Last Blog This Year!

I am a bit sad that this will be the last blog that I write for this class this year. Sometimes it has been a struggle to fit the blogs into my week but it really makes the members of the class interactive with one another. I like the blogs where people talk about their everyday happenings or when they get on to vent. My take on blogs when they first started to get popular on the Internet was, “who really cares?” That is probably a bad outlook but I thought it because it seemed like it was hard to know what the truth was through written words. People could say anything and it could not be true. But the truth of it is that it doesn’t really matter anyway. A blog is for the writer more that it is for the reader. Blogging has helped my writing and how I relate to others. I am happy I won’t have to blog this summer but I will miss some of the funny news articles and stories that we have shared together. It feels good to complete a year of college. It goes by so fast that I bet graduation will be just around the corner for all of us.

On another note I would like to share some of my summertime plans and ideas with all of you. Canoeing is what I have been waiting for all winter. One of my friends has planned a trip next weekend and I hope that I have enough money and time to go. I think that I will if the river is down enough but I am not sure that it will be.

Memorial Day weekend is when I wanted to go canoeing but I am afraid there will be to many people. That weekend is my birthday and I am finally getting a pair of boots from PFI where my sister works. She can get me a 20% discount because I am family and I already have an idea of which ones I want. I would love a pair that was five hundred dollars but somehow I am not sure that I will be that lucky for my birthday. But you never know, I didn’t think I was going to get a nice new car but I did. (haha.) All I really want for my birthday though is to go out to eat with my Dad, Sister, and Seth. I am really looking forward to the trip to Springfield that weekend. I am not sure what Seth has up his sleeve but I’m sure it will be wonderful as usual! Well Farewell fellow students!!! Have an awesome summer!!! 

Final blog week

It is so hot outside! I cannot complain though, this weather is what I have been looking forward to all summer. It is nice to be able to go outside and lie in the sun and enjoy the fresh air. My dad and my boyfriend are both putting off turning on the air conditioning but I think the ninety-degree weather may break them. I have good news about the job at the Wild Plum. I got it! After I took up my three dishes they tasted them and said I was hired. Now I just have to figure out how much it costs to make a 9x13 pan and double that price and that is what I get paid. The owner is really nice and understands how culturally restrained Lamar is in the food dept. It is all fast food and fried food. Even the Mexican restaurant in Lamar is super greasy. They cook everything in lard. People do not realize how bad that kind of food is for you. It may be kind of a struggle to get Lamar to give a healthy restaurant a chance but I honestly think that healthy food tastes better. Yes, like everyone I have a craving for pre-packaged unhealthy food but I always notice how bad I feel after I eat food like that. If there is too much grease on food it is screaming heartburn and indigestion. Healthy food really does make you feel better. I am hoping that when they start cooking in the evenings that I will get enough hours to just work there. Until then it looks like I have two jobs. But I really love to cook and even if the restaurant doesn’t take off I will still have a good reference and some experience to put on my resume.

I was supposed to go to Joplin today to turn in my books and register for classes next year but a lack of funds has forced me to change my appointment. My idea for classes since MSSU does not have a culinary dept or a meteorology dept I will probably take some small business classes next year. Maybe someday if the economy looks up I would be able to start my own business. That idea seems the most pleasing to me. Nobody likes having a boss tell them what to do and regulate their schedule so why not just cut out the middleman and be the boss. That is my idea anyway. I will be successful if I try hard enough and so far so good!

Truck wreck!

Yesterday was a crazy day! At about one thirty my dad got a phone call saying that my uncle Jeff had wrecked his semi-truck. I’m sure that some of you probably saw it on the news last night. It was where 96 and 43 intersect and the driver of the car failed to yield. Jeff had no choice but to slam on his brakes to try and stop. The problem was that his truck had a load of corn in it and all of that weight is hard to stop. Jeff said that when his truck hit their car from the back it spun around like a top. He went off of the road and then his truck fell over on to the drivers side. He said that he had to roll down the passenger window to crawl out. He was in now way responsible for the collision. When my grandmother got there she said that three of the four passengers had been taken to the hospital already. They then came for the fourth passenger. Jeff was just a little shook up and sore from the wreck but afterwards they had the problem of how to get the truck back in its upright position. Grandma said last night that she thought that they hadn’t even lost a bucket of the corn. A truck came and sucked out all of the corn from the trailer and put it in another truck. They then had two big wreckers come out and pull the truck upright. Jeff then drove the other loaded truck to Arkansas like he had planned.

That would have to take a lot of determination to wreck your truck and then continue driving one that same day. I know that after my wreck I didn’t want to drive for a little bit afterward. I couldn’t imagine lying over a huge truck like that. The force would have to be extraordinary. This has been a bad year for the family and car accident. It makes me worry about the rest of the family because it just shows how you can be doing nothing wrong at all and have a horrible accident.  

Blog of the week!

