My bro is having his Grand Opening for his chocolate store tonight. We’re going to wander by around 5 or 6 ourselves I think. If you haven’t visited 145 Front Street, it’s a nice eclectic bunch of start ups in a little market space, and there are great restaurants/bars nearby. Like ReBar.
Here’s the link to his store, chocolatearth. http://chocolate-earth.com/CE/
He’s also hosting a pre-valentines beer and chocolate tasting event – that sounds deliciously fun too.
Just wanted to let you know! Spread the word.
Despite a widely held perception that bloggers share everything online, it’s really not true, at least not for us, I mean me, me blogging about my family – us. I’d say 90% of the most interesting, juicy bits are left out because the best stories are really the most personal, intimate and vulnerable things to share. (Or, they are the stories about people you know that would get me in big trouble if I told online in print!) That said, I like to share enough to keep a record of the passing moments, the ones I wouldn’t otherwise jot down, so that one day I can trigger a memory of what it was like to go through “all of that.”
“All of that,” these days, means considering how we are going to support this nasty habit we have of having children and desiring to raise them with easy access to outdoors, and other children, and the great world out there. New York is an awesome place to raise children if you have the funding to do so properly, live close to a park, have a good school nearby, and hopefully friends that are an easy commute. But we still only have one income and no other funding prospects (they don’t have Fulbrights for parenting do they?) and so the question is starting to become a pressing one – How are we going to make this thing work?
Is it possible we will have to leave New York?
It’s a difficult question. Everyone knows I, and we, love this city. I’ve oft described it as a lover, a friend, the center of the universe etc. It’s really everything that a possibility-lover like me could imagine in an environment. I love having one-minute friendships with strangers on the subway, the elevator – sharing real bits of life in real ways in effervescent moments that dissolve as quickly as they began. I love that there are a million different city parks, zoos, beaches, toy stores, etc. to take the kids. I love that I have an eclectic and diverse network of friends here of all ages that I really respect and admire and find interesting. I love that everything is always possible.
Except that, everything is not always possible. First and foremost, you can’t have campfires here. Unrelated to that fact, and probably more of a factor in this discussion, is that if you don’t have enough money or time, you can’t get yourself out to enjoy all the possibilities. You know they are there, but you are in your living room chasing after a two-year old and making sure the little one gets all of his naps in. After that, even while you meet some nice friendly people you also run into a lot of gruff people who are just trying to take care of their own shit, which makes you feel like shit too when you are struggling. And if you aren’t close to the park, or your friends, or the store, then it’s really all just an idea and not easily possible to take advantage of the awesomeness that is “The City.”
Entonces, while we love NYC, we don’t love it more than each other or our children, and we need things to be real, not just possible, right now. And that, my friends, is why we are now thinking we might have to be saying goodbye. It’s kind of huge, and pretty sad, but then it’s kind of grand, and really exciting. We’d be trading possible for actual and be able to relax into real life instead of what we were dreaming/hoping life might have been here. So that’s the big intimate conversation we’ve been having with ourselves.
The hardest part would be leaving my mother. When you’re a mother there’s nothing like having your mother around. But I’ve already got a huge compelling argument in the works about why she would and should want to follow us too, who knows if it will be successful. She’ll be able to retire soon so I think I can convince her, that is, unless my brothers give her some anchor-grandbabies to keep her here. Say no to anchor-grandbabies!
I’ve got a lot of posts in the works but haven’t been able to finish them up due to a sick little tyke in the house. Sick kids are the worst, I mean he’s been great, a perfect champ about it, it’s just the dealing with it [fevers waking everyone to watch Kung Fu Panda at 4 a.m. and wait for them to go down] that is rough. Sitting in M.D. waiting rooms for over an hour with sick kid is the ultimate in purgatory, other than the real purgatory, if such thing should exist, and if it doesn’t, well I’m going to say that the waiting room is good enough to count.
One of my tasks at work is to find and hire our volunteer interns and other staff. There has been nothing better for my career than this position – reviewing hundreds of candidates on paper and less but a significant amount in person to find out what it is that makes one a good candidate, one who gets interviews, one who gets the job.
