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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. |
April 4 Blogging Prompt for "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"  What five colors best represent your personality? Yellow represents the sunny side of my personality. I can be bright and cheery at times and I enjoy being happy and looking for things to cheer myself up when I feel down. I consider myself an optimist, which falls into this category. I believe there is good and bad in everyone and everything. I choose to look for the good in things. Sometimes this can result in highlighting just how bad things really are by my choice of the positive side of the situation. Green represents the side of my that is a bit of a nature freak. I grew up going camping and backpacking for family vacations and in Girl Scouts. I loved my time at Girl Scout Summer Camp. That was my vacation from the family. I worked three summers as a camp counselor after high school to continue enjoying that outdoor fun experience. But life was much harder being in charge of the activities, even though I had two summers of counselor in training experience. I just really enjoy the wonders of nature and how much more peaceful things can be when you step away from the city life. Red represents my anger. I'm angry at key times and I handle it in a variety of ways, but even though I remain under control of my anger, it does come through loud and clear. I've been told if looks could kill mine would do it. My body language and my tone of voice make things very clear. Most times these days my writing burns up the page or screen when I'm angry. It does help me get things off of my chest so I can put that away and move forward with looking for fun things to do to cheer me up. I just have to put the anger to bed. Purple represents the color people say looks best on me. They say purple is my color. I like bright colors and different colors in my paintings, drawings and sewing/quilting. They say my colors are the spring colors. Those are my favorites to express myself colorfully. I do have a colorful personality that is multifaceted. I like to try so many different things in life, I have a colorful background in my professional and personal life. My resume is quite unique with my retail, technology and education experience. I still consider myself to be very much in the educational world at this time. Take a look at the webmaster link at the bottom of the page to see my work and schooling background. https://www.edonyourown.com Black represents the dark side of my life that is the collection of scars from the pain over the years of my life. I don't really know how tough my skin really is. I feel pretty tender to the touch for some things and others are tough from so much scarring. Unfortunately, I have been exposed to way too much hatred for much too many years. This wears on me and I continue to cling to my tiny accomplishments to show my success of conquering the hatred by showing the world how good I am. I like to be helpful and useful and even cheery to cheer people up. I have a pile of accomplishments that I pile high to ward off the hatred my stalkers throw out in my way. I turn to my pile, pull out something appropriate and shove it out there to show just how wrong these people are. If they ever get the concept, that will be wonderful. But that doesn't repair my destroyed career and health or the relationships that are too twisted to enjoy anymore. Here's one of my tiny accomplishments... I just like the idea of it...
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| April 4 Blogging Prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends " Does walking or exercise help you write? Walking and other exercise clears my mind, so I will have to say no to this one. I have to fix my mind on my writing and use quite a bit of concentration to get the ideas, but then the words flow. Sometimes ideas come to mind without such effort, but I concentrate on other things while I'm exercising. But I have had many times where I have used things to help me come up with ideas for what to write, so I turn to writing exercises and writing prompts to help me move forward when nothing is coming to mind. That's one of the reasons I started "Invalid Item" and https://gswriting.livejournal.com. I struggled in fifth grade when my teacher demanded I write a story, but he refused to give me the topic. I ended up detailing my reasons for wanting to be a teacher. But when I got to seventh grade, I was introduced to expository writing. The teacher would write a topic on the board and we would write. We also wrote our own stories based on a story we read for class. That was a lot of writing direction. Eighth grade brought poetry instruction. That resulted in a class book of our poetry efforts based on the instruction.So the physical exercises and the mental exercises are very different for me. I can come up with topics to write about now and I like to share them in case there are other struggling people with no ideas of what to write. Aren't the ideas we have for what to write just writing prompts in our heads? That's how I look at it.
