Me: I’m back from my work trip. Do you still need those modifications to your logo files? 

Client: Hey! I was actually able to talk with my IT guy and he taught me how to use gimp to do all of that. But I will definitely let you know if I need anything else done.

Me: (WRITHING IN SYMPATHETIC PAIN FOR USING GIMP)

My department manager was looking for an intern:

Boss: It doesn’t have to be a graphic designer, just someone that can use Adobe Illustrator efficiently and has an eye for detail and composition.

Me: So… a designer?

I stopped talking with my mom a few years ago. She might not have noticed at first. My brothers have all cut her off at times as well. But my mom is pragmatic. She knows she and my dad were terrible parents. She apologizes and by all accounts, she is a much more enjoyable person […]

The post Emails my mom sent from her NYC co-op appeared first on Penelope Trunk Careers.

Oswin sleeping on my desk. #cat https://ift.tt/30d1MCx

Finding it a challenge to carve out time for your writing because of other work or life commitments? I encourage you to join me in my Daily Writing Challenge. Even 100 words a day adds up! I also have an Inkygirl Daily Writing Challenge Facebook Page.

One of my goals in 2020 is to not only be more diligent about writing something FIRST THING in the day, but also not to be so picky about what I write (social media posts don't count, though :-)).

Reason: Last year, I was always trying to work on my middle grade novel first thing in the morning. While my goal of morning writing worked sometimes, there were many mornings when I just had too much going on. I'd be distracted because I'd be on the road, or have morning appointments, be stressed about book illustration deadlines.

As a result, I ended up NOT writing many mornings. That fed into my growing overall frustration at my lack of progress, and eventually I just gave up.

Keep in mind that I never have trouble focusing on contracted book work. If someone is expecting work from me and I have a deadline, that's one thing. My middle grade novel project, however, tend to always be shoved to the back burner. Part of the reason, I know, is psychological. In the stupid part of my brain: "Once I finish writing and revising, I'll have to start sending them out into the world, and what if I end up getting nothing but rejections again?" 

But I'm also aware that I've spent so many years focusing on illustration work that my writing muscles still feel rusty, and that's feeding into my whole "but what if I can't write anymore" insecurities.

The solution, I think, is that I need to write a LOT more, and on a daily basis, even if it's not writing for my middle grade novels. I like what Jeff Goins said in his post, My Morning Routine In 10 Simple Steps. After breakfast every morning, he writes something.

From the Goinswriter.com article on a morning routine:

This can be a blog post, book chapter, article, or just some random notes to myself. For me, it’s not about what I write as much as it is important just to write. Usually, I wrote around 1000 words; sometimes less, sometimes more.

I've started to do this as well. Sometimes I write by hand in one of my Rhodia hardbound journals (also an excuse to use one of my fountain pens), sometimes I write on the computer. Sometimes poetry, a sentence or two from an imaginary story that doesn't (yet) exist, stream-of-consciousness first-person of one of the characters in my book, sometimes a blog post.

Do you do morning writing? Do you have a life that makes finding writing time a challenge? Feel free to post below.

Sassy and Peanut

I had to use PHPMyadmin a few days ago to delete old tables in my WordPress Database. They were created by a plugin that I tried but decided not to use. Normally when you uninstall a plugin the developer deletes the tables in your database that they create. In this case this author didn’t. It […]

Please obey your watch… Photo courtesy of Joe Pace.

The best way I know to cook beans, and the one I always return to. A version of the much-loved Tuscan bean recipe - fagioli al fiasco. Traditionally, beans were baked overnight in a Chianti bottle placed near the embers of that night's fire. While not exactly authentic (no fire here), I do a riff on the general idea, using a low-temperature oven and enamel-lined pot.

