Why can't lunch just be lunch?

I'm going to Chick-fil-A for lunch today.  And I'm taking the kids and Mick.  So I suppose we, as a family, are going to Chick-fil-A for lunch today.

Taken from www.chick-fil-a.com.  Right-clicked on Tuesday, July 24.

And it's not a political statement.  It's a statement that I like their chicken and their customer service, and my kids do, too. 

I also happen to support their right to make donations however they see fit, just as I may make donations however I see fit.  There has been a mess in the media and on Facebook lately, and now conspiracy theorists are running rampant about the fact that CFA pulled their kids' meals toys last Wednesday in anticipation that Henson Productions was going to release their statement about CFA's political donations -- and severing their partnership -- last Friday. 

I can't and won't fight the conspiracy theorists.

So, I suppose I lied to you.  I am going to Chick-fil-A today for a few reasons.

1.  I quite enjoy their chicken.

2.  I promised my kids.

3.  We won't be able to easily get Chick-fil-A, nevermind on a whim as we do so often do now, as of Friday.

4.  I support Chick-fil-A's right to make donations as they see fit, within the confines of the law.

5.  I am angry, quite frankly, that Chick-fil-A is being attacked for having a belief and sticking to it.  Their donation to a conservative group is, in fact, no different from any other donation to any other conservative group, or -- dare I say it -- liberal group.  But because that group IS, in fact, conservative, and lobbies against legislation to legalize gay marriage, Chick-fil-A has been demonized.  I don't really have an opinion on gay marriage.  But I do have an opinion on Chick-fil-A's rights, which is to say that they ought to be just as free as anyone else to exercise their rights to make donations as our political system permits.  Just as importantly, if a particular group disagrees with Chick-fil-A's opinion, well, that group is free to exercise its own rights in efforts to at least balance the scales, if not tip them to their side.  That's how our political system works, folks.  It's a democratic republic.  We, the people, have a voice.   If you don't like something, use your voice. Don't demonize a company because it has exercised that same right. 

But today, it's just about the chicken.  I am hungry, and I plan to "eat Mor."

--Jen

p.s.   If you plan to leave comments that are ugly, please know that this is MY blog and I will remove them.  That's not to make any discussion one-sided; that's because I'm happy to engage in an intelligent discourse, but the bottom line is that if you're new to this blog and itchin' for a soapbox, you've come to the wrong place and you need to seek a forum elsewhere.  I wrote this post to vent, and not to provide a forum for political debate.  I have no intention to provide a forum for political debate, or to turn this blog into a political blog.

If you'd like to have an adult conversation, you're welcome to comment, but know that I am about conversation-ed out on this issue, and I may take some time to reply.  This isn't the hill I want to die on, but I've been pretty upset about this issue, and I need a break. 

Mommy? Someday we go see the Big Thomas, Someday?

Wow!  I put out a request on my personal Facebook page asking for people to like the blog's Facebook page, and I went from 3, to 8, and now over 30 followers!  I feel like I should honor that by having my first post back from our busy weekend be something hilarious and sarcastic and brilliant and witty.  First of all, a huge thank you to all my new readers, I am so humbled that you cared to check out this blog!  I really mean that.  I had to step back and pause when I realized I asked, and I received, and people actually took the time to come check out this blog.  Cheesy, but true.

But, all that mush aside, (and to insert some parallel structure here) SECOND OF ALL, I have to put all the warm fuzzies away for a moment and just say sorry, folks.  No brilliant post to start your week -- you'll have to settle for vacation photos. I've got so much to post about that my head is spinning and I thought I'd start with something fun (if not quite fun-ny).

Last year, as you all know, WHM became a Thomas the Tank Engine fan.  Yes, I take the blame and responsibility.

