Another Pictureless Post

Before I begin, you need to know that it is 8 pm on Tuesday evening, and I am at this moment exhaustified. I have no guarantees that what I write from here on out will be legible, entertaining, and not exaggerated. But I'll do the best I can.

It's been a whirl-wind couple of weeks!

After Brent's cousin's wedding on July 3rd, Brent and I took a couple days to sit back, relax, and make plans for taking some action this summer. Those plans resulted in me applying for a job at a company at which I would not have seen myself at this stage of life.

Basically, I graduated with a degree in Physics in December of '09, and have been looking for work in my field ever since. There have been a few almost-jobs, and there are still two positions in my field for which I am still under consideration, but who knows how long it will take for me to get hired (if they end up choosing me), and it has come to the point where Brent and I decided I need to be working. If God doesn't want me to be working in my field right now, then ok. I'll work in another field.

Therefore, on Wednesday, July 7, I drove around my area and gave my application for employment to the five closest Starbucks to my home. Two of the five stores were hiring at the time, and thankfully both of them scheduled interviews with me. I interviewed at one of the stores the subsequent Saturday and was hired on Sunday. Praise God!

I started my training on July 12 and have had 4 days of in-store training since. Here's another praise God-statement -- I am L*O*V*I*N*G it. The people in my store are fun to work with, the manager is really encouraging and attentive to my needs, and I've been assigned a "learning coach," a Starbucks veteran, to walk me through my training and answer my every question. She is extremely helpful and NEVER gets annoyed with all the questions I ask, and makes it clear to me several times a day that my training is her priority. Her attitude helps me to feel less like a burden when I botch a batch of steamed milk and have to start over....or when I knock a glass sugar canister off of the condiment bar and it shatter into a million sugary pieces. (You think I'm lying?) I did it right in front of my manager too...he just laughed at me and told me it's gonna happen. My learning coach was so sweet and turned it into a training moment, showing me the proper and safe way to clean up shattered glass, and then she went about wracking her brain for all the glass she's shattered during her time at Starbucks. :)

Today I spent 2 1/2 hours learning how to make espresso beverages, coffee beverages, and non-coffee beverages. That meant 2 1/2 hours of TRAINING at the espresso bar, making drink after drink for practice, then throwing them all away, all while the trained baristas are making customer-ordered drinks around me.

THEN - then - it came to the point in my training where I had to practice preparing drinks for customers. My learning coach started with me and walked me through the first couple of drinks. Then the line started getting longer and drink orders were piling up and I had to start doing more and more on my own. Then the line and drink orders grew even larger and it was time for my learning coach to go home, so my manager took her place...talk about nerve-wracking! My manager told me to be in charge of putting syrups in the drinks and he would take care of the rest. BTW, putting syrups in drinks is no easy matter when you're new...understanding how many pumps of what syrup goes in what is a matter of memorization and repetition (and being able to understand customers' custom orders), and I'm going on nothing but hours of experience here. But I made it through...only having to throw a few botched drinks away. :)

Soon the line and drink-orders built up so much that it was a full-fledged rush (in my humble opinion) and I wanted to shake in fear, roll up in a ball and cover my neck, but I didn't have time to. I just had to pull every resource in my brain to concentrate on what needed to be done to what drink at what time. Eventually things got so busy that my manager told another of the employees to come help him with frappucinos, because that is one thing I have NO experience with yet and I could offer him no help there. So there was three of us working on making drinks in that tiny little bar area. CRAZY.

Eventually, the rush died down, and I was thankful for some relief and the fact that less of a rush meant that my manager could coach me a little more.

Soon after that, my shift was over. I got a decaf Sumatra and a cinnamon coffee cake (complementary flavors, fyi) and chilled for a bit before I went home.

What I've found is this...getting home after working at Starbucks is kind of a shock. You get home, and you think, "It's only 4:30! I have the rest of the day ahead of me! I can do all my chores and complete all my paperwork and have a nice dinner ready for my husband when he gets home!" But then, as you move about your home getting your business done, you realize that your limbs are dead and are begging and screaming for you to lie down.

