A Really Good Week

It has been a great week. <knock wood, salt over shoulder, bite tongue>

I don't have a job yet, but I feel really good about a couple of interviews I had this week; one with a consulting firm and one with a more technical temporary placement agency than the other one I'm affiliated with. So I have a clerical, a technical temporary, and a consulting agency, all working on my behalf. At the consulting place, in addition to seeing what they can do for me with the likes of Amazon, Boeing, etc, they asked me for some more professional writing samples so I can work for them directly on occasion, should they need a substitute when their usual tech writer is not available.

I've said that I would no longer work retail or customer care (aside from volunteering at Studio East and the Girl Scouts as I often do - more on that below) unless the need was dire. But that's not entirely true; my main objections to these sorts of positions are two-fold. One, the hours, as a rule, suck, especially for a single parent. Two - and this is a bit more complicated - if I'm working those kinds of hours, I need to work for an employer than cares about Jenn-the-person more than squeezing every last nickel to death and squeezing their workers to death in the process. There are a few companies - even large-ish ones - that still do this, and those I'd be fine with.

Still and all, I'd prefer writing or editing; I have a degree in Communications for a reason. And my specialization is in Intercultural Communications for a reason; I want to use that.

Preferably better than I did today, while helping Lizzy peddle sell Girl Scout Cookie pre-orders to our neighbors, some of whom speak more Spanish than English. I can work with ¿Quiere comprar bisquetas de las Girl Scouts? (although apparently galletas is used more often than bisquetas these days, or in our area, or both). I floundered a lot with what turned out to be no cobramos el pago hasta entrega. I was trying to say no tiene usted pagar... and there I got stuck. But my neighbors are kind about my efforts, even if their children laugh at me.

Feel free to use Google Translate to figure those out if you don't speak Spanish better than I.

In any case, although tomorrow is the last day for pre-orders, Lizzy has managed to sell just over half her goal before the store sales (which start March 2nd in our council). Be there.

And Abby? Abby got into one of her (and my all-time) favorite plays; she plays Jack's Mother (of Jack and the Beanstalk fame) in Into the Woods at Studio East! This is the role that Tracey Ullman played in the Disney film version of the play, so it's a pretty comic role, at which Abby excels. Rehearsals start Monday February 5th, and (thanks be to the Gods of both Theater (Dionysus) and Cookies (uh... I'm gonna go with Hestia?)), there are only two days of overlap between cookie sales and performances!

So today, with Abby at her dad's, Lizzy and I were busy and had a lot of fun. We got up, had breakfast, did some banking (sold some cookies to a teller), bought her some clothes on clearance, came home, got fresh air and exercise (although my fitbit battery was dead, darn it!) and coping-with-people practice and Spanish language lessons through cookie sales, and then a late lunch at home, did some chores, watched some Disney... and those last two will repeat until bedtime.

You have about 24 hours if you'd still like to order cookies here.

¡Y gracias por apoyar a las Girl Scouts de Western Washington!

¡Deseo!