I found this card from my dad in my inbox this morning. I read it as I stared at the “30 minute Seder” haggadah’s my mother had just printed out for our family seder Friday. Oops…

We did attend a lovely seder tonight at my mom’s good friend’s house, where my dad and I decorated a wine bottle with plastic plagues that were littered on the table (you know, plastic locusts, beasts, lice, etc.) I think it may have been brought on by 4th glass of wine. Luckily, everyone was amused. Clearly, we weren’t the only ones partaking of the wine.

As long as it hasn’t sold yet, I’ll be calling the car dealership tomorrow to tell them I want the Prius. I still maintain I’m terrible at making decisions.

Other than that, my main excitement of the day came  vicariously through my sister who saw Jason Segal at Rite Aid in LA. (Me=supremely jealous.) When asked for details,  my sister said only “he was getting a prescription and then looked at Easter Candy.” Good to know.

The only excitement in my life this week has been my quest to make the famous Bakerella‘s cupcake pops. They looked adorable and mouthwatering, and I had to have some. Thus, I had to make some. Luckily, my mom, two of my aunts, and my grandmother all have birthdays around now, so we had a mini party on Sunday at my grandparents’ house, giving me the perfect opportunity to make a batch of these little suckers (get it…suckers, like lollipops…like cupcake pops….and I’m leaving in shame….) without the very frightening (and very real) possibility I would eat them all myself.

It was certainly a process. Friday I went and gathered all my supplies. (Luckily, my mom used to be an avid candy maker and knew what the best kind of chocolate would be for this venture…) and made my cake. Saturday, the real work began. First, I had to mix the cake and icing (without eating too much of the icing by itself) and form them into the shape of the cupcakes:

Next I had to cover the bottoms in milk chocolate (again, avoiding the eating all the supplies issue)

Then I had to dip the tops into blue candy/chocolate (I’m not sure what it is exactly, except delicious), then cover the tops in sprinkles and a little dark chocolate M+M. I was proud of how adorable they turned out.

They also made the sink look like this, which was a fun added bonus. (It’s like a party in the sink!)

AND, I’m extra proud of my organizational skills in keeping my kitchen looking like this rather than like an explosion of chocolate and sprinkles had hit the kitchen:

On Sunday, they looked adorable on the table at my grandparents’.

So, if you’ve got a spare 5 hours and a hankering for chocolate filled with cake and icing,  I definitely recommend these. My cousins ate three each and my dad and uncle (below) seemed to have fun with them, so I think they were a success.

Other than the cake pops, we had a really fun time with the family on Sunday. I think I sold my cousin on getting a Nikon camera after she walked around the party for an hour with mine. We also may have made plans to see the Hannah Montana movie together, as she is still in middle school and can be my beard to get into the movie without shame. (Not that I have any…I think I lost my ability to feel shame at the movies when I purchased my tickets to HSM3 for the third time.)

The rest of the weekend was spent car shopping with my mom. Every time we walk into a dealer, we have to explain that we need three cars in the next four months (one for my sister, one for me, one for Mom and Dad) and then have to wait as all the salesmen finishing battling to see who gets to walk us around the lot. We even had the owner of one dealership walk us around for a while. My personal dilemma right now is that I can afford to get a new car, but the new cars I want are all hybrids (because in CA, I’d get to drive in the HOV lane ALL THE TIME and if you live in CA, you know how AWESOME this would be, especially in traffic. Plus, less time out of my life pumping gas? Yes, please!), but of course, all the hybrids are way expensive, so I’d have to go used. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful to be having the option of either a new regular car or a used hybrid at all, but still, it’s a tough call.

Other than that, life has been pretty boring: working, watching ridiculous amounts of television on Monday nights (Last night my dad and I had to split up at 8 – he watched House upstairs as I watched the season premier Greek of in my room, all while our DVR taped Chuck, How I Met Your Mother, and Big Bang Theory. Then, of course, I have to watch Gossip Girl online. Is there really no other time ANY of these shows could be on?), and reading for TFA.  I’m debating (and I guess will have to decide to do by the end of the day) NaBloPoMo in April, since I’ve been slacking on the blogging front and could use some motivation. I guess we’ll see tomorrow.

The last few days have been filled with nothing but work and playing with my new camera…and really, all I’m doing at work is playing with a very similar camera…so exciting blog posts have been hard to come by, unless you are just dying to read a little story that goes like this: Today I work up. I took a shower. I drove to work. I took pictures of a family. I drove home. I took pictures of my family. I watched insane amounts of television while cooking and eating dinner. I read blogs. I watched Jimmy Fallon (he’s getting better, right?). I went to bed. THE EXCITEMENT NEVER ENDS, I TELL YOU!