Continue reading How to Cook Beans that are Tender, Creamy, and Nearly Perfect on 101 Cookbooks

VIDEO: MOVIES: CARTOONS: REVIEW: My Little Pony: Equestria Girls (2013) Claire: 4/5 stars, 8/10. Carolyn: 5/5 stars, 8.6/10. “I am a chick and I like cartoons, so I am allowed to love My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.” (Notice how she leaves me in the lurch there?) Jesse: 3/5 stars, 7/10. “OK, I actually enjoyed […]

[IMDB link] RATINGS: Claire: Netflix: 5/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10. Carolyn: Netflix: 5/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10. The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.4/10. Netflix strangely doesn’t have this. CAROLYN’S THOUGHTS: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic had a sequel movie for Equestria Girls where Twilight Sparkle becomes a human in a parallel pony […]

[IMDB link] RATINGS: Claire: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10. Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10. The native public rating for this movie is: Netflix: N/A/5 stars, IMDB: 7.5/10. CAROLYN’S THOUGHTS: This one seemed lackluster compared to the other two. It doesn’t have the same “oompf” as the previous two movies. Different writer might explain some […]

Windows can't fix all the bugs on each release. I'll look at some of the reasons Windows might not fix something you consider important.

Why Didn’t Windows Fix My Pet Peeve? from Ask Leo!.
Get the newsletter: https://newsletter.askleo.com

Princeton faculty members Rubén Gallo, M. Zahid Hasan, Amaney Jamal, Ruby Lee, Margaret Martonosi, Tom Muir, Eve Ostriker, Alexander Smits, Leeat Yariv, James Stone and Muhammad Qasim Zaman have been named members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Visiting faculty member Alondra Nelson also was elected to the academy.

Princeton professors Anne Case, Jennifer Rexford, Suzanne Staggs and Elke Weber have been named members of the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

The new episode of the podcast is up at https://www.500songs.com/e/episode-47-goodnight-my-love-by-jesse-belvin/ This one looks at “Goodnight My Love” by Jesse Belvin, and at the many groups he performed with, and his untimely death. And Patreon backers can find this week’s Patreon-backer-only … Continue reading →

With the the 52nd annual Idaho Potato Conference and Ag Expo in Pocatello serving as a backdrop, Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson, U.S.

As part of my spiritual journey, I’m making an effort to learn about Fair Trade and sustainable agriculture. I’m noticing

Read More

The post My food, my faith appeared first on Women of the ELCA.

This article details my increasing frustration with Google AdSense. And no, it's not about what you think.

This article answers a question asked by a visitor on whether he can simply update all the URLs on his website to "https" without obtaining an SSL certificate, and, if not, why.

My friend Mizzi who lives in Melbourne Australia and I had decided to meet somewhere halfway between Germany and Australia for a holiday. I had suggested Borneo since I had wanted to go there during my year in Singapore but had never made it there. Mizz

Sunday 30th June 2019Breakfast was a happy affair at Royal Host one of the nicer restaurants in the city that opens early in the day and closes late into the night. I liked how well my scrambled egg turned out to be creamy soft and f

Reaching Blog 100 on Chesterfield who would have believed it Not me. Sometimes I would write something about my home town. Most of the time though blogs were about somewhere else . Covid 19 has scuppered any chance of a blog from out of town for a whil

It is not secret among our family and friends. My brother is the kind of beer drinker not so much for the volume of beer but the fact that he is often photographed with a cold beer in his hand. And on these coming hot days of summer a cold beer sounds

Having spent 2 months travelling to the north south east and west of China it is time to leave.After a lot of consideration our next port of call will be Myanmar. Human Rights violations decrease in areas where there are international visitors

This will be of interest to you all I think. Guess what sat out on the counter from about I'm guessing 1 pm when lunch was over til about 7 pm when I had dinner. If you guessed the ground meat that I ate for dinner you would be correct. Guess

The 28 or so hours traveling here has proven to be more than worth itWhile the flight from Houston to Santiago was overnight and in the dark the three hours from Santiago to Punta Arenas were spent winging over the Andes. Amazing is a word overused i

We study the impact of non-pharmaceutical policy interventions (NPIs) like “stay-at-home” orders on the spread of infectious disease. NPIs are associated with slower growth of Covid-19 cases. NPIs “spillover” into other jurisdictions. NPIs are not associated with significantly worse economic outcomes measured by job losses. Job losses have been no higher in US states that implemented “stay-at-home” during the Covid-19 pandemic than in states that did not have “stay-at-home”. All of these results demonstrate that the Covid-19 pandemic is a common economic and public health shock. The tradeoff between the economy and public health today depends strongly on what is happening elsewhere. This underscores the importance of coordinated economic and public health responses.

