200th Post

It appears that this is my 200th post here at Writing: My Life. Where has the time gone? I didn't plan a party or anything. Maybe for post 300...

In lieu of a party, please except this round-up of tidbits. It's been a busy week and I haven't been feeling all that "with-it" the last few days.

• P is offering up wonderful prompts for your free-writing pleasure. And it's completely free. As she says, go there and write your pants off.
• If you've been visiting my photo-a-day blog, you'll notice there are very few photos. Taking a picture each day and actually getting it posted is a bit more difficult than I thought. As usual, I think I've taken on a bit more than I can handle right now. Go figure.
• There's still time to sign up for One Local Summer if you're interested. All you have to do is commit to cooking one meal each week from only local ingredients (other than oil, salt and pepper and spices). The deadline to officially join in is May 25th.
• Have you visited Damsels in Success yet? If not, head over and check it out. Read my first article while you're there and see what other women have to say. Get involved in the conversations going on. It's a great community of women supporting each other along the path to success - whatever that may mean individually.
• Monday (May 19th) is Open Mic Night for the Baltimore Chapter of Maryland Writers' Association. I'll be reading something (although I haven't decided just what yet). If you're in the area and are interested in checking it out -- or reading something of your own -- we'll be at Ukazoo Books in Towson at 7PM.
• Jen is preparing for her quickly approaching trip to Rwanda. The 'zine is done, and if you want to get a freshly printed copy, there are a few on sale at Etsy. All sales proceeds will, of course, go to Odette, her daughter Grace, and last-minute trip expenses for Jen's "Girl Power Rwanda Trip."
• I'm reading The Omnivore's Dilemma and I highly recommend it. I'm learning so much about why our food system works the way it does. And why almost everything you pick up in the supermarket lists high fructose corn syrup as an ingredient. Did you know that corn is in almost everything we eat???
  
• The sun is finally shining around here, although I believe it's supposed to rain tomorrow, so it didn't last long. I think this foul weather is affecting my mood. I've got a case of the blahs, but I'm trying to plow through them.
• Also, for some reason my DSL is running reeeaaalllly slow these days (thanks for nothing yet again, Verizon), so I can't even open two web pages simultaneously without things timing out on me. Would it be completely inappropriate to scream out loud right now?
  

Hope you're having a brighter week than I am. Happy 200th post!

Win a Bike ... and Other Things

I've been catching up on all my blog reading (it seems I'm always catching up but never quite on top of them) and I'm finding some gems out there. Thought I'd share them with you all.

~ Interested in getting more exercise? Courtesy of Lipton White Tea, you can enter to win a new bike over at johnisfit.com just by mentioning the contest on your own blog and you can get an extra entry by stumbling his original post, too. You can also win a Lipton-provided bike from InMyHeels just by commenting with a tip about how you stay young. Get a second entry from her by posting about the contest on your own blog (See how I cleverly did that??? Can you tell I want a free bike?)

~ There's an interesting post on universal health care over at BlogHer.

~ Crabby takes on Entitlement over at Cranky Fitness, my new favorite place to commiserate (OK, and get motivated) about exercise and healthy eating.

~ If you're looking for something to do with your economic stimulus check (I just purchased a computer), check out this list of charitable ideas from Britt at BlogHer.

~ Also at BlogHer, Mocha Momma's talkin' about race in an interview with Rita Arens.

~ If you've still got that wedding dress hanging around, or if you're single and bought one with hope and trepidation, Liz Rizzo collected some suggestions on what to do with the thing.

~ Kalyn has me drooling over her Shrimp and Avacado salad.

~ Having joined the CSA (did I officially tell you that?), I'm going to need something to do with all that local produce, so I joined in on One Local Summer at Farm to Philly. I'll be cooking one local meal a week and posting about it here. Interested? There's still time to join.

I think that's enough linky-business for now. Enjoy!

A Bit of Wednesday Randomness

It seems like Wednesdays are often my days for playing catch-up and posting about the random, interesting (and sometimes mundane) things that I haven't gotten around to creating full posts for during the week.

• Jen Lemen has me all atwitter about her upcoming trip and a new collection of stories, among all of her other creative and inspiring goings-on.
• With so little time on my hands lately, and my limited access to the internet (which hopefully will be fixed today), I've been getting behind on my blog reading. Don't for one minute think this means I haven't found interesting and wonderful things all over the internet.
• It took me 5+ hours across two evenings to roast a chicken that was supposed to take 3 1/2 hours at 350 degrees. I had to turn my oven up to 450 degrees for the last 45 minutes just to finish it off before bed time. Does anyone else wonder if that oven might have needed a new seal instead of those hinges after all?
• My frivolity seems to be paying off, at least a little bit. I have had four spots of chronic dryness on my face for quite some time now. Two of them seem to have completely disappeared and the other two are much less flaky than last week and the months before. I'm not sure if my pores have gotten any more "refined" but I'll keep you posted on any progress.
• I'm on my third week of lunch-time workouts, and I have to say that it's really going well. Not only do I feel more energized, but it's also a great way to break up the work day. It's like working two half-days instead of one full day. The 7 to 11 "day" goes by quickly because I'm actually scheduling my projects more effectively because I know I want to leave for an hour and a half to get that cardio in. And staying until 5:00 is nothing when I start my afternoon "day" at 12:30. Another side-effect is that the scale's been treating me nicely.
• I got a fabulous hair cut and color over the weekend (which I mentioned on Sunday) and it's making me feel all confident and sexy. It's amazing what a good 'do can do for my attitude. I'm feistier than ever! I've been getting compliments galore, too, and who doesn't love that? But when My Love saw me for the first time since the cut, he wasn't exactly gushing about the great new style. I think his exact words were, "It's OK." (He's not usually a big fan of shorter hair, but by the time he left, I'm pretty sure he had come to grips with the change.) One of the only other comments he made was, "You're getting all sophisticated on me." While he said it with that hint of come-on in his voice that suggested he had ulterior motives, it occurred to me that "sophisticated" was exactly what I was going for. On the heals of the notification of my essay publication, and in anticipation of some other exciting changes that I feel brewing in my career and my life in general, I wanted a physical representation of what it seemed was going on inside. My confidence is growing, my career is blooming and my creativity is flowing. What better way to represent that than with an outward expression of change?
  

That's the Wednesday Round-up. Hope you're having a good week!