Finding Passion

I've spent the last few years trying to find my hobby.  Everybody else seems to have a hobby, but I was missing that in my life.  I tried any number of things, but nothing seemed to stick.

While watching TV today the show mentioned cheesecake, and that instantly made me want to bake.  Kevin and I went to the store and got the ingredients we didn't have.

The cheesecake is currently in the oven, and the batter tasted amazing.

I think baking is my hobby, and I think it always has been.  Baking has always brought me joy and been a challenge.  I realize now that I've always had a hobby.  I just lost my way as my list of food allergies increased.

I've been reminded now that baking makes me happy, and I will spend the future trying out new recipes and creating amazing baked goods that you would want to eat, even if you don't have the allergies.

Here's hoping for lots of delicious baked goods in my future.....starting with cheesecake tomorrow.

5 Years Later

For some reason I feel inspired to start blogging again.

Five years have passed since my last blog post and a lot has happened.....kind of.

I finished court reporting school, passed the CSR, passed the RPR, passed the RMR, was a pro tem in court, became part-time faculty at West Valley College, and just last December became a full-time official reporter with Santa Clara Superior Court.

While I'm not sure what this blog will be about, we'll just see where it goes.

For the time being, I'm sitting in an empty courtroom since every trial went away.  I will sit and hope that they send us a multi-day multi-defendant prelim that takes my time.  Otherwise it's going to be a VERY BORING week.

Here's hoping for a busier workday and more transcripts.

Happy Almost New Year

As the year comes to an end many people can't wait for the new year to start hoping that it will be a better year than the current. I can honestly say, I loved 2011. It was full of lots of work to do, but also many fun times and family.

I will mark 2011 down as an AWESOME year. I'm sure if I think hard enough that I can find things that did not go so well, but I will choose to remember to good times and everything that made the year amazing. Life is so short and you cannot wish for a year to end, because in reality you do not have an unlimited of new years to count on for things to get better.

Here's to hoping that everyone can find the joy and happiness from the past year and be thankful for everyday. Here's to hoping that 2012 will be an even more awesome year for everyone. :-)

1 week down.

I am still alive after one week of vacation. The first four days were the worst, but after that I seem to be doing much better. I have done a ton of cleaning and cooking. Then Kevin's sister Libby came up to visit and I have been spending lots of time with her.

I am optimistic that traveling down to So Cal will reduce my boredom since I will be surrounded by people and busy doing lots of different activities.

Happy Holidays to everyone and hopefully your vacation is enjoyable :-)

Vacation :-/

Why am I so bad at vacation? I guess it is simply that I do not enjoy not having work. I know there are many wonderful hobbies and activities that one can do, but I thrive off of assigned work.

I have been on vacation since Thursday (making this day 4) and it feels like it has been a month. I am dying of boredom. I want assignments. In general, I just want to be required to do something.

As my family and friends know, I am not the type of person who can just relax, so vacation is a long agonizing process for me.

Here's to hoping that the next two weeks go by quickly so I can get back to school and things that will keep me busy. :-)

Starlight Mint Wreath

With Thanksgiving over, everyone is putting up their holiday decorations. I typically don't do anything mainly because Chanukah is normally over right around Thanksgiving. But this year is different. Chanukah is at the same time as Christmas so I can put up decorations now and leave them up for a long time.

Now, I don't really have any Chanukah decorations and I am not a huge fan of Christmas decorations, but I did find a tutorial to make a starlight mint wreath last year and it caught my eye. I was intrigued by the project and filed it away as a project to do eventually.

This year I got the motivation to actually do the project. Although it may be a little "Christmassy," I justify it since it is made of candy and candy is for everyone, not necessarily just for Christmas.

So after collecting all the materials, of which there weren't many--foam wreath, starlight mints (lots of them!) and hot glue--I assembled the project which only took a couple hours. Most of the time was spent opening up the mints.

The final project - just needs to be coated with something so the bugs don't eat it :-)

It was a great project and it looks beautiful and rather elegant on the front door. I am now inspired to make wreaths with all different candies to see what other cool designs I can make. I might just have to start a candy wreath line....haha.

Here's to hoping I continue on my creative crafting spree and create many other beautiful things :-)

Thanksgiving 2011

Kevin and I spent our third thanksgiving living together and our first thanksgiving as husband and wife. Of course, just like usual, we cooked a full thanksgiving meal. Although, one change this year was that we abandoned our excel spreadsheet schedule that said exactly what to do at what time. Abandoning the schedule did result in eating an hour later than usual.....but who cares?

In front of our crazy huge thanksgiving meal :-)

It was a wonderful day cooking together. We make such a great cooking team. We had a huge menu. We roasted two chickens, made sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, whipped potatoes, Mrs. Cubbison's dressing, gravy, crescent rolls, our awesome salad, gluten free cornbread muffins, and last but not least our icebox lemon cheesecake.

With no schedule, I seemed to be much more calm about the whole process. In the end we had an awesome meal and were able to spend a wonderful day together.

Of course we had to have a funny picture :-)

I guess I should be cliche and say what I am thankful for......well, I am thankful for life and everything in it, the good, the bad, the ugly, the sickness and everything else that comes along with it. Where I am in my life right now is AWESOME, and it is everything and everyone in my life that has gotten me here.

Here's to hoping that I continue to appreciate everyday of life and everything that life has to offer me :-)