And if that's what you have in mind, yeah, that's what you're all about, good luck movin' up because I'm movin' out.

I feel compelled to clarify because it's getting frustrating how many times people ask. I'm not. . .let's put it this way. Just because I wish a tree would fall on me doesn't mean I'm going to start dating a lumberjack. Make sense?

It's amazing to me how many new things I can find to organize in my apartment. I got so excited yesterday, during helping Carrie and Frank clean out their house, because I found a cord that looked like it would fit my camera exactly. The battery of this camera doesn't come out, so you have to plug it up to the computer. I've almost bought a new cord on eBay three different times now, but I keep thinking, no, as soon as you buy one, you're going to find your old one, and then you're going to be pissed. So when I found this cord, I was thrilled beyond all belief. Finally, I said to myself, you will be able to videotape the thoughts you feel you should share with the world, because blogging just isn't enough. The world needs to see you in technicolor motion!

Just now, when I retrieved the cord from the car, I discovered that no, it does not fit. It's ever so slightly too big. So I'm still camera-with-microphone-less. And that makes me sad.

I have also discovered, for those of you keeping track, a new allergy. Along with dust, pollen, most cats and some dogs, add "feather pillows" to the list. I'd taken two from Carrie and Frank's, and couldn't figure out why my throat was closing up and I was sneezing all over everything. Removing the pillows from my room and, ultimately, my house cleared up the problem nicely.

I took out my spring and summer clothes today. I left a couple of sweaters in my closet, in case we have another weird and random frigid cold snap, along with a hoodie or two and my lighter jackets. But generally, the lighter stuff, I can layer if I need to. Or wear a jacket. I got rid of some stuff (it's going to the yard sale) and was pleasantly surprised to find that some of my clothes, dresses especially, fit me better than they did last year. Some of it was too big, and I just went ahead and got rid of it. I was also pleasantly surprised to find three pairs of shoes in the container. They're all sandal-y wedges, so that's probably why I'd put them up for the winter. You don't want to be tromping through five inches of snow in sandal-y wedges.

So, I made a recipe today that I've been wanting to try for months called Chicken Loredo. It was. . .I don't want to say I was disappointed, but I kind of was. Don't get me wrong; it's delicious. But something about the way it looked really bothered me. I had in mind more of a casserole-solidity to it, but it's more like a spread. Like, I could see putting it over chips and calling it Chicken Loredo Nachos, which is what I may end up doing. I did my usual thing of substituting things to make it (in my opinion, of course) better. I traded Velveeta for Pepperjack Velveeta and pinto beans for black beans, both because I don't really like pinto beans and also because I had a can of black beans in my cabinet. A can of frijoles negros, if you will. Because that sounds sexier than "black beans."

Anyway, if you're looking for a way to clear your sinuses, I would highly recommend the Pepperjack Velveeta. It almost killed me. And by that, I mean it was amazing. This dish has quite a bit of kick to it, between that and the tomatoes with chilis and. . .there's something else that makes it kicky, but I can't remember what it was. But yes. It had that kind of heat to it I like in dishes, the kind that makes you take a swig of water after every other bite, but that keeps you eating it. But I definitely think I'm going to get some tortilla chips to eat with this stuff. Also, something that bothered me about it was the fact that the cheese wasn't evenly melted. You're supposed to cut the Velveeta into "thick chunks," but all that happens there is that you get chunks of cheese. Or, "cheese." It's just not aesthetically pleasing. But now I have another. . .4 meals or so this week.

Got a job interview Tuesday. Not going to go too much into it, but it's there.

Let freedom ring. Let the white dove sing. Let the whole world know that today is a day of reckoning. Let the weak be strong; let the right be wrong.

There's been quite a lot going on, but I haven't had the desire to sit down and write it out. But here I am now.

The weather? Has been gorgeous. Freaking gorgeous. I've been going up to Lake J and walking around it (2.5 miles according to Allison) and generally enjoying the outdoors.

