Checking in

Interviewing for this job has been consuming all of my time and energy lately! I got through to the second interview, so it’s back to studying some more.

Over the weekend I studied in the sun…

Made this dessert from She’s on the Run for a cookout my sister-in-law hosted on Memorial day.

Saw a Today show segment on acing a job interview about two hours before my actual interview. I know I tend to be too rehearsed with my responses and that was one of the negative comments the interviewer had about candidates.

I setup my interview station, complete with my resume taped on our computer monitor, the job description taped on the desk and my notes down below. Oh and some water to sip on throughout, which I needed desperately!

I snacked on a sample of these that came in the mail–they were pretty tasty!

And I got my thank you card out to my interviewer right away. I don’t believe e-mail thank yous are appropriate, even in this technology savvy society we live in. I did thank my interviewer when confirming the second interview time, but I hope she’s impressed when she gets a card from me this week.

Anyone have a funny job interview story to share? I could use some humor since my life has been so serious lately!

I won’t be checking in again until Sunday or Monday. My Friday and Saturday will be spent in Madison on a Wisconsin Cheese tour and I can’t wait to recap it on the blog and share what I learned and ate with all of you lovely readers! I am so thankful to the Wisconsin Cheese Board for sponsoring this trip. I get to meet some fellow WI bloggers too.

Good news and a visit to the Octagon House

My Friday started out with iced coffee and a blueberry lemon scone at work.

As my husband called my cell mid-morning to ask me something, I saw an e-mail come through that caught my eye. It was from the company that rejected my application earlier in the week! A recruiter e-mailed me saying she would love to talk further! I couldn’t believe my luck and ran outside to do a little happy dance. Now I am just playing the waiting game–I wrote her back but I suspect she left early for the weekend because she hasn’t contacted me back yet. Eek! I have lots of studying to do tomorrow! The only problem is that I don’t know if it’s for that original position I applied for or another one that I qualified for.

This was my happy face after I found out the news.

Last night, we went to get some more plants from our garden from Home Depot. I had a $10 gift card I earned from Daily Feats, so an early girl tomato plant, cilantro and a sweet red pepper plant cost us only 50 cents!

We are checking in my in-laws’ house this weekend and I snapped this picture in their backyard.

I tried the whole wheat tortilla that Qdoba just started offering (finally) and it was pretty good. The burrito definitely tasted healthier.

After the rain cleared out this morning, we headed out to Watertown for a little road trip. Our destination was the Octagon House.

I had been to it before, but it was Craig’s first time.

Such a pretty and unique house!

Loved the awesome staircase.

We liked our tour–it lasted for over an hour and it was only us with another couple. We paid $7 each for the tour, which was a fair price.

The first kindergarten building is right behind the Octagon House. It was moved there from another site in town.

This was my favorite piece from inside the Octagon House.

Such a fun little road trip to a really neat destination! Our guide did a great job portraying Harvey, the naughty son in the Richards family.

Afterwards, we drove by some historic houses in Watertown which were really pretty as well.

This one is a bed and breakfast.

And we ended our trip to the area with a stop at the Johnson Creek outlets, where I found the Nike free TR fit shoes I really wanted for only $36.91 with tax! What a great deal. All of their shoes were an extra 30% off this weekend. I lucked out with a good color combo too. I can’t wait to try these out at the gym.

How is your holiday weekend going so far?

Celebrating with beer

Thanks for all of your sweet comments on my last post! The job market is just so frustrating right now. Today was much better.

I started off my morning with a new to me half and half. It was a nice change from my plain half and half.

Craig and I got a free cherry berry chiller from McD’s after work tonight. It was pretty tasty!

We went to the library and then I got a much needed car wash. I had major bird poop on my car.

Dinner tonight are these Gardein Chipotle Lime crispy fingers…haven’t tried them yet, but I love all Gardein products so they should be good. I’m pairing mine with homemade sweet potato fries.

And I am celebrating winning my fight over the evil insurance company on my worker’s comp claim. Hooray! That was such a relief to hear.

