Why my Kitchen Frustrates Me to No End

So, throughout my senior year, I pretty much lived at Jim's house.  Now I officially live at Jim's house.  And the one thing that has angered me the entire time is the kitchen.

I really like to bake and cook.  Or at least try.  But it is very hard when you lack sufficient counter space to do the cooking and baking on.

This is pretty much all of the counter space that I have to work with.  See the problem?

Before I brought over more storage from my dorm room to the house, I had to do most of my baking and cooking prep on the kitchen table.  After I acquired a stand mixer, that also lived on the kitchen table.

 The dishwasher?  It is "technically" a dishwasher.  However, the dishes come out dirtier than before and more than half need to be rewashed by hand.  Therefore, it is now a glorified dish drying rack.  Those black cubes?  Most of the stuff that is in there now was currently on the cart in the picture below.

 Now my stand mixer has a home!  YAY!  Along with all of my baking supplies, which are in the white canisters with the chalkboard lids.

The red wall is another big pet peeve.  You can't see it very well, but the paint job is truly horrible.  You can see roller and brush marks.  And those 4 white squares?  There had been something hanging on the wall there before Jim moved in ant they just didn't bother to paint around the screws/nails.

I sit and eat my breakfast and scowl at that wall every morning.

But the good news is, the landlord is trying to sell the house and has given us permission to repaint the kitchen!  And by repaint, I mean repaint the hideous red wall.

The counter space solution isn't perfect.  My parents have my dream kitchen, with tons of cabinet and counter space

This is my mom's kitchen and I want it.

But, considering its just Jim and I, I guess I can live with the kitchen I have for the time being.

The Graduate School Saga

So, most people think I'm crazy because I really really like school.  I always have.  Thats why I want to go on to graduate school.  But one cannot just "go to graduate school" so easily.

For me, going to graduate school started with finding out what I wanted to do with my life; Student Affairs.  I then spent a lot of time looking at what schools I wanted to go to.  From May 2011-October 2011 this list consisted of Michigan State, Central Michigan, University of Louisville and Western Kentucky.

I then took the GRE.  Since I took the "Revised" test, I still am having a hard time figuring out if I did well or not.  I didn't think it was too bad, considering I didn't prep much for it.  I also visited Western Kentucky University and really liked it.

My next step was to look at the application process and decide on who I wanted to use as writers for Letters of Recommendation.  Most schools required at least 1 "Academic Reference."  This posed a problem for me.  Because I had recently changed majors, I didn't have a very close relationship with any of my current professors.  I settled on asking my Academic Advisor.  After all, who knows more about my academic progress than her?  I also selected the Director of Campus life and my former sorority chapter advisor.  They all knew my strengths well enough to speak highly of me.

Now it is October and its starting to get cold in Michigan.  This makes me not want to stay in Michigan but also makes me re-evaluate my grad school choices.  After all, I was choosing based on the schools that I knew in Michigan and in Kentucky.  I didn't really look at many other schools.  So, I went back to the drawing board and looked at bigger schools in the South.  I then realized that a large university is a better fit for my Student Affairs desires.  There were more opportunities for Assistantships and Practicums.  I changed my list to University of Georgia, University of Florida, University of Louisville and Western Kentucky.

This list was so short because many of the programs had application deadlines of December 1st.  I knew there was no way I could get all the materials in for multiple applications by that time.  I panicked and, for a second, considered not going to grad school.  But I kept going.

I actually only ended up applying to UGA and UF.  UGA said no to me, even before the interview round.  I went to two interviews in Gainesville, Florida, one in February and one in June.  After 7 months of waiting for an answer UF looked so promising, but it did not work out in my favor.

I still want to get my Masters in Student Affairs, so I'm going to be making a new list of places to apply to for next fall, or even this upcoming winter, depending on my job prospects.

My Future

Sorry I fell off the face of the Earth for a few days.  I was in Florida, interviewing for a Grad Assistantship position that I ended up not getting.  Needless to say, I was devastated about not getting into Grad School.  I contemplated applying to a school that I wasn't 100% sure about, just because they would still let me apply.

But then yesterday night I had a phone interview for a "Resident Supervisor" (House Mother) job at the Georgia Tech chapter of Alpha Gamma Delta.  And my chances of this job are actually pretty good.  But I will blog about that more when it becomes definite.

So, my future is very "up in the air".  I really do want to go into Student Affairs.  I would love nothing more than to be running Greek Life at a college or university.  But part of me wants to do something different in Higher Ed.

