the big question...

Where to start...I feel like since I've left Washington, I haven't been able to find where I'm supposed to be. I was so sure Mississippi was going to work out, and so I didn't make plans beyond moving to the South. And then I lost my job so quickly and had to scramble to find not only a job, but a new place to live. I'm living and working in Missouri now, which was not at all part of the plan. Maybe that's a big reason I've felt really lost lately. I don't like surprise changes. Don't get me wrong, I can be very spontaneous when the occasion calls for it, but I didn't want this occasion to call for it. I wanted to spend my next six months to a year as a Southern girl. Now I don't know what I want to do or where I want to go. Life is already so overwhelming and then you throw this into the picture. I have had a lot of time to think about my life and I've realized that I don't have any short-term goals...Mississippi was my short-term goal. So I guess I need to come up with something new, but what?!? That is the big question...

Goodbye to Mississippi

Apparently I wasn't meant to be in the South. After I was there for a week and lost my job, I looked and looked for a new job. I did secure a nanny job, but I wasn't going to be needed until January, so I tried to find something between now and then. I filled out application after application, but wasn't having much luck. I considered other options as well, and was very tempted to just quit and move back to Washington. One of the options I had been thinking about was being a live-in nanny on the East Coast. I have wanted to do this for years, but it has never been the right time. So I went online and researched an agency that primarily places LDS girls in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and occasionally other states when their families move away from the East Coast. The more I thought about doing this, the more excited I got! I felt that this was the right time to pursue this path and I don't know that I will have another opportunity to do it later. There was no point in staying in Mississippi and continuing to look for a job there when I was planning to take a job on the East Coast as soon as I could get a placement. So I decided to leave Mississippi and drive back to Missouri to spend the holidays with my family. I drove all day on Thursday and I feel so much better and more relaxed now. While I enjoyed Mississippi and grew to love the South, the time I spent there was very stressful. I love it here in the Midwest! And I'm excited to be with my family! I've been talking with the agency I found online and they have a family that is looking for a new nanny to start after Christmas, which would be perfect timing. So hopefully I will be placed quickly and then I will get to start on another new adventure!

A Month of Change

Well I've finally made it to Mississippi! And boy was I in shock once I got here...it's very different from what I am used to in Seattle, but of course, I did expect that. The drive here was very long and mostly uneventful and boring. Chica (my cat) hated all of it, but I couldn't get her to take any drugs, so she just had to deal with it...by the last and longest day, I think she was finally used to riding in the car and barely yowled at all.

I left Seattle, WA on Thursday, September 2 and drove to Oregon. I stayed there two nights with my Dad and Joni, and then left for Spokane, WA to see the Willson's!!! I really loved Spokane...it's very open and beautiful! From Spokane I drove to Burley, ID and stayed with my Great-Aunt and Uncle on Sunday night. I had a pretty long drive the next day and was going through Wyoming (which I was not looking forward to at all - BORING!), so I left Idaho at 5am - yuk! I was so tired, but I loved that I was able to watch the sunrise!

I drove through the northeast corner of Utah before entering Wyoming. I had it all calculated - 400 miles and 5 hours to get through Wyoming. It was so long and boring...there is absolutely nothing in Wyoming. I am sorry to those of you who love and/or live in Wyoming, but I've decided that it's not for me. And then, about 20 miles from the Nebraska border, my car broke down! Did I mention that I hate Wyoming?? My intended destination for that night was another 2.5 hours away and I was stuck in the middle of nowhere. I called my sister-in-law, Lisa and also Debbie Engle (who I was supposed to be staying with) to let her know I wasn't going to make it, and I cried a lot. I got out of my car and looked under the hood, not that I knew what I was looking for. I knelt on the side of the highway and prayed and cried some more. A state trooper pulled up and called a tow truck for me. While I was waiting for the tow truck, Lisa and her Dad made plans to come get me and tow my car out to Iowa/Missouri so he could fix whatever was wrong (we were pretty sure it was my alternator). The only problem was that they were a good eight hours away, but I had very little money left and had no way to get anywhere from where I broke down. And then Debbie called me back and told me that she and her husband, Dennis, were going to come get me instead - turns out Dennis is a mechanic!

