Feeling grateful!

I'm feeling so inspired by all of you doing your Friday reviews on how good your week has been! I decided I should take a little time to concentrate on the good things in my life!

... My family. After being gone last year, it has been so nice to be back in the country and able to call up my mom or go have lunch with my sister. I don't have to worry about time differences or anything like that. And we're all super excited because my brother is getting married to his long-time girlfriend in about 3 weeks! We all love them both and can't wait to see them get hitched!

... I got a call back about a job today! It's here in Nashville, and we've scheduled an interview for Tuesday. It just shows me that God has His plan and things may not work out the way you want them to all the time, but it always ends up for the best! Keeping my fingers crossed for next week...

... Being crafty! It has been my saving grace these last few months. My jewelry gives me the creative outlet I need and gives me a little bit of spending money in the process. Plus I get to meet all of you crafty people!

ps- I'll try to borrow a camera this weekend to take a picture of that cowl I'm knitting. It's coming along nicely!!

Hope y'all have a great weekend!!

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Seriously???

So I turned down that position with AmeriCorps in Mississippi. It was just too scary to think all that could go wrong in the next year, and I wouldn't have any spare money for emergencies. I really want to buy a "new" used car in the next year, and I think a new laptop is making its way onto my list too. This position just wouldn't ever allow for either of those things, and in a year's time when the contract ended, I'd be out of a job once again. I just need something a little more permanent, and with a little room to start saving money. So the job search continues! blah....

I caught this commercial on TV last night. Is this for real?



Scary thing is, I think it is real. What a great way to commemorate our president! I love the tagline- "Can you grow one? YES YOU CAN!" It's pretty funny.

Hope you're all having a great week!

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TAG! I'm it!

Michele over at By Your Side tagged me! She gave me the Premio Meme Award... what does that mean anyway? LOL Well, whatever it means, thank you so much Michele, I am excited to accept it because now I have to give 10 random facts about myself! I know this little game was going around facebook for a while, and I never got tagged for it but I really wanted someone to tag me!




So here are 10 quasi-interesting facts about myself:
1. I am the youngest of 3... my sister is nine years older, then my brother is six years older than me. My parents still call me their baby, and I guess that's okay with me:)
2. I was Valedictorian of my high school class, and then graduated second in my architecture major. Funny thing is, when all my architecture friends found out I was ranked second, they all went "REEALLY??!" LOL Truth is, I'm not very smart, I just work really hard and I'm a really good studier.
3. I love to travel. I would be in complete bliss if I had a job where I would live in one European city for 6 months, then move to Asia for 6 more... then Africa, or wherever, so on and so on....
4. With that being said, I have a complete and utter fear of commitment. Relationships, jobs, where to live... it controls many aspects of my life and I'm working to get over it!
5. I hardly ever remember my dreams, except the ones where my teeth are falling out. Freaks me out every time...
6. My college nicknames include "The Heidster" (and it apparently MUST have "The" at the beginning)... I helped build a house in college, and the eventual owner called me "Handy" instead of Heidi.... then I did a bunch of construction work for my Thesis, and my guy teammates called me "She-ra" (the female version of He-man).
7. Apparently I'm unusually strong.... thus, She-ra.
8. I have an insatiable sweet tooth! What girl doesn't?? My absolute favorite is Mint Oreos!!
9. Right before last Christmas, I came back from a year-and-a-half living and working in Sydney, Australia. I absolutely loved it and tried to stay longer, but my immigration visa wouldn't let me. It's in my 10-15ish year plan to move back there.
10. I just remembered another nickname- Noodle Arms.

And with accepting the award, now I must pass it along to 10 blogging buddies. Here are the ten blogs I wanted to pass it on to.

1. EtsyExpo
2. Little Card Maker's Paper Creations
3. Pickles on Pizza
4. PolkaDot Moon
5. MY MIX MIX
6. Audrey's Country Crafts
7. Southern Belle's Blog
8. Tile Me Beautiful
9. Sweet Cuddle Cakes
10. Baroness Bijoutery

So there you have it! I can't wait to hear what the next 10 have to tell us about themselves!

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My mind's a-turning!

I am just completely and utterly confused right now. My brain might explode. I had my phone interview today with the guy from Habitat for Humanity. He said the thought of having an architecture person in this position made him giddy. Which made me feel good, but now gives me this sense of guilt if I DON'T take the job.

You see, the job is sponsored by AmeriCorps- have you heard of it? I hadn't before I learned of this position. I guess the easy way to define it is by saying it's like a domestic Peace Corps, sponsoring people to be part of different organizations, with the main purpose of fighting poverty. Habitat for Humanity is somehow related to it, or funded by it, I don't know... I haven't figured all this out. Lots of colleges encourage students to participate for a year, so that age group (18-24) is the bulk of the VISTA volunteers. But the part that I just don't understand is that to volunteer/work with an AmeriCorps organization, you will earn less than minimum wage. I just never knew that was possible! I mean it's a governmental organization, so how do they pay you less than MINIMUM wage??! He even mentioned that some of the workers take advantage of food stamps. I would be living below the poverty line. I just had no idea what all this position brought with it- I mean I love helping people, but not if it's going to put me in the poor house!