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 I just finished creating the review templates I'm going to use for my two contests. I used my new signature images at the bottom of both of them and I used the same emoticon icons as the contest explanation pages to stay with the design themes I used. As long as it doesn't get too ovetwhelming, my plan is to give a review for every entry in the contests as part of the reward for entering the contests. I got a review from one of the contests I entered and I thought it was great. So I'm trying to use things I like from what I've seen around this place. And I really like the daily writing habit concept, so my writing prompts will support that. Anyone can use the prompts if they like them. Then it's up to them if they want to enter the contest or not. I think it's a good idea.
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| April 3 Blogging Prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends " Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a member of the opposite sec for a day? What do you think your life would be like? Harder or easier? No. I've never wondered what it would be like to be a man for the day because I have always been happy being a woman. I think it's better to be a woman than a man because I think women have more versitility than men. Woman can wear dresses or pants and they can do a lot of the male dominated professions. They can't do certain things like be a sperm donor, but almost everything else and women are the ones who get to have the babies and usually have the biggest impact on raising the kids. As far as what the day being a man would be like goes, I would want to play with the equipment and see what that feels like, since many men think they have it better than women do in that department. It's just easier than it is with a woman. Chances are more men experience that ultimate pleasure than women. It is sad there are women who never experience that feeling. I'm going on about this because it's the biggest difference between men and women, so that's why I would be curious. I wouldn't just let that opportunity slip by. I think a lot of other things would be pretty much the same. I think men and women have more similarities than differences. |
| April 3 Blogging Prompt for "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Your favorite toys as a child... I really liked a game called Merlin. It was red and was supposed to look like a telephone. It had several games on it having to do with pattern recognition. I kept wearing out the batteries. I also liked Simon and the Math Tutor. It was like a calculator that looked like an owl. But instead of being a calculator, it gave math problems and you had to type in the answers. I did a lot of drill and kill on addition, subtraction and multiplication. I don't remember if it had division or not. It probably did. The Simon game was great for memory. So, I spent a lot of time on my own while I was growing up. I bought a book on solitare games and played cards by myself a lot. I also had an old black and white tv that was pretty small. I used to stay up pretty late to watch Benny Hill. I had an odd upbringing. When I got older and could finally drive, the car was the toy. I used to go up and down the canyon roads along the Pacific Coast Highway. The game was to go as fast as possible, without screaching the tires. This was not easy in a stick shift car and these are roads with a cliff drop off and a mountain on eather side of the roads. There is no room for mistakes on these roads. People die on these roads. So I liked electronic educational toys because I could play by myself and they held my attention, but that's nothing compared to the toy car ecperience. My parents didn't pay too much attention to what I did with my life. |
| So I gave it some thought and I decided I wanted to something more long term. I really like writing prompts and I like these little contests, like my "Invalid Item" . I like listing the prompts out for the week to give people time to think about the stories. It's not the same as a blog entry. I didn't want it to be so complex that I would have trouble keeping up with it. And I don't want to have to wait for an entire month to go by to handle the judging. That just seemed overwhelming. So I thought about the rules and the first week of prompts and I decided to show off one of my new images I just got. I haven't tried to use it for a cover yet. Maybe I'll try that tomorrow. Enjoy...
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 I just finished adding five new images into my portfolio. So now I can reference them on this site. They are fun things I got from the image grab auction. I bid on them and I won the bids. That means no one else wanted them more than I wanted them. I won. I am having a lot of fun right now. I'm going to display all of my new images here in this post. I actually have one more still coming, but I have these, so I will post them. They make me smile and get all happy inside. I feel like I can be more creative now that I have these pictures to decorate the place. I will just have to sprinkle them all over. Yay, me... Enjoy.** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| April 2 Blogging Prompt for "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" What is your favorite spring activity? I will have to say walking because spring is the most comfortable weather for going on walks. Fall and winter can be too cold and summer can be too hot. Spring is the most perfect season. It's so full of wonderous things, like new growth and new borns. And now I am reminded of another one of my poems. This one is about spring. I do enjoy the great out of doors and walking gets me outside to enjoy it. Happy spring walks are here again.
