New Career Path

Since I have returned to school for my BA in English I have discovered I would like to enter the field of technical writing or other areas of the literary field. I am new to this and have been trying to locate decent information on how to intern at different companies and growing a portfolio that consists of items outside of my school work. Any suggestions? I have posted a few things on the book sites I belong to and am anxiously awaiting a response from some of the members there to hopefully offer proofreading services for a nominal fee, and other editing services would be available. Time will tell if that is a valid approach to building a decent and varied portfolio. :)

Well so much for an active blog

Well I thought I could keep up with an online blog but no such luck so far. I am working on two short stories in between the mountains of homework I have and studying for finals. I have been considering some type of random inspiration from others around the country but havne't figured out a good way to develop that thought process. I thoguht it would be neat to randomly leave my blogsite or a PO Box (if I had one of those) in different places around the country and having people mail me a letter or a postcard to talk about random things.... whatever comes to mind. Could be interesting... maybe I will have to look into a PO box cost and do that for a fun fall project. Hmmm...to be continued.

Book Contest Giveaway on Book Bookie Blog

I just posted a link in my sidebar to a contest for a free book giveaway! The book is "A Fate Totally Worse Than Death" by Paul Fleischman. Please check out the blog and enter to win this wonderful book!

Spring Semester in School

Well before I made promises of being and writing in this each week I should have recognized the demand from school this semester. I am taking 4 classes this term in which 3 are online and one in class. The third online class doesn't even start until March but the other 2 are taking up a lot of my spare time. Whew.

The tree frog survived his week of domesticated life and I released him back into the wild. The other large one that I thought had died is in fact alive so that was exciting.

I have been cooking a lot of new recipes so far this year. Majority of them have been a success and are now part of my paper recipe montage that is accumulating in one of my cabinets, but I did make a shitake mushroom pasta that was horrible. Oh well.

Still on the neverending task of job hunting, which is quite discouraging since it has been soooo long. And I have not found myself in the gym in quite some time, fell out of the routine I guess. I need to nip that bad habit in the butt this week so hopefully today will be the day back to the gym!

Florida Artic Weather

Currently Florida is experiencing the longest stretch of freezing temperatures we have seen in many years, today being one of the coldest days yet. It has a lot of animals in desperate need of help- many manatees have perished because of the colder water temperatures, pelicans are starving as the fish have dove deeper into the ocean to keep warm and many others are not able to withstand this many cold days in succession.

We had a tree frog that lived on a gutter in our backyard for about the past year or so - sadly this weather took him and he will be missed. I did spot his younger brother in the backyard yesterday. When I noticed him I thought he was dead - so I went inside to get a paper towel to dispose of the body. As soon as I touched him with the towel his one little suction toe pad moved, he was alive but he did not look too well. I brought him into the house and asked my husband what did he think I should do for the little guy. Under his advisement I washed him off in lukewarm water to get rid of the dirt and called the vet. We nursed him in a tupperware of lukewarm water and a heat lamp for the next few hours. Amazingly enough he pulled through and looks like a different frog!

Which led me to a unique experience today with our dog Baxter. We braved the cold weather this afternoon to visit a petstore to find food for our little guy since it will be a few more days before the temperatures outside will be warm enough for him to go back outside. I asked one of the pet store employees and he told me I would have to feed the little guy crickets. So I left the store with 15 live mini crickets to feed to the frog!

I have never had to feed a living thing to another living thing so this will be a first. I made a dinner box for the frog with a lid with many little holes for him and the crickets, papertowels, a few rocks and twigs. I put 3 of them in there for tonight when we put the frog in before we go to bed. Hopefully by tomorrow morning the crickets will be gone.

The frog stays in an open shoebox during the day that has towels, a light, a small bowl of water with rocks and a few rocks in the box. He doesn't try to jump out even when I go over to check on him- I find this very strange. Are frogs intelligent? Does he know I saved his little life and that is why he is not jumping? Does he know it is too cold to go outside? I don't know but this has been an interesting experience.

2010 Is Here! Story line a brewing

Well slept through another New Year's Eve Celebration. But today I feel well where most are feeling miserable from lack of sleep and too many libations!

I am currently working on a short story or potentially a novel with a Christmas Theme. My setting is Boulder, CO - so if anyone has an opinion or information on the city that would be helpful I would appreciate some feedback. Mainly on things only locals would know such as great food places, shopping, etc.....

New Year's Resolution

2010 New Year's Resolutions: I have figured out two things I would like to attempt this coming new year.
1. Post something new on this blog at least once a week. My original goal of daily is a little too ambitious for me especially once this next semester starts at school. If I make a daily entry then I will be impressed with myself. And since I am the only one here right now it is kind of boring and the items I want to post which require feedback I cannot until there are others among myself here on this blog.
2. Work on my writing two times a week, even if it is only a few pages a week.

And of course finding a job is an added bonus at this point. I hope 2010 is much better than 2009 for all of us that are out of work.