Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

So after much preparation, and absurd last minute drama, I finally embarked on my journey to Spain. In the year preceding my decision to move abroad [2011] and the last weeks leading up to my move, however, I felt incredibly lost. In both these instances it felt as my life was in endless turmoil. With respect to year preceding this decision, I felt that every decision I ever made was wrong, and despite my best laid plans, the world insisted on stomping them into oblivion. In the weeks leading up to the move, the significance of my departure started to weigh on me like a ton of bricks and there were three tearful breakdowns. The first at my going away party, the second and most physically significant being fueled by a massive amount of vodka, courtesy of table service at my favorite strip club, and the last was brought on by a series of unfortunate events, including, but not limited to Kona being incredibly sick the day of our departure. As I sat in the vet's office that morning, giving them my tearful permission to run whatever tests were necessary, it was in that moment I was convinced that packing up my life and moving to a new country was the WORST IDEA EVER.

Even after leaving the vets office $200 poorer, with a bag full o' medicine and poodle on the mend in tow, I wasn't so sure that the energy that I was expending to speed to my mom's house in New Jersey where I was supposed to have been the night before, was worth it at that point. What was supposed to be the most exciting experience of my life, had morphed into the nightmare that wouldn't end, that kept getting more expensive, and invited everyone in the WORLD to tell me I was going to meet  a Spanish man, fall in love and get pregnant. On the day of my departure, I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and stay there forever. But instead, I pressed on.

Jump

I haven't got much time to waste, It's time to make my way

I'm not afraid of what I'll face, but I'm afraid to stay

I'm going down my road and I can make it alone

I'll work and I'll fight till I find a place of my own 

Are you ready to jump
Get ready to jump
Don't ever look back, oh baby
Yes, I'm ready to jump
Just take my hand, get ready to jump

-Madonna, Jump, Confessions on a Dance Floor

  
I love Madonna, and this one of my all time favorite songs of hers. Part of the reason I love this song, is because it's the background music in the montage scene in The Devil Wears Prada, where Andie has clearly gotten her shit together, and is seen sporting several fierce winter coats [and I have a growing obsession with outerwear]. And the other reason I love this song, is because it's motivational anthem, which for the past 3 years, 11 months, and 15 days, has often been necessary to get my ass out of bed and into my office. It's a song I've played often in order to invoke that sense that "I've made it"and as an educated, gainfully employed, independent, and occasionally awesome grown woman, and I'm totally living some version of 'the life' ".

Not.

As I've talked about many times on this blog, I was never really feeling it. So I decided to do something about it. I thought, a new job, a new city, an amazing fellowship could all be mine with some perseverance, prayer, and the hardball determination. But that all turned out to be a bust, and some of my closest friends and my family can tell you, I did NOT handle it well.

So I withdrew to recoup and mourn the loss of what I thought I wanted. In the process I made a few bad choices [retail therapy, an epically bad dating experience, more retail therapy] and one phenomenal choice. I didn't realize at the time that that one decision would lead to a moment of sharing, and that the result of both would alter the course of my life.

But here I type, life course completely and forever altered.

It's finally happened y'all.

Perfecting Perfection

Meatless Monday will be back once I stop eating EVERYTHING. 'Tis the season to be greedy, am I right?!

Speaking of the holidays, guess what's baaaaack! Brownies and Blondies! You may remember that several months ago I ventured into selling these treats on Etsy. I made a few sales, learned a few things and my life went a bit hectic and trying to get my little brownie business off the ground had to take a back burner. Well that is no longer the case. Things have settled and I'm back in business. During my time "off" I did some thinking about my core product, my piéce de résistance, my Beurre Noisette brownies. To date, the recipe that I use is awesome, regardless of if I flub the execution or not, the brownies are always slap yo' mama good. But as a very small business trying to make an name (and some cash) in the big world of Etsy, I realized that there is always room for improvement, and that even perfection can be perfected.

Now I'm no fool, when it comes to baking, I know there's very little room for change in measurements and proportions. Well actually, that's not true, because it took one "failed" batch of brownies [my roommate and I still ate them, trust!] to really learn not to play around with the measurements. Instead, I've learned to upgrade my ingredients. A brownie may be a humble confection, but even the humble deserve a luxury upgrade. And by luxury I mean Valrhona cocoa powder,  Kerrygold Irish butter, and toasted walnuts. And I have to say, the upgrades were worth the investment!

And in the spirit of giving, I'm offering 25% off any purchase in my Etsy shop, Browned Butter Sweets to my blog readers with the promo code EatReadRant. I'm in the process of revamping all of my recipes and photos, so I'll keep you updated on that progress. The above promotional code doesn't expire, and I have to say these brownies make great gifts!

NomNom, folks. And happy shopping!

The Most Interesting Woman in the World

The Dos Equis Man may very well be the most interesting man in the world, but where is his female counterpart? Actually, during my pre-move, "must clear off my DVR before I move marathon" of Oprah Presents Master Class [among other shows], I concluded that Condoleezza Rice is a strong contender for that title. While I almost entirely and vehemently disagree with her politics, I still find her to be profoundly fascinating and, dare I say it, an inspiration. That revelation acted as a tipping point of sorts. You see, throughout this 2xth year of my life, I've been pondering "what the fudge have I done with my life?" and "how exactly am I going to take over the world? what am I supposed to do with the rest of it?" ad nauseam. Damnit, it was suppposed to feel good to be a gangsta! But I've been feeling neither good, nor like a gangsta. What happened to me??! But Condy's riveting story and life lessons planted a seed in my head, and gave me the push I needed to acknowledge what I do want out of life, and then to go for it, full steam ahead.

