Monday, May 16, 2022

Weekly Round Up: A birthday and an air fryer reheat

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition we celebrated a Very Special Birthday and reheated steak in the air fryer.

Eats

I never get the quantity right when we have steak.  Sometimes two pounds feels like barely enough for the four or us, so last Sunday I cooked up three pounds and it felt like we had most of it leftover.  Leftover steak is not anyone's dream meal, so I decided to see if the air fryer had any magic to offer.  It did a decent job of bringing the steak back to life.

On Saturday we had the family over for a certain stepson's birthday, which meant our standard ice cream cake.


Running

Monday: mandatory treadmill day, 4 miles

Tuesday: speed work attempt with 0.25 miles fast/0.25 miles slow x4.  Next week I'm going to up this to half mile repeats at a slower speed.

Wednesday: off

Thursday: a repeat of 0.1 miles as fast as I can/0.2 miles slow...next week I'm upping the reps to 0.15 miles to see if I can hold the speed.  This was a really good run, so much so that I extended my cool down by an extra mile because I didn't feel like stopping.

Friday: yikes, it was super hot so I folded after 3.25 miles.

Saturday: it was even hotter so I took it to the treadmill for 10k.  I didn't mind as much as you would think since season 6 of Outlander has gotten really good.

Sunday: it was still really hot, so I decided to do a short run just to keep my toe in the water.  3.25 miles and I was very glad to be done.  While I will not be pushing myself to do long runs in the heat like I did last year I still want to poke around a bit and see if I can hack short runs in the heat.

Watching

Stepson #2 came across The Good The Bad and The Ugly Theme on Youtube and demanded to see the movie ASAP.  To refresh you, the hubs and I saw this a few years ago, and when he suggested it my gut reaction was "I don't like Westerns and I don't like 3 hour movies and this movie is both of those things but I'll go through the motions" and I ended up loving it dearly.  In general the stepsons are at the stage of life where they would rather do anything but watch TV with us so it says a lot that #2 suggested the movie and was glued to the screen right along with us for the entire 3 hours.


Reading

Another thriller from this list.  What's a girl to do when her father was a serial killer and 20 years later he's in jail and she's living her best life and someone starts copycatting his killings?  For these answers and more check out A Flicker in the Dark.  I'd rate this lower than the first two titles that I picked off this list, but it's holding my attention and that's all that I need from a book.  I'm not the greatest a solving mysteries but I'm pretty sure that I've figured out the bad guy right from the get go.  I'm halfway through so we'll see if I'm right.

Werk

Last week I'd had a perfectly good interview with a company that I'm calling Bachelor #2 and this week I had my first conversation with the company that I'm calling Bachelor #3.  

Talking to the supervisor at Bachelor #3 was like looking at a mirror.  She has exactly the career that I want and has a long history of working for startups.  The company size is projected to double this year so she needs to take the team from one person to two people and she wants someone who knows everything about US payroll with more of an accounting background than she has...yes I resemble that.  The only red flag is that she never asked about compensation.

Without going further in the interview process with either company there's nothing more to say than both seem equally good:

  • Bachelor #2 is further along in the startup process than Bachelor #3.  That's not a good or a bad thing, it's just an observation. I don't need my next employer to stay in business forever, just for a few years so I can get some work done and move on to the next thing.
  • The supervisor difference is fascinating.  I like both of them but the difference is:
    • Bachelor #2 "I know nothing about payroll.  I need this role to cover that for me"
    • Bachelor #3 "I know everything about payroll, that's what I eat, breathe, and live.  But I'm only one person and I need a heavyweight in the ring with me"
    • Neither one of these is good or bad, it's just an interesting difference.

Current status: sitting back and waiting for either or both of them to hit me up with an invite for a second interview so that I can meet more folks.

Meanwhile at the current gig, my mood flips on a dime - some days I feel like I'm getting paid to watch paint dry and other days things there are some interesting things happening.

That's all for this week!  Thanks for hanging out with me.