I gave myself some chill time at home to play my guitar and shower, and then it took every ounce of my strength and willpower to NOT curl up on the couch and fall asleep to a romantic comedy, but to instead sweep and mop, clean my bathroom, vacuum, and then get started on my never-ending pile of paperwork.

God was gracious to me today in that I didn't have to make dinner for my husband...he'll be home late from work and will bring dinner with him. But yikes...I'm nervous for the day when I work at Starbucks, do chores AND have to make dinner. I'll pray for strength.

There's plenty more to say about everything in life right now, but this post is long enough. The funny thing with me is that the more tired I am when I write, the more I write because I lack the brainpower to keep things short and to the point. So I just write what comes to my head and fingertips.

Ok, I'll stop writing now.

The Worst Cookbook Ever.

Not long ago Brent decided he wanted to shed a little weight, so together we started Weight Watchers. We both like the program, it works for us and our lifestyles. Based on your age, height, activity level and goal weight, you are assigned a certain number of points for every day. Each food is assigned a points value based on its amount of calories, fat and fiber. So you can eat whatever you want whenever you want, as long as you stay within your allotted points values each day. You learn REALLY fast that your idea of a good portion size is probably 3 times the amount that you really need, and you start making healthier choices because you learn that you can eat MORE of the food with less points values and that the larger points value foods should be kept to a bare minimum...unless you want to spend three quarters of your day starving after going all out on a chocolate cake for breakfast.

In addition to your daily points values, you also get a weekly allowance of points that you can use for whatever. You can save them all up for that big bbq on Saturday with mom's pretzel jello salad, or you can use a little everyday, and have an extra piece of chicken with each dinner or a truffle each night for dessert.

We like it because I can still cook my normal yummy meals, but we just eat less of them at one sitting. We've been saving a bit of money too, because we actually have leftovers after dinner that we can eat the next day for lunch!

So, why I thought a Weight Watchers cookbook was needed or wanted in this scenario I don't know. All I know is that I spotted a WW cookbook at my in-law's house, flipped it open to the dessert section and fell in love. Now I know that I fell in love with the names of the recipes, not the recipes themselves.

I took the cookbook home and got to baking/cooking right away.

I think I've set a personal record for being persistant with an awful cookbook. With each crummy dish I made, I didn't give up hope that the next one would be better, less diety, less stupid substitutiony. (I'm sorry for the made-up words.) Oh how I wish I had given up.

Raspberry Brownies

Fail. What an utter disappointment.

Roasted Red Pepper Dip

FAIL. Yuck! Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck! I dreamed of Trader Joes creamy red pepper dip, and what I got instead was a bitter tasting watery mess.

Guacamole

FAIL!! You cannot, I repeat, CANNOT, ever, never in your lifetime, substitute spinach for avacado. I'm on my knees as I plead with you, not literally, but I am desperate, PLEASE appreciate the goodness and nutritious fat of avacados and never make a stupid substitution choice like I did in obedience to the awful book! The taste will forever haunt me!

Chinese "Fried" Rice

Ok, not an utter failure. This was actually quite decent. Brent and I had it as our "new meal of the week." But what I served with it ruined any morsel of desire to ever make this again.

Chinese Stir-Fried Vegetables

EEWWWWW!! Triple, quadruple failure. Disgusting. Stomach wrenching. Nose putter-offer. So bad I couldn't even stomach a bite. NEVER put bamboo shoots in home cooking!

If it restores me in your mind in any way to a just-above-awful eyer of good recipes (as opposed to far, far below awful), I will mention that the stir-fried vegetables didn't actually sound good to me. I only made them because I needed something to go with the fried rice. Never will I use that logic again.

The take home message: NEVER COOK OUT OF A WEIGHT WATCHERS COOKBOOK.

And if you do, dump what you make in a nuclear waste facility, making sure NONE of it ever gets past your lips!

News Bytes

Today is my first day home in a long, looooooong, time. Since last Saturday. Not that long ago I guess.

I've been sleeping at my house every night, but all day every day I've been at my in-laws' house, focused on frosting 236 wedding cake shaped sugar cookies for a wedding coming up this Saturday, July 3rd. As of 10:30 pm last night, the job was done, the cookies were in their treat bags with cute little bows, and they were packaged and ready to go over to the reception hall tomorrow.

