Short and random update post

It's late and I need to get some sleep, so this will hopefully be just a brief update.

-I packaged up my second query letter today and I'm set to send it out tomorrow.  I called the offices today and was told it would be better to send it 'snail mail' rather than via email.  I actually like the idea of printing my letter out on nice paper and signing it, rather than clicking a button to send electronically.  The magazine is based out of Austin so mailing it shouldn't cause too much of a delay.  My worry with this (and my other query) is that both are Tex-centric, and I'm only in Texas another 2 months.  I could easily write both these articles now, but it may be 6-8 weeks before I even hear back from these publications on whether they are interested or not!  I don't want to get the go-ahead on a San Antonio or Texas-centered article as I am packing to leave the state!  I guess I could go ahead and do the leg work (interviews and such) now, in the hopes I get a positive response.  I have no idea whether either magazine will bite on my pitches.  Other writers, any thoughts or advice on my timing issue?

-I was pleasantly surprised to be invited out to dinner tonight with all my old coworkers.  My former regional was in town for the evening and she suggested that I and another girl who'd recently quit at a sister property get invited.  It felt absolutely great to get to see everyone.  I feel blessed to have worked with such great people, and for them to continue to care about my comings-and-goings after I'm gone!

-I am feeling really bad about an interaction I had with both my parents tonight.  I already posted about it on my other blog.  I hate feeling like I've hurt or let down my family in any way.

-Justin is finally done with the land survival and resistance training portions of his TDY (all the hard stuff).  I'm so ridiculously relieved that it's all over for him.  Can't wait for him to get home on Saturday.  I want him to be greeted at the door with a winter wonderland of Christmas decorations, so I have a ton of work to do before the weekend! (If he walked in right now, he'd be treated to a 'wonderland' of dirty dishes and scrapbooking supplies and wrapping paper scattered evvvvvverywhere).

-Oh, and tomorrow (actually, today, since it's past midnight!) is my wonderful husband's birthday.  He's spending it away from home , having just endured some terrible stuff, all in the name of sacrifice for serving his country- so if you've gotten to the bottom of this post, would you mind leaving a comment wishing Justin a very happy birthday?  Doesn't matter if you know him (or me for that matter!) or not- I just think it'd be nice to show him a big list of birthday wishes when he gets home :)

Just trying to get the widget on my page . . .

Anyone know how to move this thing onto my sidebar?  Any suggestions would be appreciated! : )

No one ever accused me of having good taste, but . . .

I've decided to try my hand at some amateur interior decorating anyhow. I may not always be able to match my shoes to my shirt, but I have a secret fantasy life where I could, if unleased on a blank canvas of a room with unlimited resources, make something beautiful. (Thank you, HGTV, for giving my generation of women an overinflated security in our own taste, and an underestimation of the difficulties inherent in decorating and home improvement!)

I've had some hits and misses. Let's say that what design sense I have is . . . erratic. Still, I'm not one to let a few mistakes stop me, and today, I hit the Forum with a goal: find a clear glass container and some festive ornaments and make a beautiful centerpiece for my table. My inspiration was the pretty centerpiece on my friend Sarah's (not a typo- we have the same name) table at our post Thanksgiving/birthday potluck dinner in Virginia:

(It's not actually centered on the table, but you know what I'm referring to, right?)

While out shopping, I didn't find any suitable clear glass thingies (what is that thing? A hurricane lamp cover?) but I did find these really cool gold wire present boxes at Pier One Imports, and they were 20% off. I headed over to Hobby Lobby for some half off Xmas ornaments, choosing a darker, more non-traditional color scheme, and voila:

And just in case that's not enough for you, here's a few more views:

And finally, a close up:

I'm so pleased with my new centerpiece that I might unplug the laptop and set up office at the dining room table for the next few days, so I can gaze adoringly at it in moments of writer's block. Also, I probably need to stay close to it at all times so that the cat brigade doesn't bring it crashing to the ground during one of their high speed chases. This is the only Christmas decor I've put up so far, and while I plan on following with the rest in the next few days, I'm predicting at least one cat-related breakage before the end of the year.

So, what do you think? Don't worry about hurting my feelings if the arrangement doesn't fit your design aesthetic. I'm so enamored of my own creation that I will immediately file any negative comments under "totally joking."

Finished my first query letter!

I'm just putting the finishing touches on my very first query letter.  I'm so excited!  I have another idea for my second query letter as well.  I'm trying to start out local, in the hopes that they'll be a little more open to a writer without any major published clips (unless you count my Cave Spring Connection articles, which heck, I DO, because I am damn proud of them, regardless of the size of the audience they reached!).  I'm going to pitch to either San Antonio Magazine or "The Scene in SA" for my more localized article idea, and Texas Monthly for my other. 

