What to do, what to do?

There comes a point in your life where you realize you're sort of...floundering. No, not acting like the fish, because that would be...weird (but maybe being able to swim really far in the ocean would be fun...but that's very much beside the point). It's more like you realize that even though just about every part of your life is really good and on track, and you're really happy day in and day out, there is still something missing.

That part that's missing is what keeps you from feeling like your life is moving forward, is what is giving you the feeling that you're just staying in the moment. Not that it's a bad moment to stay in, but one that you know won't provide long-term satisfaction. Even though I still stand by the fact that I think the parts of my life outside of work are what will provide me my happiest moments, and provide me the life I love, I still feel I need to be in a position where in those 8+ hours a day I feel like I'm accomplishing something meaningful.

I've spent a lot of time throwing out a lot of ideas, testing the waters and looking into those possibilities. But so far nothing had felt....right. Nothing really screamed, "this is what you should be doing!" I probably look a little flighty with the fact that I get grand ideas and then I don't follow through with them. In general, it's not a testament to my character because I'm not a flighty person (or at least I don't think so), but I think the reason I hadn't fully followed through with most of these ideas was because they just weren't...right. I would talk about ideas a lot because it was part of the "testing the waters" phase, but then I'd eventually realize that that's just not where I want my life to go at this point. I know life will bring new and unexpected, yet welcome, changes over the years, but right now, I'm just thinking about what I see for myself in the next five years (yup. good ol' 5 year plan). I probably should stop talking about those grand plans so much, because when people start to ask me a lot of questions about whatever plan I had, I start to get frustrated and worry that they're judging me for not continuing with it or thinking I'm "not living up to my potential" or some crap like that, even though I know whatever it was just wasn't fitting me.

Everything I've done so far has always felt very temporary. Partly because those positions were temporary, and partly because I just knew they weren't what I wanted to do forever anyways. It's hard to stay motivated with something if you know you don't want to do it much longer, and I really hate that. It's not that I don't love the opportunities I've been given, especially because of the fantastic people I now have in my life, but I hate not feeling motivated, I hate not feeling like I'm accomplishing anything, I hate feeling like I'm just getting by to get by. I really want to find something where I feel more stable, feel more like this is where I want to be, need to be.

Lately, I've had this nagging feeling of "I just want to help people." I'm the kind of person that loves doing things for people. Whether it's baking, helping with tasks, or just being there for them. When I was in college, I was pretty involved with the non-profit world. I was constantly volunteering with the Alliance of AIDS Services - Carolina, and was leading the Student Global AIDS Campaign on campus. I earned a minor in Non-Profit Studies, and almost enjoyed those classes more than my Communication ones sometimes. Unfortunately when I graduated, my career path kept going in multiple different ways because I couldn't quite get a grasp on what I was interested in, plus the job market has been very tricky. While at this age, I think it's fine to try different things, I do know I needed to be more focused on figuring out that part of my life and get some solid footing.

When my friend Curtis did the Vote Against project, it kind of hit me how much I miss that, miss making a difference in my community, miss connecting with people fighting for and supporting something you believe in. What he did, the difference he made with everyone he came across, really struck a chord with me was kind of the last bit of the puzzle that helped guide me back to the nonprofit world.

In an effort to at least get back into volunteering, I participated in the community service day the church I've been attending held. I really enjoyed it and it reminded me why I like volunteering. I also have become a member of the Activate Good community online to get updates on future volunteer opportunities with non-profits in the area. I haven't been able to participate yet (mostly because of scheduling factors), but I follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and through email, for when I know I can, or see an opportunity I'd enjoy getting involved in.

Part of the problem has been that I don't want to volunteer just to volunteer, but actually do something I have an interest in, and feel that my dedication isn't superficial and self-serving where I can just keep saying "well, I volunteer!" I want to do something where I really feel dedicated to making a difference in someone's life. I have emailed both Planned Parenthood and the Alliance to see about what I can do to help, so we will see what opportunities that leads to because those are both organizations that I really believe in what they are doing for the community. Part of the problem is I also don't want to do just event-based volunteering, because while important and I still enjoy doing it and will do it, I want to contribute in other ways as well. Unfortunately a lot of those opportunities are during business hours, so I haven't been able to much yet.

