Back to Work!

All good things must come to an end...I am no longer FUNemployed.

A Tour of My Great Grandmother's 1910 Fannie Farmer Cookbook

Today we're going to take a walk back in time and take a look at my Great Grandmother's Fannie Farmer cookbook.  My Great Grandmother passed away in 1977 when I was two, but I do have very slight memories of her.  My mother (her granddaughter-in-law) adored her and often went to visit and cooked lunch for her at her house.  The paperwork inside the book dates from 1910 to 1976.

Weekly Roundup: The Slowest Half

 

A weekly roundup: the slowest half, movies, and a podcast.

Twenty Questions!

TGIF!  For today's post, I sampled a bunch of twenty questions posts and put together my own list.

Two Old Books That I Love and Two New Books That I Love

 

One of my favorite sources for reading ideas is the Sarah's Bookshelf podcast.  On each episode, Sarah asks her guest for:

• Two old books that they love
• Two new books that they love
• A book that they didn't love
• An upcoming release that they are excited about
• The last five star book that they read

I'm going to be a pretend guest on Sarah's podcast and give you my answers.

Whazzup Wednesday

 

Happy 🐪🐪🐪 Day! Here's what's going down in Birchwood Land.

My Two Cents: the AFI 100 List

 

I really enjoyed Grace's post One of my "Just for Fun" Goals.  She is working her way through the American Film Institute's 100 Years 100 Movies List.  She included this link to the AFI's checklist that you can click through to find out how many of these movies you've seen.

It turns out that I've seen 68 of the 100 movies, but as I got to thinking about it, I realized that there is a lot more to this list than what I've seen vs what I haven't seen.  It's how I feel about the movies.

Working with a Sports Dietitian: It was Good and It Was Also Really Bad

 

This summer I did something that I've been thinking about doing for years: I worked with a sports dietitian for a month.  

So what was it like and how did it turn out?  Quite the mixed bag.  On the plus side, I solved my #1 food issue.  On the negative side, it's kind of a Thomas Edison thing where I discovered a few more of the 10,000 things that don't work, and feel like I still have 9,996 things that don't work left to discover. 

I passed the CPP (Certified Payroll Professional) Exam Today!

Warning: The following content is intended only for people who have taken or are planning to take the CPP exam.

In other words, this is going to be the world's most boring post ever.  It's even more boring than my post about passing the CPA exam - don't say that I didn't warn you!  I'm writing this for the same reason that I wrote about the CPA exam: I really wanted to hear the deets from someone who had been through the process, and I didn't find a lot out there on the internets.  CPP is a tough google since it also stands for Certified Protection Professional and Certified Professional Photographer, so let me clarify that we're talking about the American Payroll Association's Certified Payroll Professional exam.  I took and passed the test today on my first attempt.

Along the way I tried four different exam prep programs: Momentrix, PayTrain, Practical CPP, and Payroll Source, and I'm going to tell you ever last detail of what I thought about those.  The TL&DR summary: 

• Don't bother with Momentrix
• PayTrain is really nice and really expensive but I don't feel that it was complete.  I did 90% of my studying in PayTrain but I'm not sure if I would have passed the exam if it been my only resource.
  
• Practical CPP was a bit too indepth and scared me BUT the I felt that it boosted my knowledge and there was one question on the exam that was about material that I learned from Practical CPP.  And the price is quite reasonable.
• The Payroll Source was excellent, and the practice questions were very similar to what was on the exam.  One question was identical!  I wish I'd known about it sooner than one week before the exam;-)  And there's a 30 day free trial...sheesh I really wish I would have known this sooner than one week before the exam.
• P.S. although not a study resource, I also took one of the APA's knowledge assessment tests one week before the exam and failed it miserably...I do not recommend taking the knowledge assessment tests because I didn't feel that the questions represented what was on the exam and it really messed with me!
  

Let's Catch Up: Movies and TV Lately

A quick look at what we've been watching recently.

Let's Catch Up: Food Lately

 

 

Best new recipe, a leftover chain reaction, our favorite family dinner, homemade pizza, and a last minute potluck dessert...a few of the things that we've had lately in addition to our normal fare of mac n'cheese.

Let's Catch Up: Books Lately

I've been having the best luck with books lately.  Here's what I've read since my last weekly post.

Let's Catch Up: What's Up With My Job

And we're back!

We have so much to catch up on: food, running, movies, books, vacation, working with a dietitian...I have a ton of stuff to unpack on the blog.  I guess I'll start with the biggest news item: for the next two weeks I am FUNemployed!  I'm starting a new job at the end of this month.  Yes another one.  I've been quite the job hopper this summer.