I feel I should include the story of how I know Debbie and Dennis. Back in my ward in Seattle, a missionary by the name of Elder Deines was serving. I found out that he is from Nebraska and I also knew that I would be needing to stop somewhere in Nebraska on my road trip to Mississippi, so I asked him where would be a good place to stay. He gave me the name of a place, but then a few days later told me that I should just stay with his grandparents and that they loved the idea. So I got in touch with his grandma (Debbie) and made plans to stop in Grant. So I had never actually met them and they did not know me either...but they came to my rescue anyway! They brought an extra battery so that we could get my car back to their house. We had to stop twice to recharge the battery, but we made it! The next morning we were able to find an alternator for only $50 and I was back on the road by 4pm! I hadn't actually lost any time...I made it to Jeff and Lisa's house in Northwest Missouri late Tuesday night. The next day was my last and longest day of driving, but I finally made it to Mississippi late on Wednesday, September 8th.

I drove straight to the house of the family I would be a live-in nanny for in Foxworth, MS. They live out in the country, it's very dark at night and they're surrounded by forest...I was so afraid I was going to get lost because I couldn't see the street signs and I had no service on my phone. I felt very isolated when I first arrived. Needless to say, it's very different than what I am used to. I never thought I'd actually miss the city! But I am enjoying myself and still getting used to being in a completely new and different place.

The family that I nanny for has six kids between the ages of 2 and 11 and so it gets pretty crazy and loud around here - it's definitely a challenge. I was with them for about a week and a half when I found out that the father (who works on an oil rig) was going to be laid off...I found this out Sunday. So - less than two weeks in Mississippi and I am now unemployed and homeless. I have been getting so much help and support from my church though. I have found a place to stay temporarily and will be looking for a job this week. I actually have an interview on Thursday with a mom in Hattiesburg. She has a seven-year-old daughter and is going to have a baby in about four weeks. I am hoping this will go well...it is not a live-in, so I will have to find a place to live. I think I'm going to try to find some girls in the area who need an extra roommate - Hattiesburg is the home of USM, so there will be lots of people my age and more affordable housing.

So that is where I'm at now...my time here so far has definitely been a roller coaster ride, but I am trying to stay positive and have faith in my Heavenly Father's plan for me. I know I'm here for a reason and I know that I will be supported through my trials and righteous endeavors. And no, I do not regret leaving Washington :)

"...for I do know that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day." (Alma 36:3)

Endings and New Beginnings

With me moving away from Seattle, I thought it was about time I updated this thing! This has definitely been a year of change, full of new experiences and life-changing decisions...and the year isn't even over yet. I really wanted to keep everyone informed on my new life in Mississippi, but before I get to that I should probably fill in the gaps since January.

After finishing up Baking and Pastries we moved on to Advanced Professional Culinary Arts. In this class we learned a lot about different cultures and their cuisines. It was a very interesting class and I wish we could have taken it slower...each day we were learning up to 10 new dishes! We ended this class with our Greek-themed capstone project. We planned and prepared a four-course meal and each student was allowed to invite two guests to come to the school during class time to enjoy our meal. Two of my good friends from my ward came - Kenley and Colin.

After APCA, everyone left school for their externships. I did my externship with Chef Detore at Emerald Cove Catering. It was so much fun, but also a lot of work. With my work schedule I was usually only able to come in the mornings for a few hours, so I did a lot of the preparatory work for events later in the day. They are located right next to the airport, so a lot of their events during the week are breakfasts and lunches for meetings and conferences at the airport. I was eventually able to work a few events at the airport and it was fun learning the presentation and service part of catering. And then I worked an 11-hour day one Friday...H&R Block was having an end-of-tax-season party. That was a long day and I just about died! There is a lot of standing and you don't really get breaks. Plus it's just stressful trying to make sure everything is put together and making sure you don't forget anything. It was crazy, but I enjoyed it a lot!

