This weekend was a white out if you were in the Northeast anywhere. We wound up with 2.5 feet of snow. Yes, You heard me. 2.5 feet. I cannot even remember the last time that happened.
So we took Drew out and to be honest, he could care less. He kind of looked at it and was all like, Okay but is that my little tykes house over there? OOOH!
Then the wind picked up and that was it. He wanted none of it.
So we went inside. It was fun while it lasted though...
I got a brand new iMac from my wonderful parents for my birthday (talk about turning it around huh) and it has a "photobooth" application on it with a built in web/still camera... so cool. Needless to say I've been having a blast with it and usually I hate pictures but I've been working out and eating better and feeling better about me... so um... I just might be changing my mind about pictures. Besides, I love the colored pencil and black and white effects!
Life has been so busy. And while that's no excuse to be ignoring my blog, it was the one thing that wasn't paying me in some form. So, I let it go. And while I am posting now, I have no idea how often I will be posting... so...
I was in the car this morning listening to Christmas music and one of my all time favorite songs came on, Miss You Most by Mariah (I know there are many eyes rolling now). But the song is about the melancholy part of the holidays that is a bit more difficult to talk about.
The two people I think about most at Christmas are my grandparents. My grandfather was such a jokester. He loved having the family around him every holiday, wearing funny hats and making everyone laugh. I truly think it was his heaven on earth.
My grams was a tough lady. One time when the family was sitting down to play a board game she peered over her glasses and stated very plainly that she "didn't play games." I adored her though. I liked her cut and dry, black and white mentality. You always knew what she was thinking and where you stood and how far back you needed to be! I think through having my mother and my uncle, she learned a lot and was the most amazing grandparent for it. She was strong yet nurturing, a bit hard from life but soft in the middle.
And they were both pure love. It's what I miss the most this time of year. The simple expectation to see me. Parents have expectations of you -- to be a good person, be contributing to society in a positive way, to treat others well blah blah blah. But grandparents, well mine anyway, never expected anything other than love.
They were the only grandparents I ever had and I never knew I was supposed to have two more. They loved me enough for 10 sets of grandparents and expected nothing from me. And though there are many days I have thought of them and missed them through the year, the moment I see the Christmas lights I want nothing more than to crawl into my gramps' big lap, rest my head on his shoulders and sit next to my grams and chat.
Miss you Grams & Gramps... Hope your Christmas is just as good looking down as it was looking up.
I know I've been mum for some time and a few of you were awesome enough to go leave comments on my article over at Flaimahmy, so THANK YOU!!!
New article up and this one is much easier to read! It's a product review... Enjoy!
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Quick update to let you know I'm not dead... just seriously not into blogging at the moment. Second article has been published over at Flaimahmy...
Check out... One Woman's Journey Through Recurrent Miscarriage
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Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!
My birthday is at the end of the month and I have come to the critical realization that my birthday is in fact an omen that hell will rule my world until it passes. Evidence? You want evidence? Mmmmkay.
1. Andrew proposed November 16th 2002. You think wonderful right? Nope. Grams died of a massive heart attack November 23rd. My birthday? November 28th.
2. I was married September 14th 2003. You would think that's enough time before my birthday for people to remember but nope. The year I was married, my birthday went unnoticed. At thanksgiving they had a little cake as my family always does but the day of my birthday, my brand new husband, forgot. My parents were the only people to remember. Funny though, Andrew got a nice dinner out with my parents for his birthday that year. Me? Nada.
3. My birthday is around Thanksgiving. It sucks. It sucks big. Why? Because no one is ever around. My last birthday party? I turned 16. I'm going to be 36. 20 years of no parties honoring me. I don't even remember that. I can't remember a dinner for my birthday that wasn't even tied into Thanksgiving.
4. This year, we have some things going on that might be great or not so good with Andrew. I can't exactly elaborate right now but when will we find out which way it's going to go? 8 days BEFORE, yep... MY BIRTHDAY.
So, I've come to the conclusion that I was not meant to ever be celebrated. This year, I will not acknowledge my birthday because apparently the day of my birth sucked.
And now back to your regularly scheduled upbeat, less pessimistic and woe is me programming.
I've always wanted to write for magazines. Always. The problem in college was that I wasn't cut throat enough to work in publishing and I didn't have the guts to go for a freelance type of career like I should have. So I've started a little late in life but I've been steadily working toward a few writing goals:
- My first byline. As a writer you want to see your name under a title that says by Jennifer Famiano. I've never had that before and it has been a dream. A little one to many, but a big one to me.
- See my name in print.
- Get a steady stable of clients so that I can become self-sufficient.
- Publish a book.
Well, we can cross #1 out.
MY FIRST BYLINE! I'm so excited and I have to admit, I was kinda misty when I saw it! Upward and onward friends. Upward and Onward.
There's a lot going on in my life and much of it I can't talk about just yet. It's a big thing and while it can be great, it can also be earth shattering. We just don't know which way our lives are going to go right now.
So I've been at a loss as to what I should be blogging about. I'm really not so sure, to be quite honest and I've been kinda stuck. So I just thought I'd give an update.
I can tell you that Drew, as a pro-golfer this halloween was just the cutest thing ever. He looked adorable and we snapped some pix though I loaded them to snapfish and don't have the photos on my work computer. If you are interested, CLICK HERE to see the pics on my snapfish account...
He's a stunner, my boy. I'm tellin' ya... :)
Like most bloggers, I also have a twitter (@butterflyDivajj). I didn't want to begin tweeting but my good friend Joanna, made me do it. Okay made me as in mentioned that I should and that it was cool.
But over time I've found that I'm actually learning a lot from the people I follow. I'm learning tons about freelance writing, publishing and even my health. Here are the people I follow and why:
- @PublishingGuru - VP of Yorkshire Publishing Group, Todd Rutherford provides a ton of advice and links to amazing articles on everything from what publishers look for in writers to how to blog professionally.
- @JillianMichaels - As much as I curse this woman, I worship her. She's just a really amazing woman and I admire her physique.
- @MarkCoker - Founder of Smashwords and Dovetail Public Relations. Smashwords is an e-book publisher making huge waves in the industry. And Mark tweets about relevant topics that publishers are talking about. If you write and want to be published, follow Mark.
- @NathanBransford - Agent with Curtis Brown Ltd. Nathan doles out relevant advice on querying agents, writing technique and business acumen with a great sense of humor.
- @momlogic - MomLogic.com is an online magazine that posts top of mind news storying that will either make you laugh, shake your head or disgust you. Either way, I usually love to read whatever they write about.
And there are some embarrassing people on my follow list like @LaurenConrad (Yes, I adore her simple, classy style, what?), @MariahCarey (if you've been reading this blog and couldn't figure that out, I really don't know what to tell you) and @PerezHilton (love/hate baby). But I get more from the 5 above than any other Twitter account.
Who do you follow?
I've been impatiently waiting for a client to update her site with copy I wrote for her and FINALLY about a month, that felt like a year, after the finish of the project, my copy is up on her site.
I found this client through elance and I have to admit, it was fun. She is a very busy lady and difficult to get a hold of but in the end I think she was happy. We started with an interview so I could gather my information to write with and that part was actually fun. She's had an interesting life Miss Patience Brown.
I wrote the About, The Team, Contact and the Menu pages. I edited the FAQ page but that's not much to boast about. The other stuff is! I'm pretty excited and I love seeing my words up there!
And as always you can visit the dog site, Happy Dog Connections. We just revised the home page too so that was written by yours truly. Plus there are some new articles up including my favorite story of my angel Max.
I have some other things "in the works" but I'm going to keep them close to the chest for now... I'll update when things are concrete.
Happy Reading!
