Gainful Employment -- Hooray!

Sandy Leonard Hutchinson,

grossly underemployed if employed at all

for 3 years and 2 months,
humbly announces she has a job,
starting Thursday, July 30, 2009.

A real full-time job with a decent salary, health and dental insurance, a 401(k) with employer match, paid time-off, and free parking. It is with a progressive, stable Internet business, so what I learn will increase my marketability going forward. That was pretty much my entire list of requirements for the next job.

The transition from Greensboro to Charleston has not been easy, and this employment piece has been the hardest nut to crack. I would like to think that we can all live with flexibility and mobility and take time out to help family, travel, pursue dreams that may not immediately produce income, but I'm not sure I could, in good conscious, tell another woman approaching age 50 to go for it. I am so lucky that Duncan has been able to keep us afloat and insured. These are tough times and many people have no cushion at all.

I sent out a celebratory e-mail to almost everyone I knew and while I got back congratulations and good wishes, I also got back notes telling me how hard work is right now. One friend wants to retire and can't. Another is not ready to retire but is being forced out. Someone else has had to lay people off. And more than one tells me that because of laptops, cell phones and blackberries, the boundaries between being at work and not being at work have all but disappeared and the result is stress, doctors, medication, and therapy. Aye Yi Yi. What am I jumping back into?

I just know I've been missing the things everyone else complains about -- having to get up on Monday morning, going to the office, a department- a "team", meetings, a mission statement and a strategic plan with deadlines. I'm looking forward to being involved with someone else's projects again!

Good Eatin'

We had a cook-out at our pool this afternoon for the middle and senior-highs from church. They had a lot of fun crabbing with strings and chicken necks and were very successful -- so we added crabs to the menu. We just steamed them and ate them out of the shell. A little messy, but nothing better.

Today's paper had recipes for shrimp and crab dishes -- but nothing that sounded like it could beat this one from Kathy Wulf.

Hearty Crab Casserole

1 1/2 lb. crabmeat
4 shallots, chopped fine
4 tender celery stalks, chopped fine
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
4 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 C. Milk
1/4 C. dry sherry
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. Worcestershire
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
dash of red pepper
1 tsp. chicken bouillon granules
4 oz. grated Swiss cheese
Parmesan cheese
Dried bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 325. Place crab in well buttered 2 quart baking dish. Cook shallots, celery & mushrooms in butter. Stir in flour and add milk and sherry. Bring to a boil. Add lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, parsley and bouillon. Remove from heat and stir in Swiss cheese until melted. Pour over crab. Cover top w/ Parmesan and bread crumbs. Bake for 30 mins. until bubbly.

I'm accumulating crab meat in the freezer now to make this one. Hmmm. . . . who will be the lucky dinner guests that night?

Happy 4th of July

Holidays are always good. D had Friday off and we tooled down to Seabrook Island and took a look at Camp St. Christopher as a possible place for a church youth retreat. I could just feel the summer church camp vibe emanating from those shack-y buildings and bunk beds. But what a pretty place right on the water. The sand had mica in it, so it sparkled and my feet looked like they'd been dipped in golden glitter. It was a beach you could walk for hours. I kept wanting to see what was beyond the next curve, but the sky was that washed-out blue color it gets when it's just impossibly hot so we kept it short.

My niece Laurel is getting married today at St. Simon's Island. She wanted to have the most private of ceremonies in a beautiful setting. I hope it fits the dream and I hope no one melts. I got married once on the beach in July. My memory of it is not all about how hot it was, but several years later we went back around the time of our anniversary and I almost died. What were we thinking?? Who knows, maybe global warming made its way to South Carolina between 1988 and 1994. Anyway, here's to Laurel and Brandon with best wishes.

We are going to a dinner tonight and taking potato salad. How did I get to be this middle-age woman who actually wears red, white and blue to cookouts on the 4th of July? I understand there will be young children and backyard fireworks. I'm going to hum Sousa snippets and enjoy.