Shop Girl Shares Girl With The Red Hair & Lowercase L

So everyone and their mother started Nablopomo yesterday… (Nablopomo = National Blog Posting Month)

…except me.

Normally I’d be all over this stuff, especially since one of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2009 was to blog every day for a year. Yeeeah. About that… (oops.) I’ve been busy. LIFE has been busy… and I find that when I feel like I have to write, I write less. Weird, no? I don’t like the pressure. This is where I come to relax, not to stress about word counts or daily posts.

That being said, that doesn’t mean I won’t be participating in my own way. Today was not a good day at work. It took everything in me to get through my shift and I have every intention of kicking the job search into high gear this evening. It’s not that it’s not a good job, it’s just definitely not me. I’m not cut out for mindless physical labour. I need to be creative. I need to be challenged. I need to use the knowledge I spent five years cramming into my brain. (I need to wear my fabulous collection of shoes!)

To sum up, I need a better job.

So, today I decided that enough was enough. I need a plan. I need to act. I need goals. I may not be participating in Nablopomo, but November WILL be a month for writing. This is what’s going to happen in the next 30 days:

1) Begin writing my book. That’s right. It’s time. I’ve been hemming and hawing about whether or not to do it for months, and I’m done. It’s starts now!

2) Become a freelance writer. I’ve done some review work here and there, and I love writing for ‘fun’ here–so why not try and make something out of it? I have a list of online magazines / websites to contact and submit articles to. I’m really excited about this, and I hope it works out. Wish me luck!

3) Write my yearly Christmas letter! This is one of my absolute faaaaaavourite things to do and I look forward to it ALL year! You can read our past letters here and here!

I would also really, really like to get on a supply teaching list… but I’m also actively looking for a new job. I’m educated, AND I have great shoes–hire me please?

Anyway, enough of my ramblings… it’s Monday! Which means it’s Shop Girl Shares day! (WOO! WOO!) We took a break from our regular programming last week as I participated in my first Blog Swap and it was, well, an… interesting experience. I like the concept, but I think they need to ask a few more questions before they match people… namely, ‘what time do you normally like to post new entries’? I am definitely a late afternoon / evening writer, and they paired me with a morning person, who panicked and found a new blog swap partner when my post hadn’t been received by noon. (in my defense, my oh, so lovely apartment decided to leave us without power for much longer than I felt necessary and I couldn’t send my post any sooner than I did. *sigh*) I’m not sure if I’ll do it again, but we’ll see.

SO. Today I am sharing two more of my favourite sites with you… and I hope you’re excited. I’M excited. Let’s get this show on the road!!

1 – Girl With The Red Hair

(image found at: http://girlwiththeredhair.com/)

Meet Amber, a 20-Something journalism student / crazy marathon runner who inspires me daily to get my butt into shape. Seriously. She recently completed a race of like, a bazillion miles (or maybe 13) that made me want to run marathons. (The spandex kinda scares me though. I don’t know if I’m ready for that. haha)

Amber’s blog is wonderfully thought-provoking and she often asks the hard questions we’re all thinking about but have been too timid to bring up ourselves. It’s a great place to voice your opinion and feel like you’re really having a conversation with someone, and her other readers. If her blog is any indication, I know she is going to be a fabulous journalist some day and I look forward to reading her work. In short, Amber is marvelous. Go now, and love.

2 – Lowercase L

(image found at: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2023/2241122263_d07e271b78.jpg)

I have a confession: I love when signs are wrong. LOVE it. I look for them ALL the time. For example, for months we had Mark’s Work Warhouse in Senior City, as well as a Price Chooper and a Pub*c Library. (I’m not ready to have that as a search term to find my blog just yet. haha) It makes me laugh when letters go missing or lights go out making the sign read as something else.

So, already being an avid reader of signs, Lowercase L opened my eyes even further. Have you ever noticed how many places use lowercase “L”‘s in places they shouldn’t? Sort of like Crummy Church Signs, this blog is devoted to exposing the fact that when “people create handwritten signs, they sometimes choose to capitalize every letter except the letter “L”. Using some lowercase letters like “i” and “y”, to stylize the handwriting is understandable. But why confuse matters by using the only letter that, when lowercase, is identical to an uppercase “I”?” What the L is up with that?

Now I see them everywhere. I really should just bring my camera with me so I can submit some photos to the site… have you seen any lowercase L’s lately?