40 and 7

Since the bar exam (and since I had to resign from my previous job) I have applied to 40 jobs. I have been rejected by 7 of those jobs. Well, I have been expressly rejected by 7; who knows how many others have rejected me already, but haven't told me about the rejection.

I'm not complaining. I'm proud of myself for applying to 40 jobs. The first 20 jobs that I applied to were major "reach" jobs; my dream jobs. Now that I've applied for those, I can't say that I never tried.

Today I received a rejection from a job that I had interviewed for. I am typically a good interviewer, but I felt a little "off" at this interview. Even though it would have been nice to have this job (a job, period) it really wasn't the best job for me and my "skill set."

When I graduated from undergrad in December of 2003, the economy wasn't doing so hot (although it was nothing compared to now). I got a job in my field then. Hopefully I will be able to prove myself a second time - during the Great Recession.

A Batch of Recipes

5-Cheese Stuffed Shells with Homemade Tomato Sauce

• Here is the recipe for the stuffed shells.
• The tomato sauce was a little more complicated. I found this "how to" and decided to use the tomatoes from my MOH and the "baby" tomatoes from the plant that my mom gave us. I sort of followed the eHow instructions, but I added an onion (also from my MOH), and 1/2 cup of red cooking wine. I also used fresh oregano (leftover from another recipe), fresh basil and flat-leaf parsley (from our deck garden). It was super yummy, even though it took a while. I also recommend taking the seeds out of the tomatoes first (the eHow recipe doesn't say that you need to do that, but when I googled it, most websites said to remove the seeds before making tomato sauce).
• All in all, this recipe was good. Trying to stuff the shells wasn't that fun, though. Also, the recipe made a LOT of stuffed shells - enough that we froze a couple of servings for later.

Falafel with Tzatziki Sauce

• Even though the recipe doesn't clearly specify it in the ingredients list, you will want to have pitas and tomatoes to serve with this. Also, I didn't know how to make bread crumbs since I didn't have any dried bread sitting around our house. Lucky for me, the internet came to my rescue.
• We used this recipe for the falafel, but we didn't make the cucumber sauce from that recipe. Instead we used this recipe for Tzatziki.
• E made the Tzatziki the night before, and we only made 1/2 of the Tzatziki recipe. If you only plan on using the Tzatziki for the falafel, 1/2 of the recipe is the right amount. We used FAGE Greek yogurt for the Tzatziki, a cucumber (from our MOH), and we had to substitute mint leaves for fresh dill because we couldn't find fresh dill at the grocery store.
• This was a great recipe; I give it a double or even a triple recommend :)

Shredded, Saucy BBQ Chicken Sammies

• This is a good recipe for when you are craving something that is like a Sloppy Joe, but you don't want a Sloppy Joe.
• We usually end up freezing some of this to use later, because the recipe makes a lot.

Angel Hair Pasta with Tomatoes

I made this recipe for the first time when I lived in Jamaica for a summer. I spent a couple of weeks right outside of Ocho Rios with two Peace Corps Volunteers ("PCVs") , and volunteered at an environmental day camp. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad that I got to spend some time away from Kingston. Anyway, Jackie (a PCV who was "stationed" in Kingston) and I stayed with one of her friends (also a PCV), and we took turns making dinner. I was not a very good cook back then. I think that my main "specialties" were black beans (from a can) and rice, homemade pico de gallo salsa, and scrambled eggs. I am pretty sure that I didn't know how to cook meat of any sort. When it was my night to make dinner, I was scared. Then I thought of a pasta dish that I once ate at a "fancy" restaurant, and decided that I would attempt to recreate it. Miraculously, I didn't start the PCV's house on fire, and my dinner actually turned out to be pretty good.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 package of angel hair pasta (cooked and drained)
• 2-3 cloves of garlic (chopped or crushed)
• 4 hot house tomatoes or 8-10 roma tomatoes (diced)
• 1-2 TBSP of chopped fresh basil
• salt and pepper (to taste)
• olive oil
• freshly grated parmesan

Directions:

1) Heat olive oil in a large pan on medium heat.

