the journals

My little time investment this morning paid out! Literally – $5, cha-ching! I’m officially a freelance writer!

Which fact does not mean that the job-hunt will in any way be discontinued or slacked. Like I said before, it’d be difficult to pay the bills freelancing. But money is money, and I’m not sure I’ve ever been so happy about five bucks before!

Woo-woo!!!

So… yesterday we went downtown to the office of the Courier-Journal, a Gannett paper (like the News Journal in Delaware), where I applied for a job. I’m trying not to be too optimistic – but it would be really lovely. First, because I’d be working at a paper, which I’ve always wanted to do; second, because it pays very well; third, because it has good opportunities for broadening my horizions; and fourth, because it’s not too far away. It is right in the middle of downtown (think skyscrapers), but I think it’s a fairly easy location. And downtown Louisville is so pretty! The architecture is really quite something.

I also applied for a freelancing job as a ghostwriter, and sent in the first article this morning. If they like it, I get paid and hired. If they don’t, then I guess I wasted an hour. But – good potential there. There’s no minimum output, the pay is very clear-cut, and I could work as much or as little as I liked. If I worked to death, it could pay the bills… at any rate, even once I find a salaried job, it would be a good way to pick up a few extra bucks. Writing isn’t much of a chore for me. So I’m really really hoping to get it. It’d take a lot of the stress off – while it would take an unbelievable amount of discipline to do it enough to substitute for a salaried job, it’s possible, and that would make me feel better. Too, it’d be something solid to put on my résumé that might help me land a job doing something similar. Anyway, now’s a bit stressful, as I expect to hear back from them today or tomorrow.

Last night, I made pancakes! Usually Seth makes pancakes or crêpes if we have them. But I totally cheated, and bought Great Value Buttermilk Pancake mix at Walmart. (For about $1.50 – talk about eating inexpensively – it makes 60 pancakes!) Anyway, all you do is add water, whisk it for a bit, then cook! No eggs or oil to make messiness. I also got the bright idea (I think my mother had it first) of using a measuring cup to dish the batter out onto the pan. It worked excellently!

Unfortunately, I’m either very ungood at baking pancakes, or else I’m just not used to my electric range. I started with four on the skillet, and the things just weren’t cooking, despite my having tried the drop-a-drop-of-water-and-see-if-it-vanishes trick. So, I concluded, they weren’t turned up high enough. So I turned them up. Still no bubbles. I turned ‘em up some more… all the way, in fact. Then they started bubbling like crazy, and I thought, yay, right temperature at last!

Em, no. By the time I finished the third batch, the kitchen was filled with smoke, the alarm was going off, and I was thoroughly embarrassed. Happily, despite all the smoke, the pancakes actually weren’t very burnt, and were edible. And I think I learned something about cooking pancakes and burner temperatures.

Like Seth, I too have been twiddling my creative thumbs – with a fractal generator called Apophysis. Which is ridiculously easy, but has some cool effects. In a nutshell, what you do is take generated fractals and alter them – moving the coordinates, for instance, which changes the shape of the fractal, and doing aesthetic stuff to them like changing the colors. It’s kind of art, and kind of not so difficult as art should be.

Be warned that many of the files are in the vicinity of one megabyte, which takes a bit to download.

Julie has suggested that I write an entry in the journal that she created for me. This is a good idea I think, since journals are meant to write in. =)

Anyway, I am posting the link to "Julie's Song No. 5," which follows the first four songs already posted in Julie's journal. This song was especially tailored for Julie's enjoyment more than the others. She rather likes it, which is the primary reason why I wrote this piece and the other pieces before it. Julie says it reminds her of the (and I quote) "morning twilight." I don't know if I agree with her. =) The song can be heard by clicking here.

Seth has been writing music lately, which is making for pleasant sounds around the house. He has to record and stuff, though, so there are all these long gaps of silence when the piano is plugged into his laptop or headphones. But here are the wonderful results:

• Julie's Song No. 1
• Julie's Song No. 2 -- he says this one is "meant to be silly," but I think it's fun and interesting.
• Julie's Song No. 3
• Julie's Song No. 4 -- this one took forever because of all the mixing going on with different instruments. Interesting result, though.

Anyway, I much like! And now he's working on his Hebrew homework.

Got some thank-you notes written today, and plan to get through at least another one or two packs before the day is over. I try to space them out a bit so that they don't all start sounding the same. I guess I have this secret fear that all my relatives are going to call each other up and compare phrases! Anyway, I really hate the inherent tension in writing thank-yous: I really am thankful, and so there's so much more that I want to say than can possibly fit on one card! And if I take the time to write a lot -- as I do on some -- then it ends up taking me a half an hour to write each one! Seth's a genius with them, presumably because he had to write so many as a seminary Ambassador, but it's really neat how swiftly he turns them out, and how nice they sound. Mine are all awkward. I'm glad for the opportunity, though... it gives me a chance to say significant things to people who've been significant in my life.

Having finished all my unread books, and pursued every job lead available until tomorrow (newspaper), I've been occupying my time... with writing! I wish I had a better grasp of writing short stories; my head seems to only operate in a novel-length way. I'm toying with the idea of trying in earnest to write a draft of something and send it off; it'd serve to sharpen my skills and also introduces the possibility of income. Apparently the market right now is extremely receptive to new writers of children's fantasy (books like Harry Potter, in other words)... it's a tempting thought, at least for the moment. Anyway, I've always had this problem with not being able to stretch the plot out -- I tend to jam a novel-length plot into a single chapter -- and it has been very pleasantly surprising to discover that that doesn't seem like such a problem anymore. I've done a good bit of revising that story I linked to in my previous entry (and by "revising" I mean completely erasing and replacing 75% of it), and it's clear just by looking at the paragraph breaks which are the new sections and which are the old. It's difficult to judge one's own work, but the past two days have been encouraging, at least.