I'm kind of at a loss as to how to include my CSC clips with my query letters, because those articles weren't published online, and while I do have a little brag book put together with all my articles clipped and mounted, they are irregularly sized, and mostly larger than a standard sized piece of paper.  I'm thinking that I'm going to drive out and visit my buddies at my old workplace tomorrow and use the scanner to try and reduce the size of these things.

I also need to spruce up my personal website before sending out my queries.  I set the thing up in October, when I first got the crazy idea to quit my job and step out onto this fragile freelance writer limb, but I haven't done much else with it since then.  I had originally (naively) conceived of the site as a place that random people would stumble onto and think, "goodness, this lady sounds like a fabulous writer!  Luckily I have this random writing project that's been collecting dust on my desk, I think I'll send her some money to do it for me!"  It didn't take long for me to realize that this was about as likely to happen as I was to receive an email from my old employer, begging me to come back and take over the national CEO position.  I also realized, a little too late (after I'd had a thousand business cards printed) that the life of a freelance writer doesn't much lend itself to business card distribution (seeing as it involves a lot of sitting around at home. . .  and writing).  So, while I felt the whole thing still looked pretty amaturish and incomplete, I pushed it pretty low on my priority list.  Now, I've got to figure out pretty quick how to make it not look like someone's freshman english project.  Any brilliant web designers out there want to do some pro-bono work for me?   :  )

A really funny blog that you should go read

One of the reasons I love Twitter: I found this blog through a tweet from another really funny blogger who I follow. For those of you who are slow to catch on: it's satire. Go read it.

http://www.queenbmommy.com/

I suggest you start at the oldest post and work your way to the newest, as there's a bit of a plot line, and you should read them in order to get the full experience. If you do go visit the site, pencil in a good chunk of time as you'll probably end up reading through the whole thing, and then be tempted to brainstorm a snarky comment or two to leave.

I'm thinking about packing up the laptop and headed out to a coffeeshop somewhere to get some work done. I've been having a harder time concentrating on work since I came back from Virginia. I have so much I need to do in the next few weeks:

-labor intensive homemade gifts to make (which I'll probably be revealing/showing off after Xmas on my blog, just in case the gift recipients check this),
-Christmas presents to buy, and wrap, and send,
-house to clean (this is a big job),
-flyers to make (it's time to start looking for tenants for Feb/March- scary thought),
-mortgage details to finalize (we close on the dollhouse December 15th),
-Time Warner Cable to deal with (I hate them with the fire of a thousand suns),
-Christmas decorations to put up,
-arrangements and preparations for next semester to make (I'm signed up for six grad credits for next semester, and they are in 700 level, joint masters/PhD courses, so I'm feeling pretty anxious about holding my own and want to read ahead),
-and so on and so forth.

So since I don't have any real "deadlines" right now (not having a steady paying gig as of yet, or any accepted article pitches), it's easy, when I sit down at the computer to forge ahead on self-prescribed writing projects, to let my words get crowded out of my head with thoughts of all the stuff that DOES have a deadline. I think maybe if I remove myself from this environment, things might get a little easier. Also, there would be no cats climbing all over me and trying to sit on my laptop as I write at Starbucks, so that would be a big help too.

My cooking trowel

I mentioned, back in my ghetto gourmet post, that I ought to relate my jelly roll cake story here sometime. In fact, I have a nice long list of blog topics that I've meant to touch on, but just haven't gotten around to yet. Tonight, I thought I'd go ahead and share this one with you, to illustrate the full extent of my kitchen naivety.

A few years ago, I was at my parent's house and I decided I'd make an ice cream cake. Yes, I usually avoid the kitchen like the plague, but every once and a while, I get an undeniable urge to bake. I can't remember the circumstances that prompted this particular attempt, or the year, or even who the intended recipient of said ice cream cake was (probably, though, it was me. I love me some ice cream cake). Regardless, I set about following a recipe out of one of my mom's cookbooks.

The recipe called for, naturally, a jelly roll pan, as the cake was going to be baked in a thin layer and then rolled up with a layer of ice cream to make a 'jelly roll' effect. Here's a visual to illustrate for you:

A jelly roll cake- not one made by me, obviously.

I glanced over the recipe to make sure I had all the necessary ingredients and tools. I was a little antsy because I wasn't sure exactly what a jelly roll pan was or if the pan I was planning to use would fit the bill. I skimmed the section detailing what to do after baking the cake portion itself and I caught this line: "Wrap the cake and the trowel together while the cake cools."

Now, I know what a trowel is when it comes to gardening, but in cooking terms I was clueless. Being the resourceful person I am, however, I set about to find a cooking trowel so I could make my delicious ice cream roll cake.

