Monday, February 20, 2023

Weekly Round Up: A Hill of Beans

 

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  To steal a line from Casablanca, this week amounted to a hill of beans.  Both in my meals and in my work situation.

Eats

My latest food crush was inspired by this Cheap Lazy Vegan video (of course, I mean when was the last time that I got food inspo from any other source?)  The black bean toast was the first thing to catch my eye.  I didn't want it as a breakfast but I thought that it would make a good lunch.  I used a full can of black beans and scaled up the rest of the ingredients accordingly.  I also threw in the last spoonful out of the jar of Trader Joe's crunchy jalapeno, onion, and lime that I've had sitting around forever but otherwise I followed the recipe.

I thought that it would make a good lunch?????  OMG it made an incredible lunch!  If you've ever felt that vegans can come off as being a trifle smug, it's because they know how to do avocado toast.  I may never have it with eggs again.

Next up was the chickpea "egg" salad.  One of my local grocery stores sells "small" cans of chickpeas, so I scaled the recipe down to match (yeah yeah I scaled up the first recipe and scaled down the second, it's how things work out).  I skipped the celery and black salt since I don't have those, and just put a pinch of tumeric in since I don't really care one way or the other about making a bright yellow "egg" salad.

 

The next day I took it one step further and made a killer sammie.  You're looking at a toasted Everything Ciabatta roll from Trader Joe's, the chickpea salad, avocado, pickled onion, and lettuce and tomato.

Workouts

I moved forward with my plan to accelerate the rest of Epic III and finish that sucker this week.  The good news is that the remaining workouts look like they're going to be hard but doable.

The best workout anecdote of the week is c/o stepson #2.  The boys both had strength training for gym this fall, and they've been good about keeping up their routines at home since the class ended.

Stepson #2 had been trying to meet up with his friends after school, but for a variety of reasons they haven't been able to get everyone's schedules to line up and make it happen.  This week the issue is that one guy wanted to go the gym on their meetup day.  When stepson #2 was telling us about it at dinner, his summary was, "No one goes to the gym on Wednesday.  Everyone knows that gym day is Sunday!  It's the Lord's Swole-y day". 

Watching

I finally finished season 4 of Fauda and (1) it was so, so good and (2) it ended with one heck of a cliffhanger.  The word is that they're trying to get season 5 released before the end of the year and I am here for it.

It's very rare that both boys will watch an entire movie with us these days, but hubs found something that had them glued to the screen.   Zoolander! We previously saw it on Christmas Eve without the boys a few years ago and it was even sillier with them.

Reading

The very aptly titled Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson.

Jobby Jobbing

Hey it's been a hot minute since I complained about my job on the bloggy blog!  My game plan was to stay put for the duration of my boss's maternity leave, which will tentatively be next fall.  That gets me work experience, a few projects that I'm interested in, and another chunk of company stock.  I mean, really my job is solidly OK, as long as you ignore the fact that it consistently drains me every day.  Every time I go on LinkedIn I see more and more layoffs, so hey isn't it so good to have a job right now?

Well it would be except for the past few weeks there has been a voice in my head telling me to update my resume.  I keep seeing a parallel back to the spring of 2021 when I knew my job was over but I wanted to stay to work on a special project and how that ended up biting me in the heinie.  I keep feeling restless and my index finger keeps feeling itchy as I've scrolled past the apply button on a few postings that I've seen recently.  Rachel is writing stuff like this and I'm like, what am I hanging around here for?  I can already put the extra bullet points from doing the boss's job on my resume, the projects aren't that interesting or that unique to the company, and the stock payout is figured into my asking salary for the next gig.  Yeah it's rough on the boss's boss if I leave before the boss gets back but she'll live.

Anyhoo, we have an all company meeting once a month, which happened to fall this week.  I usually half listen and fold laundry during these meetings, but for some reason I found myself wandering around the house which led to me sitting in front of my "resume updating computer" (a.k.a. an old laptop that has my personal copy of Word on it).  It didn't take long to tweak up my resume and my LinkedIn profile and I patted myself on the back for getting it done.

My attention went back to the meeting.  The company usually does merit raises in March, and sure enough the CEO speaks up: "based on market conditions we've determined that there will be no merit increases this year".

What are the odds that the "no raises" announcement comes out the second that I finish updating my resume?  Way for the universe to give me another sign that it's time to move on.  If it's all the same to them, I think I'll check out them thar market conditions for myself.  This may end up in deciding to stay with the company like it did last spring, but Ima get back on the hunt.

That's all I've got.  See you next week!



20 comments:

  1. Ah, yes, Birchie, go for it.
    Checking out the job market and the "market conditions" is never a bad thing.

    Personally, applying and interviewing always stresses me out, but it's a great exercise to get me out of my comfort zone. Anyways, you don't have that problem. You have a lot of experience and handle the interviews very well. Looking forward to the update!

