My365 Photo Challenge

Okay, this is a quickie. You like quickies right?

My friend Cara turned me on to this 365 day photo challenge. I have an iPhone so that makes it pretty easy. There's an app. My phone is also a camera. And this site Fatmumslim gives you photo topics everyday. The My365 app lets you post your pics to a calendar.

So far, here is what I have uploaded so far:

Something I wore

Window

Red

Loud

Here are the topics for March.

If you have an iPhone ... join in and follow me on My365. It's a neat way to be creative and take some cool pics as you go about your day.

A Medley of Certificates & Awards

This was a big week for the Medley children, furry and otherwise. 

Grace brought home three certificates of achievement and another 100% on her weekly spelling test. She's only missed words on two tests all year and those were the first couple of weeks before we all caught on to how things worked in the first grade.

And Belle graduated from Obedience School.

I'm pretty sure they gave Belle and I a pity pass but you know what, I'll take it. She is a terrible walker on a leash. Wednesday night she turned it on and did great for her test .She was also supposed to sit and stay for one minute. She did, but in 15 second increments. You can see she "needs work". Well, duh. That's why she's in obedience school

I would give her overall performance a C+. Ms. West was generous.

Now it's my turn. My writing workshops begin in two weeks. I'm just glad I won't get a grade or have to take any tests. 

I hope I get a certificate of achievement.

TTAM1 = Things That Annoy Me–Part 1

I fear I’m growing crotchety in my middle age.

Things I may otherwise not have noticed, drive me to distraction and full on grumpiness now. Maybe it’s hormones. Maybe it’s stress. Or more likely, maybe it’s that people and businesses are out to perpetually annoy me. Yeah, most definitely it’s that last thing.

I conjured enough things just today thinking about it in my car on my way to and fro that I think this could become a regular blog feature. Hopefully it won’t be a weekly feature because that would mean either: A. the world really is conspiring against me or B. I’m becoming one of those bitchy people I can’t stand.

Either way, here are the Top Ten Things That Annoyed Me Today in no particular order of annoyance.

1. The complete lack of hooks, baby changing table or shelf to sit my purse on in 3 public ladies restrooms. This results in one of two things: purse on the floor (ick) or purse around my neck or other necessary body part. Either way = unhappy customer.

2. The piece of tasty Buffalo Chicken goodness that the dude ALWAYS leaves stuck to the paper tray when he dumps it onto my sandwich at Subway. Seriously, you don’t put enough chicken on that sandwich as it is. I want it all.

3. Random message lights appearing on my car dashboard and then going back off. Honestly, I think the car companies just have them set to go off at odd intervals so we have to go to the dealership and Scooby Doo that mystery each time.

4. People who call my cell phone and do not leave a message. I will not call your random number back and investigate. Leave me a dang message.

5. Automated answering systems for companies that disconnect me time and again when I am trying to follow their verbal labyrinth

6. Any '”man made material” in shoes or purses. Man made material just means it will fall apart, scuff up or peel off. You don’t see any cows walking around with holes worn through them, now do you?

7. Shoe Carnival Barkers. All of them. I hate that store.

8. Giant 18 wheelers in the rain.

9. Pavement on state highways that suddenly and inexplicably ends ten miles into my twenty mile trip to the next town. My car isn’t made for gravel roads. I had to turn around and backtrack.

10. How nice the dog acts when Bryon is home early and how bad she acts when he’s not.

Fear not, I’ll keep a list. There will be more.

What annoyed you today?

Trail Roving

 Today on our walk, Belle took a swim.

 Then she jumped on me with her wet, muddy paws and headed down the trail.

 I got this picture just before she trampled it.

I found this tiny flower in the field and looked it up in my Missouri Wildflowers book.

It's a Small Bluet.

Finally, a deer track as big as a moose.

Writspiration

Saturday was a good day for writing inspiration. I got to spend the day at The Library Station for the monthly ORA (Ozarks Romance Authors) meeting. Bryon stayed home and worked on his boat with Matt and, Grace entertained herself.

The great thing about ORA is it really helps keep me pumped for writing. Of course you couldn't tell that from the blog posts because I skipped a day. I did take my first thirty re-edited pages of my novel back and the group critiqued it. Two of the group had read the first draft when it was in first person and liked it better the old way. The rest of them didn't know any better. They all said they wanted to read more so that's a good sign I suppose.

It's staying in third person. I'm just not a first person fiction kind of girl. First person is so incredibly limiting. I like being able to read the minds of my characters.

I made it through all of my first paper and ink edits. Now I have to go back and fix them all in Word. I swear, editing is more difficult than the writing. I say I made it through all of my edits, but Saturday one of the authors in the club took a bit of time to give me some advice and pointed out how many times I was using the passive tense. It was like opening the Pandora's Box of passive voice and she only read two pages.

Here's the difference in passive and active voice straight from the one true source, Wikipedia: Caesar was stabbed by Brutus = passive voice. Brutus stabbed Caesar = active voice.

So now I have to go back and clean all of that up as well. It's going to be huge pain, but I'm doing it because I know she's right. She's published more than seventy novels. I even had one on my bookshelf that I haven't read yet. I took it, and she signed it for me. I want her to adopt me and be my mentor but it turns out prolific authors only get that way by ... well, ... writing. Not babysitting new would-be writers. I get that.