20 comments:

  1. You ran more than I did last week, Birchie. Well done on the speed work, too!! Excellent plan to lengthen the speed portions next week.

    Maybe the supervisor at #3 didn't talk about compensation because she's knows they'll be able to match your demand (best-case scenario...)
    In any case a very encouraging development.
    Meanwhile, hang in there at the current job. I know, boring jobs can be excruciatingly painful, but at least you're working from home with some flexibility!

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    1. Yes but you ran up more mountains that I did last week so it all evens out! Here's the link to your post for anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about;) https://www.keeponrunning.net/the-cableway-charity-challenge-2/

      100% I appreciate my job and there are good points about it.

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  2. Happy birthday and yay for cake! When my husband makes extra steak he ends up making it into "Philly cheese steak" sandwiches for leftovers. I obviously have no opinion about it but the guys seem to like it.

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    1. Hey I would like a philly cheese steak sandwich! Now I know what to do the next time we have leftover steak!

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  3. Happy birthday to your stepson! And I am fascinated by the job search process! I hope the next round helps differentiate these two positions from one another.

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    1. Thanks! I feel like whenever people talk about job searches on blogs, it's always has the air of "one day my boss looked at me cross-eyed so I lifted my little finger and two days later I had 10 job offers and the lowest was double my present salary" so I wanted to show what a more typical experience;-)

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  4. You just reminded me that I have not done any speedwork in awhile. Oops. I'm letting my body recover for a few more days (at least in terms of running), so the speedwork may happen next week. We shall see. Good for you on the treadmill 10K!

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    1. Ha ha Kim, you "haven't been doing speedwork" because you've been racing every weekend!!!!!!!!!! I remember now that your 2020 streak of 1 mile time trials was back when there were no races. I think that you've chosen wisely.

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  5. I'm very impressed by that cake! But then I looked at the recipe and it actually seems easy enough. I might try to make it this summer.
    That book list of yours looks really good. After I finish the 900 page book I'm reading (ha ha! I accidentally typed in "900 pound" at first, which is funny because my only complaint is that holding a huge hardcover library book is making my hands tired)- anyway, after I finish that AND three holds that just came in at the library, I'm going to read some of those thrillers.
    Nice job on the runs! I'm also doing some speedwork, and I'm loving it.

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    1. Yes, the ice cream cake is a winner because it looks impressive but it only requires short work periods that can be done over a few days.

      I read most of my books on the kindle so it always feels strange to read a "real" book so I would really be struggling with the 900 pounds/pages.

      I'm really loving the speedwork as well!

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  6. Happy birthday to your stepson ...and what a lovely cake (too much frosting for me, but looks awesome anyway!)

    I am keeping my fingers crossed for the job interview process... it'll work itself out.

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  7. This cake looks so tasty and great to get out there and run, love it so much.

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  8. Happy belated birthday to your stepson. My oldest asks for an ice cream cake each year as well. :-)

    The two jobs sound like good matches for you. Here's hoping you get called back for follow-up interviews.

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  9. Oh yum!! I need to try that cake! My daughter always used to ask for a cookie dough cake which was delicious, but oh so decadent. I do enjoy hearing about your job interviews! That is an interesting difference in the supervisors. My boss keeps asking me when I'm going to retire when we go out to lunch together (which the company wants us to do monthly now. ugh!) and I always tell him from 1 to 3 years. "I'll tell you when it gets close". haha! I don't have a very solid exit plan figured out yet, but I do need to come up with something.

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    1. Ooh I remember the cookie dough cake pictures on your blog!!! I'm craving a slice of really decadent cake right now.

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  10. Oh, wait, you MAKE the cake? You don't purchase it? wow! Impressive. :)
    I'm also intrigued, as always, by the job search process. I am eagerly anticipating the next development(s). I hope that something positive comes of one of these - despite the status quo being tolerable. For now. :)

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    1. Yes it's a homemade cake. It's really just melting and freezing ice cream, so it's not too difficult.

      I'm anticipating the next round of job search developments as well...it's a desert right now.

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