The graduation ceremony took place before we were done with our externships because the school only holds two graduations per year. So they just group all the classes together and have one big graduation. We were lucky that ours was happening right when we were finishing school. Some of the students had been finished with school since September! My mom and dad and Joni were all able to come into town for graduation, which happened on April 25th. And my good friends, who are like parents to me, Jeff and Daucie Willson, also came out to graduation. By this time everyone in my class was in the middle of their externships, and we hadn't seen each other in four weeks. So it was really great to see everyone again!

Two days after I finished my externship, I left for Missouri to visit my family in the Midwest. I finally got to meet my youngest niece, Payton!!! I was there for about two weeks; The second week I was there, my dad and Joni flew in. June 1st was Matthew's birthday and so we all drove up to visit with him and Christina and Xyrah. That was my dad and Joni's first time meeting Xyrah and Payton, so it was a special visit for them. I had a ton of fun out there and was really sad to come home. I'm usually a bit sad when I have to leave my family, but it's always nice coming home to your own things and sleeping in your own bed. This was the first time I really hated flying back into the city and I knew then that it was definitely time for me to move on to something new.

I spent the summer working part-time as an afternoon nanny and tried my hardest to enjoy the time I had left in Seattle. I didn't want to arrive in Mississippi and regret spending my summer just counting the days until I was going to move away. One of my favorite summer adventures was a road trip to the coast. My roommate and I both had July 5th off of work, so we made a very spontaneous trip out to Forks and La Push. It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed the drive. We ate at the diner in town and drove around Forks a little, but we were mostly interested in going to the beach. We both submerged ourselves in the ocean and then the ocean punched me in the knee - it was freezing and I was in so much pain, but it was totally worth it! Go to my Facebook page for a video! The rest of the summer was spent with good friends and family, doing all kinds of fun stuff around the city.

On September 2nd I packed up my car and my cat and drove away from Seattle. I'm making quite a few stops on my way to Mississippi to see some of my close friends and family. My first stop was in Gladstone, OR (which is near Portland), where I visited with my great-aunt and uncle, Ramona and Dennis Dalling. We had chinese for dinner and this was my fortune: "You will make many changes before settling down happily." This makes me laugh because it's totally appropriate for me right now. Then I drove another hour and a half to my dad and Joni in Brownsville, OR where I am staying until Saturday morning. I will be attempting to keep this updated as I travel and start new adventures in Mississippi, so stay tuned :)

New Year's and New Additions!!!

With the start of the new year I started a new term at school: Baking and Pastry Techniques. As with my other classes this one has kept me very busy. The first week was pretty awful; our instructor couldn't seem to control the class and manage time effectively. My class is pretty close and we normally get along very well and help each other out, but by Friday we were losing control of tempers, snapping at each other and nobody wanted to be there. There were a lot of us that were really looking forward to baking, but we did not want to go back on Monday. Luckily things got a lot better. Our instructor set times and stuck to them. She listened to our input and as a class we came up with better ways to manage production.

This class is split into two three-week sections; the first half is baking and the second half is pastries. This last week we had our finals for baking and I did very well. Some of the things I've learned to bake over the last three weeks are french bread dough (and from this dough we made baguettes, kaiser rolls, batards, bowls, rolls and an epi loaf), brioche, applie pie, croissants, danishes, peanut butter cookies, quick breads, muffins, puff pastry, eclairs, cream puffs, profiteroles, key lime pie, biscuits, pastry cream, chantilly, fruit tarts, atetes, brownies, bagels, pretzels, pizza dough and just a few other things!

Speaking of starting the new year, I also started a new New Year's Resolution. Last year I gave up soda and am proud to say I made it the whole year! It was very tough at times, but I pulled through. On New Year's Eve I went downtown to a young single adult dance. A couple minutes before midnight we all rushed outside to watch the fireworks at the Space Needle. I've only ever watched them on TV, so it was fun to see them in person. When I finally made it back home around 1:00 in the morning, I grabbed my bottle of Diet Coke and broke my year-long avoidance. It tasted so much better than I remembered! Not being allowed to drink soda at all made me want it more at times, but now that it's allowed I find that I don't really crave it so much. So I plan to keep my soda intake very low, not that it was really a problem for me before last year. My new goals for this year...I am giving up chips and fast food. Although I didn't decide to do fast food until Jan. 4th right after eating at Jack in the Box, so that will have to go past New Year's Day of 2011. I think fast food was a really great choice here. Already I've noticed several times when I would have stopped to grab something at a drive-thru and it's definitely made me see how much I spend, even though it'll just be a dollar here, a couple dollars there, it adds up. Not to mention the health aspects. It's so easy to say that I'm too busy to eat when I'm supposed to and it's just more convenient to stop real quick at Taco Bell or wherever. But planning beforehand and bringing good snacks in my car and purse have helped with this, and so far I've been able to stick to both goals!