So, from that, here are my tips on resumes and cover letters:
1. Present Yourself Properly.
Every resume should come with a cover letter and vice versa unless your resume is so damn clear about why you are a perfect fit that it reads as a persuasive argument itself. Practice point: It won’t. Unless you go to Harvard or Yale and your last three positions were perfect build-ups to the position you are applying for, it absolutely won’t be enough. Write out a proper cover letter, in proper format as you should have been taught in elementary, include it in it’s own document or in the same document as your resume. Limit your resume to one page unless you are really, really experienced and tailor the experiences you’ve had to fit the position for which you are applying. Always proof read your letter to make sure you’ve addressed all of it to the right person, position, and organization.
In a competitive city like New York, and these days, every position everywhere is becoming competitive, a failure to cover these basics can get your application thrown out before any of the substance of it is considered. You can skip references or a writing sample and get away with it, but not a great cover and resume.
2. Tailor Yourself Like a Finely Crafted Italian Suit.
Your letter should be a quick, clear and compelling argument about why you are the perfect fit for the position. Make it easy on HR (or me) by just getting to the point. Explain why you are personally interested in our position at our organization and how your experience is going to make you a great employee. Cover the main points of this – not every detail. The interview is for detail. Your cover letter should show you understand 1. who you are, and 2. who we are, and 3. how we are a great match. It should be one page unless you are writing really well and it’s an organization that appreciates earnestness. I’ve let just a couple two pagers sneak in.
Practice Point: If you cannot succinctly make a compelling argument about why you are the best candidate for the job, the person reviewing your application is not going to do it for you either. Take the time to practice explaining to yourself why you are the best and then put that argument down for your future employer.
Well, I could go on, but these are my main criteria and I need to get back to work to start scheduling interviews. I sort out all applications based on these issues before delving into real substance and ranking applicants that way. Do I perhaps miss qualified candidates because they didn’t present themselves well? Yes and no. There may be great people who could do the job just fine, but if they can’t present themselves well then on one important level they aren’t yet qualified. If I had only ten applications to review, the benefit of the doubt might come into play, but in a competitive market where there are 200 applications for every one position, BOD is inapplicable.
Well, anyways, much love to you as you enter the weekend. We are going to emerge from our hibernation and take Gael to the Met for his first high cultural experience (hope he stays awake) and Uncle Mike is going to take Rome to his first movie. I hope he picks Rin Tin Tin over Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because, I mean, he’s only two and really should see the original series first.
Laundry, mending, putting the baby to his nap – I ‘m just a model of domesticity this morning. Now a chance to write with hot coffee nearby – the two year old has come between us – it’s turning out to be a lovely morning.
Gael, the man-baby, a term of endearment because of his continually shocking size, has recently decided he is no longer in need of swaddling and he’d prefer his arms free. He is five months this week and told us he is simply too old for full body swaddling anymore. That’s fine – I was just happy to figure out why he had resorted to squirming and screeching at the moment he would normally nuzzle up to a pillow and fall asleep. He is now on his hopefully regular nap schedule, swaddled only waist high in recognition of his maturity: Wake at 7 a.m., Naps at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., Asleep at 7. It might work, though he might try for a third nap for awhile yet. Babies do that until they are about nine months.
Rome is talking like a regular grown-up. Sure he throws a good two-year-old fit here or there, like if I drag him away from the car section at the drug store without buying him one. However, he’ll also break into an unreal adult sounding conversation like this:
“So, what are we going to do tomorrow?” He asks, holding his arms up in an open, questioning fashion.
Me: “We can go to the park – I found an indoor park we can go to!”
Him: “Go to the playground! And I’ll go down the.. SLIDE! O.K.? And the SLIDE! Like, we’ll go to the PLAYGROUND!”
Me: “How about the swings? Will you go on the swings?”
Him: “Mmm… But I don’t like the swings. Go fast on the swings?”
Me: “No, that’s right, you don’t like the swings.”
Then he keeps repeating the bit about going fast on the swings, which must be something he is just imagining, because he doesn’t go at ALL on the swings, let alone fast.
Things I enjoyed this weekend:
- Having three days of relaxment
- Learning how to make my own coffee milk foam
- Making black bean burgers from scratch (Recipe coming soon)
- Rearranging our bedroom
On the schedule today is getting the kids on the nap schedule properly, as I failed and that was the most difficult part of the weekend – children awake at the wrong times. And, as previously discussed with Rome – an indoor park – the Pop Up Park. It sounds fun! And in this chilly weather, all New Yorkers apparently seek out indoor playgrounds. New to me, but interesting concept. I’m also excited to check out this one.
