Wednesday, January 24, 2007

busy, busy, busy...

Okay, so work is always busy, but it's more so these days. I'm not complaining, trust me! I'd rather be busy than bored. Today I spent several hours looking up statistics on the Internet about the state of the Mississippi coast before Hurricane Katrina, just after the storm, and now. The results of the research were very interesting indeed. Basically, the coast is doing better, but they're not there yet. These people really are amazing.. they're putting their lives back together one piece at a time. It's inspiring. After work, I went to the grocery store because I wanted to cook Chicken Parmesan for my mom. She still can't do anything very active, and that includes cooking. It turned out great, by the way, and I'm beginning to think I might actually be a good cook! Rhea called while I was cooking and she gasped in surprise when I told her what I was doing. I should be offended, but she was right to gasp. I don't cook very often.

After that, I wrote an article for the SA newsletter and uploaded the file so that the other editors can take a look at it. I wrote one last night too. I hope they like them! It's interesting working with people you don't know, you never really know how they are going to react to your work. But I worked hard on the articles and I think they are good, so hopefully they will work for the newsletter.

Also, I did some editing tonight on Under the Magnolia Tree, my 2006 NaNoWriMo attempt. It's not as bad as I thought it was, but not really good either. It's going to take some work. Of course, it's not really finished either, so I plan to keep writing once I get a little more editing finished. I really liked the direction the story was going, so I'm looking forward to seeing what is going to happen next.

I'm writing lots of letters these days. This morning I mailed 5, yesterday I mailed 5 as well. My total since joining Soldiers' Angels is 17, and I have 7 more names. I'll probably write those tonight. They're not all letters, of course. Some of them are cards with shorter notes in them, a couple of paragraphs, but I feel like I'm doing something. There was one yesterday that really got to me. It was a TLC request for a female soldier who said she was very stressed and that she needed some support and encouragement, and most of all, some prayers. I hope the brightly colored card does some good. The front has a pink flower with a matching butterfly on it. I thought it was pretty. I love the note cards I bought at Michael's. They were in packs of 10 for only $1, and they are all like that, with a flower and a butterfly that matches. I know they aren't the most manly designs, but I'm sure the men I send them to won't mind much. At least, I hope they don't mind! I really love writing letters. I almost feel like a Jane Austen character or something, corresponding the elegant way. It's so much more personal than email. I bought a roll of 100 stamps today, so I'm good for awhile. I've never actually purchased a roll of stamps. I don't even send bills through the mail, so all these outgoing letters must be very confusing to my mail carrier (who is a very nice lady, by the way!)

So now it's 9 p.m. and I think I'm going to spend a little time knitting before I write a few letters and go to bed. The first square is still going well... although I messed up a little on the teal section, so I think I might discard the square when I'm finished. If I do decide to do that, I'll just chalk it up to practice!

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