Awesomeness

Because when you can't control anything else in your life, you can always control your blog. and make it more awesome...

¡Hola Guapos! [I really need to start practicing my Rosetta Stone again, because my Spanish vocabulary is still tragically limited, but I digress...]

Just a heads up [after the fact], I've made some big changes to my comment section. I love getting comments from you guys, and I have been wanting to make the commenting experience more interactive. Now since Blogger refuses to avail it's loyal users with a variety of options for comment management and interaction like certain other blog platforms [word press], I have had to take matters into my own hands. ::sidebar:: I just realized that more often than not, I'm prone to taking matters into my own hands to get what I want. Go me! I also just realized that that very aspect of my very being is WHY my now 17 month job search has me at the very edge of reason. Le sigh:: So in order to facilitate a more interactive comment and reply experience on this lovely blog of mine, I've installed the Disqus comment service. You can check out that in my last blog post, I individually responded to your comments. *Akeem voice* Isn't that wonderful?

But wait, there's more!
If you so choose, you can create your own profile on Disqus (or link your various social networking accounts to create a disqus profile) AND opt in for email notification on replies from myself or other blog followers on your comments. I know you're probably thinking you don't feel like setting up another profile on another website, etc. etc. But it's up to you. You can still comment without setting up a Disqus profile, it's completely up to you. Soooo there you have it. Pure Awesomeness

*Coming to America reference. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I highly suggest you Netflix it immediately.

Desperate Times Call for Expensive Measures

So it's been a while since my last post.  And honestly, I debated back and forth whether or not to share this post for several reasons:
1. I'm a private person, I prefer to hold on to personal information rather than share it, even when to the average bear, the information seems arbitrary. [I certainly inherited this behavior from Linda (mommy), that woman can keep secrets, but I digress.]
2. In the spirit of keeping to the theme of this blog, (food, health policy, and the rantings of a crazy woman) this post doesn't necessarily fall neatly into any of those categories, and the key to a good blog is that it is focused, relatable, and entertaining. [and consistent, oops]
3. I'm a lazy ass heifer, and to demonstrate how the topic of this post falls into two of the three aforementioned categories to my full satisfaction means I can't just pull this post out of my ass.

BUT in the spirit of Belle and Toya's latest blog posts of "Do You Know Where You're Going To?" and considering that I haven't posted in almost a week and I'm trying to win this internal battle to not emulate some of Linda's crazier behaviors, I've decided to share.

Last night, I went to my very first, but certainly not last, private tutoring session for Quantitative & Qualitative Data Analysis & Statistics.

[you may be asking aloud, "What?" "Why?" and "How expensive?"]

Without actually telling you what that shit is if you don't already know [for those with inquiring minds, click the link above], I'll just say that its a critical health policy job skill that I LACK [thanks for fucking nothing Master's Degree in Health Promotion] and is a recurring theme that's beleaguered my ONGOING job search, and I've had ENOUGH!

It's not that I didn't know that I needed this job skill when I first began to realize that I hated my effin job and it was time for a new one. I just told myself, "I'll learn this skill in a semi-entry level position within the field." It's what I told myself when I had the mother of all epiphanies and realized that I wanted to work in Health Policy rather than Health Education. I even tried to take a formal class at the University of Baltimore a few months ago, but OF COURSE the intro level class is only offered in the FALL semester [and so help me God, if I'm still at this job come fall, I'm going to do this]. But it was last month, shortly after realizing that my phone interview was all I was going to get out of the PERFECT JOB and hot on the heels of a rejection email from a different job, I decided it was time to grab the bull by the horns.

Aren't you loving my dodgeball reference? I'm no underdog though,  purple cobras!

I have had enough of not even being able to apply to positions because this skill is a mandatory requirement for all applicants.  I have had some education in this subject area, but haven't used it since that take home final senior year of UNDERGRAD, after which I promptly began drinking in celebration of being "done" with my college studies. In hindsight, perhaps that was a poor choice, and in further hindsight, its more than obvious that my college studies are far from over. [God appreciates irony. Usually I do as well, but today, I do NOT].

So after 2 hours of basic statistics roundup, I'm a little bit smarter [it turns out, I'm not completely inept when it comes to this crap, its just requires me to really apply myself and focus] $XX poorer, feeling a bit more encouraged, and certainly 1/2 a step closer to getting where I want to be.

So yes, this post is a rant about how focused I am at getting a job in health policy, and yeah, I got a pile of homework waiting for me at home. So it turns out this is a health policy and rant post. Shazzaam!

If you were in my position, would you do the same? And are you just as pissed as I am that I didn't get this skill drilled into my brain in grad school like I was SUPPOSED to? Are any of my readers experts in this skill and willing to tutor me for free? (or for food, y'all know I like to cook!)