My library finds–I don’t subscribe to Women’s Health and there was an article in one of these that a co-worker recommended to me. I have always wanted to see La Vie en Rose, so I got that to watch over the long weekend.

Time to go flip the fries! Have a wonderful evening!

Bummed

This…

and this…

are what happen when one finds out the job they applied for two days ago already has a qualified candidate and there will be no interview. I am simply bummed. It was a great company and job with an awesome wellness program to boot. But, you know what? There are other jobs and I will keep persevering until I find the job that is meant for me or the career path that is.

I worked really hard on my cover letter and application over the weekend and then poof, it’s gone. I really think there was an internal candidate identified even before they posted it to the public. Don’t you hate when that happens?

Don’t worry, I bought mostly healthy food except for those two items and some cookie dough ice cream at the store tonight. I found this, which made my day! I love anything strawberry rhubarb and it was quite tasty!

I picked up some deli ham because I was at Sendik’s and their deli department rocks. Plus it was on sale. I couldn’t wait to have a ham and provolone sandwich for dinner on some fresh bread.

I also got some Stonyfield yogurt to make my own greek yogurt with over the weekend! I can’t wait to experiment using Paige‘s or Alysha‘s methods.

NBC Nightly News had an interesting story tonight about an app that tracks our eating habits from Massive Health. Karma was clearly interested since it had to do with “food food.” It showed a map of the US with what we were eating around 10 am, then 10 pm and 1 am. Interesting stuff! People were clearly up at 1 am eating some of the bad foods I posted above!

It had been months since I pulled my yoga mat out and went to a class. I missed it and the stretching felt great! I am definitely relaxed and ready for bed now.

The night flew by, so time to read some of your blogs and go on a walk outside with the hubby before bedtime!

Wordless Friday

I’m at work tonight and on a 15 minute break right now. I didn’t have time to write anything with these photos, but this is what my Friday looked like. The day also included getting high speed internet installed at our house, a doctor visit this afternoon and a walk around the neighborhood. Finally got my Vitamin D tested, so that number will be interesting to see when the labs come back.

Have a lovely Friday night!

Photography fun

I’ve been having a pretty good week and it’s hard to believe it’s nearly over. How has yours been?

I was happy to receive all four flavors of the newest Larabar, ūber, this week. I had purchased the bananas foster flavor a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed that bar.

Tried the roasted nut roll today as a snack and I liked this flavor more than the bananas foster one!

I finally learned how to take a screen shot of my iPhone and took a photo of my favorite podcast, Dishing up Nutrition, which I was listening to on a lunch break.

I went over to my brother’s house on Tuesday to give him some info on interviewing for a job and get a copy of his resume. In return, we got three different types of tomato plants from my green thumbed brother! Can’t wait to have a garden again!

Last night, I had to make a quick meal for dinner so I poached two eggs up in the poached egg pan I love so much. I can’t imagine poaching eggs without it and it’s my favorite way to eat them.

My sandwich included lettuce from my bro’s garden, tomato, Frank’s Red Hot and some cheese.

Then I dashed off to an Advanced Digital Photography class through the Milwaukee rec department. I learned so much in two hours!

I was happy to finally know more about taking pictures with our Canon DSLR. I wish I could share everything I learned, but it’s all so very technical. If you’ve always wanted to learn how to get into manual mode with your camera, take a class and you’ll be happy you did! It helped that our teacher was excellent and he is a newspaper photographer, so it’s something he does every single day.

We “went on assignment” and he taught us how we would adjust the camera for action, a beach scene, portrait, etc. It was a good approach for helping us learn directly about why we would adjust the camera that way and how pictures can turn out poorly if you don’t.

Have you ever taken a photography class? I hadn’t taken one since getting an A in my college photography class. That was when film still existed and digital was just coming out on the market! I loved developing film and experimenting with the camera.

Lunch al fresco

It was another gorgeous day here in southeastern Wisconsin! How great it felt to eat my lunch outside again instead of at my desk!

