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Journal entries of my life as a writer. |
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This is a journal of my writing life since I joined the Writing.com community of writers. This is such a different place for me, I think it's a good idea to document my new writing adventures. |
May 5 Blogging Prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends "  Summer is on the way and temperatures are supposed to be rising. What do you do to cool down on a hot summer day? I like sitting in the shade drinking a cool drink. I enjoy swimming and even taking cool baths. Of course working inside an air conditioned building works just fine with me, too. It's hard to stay cool, but I give it a try. |
| May 5 Blogging Prompt for "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Three things you can't go without... Love, success and happiness... How can people survive without love? I hope even the most lonely person loves himself ot herself. It's hard to live without love as it comes naturally to so many people. I hope no one tries to live without love. I work hard to do my best as much as I can. I look at small successes as if they were as big as Texas. This came from having so much disappointment in my life and needing to focus on the positive just to cope. So I become my own cheerleader and cheer myself on with my tiny successes that mean the world to me, even if no one else understands. I pride myself in my yellow website success. I look at it as my crowning achievement that continues to grow and help others. There is proof of success in my life. https://www.edonyourown.com What's life without happiness? One of the reasons I write my tiny stories is to cheer me up. My stories amuse me and it's nice when others like them, too. It's wonderful to help put a smile on someone's face. They say if you smile, the whole world smiles with you. So people need to find ways to make themselves happy in order to help others to be happy. Find your happy place. Find your happy thoughts. |
 It's hard to believe this is my 205th entry into this blog. It seems like time is flying by at an amazing pace. I started this blpg after being on the site for a week. Blogging on Writing.com is so different compared to other blogging sites. This sote has many different things to do and blogging is just one of the things people can do on this site. So when I write about the different things I do on Writing.com, I have a lot to write about. I joined several groups on Writing.com and that has proved very educational. I learned many different things by being involved with different activities. It's amazing what I've done over the past couple of months. I'm now running my own weekly contest "Invalid Item" . That is very interesting. I am reading writing that I inspired with my writing prompts. Today someone told me all of my prompts are good ones and that made it hard to choose which one to use for the contest. I told him to enter more than once. That's allowed in the rules.Today I accepted an invitation to my first campfire activity. It's a story written by multiple writers to make one huge story. People take turns writing a portion of the story. This one is special because it's for a contest. So I worked via email with my campfire buddy on what will be the story outline. Now I'm waiting to see what he has to write for the introduction that I'm supposed to follow with my own portion of the story. He had a specific idea in mind and I'm just trying to understand his concept. It should be interesting. We only have about twenty days to pull it all together and write the final entries on a specific date. I don't think we will end early. I spent a lot of time today looking at other people's portfolios and biographies. I found some interesting ideas of things I might want to try. So now I have more things to think about. I don't know if I want to have a guestbook or not, since I had a problem with a guestbook in the past. But the interactive story sounded cool and I saw a nice in and out of a one word writing prompt. That was a good idea, but I'm having trouble thinking how I would do something that would be different from what she did. I have a writing prompt contest for stories and poems, but her idea was to just write a few sentences or a few words based on the prompt, so it's just a snippet. The interactive story with choices of what way to go with the story would be very complex, but very rewarding. I would have to decide if the story would spider into completely different directions or if the different choices would join again later in the story. So I decided it was time to check in with what's been going on in my Writing.com life now that I have more than 200 entries in my blog for this site. I feel like I'm on some kind of adventure on Writing.com. It's like this site is a world unto itself. I feel like I'm entering a whole new realm whenever I log onto Writing.com. I never know what's going to be in my email inbox. I get random reviews on my items in my portfolio. I get emails from the groups I'm involved with on this site and there are comments on my blog and notebook entries. Getting involved generates a lot of email. The contests I've entered gave me new things to write about. So that adds to my growing portfolio. I'm still enjoying my Writing.com adventure. |