But at the same time... am I crazy?? Because I'm really tempted! I'm finding solutions to the money problem already. I've found that I could rent a nice house with 3 other volunteers for about $300/ month, bills included. Add on about $80/ month for car insurance, and what's really left? Food, gas, a little bit of spending money. And suddenly it becomes very do-able. I mean I've roughed it before, and it was one of the best experiences in my life! Maybe this could be similar... And the actual job part of it sounds great- I would be working to design Habitat houses, and working to make them more energy efficient and greener. How important is that?!

And it's only a year-long contract, have I mentioned that??

Oh, and my favorite- there's a chance that they might want me to start Sept.1. Yup... that's in 2 weeks!

I am just in knots thinking about it. I talked to my mom, she thinks I'm crazy. She wants to talk to my Dad and see what he says about it. Yeah, like he'll LOVE the thought of his 26-year-old daughter working for peanuts!

I am just back and forth, back and forth over it. I've searched for blogs to see if I can find any volunteers in Biloxi, to see if they are completely miserable or loving every minute of it. I could see it going either way.

What do you think? Does it sound crazy? Or should I hold out for something that could pay THREE TIMES the amount? (which still isn't very much!! LOL)

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Fingers crossed!!!

Okay, so just a quick weekend update. I've been looking for a job, on and off, for about 5 or 6 months. Not much luck so far for me. I was concentrating on Nashville hoping to find something here because I like the city and my sister and her family live here. Well, a friend of mine pointed me to a job opening with Habitat for Humanity. They have an opening on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi for a 'Sustainable Building Specialist'. Doesn't that just sound really important??! LOL. I have a degree in Architecture, and some previous experience from college with building for the poor so it seems like a good fit. Plus, I definitely see myself going in the direction of "green architecture." Although I always kind of imagined myself working for a big deal architecture firm and making lots of money :)

Anyway, I sent the guy my resume and cover letter on Friday and he wrote back within a few hours to set up a phone interview on Monday. So we shall see. The only thing that makes me kind of nervous about it is that the ad mentioned "stipend" instead of "salary". That word scares me a little. I definitely can't live off of savings or my parents anymore, so I'm really hoping that a stipend is a decent amount. Oh, there's also a housing allowance too. I don't live a very extravagant lifestyle or anything, so if it was enough for me to get by, I'd probably seriously consider it!

So keep your fingers crossed for me this weekend! I'll report back to you after our conversation on Monday!

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Feeling crafty...

I've been really crafty this past week. Or maybe just really bored... But I've decided to branch out a little with my projects and go back to try some other avenues of craftiness. One of these is knitting. I picked up a free knitting pattern at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago for this cowl and have been itching to try it.When I went to Michael's craft store the other day, I picked up some HEAVENLY yarn by Naturally Caron from the Spa series. It's made with bamboo and feels sooo soft! I absolutely love it. I'm a really slow knitter so it will take me a while. I don't see how the knitters on Etsy make any money, they must be super fast. It'll take me like 200 hours to finish this thing. But I really love the feeling of satisfaction from creating something wearable from a big ball of yarn! We'll see how I go with it, maybe one day I'll expand my Etsy shop to include knitted goods...

I've also been thinking about finishing a painting I started back in college! I wish my camera wasn't broken or I'd post a picture. It was a semester-long project for a watercolor class, and we had to start by carefully drafting a building we liked- I chose an old barn that always caught my eye. So I drafted it, careful not to leave out a single detail, and then started watercoloring it. We had to use painfully diluted paints so it was literally taking forever. No one in the class finished. But now I really really want to buy some new brushes and paints (I lost all my old ones in college). Hopefully I'll finish it one of these days!

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Lowe's and sheep shearing

So we're in. We moved. It was a little crazy. My sister had scheduled movers for Wednesday and everything worked out fine as far as that went, except... we didn't have everything packed. So Thursday and Friday were spent taking car loads of assorted kitchen and closet items to the new house. But in the end everything worked out well and we got it done and we're settling in nicely!

I went to Lowe's the other day to try and get some new hardware for their futon- it was lost in their last move. Kind of a funny job you may think to be handed off to a 20-something year old woman, right? Well truth be told I am kind of handy, my years in architecture school taught me well, and I've used all sorts of tools and fasteners. So I've become a little bit of the handy man LOL... anyway, I get to Lowe's and I'm looking for the right kind of bolts and this older gentleman comes up to "help" me. I pretty much know what I'm looking for but I'm taking my time to try and figure out the right pieces. So then he starts suggesting what he thinks I need, with this kind of amused smile on his face the whole time... a woman in the hardware store, hm, go figure? So I picked out my pieces, said I would try those and he kind of laughed and said "oh you're just a regular Martha Stewart, aren't you?" Yeah, you always see Martha hanging out in the hardware store on her show... men!!

My brother-in-law's parents came down for the weekend from Ohio. Apparently they read my blog occasionally so I have to say lots of nice things about them;) Anyway, they were telling me about some friends of theirs, a couple in their mid-40s who retired from their engineer jobs and recently moved to Maine. They bought some land on the coast, built a super earth-friendly house that is completely off the grid, and have opened a bed-n- breakfast. They raise sheep and chickens, and when the sheep get sheared, the wife spins the wool and knits things to sell. She attaches tags to each of her items, and the tags have a picture of the sheep whose wool was used! The husband makes soap and they sell their things at craft shows. I was just so amazed by their story and way of life- I told them that those people were my idols! Imagine retiring at that age and living such a simple life! I can feel my blood pressure decreasing already...

Okay I feel like I have a lot to do today... not sure what that is, but I should get started!

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