Skill-Polishing (it's like shoe-shining) Pt. 1

Honing your existing skills can be a very lucrative endeavor as well as a time for personal enrichment. I've recently found that my love for languages & music could be making me money, if only I were more confident & they were more polished.

My under-employed status occasionally frustrates me to the point of The Craigslist Search. I have honed The Search to a systematic quest for jobs that I am qualified. The Search usually leaves me feeling un-employ-able. No, I do not have 3+ years of experience as an Administrative Assistant. And I am not available every weeknight and weekend to start as a waitress. The two key components of getting a job are experience & availability. I am limited in both.
Occasionally, however, I'll find a posting that I am almost qualified for. It is bittersweet: there is a job that I could nearly do but am not quite confident enough to apply for it. Recently, these jobs have been short-term or one-time gigs, but even such transient employment is a start toward paying those mountains of debt! These small opportunities have inspired me to write about tailoring & honing the skills you already have to make them viable sources for income. I'll choose my two skills & passions: languages & music. In this post, I'll talk about my experience with the first of those two.


I am fairly proficient in Italian & therefore was excited to see an ad for an Italian translator. As I read the write-up, however, I became less confident in my ability to fulfill the wants of the client, who was mainly interested in using an Italian translator for business correspondence with an Italian business. She wanted a person who would be able to write professional e-mails to an Italian company. This is where I come up short: my Italian is restricted to the vocabulary I learned in 11th grade while living in Italy. I do not call myself fluent because I am sure I do not know the -___ words that qualify a speaker as fluent. I have no concrete way to measure my vocabulary, but I doubt that I could conduct respectable & professional correspondence in Italians. My optimism for this job diminished as quickly as it had risen.

But, who's to say that I will not have that fluency in the future? After seeing this post, it made me aware of the fact that my deep but dormant interest in becoming a more capable Italian speaker needed to be galvanized by this job posting. As such, I've resolved to resume studying Italian, with a particular focus on gaining vocabulary. With some hard work, the next time I see such an ad I'll confidently click "reply" (or cut & paste the address, as is the case with Craigslist) & extol the virtues of my linguistic proficiency!

I'm sure you have similar interests that are dusty from disuse. What can you do about it? Perhaps you're like my aunt who loves to paint rooms in her house. If you could use the extra cash, take that show on the road! Or maybe you've always loved writing short pieces? I'll be the local newspaper needs some freelance writers. There are opportunities for supplemental work & my bet is that the change of pace is more likely to invigorate you than tire you out!

Pt. 2 of this post will focus on the ways I'm working (that's present tense, not future!) to expand my guitar (et al.) repertoire to be available for one-time & short notice gigs in the future!

Occasionally & Unpredictably Employed

I just got home from a frustrating day of working/not-working. (The not-working was what made it frustrating.) When I walked through the door, I began typing frenetically. Even though I have not attended to this blog for some time, its initial mission is a constant thread in my life: to live life fully but also frugally. I’ll provide a little explanation of why I am once again empowered to live thus:

I have created a new demographic to aptly describe my status: occasionally & unpredictably employed. Over the last six weeks, I have been on the roller coaster entitled “The Job Search.” I thought I had disembarked last week but today I rounded the bend to see that my future could hold another period of unemployment. I am “working” as a behavioral aide for an autistic boy. I was just alerted that, while I was assigned to this position last week, apparently somebody else has been promised the position for the last 6 months. If they cannot relocate her, I will be reassigned to another case. Read: my day-to-day working hours will be put on hold while I wait by the phone to hear if I have a new situation to walk into. In this field, you cannot walk from job to job seamlessly. Each new assignment means an entirely new learning curve due to the fact that autism is unique in each person on the spectrum. For instance, I was previously working with a boy whose main impairment was in his social skills while another client is barely verbal. Enough about my job. That’s not what you want to read; it’s also not what I want to write.

The big question is: what am I doing about this situation?

In the beginning, this blog was devoted to frugality & ingenuity. It still will be but it will also take the shape of a self-help page for myself. Writing is a form of therapy for many & it will also be a way for me to organize, regroup, and direct my energy. From now on, I will continue to suggest projects to do for the conscientious frugaler (made up words rule.); I will also suggest ways for the “occasionally & unpredictably employed” citizens to refocus their energy into productive & mildly lucrative areas.

To get my blog flowing again, I’ve brainstormed about what it takes to regroup during frustrating times. The virtues of the occasionally & unpredictably employed lifestyle are:

1. Habits: maintain some sort of schedule.

2. Diligence: follow-up thoroughly on each aspect of your life. (Don’t let things slide through the cracks.)

3. Inspiration: be creative about ways to earn the green stuff.

4. Crafty-ness: be creative about ways to not use the green stuff!

5. Productivity: even if you’re not earning a paycheck, remember that your time is valuable. Spend time in a productive way so you can be energized by your yield.

I’ll spend a blog entry on each of these topics & I am sure there are other virtues that I will come to. What would you add to my list?

Vegetarian cooking will save the world. Or at least your paycheck...

I have been majorly neglectful of the blog. Mainly because I don't have time to manage one and I really should be writing my Religion midterm right now. But I'll let that wait.