I figured instead of regaling you with that tale and instead of ignoring you all together, I should share some of the massive amounts of photos I’ve been taking, as that is all I can really offer except for maybe a rant about American Idol, which was my original plan. (I mean, picking Jasmine over Ricky?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME, IDOL!? *Deep Breaths* Just remember Anoop….and that Tatiana is gone…gooodddd….breathe….) I swear, if that show wasn’t so culturally relevant and full of potential train wrecks, I’d stop watching. (For a very close description of my thoughts, visit Michael Slezak at Entertainment Weekly.)

Now that I got that ALL THAT off my chest, onto some photos! On our drive home from Food Heaven, aka Trader Joe’s, I noticed the light was beautiful (for once), so my mom suggested we go on walk through a nearby park with her beloved dog, Sookie. I love my mother both for suggesting this and for putting up with my obnoxious picture taking (and for learning to be a kick ass model for me.) Thanks, mom! Everyone should tell her how pretty she is. Seriously, I’m going to look AMAZING in 20 years. 

If you’re bored, you can check out the rest of the photos here. The photos shown are, sadly enough, a very small cross section of the photos taken. (Aka what I could edit before my eyes started blurring from staring at my parent’s giant monitor.)

I’ve been in a weird funk all week, internet wise, and I’m not sure why, because I’ve had some things I could’ve blogged about.

I started working part-time job at a portrait studio. It’s actually the perfect part time job for me, besides the fact that I can only work for about three months before I leave. They knew that hiring me, though, so I don’t feel terrible about it. I’ve been training all week, learning how to use the fancy equipment (by photographing adorable stuffed animals on baby pillows) and memorizing all the package prices. It’s fun to utilize my burgeoning photography skills into a money making situation and to learn a little bit about portrait photography in the process.

Using fancy DSLR’s all day, however, was making me more and more sad that I hadn’t been able to buy my own DSLR that I’d been lusting after since July, especially now that I’m making money (and got a sweet tax refund), which had been my excuse for not buying a camera for the past two months. That mild sadness and frustration then combined with stress over my TFA readings (which are alternately making me feel mildly prepaerd and unbelievably unprepared) and the occasional lonliness of being at home with only  my parents to hang out with, thus making me super fun these past few days. After being sick of the funk, I  instigated many, many mildly tense conversations with my parents about how I’d really like to use my money to get this thing I’ve been wanting to get for months and months as a small reward for working hard, graduating early, and living at home to save money. I somehow convinced them it was a sound idea, found a way to finance it  and today, I went to Best Buy and got myself……

A BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFUL, NIKON D90!!!! SUPERPHOTOEXCITEMENTWOOHOOO!!!!!

I, of course, came home, waited impatiently for my battery to charge, breezed through the user’s manuel, and started snapping photos of my only available subjects:

My mom’s uber cute, super tiny dog, Sookie.

My dad – who happily posed for a ridiculous amount of photos.

And of course, myself, in the obligatory mirror shot to show off myself and my beautiful new toy. (There was one where I looked way more exicted, but I figured I’d attempt to look cool for a brief moment.)

Hopefully, I’m now offcially snapped out of the funk. This week I’m finishing training at work and will hopefully be moving on to photographing actual children soon. Next Sunday, I’m meeting Jillian in New York to see Sleepwalk with Me (more on that soon), then a week from Tuesday, I’m heading back to LA for a week!

For now, though, I’m going to go take pictures of snow.

Rather than go on some paragraphs long rant about how much I disklike this day, about how I’ve only ever had one decent Valentine’s day, about how my big plans for the night include making PW’s French Onion Soup for my parents and watching the Jo Bros take on SNL, and about how what I usually look forward to is getting a new pair of Victoria’s Secret pink sweat pants from my mom that I know aren’t coming this year…yeah, instead of talking about ALL that, I’ll just leave you with this. 

Monday, the honeymoon period with this time of unemployment officially ended. I’ve started feeling useless, bored, and unmotivated. I’m not quite sure what brought it on. I’m thinking it’s a mixture of realizing I no longer have enough time before moving to LA June to get a part-time job without feeling guilty when I leave (after I will have asked off for a trip or two AND for senior week/graduation) and finding out I failed one of the teacher credentialing tests in California. 