2) Saute garlic for about 1 minute

3) Add tomatoes, basil, salt, & pepper to the pan. Saute for about 5 - 10 minutes.

4) Toss the tomato mixture with the angel hair pasta.

5) Serve with parmesan.

Lots of Recipes

One of the best parts about the bar exam being over is that I get to cook again. It feels good to be back into a routine. I have been craving a lot of Italian and Greek ingredients lately, and the recipes that we have made definitely reflect that.

Penne Alla Vodka

• Absolutely delicious!
• We substituted crushed tomatoes for whole tomatoes; I thought that it would make the sauce have a better consistency.
• I highly recommend this recipe.

Light Alfredo with Spinach Ravioli

• We made this for our first wedding anniversary.
• It was really good. The only thing that I might change next time is that I would use a little less chicken broth.

Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto and Feta Cheese

• Another great recipe.
• Fairly easy to make (although E made this; but it seemed like it didn't take him too long)
• It was a nice Sunday night dinner.

Phyllo Pizza with Feta, Basil, and Tomatoes

• We used cherry tomatoes from our "backyard" garden for this recipe... and fresh basil from our deck garden.
• I liked it, but dealing with the phyllo dough was kind of frustrating, and it wasn't that filling. It seemed like something that I would order at a restaurant, but it was a lot cheaper to make it myself.

Slow Cooker Stuffed Greek Peppers

• This was a good way to use up some of the feta from the phyllo pizza.
• It was easy to make and pretty good; I didn't really like the way that the peppers tasted after being cooked for so long, but the filling was really good :)

Lemon Thyme Chicken

• Chicken is E's favorite meat, and this recipe seemed like an interesting way to prepare it.
• It wasn't mind-blowingly amazing, but it was good.
• We ate this with broccoli.

Teriyaki Vegetable Noodles

• Another recipe that wasn't amazing, but it was good.
• The bright side: we had most of the ingredients at home, so it didn't cost too much to make. AND the recipe made A LOT of servings of noodles, so we froze some of the leftovers into individual containers for when E has night classes this fall.

Baked Potato Skins

• I really like bar food. Potato skins are a favorite for me.
• This is a good recipe :)

Monkey Bread

• When I asked E to make monkey bread, I figured that he wouldn't like it very much. Usually I'm the one with a sweet tooth. I was wrong; E loves it!
• The only thing that we changed about this recipe is that we didn't add raisins.

Hello Neglected Blog

I survived the bar exam. I won't find out whether I passed until October 8, so I am trying my best to forget about it. So far, I'm doing a pretty good job. I've only had 2 nightmares about it; way better than all of the nightmares that I had after 1L exams.

Without going into too much detail, a certain part of my life isn't working out very well right now. Luckily, I have time to straighten that out. Plenty of "down" time, in fact. As an ENFJ, I like things to be decided and I like to have things planned out. I was so happy in April when I thought that I had things planned out with that aspect of my life. Right now I am sacrificing a little bit of my sanity (the part that likes to have a clear path to follow) in order to do what is right for myself.

This weekend, my Man of Honor (MOH) came up and helped E and I fix our house. Our house had an insulation problem and it was causing one of the walls in our master bedroom to freeze during the winter. It was so good to see my MOH. We went out for dinner and then to a drag show. Not much has changed, drag-show-wise, during the last five years. But a lot has changed in my life. Five years ago, I was getting ready to move to the DR for a second time. Back then, I had no idea that five years later I would be married, have a dog and a house, and be finished with my law degree. Life is full of surprises. Although one aspect of my life is very much in limbo right now, I take comfort in realizing that five years from now I will find myself sitting at a drag show with my MOH and my husband and be able to look back on how much my life has changed for the better during that time. I keep reminding myself that this period of limbo is just a part of the journey.