I've been cooking a lot (since I can't afford to go out to eat, you know) and I've made up some kickass recipes. One of them stemmed from attempting to replicate this pasta dish I used to get all the time in college. I couldn't make it taste exactly like that, but I would argue that mine is better. The first time I made it, I made it with spaghetti noodles. It was good, but I thought it might be better with smaller noodles, like macaroni. I was on the phone with MK when I made this observation and he, sweetheart he is, brought me macaroni he had frozen. I took a picture of the macaronisicle, because it made me laugh when I opened it. I managed to make the noodles mushy (I HATE when I do that, mainly because I pride myself on my al dente noodles), but it was still an awesome recipe. If I actually measured things when I cooked them, I'd share it. As it stands, though, every time I make it, it's probably a different ration of ingredients. But MK's macaroni noodles really did save my recipe.

I have to say. . .a rough as things have been, every now and again, I have an "everything's going to be OK" moment. I got an e-mail from a woman I work with within the Girl Scouts (or, who I will work with again once I get my act together and make it to another meeting) telling me about a job opening at the hospital (it's part-time). I told her I'd look into it and ended up applying. She e-mailed me later and said if I was really interested, she'd mention how awesome I am to the woman who, apparently, is conducting the hiring. So, awesome. I don't know, you know, that I'd get it, but it's nice knowing that there are people out there looking out for me.

I also have an interview at Best Buy tomorrow, which could potentially also be part-time. So really, if I had the fortune to get both of them, two part-time jobs is kind of like a full-time job, right? And even with one part-time job, that's better than none job. So I'm looking forward to (and keeping my fingers crossed for) something good to happen there. I actually think it might be coolish to work at Best Buy. Although I must say, I've decided that if someone from the paper comes in to interview people for the Grand Opening (which will be in mid-April), I absolutely will not talk to them. Karen pointed out it's a conflict of interest. Sarah points out that I don't want to help those people at all. Call me bitchy, but I've been called worse, so whatever.

Some of my money problems have been aided, and I also found out that I owe the government less than $300, rather than the $500 I originally thought I owed. Turns out, the interest I've paid on my student loans had an impact on the amount. That's just federal I owe. Initially, it showed I owed $22 to the state, but now, I'll get back $44. And that's, like, two tanks of gas. So there you go.

It's weird that the weather has been so ridiculously nice when, like, a week ago, it was freezing and snowing. I don't know if it's just North Carolina weather, which is known to be erratic, or if this is happening all over the place. I feel like I've heard from people in other parts of the country that it's happening everywhere. It's just odd to me that a week or so ago, there were Icicles That Could Kill a Man (pictured at right.)

I guess that's it for now. In short, things aren't stellar, but they could be much, much worse.

When they can't find you, I'm sure I'll be the one they blame, but they can't prove anything, Miss California.

So, my sister is basically the coolest person I know. We didn't get along when I was in high school (because, let's face it, I was pretty hateful toward her) but after I left for college and she became a teenager and all that, I realized that if I were still in high school, she'd be the kind of person I'd want to hang out with.

This snippet of conversation is why:

Sarah: Yeah. What I would like to happen is for me to get the SMT job, and so if I run into Vi at the grocery store, I can be like, "Oh, me? Yeah, I'm the editor of two publications. Peace out." "Thank you for firing me and stressing out your entire newsroom so I could go on to much bigger and better things. "

Katie: haha you should rethink the exit. maybe throw some sort of liquid in her face and then be like (our last name) out!

S: YES! I like that. (our last name) out.

K: and do that hand move where you make a sideways peace sign and move it downward violently

S: Awesome. Or, I could just punch her in her face.

K: haha, that could work

S: I like that option.

K: maybe you could do some sort of combination of all of the above? haha

S: "Peace out. (our last name) out!" (liquid throw) (punch).

K: hahaha awesome

S: I now have a game plan.

K: an A+ game plan at that

So yeah. Katie is pretty much more awesome than anyone else I know.