The most exciting news of this new year is my newest niece, Payton Ranae!!! She was born Saturday, January 16th at 8:08pm to my brother Jeff and his wife Lisa. Lisa had to have a C-Section because Payton was breach. But everything went very well and they went home on Monday. Unfortunately they live out in Iowa, so I don't have the opportunity to meet Payton until early this summer after I've finished school. But I can't wait! Welcome to the world Payton!!!

Aubrie is so excited to be a big sister! Her Aunt Andrea has a video of her before she got to meet Payton and hold her. She's standing on a chair outside the room Payton was in, looking in the window at her. And she can't stand still, she's so excited. And she's saying, "I'm a big sister! I'm a big sister!" So cute!

6 lbs, 14 oz, 21 inches long

See you soon little one!

Never a dull moment when babysitting...

Last weekend I was babysitting for some good friends of mine, Tom and Gretchen. Their four-year-old daughter's name is Honora. Tom was at a Christmas party and Gretchen had a car waiting to take her to where Tom was. Not two minutes after I arrive at their house, Gretchen recieves a phone call from her neighbor, Heather. Gretchen is upstairs and all I hear from her end of the conversation is "What?! Oh my gosh! All the windows and doors are locked here...do you think we should all hide upstairs?" And she rushes downstairs to where Honora and I are and she's double-checking the locks and I'm like, "What is going on?" And then she ushers me into the other room so as not to frighten Honora, and tells me that her neighbor just saw four undercover cops rush into the woods right next to Gretchen's house with their rifles drawn! So we look out the front window and there are at least ten police cars and more down the street that we can't even see, and SWAT's there. And I literally drove down that street right before this all went down, so I'm glad I got there when I did. So we're watching out the window and waiting for her neighbor to call and update us, because she's listening to her police scanner and komo 4's website. Gretchen calls the driver to let him know that she doesn't want to leave me with her daughter until she knows exactly what's going on. Not to mention she doesn't really want to leave the house when the police are out there looking for someone!

We wait for about an hour and her neighbor keeps calling us with news. At first she says there's a hostage situation, but she's only speculating because SWAT's there. And apparently Heather was calling everyone in the neighborhood to figure out what everyone knew. So there was also a rumor that the wife at this house was injured somehow and they suspected her husband but he insisted he wasn't home, and that's why they were out searching the woods, because they suspected an intruder. But then they thought the husband was acting suspicious. And then her neighbor says someone's been shot and they caught the guy. By then we can see they're wrapping up, so Gretchen decides to go talk to the police herself before she heads out, just to make sure it's safe and figure out what really happened. So she runs out there and comes back shortly and here's what the SWAT guy had to tell her...someone fell and they weren't sure the situation was contained...what does that even mean?! We weren't sure, but they said it was safe so Gretchen left and that was that.

I babysat for them again last night and got the whole story. In a house just down the street a husband was on the third floor working at his computer, his wife was on the second floor decorating their Christmas tree, and their two boys (one age 8 and the other younger I think) were in the basement playing video games. All of a sudden the boys hear a big crash and popping sounds from upstairs, so they exit the house through the basement and run immediately to their neighbor's house, as they've been instructed to do in situations such as these, and tell their neighbor's that they heard gunshots in their house. The neighbors immediately dial 911. Meanwhile, back in the house the husband also hears the noise and rushes downstairs to find his wife seriously injured and bleeding all over. She had fallen and landed on a bunch of the glass decorations and was cut and bleeding pretty bad. The husband sees their boys at the neighbor's house and decides to leave them while he rushes his wife to the emergency room. While the husband is on his way to the hospital, the police arrive. They search the house only to find the bloody mess they left behind, and immediately jump to the conclusion that the husband has killed his wife and left to hide the body somewhere, hence the search in the woods. The husband heads home to check on his sons and finds his house surrounded by cops and they immediately try to arrest him and question him of course. He manages to explain the situation and all was well. So it was true what the SWAT guy told Gretchen: someone fell and they weren't sure the situation was contained.

