficiency, especially in light of the seemingly never ending stream of discouraging news. The mental image of a cozy kitchen filled with baked goods lifts my spirits in what has otherwise been a pretty dismal stretch. I'm not delusional enough to think it will replace the income I'm going to be losing, but it's a start....and I'm in control of the decisions I make regarding it. Right now, that seems to be the best feeling of all, when so many things that affect my life, my future, have been largely taken out of my hands...maybe for now, it's exactly what I need to feel okay.

Photo Credit here and here. 

The sound of the other shoe dropping is a sob.

Well, I got what I was asking for: an answer.

"It is with great sadness that I must inform you that at its next meeting the Board of Education will be presented with a resolution to abolish your position for reason of economy."

So there it is. It looks somehow less scary typed out here than it did on the letter in my shaking hands. Now, it really begins. It's real. No more hypotheticals, no more what if, no more "maybe this will happen."

I am unemployed.

I am so freaking scared.

It's an ice cream kind of day.

We had a union meeting this afternoon at school, where we went over the proposals that have been presented on both sides of the negotiation. Although I can't go into details because we were asked to keep things quiet and "membership only", I will say that I am probably the same level of deep-depression-upset that I was when I first heard my job was on the chopping block.

To put it simply: things are not looking good.

Right now, the gap between what the union presented and what the district presented is vast. It's hard to see where the two parties can meet in the middle...and I am terrified where that leaves those of us that are already living in a daily state of limbo. One of my biggest hopes was that concessions by the teachers would help save me. If we don't reach an agreement, and can't agree to concessions, and no contract is decided, where does that leave the jobs that could have been saved? Do things just steamroll ahead and the layoffs go through?
I'm not surprised by the tone of today's meeting, though I am disappointed. Not in the teachers, because they are willing to concede, but the things being asked of us are asinine and a slap in the face to the hard work we do every day, unless everyone is willing to make the same sacrifices, top to bottom. I think if I had to pinpoint a reason why I'm so upset, it would be because I have been hoping so hard that things would start to look up and that the initial announcement would be nothing more than a small, unpleasant blip on the radar. More and more, it seems like that's a bunch of wishful thinking without much solid evidence to support it. I have this rosy, childish (waning) belief that if I want something hard enough, believe enough, wish enough, I will always get my way. Maybe that's the lesson in all this--you can't always get what you want.

My dad thinks I'm being a drama queen and that I should have faith that things will work out in my favor. He gets very angry when I get worked up about my situation, and tells me to slow down. My mom just sighs and reminds me that I'm not dying and I'm certainly not alone in this area. And she's right. She also brought me home for dinner and some good old fashioned family time with her and Dad and my brother, which made me feel so much better. Doug has been a rock throughout, telling me that no matter what, we'll be OK. And he's right, we will. I just can't get past the devastation of losing a job, a family, that I've come to care deeply about and really value as a part of my life. I know I don't have to make decisions now, because, as usual, nothing is set in stone, but a major internal debate I'm having is whether to be loyal to my position and consider moving to take a school library job, or to be loyal to this town and take whatever comes locally. Doug and I have debated this over and over, and neither option seems particularly nice.

On a side note, the detox officially ended tonight when I decided to drown my sorrows in peanut butter pie frozen yogurt. Oh, that dairy and sugar soothes the soul.  I felt randomly more empowered to stop than I did to keep going, in that I could recognize that I was miserable and it just wasn't worth it. It did introduce me to some new, healthy options, and helped me reconsider how much salt/sugar I need to add to things to make them taste good. So, it wasn't a total loss, and the carby, sugary, tasty consolation dinner I had tonight was all the better-tasting for being deprived.


Photo Credit Here

Detox rox.

In the spirit of starting fresh, I've decided to do a mini-detox. Inspired by the fact that I've been steadily gaining weight since the wedding, and have been eating some really unhealthy crap lately in an attempt to drown my sorrows, I thought it would be a good way to kick off spring and to keep my mind off the fact that the budget is being presented to the Board of Ed this week. I think I hit rock bottom right before the detox began, in the form of a half-pint of Boston Cream Pie Ben and Jerry's. Oy.

So, Doug being out of town for the week, I began a pretty intense detox. No cayenne pepper-maple syrup-water business for me, but I am eliminating sugar, wheat, and dairy for 5 days. I'm two days in, and so far, it's not as terrible as I thought it might be, but it's also very distinctly not. fun.
I've been using the Clean detox as a sort of spring board, with some internet recipes mixed in. So far, I've discovered the following:
1. Frozen fruit + unsweetened almond milk or rice milk=amazing. Really yummy, which surprised me. I'm a fan of almond milk, but I've always bought the sweetened vanilla kind. It's amazing how simple and good the combo of the unsweetened non-dairy "milk" and fruit is. My favorite combo so far is raspberry and rice milk. Awesome.
2. Although the inspiration for my daily recipes was a pretty specific detox from GOOP (Gwyenth Paltrow's blog, she can be snarky but I like to live vicariously sometimes) I've found I could substitute quite a bit of what I had at home for some of the more expensive things I will never use again (hello, tub of miso paste? I don't think so.)
3. I have never peed so much in my life. Like, ever.
4. I epically failed at making a buckwheat crust. It tasted like dirt. The rest of this quiche was good though! (I'm not quite sure why they called this  quiche. It was the least quiche-y thing ever. Wishful thinking, maybe?)
Check it out:

Looks good, right? Let me tell you, the white bean garlic paste in this is crazy good. I would just eat that straight up. I modified a little, specifically in that I used chicken breasts, not ground chicken/no cranberries/coconut oil in place of shortening in the buckwheat crust (oh man, it was so yuck.)/and I bought the beets "pre-pickled" at Wegmans. Minus the crust, it was muy delish.

So, that's the plan for the next 3ish days. I've had a dull, continuous headache since Monday, but I'm not sure if that's because of the weather, or the crazed children at school, or because sugar/wheat/dairy is like my crack and I'm going through withdrawals.

Tomorrow, we have a union meeting, so I'm hoping I have some answers about next year. In the meantime, I'm off to drink herbal tea and try not to dream of grilled cheese and cake.