Sunday, February 16, 2014

Happy Birthday Jossie!!

Today was this little cutie pie's 5th birthday!  Alyssa and I got to have lunch with her and they brought her a little dish of ice cream and we all sang Happy Birthday to her ;-)



Thursday, February 13, 2014

Nor'Easter 2014

What does one do on a snow day!?!?

Make kitty mustaches:


Make bacon/avocado/cheese paninis for supper:
(Recipe from Pinterest)





Clean up the snow:





Make cream cheese banana bread:
(Recipe from Facebook)




Recipe for banana bread:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
3 mashed ripe bananas
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 Tbsp sour cream
2 cups flour
1 cup chopped nuts

Cream cheese ingredients:
8 oz. softened cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp flour

Mix sugar, butter and eggs.  Add bananas, salt, baking soda, sour cream and flour.  Mix well. Add nuts.

Divide 1/2 this mixture in to two greased loaf pans.

Combine cream cheese ingredients and spread over mixture in pans.  Spread remaining banana bread mixture on top.

You can sprinkle a few extra nuts on top or sprinkle top with 1 Tbsp sugar mixed with 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon before baking.  (I actually did not have nuts for the recipe, thus chose to do the sugar/cinnamon topping; it turned out nice.)

Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.  Test for doneness.  Cool and slice.

Thursday, February 06, 2014

One Down

I had my first interview today in my quest to find a new job.  As part of my unemployment, there are certain requirements that need to be met, including applying for 1-2 jobs weekly and completing 1-2 'work search activities' weekly.  I truly find it hard to believe that most people on unemployment complete these requirements on a weekly basis, but it'd be my luck if I didn't, that I'd be the one to get caught ;-)  Most of the jobs I've been seeing on career web sites, I have absolutely no interest in, so it's been difficult to complete this task.  Last week I applied for a 'work from home' position.  Jamie actually sent me the link to the job that I had the interview with today.  She sent it on Saturday, but since it's been tough finding things to apply for on a weekly basis, I decided to hold off on applying for this until a new week had started.  That way I'd meet my quota for this week ;-)  I did an online application late Monday night and got a phone call from the HR Director Tuesday AM.

The position is a call center position with Coordinated Health, which is a private multi-specialty network that has 15 locations and two hospitals. This call center currently has 3 RN's that answer up to 300 phone calls per day.  There is a CRNP and PA-C on site in the call center and there is close contact with physicians via electronic records.  This position would be working strictly with orthopedic patients and physicians.  Wow.  What a change from nephrology! Despite the fact that I know very little about orthopedics, it actually sounds very similar to what I was doing at my previous job, in that I took mostly clinical phone calls, although probably not the volume that this job would have. I feel confident that I can learn ortho; I learned nephrology almost 14 years ago! The hours would be Monday-Friday, 0930-1800.  I like the 0930 part (I'm not a morning person), but not totally crazy about the 1800 part of it (however, as Kurt pointed out, the dedicated person that I was at my previous position [and we see where THAT got me!], there were many nights I wasn't leaving work until then or even later...).  It's also full time, which would be new for me.  I haven't been full time since prior to Alyssa!  But that's ok, I can live with that, too.

The interview went well.  The next part is them contacting my two references (two of the physicians I worked with); and then they'll get back to me next week with their decision.  If they offer me the position, I'll probably accept it.  I'm not going to get too excited about it, what are the chances that the first interview I had would land me a job?!?!  If it's meant to be, then it'll happen....

I'd stlll rather not even be having to do this.  I'm coming to terms with my position being eliminated at VKS, although I am still feeling very betrayed by the physicians I worked so closely with over the last 14 years. I don't think those feelings will ever go away.  I thought I meant more to them, but I've come to the conclusion that the almighty dollar is more powerful and I was making too much of it :-(

I'll keep you posted ;-)

Monday, February 03, 2014

Weekend + One

Super Bowl party fun:





Penn State DiscipleMaker's Christian Fellowship Dance fun:


Nittany Lion fun:



Snow today.  Pretty, but not so fun:







And a cat.  Fun.

Saturday, February 01, 2014

Tortellini Soup....aka Macaroni & Cheese Soup

I found this recipe on Facebook. It looked easy enough to make, so thought I'd give it a try. It really tasted like macaroni and cheese to me.  We enjoyed it; I'd probably make it again. It certainly was easy!

On a side note, I bought a new crock pot on Wednesday; my current one has seen its better day and most recently the on/off knob broke off.  Of course, Kurt told me he could fix it, but I'd really been thinking about getting a new one anyway.  Wouldn't you know it, the new one doesn't work!  I was kind of embarrassed to tell Kurt, he wasn't too thrilled with me for buying a new one to start with (I think it has something to do with me currently being jobless)...and now this :(  Fortunately, I still had the old one.  Kurt hadn't fixed it yet, but he can turn it on using a wrench.  So the black crock pot in this picture is going right back to Target :(


1 bag frozen cheese tortellini
1 small bag fresh spinach (I used 2/3 of a regular sized bag)
2 cans diced italian tomatoes
1 32 oz box vegetable broth
8 oz cream cheese, softened

Mix broth with cream cheese (I have a handheld mixer I used) and add all other ingredients. Heat on low 5-6 hours or high 3-4 hours.  At the last minute, I decided to add a turkey kielbasa that I heated and then diced.  Adding that made it taste even more like macaroni and cheese to me, as the kielbasa made it seem like there were HOT DOGS in the soup :-)

The only other thing I'd probably change is only using one can of diced tomatoes.