How many pictures of the same lake can one take?

Thanks to inspiration from this month’s “Better Homes and Gardens” magazine, which my mother-in-law purchases for me every year, I have finally started culling and editing my many, many files of digital photos.  Sometime in 2010 I stopped framing or even printing our photos, and the result is thousands of photos stored in every possible combination of every computer-like device we have, from our phones to our home computers to our ipads. Organizing, printing, saving or deleting these photos seemed like an absolutely Sysyphus-like task but (a.) I have declared this summer the Summer O’ Organization (more on that, later (remind me!) and (b.) BHG really has excellent tips for this project – tips that seem so terribly simple but I needed to be told – like, delete duplicates and fuzzy photos. And be ruthless!

I have completed the first round of organization and while no other subject rivals the sheer number of photos we have taken of Evangeline, pictures of the lake at our small piece of property in northern Michigan come close. My mom and I often laugh when we are there together and someone “needs” to get a picture of the lake – there are truly countless photos of the camp lake, beginning when it was first built in the early 1940′s and moving through the decades since, and while everything from the boats docked nearby to the dogs leaping into its water to the fashion of the folks in the photos has changed, the lake itself, blessedly, has not.

It’s a small lake, barely recognizable as such on a map, full of pike, bass and bluegill, snapping turtles, water snakes, water lilies and tadpoles, and while I am no longer brave enough to swim in it (snapping turtles, people – and water snakes!) there is no place I would rather be much of the year than on its dock, watching the loon that returns every year hunt for fish or listening to the fish jump at dusk.

Perhaps it’s because I’ll be there in less than two weeks with S. while Evangeline spends two nights with her grandparents (her first time away from us!), or maybe it’s the advent of late spring and early summer that have me in a northern Michigan frame of mind, but my answer to the question, how many pictures of the same lake can one take? Thousands. Below, not a thousand photos of the lake, but a few, in case you are in a summer frame of mind as well.

The lake, from the front yard:

The lake, up close:

Handsome devil of a dog at the lake:

And finally, sunset, reflected at the lake ( I can’t seem to get this edited correctly, so you might need to tilt your head a bit):

the reluctant foodie

You know that old saying, the only two certainties in life are death and taxes? With the growing popularity of food blogging and tweeting, I think we can add one item further – come spring, food bloggers will start rhapsodizing rhapsodically about ramps, rhubarb and asparugus. It’s another sign of spring, like robins and extreme weather events. I have mixed reaction to all this early-spring food bloggage – on the one hand, I love ramps! and asparagus! and rhubarb! but on the other I find it oddly humorous as bloggers who I normally enjoy tremendously look for new ways to prepare the same spring food. Year after year. Until finally morel mushroom time comes along to distract them.

This strikes me, I think, because I am amazed at the level of sustained passion these bloggers and writers are able to commit to the subject of local and seasonal food, year after year after year.  Certainly I care, more than ever, about the food my family eats. I buy organic, hormone-free meat and milk and *mostly* organic produce and our bread and pasta is home-made – not by me but by the local groceria. As a general rule S. and I don’t keep soda or chips or desserts in the house, more because we don’t want Evangeline to  grow up thinking treats are anything but just that – treats- but also because it’s just good common sense.

Generally, I think this is doing pretty well on the whole food front but then I read food bloggers who are doing things like making their own cheese (seriously? making your own cheese????) and food writers for magazines and newspapers who talk about bechamel sauce like it’s no big thing and I yearn for the days before I knew better and could enjoy a Subway sandwich, baked chips and diet coke ( a lunch I had just last week) without knowing that the bread alone probably has five chemicals I can’t pronounce and diet coke should be banned entirely because it probably causes cancer.

I know I am supposed to abhor ingredients I can’t pronounce and worship at the alter urban chicken farming – spurn strawberries until June and order whole hogs from nearby butchers but I am kicking and screaming while doing so. I was raised in the nineteen eighties and nineties during the height of the instant, low-fat food popularity and no matter how hard I try, those years formed many of my preferences.  I prefer instant, already-flavored oatmeal to those steel-cut oats everyone eats now – those make me want to gag. I hate plain yogurt and these days, I always get a chuckle out of how the fridges at work are full of non-fat Greek yogurt brought in by health-conscious brown baggers when a decade ago they were full of different Yoplait flavors. I have managed to replace my beloved fat-free Yoplait Boston Cream Pie yogurt with this Greek nonsense but I confess, once a month, I buy two containers of the Yoplait stuff and am so happy. I think nuts make the worst snack IN THE WORLD and should basically be used on salads or in desserts and never anywhere else, ever and I hate drinking water and would rather drink diet coke which, I’m sorry, is delicious.