Oh my goodness. I'M. DONE. WITH. COOKIES. For now.

I had the nerve to put a little gold foil label on the back of each treat bag that says "Hayley Tyler Sugar Cookies," then it lists my email and phone number. Am I really advertising for a job like this again?

Yes. I am. Because I love it, every single bit of it. :)

In other news, some of you might remember my health ordeal that I documented on my old blog back in 2008. To attempt make a long story short, I was having once to twice daily severely painful "attacks" in my upper abdomen, the likes of which reminded doctors of gall bladder attacks. Every test for gall bladder disease under the sun was done on me, each of which came back negative. Then the doctors started testing me for pretty much every other gastrointestinal illness under the sun, and one of the tests came back positive; I was diagnosed with gastroparesis. Gastroparesis explained why I was rarely hungry and why I had lost so much weight, but it didn't explain the pain. When I started medication for gastroparesis, my pain slowly went away.

However, every once in a while I go through a couple week phases of frequent "attacks" again. On June 17 of this year, my "attacks" returned worse, more prolonged, and more frequent than ever.

I saw my GI and his best guess is that I actually DO have a problem with my gallbladder, that it is emptying too slow. That would explain the pain, and if a test that I'm having done soon comes back positive, then they'll take that little painful sucker right out of me.

In the meantime, I'm so desperate to stay out of pain that I am on day 3 of an extremely minimalistic diet. Sports drinks, saltine crackers and chicken broth. Day 1 was a giddy day for me, because I remained pain free. Day 2 I remained pain free as well, but it was less giddy because it culminated in a family dinner at Islands. I ate more saltine crackers to ease my constant salivation at that restaurant than was probably good for me.

This morning, Day 3 of the diet, it's 10:45, and I've finished a pack of saltine crackers. For comparison, each of the past two days, an entire pack was slowly eaten throughout the day.

It might have had something to do with the fact that this morning I've been getting caught up on the cooking section of Pioneer Woman's website.

I'm in bad shape.

It's gonna be even worse at the family bbq tonight. Ugh.

Thankfully, tomorrow I get to add fat free milk products, simple carbs, eggs, peanut butter, vegetable juices, fruit juices, and low-fat hard candies. (Except, I don't even like hard candies...for the most part.)

Please pray for an accurate diagnosis of what is causing my pain. Pray that it is curable, so that I won't have to eat so minimalistically and un-nutritionally the rest of my life.

Also, I have some good news. Yesterday I received my test results from the state exam I took at the end of February. Passing the exam qualifies one for a position in the Radiologic Health Branch of the California Department of Public Health. I passed the exam! Hurray! I can now be considered for jobs that open up within the department! Please pray that God will give me a job soon.

Ode to a Favorite Mixing Bowl

O bright cheerful mixing bowl, how you made me smile

How your perfect shape complemented my electric mixer,

to beat my eggwhites to stiff, creamy perfection!

How your beauty added some semblance of style

to my collection of serving dishes

How you brought gaiety to my table through the darkest of dinners

You served me well, O favorite one.

How shall I get on without you?

Excuse me...I need to find a handkerchief.

My beloved mixing bowl, given to me by my dear friend, Ashley Currie, as a wedding present from none other than Anthropologie, is in its last days. I was washing it in sudsy water and it accidentally slipped from my hands, falling with a thud on the sink bottom. When I brought it out of the water to mournfully inspect the damage, I found a long, thin thread of a crack on the inside of the bowl, and a shorter but wider crack on the outside.

Can you see it here, just under the rim?

If you look REALLY hard, you can see the long gray thread of the crack next to where I am pointing.

*sniff sniff*

I no longer feel safe using an electric mixer in it. I'm going to let it live out the rest of it's days peacefully, resting under the weight of nothing more than a salad until it goes.

In this case, I thought a memorial before the death would be appropriate.

USA! USA! USA!

U.S. soccer, Landon Donovan, World Cup...it doesn't get much better than this ladies and gentlemen.

