• Newsbreaking Hair News,  Shop Talk,  spilling my guts

    A Big Mysterious Newsy Update

    newsy-update-1

    This post is all about me. Aren’t they all? I’m looking over these photos and there are a lot of selfies. That’s mostly because my hair is growing out and I’ve been taking lots of pictures of it on the days I like it. Cutting your hair is such an act of freedom.

    Anyway!

    Big News! I quit Ralphs. I’m going to miss the gym that pays me $200 a week to work out but I have bigger things on the horizon and my body was wearing out. There’s a lot of wear and tear that goes into being a bagger and running around the store all day long. Pushing and pulling carts, lifting heavy items, walking 20,000 steps a day… Every night my legs would hurt. I like being fit though so I’m really going to miss the regular workouts. I’m going to have to find a new workout routine and that is always a challenge.

    You probably want to know how the “Stay Fresh Cheese Bags” prank went. It didn’t. I shared about this on Instagram but I should probably recap here. There was a meme going around Instagram saying to post the last screenshot of a meme in your photo roll and it would reflect who you really were inside. I couldn’t resist playing along because the “Stay Fresh Cheese Bags” meme was in my photo roll and it had me laughing out loud. I’d been having an ongoing private fight with the Dairy guy at Ralphs in my head. He was super rude  to me and I was not fond of him. He scolded me once and every time I would see him and he wouldn’t say hi or he would roll his eyes if I accidentally swept my broom into his way because I can’t read his mind and know where he’s going… I would say to him (in my head), “Stay Fresh, Cheese Bags” and it cracked me up. You know, whatever gets you through the day, right?

    I ordered some stickers that say “Stay Fresh Cheese Bags. You can see one right up there. My plan was to stick one somewhere in his work area in the back and laugh my head off knowing that he would see it everyday and wonder who put it there. I mean, he is the guy who stocks up the cheese… it’s not like it would exactly be out of place. But then, I accidentally stuck it on the liquor department guy’s locker instead of his. I don’t know what happened. I read the names wrong or I just pulled a typical Brenda air-head moment and slapped it in the wrong place. My whole joke was foiled.

    The good news is that I told the Liquor Guy what I did and he got a chuckle out of it and said he didn’t mind the sticker being on his locker. Phew! And that is how I left Ralphs. Will they remember me? Probably not. Will they wonder how that sticker got there? Probably not. But at least I got a laugh out of it.

    Also, that taped-up car? It’s not mine. It has nothing to do with anything. I just thought it was funny because it looks like a crying emoji. The other car was just a cool old car I saw and the Volkswagon is Toby’s old Super Beetle. No, Bug is not going to be driving a Volkswagon Bug, though it would be cute! I’m too paranoid about her safety. She currently has no interest in getting her license and I’m hoping to buy some kind of hybrid that is full of all the safety gadgets before she gets to that point.

    interview-mode

    Back to our main topic: Goodbye Ralphs, Hello New Job! Yes. I interviewed all last week. Four interviews in total. You can see me dressing up trying to look spiffy. Do these shoes go with this? Can I get away with wearing Mary Janes and socks? It was exciting. I love to dress up.

    i-got-the-job

    The interviews went well and I got the job!!!!  I can’t share what it is yet but I am very excited. It is my dream job. I hope I can share later. It’s been a long six months of job hunting and I’ve gone through so much rejection and the self-pity. This job is so great that I can say those long six months of floundering and getting my ego smashed to smithereens was worth it!!! Things are going to get so much better. I can’t wait. I start on Tuesday.

    valentines-with-matt

    In other news: Matt flew down for Valentine’s Day and we had the best time! He took me out to fancy restaurants. We walked and talked and went shopping. Of course, I got roses because I am spoiled. Long-distance relationships are not for the weak but they do have their perks! I’m actually really thankful for this relationship right now and how it gives me so much time to myself to be a workaholic (which I really need to be as I dig myself out of debt.) I’m very thankful. I know my story doesn’t make sense to everyone but it works for me.

    xo

  • 15 minute posts,  Bug,  domesticity,  party party

    Bug’s Seventeenth Birthday Vanilla Chocolate Matcha Raspberry Cake!

    vanilla-chocolate-matcha-raspberry-cake

    I made a cake like this for Bug last year and she loved it. Apparently, I didn’t blog about it. But Bug loved it so much that she special requested I make another one for her this year. So I did! Because that’s the kind of overworked and underpaid (but thankfully appreciated) haggard mom I am. So this year I’ll blog about it.

    How did I make it? Well, I googled a vanilla cake. Found this one.  I think we discovered this recipe for Joon’s baking party and it was reasonably easy to make. It involved a lot of mixing and timing…It’s a little backward from how I usually make cakes but it works.  Do you know what doesn’t work? Expired baking powder. The recipe even says to check the expiration dates in the generous notes provided by the author but I read right over that like it wasn’t there. My baking soda expired in 2019. We stocked up for Joon’s bake-off party and I guess I never used it up. I thought I baked more than that.

    The result of using expired baking powder was two very thin cakes. But I didn’t panic. I did what any experienced overworked underpaid haggard mother would do. I made another cake. Four very thin cakes make one just right cake!

    Bugs17thBdayCake

    Then I spread dark chocolate fudge frosting between each layer, smushed some fresh raspberries on top of the chocolate, and then stacked all the cakes on top of each other, and frosted the top. Not the sides! No, that would be too much. Just on the top of each layer. Then I decorated the top with more fresh raspberries and sprinkled it with matcha powder. That’s it!

    Bugs17thBday-gathering

    And everybody loved it! Knowing Bug this will probably be the required cake until the end of time. Which is fine because I’m an underpaid, overworked haggard mother who is appreciated!

    But you know what? My overworked underpaid luck is about to change. Big things are in my future. I can’t share yet but I will when I can. I’ve vvvvvvvvvvvery excited. That is if things work out. There’s still a chance they might not which is fine. I’ll just keep on keeping on!

    Tah tah!