If nothing else, I’d like to visit Ikea especially after rearranging our room – Now there’s a free giant playground for all of us – but I know that I would end up spending some cash that I don’t have in any budget. Oh well, for today, we’ll splurge on the artsy indoor park. There may be some interesting developments in our near future which mean I shouldn’t be buying any more things that would eventually have to be moved anyhow!
Happy Week!
In case you have the babysitters chance, there are a few cool beer things coming up to check out:
1. My bro’s beer and chocolate tasting event. It’s so cool sounding, I think we’ll blow some of my birthday bucks to attend!
2. IPA tasting challenge. If anyone, Aldo needs to go to this clever drinking event.
3. Not an event but a destination experience, if they have enough good beers and not too many dude beers, this place should be great!
I think it a little weird when I go to reach for a clean disposable diaper. I think, hand me that piece of plastic covered absorbent paper. Yes, they’re convenient but they’re also weird. I love cloth. When I have the energy to wash, they’re the best. So I used some birthday money to order new covers that will actually fit my 18 lb. almost 5 month old and we’re going back to cloth. That and Rome can poo on the toilet means that we can potty train the one while cloth diapering the other and get off scot-free.
I thought this was going to be indie-annoying. It’s indie-dorable. Thanks Anna!
I was just sitting down to write having gotten the kids off to naps at the same time and laughed because I had to go to the bathroom and was like “Damn! There goes three of my five minutes of free time!” I thought that would be a good story to share for anyone thinking of having multiple kids. Having two kids means that even going to the bathroom feels like a squandering of nap time.
I got back to the computer and began updating my Google Reader. I love my Google Reader app and use it to catch up on blogs on the train on the way home from work. I wanted to delete some mom blogs from my list however because of the aforementioned time problem. With such a precious limit of free time I can’t spend it living vicariously through women who are doing the same damn kid stuff I am. Thus, all similarly situated mothers, except the particularly snarky or clever ones = cut. I’m sure they understand and they’ve also already written this same post themselves.
And then I was getting ready to blog and boom! The baby wakes up. The funny thing about my bathroom story is that it’s true, which is also the sad thing. Ah well, I used my boob and now he’s out again so we’ll see how we do now. Boobs are so useful.
It’s a great thing having a birthday on a Sunday. It’s a true birthday weekend and you can really relax into it. Rome and I went to the closest playground yesterday morning with Fio and it was nice. We took his little toddler’s-first-remote-control-car and he was zipping it around a bit until this very nice guy came with his kid in a stroller and took out a huge blue remote control Jeep thing and all of a sudden we were jealous. He was nice though, and even though he didn’t speak English when I showed him what we’d come with (sheepishly, given how rinky dink it was), he let Rome play with his while he jogged the strolled in small circles around the park. He didn’t even mind that Rome just kept crashing it into things.
In the afternoon we all ventured out on one of our favorite little journeys: into Park Slope via Mt. Prospect Park playground, the Underhill playground, and then our favorite Thai/Sushi joint. There were too many big kids at the first park but the second park was just right. However beautiful out, it was still cold, so we made a beeline for the restaurant pretty quickly.

This morning we did another favorite – Brunch at Moutarde. It’s a little French place that’s nice but not overly fancy/pricey. I had great coffee, a butter croissant, a bellini and eggs florentine, more coffee and a chocolate croissant.
The second croissant can count as my cake.

We carried home flowers and some goodies from the Larder and relieved my bro and sister-in-law so they could get off to the chocolate shop and work themselves.
And that’s how we spent this year’s my-birthday. I traded a big birthday celebration for simple understated joys this year – that seemed appropriate for 31 – that and everyone in our family is somehow working on a Sunday. Last year on this day – we moved here! I’m so very glad today is so much less eventful.
I thought it was Kate and Ivy’s birthday today too but Ivy came yesterday and Kate’s is tomorrow. So, it’s really just me, Addie and Elvis, as it has always been.
Happy Birthday Us!
There. I wrote a whole blog post, put in links, edited it and everything and no more children are awake than when I started. Take that parenthood!
Get yer blog posts here!