MzSerena’s Garden

Since tomorrow is Halloween, that means Midnight Sunday is that time of year again. That’s right, it’s NaNoWriMo time again. I shall be participating again. No clue what I plan to write. I’m kind of thinking that I want to write something similar to what I did a couple years ago. Or finally take the idea I’ve had simmering and write something diary style.

I should figure out what my writing playlist is going to be this year. Last year was random. The year before was German hip-hop. I’m kind of thinking it might be some 90′s hits. Or something that’s currently downloading. I can never really tell until I start out writing. My husband doesn’t believe that I’ll be able to do NaNo this year, with everything else I have going on. I told him that if I do it and win, he owes me diamonds for my birthday.

Anyway. I think I’m done babbling about NaNo for the night. Need to figure out what to write tomorrow.

How can it be that it’s already the end of October?? Seriously. This has been a fast year. Not that I’m complaining much. I just wish that the days where I have nothing that I need to be doing, I could find something productive to do, rather than sit around and look at random stuff like office furniture.

I’ve done nothing productive, honestly, other than screw around on Facebook. I will say, though, that I’ve started to reconnect with an old friend. I dunno how far that will go, however, since we’re at different points in our lives. She’s got kids and I don’t. So, we’ll see.

I’m tired, really. I guess I’ll post this short post then try to come up with some real topic to write about.

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Tips to Follow When Selling Your Old Jewelry

Last year gold hit an all-time high and broke the $1,000 per ounce level – it is still trading high today though it has fallen back slightly to around the $900 mark. In a time of recession, gold prices rise and it is a mark of how bad the current recession has been that gold has hit record high prices and this in turn reflects why the second-hand gold market of selling gold has developed with something of a mini-boom! People are looking for ways to raise extra cash and make the most of what they have – old jewelry stored away in a dusty drawer is no way to pay the bills or make life any easier so sell it while the price is at this historically high level – when the recovery comes the price of gold will fall and you will not get so much money for your old metal.

The first thing to establish when selling your old items is the price for the gold, silver, platinum or other precious metal. A reputable dealer will publish the price per ounce they are prepared to pay along with the purity standards – this should be simple and easy to find and if a dealer is not forthcoming with this information you are advised to leave them alone and find another dealer to transact your business with. You should restrict your enquiries to refiners and smelting operators as this will ensure you cut out the middleman who may make a serious profit at your expense.

Refining operations will use your old jewelry and turn it in to “new” gold and if they can source it direct from you it is cheaper for them too – you get the best price possible. Once you have made a short list to do business with, you need to make sure they are who they say they and have a good reputation. Typically, businesses that operate in this area have done so for very long periods of time, often generations – avoid companies with a recent history as they tend to be less concerned about their reputation and more interested in making themselves money, at your expense. You should also establish that the company physically exists and is registered and licensed – check with the local Better Business Bureau and make sure you establish web based companies have a physical mailing address and a telephone number where they can be reached and not simply a call center.

Once you have selected a company to sell your items to, you must ensure that they operate a secure courier service so your items are handled and shipped securely. You should be able to track the items from your home to the facility and there should be a rapid assessment and appraisal conducted with a final offer of a price for your pieces. If you wish to accept the price offered, you should be paid extremely quickly without engaging in a complicated claims process nor suffer “handling charges” to get your money – if you do not wish to accept the offer price you should get your jewelry back the next day! It goes without saying that your shipping of the items should be fully insured as well! One such respected business that passes all the tests is www.refinity.com your safe online resorunce to sell gold, sell silver or sell gold coins

This is a post where-in our writer RANTS.

Okay, either you like sports or you don’t. Everyone makes that choice. We also make the choice of what team/players we root for. Correct? I think I’m correct. Now, I understand that some people feel the need to take it to the extreme, but come on, is it really necessary to piss all over the accomplishments of a team who made it to the world series/super bowl/Stanley cup/etc, just because they took out your team?

For instance, this season’s baseball playoffs. The Yankees made it to the World Series, which is great for them, but the rabid haters won’t blame the Angel’s for the loss. Oh no, they’d rather blame it on the officials being paid off. Right, whatever. The officials aren’t the ones pitching crap and swinging at shadows. Sure there were a couple bad calls, but there were 9 Innings for the Angels to make something of the game.