After a lot of thinking, mostly internally, but also asking advice of one of my favorite past professors (love you Mindy!), I have decided I'm going to get the Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management from NC State through the School of Public and International Affairs. Even if I find some other opportunity in the middle of getting it, non-profit or otherwise, that really screams "this is what you should be doing!" I feel that the knowledge I learn from the certificate program will be beneficial, because either way, I want to at least volunteer. Maybe one day when I'm older and feel I have some expertise, I can be on a board of directors at a non-profit, and this knowledge will be useful. I've constantly thought about going back to school, but nothing I had seen really interested me. I really like learning, but sometimes it's hard to just do it on my own. Having a time set aside where someone teaches me is far easier to make sure I learn rather than me going out and just doing random research on my own. This certificate program I think will be great. I'm interested in learning about the topics either way, but I still hope it'll help me with a career in the non-profit sector.

I am a bit scared though. I've been out of school for four years now, and I'm a little worried I won't remember how to take notes or study or think analytically (plus that cost...ouch. But I think it's worth it). I know I'm not going for a masters, and I'll only be doing it part-time, only one class a semester, but on top of a full-time job, plus, you know, having a life, it'll be a lot added on.

Even though I'm a little scared, I'm also really looking forward to it. I kind of like the idea of having a class to go to, especially on such an interesting topic (I'm starting with the Management on Nonprofit Organizations course). When I did my cake decorating class, my Dreamweaver class, and my pottery class, I just liked having that set time to go and learn something new. While this is obviously waaaaay more intense than those, it's something I think I'll really enjoy having in my life. Also, I kind of love the fact that I still get to keep my old student ID from undergrad.

So here we go! Let's see where this takes me...

Lemon-Blueberry Pound Cake, Blueberry Gelato, and the Force

I was watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother awhile ago (one of my absolute favorite shows), and Ted and Marshall had this brilliant tradition. Every three years they would watch the Star Wars Trilogy all in a row (the classics, not that crappy new stuff). I just thought, that sounds like an amazing idea, especially since they're my favorite movies, yet I have never done that before (plus, Marshall said that if you didn't, the dark side would win....and that. cannot. happen). So me and my friends, Nichole, Katie, and Tyler decided that it needed to happen, it had to happen. 

And can I tell you what? It was amazing. I just sat there the whole time thinking that these movies are waaaaaaay better than just about any of the computer-generated crap they call action sci-fi movies nowadays (I do not include Iron Man, The Avengers, Star Trek(yes, all of them), and X-Men First Class in this because those movies are kick-ass). I love the story, the actors, the graphics, the settings, and we decided that a bartender R2D2 must be in our lives (but not the stuff they thought it would be okay to add in and be totally obvious about...no, I do not need to see the whole empire dancing once the emperor is killed, thank you. I was perfectly fine without it before and I still am). Okay. I'll stop waxing poetically about the amazingness of Star Wars because I'm pretty sure that isn't why you read my blog. 

So of course, since this was going to be an all day event, we were going to need some sustenance. I decided to make a Lemon-Blueberry pound cake (that is also serving as my breakfast this week) and some Blueberry Gelato to go with it! I love those flavors, and I've been itching to make some homemade gelato because it's been awhile since I last had. (Please prepare yourself for a long, picture-heavy blog post. I apologize. Well, no I don't. Because I love blogging, so I like the occasional long post. So read on!)

First up, the gelato! The thing about the recipes I use is that they can take a couple days to really make, so it's definitely not one of those instant gratification desserts, but the wait is always worth it. 

You'll start by putting 3 cups of fresh blueberries in a pot and sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar and 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice over them. You'll mix it up so they're well coated and the sugar has dissolved, and then let it sit for 30 minutes (In the below picture, I have it on the stove, but you won't turn the heat on just yet!)