Even weight watchers, the plan I follow to work on my weight, has moved toward a more healthful, organic approach and it is so annoying.  Long gone are the days of a lean cuisine pizza and some baked chips considered a healthy lunch – the emphasis is now on fresh fruit and vegetables (which, to be fair to me, I have always loved and eaten plenty of) and plain fat-free yogurt and lots of water.

Ultimately, I know the recent food movement is better for me, better for the environment and, the most motivating factor, better for Evangeline. While at this point she has had some exposure to items like graham crackers and vanilla wafers, those have been solely at daycare. At home she eats a wide and wonderful variety of foods, including grapefruit, polenta, couscous, tofu, black bean soup, broccoli and snap peas (and yes, I know this will end suddenly and she’ll only want to eat orange foods for a year). I realized…if I am willing to give this mug the very best nutrition possible, since I am blessed enough to be able, financially, to do so, I should probably do the same for myself.

I had a similar realization, spending so much time taking care of her skin, making sure I always dry her properly and lotion her up really well – if I’m willing to do that for her, I should make sure to take similar care of my own skin.

So, I’m working on this. A couple of months ago I started by tackling our “white, processed” consumption, more because I think S. and I let it get a little out of control over the winter but also because I know ultimately the processed white stuff offers us nothing in terms of nutrition. I am also trying to get completely rid of diet soda – I’ve never been a huge consumer of it but I do like a diet coke once in a while.  In May I am going to have to turn my attention toward added sugar and eventually I am probably going to have to give S. a hand in the kitchen during dinnertime but, baby steps people, baby steps. For now I’ll leave you with a picture of some snacks I currently have on my desk – a diet coke ( the last of a case – I hope to never purchase it again), an instant oatmeal, white tea, one piece of milk chocolate and one piece of dark chocolate. Baby steps…baby steps.

we should probably stop hating on Ann Romney

Over the last few days, it’s been interesting to witness the fallout from Hilary Rosen’s much-publicized comment that Ann Romney, wife of probable Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, “has never worked a day in her life.”   Below is her actual, full comment:

“His wife has actually never worked a day in her life,” Rosen said on Anderson Cooper’s “AC360” show. “She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and how do we — why we worry about their future.”

On the one hand, I find it sort of funny that this caused Ann Romney to immediately create a twitter account to defend herself (side note: must.get.on.twitter. all the good conversations are happening there!) but for the most part I’ve found myself spending a lot of time sighing deeply and shuddering as terms like “mommy wars” and “stay-at-home vs. working moms” are tossed around, doing absolutely nothing productive conversationally or argumentatively while allowing every man and woman with an opinion and a media outlet(yes, I know that’s exactly what I’m doing) to even more firmly dig his or her heels in and spout thoughts into the universe.

This subject…it’s just…it’s just so hard.  Over the last few days I’ve read some blogs that I thought handled parts of the discussion well but I find I’m not fully comfortable linking to them here because all of them, at some level, in some way, carried the inescapable air of defensivness that this conversation forces among women.  As terrible a term as it is, “mommy wars” isn’t entirely inaccurate – mothers will go to battle defending their choices because it is so deeply personal.

This is what I think: we are this defensive because the decisions we make – to work outside the home or not – lend us an incredible vulnerability that is almost too much to carry, no matter what decision that is.  Choose to stay home and raise your kids, care for the home, support your partner in his or her career while slowly all the Yeats poetry you learned in college is replaced by Sandra Boyton rhymes? Well, then, you are doing it because it’s what’s best for the kids. After all, who can raise your kids better than you? And you wouldn’t lose out on those precious moments no matter how much money was thrown your way, because motherhood is the toughtest job you will ever love.

Choose to work, instead? Whether making this choice out of necessity or desire, or a combination of both, it’s equally fraught because you are leaving your kid (s) everyday, for hours and hours at a time, and if you are making  that choice it had better be either because you *have* to – economic necessity being the only thing pressing enough to force the decision - or because you just couldn’t stand not working, because a need to work is so deeply a part of your identify.