And while we’re on the subject of the World Series.. GET OFF THE PHILLIES BANDWAGON! Go back to rooting for your favorite team. Just because you don’t like the Yankees, it doesn’t mean you have to jump on the Phillies bandwagon. Hypocrites. You weren’t rooting for them when you thought your team had a chance to face them.

And no, this rant does not apply to anyone on my LJ. It’s directed at various people on Twitter that I’ve seen (and unfollowed) bitching.

Today should have been my parents 29th anniversary. Normally I don’t think much of it, but there have been so many people losing parents, siblings and loved ones lately that it’s been hitting me pretty hard. I’ve been keeping a low profile online lately. Been trying to be busy a lot in real life.

We took an impromptu trip to see my sister, Thursday. I needed to get out of the house while it was nice. Friday, however, it wasn’t so nice. It poured ALL day. It poured ALL night. We still went to the football game, though.

I think this sums up the game…

Photo by: Lisa Beach. Aren’t you glad you don’t have to do that laundry?

I refuse to take my camera out in that crap weather.

It was so cold and wet and the store was such a massacre that we left at the half. When we left it was 28-8, the final was 28-14. Hopefully next season won’t be so wet. I don’t mind the rain, but the wind just whistles across the field.

Saturday was a chill day, so was today. Rob cleaned the bathroom and did a couple other things for me when he got home from work.

This week should be a pretty chill week, unless Karen calls or emails me something she needs/wants covered. I kind of hope nothing comes up, unless it’s Monday, Wednesday or Friday. Rob works later shifts this week. I wish he had a normal, stable, 9-5 job, so we could get more involved with stuff rather than sit around evenings and look up things like motorhome insurance or play facebook games.

Anyone, I’ve got some things on my mind that I want to post about. So I’m off to do that.

First – this was the 50th book of the year for me. 50th! I’m stunned. Sure, the majority are audio, but even still, I’ve been listening to audiobooks for years and never get to the 50 mark. I ended up with 31 in 2006, 39 in 2005 and 2004. A lot of those were typically re-reads or super quick reads. Before 2004, I didn’t track my books, but I do know that I wasn’t reading a whole lot.

Now onto Life As We Knew It… From Goodreads:
It’s almost the end of Miranda’s sophomore year in high school, and her journal reflects the busy life of a typical teenager: conversations with friends, fights with mom, and fervent hopes for a driver’s license. When Miranda first begins hearing the reports of a meteor on a collision course with the moon, it hardly seems worth a mention in her diary. But after the meteor hits, pushing the moon off its axis and causing worldwide earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, all the things Miranda used to take for granted begin to disappear. Food and gas shortages, along with extreme weather changes, come to her small Pennsylvania town; and Miranda’s voice is by turns petulant, angry, and finally resigned, as her family is forced to make tough choices while they consider their increasingly limited options. Yet even as suspicious neighbors stockpile food in anticipation of a looming winter without heat or electricity, Miranda knows that that her future is still hers to decide even if life as she knew it is over.

Okay, a *squee* point before I talk about the book.
Miranda’s brother attends College at Cornell in Ithaca. Why did this make me squee? Ithaca is just up the road from me, so it always makes me squee when an author uses Ithaca/Cornell in a book.

The book itself was good. It wasn’t what I was expecting, for sure. I liked the diary format of it, it drew me in more than if it had been written different format. In a way, it was kind of fluffy, but it fits the format. I was worried when I first started, but I ended up liking it and wanting more. And since my library has the second book available as a digital download, it’ll be replacing one of the books I chose and will be the next book I dive into.

Okay, life has a way of sneaking up and biting you in the ass when you least expect it. I owe you guys a picture. You shall have one.

I’m not a fan of it still. It blends in well enough when I pull it back that you can’t tell that there are some pretty wicked skunk stripes when it’s left down. I’m going to be doing a full dye after the 1st of the month. I’m pretty pissed off that I spent $40 to have it done professionally and ended up with an over-bleached nightmare. That will never happen again.

I’ve got a lot going on, but nothing really to post about. It snowed the other day. In mid-October. o.O I’ve seen it snow for Halloween before, but this was fairly early. It didn’t last, though, so it’s not too bad.

My wrist has been hurting again, so I need to dig out my brace and start wearing it.

