Kore and I were talking the other day about what are good gifts to buy for people. I often have a hard time with things like that because it’s difficult for me to make choices, and often times I have a hard time realizing what it is that people need or would like. I feel like this didn’t used to be such an issue but over the past few years it has become more so.
If my friends wore labels that said things like, “we love Pro Flowers” it might make things easier but alas they don’t, so I have to come up with things. Some times I can get a good idea of what they might want but I’ve just taken to asking them specifically for some options. My husband doesn’t seem to have nearly so much of an issue because he’s talented in this way. In fact at my last birthday a lot of our friends went to him for suggestions as to what to get me, and many of them will come to him for ideas as to what to buy others in our social circle.
On the one hand when it comes to things I need I tend to be somewhat easy, for the most part esoteric things: tarot cards, candles and beads for jewelry making are fairly common, alternately notebooks, particularly those that will fit in a purse are a good thing for me, because the writing bug strikes in random places.
I’ve been watching a lot of “House” lately. I tend to go in cycles with TV shows and “House” is one that I’ve caught episode of here and there but never seen in the proper order. It makes me wonder about the writing at times because there are certain things which come up in every episode, and each episode has a certain formula around the main story arc and other things some times go on in the background linking the main characters to each other.
While there might be a sickness which seems unexplainable in every episode, there are attempts at treatment and diagnosing and then House has a brilliant flash of insight and calls for a lead test kit for example and voila the patient is sent home fully cured. Meanwhile House is abusing his staff verbally and annoying his co-workers.
It is a bit formulaic but the writing and acting keeps everything fresh enough that I’ve caught up through Season 3 and there are only a few episodes that I’ve seen before.
It shouldn’t surprise me how easy it is for me to get distracted away from writing. I’ve been meaning to start several times but either I get side-tracked with best colon cleanser emails, or others offering me viagra or saying that I’ve won some lottery I’ve never heard of; or I get side-tracked with facebook games. I’d made a pledge to take a week off from facebook but then realized I needed it to finish organizing a friend’s birthday gather and then neglected to try again to boycott.
This concerns me for a variety of reasons.
However, I’m endeavoring to not only take time away from Facebook but also the computer itself, to turn it off for at least an hour at night before I go to bed, to help me wind down. So, far it hasn’t happened but there’s a first time for everything and at least one time is enough to start a beneficial pattern. Today I’ve spent quite a bit of time NOT on the computer, so that’s a bonus as well, but there’s the fact that I do need to use the computer for work and also for writing. I wish there was some way for me to just turn off from the internet, but it doesn’t often work. I’ll do so, not open my email, not open FF but then I’ll want to verify something I’m writing about, or check notes that I’ve left on a blog and then the spiral starts.
I know I’ve written before about the fact I’m thinking of going back to school. It tends to keep being put off and put off though, things come up, my health takes a nose dive. I honestly don’t know what I want to study, there are so many different options. The IT field seems to be the most likely to grow, but in this economy who really knows?
I was told yesterday about the masters information security program that Lewis University offers. It’s in an interesting program which covers several areas I’m already a bit familiar with, like programming and networking, but at the same time it expands those areas to cover security, of course, different strategies to combat theft of information and to secure the different operating systems on various systems and servers.
It’s definitely something to think about especially as it’s another school which operates these programs online and also offers financial aid. I get leery about financial aid because I already have several student loans in forbearance, but if I was actively enrolled in school they would stop accruing interest, which would be helpful for their eventual repayment.
Remember that video review I was just talking about. It’s for complete clean floss by Dentek, and I have to say that the floss is really brilliant.
I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to review this product, as I said, because it’s shown me that there is actually floss that I can use. My dentist has always told me that I really should floss, as everyone should but I never do because it hurts and who wants to keep doing something that hurts? Not me, but with this floss I could easily use it, and it was really easy to also show the munchkin how to use it, which is great because I want to make sure that he has much better oral hygiene habits than I do.
As a side note I’m just glad the video uploaded. The computer was being most uncooperative. I had to port the file to a different computer, convert it’s format and then upload it from that computer. Apparently the new computer does not like uploading videos only recording them, but I’ve got it done, and I’m very happy about that. It’s taught me a lot about what to do with regards to making videos, if I have the opportunity in the future to do so.
But back on topic I’m really happy with the product that I was sent, and also that it’s a fairly inexpensive product so it’ll be pretty easy for me to get more in the future, because I anticipate losing a chunk of it to both the munchkin and hubbie once he works out how good it is too.
I’ve been told on several occasions that I should write children’s books. My step-father, in particular, was a big advocate of this, to the point that he, at one point, filled out a form for me for some sort of Children’s Literary Association who then proceeded to send me all sorts of things telling me if I just filled out their questionnaire or sent them a writing sample they could assess my writing capability.
In the end after several different requests from them and further badgering from my step-father I did send in a writing sample. The first chapter of something I was working on. It involved a metamorphic police officer chasing down a suspect through a traffic jam and finally catching up by turning into a fly and freaking them out when she turned back into a person on their windshield.