I got a lot of good advice Saturday, and I registered for four writing classes that are coming up on Monday nights the last two weeks of March and the first two weeks of April. I used to say I'm as smart as I plan to be, but I think I'm ready to learn something new. Since I decided not to try to go to the RT Book Lovers Convention in Chicago, this will be the next best thing.

Peace Food

Some people see Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich. Yesterday, I found peace in a tomato.

Post Whine & Blogging Notes

I have wanted to quit posting daily about three times this week, and I've only made it two months. This makes the 64th post because I had a couple of bonus posts thrown in there for kicks when I was feeling flush. This week has been a struggle. I've been grumpy and nothing has seemed all that post worthy.

I don't like to be a quitter, but man, it's getting more difficult.

The only thing that's kept me going is that I am excited that more and more people have been finding my blog. I'm also a little disappointed because my bounce rate has been high. Until two weeks ago, I didn't even know what bounce rate was.

Bounce rate means something got someone to the blog, like a specific search term, and when they got here, they realized it was not what they expected. They bounced or left immediately and didn't stick around to check things out.

I think my catchy titles are the culprit. Also, I steal a lot of the images from Google Images, and I think that sometimes leads them here. I know it leads me to their pages so I suspect I am bouncing of other people's blogs the same way.

Just last week I discovered Google Analytics which is totally cool and awesome and depressing all at the same time. It's free. You register your blog and they analyze your blog traffic six ways to Sunday. I am not naturally analytic but I sure do like to see where, how and what people are doing when they come to my blog. Don't worry, there's no specific information. I can't tell who you are.

I've learned a lot about blogs and blog traffic this past week. More than you'll probably ever want to know. My post last week, The Helpful Gene, is really getting lots of page views. My all time most viewed though is still A Penny Saved... I think folks find it and think it's a way to get through these hard economic times. Not so much really, it's actually about my first car and Grace's efforts to save for one of her own.

One thing I would like to start doing is taking more of my own pics for the posts. I think that might cut down on the random bouncing. Honestly, I don't know if I'll make it an entire year. I'm getting squishy. Right now, another entire month seems pretty impossible.

Feel free to offer up topics if you are so inclined, because frankly, I could use the help.

These would be your rock days my friend.

Spring? Here's A Sign.

The girls were busy this past weekend. I'm optimistic that this means they have made it through the winter again. I hope this also means they are ready to get to making me some more honey for this year.

I haven't opened up the hive to inspect things yet, but this was a goodly bunch of bees hanging out on the front porch, so that's usually a good sign. Either they are ready to go or these girls are robbing my hive.

We'll see in a few weeks when I break into it and check them out. I don't like to break their waxy weather proofing until it has warmed up for good and true outside.

My honey from last year has already sugared up but that's okay. I think it was just too cool in the bottom of the pantry for it. I just warmed up a jar, stirred it and we are enjoying the first jar of last year's harvest.

Good things come from small packages.

Mad About March

Dear Television Executives:

I have some March madness, but it's not what you would likely expect.

I could care less about basketball. What I do care about are my weekly shows. You know, the ones I'm addicted to. The ones that YOU hooked me on. The ones that now produce less and less episodes each year, take a month long break over Christmas and then the entire month of March off for BASKETBALL.

Seriously, who doesn't have a DVR now? Practically everyone. Okay, maybe not my friends Leslie and Ron or the Amish, but otherwise, EVERYONE. And if not a DVR then they probably still have a VHS recorder. The point is, bring my shows back. We can watch both if we are so inclined. Your viewing audience will not be diminished.

Probably it's just that you don't want us fast forwarding through your precious commercials. Well guess what, I do that each week anyway and instead of instilling loyalty in me, you are only instilling anger. Deep. Seated. Anger. Trust me, you won't like me when I'm angry.

You have perfected the season finale cliffhanger. This year you sprang the mid-season finale cliffhanger on me. What the heck? Seriously? How long did you sit around the mahogany board room table brainstorming up that idea? I have enough stress in my life. I do not need multiple or mid-season cliffhangers. I need consecutive, well written weekly episodes. I would like twenty six of them. A full six months.

I also do not care for the filler episodes. Just develop the characters and their relationships, expand the plot and lay out the story each week. Do not flash forward, back or sideways. If you do flash forward, back or sideways, do not do more than one of them in the same episode. It makes my brain hurt. I also do not care for it when you drop my characters into some bizarre time warp and suddenly they are all 1940's gangsters or some other ridiculous indulgence.

I know you have more money than God. Use it wisely. Create cooler effects. Shoot your entire show in HD or 3D or some other mind blowing D. Just don't travel there. It's too confusing. 

Once you have actually produced and aired twenty six fabulous episodes, then you can break out the new stuff on me. I'll see if you measure up. I'll decide if you are 'Record Series' worthy. My DVR space and free time are limited. You had better bring it.

Since you already have basketball on the brain, think of your work as the playoffs of television. Each series is a team. Each episode is a game. The season finale is the playoff.

Right now, you are playing disabled and you are way, way behind. You had better use this time of rehabilitation to the utmost, my friend. Otherwise, when you do come back, you might find you have lost some of your fan base. If you give us a chance to realize we might actually be able to find more productive things to do than watch hours of television, we might fall out of love with you.

That would be very, very sad for you.

Next year, I hope you reconsider.

Yours truly,

A fan.

Belle Eats Bubbles

Here is your video entertainment for the day. Grace busted out the bubbles last night and Belle joined in. That's some good clean entertainment right there. Bryon and Gary were playing trackball off screen and the chickens were in the peanut gallery.

First shorts and flip flops of spring.