Sampler and a POLL

To Whom It May Concern:

The following samples of my recommending-writings are from the head of yours truly.  This first one is BEFORE I start exploring the multitude of sample character references.   Please vote, which feels more impressive?  Thank you.

Draft 1 – I have had the pleasure of being acquainted with G_ A_ for almost 7 years as a friend of the family and heartily recommend him as a student and a fine young man.     More recently, I was able to spend a summer as his math tutor;   we met twice a week to explore the basics and more of Trigonometry.

GA exhibited an eagerness to learn, a maturity beyond his years and a fun personality  – especially considering that he was spending time on a summer’s day to devote to mathematics for the sake of his future interests and endeavors. He is capable, dedicated and very bright.   

As a candidate for any program or monies designed to encourage scholarship, GA would make an excellent choice for consideration.    I highly recommend him.

Simple but wordy, yes?

and now …

Draft 2–

Paragraph 1
The first paragraph of the recommendation letter explains your connection to the person you are recommending, including how you know them, and why you are qualified to write a recommendation letter to recommend employment or graduate school.

I am writing this letter of reference and recommendation for G_ A_, a fine young man I have had the pleasure of knowing for 7 years as a friend and business associate of his parents.    On a direct level, I was asked to tutor G_ over a summer because he wished to learn Trigonometry and his school didn’t offer an in-depth class.    I was initiating a career move to my current field of education after my years of computer programming and engineering.   G_ and I met twice a week for 2 1/2 months exploring and working through Trig basics and more.

Paragraph 2
The second paragraph of the recommendation letter contains specific information on the person you are writing about, including why they are qualified, what they can contribute, and why you are providing a reference letter. If necessary, use more than one paragraph to provide details.

I am pleased to say that our Trig sessions have been a highlight of my tutoring experience.  G is not only dedicated and capable;  he is a fun kid.   He exhibits a maturity beyond his years and yet isn’t too serious, either.   His attitude towards spending summer days to study math was refreshing and impressive.

I would recommend  GA without reservation to be considered as a scholarship candidate.

Respectfully Submitted,

Curious C

Professional Tutor of Mathematics

Well?   Why am I getting the idea I should combine them somehow?   I think I like the first one…

Bucket List

Make a quilt
Run a 5K
Visit Ireland (and/or Iceland, Barcelona, Vienna & Prague, Key West, Hawaii, Vancouver,…)
Go to Nantucket
Make a Dark Chocolate Cream Pie
Bake bread from scratch
Win the Academy Award for Best Screenplay
See my friend’s triplets
Wear a cool hat to the Kentucky Derby
Visit Mark Twain’s house in Hartford CT
Mosaic Wilhelmina
Make amends with friend SBS
Clean out the basement
Find more cool things to add to this list
Decide my ‘last wishes’ – sprinkle ashes in the Atlantic?
Dye my hair red. or blonde
Read all the books on my goodreads.com to-be-read list? yea, right. ha ha
Try inline skates
Fly first class

Volunteerism Quotes

Guess what!   I’ve been invited to contribute to the newsletter of the nursing home where I volunteer.    I thought this space might be a great way for me to ‘practice’ a few ideas.       I’ll write here my samples – get an idea how it looks and how it sounds before I submit to the editor.

First, how about some inspiration:

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
Mahatma Gandhi

Everyone can be great because anyone can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t even have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve… You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love…
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.
Henry David Thoreau, poet, writer, philosopher

Service to others is the payment you make for your space here on earth.
Mohammed Ali

Volunteers are the only human beings on the face of the earth who reflect this nation’s compassion, unselfish caring, patience, and just plain love for one another.
Erma Bombeck

No matter how big and powerful government gets,
and the many services it provides,
it can never take the place of volunteers.
Ronald Reagan

Throughout my life, I’ve seen the difference that volunteering efforts can make in people’s lives. I know the personal value of service as a local volunteer.
Jimmy Carter

We make a living by what we do, but we make a life by what we give.
Winston Churchill

I have been the recipient of love and service, therefore I can love and serve. There is great satisfaction in service to others, in seeing people and their conditions change.
Clarence E. Hodges

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong.
George Washington Carver