After that I kept getting letters from them telling me how talented I was and offering to set me up with a writing coach and all the rest of it for X amount of dollars. That was when I realized that it was a scam, just like some of those offers for cheap insurance and viagra and things you get in your spam folder can be. Up until I was in college for several years I was still getting letters from them. Since I’ve been married I’ve seen the last of it.
However I get offers now and again from random publishers or agents who are wanting to help me self-publish and a lot of the time when I investigate them they’re also scams. I do know that their are some authors out there who will mentor people but I doubt that they’d be involved in something like that. I realize now that they’re more likely to do guest lectures and courses at actual universities.
I must say that the more I read about certain things the less I feel like a “normal” girl. This makes things very difficult for my husband some times when it comes to gifts, but on the other hand he tends to be grateful that I’m not necessarily looking for the expensive gifts, but at the same time there are those times when he wants to get me something that is jewelry and needs help.
I hear a lot about people wanting to get engagement jewelry and spending a lot of time trying to make a selection and often wondered why they don’t just ask their prospective spouse. I was reading about the engagement ring on Bellatrue and felt a bit ambivalent about a lot of the advice there because we really didn’t do things traditionally when my husband and I got together.
My husband proposed to me before he got the ring, then we went together to get the ring, and when we did we bought a colored gemstone ring, a marquis cut sapphire with two small diamonds around it laid on white gold, so that it looks silvery as I don’t wear yellow gold.
My step-father was mortified when we picked up the engagement ring that we didn’t get a “set” where the engagement ring would fit with the wedding ring, but that wasn’t important to me, what was was being economical. Sure I could have had my then fiancee spend several thousand dollars on a ring but then I would have been afraid to wear it lest something happen to it.
The engagement ring is unusual. I continue to wear it now on my opposite hand because it doesn’t fit with my wedding ring, but I love it so I wear it.
When it comes to other pieces of jewelry I still go towards more unusual things. I don’t wear jewelry often and tend to wear the same few pieces day after day. It’s only a special occasion that will prompt me to up the anti and wear a necklace as well as my customary two pairs of earrings and three rings and I much prefer colored gemstones rather than white diamonds.
So something like this:
is what’s going to catch my eye because of the unusual combinations and styles. I remember when we were shopping for a wedding ring several jewelers were extremely perturbed by my lack of interest in gemstones on my ring. I wanted a white gold band with a little bit of design on it, something with weight rather than the flimsy strips of gold they were showing with tiny sapphires and diamonds in them. I put one of them on and I couldn’t even feel it on my finger and that terrified me.
At least something like this:
would have some weight to it, but it’s all a matter of personal preference. I’m just not the type of girl who has to have the latest jewelry.
Given I’ve been researching various online schools lately I was interested to read about Lewis University. When I was at grad school before I was studying Information Sciences, but in looking to go back to school one of my main thoughts has been to study computers and internet related things, so I was interested to read about their MS in Information Security as it “meets the Committee on National Security Systems National Training standards for Information Systems Security Professionals, Senior Systems Managers” so that would be very good on a resume.
Like other schools I’ve been looking at they offer online courses which means I could go to school around my schedule and what I especially like is the offer for financial aid, that’s always nice. I’m going to have to revisit their program when we get back from the trip.
We were watching the last few episodes of the original “The Prisoner” series and at one point Number 6 gets a code from slides. It reminded me of all the slides that my Mum has from my childhood and I’m not sure we even have a way to look at those any more which is a shame because that’s a lot of my baby pictures.
It reminded me of the fact that as I prep to write a story set in the future that it’s going to be interesting to speculate what new ways of getting pictures and taking photographs that there’ll be by then, and then I stumbled across Slide Scanning Pros who will convert slides to digital format for just over a quarter: $0.26 or for $0.18 if you prefer.
What I really like about their service is not only do they scan the images at 4000 dpi, they’re able to color correct, and remove dust, fingerprints and other blemishes on the images (click here to see the clean up they can do) while they’re working on it and their technicians stay in touch with you every step of the way to make sure that the product is to your liking and they upload everything to a photo album and you only pay for the ones that you like, which is very generous I know how much work even correcting a photograph is I can’t imagine a slide which is so much smaller and potentially more fiddly.
I’ll have to keep them in mind for once we have some disposable income.
I have a major problem with procrastinating. It’s so easy for me to get distracted. The internet has too many shiny things on. I keep thinking that I should just disconnect the internet from the computer for a few hours a day and then I would be able to write more cohesively, but then I would also have to uninstall all the computer games. No more solitaire, or bejeweled or insaniquarium.
If it’s not that sort of thing I find myself reading through all the spam comments and spam emails I get that don’t get caught by the various filters. I’ve lost count of the number of offers I receive to get free life insurance quotes or check out hot nude girls, or enlarge various portion sof my anatomy (that I don’t even have).
All of these add up to excuses when all is said and done. I have lost the discipline I need to actually write for an hour or two per day. I have to work at regaining that discipline. I know I can do it. I’ve won NaNoWriMo twice before. I just have to be strict with myself, like I have to be strict with myself about my diet too.