Okay... enough about my writing uncareer. Mozilla Firefox 1.0 was finally released this week, which is sadly not as exciting as the release of Thunderbird 0.8, which had some very important upgrades with this version. I don't use Firefox exclusively (I still use IE6 for most things, in fact, for a variety of reasons), but it does help prevent one from catching computer viruses, and the new version incorporates an RSS reader, which is a really nice addition. I do use Thunderbird, after switching to it from Outlook Express a year or so ago. Thunderbird rocks, and is pretty effective in blocking email viruses. While I'm on the subject of lovely free software, Weather Watcher was a nice recent discovery. It sits in your system tray and tells you what the temperature is outside. You can click it for a week-long forecast, or just hover over the icon for a variety of detailed information (like humidity, wind direction and speed, etc.). It's extremely customizable and ad-free, which is quite rare in similar weather programs.

Well, we’re finally back online, much to my delight. In the interim, however, I’ve read entirely too many books. There’s only so much time one can devote to housework and job-searching, and in the dark hours of the evening when one’s husband is at work – there are pages and pages awaiting!

It’s been so long since I’ve really read outside of school assignments, and it’s been rather pleasant to pick up the habit again. I don’t think I’ve qualified these last few years as a “bookworm,” and while I’m not sure I want to devote that much time to reading, it is mentally challenging, in a way. I had a recently-acquired (and thus unread) copy of an “Encyclopedia of Mythology” or something to that effect, and I’ve been reading it along with one or two fiction books. It’s interesting. It makes me want to write.

I actually spent quite a bit of time last night combing through the files on my computer to find my latest abandoned story (which, while on the internet, strangely has no regular file on my hard drive). I think it’s too juvenile (especially the names – shudder!) to pick up again, but it does make me want to write now. I’m kind of curious what would happen if I did; I’m so much older now than I was when I wrote it, and hopefully I have a better sense of the melodramatic in order to avoid it. But I’m also so much more out of practice now than I was… at any rate, I think I’d like to try.

I think I’d better go – dinner calls.

Edit: On reflection, I think the second part of that story might be somewhat salvagable. It’s overdone, especially in places, but I think some of the threads might pick up again.

So… hi. The prior entry was actually written for my LJ journal ("where” I met Seth!), which I still keep somewhat sporadically. So this is the first entry written specifically for here.

Our website apparently continues to encourage people, which is a constant encouragement to us. Please pray for us in this; we have a decision coming up soon as my hosting contract is about to expire. I’m very pleased with my host, but there are cheaper options. ("Cheaper” like buying one bottle of soda for $1 instead of buying six bottles for $4.)

Labor Day weekend was quite lovely. Seth’s biggest day of school is Monday – he’s in class from 8am until 7pm – so it was nice for him to have the day off. We got together with some folk from RBC yesterday, which was a fun and yummy time of fellowship and bratwurst, which I don’t believe I’d ever eaten before. It was good. I’m enjoying meeting people here.

I’m beginning to like my front-loading washer. I think one of the keys is to under-soap it; I was following the instructions, and running out of detergent entirely too quickly (it’s supposed to do thirty loads; it was actually doing about fifteen). There was also a problem with soap suds on the seal when I opened the door. Using less detergent fixed that problem. Anyway, I really like the way it wrings the water out of the clothes; so much of the stuff I wear is non-dryerable, and it’s really nice to be able to hang the things up for just an hour or two and have it completely dry. I’m also very much liking my little delicates mesh bag: I’m putting all kinds of laundry in it! I noticed my kitchen towels were getting really picked every time I washed them, along with some other things, so I’ve been experimenting with the bag. Then I just throw the whole thing in the dryer… if I’d known I was going to use it this much, I would have gotten a bigger one!

We had all these suction-cup holder things (toothbrush holders, towel holders, etc.) in our house, and they were fantabulous, but then a couple of weeks ago, they all started falling down! Not because they were badly made or malfunctioning, apparently, but because I don’t think the apartment complex believes in removing paint! There’s such a thick layer of old and new paint on our walls that it’s extremely easy to make bubble out (which makes the suction cups fall down). I think this is why we’ve had trouble getting sticky things to stick as well – the paint just rips off the walls so easily. It’s kind of sad. Everything in the guest bathroom seems to be still sticking all right, but I finally had to stick our toothbrush holder on our mirror instead of on the wall (and it’s working dandy there), and we’re using our one towel rack and a doorknob for our towels! Which is probably bad for the paint on the doors, but they should give us more hangy places! Imho.

Yikes, I sound housewifey. I could go on, too. It’s fun, though, and I’m actually much enjoying it, although I’ve gotten a bit tired of the endless dishwashing at times. I’m growing fond of my tiny little kitchen, though – we were at these people’s house yesterday, and they had a (lovely) large kitchen, and I was thinking… wow, I’m lucky: I don’t have to walk to do anything in my kitchen! No matter where I am, it’s all in arm’s reach!

Perhaps I’ll write more interesting things at some point.

One of my favoritest things about Seth is the way he just randomly picks me up and twirls around with me. He’s so strong, and it makes me all gooey inside! (It makes me afraid of the ceiling fans as well.)

Marriage is so delicious. We both thought it would be good, but it’s so much better than that! Really—we both had such high hopes, and they keep getting surpassed.