Either path, whether by choice or circumstances outside of your realm of control, leaves you stripped bare emotionally, with defensiveness as the easiest go-to emotion when challenged.

Most of you know I’m a working mom, somewhat by choice and somewhat by necessity.  Choice comes into play because while S. certainly earns a wonderful living, I actually contribute significantly to our family income , and even factoring in the cost of daycare we come out ahead, if I work.  In addition, our health benefits are on my plan, which is a generous one. Switching to S.’s plan would cost us a bundle more.  Could we afford for me to stay home with Evangeline? The answer was absolutely yes, if we wanted to sacrifice any sort of vacation, new clothing, nights out, cable, our cell phone plan, hair highlights for me, baseball tickets for S., and etcetera on down the line, including budgeting for groceries*. Every excess would need to be sacrificed, in order to make it work…not just one or three.

* And here, I need to take moment to explain. Have you ever had one of those *things* that you swore you would never, ever do again just as soon as you grew up or made enough money or moved away or whatever? S., after growing up with a mother always overly conscious and worried about the cost of everything, from green peppers to rental videos, promised himself that someday he wouldn’t have to budget for groceries. He grew more adamant about this throughout our twenties while we adhered to a strict food budget and now he finds freedom, serious freedom, in picking up a steak in the middle of the week if he wants to, or buying quinoa in bulk without asking first. It is one of those things.

So anyway, I work, and the vulnerability I feel in making that choice, day after day, is staggering.  I’m prioritizing an emergency savings account over time with Evangeline – I’m prioritizing new shoes for the family and paying off our school loans and a retirement account and there are days where I hate myself for it. But then again…then again. The women I most admire in this world are actually working mothers – doctors and university presidents and secretaries of state and cancer researchers and they are all raising these amazing children who are obviously okay – no, better than okay – thriving, in fact.  I cling to images of these women and their children during particularly rough periods, when all I want to do is quit my job, scoop my daughter up from daycare and go home to cuddle and play until life feels like it has a  little more room to breathe.

Admittedly, I also like working. Not all the time, every hour of every day or anything but I’m lucky enough to have a profession that gives me a sense of accomplishment, a sense  that in a small way I am making the world a better place, and a vision going forward of what I could achieve. Some mornings, when Evangeline has been up for hours and my hair is full of bananas and we’ve read the same two books ten times apiece and she is shrieking her little girl shriek that is so high pitched even the dog decides to hide I admit, I happily drop her off in the (truly loving) arms of Miss Kathy, pick up a coffee that I know I will be able to finish, and almost gleefully dive into my email in-box.

And that is what just kills me about the “mommy wars” and all the vitriol  spewed between working mothers and stay-at-home-mothers and the many shades of us in between – neither decision is perfectly perfect, and the days spent within the realms of that decision have delightful highs and unbearble lows and to pretend that there is more honor or harder work found in one than the other is just absurd. If you stay at home joy will be found in sleepy, sun-lit mornings, in new skills mastered that were directed by you, in late afternoons at the park but there will also be despair when peas are smeared on your jeans and you can’t have one adult conversation all day long and you feel like your entire day is dependent on whether naptime is a success or not. And if you work, there will be successful days that will make you feel on top of the world, and the option to take a lunch break, and remaining spit-up free for eight whole hours but there will also be demanding bosses and passive-aggressive coworkers and weird workplace rules that crop up out of nowhere that will make you want to bang your head against your monitor until it (your head, not the monitor) goes numb.

All of which is to say, neither choice is right nor wrong but regardless you can bet a whole shit-ton of hair-pulling and crying and mathmatical spreadsheeting went into the decision and while, yes, there will always be the jerks who cluck their tongues in disapproval when your child eats goldfish crackers while theirs eats from-scratch whole grain brocolli muffins and never, ever,  does anything not totally advanced developmentally, and there will also always be the jerks who come to the park in their Louis-Vuitton suits and constantly check their smart phones instead of actually playing with their kids, almost all of us are somewhere in between all of that and if we would just stop reacting all the time maybe we could chill out for half a minute and allow our vulnerabilities to heal, just a tiny bit, just enough to lower our defenses at the same time and open up to one another, instead of closing ourselves off in the shrouds of riteousness we so often wear.  And then maybe, just maybe, when another someone comes out and attacks ann Romney for her life of privilege we can look at each other, shrug our shoulders, give girlfriend Romney a break by saying “Hey, she raised five kids and has battled MS and breast cancer – peace unto her” and move on to talk about whether we should raise our kids to be French or Chinese or whathave you. Because truly, that’s the important stuff.