I keep telling myself to stop complaining about these next few months of nothingness. I’m SO lucky to have a job at all in June, so that I don’t need a job right now, so that I can sit around bored without feeling guilty about it. But I can’t stop feeling guilty about my lack of working. I feel like a drain on my family, even though I’ve done everything right up to this point. I graduated early to save money. I’m living at home to save money. I worked hard and guaranteed myself a job (with good pay AND health benefits) for the next two years! I should just enjoy this time, but that’s not the kind of person I am. If I’m not contributing right now, I feel bad spending money right now, no matter what I’ve done in the past or will do in the future. 

Also not me is this lack of…anything. I need goals and schedules. I need places to go. I need projects, and I have none. I could force myself to read some teaching books, but that isn’t enough to motivate me to get out of bed in the morning. When I agreed to graduate early, I never expected to be in a situation like this. In my mind,  I thought I’d get a part time job to save money and enable me to take some guilt free trips to Boston to see my friends (and thus not feel like I’m missing out on my last semester of college) and maybe finally get myself a DSLR that would keep me busy enough at home, thus making graduating early alright. Instead, I have no job, since no one around here is hiring (Thanks, Economy!), and thus, have guilt at the thought of traveling or doing ANYTHING that would waste money, even though, I shouldn’t feel guilty (see above). So I’m double bored, as having a job would enable me to have other things to do, and not having a job results in having nothing to do. This is all now exacerbated by the fact that I have to spend some time (and thus, money) in LA to retake the teaching test in March, taking away money AND time I could have used to get a job. 

Bah! Ok…no more rambling. I need to think of some things to be excited about: going to LA when my best friend happens to be visiting for Spring Break. The NJ/PA/DE meet-up (hopefully) next week. Getting a new computer soon (ish…this keeps getting pushed back…but I’m being POSITIVE. Postive. Postive. Positive.)

Sorry this post is all woe-is-me when things could be SO much worse, but it feels nice to get this out and not just rant about it to my mom, who just tells me not to feel bad, which I wish I could do. 

Tomorrow, I’m going to try to write up my You Inspire Me post. That’s a good goal for the day, right? Right.

For the last three weeks, I’ve been dieting in my attempt to lose 15 pounds by graduation (and in my attempt to accomplish SOMETHING in my “off” time besides watching Food Network for 7 hours straight and reading every post ever at Digital Photography School…not that that’s what I’ve been doing…anyway…)

It’s been tough to say the least. Let’s take this in two parts - 

Eating: My biggest challenge at first was giving up snacking. As someone who routinely eats two bags of Whole Wheat Goldfish Crackers (hence forth known as “Cheddar Cheese Heroine”) in a week, this has been quite the battle, especially because I for some reason bought four bags right before signing up for Weight Watchers. Well done, Amanda. Well done. Having to keep track of my daily points has really guilted me into kicking the heroine habit (3 of my precious 21 points for 55 goldfish!? Really, Weight Watchers?), as has the fact that counting out 55 goldfish (said to be a “serving size” but in actuality, a big freakin’ snack tease) is crazy annoying. Thus, major snacking problem kind of solved. 

For the last week, in fact, I haven’t really thought about snacking, but I’ve still been hungry most of the time, which makes me just an AWESOME person to be around. Just ask my mom. I’m a joy when my blood sugar is low. Yesterday I actually snapped at my dad for driving to Barnes and Noble without explaining why we were going. Barnes and Noble is my own personal paradise! Clearly, hunger is my not best state. The other hard thing about the constant hunger is when I eat out, all I want is the biggest, most fried thing on the menu.  It’s hard to make sensible choices, like ordering a salad and girlled chicken, when you’re prepared to eat your own face. 

Despite these challenges, I’ve been doing well. In Boston last week, my biggest calorie intake was definitely in booze, but it was my best friend’s 22nd birthday AND the Superbowl (which my absolute favorite sports team ever WON), so I didn’t really have a choice, and as for food, I rocked. Instead of ordering granola pancakes at my favorite brunch spot, I got a spinach, egg-white omelet, and instead of getting fish and chips at Beacon Hill Tavern, I got roasted chicken. Go me! Each ended up being satisfying and filling, so really, once I make a decision, I don’t feel like I’m missing out. It’s getting myself to spit out the order that’s tough. 