I ended up liking my History classes much more than I expected.  So much more that I decided that I might want to do a Masters in History.  I could see myself being a History professor with a teaching style similar to that of my favorite Alma professor.

I have two problems with this.

1.  I don't know if I would want to give up my passion for Student Affairs/don't know if I could teach and work in Student Affairs.
2.  I don't know what area of History I would like to "marry" throughout the duration of my Masters.

If I end up in Atlanta with the house mother position it may give me more room to explore if History is something I would want to pursue further, since none of the surrounding universities offer a Masters in Higher Education.

You're a History Major? So you're going to be a lawyer, right?

Well, yesterday was quite exciting.  I got a call inviting me to an interview for my first choice grad assistantship.  They said they could do it over the phone but my mom wanted me to go down there in person, so she bought my plane ticket.  I leave on Sunday, interview and look for apartments on Monday, maybe more apartments on Tuesday and then home on Wednesday.


Anyways, grad school will get its own post once I know about if I'm in or not.  Today I'm going to talk about being a History major, why its awesome and why it sucks.

Once upon a time, I was a Chemistry major.  I took 3 years of Chem in high school and really liked it.  Except for the fact that we never really did any labs.  Fast forward to my Junior year of college.  I'm still a chemistry major and am absolutely hating all the lab work that I had to do.  I was also not doing as well in my classes as I would have liked.  In combination with not enjoying my major like I should, I was also taking 2 other classes; Evolution and Europe In Upheaval, WWI and WWII.  The Evolution class started off with talking about Darwin and the history of evolution for the first 3 weeks.  I absolutely loved it.  I was also really enjoying my history class and professor.  I was also doing really well on the tests.

Long story short, I have a "mid-college crisis" and decide to change my major.  Thankfully the History major at Alma is only 9 classes and most classes don't have much in the terms of prerequisites.  This led me to taking 2 classes the winter of Junior year and 3 classes each semester of my Senior year.  While it seems crazy, it actually wasn't too bad.

The positives of being a History major?  The classes are fascinating, at least to me.  I got to take courses in Medieval Mediterranean history, Constitutional history and South African history, which was my favorite.  I also became a much better writer and got better at taking criticism.  After taking 4 classes with one of the toughest graders at Alma, I learned how to compare and contrast World War I and World War II in under 1,000 words, and did a damn good job at it.  I also got good at researching, which will likely come in handy for grad school.

The negatives?  Well, everyone asked me if I was going to be a lawyer or a teacher and then got confused when I said I wasn't going to do either.  Another negative is if you become a History major without really having a plan of what you're going to do with it (Law School, teaching, Grad School, Museums) you tend to get very confused and question your self-worth as a student.  Or at least thats what I did...  Another difficult part of being a History major is trying to explain to others that your degree really is marketable and useful to society.  Whats even harder is actually doing what you just convinced people of.

Do I regret changing my major?  No.  Not in the least bit.  Do I ever wish I had double majored/stayed with Chemistry?  Only when my job search is going horribly.

I'd say I'm doing pretty good for myself.

Why I Can't Be Crafty/Crafts I Want to do but Can't

So, I had an epic craft fail yesterday with the ribbon tank top.  Turns out you have to sew the ribbon on to the shirt.  And I don't know how to sew.  And the all the cuts that I made in the fabric look super jank.  But on the bright side, the "workout" shirt came out very well.

Today I'm going to talk about why I can't be as crafty as I want to right now.  It has to do with my house. See, we're currently renting our house which means that we can't paint any of the walls.  This poses a huge problem for me.  I like it when all of my room's decor is coordinated.  And right now my rooms are anything but that.

I really want to do things like this

or like this

Or this!

But, since my rooms don't match at all, I don't know what colors to paint things. 

Another problem is that we could be moving sometime soon, into a new house/apartment with the potential to completely change the way we decorate.  I've pretty much planned out what color schemes I want in each room of my new house when we can paint/decorate as we wish.

So, for now I'm stuck lusting after these cool home decor projects while not being able to do them.  Which sucks because I'm actually not too bad at spray painting, which is what most of these projects require.

In terms of other crafts, I can't sew, knit, crochet or anything else like that.  So if it requires the least amount of sewing, its not for me.  I also tend to over-estimate the amount of creativity/talent that I actually have.

I wanted to use old wine bottles for rice storage.  Kind of like this.

Only my idea was to paint them white, write the type of rice on the front and the cooking directions on the back.  I also wanted to just freehand paint some of the extra bottles.

