In all seriousness...

Well, 2 months later and the place I interviewed with in October e-mailed me to say they have gone with someone else. No, ya think?  So I think it's come time for a serious post. A post where I can just tell you where I am in the whole job/life search and hope you can muster up some pity.

I feel like I am at the end of my rope. Granted, it has been seven very short months since I have graduated and the economy is awful, but I feel like I should be farther in life.  All around people are somehow landing salaried jobs, engagement rings, apartments, etc. and I feel like I am just stuck.  I feel the longer it takes for me to find a job, the more I just completely fail at life.  I feel that if I go one whole year without a job, there is just no hope and I may stay in my rut...where I don't want to be.  I know I am better than that. 

I can't be at the Crystal Mall forever and the longer I stay there, the more I feel everyone else has won. ("Oh wow, you still work there? How long has it been?  Didn't you graduate?")  I feel that up to this point in my life I have proved everyone wrong about me, that I am not just someone who sits back and lets life happen.  I have worked hard for everything I have accomplished this far in my professional and educational career and now by hitting a dead end, I feel like I have failed and it could have all been for nothing.

I don't want to put my life on hold anymore.  I want a job so I can then move out, get married, have children.  Life is on hold and I hate it...I am a fan of constant onward progression (which I have accomplished up until this point). 

I can say with complete confidence, for once in my life, I don't know where to go from here. And for someone who has always known what her next step is going to be, that's a big deal.

November woes...

November has come and gone and I have left all of you without a consistent post and for that I am sorry. 

Thanksgiving came and went too, wow how the time flies!  With the turkey came a heated battle in the Miller household...over where someone misplaced the ham glaze, leaving my sister hysterically crying for no reason and my parents at odds with each other for hours (this could or could not have been because my mom made my dad bare-handedly look through the trashcan..but I digress...). 

Along with Thanksgiving comes the 'night before' traditions as well.  While these are always fun, I found this year to be a bit different.  Maybe it was being home for MONTHS prior to the festivities instead of the "I just got home from school yesterday" feeling, but Lauren and I got ready for the night watching clips on YouTube...

As the month progressed I have also found myself hating the working world more and more.  Not MY working world (working 4 hours a day at the Workshop is actually cake believe it or not), but if you can imagine people actually have FULL TIME JOBS.  In this economy that blows my mind.  I have applied to so many places I need a Word document just to keep track of them all in case one calls me back.  And for what reason?  No one calls you back, no one e-mails you back, no one even gets into contact with you to ask WHY you are applying for jobs you aren't even qualified for (maybe I should change my blog to HYSTERICAL FOR HIRE becuase I need a salary that bad). 

Although me being depressed about no job did account for something....Chris bought me Just Dance for Kinect.  Dance dynamo? Check.  I may not have a job but J-Lo, eat your heart out.

Til next time...

Sorry friends...

Hello all!

I didn't think my blogging absence would even go noticed but thanks to my MANY new followers (a.k.a. my wonderful family who now check religiously & even find my typos....::cough cough Laura::) it does!

So I wanted to stop in, apologize for my laziness, but restore hope in all of you that a new post will be up shortly.  Maybe even tomorrow if I feel like gettin' real crazy!

Til next time...

Hittin the brakes...

I am an impatient person.  I fast walk EVERYWHERE (mall, school, liquor store, gym), I yell/honk at other drivers when they are going the speed limit/anything less/not driving defensively, and I expect everyone to adhere to the same ideals; I guess it's the New Englander in me.  But the other day I started thinking, when exactly does the time com when people stop being crazy and start slowing down?

Ever get behind an old person...anywhere?  They don't care how fast they are moving or care that anyone else cares how fast they are moving.  When exactly does that fast-paced to slow-paced change happen?  I mean, don't get me wrong I don't want to be that 87-year-old in Stop & Shop speed walking from the produce all the way to dairy (and if I keep eating bread the way I do I don't think I will have that problem) but I don't see myself slowing down ever.

My epiphany came in aisle 11 at the grocery store the other day.  Anna scanning my groceries decided she wanted to detail to the bag boy exactly where to find the best ribs. And I mean DETAIL, down to what the restaurant's best dishes were and how to get there from the grocery store.

I mean, sure, if Anna could scan AND talk I might have saved my heavy sighing for another time but I needed to get home and eat! 

Til next time...

New traditions...

Every night this week I have called my sister at college before I went to sleep, just to annoy her and remind her how sick I was (she gave me an awful cold then took all the medicine back with her to school). 

"Hey Erin.  Just wanted to tell you I am going to bed now..."

"Ok?......."

Now I tell her it's a tradition.  Pretty sure it takes more than one person for something to count as a tradition.  Another example of too much time on my hands.

Til next time...

Rock bottom(s)...

Since completing college in four years only to move back in with my parents, I thought I hit rock bottom many times.

Friday night threatened a new low as my mother conducted a science experiment found in my 7-year-old cousin's science book involving her creating a water vortex out of two empty soda bottles.  Me, my three cousins, aunt, boyfriend and sister sat and chanted "Ann, Ann, Ann, Ann" as my mom's experiment turned successful.  Let me mention again...this was a Friday...NIGHT.

Turns out, Friday's low was only the beginning.  Tonight I was watching Modern Family downstairs with my dad, he told me he was going to shower, then I hear him upstairs laughing at the same times I am.  Turns out he went upstairs only to watch the show alone.

New low...reached.

Til next time...

Good day for retail...

Working in retail for the past five years has taught me alot of lessons.  Walk away when you are about to go bananas on an impossible customer, always sanitize your hands after kids with goopy eyes are near you, never come into work with less than a cup of coffee in your bloodstream...  But mostly it has taught me to never let the good days go by unnoticed.

Today was one of those days.

