The Art of Doing Nothing

Since I've taken a job as receptionist I've had to master the art of doing nothing. Everyone here knows it. In fact, many have compliment my ability to stay occupied. There's such a high turnover rate for this position, I'm convinced it is because others have tried, and failed, to master this art form.

I wish to share with you my knowledge.

1-Break time into units.

I learned this trick from the Hugh Grant film "About A Boy". When you're given nine hours to do one hour of work, it is easy to be intimidated. The key to sucess is to break that time down into units. Making it through 30 minutes is much easier than making it through an enitre day.

2-Break down your work.

When I first took this position, I repeatedly made the folly of doing all my work in the first hour of work, leaving the rest of the day to do nothing. I would also quickly exhausted my "things to do while doing nothing" options. This made the last few hours of work excruciating. Now I spread out the responsibilities and activities. In the morning I open up the branch, in the late morning I check the "ready for funding" que, in the afternoon I prepare files for the courier, in the mid-afternoon I audit all the logs and drawers, etc...

3-Keep a list of things to do when you're doing nothing.

Through the weeks, I've progressively developed a list of things to fill up my "nothing" time, keeping in mind that each activity should take no longer than one or two units (other wise I wear myself out). I also like to appear busy, that way I occasionally fool even myself into believing that I'm actually doing something worthwhile. Activities include: Take a nice stroll through the branch, chat-up a member, aimlessly surf KSL.com, write in my blog, find a pirated copy of a book online and read a few chapters, write an e-mail to someone outside the credit union, etc...

By and large, I think it's safe to say I'm now a master of the art of doing nothing. Is that a marketable skill?It's hard to say.

The Dog Poop Cookie

You know the Dog Poop Cookie Metaphor? Right? The one where you decide to make Chocolate Chip cookies so you spend time and energy gathering ingredients, mixing, creaming, stiring, measuring, baking, all in an effort to make the perfect cookie.

But by some cruel twist of fate you realize a small piece of dog poop somehow made it's way into the batter. Though the cookies look the same, smell the same, and probably taste the same, it's definitely not the same. In fact, the whole batch is ruin all because of one tiny piece of dog poop.

Sometimes I feel like my life is a banner for the dog poop cookie metaphor. After dedicating time, energy, concern, and who know what else to life I still somehow manage to let slip a tiny bit of dog poop into my life-batter. And whabam, we're back at square one, starting the recipe all over again.

Even though someone might look at my life and say, Oh, that looks like a delicious cookie! I want one!

Little do you know, it's chuck full of dog poop!

Then again, there's plenty about my life that is delicious. I just can't help but wonder when I'll stop allowing that little piece of dog poop access to my cookies.

To Bri...

...who knows that saying nothing is sometimes the best thing to say.

To Kristen...

....who happiness always seems to find.

May 15, 2011

Once again the parents have left to yet another engineering conference. This time at New Orleans. With them away, Blake and I decided to invite Krist, Bri, and Nate over for an overnight stay. Of course the first night I was sick and after making dinner, had to stay home while they went to a late movie. (What's up with that? Lately I've been getting sick every other week! Ugh!)

Anyhow, the next morning we had waffles (my favorite recipe!) then made our to the lovely lake/park down the street from us in the Daybreak community. It's one of my favorite places to go on a warm sunny day. There's parks, lovely landscaping, and a nice path that goes all the way around the lake. Here's a few of the highlights.

On another, unrelated note, for the first time in several months, I saw my favorite berry in the grocery store! 

While this little beauty is fantastic all by itself, there is one very simply go-to recipe I use whenever I have fresh fruit and I'm worried it'll go bad before I can use it all.

Here's what you'll need: 

Pound Cake (angle food would work as well) you of course could make the cake, but Sara Lee makes a wonderful cake that I always keep on hand in my freezer for days when I need something sweet, fast.

You'll also need:

Any fresh berry or fresh peaches

1 Pint Whipping Cream

14 oz can of Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 Cup Cold Water

1 teaspoon Almond Extract

3 oz box Vanilla Pudding (or cheesecake)

Mix the Cream, Sweetened Condensed Milk, Cold Water, Almond Extract and Pudding until smooth. Refrigerate until the pudding sets up, around 15 minutes. Layer the cake, pudding mix, and fresh fruit to creak a lovely, quick, and absolutely delicious summer time dessert!

Enjoy!

If I Say "Hi" to You Do Not...

My job requires that I "greet" every individual that walks through the door. This job, though at first tedious and tiresome, has become increasingly interesting. For those of you who do not want to become a victim of my uncouth sense of humor I have the following suggestions.

If someone says "Hi" do not respond by:

1. Saying "Good."

2. Looking at me in a bewildered, distracted way, so much so that you lose your footing and trip. It's not like I said something dirty, I said "Hi".

3. Look at me, then look away pretending like you never heard me. Just so ya know, I know you heard me, you looked when I first said it.

Here are a few more suggestions for public behavior:

1. When asking for the location of the restroom, unless you're younger than five, it is not appropriate to say, "I gotta pee, where's your bathroom?" Especially if you're a grown man. I really did not want to know that you "gotta pee".