 I call this "Fake" Chow Mein because it doesn't have the real chow mein noodles that can be difficult to find. This is a recipe my ex-husband created and I've been making it for years. I really like the punch of flavor. Add as much ginger and garlic as you can handle.Chop up to breasts of chicken into small bite-sized chunks. Cook the chicken in a large frying pan with red wine vinegar to keep the chicken from sticking and to add flavor to the chicken. Add finely chopped garlic, ginger root and onions while the chicken is cooking. Boil water in a pot and lightly cook two packages of Top Romen Noodles Oriental Flavor. Save the flavor packets for later. For shorter noodles, break the bricks of noodles before adding them to the boiling water. Chop bamboo shoots and water chestnuts to add later. Once the chicken is fully cooked, add the flavor packets and enough vinegar and soy sauce to make enough sauce to coat the noodles. Add the bamboo shoots and water chestnuts. Lastly, add the noodles without the water from cooking them. Mix well to make sure the noodles are covered. Serve hot. |
| May 4 Blogging Prompt for 30 Day Blogging Challenge Pick a blog post from your co-bloggers whom you think is cool. Tell your readers why you like it. At the end of your entry, post your reflection for the entire or the whole Sunday. I chose Mitchopolis   "Invalid Entry" I liked this post in Mitch's blog because it's strong and open. He shares his beliefs, but admits to deleting mediocre posts before they are posted. He also shows how he believes in deleting certain comments on blog posts, but explains that a blogger needs to have strong convictions in their entries, so they can stand up to criticism. He helps to explain blogging having to do with personal opinions and/or beliefs. This is a very good thing to point out to people and I agree with him on this. Sunday Thoughts: Today is the start of the campfire adventure in the Game of Thrones for "King's Landing updating " .** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I think things are going well for the 30 Day Blogging Challenge. I'm enjoying working on the prompts and seeing what others have posted. I am still chugging along with my contest. It's going well and I change the prompts and announce the winner of the previous week on Sundays, so my Sundays are busy. Please join in on the fun.
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| May 3 Blogging Prompt for 30 Day Blogging Challenge What is your Geek Zodiac symbol? Write a story or poem about it I Am Daik Ai Ju I am a sensitive, but stubborn one Don't tangle with me once my cap is set Don't trample on my feelings, either If you want the job done, I'm the one to do it I complete any team, as I am versitile I can seem like a monster But really I'm a teddy bear Don't you want a loving, hard worker? Sure you do... I'll make you understand... Note: Geek Zodiac explained here: https://thegeekzodiac.com |
| May 3 Blogging Prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends " Do you think people should have the right to prune their comment section, only keeping positive comments and deleting the critical ones? I think people should have the right to delete comments in their blog. I think it's a matter of personal choice. There might be a comment that's offensive and the person might not want others to see it. They might not want to ever see it again so it doesn't bother them anymore. It's their blog and they should have control over it. |
| May 3 Blogging Prompt for "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Have you ever gone back and deleted a whole blog post? Did you admit on your blog that the post was removed? Did it make you feel better or worse? I try to only post things I'm okay with showing to the world, so I've never deleted a blog posting to date. All my dirty laundry is hanging out there for the world to see. I think people should note if they do delete a posting to ecplain the reasoning for it. It's something important to share. |
 I saw an advertisement for an official WDC contest for May, 2014, so I took a look at it to see if I wanted to enter it. It looked easy enough. All I had to do was write a short story less than 2000 words long based on a picture of an older couple hugging each other on the sidewalk in a residential area. I thought about what the couple were saying to each other while they were hugging and that's how I started my story. I wrote a strange love story about a couple who didn't want to tell anyone about their relationship. In the middle of the story was the story of the guy's son having a secret relationship. I tickled myself with the story. I like to amuse myself with my stories. So I think it's cute. Maybe I have a shot at winning the Short Shot contest. The first step is looking into the contest, then writing a winning entry, then officially entering it into the contest. I've done all of those steps. Now I have to just wait to see what happens.
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 I chose to write something for the "Invalid Item" game this week. I'm designated to work on the campfire story for the contest, but that hasn't started yet, so since I didn't want to do a thousand word review. I wrote a 983 word story. The writing prompt was intetesting. I used the prompt as the first few words of my story. I just wrote about myself. It has to do with being a loner looking for a family to adopt me. I included information for why I feel detached from my family and other families who have adopted me in the past. So it's a little all over the place, but I like it.
