The Packing and Crafting Continues

So, first things first, I upgraded to an iPhone.  I love it!  My old phone's keyboard was starting to fail.  I either had to push the key 5 times in order to get the letter to work or I'd press it once and get 3 of the same letter.  The backspace and space bar didn't work well either.  I send some pretty interesting texts.  But now everything is ok.  AND, I can take pictures of things for my blog on my phone and they will instantly show up on my laptop.  Fantastic.

I've been continuing to pack like crazy.  Finding lots of things to get rid of or donate.  But now I'm in the rut where a lot of the stuff I still need to pack I need for the next week.  This results in our house being a mess.  Our landlord is trying to sell the house and I hope that no one wants to come see the house in the next week and a half.

I've also been watching the Olympic coverage on NBC, because we don't get any other channels, like its my job.  I'm being incredibly lazy, but the Olympics only happens every 2 years.

We also got rid of my old car.  I had a 1998 Chrysler Concorde with over 200,000 miles and a dead battery.  It would have cost more to fix it than we would have gotten to sell it, so we decided to donate it.  They came and picked it up on Thursday.  In Kentucky, with my parents, I have a 2009 Chevy Cobalt waiting for me.  We get to see how it handles the mountains of Tennessee on my drive to Atlanta.

And last, but not least, I have been crafting!  Some of it more successful than others.  I had my first attempt with spray adhesive.  I ended up with my hands covered in it and being afraid to touch everything.  Didn't help that I was home alone and afraid of turning on the water for fear of getting stuck to the faucet.  I eventually got it all figured out and have not gotten stuck to any more household items.

And now, I present, my craft pictures!

This is the squirrel painting that I had talked about in the last post.  I'm still debating about adding an acorn in yellow paint and glitter in the bottom left corner.

This is one of the few craft successes I've had from Pinterest!  Getting the fabric in the corners of the cookie sheet was a little tricky, but it still came out ok.  I have a scrap of blue ribbon left over and I'm going to make a bow to put on the top of the pan.  I also realized that I need a ton of new makeup.  Theres stuff that I threw out that should have been tossed years ago.

These two beauties are some of my favorite binders I've ever done.  The tutorial says to cover the entire inside with fabric to cover up any uneven cutting/gluing.  But I like using the pockets of my binders, so I got creative.  And a fabric quarter from Wal-Mart/JoAnn Fabrics is the perfect size for binders 1" or less, without covering the inside.

This is the rainbow binder and the side pieces were perfectly even, so I just needed to adjust the top and bottom.  I figured that some ribbon would be the perfect way to do so.

This is my all time favorite.  The pockets needed some repair with duct tape before the fabric, and it didn't turn out too well.  Its really puffy, which is good if I need to put a ton of papers in the pockets.  But the top edge came out really well.  So I decided to cover the pockets with the leftover fabric and it came out wonderful!

I have two more binders that I want to do.  The yellow fabric has white/paler yellow swirls on it and the orange has little white circles.  This is proof that I need to re-iron everything.

I have decided to not use spray adhesive while home alone, so these binders may have to wait a bit.

Jim and I have begun to plan my farewell celebrations.  On Friday we're meeting Alma friends at the Pub for dinner and drinks.  The fried pickles at Bravehearts are to DIE for.  On Saturday we're going to go visit Kim and Kyle (And their Corgi, Bambi) at their house in Livonia.  Wednesday is Kim's birthday, so its a Birthday-Going Away party for the two of us.

I Can Finally Begin Crafting!

So, if you may remember from an earlier post, I was stuck in a crafty/decorating rut.  Well, now is the time that I am able to break out of it.  Since I'm going to be moving into the Alpha Gamma Delta house at Georgia Tech to begin my Resident Supervisor job, I will have a room to myself that I can decorate however I desire.  I have dedicated an entire pin-board on Pinterest to ideas for my new room.

Here are some of my ideas, with pictures from Pinterest.

First things first, I am required to have a binder for information about contractors/staff/maintenance people.  Second thing, I also LOVE school and office supplies.  I have decorated a few binders already using the technique found here, minus the nameplates.  Its super easy once you get the hang of it.  I made two for Jim and I, one for grocery things like coupons, receipts to track our spending, and grocery lists and another one for bills/semi-important documents.  I just need to get some spray adhesive and I'll be all set to make myself a few of these.

I also want to make a binder that will have reference sheets about each resident.  I want each sheet to have things like medical info, insurance, emergency contacts, etc.


Since I'm going to be moving away from my boyfriend, I'm obviously going to want pictures of us.  I really like this idea, but with a picture of us from Disney World and the Magic Kingdom Map'

I think this is so cute and would be perfect to hang on my door.

I will admit that I am guilty of having way too much makeup and forgetting about 90% of it.  Hopefully this magnetic makeup board will help me not do that.

Bobby Pins are the bane of my existence.  Hopefully I can keep them somewhat under control.  If only I had thought of something like this while living at home.  My father HATES bobby pins.

This is actually one of my projects for today.  I bought the vases this past weekend at Kim's wedding with the intention of decorating them.