2. I'm not a mom, so I can't make many assumptions about appropriate behaviors for parents, but I think it's safe to say that if your child is running around in circles of a bank lobby yelling "SUCKERS! SUCKERS! SUUUUUUCKEEEEERSSSSSS!" it would be a good idea to ask them to stop. Just a thought.


Any other thoughts about appropriate public behavior?

Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring

Goodbye winter, hello spring. Can I say that yet? It seems like winter has dragged on and on and on! Even now, I'm sitting in my family room with the balcony door open and my winter coat on, hoping for a ray of sunshine! Granted, it is a lot warmer than it was over the weekend (did anyone else have to scrape their car Friday morning of ice??). It's sufficiently cold and overcast today that my door should not be open. I guess I'm desperate! Besides, doesn't the saying go "April showers bring May flowers"? Well, incase mother nature is not aware, it is officially MAY and I want some flowers! :) I guess I should be smart enough by now to know that Utah goes directly from unbearably cold to unbearably hot. 

Anyhow, I have some fun pics from Blake and my comings and goings through this pseudo-spring time.

So random question-Blake is completely obsessed with these things. His car always smells like "New Car Scent", and mine smells like "Very Berry", which is great. But does anyone else think these little hanging trees look kind of trashy??....What do you think?

Anyhow, back on track: Dinner at my grandma Money's

Hahahahhahahahahaha-I love my mom. Not to mention my grandma's funny expression, is she eating something sour? IDK, all I know is the jello we're all eating is delic. (Does Nate have a little mexi-stache going on??)

Nelson Family Party

We had a family party at my Aunt Sandra's. Here's Kristen and our cousin's daughter, Addison. Isn't she so cute?

Emily's Twelfth Birthday Party

Emily (center) is my sister-in-law. She turned twelve and I helped out with her party by making pizza for the group.

McDonnalds Grand Opening

On to the next event, McDonnalds! So, Blake decided that he wanted to go the the McDonnalds "grand opening" for the new McDonnalds in Herriman. His motivation being that if he stayed over night he'd get a coveted free combo meal for a year (I personally think that sounds kind of disgusting...but whatev'). There was only one hitch, he didn't get off work in time. Enter, me and Denny.

I couldn't tell you why I'm smiling in this picture, it was freezing cold, even Denny was cold, and I sat for several hours waiting. When Blake got off work he switched me places and stayed all night long with his brother and friend Nick.

Journey to the Center of the Earth!

Have you ever been to Bingham Copper Mine? Well Blake and I live about ten minutes away, and since I"ve never been before, we headed on over. The pit was unbelievably deep, this picture really doesn't do it justice. They've truly dug thruogh an entire mountain. It was pretty awesome, they have monster trucks there that make buses look like toys.

Ruth's Diner up Immigration Canyon

With Blakes new job, he doesn't have many saturdays off. A couple saturdays ago he was actually off! And we were wasting it! Just sitting around, not sure what to do when bam we saw an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on Food Network, telling us to head over to Ruth's Diner up Immigration Canyon for a superb breakfast. And it was to die for!

I had a smoked salmon omelet

Blake had their famous biscuits and gravy. It was delic! You should check it out.

Summer Clothes Shopping

Even though there arestill skiffs of snow on the ground, we couldn't stop oursleves from going summer clothes shopping!

Kristen, Bri, mom, and I went. Isn't this bag cute?

Oh yeah, and Blake was there too! He got some Tom's shoes.

Days at the Park

Flying Denny!

Now that the snow is gone we've really enjoyed taking Denny to parks and letting him run around. 

Finally, we had a family party for Easter and I tried out a Blueberry Lemon Cheesecake bar recipe. I forgot to take a pretty picture, and took one half way through dessert-they don't look like much but they are SO great! In fact, most of the recipes I try just end up saved on my computer, very few actually make it to my recipe box, on a recipe card, but this one did. So I'm not lying when I say, this is a keeper and you should try it out.

Blueberry Lemon Cheesecake Bars

Preheat oven at 325 degrees.

Base Crust:

2 T Sugar

1/8 t Cinnamon

9 graham crackers

1/2 stick butter

Put all these ingredients in a food processor (or blender), and pulse until they're only crumbs. Press into the bottom of a 9*9 inch pan, bake in oven 12 minutes. Remove from oven, and cool before adding the filling.

Filling:

16 oz cream cheese (two packages)

2 eggs

2 lemons zest and juice

1/2 c sugar

Mix all these very well, I use the same food processor (or blender). Once the crust has cooled, pour the mix over the it. Drop 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries into the filling. The blueberries break down as they bake and are SO delicious by the time it's all done.

Bake 35 min, when you take it out it'll still be jiggly, just allow it to cool and put it in the refrigerator for at least three hours. By the time it's done cooling, it'll be nice and firm.

You really have to try these, they are SO good!

Curtesy Food Network, Tyler Florence

T=Tablespoons

t=teaspoons

Can't wait until I have some warm, summer pictures!