Now that I'm back into mainstream technology for the fall (my home doesn't provide the most conducive setting for connecting to the internet but college does!) I might try to update more often. Or I might fail at that as always.

Living in a dorm has its charms. A few of them, at least. Convenient laundry, internet...ok that's all I can come up with for now. I actually am not a fan of dorm life. At all. One substantial reason is that I love to cook. I'm a vegetarian and dining hall food just doesn't supply enough choices to satiate my cravings for a balanced diet. In fact, I've been fantasizing about having a kitchen to such an extent that I've gathered several blogs and websites to share with you. These are my particularly favorite vegetarian websites.

Check them out:

V e g a n D a d is a blog updated frequently by a father who is raising his children vegan. His recipes are quick and not too involved, although a general know-how of cooking will definitely go a long way. The right-hand side of the page offers an index of ingredients so that you can click on an ingredient and go right to a recipe which utilizes or frames that food. On top of all of that, his photos will lure the most ardent meat eaters!

The Hummus Blog: Who doesn't love hummus? Ok, it can definitely get old, but this blog is a interesting look into the world of hummus. It is created by Israeli brothers who know the best hummus first-hand.

The Toby Show: Organic on a Budget is a specific page from a blog called "The Toby Show." The author is a mom living in the midwest. This page is specifically interesting because, even though you've already thought of some of these ways to save money, she gives some other interesting options as well. Explore the rest of the blog-it's a lot of fun!

The Post Punk Kitchen: Vegetarian cooking & vegan baking with no attitude is a vegan website which gives a bit of edge to traditional cooking shows. It's a lot of fun to check up on occasionally even if I don't follow it regularly.

Have you gotten the hint? Go vegetarian!

Ok, I'll back off a bit. It's a personal choice that everyone has to evaualate, but there are a lot of persuasive reasons. Most importantly to me is the detrimental environmental impact I avoid by eating vegetables and legumes. But another excellent reason to become a vegetarian is to save on groceries! Vegetables, fruits and dairy are significantly cheaper than meat and will give you long-lasting energy. I can't praise the diet enough. But if you're not quite willing to retreat from the meat yet, take it one step at a time. If you refrain from eating meat every night, you'll definitely notice that your budget is not so stretched the next time you go to the grocery store.

Buon appetito!

Happy Lint

I walked into my room and proclaimed, "I have an idea for lint!"

My roommate thought I said, "I have an idea for Lent!"

Neither of these statements makes much sense.

My mother has always saved lint from the dryer and made it into fire starters. She stuffs lint into egg cartons, pours wax over it and you have compact cubes of lint to use in your fire. That's the first thing to learn about lint: it is incredibly flammable.

I knew that my mom was not the average mother; I didn't know anybody else who saved lint but I wasn't really bothered by it. Until this year when I first had to wash my clothes away from home. My room is conveniently located near the laundry room and I really don't mind doing wash.

One thing I do mind is throwing away anything that can be reused or recycled. After months of throwing lint into the trashcan, I decided that there had to be more to life.

There is. I discovered a whole host of ideas about what to use lint for. I'll share my favorite recipe with you:

Make Lint Clay!

• Cover 3 cups of lint with 2 cups of water in a saucepan.
• Slowly stir 1 cup of flour.
• Add a few drops of vegetable oil.
• Stir over low heat until the mixture binds together.
• Pour onto a sheet of wax, parchment, or newspaper to cool.
• After you're done molding it, the clay may take 3-7 days to dry.

You can just as easily make lint papier mache (which is very similar to clay, just use about 2/3 c flour), lint paper (just add lint to your paper pulp, it won't stand well on its own), lint animals (be careful, they're flammable!), and lint firestarters.

Most importantly, lint is compostable. So don't throw it in your trashcan! Put it outside, let it fertilize your garden or just compost in a corner of your garden or behind a bush. Hopefully we'll get the point that we all create more trash than we need to we'll make an effort to reduce unnecessary waste!

Have yourself a haircut!

I'm all about not spending money unless it's entirely necessary. I rarely go out to dinner/spend money on food unless it's a social engagement. I head straight to the clearance section of stores and usually check out with some awesome deals. And who would stay in a hotel when you could tent camp for less and for more fun?!

In keeping with this philosophy, I have probably had my hair professionally cut only 5 times in my life. Luckily, I grew up in a family who instilled in me such frugality and as a result, my mom cut my hair when I was younger. When I actually did go to professional hair appointments, the results were always nice, but no better than my mom's.

For the past two years, I have cut my own hair. It started one night when I had about 30 minutes before a required assembly, so that ended up being a pretty hasty job. Some of the girls from the dorm helped with the back and the bangs and together we had a fun time chopping it all off.

With that said, I haven't had any radical haircuts since then. I trim and shape whenever I have a bad hair day, which is more often than not. Today, however, I was really whining about my bangs, or lack thereof. I see them all the time on other people, and they look so cute, stylish and fun! After a bit of research, I found this site which gave me suggestions, as well as nice pictures for stylish bangs:

www.style-hair-magazine.com/short-bangs.html

I also wanted to take into consideration my face shape before going with a radical cut that might now complement my face shape. I found help on a Stylish Haircuts blog, which you should investigate before you take the scissors in hand.