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    1. For me interviewing is just information gathering - I'm trying to find out if there's a better place for me to be. No pressure since I'm doing it because I want to and not because I have to. Hopefully I'll get some good stories out of it at least;-)

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  2. I woke up early and after reading your post I am now RAVENOUS. That food looks so good.

    I don't "get" Zoolander, but my husband thinks it's hilarious and quotes lines from that movie all the time.

    Your work situation sounds familiar. My job (I have two different part-time roles at a university) is fine. I feel very meh about it all. It would be nice to really love it...but at this season of life with young kids and a husband who travels a lot, it also feels like I almost need a "meh" job that doesn't stretch me too much? But when I read your post/Rachel's post, I'll admit it does make me itch to hand in my notice!

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    1. I know this might not be everyone experience but one of the reasons I was staying at the old company was because of the young kids and flexibility. Mine are 2 and 4 and I thought I would never find a role as flexible. Somehow my new place is even more flexible than my old - I may have lucked out entirely but right now I wished I hadn't used the young kids as a good reason to stay (for me) because actually it was a great reason to move.

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    2. I don't think I would ever have watched Zoolander on my own, but as a date movie it was fine and then with two teenage boys it was HILARIOUS.

      There are definitely reasons to stay at a job that isn't ideal - for example I hated the job that I had in grad school but it was gold for giving me the flexibility that I needed to get my degree done in 2 years. If I'd had the job that I loved after that, I would have flunked out because it would have been too demanding to combine with school. But also what Rachel said...there's no harm in looking around to see if maybe just maybe someone else can give you the flexibility/low stress plus a more enjoyable work day. If they can't then you can feel good about where you are.

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  3. IT'S A SIGN!!!
    Mmm that food looks delicious. The restaurant where my son works has an avocado toast that has hummus on it and honest to god, it's just so delicious. I had never thought of beans with avocado toast but now I can't think of it without.
    Zoolander is such a silly movie - I will never stop laughing thinking about the gas station scene.

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    1. I think the gas station scene was the boys' favorite

      Avocado & hummus are a too-die for combo!

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  4. That everything ciabatta roll sandwich looks so good. I really like everything everything. In fact, I am sure you already have this, but the everything spice from TJs (or Costco) is so good I put it on...you guessed it, everything!

    Wow, I have not seen Zoolander in ages, but it used to be a thing to go around and make that kissy face before taking photos; do you remember that? I don't know why it was so fun at the time, but it was, but now I look at them and wonder why someone did not tell us how silly we looked! :)

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    1. Would you believe that I've never tried the seasoning on its own? I have more work to do at TJ's and/or Costco!

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  5. Well, I have to comment on the food first- that sandwich and toast look INCREDIBLE. Seriously, your photo of that toast is beautiful (even when I make something really good, the pictures never do it justice.). I'm going to check out both those recipes, especially for when my son is home next month.
    Yes, I guess the universe is telling you it's time! And I read Rachel's post- some great thoughts there. I'll be interested to see what happens- good luck with the hunt.

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    1. Both recipes are silly easy and I'll be revisiting them soon!

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  6. I am so jealous of your toast. Maybe I'll go somewhere for lunch today and just order toasted bread. That wouldn't be weird, would it?

    Good luck with your job hunt! I live for your job updates!

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    1. If toasted bread is the weirdest order they get today, it will be a good day!

      Thanks friend! Hopefully I'll come back with some good stories to tell.

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  7. Firstly - I have MAJOR food envy! Ahh that all looks so good. I really really want that bean toast right now.

    Second, how funny to see my post linked by you, becasue I'm pretty sure your posts about job hunting helped spur me on! I especially liked this post of yours:
    http://birchwoodpie.blogspot.com/2022/07/fly-on-wall-report-i-gotsta-get-paid.html

    I find myself looking for new jobs almost daily even though I like my current job. I think that after 5 years at a company I thought was good but was actually kind of awful I'm super interested to see how good things can be... but I'm going to stay where I am for 18 months.

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    1. As you and I both know, there is NO HARM in looking. It's good to see what companies are hiring in your field, and if you see something good that you don't want for yourself, you can always recommend someone else for it. And it's the best feeling when you change jobs and realize that you got it right.

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  8. I would like to eat all of those lunches, sans tomatoes, of course. Yum! The job stuff is very interesting. I think it's great that you are tuning into that voice saying you need to look around -- intuition can be pretty powerful. Good luck!!!

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    1. It's easy enough to leave out the tomatoes! Honestly this time of year it's hard to find good ones.

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  9. I have to agree with the masses...your eats are looking pretty tasty! Zoolander...that's another flick I have not seen. Ahh, the job hunt is back on...I hope it goes well for you!!

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    1. Zoolander is too silly. I would never have thought that it was a "watch it twice" kinda movie, but for date night and then for family night it was a blast. Thanks for the good wishes!

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  10. Yum! That black bean avocado toast looks DELICIOUS. Bookmarked! And I had an everything bagel sandwich last weekend that looks similar to your ciabatta sandwich... so, so good.

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