While the blueberries were marinating, I started the base. You'll pour 2 cups whole milk and 1 cup heavy cream into a saucepan. You'll then put it on medium-low heat

You'll let that sit over the heat until tiny bubbles start to form (can you see those bubbles? It was hard to get a good picture of them). 

Once those bubbles have formed, in a heat proof bowl, you'll combine four egg yolks and 2/3 cup sugar, and whisk hardcore until it's light yellow.

You'll then temper in the cream and milk mixture to the egg and sugar mixture. This means you'll pour in a bit at a time so as not to "scramble" the eggs. Once you have it all combined and whisked well together, you'll pour it back into the pan, over low heat, and let it thicken up and coats the back of the spoon. Then you'll pour the finished custard into a bowl (through a fine mesh strainer), let it cool to room temperature (stirring every few minutes), cover it, and place it in the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours. I usually do this part at night and let it chill over night.

While working on the base, and the blueberries have sat for 30 minutes, you'll turn the eye on to low heat and let the blueberries become a syrup. They'll break down and will deflate some, but won't completely turn to syrup (which is fine because then you'll have fresh blueberry bits to prove that it's real!). And once that is done, and cooled to room temperature, you'll also put that in the fridge.

The next day (or four hours later if you're doing all of this in one day), you'll blend the blueberries with about half of the base.

Once that's well blended, pour it into the rest of the base and whisk your little heart out! I also decided that I wanted to add just about 1/2 tsp of vanilla to give it a little more of a blueberries 'n cream taste. GENIUS move, Carolyn. GENIUS.

I then put the mixture into my ice cream maker, and let it church for about 30 minutes!

When the gelato was done churning, I poured it into my container and then froze it for a couple of hours so it would finish setting. Of course, before washing the dishes, I kept licking the freezer bowl. And licking it, and licking it because oh. em. gee. That stuff is delicious. It was a super refreshing and light flavor, and so creamy. Yum, yum, yum. I took the leftovers to the office today too and it was just about gone when I left at the end of the day.

Okay. Now for the pound cake!!

Remember that last bundt cake I made? Where I used five sticks of butter? Well, I used a little healthier of a recipe this time around, where I used only 1 stick of butter, and fat free cream cheese and fat free lemon yogurt for the rest of the moisture in the cake!

I started by going ahead and squeezing the 1/4 cup of lemon juice I was going to need. 

I also coated the 2 cups of frozen blueberries with 2 tablespoons of flour (that is taken from the 3 cups of flour I put in a separate bowl). Doing this is what prevents all the blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the pan while baking.

Along with the flour, you add in 1 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp of both baking soda and salt.

In your mixer, you'll combine the room temperature 1/2 cup butter (one stick), 1/2 cup room temperature cream cheese (and to be perfectly honest, I totally accidentally used a whole cup of cream cheese, but it turned out awesome, so I guess its a good thing I used fat free), and 1 and 3/4 cup sugar. You'll mix for about 4 minutes on medium speed.

You'll then add three eggs, one at a time, and mix well after each addition.

Then mix in 2 tbsp lemon zest, 2 tsp vanilla, and the 1/4 lemon juice you squeezed earlier.

At this point, you'll alternate adding in the flour mixture with 8 oz of lemon yogurt. You'll want to begin and end with the flour mixture.

Then you veeeeerry carefully fold in the blueberries, and then pour the batter into the greased 10-cup bundt pan. And bake for about an hour and 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

After letting it cool for 20 minutes or so, you'll take it out of the pan and let it finish cooling on the rack.

The glaze on this bundt cake turned out a lot better. I just mixed 1/2 cup of confectioners sugar, and started with 4 tsp lemon juice, but kept adding more lemon juice until it got to a good pouring consistency. Then I just drizzled it over the cake!

Look at how pretty!!! And it was soooooooooooooo tasty. Light, refreshing, the right amount of density. The lemon wasn't overly powerful and you got little juicy bits when you bit into a blueberry. Definitely one of my best to date for sure.