After I had loosely decided on this style, I wanted a couple tips about cutting bangs because I didn't want to end up having to get them fixed professionally. Wikihow offered these tips:

1. Select area to be cut. Push hair on sides behind your ears, or pin back.
2. Decide how much of a bang you want to cut.
3. Use the outer edge of the eyebrows to determine where to stop.
4. Comb the desired amount of hair down.
5. Comb the desired amount of hair down.
6. Gather the desired bang hair to a point in the center of your face. (According to how long you want your bangs.) Example: If you want your bang length to be below your eyebrows, hold the hair at the bridge of the nose.
7. Hold hair securely with your non-dominant hand and cut using one snip at the desired length. (The twisting will allow for extra length that is being stretched while you are holding it, and also will give the ends a "wispy" look, with little effort.)
8. After cutting, the bangs will fall to the desired length, with the sides being slightly longer than the center.

Always remember to use a comb instead of just pinching hair between your fingers-it will allow for a more consistent cut! Other than that, a mirror might be helpful too. Take your time when snipping!

Sweet Relief

I was worried! The blog server, Blogger, was giving me a lot of trouble with my account, telling me that it didn't exist, etc. So we can all rest assured that I will indeed be able to continue blogging, as far as I'm concerned.

After my two month hiatus, one would think that I have scores of experiences to share. If I do, I've forgotten most. But not all!

I was recently reading about new uses for Nalgene bottles on another blog. As you may know, old Nalgene bottles were exposed as leaching carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals) into the contents of the bottle(the new ones are made differently so this is no longer an issue). One solution was to convert your old bottle into a lantern by purchasing a small solar device made especially for that. I won't go into all of the details now, but I'd be happy to answer any questions about them since I just bought one of these awesome devices!

Anyway, I followed a link on the blog and after a couple more clicks found a page which interested me. The page was dedicated to the uses of baking soda as an exfoliant. Many users who commented gave rave reviews about just scrubbing with baking soda once or twice a day in place of or as a supplement to the traditional face wash products.

I was intrigued! Finally a new idea which is incredibly good for the environment, so cheap, and so ironically similar to my green toothpaste... In fact, I have since read suggestions of using olive oil as a moisturizer after you scrub with the baking soda. Baking soda + olive oil? Sound familiar?

Anyway, I happened to be out of face wash at that moment so I couldn't think of a more perfect time to test out this new experiment. To date, I've been using baking soda for about three weeks. I'm very happy with it. I wouldn't say that it's solved all of my skin's troubles, but it certainly has done more than St. Ives or Neutrogena ever has!

I still get some stares in the bathroom, though...

So I think we (I) can all agree that this blog is entirely fueled by the personal gratification I experience after writing. I won't really mind if nobody is inspired to go out and be frugal and creative. It's ok, because I am the one who benefits most from putting finger to keyboard.

If you're like me (even though we've established that there might not be a 'you'; that it probably is just a 'me'), you like bananas with a tint of green on them. They're not too mushy, and the flavor tastes much fresher. I will not eat a banana if is in the yellow to brown stage. So once bananas approach middle-age, they are no longer appealing (get it? like a peeling? That's a Nana pun). So what to do with a banana in this stage? There is only one thing:

Make Banana Bread!

Recently, my roommates and I collected several bananas and we realized that none of us were interested in actually eating them. So I looked up a recipe on-line and we planned to make banana bread.

Our Recipe:

• 1 c. butter, softened
• 2 c. sugar
• 7 large ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 1/2 t. vanilla extract
• 4 eggs slightly beaten
• 3 c. flour
• 1/2 t. salt
• 2 t. baking soda

We're just making half because we're going to start with just 4 bananas.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream butter and sugar; blend in bananas, vanilla, and eggs.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients.
3. Add dry ingredients stirring until just combined.
4. Pour the mixture into two greased 9x5 in. loaf pans.
5. Bake at 350 degrees. Check on the bread after 35 minutes. Continue to check on it until a toothpick comes out clean. It could take up to 60 minutes. After it is done, cool it in its loaf pan for 10 minutes, then finish cooling on a wire rack.

Now, this is great, right? You forget, however, that we are but lowly college students with much more "out"come than our income can handle. So naturally, we next decided how we could get the ingredients without paying for them.

To date, we have collected

• 1 c. of sugar by taking sugar packets
• the required amount of salt from a salt shaker in the dining hall
• 4 bananas
• and 1/2 cup of butter through the pats of butter packaged in little plastic containers.

Good deal, right? Well, sure, it would appear so. Unfortunately, we have had to buy about half of the ingredients on our own. Luckily, with my Bonus Bucks card, we could get the necessary flour, vanilla and baking soda.

Only one problem remains: we have no way to bake the bread! We may end up actually buying a loaf pan. Or we may just try to create one by sculpting several sheets of aluminum foil into the desired shape. And in the end, if our banana bread doesn't satiate our cravings, we will at least spiced up our week a bit with all of the scheming, collecting, and hoarding!