At some point last year we learned about the Day Out with Thomas, where you can ride on a real train that's all dressed up to look like Thomas. Or really, Thomas pulls some coaches and you ride on the coaches.  We just missed the event in Chattanooga, but we were heading to NH and Maine for a late-July wedding, and Thomas was coming to Maine the first weekend in August.  So, instead of going north mid-July and ending our trip with the wedding, we went north for the wedding and ended the trip with Thomas.

That was ... let's see ... August 5, 2011, when we rode "the big Thomas."

Every day since, and usually multiple times per day (and I promise you that I am neither exaggerating nor being sarcastic), WHM has asked, "Mommy?  Someday we go on the big Thomas, some day?"  And after he asks me, he asks Mick.  "Daddy?  We go on the big Thomas again, some day?" By my calculations, that's 275 days of asking about Thomas, times twice a day -- which is a LOW estimate if there ever was one -- so WHM's asked to see the Big Thomas at least 550 times. 

Well, my friends, "some day" finally came.  (Yes, I know the space doesn't belong in "someday," but I'm putting it there to try to mimic how WHM actually says it.)  After a crazy month and not being sure we were even going to get there, and then WHM being sick last weekend when we thought we'd go, we finally were able to commit to a weekend.  We bought the tickets and took WHM and CAM to "the big Thomas" at the Tennessee Valley Railway in Chattanooga.  (We'd been there last summer and really enjoyed it, but as I said, we were not there when Thomas was there.)

Pro tip:  Get the earliest train you can get.  We had tickets for the 9:00 train on a Sunday morning.  We got movie-star parking, everyone was still in great spirits, the kids were wide awake, and we beat both the crowds and the heat.  It was a stroke of dumb luck combined with brilliance.  I'll let you decide whether Mick's contribution or mine was the brilliance.

We also, as you probably know, had a weekend filled with a gazillion other things ... ballet recitals, childrens' museums (two of them!), the Tennessee Aquarium ... and I'll post more about those (well, the ones I didn't already post about) soon.  I'm dedicating today to "getting stuff done," including laundry.  Remember the pile I showed you a few months ago?  Triple it.  I need to fold some laundry, big time. But today, as then, I'm taking myself to lunch with a friend.  So there, laundry, so there!

Okay.  Here are some photos.  More posts to come ...

-Jen

Snuggling on the coach before we started moving.

Checking out the people still boarding.  We were in the first car on the 9am train.

One of the conductors waving as we started chuffing away.

So, the Day Out with Thomas has a whole bunch of activities for the kids, one of which was this jumpy house.  They did a great job, allowing only 5 or 6 kids at a time, and timing it.  SOOoo much nicer than the usual jumphouse-roughouses-of-death that you usually find.

Yes, there's an entire tent of Thomas trains to play with.  Here, WHM is playing with the Trackmaster version.

CAM and our conductor, Mr. Harvey.  He drove down from northern Kentucky for Thomas event last weekend and this, and worked in the shop all week, helping to restore engines and coaches!

Upstairs in the depot they had storytelling and Thomas videos.  And air conditioning.  It was the favorite stop for many parents.  Here, CAM and WHM are taking an ice cream sandwich break.

And then, there was the COVER LETTER

I am good at a lot of things.  I am passionate about a lot of things.  I am NOT, however, good at writing cover letters, even if the job is for something about which I am passionate.

A few months ago, I had an opportunity to interview for a job I desperately wanted.  In Tuscaloosa, no less!  All the stars were (finally) aligning!  I was on Cloud 9.

Well, except that two stars didn't feel like aligning:  the star that aligned to allow me to get back to Tuscaloosa for the interview, and the star that allowed for childcare while I interviewed.  I ended up doing a phone interview and -- well, it wasn't my best.  I didn't get the job, which always stings a little, but it was one of those situations where I replayed it over and over in my head, and every time I replayed it, I felt like I did just a little worse.  Chalk it up, brush yourself off, I didn't give my A game that day.  Gotcha.  Moving on.