I was oddly productive today, for a Sunday. I spent the morning writing freelance articles about cell phones and the afternoon editing cookbook entries. I don't know if I mentioned that I'm on the committee for this event that takes place around here called the Taste of Chocolate. We're putting together a cookbook and we went through this company that lets you enter them online. As I'm sure you can imagine, people who don't (or didn't) do words for a living might not live up to the standards for publication, so there was some work to be done. But all 150 recipes are finished.

I then went through my recipe file, looking for something relatively inexpensive to make for dinner (since, you know, no income) and I decided on "Zesty Beef-Stuffed Peppers" and "Ranch Smashed Potatoes." Went to the cheapo grocery store to get most of the stuff and then Wal-Mart for the rest. Literally as I'm walking out the door to get my food, my phone rings, and it's one of the people from the TOC committee, saying something about meeting at 7 to finish the cookbook. I was like, ". . ." because I don't remember ever agreeing to this, but considering my general state of mind for the last three weeks or so, it's entirely possible I agreed to it and just forgot. So I went over to her house at 7 and actually had a fun time working on the cookbook. We got everything together and managed to throw both of our names in as chair (her) and co-chair (me). So my name will be printed at least 6 times (including recipes submitted) in at least 400 books. For posterity, or something.

I did, incidentally, get the food for my awesome meal, but I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow to actually make it, since I didn't have the time this evening.

What else?

I have a meeting tomorrow morning with some people. I'm being intentionally vague, because I just don't really want to get into it right now, for whatever reason. It's a good meeting, but I just want to keep the good to myself for now.

I guess that's it.

I'll be your best-kept secret and your biggest mistake.

I feel that I've had so many ANTM recaps here recently that I need to make a real entry before I post the newest one.

I have time to begin this entry while my crappy work computer restarts. You know your computer is old and crappy when you try to put a picture on the page and it says "out of memory." One would think that a media outlet would have better technology, so they can persist in getting the important, breaking news without having to restart their computer 150 times a day.

One would be wrong.

I'm really trying not to be so negative about everything around me, but it's kind of difficult to do that when I hate my job so much, it's almost physically painful to get up in the morning. The job hunt is going slooooooowly. I've sent, at present moment, 32 resumes. I've had a paper in Nebraska call me and I've spoken to a guy in New York. Truth be told, it's my lack of geography skills that led me to apply in Nebraska, as I was under the (mistaken) impression that it was closer to Michigan, in the vicinity of Ohio. I'm willing to move north, but I'm not looking to move to the midwest. I have nothing against the midwest, but I do, in fact, have something against constant tornadoes. I actually have a great fear of tornadoes.

Also, the job wouldn't pay much more than I'm making now, and I'm not willing to move to a place under constant tornado threat to make not much more than I am now, and to begin work at 6:30 a.m.

Now the New York job. . .I want that so badly, it's almost a physical want.

Ok, now I'm finished with work and I'm waiting for Carrie to finish so we can get food and then watch ANTM so I can bring you another fabulous recap.

Anyway, the New York job. It would be like if the Life section here had an actual staff, had its own reporters and photographers, rather than having everything done by just me. I would be a writing member of that staff in the New York job.

Nick's leaving Tuesday for England. I'm. . .you know, I'm glad he's getting the opportunity and all that stuff best friends are supposed to do, but I'm actually not pleased he's leaving. Back when I was in the midst of my "relationship," I told myself, yeah, I'd be fine when he left, because I had The Guy in my life, and so I had, you know, male attention. Since that "relationship" exploded in a glorious and fantastic fashion, I'm back to where I started, and back to. . .whatever. I don't really want to talk about it, actually.

I went to the Mountain State Fair yesterday with Carrie, Frank, Steph, Joel, and their friend Chris. It was pretty cool, since I got the opportunity to take a lot of pictures, and any place where I have the opportunity to take a lot of photos is fine with me. I'll put a couple up later. My photo card is in my car at the moment, and I'm entirely too lazy to go down and get it.

That's all for now, I suppose. I'll go for more cheerful next time.