What's new with me?

I made chocolate covered strawberries on Friday. They are really yummy! For some reason, though, I keep referring to them as cherries. Oh, well. :) I made the ganache for the strawberries myself, based on a recipe from Alton Brown's tv show, "Good Eats". He's really funny so I've been watching his show and "The Next Iron Chef".

Yesterday, a couple friends and I went to "Skeleton Crew Theater" as a fun Halloween activity. It was great! We laughed a lot, solved riddles, helped a little kid who was dressed as a pirate, and each won a prize. I now have a cute bracelet with a spider on it.

Today I took another long walk with Susan and the dogs. Allegra wore me out! This is a good thing because I'm getting lots of exercise.

Now I'm watching the Red Sox win, hopefully, the world series. Yeah! (Yes, I'm still a Yankees fan but I have no problem rooting for the Red Sox since the Yankees are done for the season.) It's also nice to root for the Red Sox because I can talk about it with my friends.

My profile has been created.

This afternoon I created my profile on crewsdirector.com including my resume. I also followed up with the production coordinator who told me about that site, sending her my resume and references. The site is how her production company does almost all of their hiring and other companies use it too. Hopefully it will lead to a job.

My weekend and stuff.

Saturday morning I made chocolate chip pancakes for Susan and myself and then we took the garbage and recycling to the dump. I spent most of the afternoon working on some computer stuff that I'd been putting off. In the evening, I finally watched "Pretty Woman" all the way through. I liked it.

Sunday I walked a mile into the center of town to check out Fall Festival. I ate some popcorn and cotton candy, saw a live blacksmithing demo, and walked the mile back home. It was beautiful!

Monday night I found a bunch more production companies to apply to and a great website for finding jobs in the entertainment industry.

Today I took another beautiful walk outside with the changing leaves. I also heard back from another production company. They don't have any openings at the moment but they gave me the website they use for all their hiring and told me to sign up there. They also said to send them my resume. I'll be doing that tomorrow.

***Check out the new links I’ve added to this blog on the right hand navigation!***

New career development.

Thanks to some encouragement from a fellow MHC alum, who is a film producer & director, I've decided to apply for the Directors Guild of America's training program. They have a program based in LA for tv & film and one in NYC just for film. It's a serious process (think applying to college) but, even if I don't get in, I think it will be a real growth opportunity for me. I'm also going to apply for the Spring, unpaid, internship at our local public television station. I may need to take a part time job in the meantime to get some money coming in. I'll keep you guys posted.

Not too much going on.

I stayed up until 6am this morning playing room escape games on the laptop. I slept until a little after 3pm. After breakfast, I walked the dogs with Susan and then went downstairs to get some work done on the computer. I updated my checking account register, friends & family contact spreadsheet, and to do list. I made some phone calls, including following up with a production company I'd left a message for last week. That's about it.

My visit with dad.

Friday night I visited my friend, and fellow MHC alum, Lynette. We had a nice time, just talking and catching up. In addition, I discovered that she's due to have a baby girl in February.

Saturday morning I got up early, met Steve at 9:40am in town, and drove to the eastern part of the state to see his mom and my dad. (My dad called me on Thursday night and told me that he was coming to the state on Saturday for the wedding of one of my uncles on Sunday, hence the surprise in my prior post.) I dropped Steve off at his mom's house, which is about an hour and a half from here, and proceeded to meet my dad at his other brother's house, which was about 45 minutes further. I had a great time visiting with my dad, Uncle Mike, and Aunt Lisa. We spent the afternoon and evening getting reaquainted since I hadn't seen my aunt and uncle in about 12 years. I heard about how all of my cousins are doing and I saw the wedding album of Mike and Lisa's oldest. I also heard the happy news that my oldest cousin is pregnant with her first child. After a nice Chinese food dinner and part of a baseball game I headed back to Steve's mom's house. We played "Sorry" for two hours and I fell asleep on the couch watching the rest of the ballgame.

On Sunday I made breakfast for the three of us. I got to make a chocolate chip pancacke and a bannana pancake in addition to regular ones and sausage. Steve's mom really appreciated me cooking and cleaning up.

Monday I caught up on chores, especially laundry, and today I went to the dentist. I was scheduled for two fillings but my dentist discovered a third cavitiy while he was working. $480 and a lot of novacaine later my mouth is still a bit sore but hopefully okay for awhile. I'm really tired and will go to bed soon.

I'm off to see my dad.

More details when I get back. Surprise visit. :)

I'm going to be an aunt, again!

This is a shout out, CONGRATULATIONS!, to my sister. She is pregnant with her second child. My nephew is the cutest kid in the whole world (in my unbiased opinion :) ) and now he's going to have company. Yeah! Hopefully I'll get down to see my mom, sister, her hubby, and my nephew soon.

I'll be seeing my dad this weekend. He's coming to the eastern part of the state this weekend for the wedding of one of my uncles. Unfortunately, I won't be seeing my stepmom because she's staying at home since her father passed away last week. Her dad was a nice man and he will be missed.

I've done more career stuff (snail mailed a networking letter and left a message for another producer) and lots of errands over the last two days. I also made a yummy tuna dish for dinner tonight. I cooked tuna, baby bella mushrooms, scallions, and mixed stir fry veggies in a white zinfandel for about half an hour. I've been cooking a lot lately and I love it. It also helps to be able to buy lots of wild fish at Trader Joe's.

Whew!

Okay, I got a lot of career stuff done today. I sent my application for a job to one production company and sent my resume to another to be kept on file. I left a message for a third company to find out if they had any openings. I also sent out five networking letters to fellow alums. Yeah! Now, I'm going to be checking my email every five minutes to see if I hear back!