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| May 2 Blogging Prompt for 30 Day Blogging Challenge Are you technologically challenged? Does a universal remote make you want to run screaming in the streets? Or maybe you are one of the gifted. Maybe you have a taleny for bailinh out the techno-challenged and can't help but shake your head at all of the fuss. (In which case I will feel perfectly justified in hating you. Be warned.) Write about the challenges of today's technology. I find smartphones to be quite technologically challenging. The first time I saw one, my first question was how to use it as a phone. There are so many different things these contraptions can do these days and new programs are being written for them all the time. How can anyone keep up to date on all of the functionality? So it becomes a game of pick and choose and trial and error. It's amazing to know smarthomes exist today. Getting appliances, lights and locks connected to the internet seems to be a trend. So it isn't just about a fancy panel that doubles as an alarm system. Now people can connect to their home remotely. The remote nanny cams are also an interesting addition to many homes. How many people have caught crominals in their home with these cameras? Technology is very interesting. Solar power has been around for a while now, but there is a recent move to install more solar cells to provide a bigger percentage of the power needed to sustain our society. Apparently some birds are falling prey to burning up from the heat of some of the collection sites. With so many rooftops on businesses, why aren't we setting up more buildings to provide their own energy? My dad installed solar heating for the swimming pool that worked so well the pool was actually too warm at times. Solar power is very interesting. It's there for our use everyday. |
| May 2 Blogging Prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends " Mother's Day is coming up. What is the best Mother's Day gift you ever gave or received? Alternate prompt: Write a story or poem about Mother's Day (it can be fiction). One year I gave my mom the Mother's Day gift of a professional make-over and new makeup recommended for her complextion. It took us a while at the store to have it done, so this gift included some together time. My mom never used to wear makeup, so this new interest of hers was a big deal. I still don't wear makeup. I just never got into it. That's why I thought it best to have the professionals show the way. |
| May 2 Blogging Prompt for "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" You're now in charge of writing the messages in fortune cookies. Tell us our fortune. Fortune #1 - You will meet a tall, dark stranger. What you do with him is up to you. Fortune #2 - Riches are coming to you. Oh, look. There's a quarter on the sidewalk. Hi there, Rich. Fortune #3 - Your love life is about to get exciting. Go send yourself a greeting card and sign it with love from your secret admirer. Fortune #4 - Your lucky number is 13. Here comes lucky busline #13. Get on and feel lucky. Fortune #5 - You're about to be gifted. Go buy yourself something you want and have them giftwrap it. That's enough fortune for one day. Enjoy. |
| May 1 Blogging Prompt for 30 Day Blogging Challenge Introduce yourself to a group of strangers where they find you interesting. I wanna see and read an interactive introduction. Welcome everyone. Please take a seat. I know you're all eager to start this writing course. I'm going to make sure you all have something to write about, even if it's me you end up writing about. Yes, your first writing assignment is to write about this first class. Let's get started. We're all going to introduce ourselves and say a little about our lives. I'll go first, since I'm sure you all want to know about me. I'm Janine and I'm a career changer. I know many of you are back in school because you want to be career changers, too. It's difficult and sometimes necessary. I've been a babysitter, a math tutor, a summer camp counselor, a cabin leader at an outdoor science school, an instructional assistant, a receiving clerk, an accounts payable clerk, a textbook buyer, a cashier, a department administrative assistant, a business analyst, a site analyst, a technical assistance call taker, a main cage cashier at a casino, an aide running a computer lab at a high school, a substitute teacher, a summer school teacher at a high school, a mentor at a college, an adjunct intructor at a college, a temp and an educationl materials author, along with writing my own stories and poems for the worksheets. So now you know how possible it is to have multiple careers in your life, so your goals are valid and doable. Please feel free to share whatever you want to share about yourself. We'll all get to know each other through sharing our writing... |
| May 1 Blogging Prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends " Write a thank you letter to someone you are thankful for. Dear University of San Francisco (the private university, not UCSF or SF State), I want to thank you for the special program you started to help people working full time to get their bachelor's degrees. The College of Professional Studies taught by teachers in the technology field at the off campus site in the south end of the San Francisco Bay Area was outstanding. It was a very difficult compressed schedule with each class being only six weeks long, bit it was doable and I'm very proud of my BS in Information Systems Management. It allowed me do excel in the workplace and to continue my studies to get my California teaching credentials, which require a bachelor's degree. So you made it possible for me to get tuition reimbursement, finish off my degree and become a credentialed teacher. I got raises and promotions along the way as well. Thank you for making my dream of becoming a teacher a reality. I saw no other way to make it happen. Cordially, Janine Bouyssounouse