More Adventures in Cooking!

Wow I started this blog and then got too busy to update...so here I am, finally putting something on here :)

I finished PCA1 (Professional Culinary Arts 1) the first week of November. I did well on my finals...a lot better with my fried eggs this time around! Not the best, but better. It helped that I went out and bought my own egg pan. The ones we have at school are awful. The fourth day of finals was my birthday and so I made little cupcakes for my class and my friend McKenzie made banana muffins. And at the end of class everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to me. It was pretty fun! I love my class!

Then we had a four-day weekend and started PCA2. The first day in that class we made spicy barbecue chicken served with mashed potatoes. We worked in teams of two to make the barbecue sauce, and so my partner and I made the recipe that was in our book. But it was awful and I've never made barbecue sauce, so I had no idea where to go from there. Luckily my partner was a little more knowledgeable about barbecue sauce and we ended up with a really yummy sauce! So we fabricated a chicken and marinated our breasts and started our potatoes boiling. We had a lot of time to finish this one plate and so I wanted to take my time and get everything right. But a lot of the class put everything together pretty fast and got it up to chef probably a half hour before me. And I should explain that we are graded out of 10 on our food. In PCA1 most of were used to getting 8.5 or higher, especially at the end. So I was getting really nervous when everyone was coming back from chef with 5's and 6's! The second highest grade on day 1 was an 8 and the only thing that student was lacking in her plate was a garnish! So I'm freaking out and listening to every one's feedback from chef trying to figure out exactly what I can do to make my plate better. So finally I bring my plate to chef and he really liked my mashed potatoes, he loved the flavor of my barbecue sauce and my chicken was cooked properly...I got a 9!!! Everyone hated my that day and I loved it!

So that was the start of PCA2 and we really don't focus so much on the grade anymore. It's still a struggle for some of us. But if you think about it, this is the first time we've cooked most of these things and we can't expect ourselves to be perfect the first time. And if chef gave us a higher grade, we wouldn't really push ourselves as much as we are now. He definitely raised the bar for all of us and we're doing way, way better because of that.

Some new things I've learned in PCA2: how to cook duck, souffles, bread pudding, fish, elephant ears, pot pies, tamales, sausages, Israeli and Moroccan cous cous, fajitas, tortillas, and about fifty other things. Another thing we've been introduced to is an amuse bouche, or a single bite-sized hors d'oeuvre. One day when everyone was cleaning up and a few people were still finishing their plates, chef announces that every once in a while he'll throw something at us and then says in groups of 3 we are to make a dessert amuse bouche and we only have 2o minutes! It was pretty crazy...every one stopped whatever they were doing and rushed to do it. It was fun!

The day before Thanksgiving we put together a family meal during class. We all brought something and sat down during the second half of class to have a Thanksgiving dinner together. It was great, but we still had to do our regular cooking, so chef made us come into class an hour earlier which means I was at school at 5am! Luckily we were done before 10 and I didn't have to work, so I went home and took a nap! I love naps :)

Another thing school has done for me is got me to try a lot of new things...like salmon. People have been telling me all my life how great salmon is and I just have this complete aversion to anything from the sea. And whenever we've made fish I never try it. Well we made salmon en papillote (in paper) and it looked and smelled really yummy. So I tried it and...liked it! My dad pretty much said "I told you so!" And my chef found out that that was my first time eating salmon and I feel like from then on he's always making sure I try everything we make. Which I have! And not just in school, but in general I'm trying a lot of new things. School is really fun and really overwhelming sometimes, because we do so much and most of it is new to me. Monday we have our midterm and two projects due next week, and then the following Monday we start finals. So these next two weeks will be really crazy and then we get two weeks off for Christmas! And when we go back in January we start baking and pastries, which I'm really excited for.