I have partially finished one project so far.  I painted a canvas pink and then painted on a squirrel in yellow paint (The squirrel is AGD's mascot) and hot glued a green bow onto it.  I'm thinking of adding a yellow acorn in the bottom corner of the canvas.  I'll take pictures once its done.

I have so many more projects to do, so if you want to see what I have in store for my new room you can follow me on Pinterest!

WEDDINGS!

So, I've been busy lately with weddings.  Not my own, of course.

The first wedding was Jim's cousin, Lucy.  It was in Asheville, North Carolina and my first "Southern Wedding."  I also got to meet all of Jim's Mother's family.  Thankfully, they are very similar to my own family.  Since I didn't really know many people at this wedding, it was a little awkward.  But I still cried, non-the-less.

The next wedding was my best friend, Kim's.  I was a bridesmaid and helped with a lot of the planning and preparation.  It began with her Bachelorette party last Monday at the Soaring Eagle Waterpark hotel.  It was more casual and laid back.  No club-hopping or strippers.  Then on Tuesday Kim and I went to Manistee, her hometown and the wedding location, to start preparing.

She had made all of the centerpieces herself and we were also going to be doing all of the flowers ourselves.  The flowers weren't as bad as I thought they were going to be.  It probably took us about 4-5 hours to do 9 boutonnieres, 6 corsages and 5 bouquets.

The wedding was beautiful.  All of the bridesmaids cried through the entire wedding.  Then we smiled for lots and lots and lots of pictures.  The best part was taking pictures with the funny hats that Kristen, another bridesmaid, had in her car.

The reception was a ton of fun and there were quite a few Alma friends there, which made it even better.

I'm so happy that I was able to be a part of her big day.

I'll post more pictures as they become available.  But for now, I'm off to begin my crafting adventure.

Alison Gets a Job!

So, Jim and I spent all day yesterday in the car, driving down to my parents.  This marks the beginning of Wedding Season for us.  His cousin gets married on Saturday and then my best friend gets married next weekend.

On Tuesday and Wednesday the chapter and house association of the Georgia Tech chapter was meeting about the Resident Supervisor position that I had been interviewed for.  Last night I received a phone call about the position.

They wanted to offer me the position!  When their EC meet, they liked that I wasn't a science/technology/engineering student like them.  They liked me the best out of all of the candidates, however I don't know how many there were to begin with.

The Gamma Phi chapter of Alpha Gamma Delta at Georgia Tech is getting a brand new house built for 48 sisters.  It is going to be 5 stories, including basement.

Their house is not scheduled for move in until September.  The sisters and I will move into pre-furnished apartments in August, right before recruitment.  I get to help make decisions about furnishings and other house related topics.

I am beyond excited and can't wait to move down to Atlanta!

More Thoughts on Graduate School

Well, I have re-started my graduate school search.  I'm giving myself plenty of time to get everything done this time.

My new list of schools is as follows
-University of Florida- Gainesville, FL
-Florida State University- Tallahassee, FL
-University of Georgia- Athens, GA
-Clemson University- Clemson, SC
-University of South Carolina- Columbia, SC
-Western Kentucky University- Bowling Green, KY
-University of Kentucky- Lexington, KY
-University of Akron- Akron, OH

There may be alterations to the list, but thats where I'm at so far.


I'm beginning to work on my Statement of Purpose, which I am finding to be the most difficult aspect.  Its hard to write about yourself in a manner that makes yourself look appealing to an admissions committee but not to the extent where you're obnoxious.  And each school requires something different for their application, so I'm going to be doing a lot of writing.

I also have to decide how many schools I can afford to apply to.  Its anywhere from $30-80 to apply to each school and an additional $20 to send the GRE scores there.

The one good thing is that I am keeping my same references for the letters of recommendation.  And since they already wrote letters last year, they should still have them on file.

My mother wants me to apply to Akron and WKU.  My cousin is the Athletic Director at Akron, which may do good things for me.  And WKU is only 90 miles away from where my parents live.  But they aren't really at the top of my list right now.  But we'll see.

Why I Hate Looking for a Job

So, there hasn't really been anything blog-worthy happening in my life.  I still haven't heard back about the Resident Supervisor (House Mom) job.  Life is pretty boring.

I've contemplated looking/applying for more jobs.  But the thought of that makes me very frustrated.

Since all of the jobs I'm applying for are at colleges/universities, 99% of them use an online application system.

This means that you create a username/password, fill out all your personal information, re-type your resume and references, then upload your resume, references and cover letter.

Yes, I have re-typed (aka, copy and pasted awkwardly) my resume over 100 times.  This wouldn't be so bad if each section didn't have its own bar to type in.  So I have to copy/paste/type my reference's first name, then the last name, then the place of employment, then the relationship, then the e-mail, then the phone number.  All individually.  Its a lot of work.  And it sucks.

I'm also competing with people who have a Masters for these entry level jobs.  "Bachelor's required, Master's preferred" pretty much means "Masters Required" or "If you don't have a Masters, we're just going to pass."  I haven't even gotten one interview.

I keep seeing all these amazing jobs on HigherEdJobs that I would LOVE to do and think I would be really good at.  But theres only so much an awesome cover letter can do for you when you don't have your Masters.