What I ended up with was a mess.  I put my hand in paint and completely ruined one bottle.  My blue paint pen started leaking super watery paint everywhere.  It was disastrous.

I shall post photos when I do my "Craft Fail" post.  

What am I good at you ask?

I'm a bamf at covering things in fabric.

Like this water bottle I made last summer.  I then proceeded to make some for everyone in the colorguard.

Or these, which I also made last summer, for my pseudo-kid, Sam.

I've also been doing shoe boxes and other things like that.  Mod Podge is my best friend.

But, really, my crafting abilities are not as good as I think they are.  And this causes problems.  Problems that are very entertaining to watch.

What I've Been Doing Since I Became A Big Kid (AKA Graduated)

So, I really envy those who are still in college.  Lots of people I knew were so anxious to get out of undergrad and "begin their lives" or something else equally as ridiculous.  But I didn't!  Maybe it was because I changed my major when I was a junior and that there were still so many classes I wanted to take.  But it was likely because I still didn't know what was happening with my life.

Not knowing what my future holds is very scary for me.  High school and college were nice because I knew I had fall semester, break. winter semester, break. sometimes a Spring Term, summer.  Repeat.  But now, I'm not even sure what I'm going to be doing in 10 minutes, let alone next week or next month.  I do not like this.

So, what have I been doing since I was forced to grow up?  A whole lot of nothing.  Lots of waiting for grad school to get their budget down to see if I can go.  Applying for lots of jobs that I'm "technically" qualified for but that more qualified people are also applying for.

For the first week or two of living at Jim's after graduation I tried to do the whole homemaker/housewife thing.  I was sick of it after 2 days.  Cleaning and cooking all day does not suit me.  But luckily, Jim has Netflix.  So, I proceeded to watch the entire series of "Greek."  Now, I am slowly making my way through all 12 seasons of "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit."  I used to think there was a limit of how much scripted rape-homicides a person could watch in a day.  I was wrong.

I've also become addicted to Pinterest.  I've gotten a lot of delicious recipes from there that we have really enjoyed.  I have also been planning my nonexistent wedding and finding myself a collection of clothes that I will never have.  But the best part is all of the Do-It-Yourself craft projects.  Most of which I either lack the skill, money or practicality to do.  But, there will be another post entirely about that.

So, thats a lot of what I've been doing since graduation.  Super exciting, isn't it?

Things I want to Accomplish Today

-Start "The Lost Symbol."  I checked it out from the library on Thursday and still haven't gotten around to reading it yet, even though its one of my favorites.
- Make the bow tank-top that I think I can actually make

- Attempt to make a "workout" shirt (I don't really do any sort of workout, but I think the style of the shirt looks cool.  And I have a shirt I don't really care about)

We'll see if these actually happen today.

First Post

So, I've been debating about starting a blog for some time now.  However, my life is so uncertain and boring right now that I worried that I wouldn't be able to find anything good to write about.Here were my thoughts about starting a blog...

Example of if I blogged right now: “Woke up, had breakfast, made Jim’s lunch, Jim went to work, watched Law and Order: SVU and pinned shit, ate, watched more Law and Order: SVU and pinned more shit, Jim returns home from work, we eat dinner and hang out until its time for bed.  Repeat”There would also be segments of: “Found some cool projects on Pinterest that I don’t have the money to do/aren’t practical to do”As well as: “Why can’t I get a job?  Why can’t grad school make up their mind about if I’m accepted or not?”




But, alas, I have banished these thoughts and have decided to write about my life after graduating from Alma College.


Some things you should know about me.


1.  I have a Bachelors in History with a minor in Chemistry.  I spent the last semester of my Senior year trying to find ways to make a History major meaningful without going into teaching or law.  Its rough.


2.  I really want to work in Student Affairs.  Ideally I'd like to be in charge of Greek Life or be an Academic Advisor.  However, this is one field where you really DO need your Masters degree.  Job opportunities for those with just a Bachelors are slim and you're still competing with those who do have their Masters.


3.  I am a sorority girl which means that I like to do crafty things.  Correction, I like to ATTEMPT to do crafty things.  Be prepared for stories of craft failures.


4.  I'm in a weird period where I'm on the waiting list for grad school at University of Florida and am essentially waiting for one department to do their budget to see if they can accept me as a Grad Assistant.  This is causing lots of anxiety.  In the meantime, I'm still applying for jobs that are probably not going to give me an interview.


5.  I live in Alma with my boyfriend, Jim.  He's pretty awesome.


Those are the main things that should be known before I venture farther into blog-land.