| Rayne Today Searching for dharma, in spite of the weather...
DharmaSurfing: Darkest before the dawn... One of my esteemed Salon Blog colleagues asked recently when I’d be posting something under this category. I told him creativity comes and goes in waves. The problem here is that I'm trying to surf on a dead calm sea. Or worse, a land-locked pond rapidly freeze-drying. A frozen tundra, devoid of signs of life. Yup, I’m still unemployed. Still checking all the job hunting websites, newspaper ads for a 3-county area, occasionally checking jobs a couple hours away, keeping in touch with my alma mater, networking with professionals. Nada. The recent interview for a contract job didn’t pan out; there were a number of equally qualified candidates, some of which would not have issues with shift flexibility as I would. Today’s article in Salon about the dearth of good jobs for people in IT says it all; the article was a good laugh, albeit an ironic and painful one. Hey, go into IT! -- everyone said only a handful of years ago – they’re hurting for people and will be for a long time. Hurting being the operative word now, and then some. I’m guilty, too, encouraged every underling and student who worked for me to consider a career in IT. Fortunately, I’ve always felt a double-major was best and encouraged pairings like engineering AND MIS or business AND CIS. I hope to God that any of my earliest protégés did have double-majors and didn’t end up in an IT concentration. Sheesh. So here I am, degreed in management with experience in customer service, legal, accounting, general management, and latest in IT and project management. The majority of my experience was with two Fortune 100 companies. I can do nearly anything pertinent to running a business (hence my on-going exploration into starting a business of my own). And here it is, the available jobs listed with the unemployment office for my county. All 21 of them for a county of 210,000 people. There’s one job out of the lot for which I’m qualified by experience and education. The rest…? Hmm, I don’t really think you’d want me to be your LPN, nor do I think I could make a week in a fast food joint without going off about their gross incompetence (if you'd ever gotten fast food around here, you'd be tempted to reach out and touch someone very quickly). Yes, there's another 30 more listings in the paper that don't show up on this list, but they look a lot like this distribution, with an emphasis on contract work and laborers:
The internship at the top is the funniest one; the actual description (detailing extensive software and coding experience requirements) looks a lot like one of the internships featured in *uckthatjob.com. I surely hope no one signs on it so the company can get a clue.
Sadly, the next two adjoining counties look the same way. Slim and none. For some reason, one of the two of them has a slew of insurance sales jobs; I wonder what's up with that? Having lakefront, some of the other county's employers are starting to look for help in parks and recreation. Bet those short-term summer jobs picking up the beach pay enough to cover my commuting gas money, and I'll meet some interesting characters to boot. Perfect -- if I didn't have kids and a mortgage or any hope of retirement.
Until something changes on the employment front, I’m chipping away at a few classes, trying to catch up on a lot of reading material I missed while employed, take advantage of new opportunities in activism, spend more time with the kids, pick up more of the household burden while hubby stresses out enough for both of us. (Oh, yeah, learn how to blog, improve my writing skills and acquire some more web development skills.) It still wears on me a bit when people ask me why I’m not off and running to a meeting or why they’re seeing more of me around the house. I prefer to think of this as germination time. Something will sprout when it’s ready, from underneath all this frozen darkness. In the mean time, I have to nurture it, maintain an optimum environment for growth. It would be nice if the rest of the principles in this economy saw it that way, too…  comment []What’s for Dinner?: Italian Roast Beef I must have gone too long without red meat; we’re having it twice in one week! Worse, I’m going to feed roast beef to hubby who’s watching his cholesterol closely. Not to worry – it’s very low fat and extremely tasty. Perfect served with a risotto, gnocchi, pasta, or as a roast beef sandwich on Italian sandwich rolls (like a Chicago roast beef sandwich). If you visited Struggle in a Bungalow Kitchen recently, you may recall some posts and comments about Coq au Vin prepared with white wine versus red wine. Leah was concerned initially, but I think it turned out fine. This is another white wine dish – yes, you might be surprised that one would cook red meat with white wine. But in this case, white wine is the difference between a just another nice, rather French pot roast and a remarkably versatile Italian roast. BONUS: It’s perfect for the crockpot. In fact, I’ve never made it any other way. It’s cooking now, even as I type this. The smell is heavenly; I can’t wait to serve it tonite! Italian Roast Beef
NOTES: -- When all visible fat has been removed, Eye of Round contains the least amount of fat of all beef cuts. -- To remove any additional fat released by the roast during cooking, pour all pan juices into a fat separator once roast is finished, then pour pan juices (without fat) back into crock pot to keep warm. (If this seems a bit lean, just drizzle the roast or onion-pepper mixture with a nice olive oil before serving. Olive oil is a monosaturated fat with certain anti-inflammatory properties -- it's good for you, promotes "good cholesterol" numbers.)
I’ll be using a Pinot Grigio in this recipe, although I have used chardonnay in the past. We’ll serve this with a garlicky whole wheat-brown rice risotto, steamed broccoli, a tossed romaine salad and some garlic bread. This makes great sandwiches, either now or as leftovers. Pile this beef on top of a crusty Italian bread along with some of the peppers and onions; sprinkle with mozzarella and romano cheeses, broil until cheese just melts. Yummy! Buon Appetito! comment []WARNING: ID(10)T attached to keyboard You may already have noticed that my blog’s been twinked, been down, acted flakey this morning. That’s the on-going decorating work in progress that I’ve mentioned several times this last week. There’s not yet been a substantive change as of this post, but I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more changes as I become more proficient at editing in HTML. Christopher was very kind and coached me late into the evening through adding aR outlining to my site (thanks much again!). My new blogroll based on an .opml is up and running, although there’s still a couple of weird things that need tweaking. Like that ghosty little box above the calendar, and the calendar itself that defies attempts to move it. For the next couple of days, please don’t be surprised if you see my blog appears more frequently on the Recently Changed Blogs list. It’s just me moving the furniture. comment []Early Spring in Michigan 
Between 3 to 4 inches of new fluffy snow fell after midnite last night. (Yes, I know, there's a border of some sort around this pic. My copy of Photoshop crashed, have to reinstall before I get better pics.) Why is it that if hubby goes out of town we're sure to get more than 3 inches of snow which I will have to shovel by hand (with the questionable help of the fellow in the picture)? Hubby thinks I'm imagining things, but there it is -- he's gone and I'm shoveling. Again. 11:53:35 AM comment []
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