On the working out front, my personal goal is to work out at least four times a week. Obviously, going to Boston didn’t help AT ALL, as I’m now barred from the school gym as they treat outsiders at my school with the same suspicion the government treats terrorist suspects. At home, my confidence in my work-out routine isn’t helped by the fact that my parents are like the fitness twins, running four times a week and going to, what I call, the devil fitness class two nights a week. (Seriously, after I went to this class once, I could barely get out of bed for a week. I refuse to go back, especially since they told the instructor how much I hated it. That wouldn’t be awkward at all.) Before my trip back to Boston, I was doing the elliptical thing a few times a week and trying out some classes (and “by trying” out I mean almost fainting in a kickboxing class and never going back). I’m definitely going to try to work on this now that my eating is getting better. It would be stupid not to take advantage of a free gym membership while I can, even if I can never work out as much as my parents. 

Despite all the struggles, I’ve lost four pounds already, which is almost a third of the way towards my goal. I’m pretty proud of myself for sticking with it this long. I rarely have this level of commitment to a diet. Hopefully, I’ll update you with some stellar progress next week. 

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For more weight-loss inspiration, check out the 20-Something Bloggers Biggest Loser Challenge! 

This week has been …a little weird. Last Friday, I drove up to Boston for my best friend, Jillian’s, birthday weekend. This was my first trip back since finishing school in December, and I didn’t think it would feel that different to be back. I’ve only been away for a month and a half. I thought wrong. 

Friday night, I decided to go to make an appearnace at a sorority event, even though, technically I’m not in the sorority anymore. The event is the first one after bid day when we get a new class of girls, and it’s basically just an apartment crawl so the new girls can meet all the current sisters. It was really nice to see the other seniors again, but as the night went on and the freshman girls got drunker and drunker, I just felt older and older. I don’t think I was the only one – other seniors said they felt a little past apartment parties and questional punch mix drinks – but I just kept thinking “I shouldn’t be here anymore.” 

The rest of the weekend wasn’t as jarring as that first night, but there were some weird moments: sleeping on the couch in “my” apartment, while a new, unknown roommate slept in my old room. (I kept walking out of the bathroom and going for the bedroom door only to catch myself before intense awkwardness ensued.) Listening to everyone talk about activities I was involved in and finding myself not caring nearly as much as I used to. Hearing about classes and thinking how soon, I’ll have to teach one of those myself. It’s like, all the sudden, I had become an outsider without realizing it. 

I did have a lot of fun with Jillian, Josh, Megan and some of Jillian’s friends. We ate delicious Mexican food, danced at at euro-trash bar in downtown Boston (along with a 50 year-old lesbian couple and some Mickey Rourke look-a-likes – if only my camera battery hadn’t died! Those pictures would have been EPIC.), went bowling at Lucky Strike (where I got a whopping score of 36), and sang karaoke. I attempted to avoid the drama of last semester (as I have successfully avoided talking about it here to my constant amazement), and I even got to spend some time with my uncle and cousins (one of whom wrote on the chalk board at my uncle’s house “Amanda you are so nice!” and then told me that I would make an excellent teacher because I have excellent chalk board handwriting. I need to hang out with 2nd graders more often. Big confidence booster.) 

I think the weirdest part was when people kept saying to me, “You’re at home? God, you must be so bored!” I kind of nodded and laughed, but I couldn’t really agree with them. After 18 years of constant work and schedules and goals, it feels nice to take a break, to read a book, to cook a big dinner, and to wander around a mall. I thought I would be so home sick for Boston or ready to pack up and move to LA already, but I’m really enjoying this time off. I’m losing some weight (more on that soon!). I may have found a perfect part-time job. I’m saving up for a computer and (hopefully) a Nikon D90, and I get to spend time with my family. I know that come June, my life is going to be one giant ball of stress and craziness, so right now, I’m just trying to enjoy the break, accomplish some things I haven’t been able to, and relax. 

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And now a quick announcement for any Delaware, New Jersey, and Philadelphia area bloggers! The lovely Rachel of Confessions of a Jersey Girl and I are trying to organize a little blogger meet-up for the greater Philadelphia area! If you are at all interested, shoot me an email, and I’ll fill you in on all the details!!

THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!!!!!!!!

My family has been tense ALL day waiting for the Steelers Ravens game, as half my extended family loves the Ravens and has been talking smack all season, especially at dinner last night, making this extremely gratifying.  

PLUS I get to watch a Steelers Superbowl with my dad for the first time since I was about 8 when we lost to the Cowboys and broke my tiny elementary school heart. It’s times like these I wish I still lived in Pittsburgh. I can only imagine what the city will be like tomorrow. 

Closer to the Superbowl I’ll be sure to give my speech about why the Steelers arean amazing franchise, but for now, I’ll leave you with this….

HERE WE GO, STEELERS. HERE WE GO!