 

How Pittsburgh Sinks Its Teeth Into You

Taking a cab from Wicker Park to downtown Chicago Friday night, I fell in love with Chicago for the tenth or one hundredth time. I really have no idea how often I’ve visited – it’s been a lot – two or three times a year for over a decade, now. I was thirteen years old the first time my grandmother and mother brought me to Chicago for a long weekend of shopping. We stayed at the Drake Hotel, dined in the Cape Cod Room, shopped at Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom’s, Crate & Barrel. I wore high heels for the first time, in Chicago, and hailed my first cab, too.  The magic of that first trip has never completely worn off and to me Chicago will always smell like Chanel No. 5 and taste like melt-in-your-mouth prime rib and feel like my first real boyfriend.

At least, until I get out of the cab and start handing out twenty dollar bills like it’s my job.

Chicago is expensive, yo.

And yes, I know it’s less expensive in the neighborhoods but while on these trips I occasionally catch up with friends and family, like I did on Friday night, most of the time I am traveling alone, for business, and I stay in a hotel with a great location to my conference but right in the middle of five restaurants all charging 52 dollars for a steak, side dishes not included.

I complained about this, just a tiny bit, to S. over the phone last night. “It would be different if I was here on vacation,” I said. “And logically I know that if I want a 52 dollar steak you would tell me to go ahead, indulge myself and pay for it out of my own pocket. But it’s the principle of the matter – that I only receive so much per day from work to eat and it basically covers orange juice, unless I want to trudge to a different neighborhood by myself.”

“Well, I’m loving Pittsburgh more and more,” said S. “I went to Rocky’s on Friday (Rocky is our drycleaner) just to drop off a load and they had our previous drop off ready from just two days ago! They asked me if I wanted it and bagged it up right away, even though we weren’t due to pick it up for several more days. That never would have happened in Detroit.”

And that is how Pittsburgh gets to you. Affordability, and little niceties.

S. and I have never really planned to live in one place, forever. The beginning of our relationship was marked by moves – first to North Carolina, then to West Virgina. Next came Pennsylvania, a four-year return to Michigan, and then back to Pittsburgh.  Now that we have E, our discussions about moving are much more calculated because we don’t want E growing up without roots or a hometown.  If we were to move again, it would either be out of necessity or at the very least, strategic in nature – a well-timed career move in conjunction with a school transition, or something like that.

That doesn’t mean I don’t dream of other places, though. I often dream of moving back to Northern Michigan so we could be closer to my parents, and the lakes I love. Other times I fantasize about moving to the deep south for a few years, an adventure S. and I often discussed in the past, to soak up an entirely different culture. My heart broke when left North Carolina and sometimes I contemplate a return there, while my more practical side salivates over the kind of jobs that exist in Washington D.C., and all of this is to say that even as a mother of one in her *almost* mid-thirties, I still retain a wild sense of possibility out there in the world and I am not entirely opposed to exploring it.

But the longer I live in Pittsburgh, the more I understand why people land here and never leave. It is by far the kindest city I have ever lived in or visited – the people here throw their arms and hearts open wide and welcome you into their city, their homes, their lives with incredible gusto.  The embodiment of what I consider southern hospitality is on display here, sometimes bordering on the nosey and every once in a while, on the very intrusive.  Admittedly it has taken S and I awhile to adjust to what the locals refer to as their natural “nebbyness,” born in the cold north as we were.

Perhaps equally important is Pittsburgh’s affordability. We own a house for significantly less than if we lived in any other major metropolitan area, and probably less than in a signficant portion of the U.S., as well.  While down the line schools will most certainly become as issue for us, right now we live near where we work and are able take advantage of walking and the bus system as well as driving.

I think sometimes S and I fear settling – that enjoying and finding comfort in Pittsburgh now could somehow lead to complacency down the road. We are both ambitious by nature, with deep-seated fears about not reaching our potential.  For the first couple of years we lived here (the second time around) we kept telling ourselves it was “okay for now, just not forever” but the longer we remain, with neighbors investing in the state of our garden and our friends starting families here – the more work we pour into our Victorian house and the more we watch our daughter thrive in the city she was born – the more often we say to one another, in the mornings over coffee as a weak sunlight streams through the dining room, or in the evenings over wine, relaxing after a long work day, that yes, we could see moving somewhere else, but if Pittsburgh is where we “end up,” in this house, on this street, forever – well, that would be incredibly lucky, too.