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| May 1 Blogging Prompt for "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" What is the best thing you ever saw on a trip? It would have to be a backpacking trip with my family when I was a teenager. We climbed a really high pass where there was snow year round and had to cross bridges made of snow and ice to get across running streams of snow runoff. I think the pass was called Kiersarge Pass. It's on the John Muir trail in the Sierras in California. The view from the top of the pass was like nothing else. We could see the valley we climbed through and the long way down. There was no other person in sight. We couldn't see any city life or roads or cars. Everything was primative, like it was when the trail was built. It was so hard to realize how far we had come and how far we still had to go. It was our longest day of the trip and eleven miles with packs and a pass was very difficult. Backpacking is hard work and well worth the effort. I recommend it to anyone who will be safe while doing it and of course you pack out your garbage. |
| April 30 Blogging Prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends " "I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it." - Ernest Hemingway How do you refill the well of your inspiration? I reach into the psychic world and pluck ideas from other people's lives. So that way my well will never run dry. I can look into the past or the present. There's always something going on to give me an idea of something to write about. I also let my mind wander yhrough my own life while I'm relaxing. There are so many things that make for somethiing interesting to write about. It's just a matter of deciding what to choose. |
| April 30 Blogging Prompt for "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" What treasures do you display inside your home? Well... cosidering I'm in a nursing home and I've lost most of my possesions, I'm going to have to say artwork. I have some of my own art and I have a drawing my niece did for me. She says it's a drawing of a zombie. This zombie wears glasses, has blue and grey hair, x's in its eyes and its teeth are really showing. That's my treasure. I'm rich. |
| April 29 Blogging Prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends " Murphy's Law says: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Write about a time when everything did go wrong. Fiction encouraged here, too. Well, my leaving my home and career in South Lake Tahoe, California was a time when everything did go wrong. There was a fake porn site made of what people were doing to me in my home while I was drugged. That was done to try to destroy my teaching career. The rumors staryed about me being a child molestor did more damage than the porn site. I finally made it so my stalkers couldn't get into my home anymore by accidentally finding a trap door entrance and weighted it down and changed my locks enough times so they finally didn't have a key anymore. When I heard the saw in the wooden floor making a new entrance, I couldn't handle it anymore. I quit my jobs, since they never won in getting me fired or getting my teaching credential taken away from me. I've felt like I've been on the run ever since. They have followed me all over and have interesting ways to get into places I've lived and they still harm me. My health is destroyed by all of the drugs they've dumped into me over the years. My life is destroyed and everytime I try to move forward, my stalkers find ways to prevent me from doing what I want to do. |
| April 29 Blogging Prompt for "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" What's the thing you're most scared to do? What woyld it take to get you to do it? At this point in time, the thing I'm most afraid to do is leave the nursing home. I'm afraid my next living situation will result in me being homeless again. I've been homeless living in my car three times now. It's all part of this stalking disaster in my life. I've been scared out of places I did have to live by attacks from my stalkers in my homes and I've been so poverty stricken that I haven't been able to pay for a place to live. But the last time I was homeless, my car was sabbotaged and no longer works. I was taken to the hospital because of leg wounds from my stalkers' attacks and my broken car was sold out from under me. So being homeless without a car is even scarier than being homeless with a car. The other problem is my liver problem is acting up and I seem to be filling up with fluids at this time. It happened to my mom because of her liver condition, so I understand how it works. The doctor said if the albumin level falls too low, then the body takes muscle and liquifies it for food. But for some reason the fluid weighs more and takes up more space. It's pretty scary. It would have to be a special situation for me to move at this point in my life. |
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