A Current Obsession

Hello all. Not much is new here; just working and chasing Chaela around all day long, but I do have a new favorite website.

If you're into sci fi, you've heard of Orson Scott Card. His Ender's Game novel is one of the most famous sci fi works of all time. Before Stephanie Meyer, he was the LDS author.

Thanks to Caroline, a few weeks ago I was introduced to Uncle Orson Reviews Everything, and I love it. For a while, that's all I read on his site. Then I noticed a small link entitled "Writing Lessons." I spent the next 2 and 1/2 hours reading everything OSC (as he's referred to on the site) had written on the subject of, well, writing.

Let me just say that Mr. (or Professor, or Brother) Card is an EXCELLENT teacher. His articles were crystal clear and well-written, and, as a widely published author, he has the authority to write them. SVU is lucky to have him as a teacher.

After reading the "Writing Lessons" articles, I poked around the site a little more and found the "Writers Workshops" section. Awesome! I really enjoy sending my work to people that I know, but the only way you can get a truly unbiased opinion is to give it over to people who have no clue who you are and aren't going to spare your feelings. Not that I don't trust the ones I've sent my stuff to in the past, but here is an entirely new resource I can use to improve! Yes!

The only lame thing is that you can't post on the site until you've been approved by the Admin. I registered last night and haven't gotten an email yet. Ah! I just want to do this!

Oh well, I can wait. In the meantime, I highly recommend Uncle Orson Reviews Everything, especially to people who are slightly more conservative, because you'll find yourself saying "Yes! Exactly!!" to a lot of the things he says.

_________________________________________

This is a video I took on my cell phone (the reason it's not the greatest quality). If you can't tell what she's doing, she's playing in dirt, putting it on her stomach like it's war paint, then telling me "No, no!" for taking a video of her.

Success at Curves!

I was pretty discouraged at the end of last week. I'd been working out at Curves faithfully for a month, cut back pretty heavily on my food intake, and wasn't seeing any results.

Ok, I guess that's not completely true. I could tell that my arms were getting a little more in the way of muscle (when you add something to nothing...), and that I felt better in general. I think Will could see a difference, but I couldn't.

Curves encourages a monthly weigh and measure, but I let the 17th come and go without doing mine. After all, I weigh myself once a week or more while I'm at work and as of last Thursday I hadn't lost anything. Monday I went in a little early and figured I might as well do the weigh and measure. I'm glad I did! Not only did I lose a little over 2 pounds, I also lost 2 inches from both my hips and abdomen! I was shocked! Part of the reason for my previous depression was that I'd been measuring my waist at home and hadn't lost inches from that. I didn't think to check other places.

So even though it's not a super-visible difference, it's there. Besides, slow, steady weight loss is permanent weight loss. Something else I found interesting was that I had practically given up over the weekend and gone back to normal eating habits. I think when I started working at Curves I stopped eating enough and my body went into "starvation mode," meaning that it held on to fat as hard as it could. When I started taking in enough calories, my body stopped holding on so hard. So now I'm really trying to find that perfect balance between how much, when, and what to eat. It's hard, but succeeding even a tiny bit gets me so much more motivated!!

Helium

It's fairly common knowledge that I enjoy writing, even though a lot of the time I don't make any sense, I still like to try. Recently, (thanks to The View) I discovered a website called Helium. It's pretty cool. When you first go to the site, there is a lot to take in. Click on the "Write" tab in the upper right corner and you'll see a list of channels come up on the left-hand side. The channels are the general categories, and within each there is a more specific subset that you can click on. It's pretty straightforward. Under each subchannel you can find titles, and these are the things you actually write about.

The site is called Helium because the best writers will "rise to the top." Once you've published, you get rated. The ratind system is a little odd to me, because you aren't judged on the article by itself, but on your article vs. another article under the same title. Once there are three or more articles under one title it becomes "competitive." This means you're eligible to earn stars (except on Creative Writing titles, which for some reason don't count) once you have 4+ articles published in competitive, non creative writing titles. If you earn at least one star, you can make money. So far I've made $5. Oh yes, I've hit the big time.

Ha ha. I just think it's cool to see your stuff out there, I don't really care about the money. I mean, I might if it were more than $5. Bigger bucks can be earned by entering contests and snagging articles on Marketplace, where third-party publishers offer a set amount for articles on a specific topic. I haven't done that yet, but now that I have a star (you can have up to five, but you've got to write 300+ articles for that, so it might be a while) I'm thinking about it.

If you enjoy writing it's a great way to practice and see what other people think. A unique feature of the site that I both like and dislike is the inablitity to leave comments. No one can spam you or be nasty just because, but no one can leave nice things for you, either. If you want to give a writer feedback, you send them an email through the site. Most people are too lazy to do that.

So now that I'm officially addicted, I just wanted to let other people know about it. Sorry if this was long and boring! I tend to go on about things I'm into!

HeliumSpousal aggro: What to do when your better half wants you to stop playing video games

No!

She's finally learned it. Yes, Chaela has started saying "no."

"Chaela, do you want to come upstairs with mommy," I asked, expecting for her to either reach for me or shake her head.

"No," she replied.

Ahh! Save me!