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for someone else.
Benjamin Franklin

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
Aesop

The miracle is this – the more we share, the more we have.
Leonard Nimoy

Snowflakes melt alone – but together they can be traffic stoppers!
Anonymous

Volunteers aren’t paid, not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless.
Anonymous

“You cannot hold on to anything good. You must be continually giving – and getting. You cannot hold on to your seed. You must sow it – and reap anew. You cannot hold on to riches. You must use them and get other riches in return.” Robert Collier

“All that you send into the lives of others, will come back into your own, tenfold”…..   May Kay Ash

Women Unbound

I’m hosting a reading challenge!    OOps, I mean…  My alter-ego is.

Anyway, just had to share over here what I’m up to OVER THERE… and see if any of my friends in this slice of blogiverse want to join in a year long (plenty of time!) event to encourage reading around a certain topic:  Women’s Issues!

The rules are easy and no one is going to follow up and grade you.

So, click here —->  The Women Unbound Challenge <—

and think about it, will ya?     Or just leave a note here and tell me your favorite book that you think I should read for this challenge.   I’m already wanting to read about 75 books for the darn thing.

Also, since I’m a co-host, I’m reliving all that fun and joy of the early days of blogging.   When you would somehow find yourself on a blog and then click on someone who commented and then jump to their blog and the hop-skip somewhere else in blogosphere and discover NEW.  WORLDS.

and new friends.

and at least, extremely interesting people…

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.

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It seems that everyone’s Google Reader is so full of MUST-READS that I can’t even find time to read a book let alone comment at all my favorite blogs!  It’s just bad, I tell ya.

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OK.  Anyone try any odd pies this past holiday?   I made a cranberry pecan and it was scrumptious.     🙂

Annoy and Inspire

I decided this would be a great place and a good time for me to vent.   But I quickly thought I should balance this with some opposite-rant;  thus the title to this post.    I will list a few pet peeves and then counter with a few things that make me smile.      Let’s see which attitude-influencers WIN!   woo hoo!!

ANNOYING #1:    I get annoyed that people send emails with too few details.   Specifically, the requests I get to invite me to bring my dog to a pet-therapy opportunity.    Seldom do they mention what TOWN they are in!     I’ll get a quick email that announces orientation at Ayer Public Library and…   THAT’s IT!    No, grand thank you for signing up months ago to do this, just ‘hey – here are the dates’.      UM.     huh?  who ARE you?  WHERE are you?   What exactly did I sign up for made you send me this email today?!    SO, now I have to go dig up more details and I really wish I could send an email back, HEY!   WHO ARE YOU!!?!??!

INSPIRATION:     I really have to take a deep breath and just let the faint vague details come to me:    This is an opportunity for me to bring my dog to a program assisting young children learning to read.    Apparently, a child is more comfortable reading aloud to a DOG audience of one and reading scores improve with regular sessions.     I really think Oscar is an excellent calm listener and am eager to do good and help improve a young reader’s ability and foster a love for reading.     Sounds AWESOME, doesn’t it?   At least, I think this email is about that program I signed up for months ago and haven’t heard anything about since…

♦

ANNOY #2:    Husband’s piss-poor attitude this morning.   RRRRrrrrrrrr.     It’s not MY fault you went fishing yesterday and the exhaustion of your FUN day has caused you to be extremely irritable this morning.      He is anything but pleasant this morning.

INSPIRATION:    I must be thankful that my husband has opportunities to pursue his fishing passion and that he left me alone all day yesterday.    I read over half the book I’m currently enjoying AND I got to watch Project Runway without bothering him.     And I’m really glad that he didn’t decide to work from home today.

♦

ANNOY #3:     I get annoyed and SADDENED when people too hastily assume that all creativity and the term ARTIST only means talent for drawing!   COME ON ALREADY!!    what ARE the schools teaching these days!?    Everyone on the planet who has thoughts in their heads are creative.    CREATIVE does NOT mean skilled at pen and paper drawing!     UGH – I can’t express it enough how thoroughly irritated I get that people do not understand the word CREATIVITY!