Soccer is my all time favorite sport to watch. Landon Donovan is my favorite player to watch. He's scored two goals so far this world cup, and his goal today sent our U.S. team into the finals. YEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

I picked my dad and brother up at 5:45 am this morning so that the three of us could go watch the U.S. vs Algeria game at the British Crown & Anchor Pub in Thousand Oaks. We arrived at the Crown & Anchor at 6:20 am, and there was already a line formed at the gate, which would open at 6:30.

We got our place in line and tried to count how many people there were in front of us to determine whether or not we would get a seat at a table with a decent view of the game.

Then I tried to take a self portrait of the three of us, and failed miserably.

The atmosphere even outside the pub was exciting. People were wearing USA or England soccer jerseys (the pub would be showing the England match as well) and everyone was discussing the two teams' chances of making it out of Group C. I was nervous. I always get nervous before the start of a game that my heart is involved in.

When they opened the doors, we discovered that there was plenty of room for everyone. The bar they reserved for England watchers, so the US got the restaurant area with much more room. We sat down at a large table and offered for others to sit with us, including two of Hunter's friends from high school that we ran into in line.

The pub has a great atmosphere. Very British, very old-fashioned pubish.

Finally the Algerian and U.S. players came out onto the field. When our national anthem was sung, a bunch of people at the pub stood up with their hands over their hearts and sang along, including my dad, Hunter and me. Hunter and I had agreed that when the anthem was over, we would start a "USA! USA!" chant. We did, and it worked. The whole restaurant came alive with the chant, and we could feel the nerves and excitement in the air. It was awesome.

The game started with a near tragedy as Algeria made a shot at our goal within the first few minutes and barely missed, the ball hit the goal post. After that, the U.S. was on a mission to dominate the game, and dominate they did. Attack after attack and shot after shot that got tantalizingly close, until finally Clint Dempsey put the ball in their net. The whole pub erupted in applause and cheers, until we discovered that the ref had called the goal back because he thought it was offsides (it wasn't). Oh well.

Half time came and everyone breathed for a bit, discussing how the U.S. was playing and what they needed to do to get a win. They NEEDED to beat, not just tie, Algeria. It was the difference between moving on in the World Cup or their World Cup experience being over.

The second half started, and early on Donovan took a corner kick. As he was prepping for it, many people cheered for Donovan and yelled encouragements at the tv. Hunter and I started another "USA!" chant that again took off well in the restaurant.

Here is Hunter chanting:

Donovan's corner kick was anticlimactic, and we suffered through another 45 minutes of mouth-wateringly close shots by the U.S. The U.S. WANTED the win, it was evident, but the Algerian defense was putting up a good fight, and many of our shots were just simply wide or high. As the clock ticked closer and closer to 90 minutes, the U.S. began substituting offensive players for defensive...Buddle for Edu, Beasley for Bornstein. They weren't gonna stop attacking until they got their goal.

The clock reached 90 minutes. The refs announced 4 additional minutes of stoppage time, and the pub erupted in cheers and applause (4 minutes is a rather long amount of stoppage time for soccer, meaning more chances for goals).

The U.S. owned those four minutes. They made an assault on Algeria that resulted in Donovan blowing the ball into the net. 1-0. U.S.

The pub EXPLODED.

As you can see, the screaming and cheering lasted for quite some time. It was deafening. Ecstatic. It was elation. I was jumping up and down and screaming and trying to snap pictures and punching the air and screaming and screaming. So was everyone else, except for the taking pictures part.

Oh my goodness, my stomach still gets butterflies when I remember that moment. (Is that what it felt like in Heaven when Jesus rose from the dead?)

Algeria tried to make a counterattack but got too feisty and the ref blew the whistle against them. They were furious and in the ref's face, so the ref gave one of them a red card, and he was sent off the field. The pub erupted again in screaming, cheers, and applause.

Hahaha. :)

Time was called. The U.S. had won. More jumping up and down, more screaming, more cheers. Tears came to my eyes, but thankfully didn't make it out (how embarrassing).

On our way out to the car, one of our fellow game watchers saw me, pointed and said, "You were a wreck in there!"

"Who, me?" I asked.

"Yeah! You were so stressed and involved in the game!"

Yup, that's me.