I was supposed to cover an Oktoberfest event Saturday but it ended up being canceled. Boo.

I am looking forward to Friday though, since it’s the last football game of the season and we’re going.

Looks like there’s absolutely nothing scheduled for the week of the 25th, but I suspect something will come up, it generally does.

I’m on book #50 for the year, book #4 of the Dystopic challenges.

I have now finished book 3 of the 7 that I chose for the DystopYA challenges! I quite enjoyed Little Brother. As a geek, it tickled my geeky side quite a bit. As a reader, however, it disappointed me. I felt that the Epilogue was tacked on just as an afterthought, at the behest of an editor. It really wasn’t a necessary part of the book. The Afterword(s) kind of took from the book and I should have stopped reading them, but I didn’t. I finished, as I always do.

From Goodreads:
Marcus, a.k.a w1n5t0n, is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works, and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

That makes all 3 of the books for the BOTNS DystopYA Challenge. Now on to Bart’s Dystypian Reading Challenge.

I hate wasting my time. I did that tonight and I’m incredibly annoyed about it. I was supposed to attend a meeting at 7:30. I got there early, since I wasn’t sure of the exact time. I waited around for quite some time. Finally went inside where the *other* meeting was being held, only to find out the one I was supposed to be attending got cancelled or something.

I’d rather sit my ass at home, researching the best wrinkle treatments! At least it would be something productive! I called my editor on the way home and she had no idea what was going on. I wish I knew. I wish I had known, really, and I wouldn’t have wasted my time!

The Giver was a super quick read at 208 pages. It was a good book, but I’m not sure I understand why so many people think this is a must read. I can see encouraging youths to read it, but I wouldn’t say that it’s a must read.

From Goodreads:
Jonas’ world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear or pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the Community.

When Jonas turns 12, he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. Now, it’s time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back.

There are definitely some life lessons to be learned, but it was a bit of a disappointment to me. It was sparse, and was far-fetched in a lot of ways. I read a review, after finishing, that sums up my feelings 100%.

Now on to the next book.

The first book I chose for the DystopYA challenge(s) was The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I typically like YA, but this one? I absolutely LOVED.

From Goodreads:
Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, “The Hunger Games.” The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat’s sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place.

In a sense, the book reminds me of Survivor, on a much larger scale and without tribal counsel. The only way to get voted out is to die. It wasn’t predictable, which is what I was afraid of. I thought that I’d figure out what was going to happen early and get bored, but I wasn’t bored and honestly, can’t wait to dive into the sequel book! I may just have to change up my book list to accommodate it sooner, rather than later.

I am really glad that I’ve taken on the challenge, it’s definitely making me read things that I wouldn’t have in the past. I’ve now moved on to The Giver by Lois Lowry. So far? It’s not bad, but not as good as I was hoping.

The homecoming game was fun. It was wet, loud and obnoxious, just the way I like it. Well, except for the wet part. We lost 26-12 and were being scouted by the team we play next week. I had fun, despite the rain. We left with 3 minutes left, but it was pointless to stay and get wetter. I am sad, however, that the field was vandalized last night. Not badly, but it was pretty sad to hear that the night before Homecoming, someone decided to break in and do donuts. I hope they catch whomever it was.

Tomorrow I have an event to cover that looks like a LOT of fun. It’s called Drumbeats Through Time. I’m looking the most forward to the dancing.

Tomorrow night, I was going to be going out, but I’ve decided to save the money we would have spent and do dinner or something. I’m already feeling like I’m overdoing it a bit, so I think that would really overdo it.

As for now, I’m gonna go play in Animation Shop and see what I can come up with.

I have some extra money this week and since I’ve not really spent any significant amount on myself, I decided that I want to do something. I decided to get highlights done to my hair. I called today and made the appointment and asked how much, so I knew how much I had to put aside. I nearly cancelled the appointment when she told me how much because I have issues with spending 40 bucks on my hair. This is not a bad price, I know that for a fact. I know people who spend a lot more than that on a weekly basis. I just have this mindset that I could put it to better use.