I made myself a veggie sandwich with hummus, red peppers, spinach, provolone cheese and tomatoes.

My favorite combo of fresh strawberries and greek yogurt.

I liked this vanilla bean greek yogurt from TJ’s.

I read a Family Circle magazine on my break (trying to get my hoarding pile of magazines down) and there was an interesting article about teens and blogging. Of course they warned parents about privacy issues, but the article also said that blogging may help teens “soothe stress and boost self-esteem.” I think the same can be said for adults who blog!

I had two free coupons for these Starbucks refreshers drinks, so today I tried out the Orange Melon variety. It was delicious!

It’s not something I would drink that often, especially because it contains 13 grams of sugar.

I couldn’t find this anywhere on the can, but I found the info on the Starbucks site: “each Refreshers has 40 to 55 milligrams of caffeine — two-thirds the caffeine of a shot of espresso and one-third that of an 8-ounce coffee.”

I had mine around 3:30 p.m. when I took a 15 minute break outside to catch up on some e-mails. I definitely didn’t feel tired tonight because of the afternoon caffeine boost. I just hope I can fall asleep tonight!

I went to the gym for a quick workout which involved mostly strength training and then 10 minutes on the stair stepper. That machine always wears me out! When I got home, I buzzed around the neighborhood on my bike. Nothing makes me happier than being able to ride my bike outside again.

I admired our strawberry plant that survived the winter outside…it’s coming along quite nicely! Can’t wait for fresh little strawberries this summer. That reminds me, we’ll need to put our netting up so the birds don’t get them like they did at the beginning of last summer.

Craig didn’t go to the gym with me because his exercise was cutting the grass.

And now my husband is going to be embarrassed when he sees a picture of him on the internet in his 80′s jeans shorts that he only wears for cutting the lawn.

Time to go read a book or magazine!

EatSmart Precision Pro digital scale review

After Karen from EatSmart reached out to me on twitter, I received a product I have always wanted in my kitchen: a digital scale!

From their website:

The EatSmart Precision Pro Digital Kitchen Scale is an economically priced multifunction home scale, perfect for everyday tasks from weighing food or ingredients to calculating postage. Along with our Precision Pro, you will also receive a FREE Calorie Factors Book making it easy to achieve goals such as portion control and calorie counting.

Features

-Compact Design and Easy Two-Button Operation
-Tare Feature; Subtract the weight of any plate or container
-4 Measurement Modes: Grams / Ounces / Kilograms / Pounds
-Max Weight: 11 pounds / 5 kilograms
-Graduation: .05 oz / 1 gram
-3 minute Auto-Turnoff
-Includes 2 AAA batteries

One of the reasons I always wanted a kitchen scale was for portion control, especially with cereal or snacks.

I weighed a bowl of Love Grown granola. In this case, I forgot to zero out the scale, so I just weighed the bowl (38 g) and subtracted that number from the one shown below.

I ate 35 grams of granola, or just a little over the serving size.

This scale is definitely great for keeping my granola habit in check! I also love that I don’t have to use a measuring cup to see what size portion I am eating.

My scale came with this great book, which has basic instructions and the calorie factor numbers. The $69.95 scale actually has 1,000 nutritional values programmed in if you want something more sophisticated.

I cut up some strawberries for my lunch and decided to experiment with them to see how many calories they would equal out to. So, I looked up the calorie factor for raw strawberries, which is .32 and multiplied it by how much they weighed on the scale.

I zeroed out the scale this time and then weighed my strawberries.

I ate 39.04 calories with that serving size of strawberries for lunch today. This is great for when I count calories and really want to closely keep track of what I am taking in each day.

While I haven’t used other digital kitchen scales to compare this one to, I would definitely recommend this product! It retails for $25 on Amazon. Obviously I am not the only person to have really enjoyed this product because the precision pro scale is rated 4.8 of 5 stars on Amazon! That is pretty spectacular!

Thank you to EatSmart for reaching out to me and letting me try this product!