Public schooling systems are an essential feature of modern states. These systems often developed at the expense of religious schools, which undertook the bulk of education historically and still cater to large student populations worldwide. This paper examines how Indonesia’s long-standing Islamic school system responded to the construction of 61,000 public elementary schools in the mid-1970s. The policy was designed in part to foster nation building and to curb religious influence in society. We are the first to study the market response to these ideological objectives. Using novel data on Islamic school construction and curriculum, we identify both short-run effects on exposed cohorts as well as dynamic, long-run effects on education markets. While primary enrollment shifted towards state schools, religious education increased on net as Islamic secondary schools absorbed the increased demand for continued education. The Islamic sector not only entered new markets to compete with the state but also increased religious curriculum at newly created schools. Our results suggest that the Islamic sector response increased religiosity at the expense of a secular national identity. Overall, this ideological competition in education undermined the nation-building impacts of mass schooling.

It is an unprecedented crisis: The coronavirus pandemic is crippling entire economies, while governments and central banks are deploying all means available to prevent a systemic collapse. How long can we hold out?

The coronavirus crisis has forced another 3.2 million Americans to file for jobless aid, bringing the total number to 33.5 million in the seven weeks since the pandemic forced millions of companies to close and layoff huge amounts of staff.

Glenn, a former boxer and owner of popular Times Square bar Jimmy's Corner, died of coronavirus early Thursday morning at 89.

Californians venturing onto the beach after a month of lockdown are being greeted with the ethereal sight of bioluminescent waves from an algae bloom.

A week packed with US economic data is likely to provide investors with more evidence of the extent to which the coronavirus pandemic has hit growth, sharpening the debate on whether a rebound in stocks has been justified amid an unprecedented slowdown.

The US economy lost a staggering 20.5 million jobs in April, the steepest plunge in payrolls since the Great Depression and the starkest sign yet of how the coronavirus pandemic is battering the world's biggest economy.

I am proud that companies and farms are donating milk to many people. I am proud because I am one of the workers who helps produce that milk.

A Los Angeles real estate agent was shoved backwards off a stairway and pinned to the ground by an unknown open house visitor who flashed a chilling smile at a security camera seconds earlier.

“I’m still going through the motions. The wounds are still really fresh,” said Johana Rocio Mendoza Chancay. “But I’m extremely grateful that my baby and I are alive,” she said, breaking down in tears.

Success Academy Charter Schools, which teaches 18,000 students across 45 schools in the city, will move to online learning starting Mar. 19, though officials didn’t specify how long the shutdown will last.

PBS leads the list with 47 nominations.

Leonardo da Vinci dissected some 30 cadavers in his lifetime, leaving behind a trove of beautiful—and accurate—anatomical drawings.

The film will premiere on the 12th of May.
( Photos: 1, Comments: 11 )

Congress can and should do more to combat a coronavirus downturn — including a $1,000 UBI check to every citizen.

Trump is correct that the decision is a very tough call. But it will be made by mayors and governors, not federal officials.

I'm choosing to be hopeful in these dark days. And I'm starting with something simple: a sourdough starter.

I believed life's little moments were worthy of a great newspaper, not because they were happening to me, but because they were happening to everyone.

I know that many millennials are doing their part to flatten the curve. But it's nerve-wracking not to trust someone you live with.

A doctor leaves the calm of home to work in the charged atmosphere of the hospital where sober conversations abound about the possibility of being overrun with COVID-19 cases.