If you stuck out the post this long, give yourself a nice pat on the back!

Neapolitan Zebra Bundt Cake

I'm not sure if I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I looooooooove strawberry and chocolate together. Love. So anything Neapolitan is amazing to me. My favorite cake from my favorite bakery is the Neapolitan cake. If I buy a carton of ice cream, I typically gravitate towards the Neapolitan. I just love it all. Got that? Okay. I'll stop talking about my adoration for it now. 

Because of this love, after seeing this on Pinterest, I just knew I had to make it. Plus, it looked really really cool. I'm really into the idea of cutting into something and having it look completely different from what you would expect just looking at the outside. 

You start with a looooooot of butter. Five sticks, or 2.5 cups or 40 tablespoons, however you want to look at it. In the original recipe, she uses cottage cheese, but I didn't want to do that, so I substituted in the butter. Because deep down I'm like Paula Deen and think that the more butter the better.

You melt down the butter, and then let it cool. So. Much. Butter.

In your mixer, you'll pour three cups of sugar, and then add in the cooled butter, and mix on medium-low speed for three minutes.

Once that has come together, you add in one tablespoon vanilla and one teaspoon salt, and mix well.

To go along with the lots of butter. You then have lots of eggs! Add six eggs, one at a time, and make sure you mix thoroughly (about 20 seconds) after each addition. Because of the way the batter was, it took a few spins for the yolk eventually to break up. Maybe that is something that just happened to me, but it made me laugh watching the yolk spin around on top of the batter (hey, we bakers have a strange sense of humor, okay?)

With the mixer on low speed, add in three cups of flour, one at a time.

Once the base batter is done, you'll want to divide it evenly into three bowls so you can make your layers! To make the strawberry layer, you pour 1/4 cup of strawberry Jell-o mix into the batter and then mix together. Totally weird, right? I never would have thought to add strawberry jello mix to get that flavor (since I've never made a strawberry flavored cake other than boxed), but apparently that is what you do! I'm glad to have learned that because now I might make strawberry cupcakes with chocolate frosting one day.

I also didn't use the mixer to add in the strawberry and chocolate (which, it's 1/3 cup of cocoa powder to create the chocolate layer). Instead I used my awesome arm muscles to stir like a mad woman to make sure it was mixed well together. 

Now, creating the zebra affect was a little complicated. Because I couldn't quite understand exactly how the original baker did it (maybe my brain isn't working), so I just kind of made it up as I went.

And then I baked it for about 65 minutes at 350 degrees. And then cooled for about 5 minutes in the pan and then let it cool all the way.

You're technically supposed to make a glaze. Which I'll be honest, I attempted. But it was a fail. But I think it'll be fine without it.

My friend Megan came over for a trashy tv night, so we had a slice of cake, some vanilla ice cream, and a glass of Biltmore Chenin Blanc wine to go along with our Sister Wives and Tough Love viewings!

Overall, the cake was very tasty. It was a bit gooey (but not under-cooked)...I don't know if that's because of the insane amount of butter, or because of the jello. But what can you do? Especially since I baked it a long time, and any longer it would have burnt. And the "zebra" look didn't really look....zebra. It looked more layered, but I was kind of expecting that. Maybe other slices will have more of that look to it. We will see. Either way, I liked it and the mixture of flavors was really delicious!

Also, on a side note, this happened today:

Just to warn you, don't drop your phone on the concrete. It may sound like a good idea, but it isn't. I really wish my warranty covered clumsiness. I might just tell people I was shot at, and the bullet hit my phone since that main part at the top looks like it was hit with a bullet. 

Summer of Fun? Summer of Fun!

I know summer doesn't technically begin until June 20th, but considering it's going to be 90 degrees the next few days, I'm already in the mind-set. I love summer. Don't get me wrong, fall is still my all-time favorite season (helloooooo football season!), but there is just something about summer and being able to be outside all day and well into the night and not having to wear a coat.