There is finally a door that has come open for me that was quite unexpected. I have wanted a job in a kitchen as a cook for a long time and now that opportunity is right here in Lamar. A new restaurant has opened up just off the square. It is a café that serves healthy, chemical free food. I have been thinking for a couple of weeks, since I heard about it that I would go in and try to promote myself to the manager. Yesterday I did just this and am going to be the new cook for this restaurant. I am going to be doing catering and hopefully taking some of the stress off of the woman that opened it. She said that the menu is open to revision and that the employees that work there are expected to bring in ideas for the new menu. I have three or four that I think are worthy to be on their menu. My first one is giant shells stuffed with cream cheese and herbs, and then it is smothered in a homemade tomato sauce and topped off with cheese.

My second recipe is Taboli, which is a Greek salad, made of wheat, tomato, cucumber, feta cheese and spices. My third is my special red skin mashed potatoes with fresh chives, different cheeses and spices. I am considering taking in a recipe that my dad taught me and that we make every Christmas and it is made with black walnuts and chocolate. There is more to it than that but I can’t give it away. It is a really old family recipe. It makes a type of truffle.

I am so happy that I finally feel like I am making progress with my future. It is really depressing working a job that you know is nothing more than to just get you buy. On other good news my cold is going away and the sun is finally shining. My birthday is coming up this month and I am excited to say that my sister is going to hook me up with a sweet pair of cowboy boots at her job at PFI in Springfield. I have never had a pair of cowboy boots but I think it is about time to try a pair. 

blog two complete!

It is so hard for me to stay ahead in school now. I am so busy with work all the time and just being sick and tired all the time I’m struggling everywhere. I have like two tests I need to take and a paper to write and more homework. I just don’t know how I am going to keep up. Hopefully I can make passing grades to get me by this semester and try to get my job to work more around my school. I just feel so behind. And it sucks because I never used to be behind. It seems like my crap run of luck lately is taking its toll on work and school. But things always get better. I have to go to court on Friday with my dad next week because my mom cannot keep her hands off of my dad’s money. Ridiculous. I don’t even want to be in the middle of this. I know dad is going to get his ass handed to him and his wallet emptied but with the lawyers in this town they just help steal it. So much stress! Never this much stress before! It really rings true what dad says, “Don’t be in a hurry to grow up.” No kidding! I don’t understand how he does it. He works for 12 hour shifts in a freezer loading cheese for goodness sakes. It would get so cold and your body would have to be so sore from repetitively throwing that many boxes of cheese. It makes me look like a big wimp for thinking housekeeping is hard. I just wish I could find something that I enjoyed doing but that is why it is called a job and not a hobby. I had an idea though. I could make cheesecakes and sell them. My sister’s boyfriend is a chef at Nonnah’s in Springfield and she said that they have one woman that makes all of their cheesecakes. She said that if I got the recipe down perfect and took some into a restaurant that most of the time they respect you for your effort and will give you a job or take you under their wing. I may try to peddle them at Blue Top now that I work there. It is worth a try. 

back on track or trying

It has been a crazy past couple of weeks. I have been so busy I regrettably could not get my last weeks homework done. I got down really sick and had to take a week and a half off of work. I am a lot better now and am glad to say that I am getting a new job. It is going to be hard telling my boss that I am done there but I am really excited about this new job. It is at Blue Top in Lamar as a waitress, cashier, cook, and busgirl. So now I have no days off for the next two weeks. My only two days off were Sunday and Wednesday but those are now Blue Top days. I am going to be sooooo tired! But after these first two weeks hopefully I can squeeze in a canoe trip and get everything done. I really think I am going to like this job. I have wanted to get into the restaurant business for a while now. Hopefully I could get put on as cook full time after a while. That is my plan at least and it will be awesome to get tips that way I won’t be broke all the time.

Today I was lucky enough that my boss from Super 8 called and said that I didn’t have to come in because there weren’t too many rooms needing cleaned. I finally got to sleep in. Tomorrow I have to put in my two weeks notice there and I’m not looking forward to it. I am glad I didn’t have to go to work though today because last night I grabbed the wrong end of my 420-degree curling iron. Luckily I did it with my left hand and not my right one. It hurt so bad I dropped it on the floor and started screaming obscenities. Dad who was on the couch asleep woke up to that! Woops! I felt so stupid. Could I really be more of a clutz? I think not!

Well as soon as my friend gets here from Springfield, the one I got in the wreck with we are going to get me some polo shirts for my new job. 

Weekly Gossip of Lamar(ridiculous)

Okay I know that most of you all are not from Lamar or even really know very much about it but I just want to tell you all a story that happened just a couple days ago. Rumor had it in Lamar that our Sheriff, an older Sheriff, and an attorney had been arrested for “tampering with evidence.” This rumor went strong for a couple of days and there was not a person in town that hadn’t heard about it. It was even all over Facebook. People were saying that they knew about the trial for them and it was being transferred to a different county.

            Well come to find out the older Sheriff that is a friend of mine has a bus route and for someone that got arrested he sure didn’t miss a day of work. There were lots of signs that told me this was just a rumor and come to find out that is all it was.

            Some guy that worked at Thorco said he saw the news and said that the news said all this. Well he heard wrong or just wanted to start a rumor. The actual story was that it was Barry County and it was the prosecuting attorney and the Sheriff for tampering of funds. Wow how can something so completely different be changed into that? And I assure you those three people accused caught hell for it. All because of small town rumors. This just kind of rubs me the wrong way considering one of them was an old family friend.

            The old gossip mill of Lamar is still in full swing!!