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| April 2 Blogging Prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends " Dark or white chocolate? Easter Bunny or Easter egg? I actually like milk chocolate with nuts or caramel or toffy or peanut butter, but I get sick if I eat too much dark chocolate, so the choice has to be white chocolate. But I really like yogurt covered pretzels and white chocolate always makes me think of them. I have a bag of trail mix right now and it has white chocolate chips and that makes it so yummy. I love hard boiled eggs by themselves or in creamed eggs on toast or egg salad sandwiches. Of course I like the candy eggs, too. But I figure the Easter Bunny can bring lots of Easter baskets full of goodies. So, rather than having just one Easter egg, I'll take the basket bringing bunny so he'll just keep hopping into play with more goodies. It's like getting the goose who lays the eggs or just an egg. If you treat the goose well, you get lots of eggs. This prompt reminds me of my poetry contest entry I wrote today. Check it out for memories from Easter days from growing up. I used my brand new signature image on it, too. I think it pretties it up a bit.
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 I got a merit badge for giving a lot of newbie reviews during March. There's a different merit badge for this month. It's a lot of fun collecting merit badges. I'm thinking the next contest I create will have a merit badge attached to it somehow. I'm just thinking in writing right now. I like the idea of hosting contests. I think it would be fun. I really like reading the entries. They're really fun. They are all so different from one another. I want to do nice reviews of the stories so people will enter other contests I create. |
 Look at the pretty signature image I got today as a gift. I think this is cool. I got a month of a constumacon and this cool signature image. Happy April Fool's Day to me. Yay! This brightened my day. Plus there is a second contestant in my contest. Good day so far and it's not even lunch time yet. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| April 1 Blogging Prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends " Do we live in a society that needs scandal? I say we can survive without scandal, but we're constantly bombarded by it in the news and the tabloids. It's news, so it gets reported. It's very difficult to live in the public eye. Yes, unknown people make the news everyday, but when it's big news or a big name, people are more tuned into it. So, even though I don't believe our society needs scandal, I do think out society is very aware of it and people do like to discuss it and spread the news. The news is very important to our society. Scandal being reported is just part of the package. People want to be kept up to date on public figures so they feel "in the know." |
| April 1 Blogging Prompt for "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" In your opinion, what is the worst even in history to have taken place? Could something like this possibly happen again? My answer is the Haulocost ending with the end of WWII. The problem I see is that it could possibly happen again. Ethnic cleansing is entirely possible again. There is so much hatred in this world, I can easily see people picking on a group and deciding to murder them in large quantities. That's how hateful people are in this world. Part of the problem is the brainwashing that goes on in this world. I have heard people saying this tragedy never happened, that people made it up. I've even heard about people non-schooling their kids so they don't know WWII is over. One of the smaller things that went wrong under Hitler's rule was the order to murder mental health patients, yet they did human experimentation on these people before murdering them, since they had been sentenced to death, what did it matter what they did before the death.. The reason this snag of history bothers me is that I have seen people doling out drugs to people knowing they could harm the patients. They don't even care about allergic reactions in patients. I even found doctors caring so little about patients and victims that they felt it was okay to rape people who stated they were rape victims because they thought they were all lying. The horrors in healthcare are too much. People gave me some kind of drug that made my hand and arm almost impossible to move and I had to be the one to stop it from flowing into my arm from the drip line. No doctor came to talk to me about it. It was like it was done on purpose. The cruelty is horrible and it is too easy to see how little people care about the rights of patients. My personal circumstances have thrown me into situations that are unimaginable. |
 I'm so excoted I got a contestant in my April Fool's Day contest within the first twenty four hours it's been open. I read the story and it was cool. I really liked it. I even love that canasta was involved. That's my favorite card game. It's exactly 1000 words long, so chances are it had to be trimmed. I'm just excited someone entered. Two other people said they were looking to enter as well. So I might have a cute little contest with a few contestants. It makes me want to do another one in the future, but make it open for a longer period of time so people don't feel so rushed. I'm still thinking about how to handle honorable mentions. I'll have to decide based on how many people enter the contest. After I finish with this contest, I'll have a better idea of how I want to do the next one. Right now I'm just excited people responded with interest and letting me know they want to enter. It's just fun.