Affordability, and little niceties. They’ll get you every time.

 

I’ve been summoned

Everyone’s favorite Emily , also known as Queen of the Meme, summoned several of us via facebook and tagging to follow her command and help restore the blogosphere, if only for a minute or two, to something of its former glory before we all became friends on facebook and twitter (I’m not on twitter yet but it’s only a matter of time) and started writing in clever, pithy shorthand to one another.  I do think blogging for me, as well as for others, sometimes takes a back seat to easier communication methods (hi, Pinterest! hi! hi!) but I still truly love to blog and reading other people’s blogs (except for those of you who have gone all Babble on me – God, those posts are annoying. I’m slowly eliminating every single one of you from my blogroll).  Anyway, I am delighted to take part in the Queen’s summons, although I won’t be adhering to all of the rules. The idea is to answer 11 questions posed by the queen, create 11 questions of your own, and then tag 11 people to answer them.  I have decided not create questions of my own simply because the following 22 are so outstanding that there is no way I could  top them, and Emily tagged the people I was most likely to tag. That said, if you are reading and would like to participate, please do so! And if you read this blog and I don’t link to you,  let me know and I will quickly rectify the situation!

So here you go – 22 questions answered.

1. What is your favourite place in the world? the dock at our cabin – it stretches out just a bit onto the lake and it is my very favorite place on earth. I love to linger on it for hours in the evening, watching the sun sink behind the trees as the stars come out until finally it’s time to head up to the cabin and think about preparing dinner.

2. Have you ever visited an author’s home, and did the experience live up to your expectation? No…and I’ve never wanted to. As an avid reader, is that weird? I don’t even really care for pictures of writers’ workspaces, or anything like that. I’m beginning to realize this is a bit unconventional, actually!

3. Do you read biographies of authors you like, or do you prefer to let their words speak for them?

 

I am *mostly* a fiction fiend but I occasionally read a biography of authors I like – most notably a couple on William Butler Yeats (if S. would approve of a tattoo, which he most emphatically does NOT, I would get a certain few lines of Yeats on my shoulder).  I’ve enjoyed biographies about Jane Austen and the Brontes as well…nothing too far from the norm or interesting, though.

 

4. Do you have a comfort food? Well, I certainly love food but I don’t think I have one thing I turn to over and over again…when I’m missng my grandma I like to make beef stroganoff or chili and crescent rolls, and every once in a while S. and I will fall into some fried chicken and macaroni and cheese – I also adore perogies.  Donuts twice a year or so. Chocolate cake…okay, I am going to stop now…I love food but try very hard to not turn to it as “comfort.”

 

5. Do you have a favourite classical author?

I can’t help it – I know it’s trite – Jane Austen. She is definitely my favorite classical author.

 

6. Do you prefer to watch the movie first, or read the book first?

 

A big downside to seeing the movie first is that I tend to lose interest in reading the book at all, whether or not I liked the movie.  I definitely think it’s a very good general rule to read the book before seeing the movie!

 

7. Do you have enough bookshelves? (I know this question is a cheat, because really do any of us have enough bookshelves?) Not to be a contrarian but actually, yes. This is because we actually have a rather large closet that we turned into a “book room,” so my answer is more the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of it…

Is there an author that you are planning to read this year for the first time?

Not intnetionally but all three books I’ve either read or attempted this year were written by new-to-me authors.  Unfortunately I just couldn’t slog my way through A.S. Byatt’s Possession – I finally quit on it last night, turned to the last page, and checked out the ending. From what I read of the ending, it reaffirmed my decision to quit mid-way through, something I rarely do.

 

9. Do you have a favourite historical period, and why is it your favourite? I enjoy reading about a wide variety of historical periods but I really have a deep and abiding love for books that take place in California before it became so terribly overpopulated and the orange groves were decimated, and the American West. If I could go back to any period in time (as long as I didn’t have to stay there!) I would want to see the Great Plains as Willa Cather saw them, and the beach towns that dotted the California’s Pacific Coast before traffic became what it is today.