Want to check it out for yourself–follow the company on social media:

-LIKE EatSmart Products on Facebook
-Twitter @EatSmartScales
-Pinterest
-Google Plus
-Follow the EatSmart Blog

Do you own a kitchen scale?

Baking, fro yo, friends and family

This weekend…

Craig came back from being out of town. He has had to use up vacation days because they expire at the end of this month. So, he went up north and enjoyed a change of scenery. It was so good to have him back! We really haven’t been apart much, so I was missing him like crazy while he was gone. So were the kitties.

I baked the strawberry rhubarb crumble I made a year ago because I was craving it.

I went to Yo Mama and got cake batter and pistachio frozen yogurt.

This mama (my friend Danielle) got hers totally free because she’s a mama to two cute little girls. I asked if cat children counted, but sadly they didn’t (I wasn’t the only weirdo who asked that apparently). Yo Mama in Tosa had a buy one get one free deal, so Danielle’s first fro yo from there was totally on the house. Lucky girl. She loved the cake batter like I do.

Before that, we had walked a big loop around Hart Park, through a neighborhood in Tosa and then went to Outpost after fro yo because she had never been to the Outpost before. It was a lovely day for a long walk with an old friend.

I needed to balance out the sweetness of the yogurt, so Craig and I had salads for dinner. He requested croutons and I picked up a yummy cheese and garlic natural variety from Outpost. Mmm…they hit the spot!

Today, we took Craig’s mama, Kathy, out for breakfast. We tried to eat at Blue’s Egg but it was packed, so we went with our second choice.

I had a breakfast wrap with hash browns. I ate this whole plate and regretted it later since I didn’t really eat much else all day.

I didn’t get to see my mom today, but I am glad I spent her birthday with her. It’s always hard since her birthday falls right before mother’s day. My brother went over to my parents’ house, so at least she got to see one of her 7 kids! We’re going to do a mother’s day redo together by going to Cedarburg on one of my furlough Fridays. I haven’t been there since I was a kid so I am looking forward to that.

I ran some errands to Target and Kohl’s, pumped up the tires in my bike and went for a ride around the block and then took long walk with Craig. After all of that running around, I read magazines in bed and relaxed for a little while.

And now I am going to go work on a review of a product, which I hope to post early this week! I’ve been enjoying using it this weekend and it’s something I always wanted for my kitchen.

Fresh Healthy Eatery review

A new healthy cafe opened up at Grand Avenue mall in downtown Milwaukee last month and I tried it out for lunch today. It’s called Fresh Healthy Eatery and Juice Bar and serves juices, smoothies, soups and sandwiches.

After checking out the juices and sandwiches, I decided on a carrot, beet, pineapple and apple juice and the veggie delight sandwich.

Unfortunately, when I got to the counter to order, I learned that because they were out of avocado, I couldn’t order the veggie delight. I had read reviews about the restaurant where this same thing happened to others. That probably needs to change if they want repeat customers. I hope that the next time I go back, I am able to order the veggie delight.

Instead, I went with the other vegetarian sandwich, the Grilled Tofu. It had grilled herb tofu, homemade sun-dried tomato pesto and is served on flax seed bread.

The seating area is spacious and perfect for the office workers coming and going quickly during their lunch break, like I did.

Here was my yummy sandwich and drink! I really liked the way the tofu was prepared, the flavor of the sundried tomato paste and the flax bread. It’s definitely something I could recreate at home.

The juice tasted odd at first. I think I would have preferred it without the pineapple. It grew on me and I quickly gulped it down.

Liked: healthy options, friendly staff, cleanliness
Disliked: not being able to order what I wanted and the prices. The juice was $4.49, which is pretty typical for Milwaukee. The sandwiches were a bit expensive and probably should have been about $2 less each, in my opinion.

I would recommend this cafe to those looking for a healthy option in downtown Milwaukee during their lunch break. They also have a cafe in Mequon, which may have more options because they are catering to a different crowd there.