And the U.S. goes on.

USA! USA! USA!

P.S. If you were wanting a review of the Crown & Anchor as a restaurant, I have one. On a scale of one to ten, it's atmosphere is a 9.5. It's food and service, however, is more like a 2 or a 3. My omelet this morning, for instance, still had uncooked eggwhites............GAG! And they gave me American bacon, not British bacon like I had asked for. I'm just being honest.

Summer Chicken & Basil Pasta

So this was last week's new recipe dinner. The recipe caught my eye as I was skimming through a coupon book mailed to me from Ralph's. It was a recipe next to a coupon for I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! margarine...and of course the recipe utilized ICBINB!, though I substituted the real deal. I will NEVER use margarine in cooking. Ever.

This recipe is definitely a keeper. It's not gourmet, but it's simple, comforting, healthy and refreshing. Brent loves it, I like it, it's a one pan meal...it's going in my recipe book!

4 tbsp I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! (or, if you have any self-respect, BUTTER)

1 lb thinly sliced boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

2 cloves garlic chopped

2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved (I just used plum tomatoes...Brent and I don't like the cherry ones)

1 3/4 chicken broth

1/4 cup fresh basil leaves

8 oz. whole grain spaghetti, cooked and drained

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Melt 2 tbsp butter in nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; cook chicken, stirring occasionally, until chicken is thoroughly cooked. Set chicken aside. Melt remaining butter over medium heat and cook garlic 30 seconds. Cook tomatoes, stirring frequently, 2 minutes. Add broth; bring to boil over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring frequently, 2 minutes. Stir in chicken, basil and spaghetti; heat through. Sprinkle with cheese. Refrigerate any leftovers. Serves 4.

*Notes* It needs salt! A little bit does the trick. Also, the leftovers are just as good as the fresh cooked...trust me, we just had the leftovers for dinner tonight. :)

Food Update

Filets de Poisson Bercy aux Champignons

Translation: Fish Filets Poached in White Wine with Mushrooms

This was Saturday the 12th new meal of the week. My first attempt at a fish dish from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Brent and I had some good friends over for dinner that night, so I got four people to rate the meal. All four of us said very good. In fact, Brent even went the extra mile to say that the sauce was fantastic, and I agree. Buttery, savory, fishy. Very fishy, so if you're like my sister, this isn't the dish for you, but if you're someone like me who has started succumbing to the goodness of fishy fish, then try this. Tomorrow.

Though it was good, I'm not sure I'm going to make it again. I'm not sure I can explain why. I guess it felt like fancy restaurant food, when while I'm at home, I like to feel like I'm eating fancy homecooked food? Is that a good explanation?

Then again, if I had a restaurant's chef in my home, I would ask him to make this dish often. So maybe it's the effort put into the dish that makes me want to pass over writing this one down as a keeper?

I would post the recipe here, but it's very long and complicated. (It is, afterall, from Julia Child.) If you really so desperately want it, ask me. :)

Virgin Daiquiri a La Brent Tyler

I love that I have the kind of husband who likes to make virgin daiquiris, and that he adorns them with umbrellas and extra pieces of fruit every single time. His daiquiris are delicious...they always turn out different, depending on what fruit we have on hand, but they are most often delicious. :)

Strawberry-Vanilla Bean Cake

The picture doesn't do it justice....the camera made the whole picture too orange, so I spent four seconds trying to fix it in Photoshop, got impatient, and saved the picture like this. But imagine a creamy white cake flecked with vanilla bean specks, with creamy white frosting with a hint of pink and strawberries. It was a beautiful cake.

Delicious too. So moist, so rich.

I had seen the recipe in a magazine a little while ago, and salivated every four hours every time that I thought about it till I made it. I waited for a special occasion with guests to make it, and when I finally did, it was worth the wait.

My only regret was that I wished I had used more vanilla bean. The recipe called for one whole tbsp of the pricey stuff, so I bought four beans thinking they would probably be more than enough. Wrong. Four vanilla beans barely got me half a tbsp of flecks. I dream of how flavorful the cake would have been had I used an entire tablespoon.

Again, if you want the recipe, ask me. :)