I googled "cooking trowel." I called my mom, who was out of town. I called my dad's secretary for advice (she's always good for those hard-to-answer questions). I couldn't unearth any info to speak of. Undaunted, I headed out to Bed Bath and Beyond. I asked three different sales people to direct me to the cooking trowel section. I was horrified that not one of them had any idea what I was talking about. Surely I wasn't the only person who'd ever attempted to make a jelly roll-style cake?

The last BBB salesperson and I brainstormed on what a cooking trowel would look like, based on the logistics of a jelly roll cake, should it actually exist. We decided that a long wooden rolling pin with slightly tapered edges was the closest to our mental image. So this is what I purchased:

My cooking trowel

I got home, makeshift trowel in hand, ready to finally make this cake. I'd literally put two PLUS hours into hunting down the elusive equipment for this dish. I decided to re-read the recipe to make sure I was set before I got started.

That's when I realized I had misread the recipe by one letter. Where I had seen "trowel," it actually said "towel." Yup. Wrap the cake up in a towel while it cools. Which actually makes sense. Unlike hunting down imaginary garden/cooking tools that don't exist. For two hours. And browbeating sales staff for not knowing what a cooking trowel is.

I still catch crap about that one at home.

And can I just add, now that I've related the story I've remembered that the cake in question was made for my murder mystery New Year's Eve party a couple years ago, which was pretty much the best New Year's party ever, except maybe the year Justin and I rang in the new year at Chris Huff's big cabin in Dogue, VA, which was awesome for an entirely different reason. And all this reminds me that I'm due for another fun New Years. Virginia Beach people: any ideas?

How many people can say they've been in a bank robbery? . . . Me!

I knew, yesterday, that it would be a hectic day.  I had a lot to do before hopping on a place to travel back to Texas from Virginia.  I had to mail the bulky Xmas gifts I had purchased for my neice and nephew in FL.  I had to manage to get 45 pounds of crap into a 35 pound capacity suitcase (success, minus two pairs of shoes . . . noticed this morning that suitcase is now broken beyond repair as a result).  I had to cram in every last second of cuddle time with my 4 month old nephew before leaving.  And, I had to stop in at the bank with my parents to see the diamond and pearl pin my grandpa left me, stowed safely in their safe deposit box.  I was excited to see the lovely pin, made to order for my grandma in 1948, but I didn't anticipate the bank visit to be a hallmark event, or anything.

Once we reached the BB&T branch where my family has banked for 12 years, Dad deposited a check while mom and I chatted with the relationship banker about her new baby and retrieved the safety deposit box.  We went into the small private viewing room and started going through it.  After a while my dad joined us.  I took a few pictures of my pin and wasn't paying much attention to the escalating noise outside our little room.  I finally took notice when I realized the male voice that had been getting louder over the course of a minute was now yelling, "Tens and twenties! Tens and twenties!  Hurry up!" 

I looked at my parents.  They looked back.  We had stopped talking.  I thought, "That really sounds like what someone would be yelling in a robbery.  But, there can't possibly be a robbery going on right now.  Crazy stuff like that doesn't happen to normal folks like us.  Must be a joke."  All the same, I reached over and locked the door as quietly as I could.   My family continued to stare at each other, our attention now solely focused on straining to hear what was going on outside the door.  I realized I was breathing very quickly. 

After an indeterminate amount of time I heard a teller say, "Lock the doors.  Lock the doors now!" and shortly after heard her side of a phone call to 911, reporting a robbery.  What?  Even after all the auditory evidence I had heard, I still couldn't believe it.  We continued to sit in silence for a few minutes, just to make sure the guy was really, truly gone.  I found it a little funny that several minutes AFTER the teller phoned in the robbery, we finally snapped out of it and my mom asked confusedly what had happened- apparently, my dad isn't the one with the age related hearing deterioration, after all . . .

So, I've officially been involved in a bank robbery.  On the receiving side, not on the robbing side (no plans to do that anytime soon).  I didn't actually see anything though, which on the one hand is kinda disappointing (I mean, if you're going to witness a bank robbery, it's kinda lame to just hear it all through a locked door) but realistically, I know I'd have been very shook up if I'd not been in the viewing room and he'd pointed the gun at me.  The teller who he demanded the money from had been robbed once before, fairly recently, and hadn't yet healed (so we were told by another teller as we waited to have our information taken by one of the dozen policemen who showed up shortly after).  She was really upset, and I felt so bad for her, seeing her weep and tremble. 

Here's a link to the very short blurb the local media posted in regards to the incident:  http://hamptonroads.com/node/489905

I was also planning to add a little picture here of the branch roped off with crime scene tape which I took after our release, but I'm having extreme technical difficulties uploading my photos, and yelling "I hate you!" at my camera repeatedly is not fixing the problem.  I will add later if my technology decides to work with me at some point in the future.