Then a similar job opened in another school system.  Applied.  Still waiting to hear about that one.

Then my DREAM version of this job opened up with a major education/testing company whose name rhymes with Bollege Coard.  Yes, my friends, I am the math geek gal who would love, love, LOVE to work for this company!  I got the notification of the position in my email -- as luck would have it, the week of CAM and Mick's birthday.

Desperate for my resume to be amazing (and racing the clock), I did something I have never done: I put out an all-call on my personal Facebook page (side note:  now that I have a blog Facebook page, I get to make this distinction!  How cool is that?!  And by the way, I am working on a way to have Facebook automatically update when I post here.  It's taking me some time, though, so bear with me) asking for resume help.

I got some wonderful advice.  Sure, some of it contradicts, but when more than one person said the same thing, I went with it.  I am pleased with the result, and since I doubt I'll ever think my resume is perfect, I am content to feel much better today than I did even two days ago.  I will continue to improve the old resume, I hope, but I think it was professional and got the scaling back it so very much needed.

(Side note #2: If you've never written a resume for a federal job, it requires every last piece of information you can think of, and strategic specific words, and there is no length limit.  99% of the advice you receive will say to make it as long as possible and/or necessary to say everything you've ever done, using the specific vocabulary of the federal job posting.  So, when you've got one of those and you have to scale it back for a "regular" resume, it can be mind-numbing.  I was at that stage where I could no longer decipher what I needed to cut.  I needed fresh, critical eyes to help me see what was, in fact, ridiculous to include on a regular resume.)

But the cover letter?  Let me let you in on a little secret:  I have in the past skipped applying for jobs because I did not want to write the cover letters. No, they weren't my dream jobs, but still.  You get the idea.  I hate cover letters.  I feel as though I inevitably write something stilted, cliched, or waaaay too long.  Or, in my finer moments, I write something that is stilted, cliched AND waaaay too long.

And when I seek advice, it's all over the map and essentially useless.

But my goodness, do I want this job.  Which meant that tonight, I sat at my computer and just banged out a cover letter.

It's probably awful.

So, if you're reading this, HR, please know that I am a much, much better writer if it's about something other than, well, the introduction to my resume.

See?!  You read this far, didn't you?! Now imagine if you brought me in for an interview.  I'd be great. You'd love me.  I already love you.  We'd be a perfect team, we would. 

--Jen

Facebook and Stuff

Hello, my dear readers!  So, have you noticed I added a "Pin it" button to the  bottom of my posts?  No, I haven't suddenly gone all DIY-homemaker-crafting-blog on you, but I saw a blog post a few weeks ago that talked about if you're blogging, do it right.  One of the tips was that you should add the Facebook and Pinterest buttons before you think you need them, so that the one day you go viral and wish you'd had them, they will already be there. That's wisdom, if you ask me, so I'm acting on it.

That being said, I don't exactly anticipate going viral anytime soon.  But that's kind-of the point, right?  And I thought the blogging advice was dead-on everywhere else, so I've been gradually learning how to do the buttons.  (Word of advice:  it's not hard, but it is a pain and thank goodness there are blogs out there to teach non-programming bloggers what the heck to do.  If I didn't still remember how much I hated computer programming in college, this kind of stuff would make me wish I'd been a comp sci person.)

I also started a blog Facebook page!  (It's so exciting! It already has one post.  Contain yourselves, I know this is earth-shattering.)  So hopefully in the next few days, I'll also be adding a follow-me/like-me/whatever-it's-called-today Facebook button.  Facebook doesn't make anything easy, either, so that's an after-the-kids-go-to-bed project.  If I go viral and end up on the Today Show, I promise to thank my first ten followers. 

Oh -- if you're wondering where I learned about the button adding stuff, it's from this Web page:
Blogger Sentral

And that excellent blogging advice?  From one of the funniest bloggers in the history of, well, ever:
People I Want to Punch in the Throat. 

--Jen