Even though I'm in the working world (and have been for a little while now, but I'm in denial of that still I think), and no longer get summers off, I still feel like I have more free time to do fun things. Or maybe that's just because there are more fun things to do in the summer since it's warm, sunny, and lighter longer. I always have grand plans to do things over the summer, but then I forget about all the fun things I see there is to do and end up spending most of my time at the pool. Not that that's an all around bad thing, but I will not do (just) that this summer! I am actually putting things on my calendar to remind myself of said fun events so I actually remember to go to them. I will continue to add as I learn about things as well.

I have a couple fun trips planned, going to a beach or some other type of warm place with my friend Laura, a weekend trip to Syracuse/The 1000 Islands with some of my girls, and a weekend trip to Chicago and Milwaukee with my other girls.  So that's exciting, but those are only a few weekends out of the nice long summer. So what else have I seen that I want to do? Here is my list (and these are things that I need other people to do with me, so if you want to join me, just let me know :-) I would love to have some company):

Fun Things with Specific Dates:

• The NC Symphony: Totally Awesome 80s on June 23.
• I love the 80s, the symphony is really talented, and this concert is at Koka Booth, so it sounds like a great combination.
• THE OLYMPICS on July 27 to August 12.
• I love the Olympics. Seriously. Winter. Summer. Doesn't matter. I love it all. Hopefully since this will obviously end up being a hot summer, I won't feel as bad spending those couple weeks indoors watching these. Or I could find a bar with a nice patio and TVs outside and force people to watch with me. CAN'T WAIT.
• Festival of Cheese on August 4
• Okay, so I'm probably not going to this, mostly because of the $55 entry fee ($55???? I know right). But as a serious cheese lover, I was almost tempted, and just wanted to share it. How could you not want to go to a thing called the Festival of Cheese?????
• Lazy Daze on August 25
• Fun crafts festival in Cary. I haven't been in awhile, but I always remember liking it. It's a good excuse to go walk around outside too.
• BugFest on September 15
• Part of me wants to go because I want to try eating bugs (why? I don't know. Because then I could say I've eaten bugs?)
• Movies at the NCMA on multiple dates
• I'd probably love to go to most of these, but the ones I have my eye on are The Muppets, The Artist, Casablanca, Ghostbusters, and The Godfathers. 
• Koka Booth is also doing a movie thing, with some other possible alternatives.

Fun Things with No Specific Dates (these are more just general activities that I'm interested in doing):

• Durham Bulls games! I love going to these, always have.
• Along the same vein, I'm very excited to watch my nephew play tee-ball this summer. Oh the memories! 
• Playing golf. The more I work on fixing my swing (and not having it fly to the right every. single. time.), I want to actually play some rounds. Of par 3 of course. And not in the middle of the day when it's blazing hot. I burn easily, people! 
• Paddle boating at Lake Johnson. I remember doing this a lot when I was younger, and always had fun. And every time I see other people doing it at the lake, I always think that I need to too. Plus, it's a good leg workout!
• Trip to Carowinds or Busch Gardens. I've been in the mood to go to an amusement park and ride some roller coasters! Busch Gardens would probably be preferable because I like all the other fun things you can do there. 
• Lots of walks. Lots and lots of walks. Since I'm not a runner (except when chasing down drug addicts who steal my purse in Target), I prefer to take walks, which are still a good workout anyways. Lake Johnson, Pullen Park, Umstead, etc. All good places. Plus I'm sure there are other greenways worth exploring. If I can't find friends to walk with me, I might get the 30-day trial of Spotify Premium at some point so I can listen to upbeat music while I walk.
• Day trips to the beach/hanging out at the pool, with good books to read, good friends to talk to, and good drinks in my hand. Let's face it, these are givens. Especially since I don't think I went to the beach once last year. Lame on my part, but I will try to make up for it this year. 
• Bake lots of yummy summer desserts and hopefully having a lot of fun cookouts with friends. Also a given. I see lots of fruit and light flavors in my future. 

So that's the list so far. I think it's a pretty good one, but I am open to many more additions, as well as people to join me!

*Side note: Can you tell I love a good list?*