In other news, it's pity party time. My friend Jill and I are hosting a pity party on this section of my blog for all the fans of baseball teams that are out of the playoffs. The Yankees (my team) and the Phillies (her team) both lost in spectacular fashion. While we are, mostly, content to wait until next year, we would like to open the comments on this post for venting and commiseration. Have at it folks! :)

I'm getting a lot done.

My networking letter is completely done and I found 7 alums working in the tv business who I'm going to send it to tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow morning I'm calling one production company to get a name to attach to my cover letter and resume. Then I'm calling two more to see if they have any openings I can apply for. I also caught up with some other emails I needed to send. In addition, I've been getting a lot of chores done.

Fall Festival!

After being in a funk for a couple of days (worrying about career and move stuff) I was cheered up by friends on Thursday and got to laugh a lot.

Friday I took the scenic route into town (I was trying to find a new, shorter, route to my P. O. box) and got to see the beauty of the changing leaves. The weather here has been gorgeous! After lunch with a friend I returned home to take a very long walk with Susan and the dogs. It was really good to get a lot of exercise. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening working on my cover letter for the job application I'm sending in next week. After that I watched some TV. The season finale of Dr. Who was awesome. The teaser for next season had me laughing out loud! Then I went to the midnight showing of Labrynth. That was fun.

I slept late this morning and it was a little hard to get started once I woke up. I had miso soup as part of breakfast because I'd just read about miso's beneficial health effects. Plus, I really like miso soup. Then I met up with Steve and we went to the Fall Festival in the town where he lives. It was fun. I ate crawfish pasta and some fried dough with maple cream. I also drank some applejack soda (think hard cider without the alcohol) that was yummy. Then we went to the library's used book sale. Some people would say that I've never met a book I didn't like. Some silly person got rid of their Piers Anthony "Xanth" collection so I scooped it up along with a couple of "Dr. Who" books and the first book in the "Bartimeus" trillogy. I picked up 16 books for $15.50 and five of them were hardcovers. Later I bought some organic tomatoes. All in all, it was a good time. Returning home I ate some of the teriaki salmon I'd made yesterday. Now I'm catching up on email, this blog, my cover letter, and laundry. I'm also watching Halloweentown. :)

Oops. I didn't realize I hadn't posted since Friday.

Sorry about that. I was exhausted from dealing with my car (did I mention it passed inspection? Yeah!) and then I got a little busy. Here's the recap:

Saturday: Got up when my friend called me around 9:30am to let me know she was ready for me to come help her move. I had told her I could move light stuff and maybe help pack/unpack boxes. I showed up just as they were done unloading but ended up helping her finish cleaning her old place. Then I went home and did my best couch potato impression for the rest of the day since I hadn't gotten much sleep the previous two nights.

Sunday: I finished my networking letter and showed it to Susan, who loved it, and emailed it to the MHC career counselor who's been helping me. Steve and I had a sushi dinner at a great restaurant followed by cannolli and fruit tart at a local patisserie. I even had (decaf) espresso for the only the first or second time in my life.

Monday: Grocery shopping! I had fun at Trader Joe's and was able to come home and make a yummy black pepper topped tuna in chardonnay. ***Recipe: I dumped about half a bottle of Chardonnay into a pan and heated it almost to a boil. Meanwhile, I took the frozen, wild, ahi tuna steaks and put them in a bowl of cool water to thaw. When they were ready, I placed them in the wine and let them cook, covered, for a few minutes on medium heat. I uncovered them and sprinkled on a generous amount of black pepper. I recovered them and cooked them, covered, on low to medium heat for about 20-25 minutes.*** After the tuna was done, and had been removed from the pan, I realized I didn't want to waste the tuna and black pepper infused wine. I decided to use the concoction to flavor some rice but I ended up creating a kind of shrip risotto. ***Recipe: I took some frozen, basmati rice and dumped it into the wine and let it cook for two minutes. Then I added some large, tail on, pre-cooked but now frozen shrimp. After the rice had soaked up all of the liquid, and the shrimp was about halfway heated, I poured in some 1% milk. After about 10-12 minutes total cooking time the dish was done. As a final touch, I added some freshly chopped scallions to the cooling mixture.*** It was fabulous! Next time, I'd probably add some butter and parmesan cheese and change the milk to heavy cream to make it more of a true risotto. Oh, I also baked another batch of those great Trader Joe's chocolate chip cookies. Susan is really enjoying the smells, and tastes, of my cooking and I'm having a lot of fun!

Tuesday: Not much except that I discovered that my leftover tuna makes a great sandwich when put on a soybuttered whole wheat bagel and microwaved for 2 minutes.

Wednesday: Dentist appointment. Cleaning went well but I have two minor cavities that need to be filled. Oh, well. I met with some friends, ran some errands, and came home and cooked. I made shrimp fried rice for the first time and it turned out really well. I used Susan's wok so it's officially Chinese. ***"Recipe: I heated up some peanut oil in the wok and dumped in some freshly chopped organic scallions. They burnt to a crisp really quickly so I turned down the heat and added my frozen shrimp. Once those were well on their way to being heated I dumped in the frozen basmati rice. Once that was well mixed I threw in some leftover, now cooked and cooled, organic frozen peas and corn. I gradually added in a stir fry sauce to taste as I stirred. Finally, I threw in more chopped scallions.*** The rice itself was a bit mushy but it tasted really good and the house smelled fabulous.