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Looking back through my life I am learning

I just left my second longest job.

2 1/2 years and I left.

I enjoyed working there and I’ll miss my coworkers, but I needed to move on.

As I’ve been applying for jobs and working on leaving my comfort zone, I have had some job apps asking for my full employment history. It had me going through and recounting and made me realize something. I have burned out on nearly everything but two stay in my mind.

Skincare and writing. My first job was in high school. It was my longest running job and only ended because I went to college. It gave me a firm love of writing articles. I loved pitching, researching, interviewing and writing. I loved taking the pictures for the articles and attending the meetings. I loved everything about it.

Back in 2011, I was looking at a website devoted to 30 day challenges where I ran across NANOWRIMO which quickly became my favorite month. It gave me a fierce obsession with writing and as soon as I finished the rough draft of my first, inspiration quickly hit me and I started a new draft. Then another.

The first was my first win and so far, only, but I have planned and started yearly since. This year will be my 7th year doing it and will be my second win. I have a finished rough draft of a short story from a few years ago and am planning the next several in the series. Once I get all 7 finished, I’m planning on publishing the full short story series and releasing it.

I read a lot about finding and following your passion and finally realized I found mine a long time ago. I’m a big advocate of following your passion, I guess now is a better time than never for me to listen to myself.

Parenting · Uncategorized

I can’t believe the difference a year makes

We just got home from the beach yesterday. We went last year during the same week.

I found our old beach pictures from last year and was amazed by how different the two year old looks.She looks so much older now, is now the size of a 3 year old and is talking, running, jumping and was so much more active. She was even trying to teach herself how to swim in the baby pool (partially dragging herself and partially starting to dog paddle- following the lead of some of the other kids she was watching and playing with)

It had me thinking about last year (she was 1 1/2 and now she’s 2 1/2) and also wonerding what the next year will bring us.

Now, she still loves bubbles, she loves nail polish, hats, headbands, necklaces, bracelets and rings. She loves lollipops, Ciao brand vegan cheese, apple juice and soy vanilla yogurt. (or as she calls it, “ice cream.”)

Back then she ate everything but had chronic diarrhea but now we know she can’t have animal milk or animal milk products (including goats milk or cheese) so we have to give her vegan butter, sour cream, cream cheese, cheese and ice cream)

Back then she would eat nearly anything and had a very healthy appetite, but now she only snacks and eats cheese, fruits and some vegetables- she’ll eat sandwiches occasionally and loves apple juice.

 

My 7 year old is fully potty trained, but has been since she was 5. (she was potty trained during the day at 4 but still in overnight pull ups- now she’s almost fully accident free), she’s talking a lot more, starting to be able to jump off the ground and can do stairs and stoops/curbs alone. Her speech is improving and she’s now going into her bedroom to play. She still melts down with loud noises and has ear tubes again but she’s getting a tiny bit better with some noise. She’s the one in the family who can eat whatever she wants but still eats like a bird. We did finally get her stably up to 38lbs but next year her sister still is probably going to pass her up weight wise.

She has also come so far this year, but she looks about the same. She’s not at an age where looks drastically change. With the two year old, she moved out of being a baby to being a toddler and you can see it plain as day.

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Day 6- your favorite recipe

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m gluten free and my 2 year old is dairy free. I have managed to find all the replacements we need for both of us and that includes a delicious gf baking flour that makes snacks that taste just like normal.

Gluten and dairy free Cowboy Cookies (oatmeal/chocolate chip) are my absolute favorites.

2 cups gf baking flour (I use Walmart generic- it’s the best I have found.)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup regular sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 cup crisco

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups steel cut gf oatmeal

1 cup gf/df chocolate chips (I use the Enjoy Life mini)

Preheat the oven to 350

Mix the 2 cups sugar with the crisco, add in the eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder and soda and a sprinkle of salt. Add in the oats and chocolate chips. Make small balls and grease a pan.

Bake for about 10 minutes

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Day 4- I got behind. Post about a former pet

My childhood best friend was a toy poodle named Fluffy. I’ll be editing to add a picture.

He lived to be 17.