There is supposed to be a "language explosion" around 18 months old, and I think we're getting closer. Her vocabulary is growing by at least two words per day now, and usually more. Some words that she couldn't say when she started talking have grown much more distinct and her phonological inventory (the sounds she can make) is increasing by leaps and bounds. It's exciting!

Here are a few of Chaela's new words:

Ninni - Lindsay (who is home visiting)
ga-se - glasses
tiis - cheese
mumu - movie
yoks - socks
miti - mittens
dis! - this, as in "give me this" or "let me destroy this"
bat - bath
Jiizi - Jesus
naaaice - nice, as in what Will says when he kills someone on Halo
baipa - daiper
pa-pa-fwa - pacifier

Those are a few of the new words that she's saying, but there are more all the time. I think this is my favorite stage she's been in so far. I love communicating with her!





Also, I'm kind of absurdly happy that Chaela has started carrying around this stuffed dog that we bought for her. We actually bought it the day my niece Addy was born. We were looking for a gift for her when I found this little husky toy. I thought Jana, Addy's mom, might like something more like a teddy bear, so picked out a teddy bear for Addy. Still, I couldn't put the puppy down. Since I was pregnant, we bought it anyways. I never thought Chaela would like it, but now it's right up there with her blankie!

Easter, the Zoo, and Other Things

This past weekend was a fairly eventful one. On Saturday we went to the Columbus Zoo, which was awesome. It was their Eggs, Paws, and Claws Easter thing, so it was crowded. We didn't go for that, though, it just happened to be the one day that week Will and I both had off. In fact, last week it was the only day I had off. Everyone at my work except me has recently suffered some kind of personal tragedy. I'm not kidding. Anyways, so we went to the zoo. Chaela probably only had a middling amount of fun, but I LOVE the zoo! Also, it was 4 and 1/2 hours of walking, which is excellent exercise.

Chaela in a model of the stinkiest flower in the world.

Tired baby and daddy leaving the zoo.

Here's Chaela in her Easter dress.

Then Sunday was Easter. It was a pretty quiet one, Lindsay and I did a musical number for church and then Will had to go to work. Yeah. Stupid. Then that afternoon I hid some eggs in the yard for Chaela. I didn't think she'd get the idea, but she did, and she loved it! So that was really fun.

Other than that, not too much is going on. I've been working a lot because, like I mentioned, everyone else there is having personal issues. One lady, who doesn't have kids, had to put her cat down. To her, that's almost like losing a child. Another lady's mother is in the hospital in PA, and another one had a mild heart attack last week. It's only me and the early morning person who haven't had any problems like this.

I've been writing a lot lately, as well. It's mostly been whatever project I feel like at the moment, but I'm really trying to finish the "book" that I started last year. It's strange, the more I write, the more I feel a compulsion to write even more. I kind of like it. It's like a legal addiction. The only problem is that now I'm almost rushing to get my story out, and I feel like it's not as good as it needs to be. At all. I think that's ok for now, though, because it's only first draft. I just want to get it all out at once, then go back and flesh it out. No wonder it's so hard to earn a living as a writer; you put hundreds of hours of effort into something and then, unless you're extremely gifted, see minimal returns.

Oh well. I read a recent article by Orson Scott Card in which he reviewed Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers: The Story of Success. In the article he stated that 10,000 is the magic number. It takes 10,000 hours (or, in the case of a writer, 10,000 pages) of practice/crap to become really good. That's a lot. So I'll keep plugging away for now because, hey, I like it, and it can only help me improve.

I hope everyone had a happy Easter!

Happy Birthday to Me!

So it's my birthday. Woo hoo! I feel like I'm having a pre-midlife crisis. Just a little. I mean, think about it. I'm 24. I'm in my mid-twenties. Isn't this the age that teens look forward to and older people strive the rest of their lives to recapture? Beyond this it's all slower metabolism, wrinkles, and gray hairs.
Not that I haven't accomplished a lot for my age. I'm married, have an amazing daughter, and I graduated with my Bachelor's in a reasonable amount of time. But there are still some things we haven't done, and it's beyond time. For example, I haven't found a decent job. That is the key to everything else, it seems.
Anyways, enough depression. It's my birthday! Will got me an incredible present, my mom is making me a giant cookie with frosting, Chaela is napping, and I'm going to have a shredded beef sandwich for lunch. Delicious. Also, Will is taking me out on Thursday (because we both have it off) to lunch and a movie. Yay! A date! To be honest, I think I'm looking forward to that more than anything.

Awesome Husband!!

I just wanted to post about Will, the best husband ever! My birthday is Monday and he's been asking me what I want. I mentioned jokingly that I'd like my own laptop for writing and things since he's always using our PC to play games and things. Well, I should have known that Will would pick the craziest thing out of my list (which also included several DVD's and flower/vegetable seeds for a small garden) and find a way to get it for me. That's right! I am typing this post from my very own mini laptop!

It's cute! It has a screen just over 8 in. diagonal, about the size of a personal DVD player. The keyboard is the smallest I'd go, but I like it! I've been saying for a while I'd like one just for writing. He's the best!!! AND I even got the fuzzy blanket I've been asking for!! Anyways, that's all! My husband rocks!