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| March 31 Blogging Prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends " Is March going out like a lion or a lamb where you live? I live in sunny Southern California, so it's a lamb in my neck of the woods. But we did have that long, rolling earthquake recently, centered in Los Angeles. Some people think weather and earthquakes are related. It's been sunny with some cloudy days and a little rain. Nothing major here. California farmers are scared of how bad the drought will be this year because the winters have been so dry. People are gearing up for supplying food to people because the farmers won't be able to hire them this season. One farmer was looking at having to pull out trees because they're going to die because of the lack of water. They say the ground water is salty, but that's all they're going to have because no one allocated any water for irrigation this year. So, there's a price to pay for not enough winter moisture in the flatlands or in the mountains. The snow pack in the Sierras is where we get most of our water. We do hope for good skiing, so we can drink the rest. Yes, not everyone knows about the snow in California. |
| March 31 Blogging Prompt for "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" What movie always makes you cry? Well, I don't have one of those, but the damage to the car in Ferris Beuler's Day Off was pretty bad. I like drama, romance, action, adventure and comedy. I don't even have a movie that makes me laugh so hard I cry. Nope... drawing a blank here. So I tried to come up with something, but I couldn't. How about Forest Gump? That's got really sad parts at the end. Okay, that's my choice. |
 I was so concerned I would forget to blog today and I ended up with plenty to write about. I took a look at my portfolio and noticed there was another post in my contest forum. I rushed to see what was there. Someone let me know I had a great idea and wished she had more notice of it because she's so busy right now. But she's going to see if she can find time. That's exciting. So I might have a contestant after all. I'll have to advertise it again to see if anyone else gives it a try. I've been doing reviews to get more gift points in case I want to have an honorable mention prize, too. I feel like I take each day one step at a time. I never know if I will feel well or not. I try to be as productive as I can. I came up with the idea to have a contest and I finally figured out what the theme would be today. It's not always easy to come up with new ideas. I know I struggle with ideas for my stories. Somehow I do come up with them. I'll just keep trying to continue to come up with ideas. |
 My Grandma Loos introduced me to the Toad In The Hole and it was an instant favorite of mine. She wanted to get me to eat eggs for breakfast and I didn't like the way my mom made eggs, so this was a hard sell. My grandma taught me how to make it while she did it, so I would be able to make it for myself. I thought it was so wonderful she was teaching me how to cook. She used to be an English teacher before I was born.Take a slice of bread and cut a hole in the center of it, using a small juice glass. Keep the hole you cut out. That gets cooked, too. Butter both sides of the slice of bread and the hole cut out of it. Place them both in a frying pan on medium heat and crack an egg in the center of the hole. Go ahead and break the yolk and spread the egg onto the bread, so every bite will have egg in it. Thoroughly cook the egg on both sides. There should be no runniness and the bread should be toasty. Add salt as desired. Enjoy! |
 I decided on a whim to create a forum for a contest for the next few days. I thought it would be fun. I was trying to think what the prize would be and I decided it would be a 10k awardicon for the winning item. I was trying to come up with what kind of contest it should be when it hit me. April Fool's Day is almost here. So that's the theme of the contest. Yay!I'm not sure what made me suddenly want to start a contest, but now I have my very own contest for anyone to enter. I didn't hear of any other contests for April Fool's Day, so I think I'm the only one. Hopefully people will enter it. I'll just have to see what happens. Hopefully it will be a lot of fun.
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 I can't believe how much I dragged my feet with this story. I wanted to enter the challenge at Cindy's Coffee Shop for "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" for the children's story from the point of view of an inanimate object. I wanted to write a kid story. I came up with a story that could be read to children, but it is a very sad story. It is from the point of view of the blankie, a much beloved and cherished child's possession. How bad could the story be? At least I did manage to enter another contest. It's good to be a contestant.Give it a whirl...
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