When I was 10, I had been begging my parents for a cat for half my life. My aunt kind of tricked my mom into going with her to a poodle breeder so I could help pick out a puppy for “her”

I wanted a small, hyper, playful black puppy but she loved the nervous one shaking behind the couch so we got him. After she signed the papers, she told us the puppy was a gift for me and my dad. We were so unprepared, he spent the first few days in a laundry basket filled with blankets until we went and bought all the stuff. He hid for a while but quickly made himself at home. It’s been 3 years since we lost him and sometimes it still hurts like the day we had to have him put down.

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Day 3- post about a pet

Our current fur daughter is Jade. She has been shown on here and has her own Instagram and Facebook page.

She is a 3 1/2 year old rescue from MeowCat Rescue. She was a somewhat impulse adoption. We were discussing adopting a fur child after we lost our Cassandra, were browsing through Petco, I saw her and we decided to apply to adopt.

1 day later we got the call that our application was approved and there was an adoption event going on the next day. We left our 3 year old with the grandparents and went to check out the kittens. They left us in a small enclosed area with Jade and a very hyper and playful kitten. Jade was their oldest (6 months), was shy and had been through 3 fosters. We chose her and she has been the purrfect addition to our family since.

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Day 2- 31 day challenge- personal story

I started this challenge off easy with a personal story from any subject and any time in your life

Growing up, I had a poodle named Fluffy.

He was all of 7lbs and 12 inches tall. We had an apple tree in our yard. One day, he discovered one of my apples growing.

That afternoon, we watched as he spent over 1 hour tugging and pulling at it. It took him that long, but he finally got it off, I believe he ate it all the way to the core.

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Day 1 of the 31 day writing challenge

Today is day one. I came up with this over the course of just a few minutes. The purpose of doing this is to try to show that getting into a habit of writing a small amount daily isn’t as hard as it seems.

I’m going to follow the guidelines I wrote and am telling any reader they can join. I tried to make things easy enough for anyone to spend around 5 minutes and write.

I’ll be logging all answers and using #31daysofwritingchallenge as a hashtag to make this easier to find.

If anyone follows along with this challenge, use #31daysofwritingchallenge, I’d love to read other posts.

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30 Day Writing Challenge

Instead of just simply challenging myself to write 30 posts, I think I’m going to come up with a writing challenge. This is a way of trying to help myself with coming up with topics and warming up my writing skills in a variety of topics. I’ll make this challenge public to see if anyone would be interested in joining me.

This exact challenge will be started on June 1, 2018 and anyone who is interested is welcome to jump in.

The goal of

Day 1- introduction to the challenge

Day 2- personal story

Day 3- post about a pet (current or growing up, if you have never had a per, someone else’s that you knew)

Day 4- post about a childhood pet

Day 5- Another animal related post, could even be a recipe

Day 6- your favorite recipe

Day 7- free day (anything you want)

Day 8- Family story from growing up

Day 9- Story about your mom

Day 10- story about your dad

Day 11- post a review on your favorite album

Day 12- review about your favorite movie

Day 13- review about your favorite book

Day 14- free day

Day 15- create a short story- any subject

Day 16- everyone has an area of expertise, write an educational piece about yours

Day 17- what is your dream job?

Day 18- talk about your hobbies. Which is your favorite?

Day 19- if you’re a parent, pick a topic and write about it. If you’re not a parent, free day- pick a topic and write about it

Day 20- pick your favorite animal and write an educational post about it.

Day 21- what is a favorite memory?

Day 22- write a poem

Day 23- write some song lyrics

Day 24- post a recipe you have created or modified

Day 26- pretend you’re doing a short biography on yourself

Day 27- write about gardens (or pictures of gardens you find pretty)

Day 28- what is an object you cannot live without?

Day 29- short, humorous post about any topic

Day 30- review of an appliance or item you use a lot

Day 31- review of the month challenge.

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This coming June I’m taking my first ever paid vacation from work

Since I’ll have a full week off, I have decided that the month of June I am going to try to do one post a day and come up with either 1 post or one article to submit to a magazine or blog every day through June.

Coming up with ideas shouldn’t be too difficult.

I have 11 more days in this month and I’ll be brainstorming topics (privately) and I’ll try to come up with 30 varied posts.