10. Name a book that you are anticipating reading that is being published this year.

 Totally stealing this from Emily because I completely agree: Tana French’s Broken Harbour. Can. Not. Wait.

and just because I [Susan, although Emily loves this question, too] like this question so much:

11. Prince of Tides, Pride and Prejudice

1. Have you ever liked a movie more than the book? If so, what movie(s)? You know, I honestly don’t think so. I’ve been wracking my brain over this question for a while now and I can’t think of a single instance where the movie has been better than the book!

 

2. __Patrick Sweany______ opening for __Pearl Jam

________ would be a dream concert. Fill in the blanks. (You can fill them in with performers dead or alive.)

 

3. If you’re making dinner and don’t need to take into account anyone else’s tastes but your own, what do you find yourself having over and over again?

Either a salad with a spinach base topped with any combination of seafood, chicken, goat or blue or parmesan cheese, walnuts or pecans, extra veggies, olive oil and viniagrette or eggs on toast.

 

4. You get to interview the author of the book you are reading right now. What’s the first question you’d ask?

Ms. Byatt – how are you? Asked because I just officially gave up on Possession after 200 pages and I feel a little ashamed I quit it…

 

5. If the world becomes one in which all new novels are only published in digital format, what will you miss most?

 

Honestly, I don’t want to live in such a world. I have an ipad and I don’t even use the library on it – I love books with my whole heart and am in no way interested in digital reading. But I guess mostly I would miss their physicality – curling up one on the couch, the heft of a book in my purse the satisfying turning of the page…

 

6. If you had been gifted to play any musical instrument brilliantly, what would you choose to play? (Or maybe you are so-gifted. If so, what do you play?) Ha – I am not musical at all unfortunately but if I were I would choose to play the guitar brilliantly – rockstar brilliantly.

 

7. The “war between the sexes” has been around since the beginning of time. What do you think is the biggest problem between the sexes today?

 

A week ago I would have said equality in both the public and private sphere but I’m all fired up about all these damn Republican men trying to legislate my body so right now I would say the biggest problem is men wanting to have sex with us while  at the same time not wanting us to use birth control OR have abortions but, you know, also not staying home with the inevitable babies that come along. I seriously can’t believe how much we are regressing as a country – I’m honestly frightened and trying to figure out what role I can play in all of this.

 

8. If you could switch places with any celebrity for three months, with whom would you like to switch places?

Tina Fey – I would love to spend three months writing for 30 Rock (and whatever else she’s working on) and living in New York City. Also, she is wicked smart and hilarious.

 

9. You can eat at any restaurant in the world. Where would you eat?

I seriously am not aware of any famous restaurants…oh, I hear of them but they  never stick in my head in any kind of real way, and while I very much enjoy food I generally find myself annoyed by very earnest foodies…I guess if anything I would like Doc’s Place in Pittsburgh to come back.  S. and I had such wonderful times there and we still feel its loss acutely – not for the food which was basic bar food but for the ambience and just how comfortable we were there.

 

10. What book do you wish you hadn’t wasted your time reading last year?

I loved everything I read last year, actually. I do wish I hadn’t wasted nearly three weeks on the first 200 pages of Possession because I was convinced I *should* like it.

 

Resume Advice for those seeking internships and first jobs

I am really, really glad I never pigeon-holed this blog and made it all about writing or reading or cooking or whatever because today I have a specific target audience I want to address and I am hoping those of you in the working world can jump in on this conversation with your own thoughts and opinions as well.

I  recently had the lovely opportunity (and I am saying this with all seriousness) of sorting through hundreds of college student resumes provided in application for a summer intern position I will be mentoring/managing.  I’ve also been reviewing resumes for some open positions in my department – I will not be managing these positions but our department is collaborative and many of us are consulted when important positions need to be filled.  In reviewing this multitude of resumes, I thought I would share some advice. Please note while I am honored and excited to manage our summer intern, especially since we all at one point needed someone to take a chance on us and this feels very pay-it-forward, I am NOT in human resources, have absolutely no HR experience, and this advice is solely from one working professional to a hopeful working professional, sort of in the vein of your friend who’s not a doctor giving medical advice.