So, it was suggested that I get pink or purple highlights. Uh, no? I’ll stick with blonde, thank you. I have a hard enough time garnering respect as an adult in this community because everyone has known me my entire life and still see me as ‘Tom’s daughter’ and not the person that I am. I’m trying to be taken seriously and garner enough respect in the community and expand my involvement. While I believe that my hair color shouldn’t matter, it does in this community. I know these people and how they think. I’m sure I’d have gotten even more strange looks last night than I did if I had walked in to the town board meeting with pink or purple hair.

I have other things going on in my head, but they’ll go in a separate post or 3.

I read, a lot. I also listen to a lot of audio books.

What I don’t seem to get is why people think that audio books aren’t as time consuming as ‘real’ books. You spend just as much time listening to it as you would reading it, because it’s not being read any faster than a reader can read it. I enjoy audio for a lot of reasons, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t do in audio and I will end up reading the paper copies eventually.

I don’t know what the big deal is.

Anyway, the reason that I’m talking about reading and audio books is because I’ve been listening to a books podcast called Books On The Nightstand and absolutely LOVE it. I’ve gotten a few book recommendations from it that I normally wouldn’t have heard of or bothered picking up.

1) The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
2) The Magicians – Lev Grossman

So what’s the big deal? Well, BOTN is having a reading challenge. The challenge is to read 3 Dystopic Young Adult books. So, I’m going to take part in the DystopYA. Ironically, there is a second site that is hosting a similar challenge. Bart’s Bookshelf is doing the same thing, so I can do both. Bart’s is between 1 and 4, so I’ll probably do a total of 7. Three new books for each and one is a re-read.

My books:
1) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2) The Giver by Lois Lowry
3) Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.
4) Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
5) A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
6) Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
*7) Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The 7th book is starred because it’s a re-read of a favorite.

I’ve started on The Hungers Games and so far, it’s REALLY good.

TGIM – Thank Goodness It’s Monday

I know, I know, most of you hate Mondays. I don’t blame you, but this is one case where I’m GLAD it’s Monday simply because Sunday was so jam packed. I should be wanting it to be Sunday still, since from Wednesday on, I’ve got stuff going on EVERY day. I then get 2 ‘free’ days, and then have 2 more days of stuff going on.

I think this week is going to be a true testament of whether I can do everything I want without going crazy. It should be fun, even if it is crazy.

Saturday made for an interesting dinner. I planned on making homemade chicken nuggets. I found out we were out of bread crumbs and I didn’t have enough bread to dry to make some. So, I decided I’d make General Tso’s chicken. I found out we were out of corn starch. That’s alright, didn’t really need that. I pulled the thawed chicken out to prep it and found out that it was the *large* breasts that I wanted last weekend to stuff. I didn’t want to cut those up, so it was on to plan C. I grabbed a bottle of honey dijon ranch salad dressing out of the fridge and poured it over the chicken to coat it. I let it sit in the dressing for a couple hours, pulled out my indoor grill and grilled up the breasts. They were *fantastic*. They didn’t pick up a lot of flavor from the dressing, which is good cuz it was hella strong. It gave it a nice glaze to seal in all the juices, though, so they were nice and moist. It was one of those things that was like.. Damn, I can cook after all.

Sunday was Grocery Shopping Day! Fun stuff. We headed out as soon as I was awake and had breakfast. I don’t mind grocery shopping. Some people hate it and I don’t understand why, unless they also hate cooking. I like being able to go pick out things to make, figure out what I can make, what I’d like to try. It’s expensive, but it’s part of life.

Mom made one of my Red Velvet cakes while we were gone. Yay. That made for much happiness. We pretty much did nothing tonight other than watch The Amazing Race. I futzed about on Facebook playing Cafe World and now it’s after 2am and I shall go to bed. I’m exhausted and hope to get more than a couple hours of sleep.

I was going to NaBloPoMo and have already failed. Oh well, life will go on, right? I’ll still try to post at least more than I have been, but it might not happen with my schedule.

When I was going to school and first started chatting online, I made friends with someone who went to Gonzaga University. They were great friends, getting a fantastic education and they raved about how wonderful the school is. Thanks to their ravings, I have always remembered Gonzga. I’d love to get my Masters degree online from Gonzaga.

I’d likely get my Masters in Communication and Leadership. It would fit with what I’ve always wanted to do. In fact, it’s part of what I’m doing now. I just wish I hadn’t screwed up so badly and could go on and get my degree proper. Now, now that I know what I want to do. Now that I have a sense of what I want.