Another Internship... kind of

I moved down to Savannah for an internship with a real estate company. It is an indefinite internship... so basically, I am an employee with all the work and responsibility but without the pay or benefits. Although I would have preferred an actual titled job, I am really grateful to have found this position (my big sister really was the one to find it for me).

I work in the small marketing office of The Landings Company, a real estate company on Skidaway Island. I am one of eight staff members in the office, the rest of the building is filled with desks and cubicles for agents. My typical day, when I get to work, consists of checking morning email, finishing up projects from the previous days, starting new projects, maintaining the website, driving home for lunch to let my puppy out, coming back to repeat everything I do in the morning, emailing out my finished projects to my boss to get approved, thinking of more projects to do, and going home. My projects range from creating banner ads for websites, editing The Landings' website, designing newspaper real estate ads. Basically, if it needs designing, I am the girl to do it.

I really enjoy my job. Although I am technically an intern, I am given the same consideration as everyone else and have almost full creative license with my designs. I enjoy working with everyone in the office. Hopefully this internship will become a full-time position in the future.

Needing some family time...

I recently relocated to Savannah, leaving my family and friends back in Atlanta. Luckily, my best friend has lived here her whole life and has taken it upon herself to introduce me to a few (four) people and show me around town. Savannah is a lovely city; its by the beach and intracoastal waterway, its historic, its friendly. As wonderful as Savannah seems on paper, it can not make up for not having my friends and family. This week I've been really homesick. Atlanta has been my home since I was three. I have high school and college friends there. I have family there (including my new nephew, who is the sweetest baby ever!). Georgia's charming coastal city is quickly losing its charm for me.

On the upside of things, I have a little baby puppy, named Greyson. I got him a few weeks ago and he is wonderful. I also have my amazing condo that I love (pictures to come). I have my job (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!). And I do have a (really small) circle of friends here. I know that my homesickness is jading me a bit to the fabulousness that is Savannah and hopefully in time I will feel more comfortable here.

In perfect time for me to get over my homesickness, I am lucky to get to see my family this week coming up. My cousin is getting married in Rhode Island. I will see my parents, sisters, BILs, nephew, and extended family. Yay!

Greyson loves to play

Cupcakes

I just got a new recipe book...

There are more than 60 diverse recipes, including salted caramel cupcakes, peanut butter and jelly cupcakes, and of course classic yellow cupcakes with chocolate buttercream.

Today I decided to try out the recipe for Triple Chocolate Cupcakes (milk chocolate cake filled with dark chocolate glaze and white chocolate frosting). Pictures to follow!!

Day One

Today, I started my hunt for a job. (ok, technically its day two) Long story short... After working the past three months at a marketing company, learning the ins and outs of the design world, my boss told me that he couldn't offer me a position after all.
My heart broke a little bit, but I held it together. So here I am, sitting at home in front of my computer, googling every advertising/marketing/design company in Atlanta, praying that I will be lucky enough to find a job.
I used to go to lunch with my good friend, Steph, and we would see these people in the middle of the day taking long lunches and just hanging out. We always wondered what they did that allowed them such free time and we wished we, too, could enjoy a free afternoon. Now I understand, they were probably unemployed and they were probably looking at us wishing they could trade places too.
Instead of getting up and going to work for 8 hours, then going to my (paying) retail job for 4 more hours, coming home and crashing, I now have all this free time. I get up, go to jazzercise, come home and shower (I refuse to sit in my jammies all day), and then... go job hunting. But frankly, one can only do so much hunting at a time before becoming depressed, so I find little things around the house to distract me from my current jobless state. I made chocolate chip cookies, I blog, I contemplate taking wall paper down from my bedroom. And slowly the day passes by.

So here I am... single, unemployed, and living at home. And although some would read this and think, "YIKES, how depressing!" I realize that I am blessed to have family that is super supportive, blessed that I have amazing friends to hang out with, and blessed with a positive attitude that things will turn around. My life isn't exactly where I want it to be right now, but I can still enjoy the ride that takes me there.

So cheers to my life and the adventure that is to come.

The two most feared words in the english language... JURY DUTY

There must be five hundred seats in here. Five hundred seats half filled with sleepy-eyed, mumbling people. People that were picked this morning to serve their civic duty and drive into the city at the crack of dawn to wait. Wait to be told to go home or wait to get picked to be a juror.

This is my first time having jury duty. First time to serve, fourth time to get summoned. I've avoided such a thing in the past with full-time student status. I'm not as annoyed as some might be. I am thinking of this as an adventure.

The adventure began this morning at 5:15am when I heard a horrible screeching noise. I slammed my radio until it went off and then I fell back asleep only to be awakened moments later by my phone alarm going off. My brain waged a war with the rest of my body, thinking "15 more minutes isn't going to make you more rested... just get up now before you spend the next hour hitting snooze" (like I do every other morning). By 6:15am I was ready to go, only to hear my dad just getting up and getting in the shower (its not fair that men only need a few minutes to get ready in the morning and I take an hour). We left the house right at 6:30am and headed toward the city.

My dad is SUPER awesome for driving me to jury duty this morning! He deserves a metal. Especially because I got us a bit lost. Apparently the exits are not the same coming in from different directions. Oops. After a few wrong turns and a few crossed lanes, we made it to our exit and finally to the building I was to be in for the rest of the day. Dad dropped me off and there I was in the big city all alone... 45 minutes early... slightly intimidated. I walked over to a hole-in-the-wall diner and ordered breakfast and then headed inside to check-in.

Then, panic! They took my camera! I forgot I had it in my bag and when I went through security, they put it in a bag and wrote my phone number on it. You can have a camera phone or a computer with a camera in it but if you have just a plain old camera, they have to take it away... nice.

So here I am , sitting in the Jury Assembly room about to watch a fascinating movie about why this is so important. I have to say, the people watching is pretty interesting. I'll keep you updated on whats going on.

Surprise!!!

Congratulations to my sister and brother-in-law!!