My top resume tips for internship and first job seekers

• Assuming you are in college, put your education at the top of your resume. No work experience is going to be weighted more than your chosen major and relevent coursework. Including your G.P.A. is great – don’t worry if you don’t think  it’s where it “should” be. We don’t get overly hung up on them.
• Unless you are applying specifically for a graphic design job, do away with the fancy resume formatting and make your resume as straight forward as possible – I received so many resumes with dizzying amounts of design and I really had to suppress the urge to automatically put them in the “no” pile for irritating me.
• If you have a liberal arts major like English or history or religious studies and you have absolutely no experience, volunteer or otherwise, in the field you are applying, including an objective at the top of your resume is a very good idea. Taking a moment to explain why you want an internship with my office demonstrate this is a thoughtful choice of yours and not something you are doing while totally freaking out that you are never going to get hired anywhere, ever. An objective really helps contextualize why you are seeking “real world” experience. For the rest of you…
• you probably don’t need to put objectives at the top of the page, especially if you are going to write sentences like “my objective is to get a job that benefits my charming personality” or “my objective is to get an internship that will lead to a well-paying job with good hours.” Well, of course. That’s my objective, too.
• There is absolutley no need to fancy-up your work experience. For instance, if you are a waitress at Claddaugh’s, you don’t need to say one of your tasks was “resolving client disatisfaction with product through consultation with management.” You can just say worked as a server – we  get it. We all worked as servers in the past.
• Stick with one page. No, really. Stick with one page, at your age. No, REALLY. Stick with one page, no matter how badly you don’t want to. Stick with one page. Really.
• If you maintain a personal blog and include that on your resume, make really, really sure it has content you want your future employer to see. I think some people would recommend cleaning up your facebook page and twitter accounts too but personally I don’t have the kind of time to cyber-stalk you that doesn’t matter much to me.

If you land an interview, wear a suit, even if you think it doesn’t jive with who you are. You probably won’t have to wear a suit every day for the rest of your life but wearing one to an initial interview is tremendously important. DON’T wear open-toed shoes no matter how much money you’ve invested in your pedicure. Don’t wear an over-powering perfume or cologne, especially during allergy season.  Do be yourself and not who you think the company “wants” you to be…as long as you are honest about yourself, your work and your background and approach the work with a little bit of humility you will be just fine.

Those are my initial thoughts for the newest group of rising college seniors looking for a full-time job in a semester or a year…anyone else have any advice they care to share? Or perhaps you disagree with me on one (or more) of the points?

 

 

In a way, the blogging of my journal entries stopped before it ever really got started. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed sharing the items I did but as I continued reading I realized I use my journal as a place to vent, chasticize myself or give internal pep talks. I essentially address the same set of topics over again…marital issues (good and bad) that are too private to post, issues with my parents that are too private to post, writing angst, job angst and not-doing-enough-with my life angst. The end result of what I do end up sharing makes it seem like I live in this incredible protected bubble, floating along gazing adoringly at my husband and child with only the minor, troubling thought that perhaps I should write something someday. While I certainly think I have a very good life, the journal entries I am comfortable posting make it seem more idealic  than it actually is, and that doesn’t seem fair. And so, while I have no doubt I will write much, much more about Evangeline and parenting in the future, for now I leave you with two items. The first is one last entry from my journal – Evangeline was about 6 weeks old when I wrote it.  I think it’s hilarious:

Tentative Schedule for E, 3/25/2011

5:30/6:00 a.m. – wakeup, nurse

6:30- 7:30 – time with daddy, possible formula supplement*

7:30 – 10:30 – naps

10:30 – 3:00 p.m. – nurse/play/run errands/mommy and me yoga

3:00 – 5:00 or 6:00 – nap

6:00 – 8:00 p.m. – nurse/play

8:00 – 10:00 p.m. – dinner, bath, bedtime

E’s actual schedule, 3/2/25/2011

12:05 a.m. – wakeup, nurse

4:15 a.m. – wakeup, nurse

6:15 a.m. – wakeup, nurse

nap

9:00 a.m. – wakeup, nurse

10:00 a.m. – belly/play time

11:00 a.m. – nurse/nap

12:00 p.m. – nurse

2:00 p.m. – grocery store!

3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. – nurse/nap/nurse/nap

8:30 – 4 oz formula supplment from dad

10:00 – bedtime routine.

* Yep, I supplemented E with one bottle of formula a day from pretty early on – she had trouble gaining weight for several months and I needed the break once a day. I felt okay about it because my Dr. Brazelton book said it was fine but I’ll admit this subject is so freaking fraught! I mean, look at me, right now, justifying…

And then, what one year old looks like: