Hey, everyone. By going here, you can now get yourself a copy of my short story Rainfall for .99 cents. It is brief, but I would like people to check it out. It is part of a larger story which I will be publishing this June. Thank you for your support!
Reasons Why I Want to Work From Home
- Ability to form my own schedule
- I want time to spend with a dog
- I want to be able to go home more than once a year for a weekend or for someone’s funeral
- I want to be responsible for my own failure and success
- I want to control my own life
- I want to eat at home because I fucking love my own cooking
- I want to go to the gym more often
- I want to travel and continue my job even if I live in a foreign country
- I want to be with my boyfriend more
Sunday Morning
I’ve been up for a few hours now. I can’t really get back to sleep. To pass the time I’ve been catching up with a dear friend on Facebook, made tea and coffee, and I have been playing Chuck the Sheep on Kongregate. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what an online friend and quasi mentor of mine, Lauryn, said to me when I asked her how she stays focused on her motives and ambitions as someone who works for herself. She said it’s about developing and following your systems. She said that once you get your systems down, and you just go with them, then everything should be good after that. However, if there are any flaws in your system, then it will be hard to keep things going smoothly.
I have been trying this last week or so to look at my routines, seeing where there are systems for getting things done and where there are not. It’s been a bit jarring at times. I worked one night on my system for dedicating time to my writing and transcription work. I had to stay up all night (while simultaneously making mini sweet potato pies for a competition I entered), but I got it done. I felt really great and accomplished. I’ll be honest: there are probably a lot of capitalization errors in the transcript. However, I got it done, and I spell checked it and everything.
Next go round, it will be more flawless. If I decide to go back that route, that is. I mean, to be honest, completely? That was 6 or 7 hours work for 22 dollars. Maybe I just have to get better at it, but damn. I’m not sure that that was worth that kind of dinero. Who knows.
Another thing I’ve been dealing with lately is being scared to spend money on anything. I need to spend money on things likes clothes and shoes, but then I rationalize that what I have is good enough. Then I think that my desire to wear clothes that befit my new station in an office is me being a bit over indulgent, and then I put things back, even when I’ve caught a good sale. I talked to my boyfriend about this last night, and he helped put my head on straight (one of the many reasons I adore him). If I need something to progress, I shouldn’t be worried about purchasing it. It is a need, just like food and gas for the car.
He’s really helped me to grow and develop.
I’m trying to get more connected to my online friends and resources like I was before. I miss them a lot. I’ve also connected back with some friends back home. There’s other things that have worried me, but I think having my e-support network has been really beneficial. I am desperately trying to move closer to Dallas (Irving is my target right now) so that I can get in more with other people who will share and fuel my love of games and game development, but I have several more months left on this lease. For now going to the anime club meetings has been nice. I really like the people that I met there.
Sorry. This blog is rambling, but I need to get these things out there. Hopefully there’ll be more, other things to come.
And randomly, I need to get a laptop. This thing is pro. 
Working on my Niche Blogs
Today is a down day for me, but I’m not allowing myself to slip down. I’m working on my first niche blog today, and I’ve done some working out to get my adrenaline going. I also have a pretty sizeable transcription gig to work on. Go me, go! Listening to Fly Away from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt.
Content Mills Are Dead
Yes, you probably already know about this.
However, I stopped writing for a few of these places over the summer because I had other Important Things going on. I’m just now returning to places like Breakstudios (which I didn’t really like as much ultimately anyway) and other sites that I used to write quick articles for, and I’m seeing that they’re virtual ghost towns. This is, of course, related to last summer’s Google Panda update.
I can’t say that I miss one of them – most of the articles were badly named in the name of getting more search hits and I had to include words inorganically just to generate more hits at times. However, it kind of bites that the other ones have lowered amounts left to write.
Things change, though. We’ll get through this. Time to go work on my other projects during this three day weekend. Laundry is in the dryer.
Finding Myself Again, and Ramblings
I’ve drafted up a new list of goals for 2012, and honestly, I’m appalled at how many of them are repeats from previous years. I am going to commit 150% this year to completing them.
I’m also working on improving my style/fashion and my quality of life. At the top of that list is fighting off this clutter issue I’ve got. It’s hard to throw things out, but then again, not so much once I’ve realize what I am gaining for getting rid of those things.
One of the hardest things to fight is losing my artistic nature to my desire to live comfortably. It’s a big huge balancing act. I just have to not get seduced too hard toward money.
This is a 12:30 week, which means I gain and extra hour in the mornings before I have to go to work. I can use that to write, research, things like that.
One thing that I realized last night, debating online piracy with an acquaintance, is that we sacrifice our precious hours of the day for so many things that might not be worth our time. He was griping that not everyone can afford a $60 video game. My retort to that was this: if you can’t afford that $60 video game, how then can you afford the 20/30+ hours that you would be devoting to playing that game that you could be spending improving yourself and your life situation? You can use that time instead to enrich yourself to be able to afford that game, in my opinion.
Lastly, I’m really into hijab fashion, and I don’t know why.
Fitocracy
I’m getting back into Fitocracy, finally. Starting out with small exercises, but at least it’s something. If I can find my headphone adapter, I’d go do cardio again. I had it a few weeks back, but I’m not sure what I did with it. Gonna go search the car before work today.
Started a short story this morning.
Update and Happy New Year
Working on work stuff, a degree. Finishing some short stories. Should have something published here soon. Sorry for the brevity. I’ve gained weight and am working on losing that. A lot of what’s going on right now is financial crunching and obliterating.
And happy new year. I’ll be 25 this year.
4 Ways That Apples Help You Keep Healthy
It’s autumn, fall, the season for harvesting, and the time of year when apples come in season. There are over 7,500 cultivars, or varieties, of apple, each of them with their own textures, flavors, and uses. No matter what variety you pick or how you choose to eat them, apples all share a number of great health benefits. Here are four ways that an apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Apples Contain a Large Amount of Water
If you have trouble keeping up with your 8 to 10 glasses of water a day, eating apples can help. On average, about 80% of the mass of an apple is water. Water is vital to your body’s daily functioning – the human body can go three weeks without food, but less than three days without water. The sweet taste of apples and the variety of textures and flavors they come in makes taking your daily requirement for water just a bit sweeter.
Apples Can Lower Cholesterol and Help Reduce Weight
Fiber helps to block cholesterol re-absorption, allowing it to pass through the system instead of lingering inside the body. Due to their fiber content, apples aid in the regulation of bowel movements. One apple contains about 20% of the daily recommended amount of fiber intake (5 grams), so an apple a day delivers more fiber than many “high fiber” breakfast cereals. Because of their fiber content, apples can also serve as a weight loss aid by reducing the amount of consumed fat that is absorbed by your body. In addition, the fiber found in apples apples can help with weight loss and heart disease. To get the most fiber content, eat your apple with the peel, as two-thirds of the fiber content is found in an apple’s peel.
Apples Strengthen Bones
No, not due to calcium, but apples do contain other bone strengthening compounds. Phlorizin, a flavanoid found exclusively in apples, along with boron, can help post-menopausal women reduce the risks and complications of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a medical condition that causes the thinning of bone tissue and bone density, and it occurs when the body fails to produce enough new bone or the body absorbs too much of the old bone. Post-menopausal women are exceedingly susceptible to this. Boron and phlorizin may help protect these women from osteoporosis by aiding in the increase of bone density.
Apples Contain Cancer Fighting Antioxidants
Antioxidants and their cancer-fighting abilities have been quite the buzz lately, and though it may be humble, the apple contains many antioxidant compounds. Apples are especially rich in a flavinoid compound called quercetin. According to a medical study performed in Finland of almost 10,000 people over the course of 26 years, participants with the highest consumption of apples developed lung cancer at a rate of less than half that of their counterparts who ate few to no apples. A Cornell University study of the affects of apple consumption to breast cancer in rats found that rats who were fed three apples per day were 39 percent less likely to develop breast cancer.
Yesterday
Heya. I’ve been kind of busy, going back and forth to interviews, cleaning the apartment, and, for most of yesterday, braiding my hair for 8 hours straight. Woo, that took awhile, but I’m happy with the results. 3 months of easy maintenance! 
I got to watch a pretty damn great anime called Steins;Gate while I was doing it, so I might be finishing that today…
Doctor’s appointment in a bit, but after that it’s writing and executing some notes that I took a few months ago in regard to writing. Gotta get serious about this freelancing thing.