It was a Sunday at Build-A-Bear and that meant kids were out of school, birthday parties were sure to be booked, and the day was going to be pretty busy. 

One woman and her young daughter came in at about 3, when we were pretty busy.  As the little girl was getting ready to stuff her Hello Kitty she told me, "Daddy isn't here anymore."  (Another lesson I learned in retail....DONT EVER ASK CHILDREN ABOUT THE FAMILY DYNAMIC UNLESS YOU WANT TO HEAR MORE THAN YOU INTEND TO!)  As I just nodded to her proclamation and helped the little girl around the store, her mother told me the little girl's father had just left for Afghanistian...yesterday.  Poor little girl, it really broke my heart watching her mother scramble around the store to find things to keep her daughter's mind off her dad :(

On a more upbeat note, a very excited little girl came in with her father later on in the day.  Her father was totally clueless (as most dads are in Build-A-Bear) to most of the requests the little girl was making and helpless asked me for assistance.  As I was stuffing her bear the little girl said to me, with the biggest smile on her face, "Today is Daddy Daughter day!"  So adorable! Melted my heart.  Not to mention the dad was so appreciative he told me "Thank you" about twenty times.

It's so nice to leave the mall with good stories about customers, I wish there were more to share!

Til next time...

Facebook blunders...

Working 23 hours a week in retail has given me alot of time to sit down, reflect, and look at life.  And by that I mean, it's given me alot of time to log onto Facebook mindlessly for hours at a time and learn the life story of everyone on my friends list (sometimes even their friends lists if I am feeling extra ambitious).  Since graduating I have noticed many different things about the FB and the way myself and those around me use it:

-Once I have met you once, I feel like I have the grounds to friend request you.
-After I gain a new friend, I spend about 5 minutes thoroughly reading (stalking) their page then I don't visit their page for a long while.
-My mother tells me she doesn't have a default on her page because she "doesn't want anyone knowing her business."  My question...why have a Facebook?
-My father's page is just out of control, claiming himself as "employee of the month" (he has his own business where he works alone...).
-My grandmother has recently become addicted to FB, taking her ventures in CityVille very seriously and almost ending a lifelong friendship with her real life neighbor because the woman was being an awful police officer in her faux city.
- I find myself starting conversations at the bar based on a person's recent status update, most recently congratulating someone on her new car (which was her status earlier that day).
-I can't stand when profiles are private.  If we have at least one mutual friend I feel as if I should have access to your life, share the love!
-I hate when people spell things wrong in statuses.
-I am not shy about deleting comments, no one makes me look dumb on my own page.
-When people fill their profile picture album mostly with pictures of other people, I feel it should be prohibited.
-I love it when college freshman post their Thursday night pictures, it makes me LOL.
- I can never come up with witty picture captions but admire those who can.
-For a while I had an obsession with the "kissy face" pose in pictures.  I have recently detoxed myself from it.

And for everyone who says they are thinking about deleting their Facebook accounts, stop lying. You love it.

Til next time...

This is how I feel...

Hopefully my blog never gets to be like this, although I cant stop saying "blog" with a pretend stuffy nose. JK SMILE

Cooking up a mess...

When my mother referred to the clerk at the package store as her friend, two bottles of Pinot in hand, and a huge smile across her face, I began to realize my moving back home after college was affecting her.

Both my parents started to get sick of coming home from their full-time jobs around dinner time to find me sprawled around the living room watching taped episodes of the latest Real Housewives (of any city...I don't discriminate) and complaining "WHATS FOR DINNNERRRRRRR," around the third week of September. 

To make sure I continued my rent free living, I offered my cooking services to the fam.  Last Wednesday's menu included a skillet dinner of chicken, rice, cheese, tomato and then I piled it all on top of tortillas.  Lesson learned: When you add more rice to the recipe, maybe you should add more of something else too so it doesn't turn into a meal of pure rice.

When Friday rolled around, I thought I would try my hand in the kitchen once again and forced my beautiful family into another carbohydrate coma, this time with a pasta dish that included chicken (again...whatever), peppers, pasta (again...whatever) and Philly Cooking Creme. 
Lesson learned: When the recipe calls for 2 cups pasta, you can't add one pound of pasta without throwing something off.

My 17-year-old sister was home from college for Friday's meal and was quick to suggest another go round the university circuit....this time at Johnson and Wales. 

I really hope my future husband likes at least one of the following meals: eggs and toast, frozen tortellini, or chicken on the George Foreman...because these are the only dishes I can cook with confidence I have recently come to realize.  At least I can strike CHEF off my possible career paths now so maybe this past week was a blessing from a higher being!

As we speak, a jar of sauce is on the stove, some frozen torts are boiling away and I just pulled some freshly baked (frozen, breakable) chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. Bon Appetit! 


Til next time...

Here's to new beginnings...

Greetings...from my childhood home.  The place I have lived the majority of my life and, according to my "5 Goals in Life" in my high school scrapbook, I vowed to be out of by my 22nd birthday.  Well 4 years have come and gone since the completion of that scrapbook and after graduating college I am still here, jobless and referring to my parents as my "roomies."

If that's not bad enough, my part-time job in retail gives me barely enough money to suffice in a world where I don't even have to pay rent (..yet. I am sure that's coming soon...) and my nights are filled with a mixture of fruitless job site scouring and crying (literally...sniffling, sobbing and bawling) to my boyfriend two hours away about how I will NEVER find a job.

With the extra time I have been dealt these past months since graduation I have come to find myself pondering topics I have never thought about before: family, friends, careers, pet peeves, impossible customers in the Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru and everything else in between. 

I feel as if this is the best place to combine two of my loves in life, writing and venting.  I hope you will join me on my journey navigating the waters of a bad economy to find a career I love all while dodging everything else life has to throw my way.

Til next time..