I was a bit overwhelmed after reading Kathryn’s story last week about her chef working full time AND going to school. But I know many of you can relate.
Chef Fiancée Antonisha Polite can relate and is writing her story for us today. (And can I just say that I’m so sorry Antonisha that you have to wash 2 sets of chef clothes!! Yuck!!!!)
Tell me a little about yourself and your chef (how you met, how long you’ve been together, do you have kids, etc.)
My name is Antonisha Polite, I am 28 years old and I am engaged to and living with chef. I work full time as an Internet Sales Specialist for a car dealership while getting my degree in Elementary Education. My chef is currently a head line cook for a major hotel. He is also finishing his culinary degree and is in the process of starting a catering business. I have a 4 year old son from a previous relationship that thinks chef is his super hero.
We met while I was working in the banquets and catering department at the hotel where he currently works. We were both coming out of relationships and could relate to a lot of things. We became friends at work and I left the job soon after. We stayed in touch through social media and after we both finalized everything with previous relationships, we started hanging out together and here we are now planning a wedding.
I’ll be honest. I have no idea what it’s like to date or be married to someone in culinary school, as my chef/husband never went to culinary school.
So when a fellow chef/girlfriend, offered to share her story, of course I said yes!
Today, I’d like to introduce you to Kathryn. Her boyfriend is going to Culinary School AND working as a Line Cook at the same time. I know there are others of you that can relate to her story! I’m sure she’d love to hear from you in the comments after you read it!
Tell me a little about yourself and your chef (how you met, how long you’ve been together, do you have kids, etc.)
I moved to Michigan in August 2011 for grad school. I was really lonely because I was all alone in a new state, so a former college roommate of mine came to visit me for the weekend a couple of weeks after I’d moved in. We were listening to music when we heard a knock at the door from the guy who lived in the apartment directly below mine. He invited us over to his apartment, where he and his roommate were hanging out and playing video games. Tuesday of that week, I went out with the guy who had knocked on my door, and we have been together since.
I’ve been thinking for a while about what I wanted to write about being married to a chef to post today, our 20th wedding anniversary.
I thought of a couple ways I could spin it, add some key words to get more views to the blog, etc. but it just didn’t seem right. So I decided not to write anything and just take a break from the blog for a week.
(Yet, here I am . . . lol.)
Below is a post I wrote on our family blog. It’s written a bit differently, as I didn’t write it with you, my fellow chef wife or significant other in mind, like I usually do when I write. But instead, I wrote it for our family as part of my digital scrapbook/blog of memories.
If you are like me, (and I know you are), you think about the future of your chef’s career. You wonder what the next position up in the kitchen is like, or wonder what their current position is like at another restaurant.
I always love reading about other chefs and their families. But I’ve noticed that the chefs who do write (I have no idea how they have the time) and the chef wives that write, are usually Executive Chefs or higher. So what’s it like to be married to or dating someone in a different position than that?
I’m so excited to bring you this series, written by chef/cook girlfriends and wives that will take us through each position in the kitchen as each one is so different.
I’ve asked these ladies each the same questions and I hope you will not only enjoy getting to know them, but also a little bit more about a specific position in the kitchen and what it looks like for us who support our chefs/cooks from home.
Today, we are starting off with the position of Line Cook. Chef Girlfriend Corissa Johnson is sharing with us today about what it’s like to date a line cook. When you’re done reading, I know she’d love to hear any comments or thoughts on how you can relate!
Have you ever sat down to just “glance” through your Facebook newsfeed and then looked up an hour later? That never happens, right? Facebook (and other social media) can be so much fun and it’s so easy to just keep clicking around, totally losing track of time.
Like many of you, I am on Facebook to connect with my friends, but also for my blog. I might be the only one, but when I sit down to look at Facebook for my blog, I tend to get distracted REALLY EASILY when I see posts from my friends and family. I waste far too much time clicking around seeing what everyone is up to!
As it is, I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I love being able to keep in touch with friends and family that live far away (and friends that live down the street too). In the past I’ve struggled with contentment and Facebook fueled the problem. The amount of people that see the posts on my business page is often frustrating. I know that many bloggers have given up on this social media platform because of this. However, even with the number of people that see my posts, Facebook still brings a decent amount of traffic to my site. Because of that, I can’t ignore it.
So between the need for blog referral traffic and the potential of wasting a large amount of time on Facebook , I had to come up with some sort of solution or I was going to have to deactivate my account. Facebook was consuming my life!
Can I tell you the BRILLIANT solution I found to this problem of losing hours in my day?
There are three parts to it. You better sit down. They are MIND BLOWING!!
Pin this for later!
1. Set a timer!
Amazing, isn’t it? Yes, when I sit down to look at social media, Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, I turn on a timer. If I don’t, I get sucked in and I will lose track of time. I installed the chrome extension “1-click timer” and it works great! It plays nice music at the end of the time instead of startling me with a loud obnoxious beep. (Before I did that I always had to hunt down our kitchen timer that the kids had “needed” to use somewhere else in the house.)
2. Set up Interest Lists on Facebook
One other way I found to stay focused on Facebook when I am using it for business is to set up interest lists. Like I said earlier, I get distracted by my friends in my newsfeed. So instead of scrolling through my newsfeed to see pages and people I want to follow for my blog, I added all those types of pages to an interest list. (You can see it here if you are interested.) Each day I set my timer for 10-15 minutes (some days one time, other days a couple time throughout the day) and scroll through the list. From the list, I collect links to share with my followers, I comment on posts as my business, I click over to articles and pin them to Pinterest and sometimes I save things in One Note to share in my newsletter. This saves me SO MUCH TIME!
Here are a few pictures to walk you through how to set up an interest list.
Once you are on a page you’d like to add to a list, click on the arrow next to the Liked button. Then choose, “Add to interest Lists.”
Choose which list you’d like to add the page to or create a new group. (I chose my list called Blogging for the page in this picture.)
Back on your main Facebook Newsfeed page, look for the list over in the left hand column. If you see it, click on it and you’ll see posts from all the pages on the list. If you don’t see it listed, look at the next picture for instructions.
In the left column on your main Facebook page, find the heading that says “Interests” and click on it. That will take you to the settings in the next picture.
Click on the settings button next to the Interest group you’d like to see over in the left column and click “Add to Favorites.” Once you do that, you should see the group appear over on the left.
3. Turn off your Facebook notifications.
When I started getting decent engagement on my Facebook page I turned off all my Facebook email notifications and even removed the Facebook app from the main screen of my phone. If your phone is notifying you all day long and you are constantly checking it, you’ll never get anything else done. (I’m speaking from experience here.) I check my page and private Facebook group a few times a day (using a timer) and that’s really helped me stay more productive the rest of the day!
At first I was worried I would miss things. But when I log on to Facebook, I go to the globe and see the notifications from there. If there are a bunch of them, I open each new one in a new tab (by holding down Ctrl on the keyboard while clicking) so I make sure I don’t miss any.
That’s how I’ve managed to save time on Facebook for my blog. Nothing crazy, but with those 3 simple “tricks,” I am able to stay more focused and not let Facebook consume my life.
So now that I’ve saved you time (you’re welcome), can I ask you a favor? It will just take a second. I promise.
I know most people reading this post are not my target audience. (I blog about being married to a chef and raising a family with a chef.) If you know someone married to or dating someone in the restaurant industry, (a chef, server, line cook, manager, bartender, etc.) will you share my blog via email with them? I appreciate your help in getting the word out about my blog. (If that email link doesn’t work in your browser, please use the sharing buttons below to share it. Thanks!)
Other posts in this series:
From one chef wife (or blogger) to another,
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