Here’s what happened yesterday:     I got my hair cut.    I hate getting my hair cut.    I don’t feel pampered, I feel afraid.     I realize this is something I need to tweak my attitude about but it’s still a struggle to set through a session and not wish is was over about 10 minutes after the snipping begins.     ANYWAY, the stylist was complimenting her work and I sincerely said,

“I take it as a good sign that the artist is admiring her work.”

And she replied,  “Oh, I’m not an artist.   I can’t draw at all.   My little sister is only eleven but she’s really good at drawing things.”

sigh…

INSPIRATION:    I love flowers.     I can see my zinnias outside my window as I glance up from the keyboard trying to find a countering inspiration to my wish that all people would consider and appreciate their own creativity…     Flowers.    Flowers, flowers, flowers…

Nothing to Say and All Day to Say It!

WELL, well well.

Well.

I love this little blog, ya know?    And I kind of like this new quiet over here.  Waxes and wanes, this little obsession and I wonder sometimes if I could seriously put my butt into writing-mode-chair and draft something, anything.

Sure, I could!   I so could.   I’m smart enough, bright enough, not-quite disciplined enough, plenty of TIME enough – but still.   Those funny little naysayers that sit in the balconies of my most personal thought spaces pop up and yell – or maybe they whisper?

The blue words will now be those awful voices…

“Ya know, very few published fiction writers actually make enough money to live on.”

“Yea right, you gotta be open to CRITICISM.  You hate criticism, no – you actually LOVE criticism and eat it for breakfast as justification for your sorry sad do-nothing life.   Your thrive on being sad and lonely and misunderstood and

UNWORTHY.   Bring it on.”

“Ya know, discipline is hard.”

“Ya know, plenty of good writers can’t even get their stories published!!!!!!”

“You know that you don’t have any idea how to craft a friggin’ story?  OH yea, you’re real good at spitting out crappy blog posts of random nothingness but you know nothin’.”

Yes, but, I could be the next great thing!   Couldn’t I?    Just because yesterday didn’t happen for me, maybe tomorrow is MY TIME.    Gotta just keep puttin’ it out there.

“Yea right.   and then some day, you get famous and they find this blog.  ha!   You’ll be ridiculed beyond ridiculedness.  ridiculous. How do you spell that, anyway?   How come I never put those two words together before?  Huh.”

Isn’t my brain a fun place to be?   Golly gee graciousness.    I need another beer.

Hey – have you ever noticed that when you do spell check in wordpress, that the system doesn’t like the word ‘blog’?   WTF?

Roasted Garlic and Artichoke Pie

Roasted Garlic and Artichoke Quiche, more like it…

For David: a virtual pie!     for a Belated Happy Birthday and Father’s Day, too.

I blended a few recipes I found online:   the first being the Simply Elegant Artichoke Quiche recipe (click here, RecipeZaar) and another much simpler recipe (click here, another RecipeZaar.)

The Elegant One had a wonderfully exciting crust!    which I only altered due to not having any apple cider vinegar onhand – had to substitute Raspberry Champagne Vinegar!    I used regular bacon and dried some of my garden sage and rubbed it between my fingers;  I have no idea if what I did constitutes ‘rubbed sage’ but whatever.    I do not get carried away about being exact with my food experiments…    Anyway, I loved the crust!   I did, however, prebake it a bit too long (oops).   Thus the crust showing in my photo.

The other changes were to use shallots sauted in bacon grease, pinot grigio for my white wine and Farmers Cheese instead of Swiss.   Swiss probably would have been better but I didn’t have any – I only had the Farmers or Cheddar and decided mild and soft was the way to go here.   Parsley from my garden is a special touch, too.

I only had 3 eggs, only about 1/2 cup of half-n-half so I added milk, too and…

here’s the kicker!    I roasted a huge clump of garlic, on the grill no less, and when I got to the construction part of the quiche, I crumbled the farmers cheese, dabbed on/in the goo that is roasted garlic, dumped on the shallots/artichoke saute and some bacon pieces and then poured on the egg mixture.

I baked far longer than the original time set of 25 minutes – waiting instead till it ‘looked right’ – so I have NO IDEA how long it really baked.

But it tastes gooooooooood!      And it only gets better a few days later…   I baked this Sunday and had a slice for lunch today – fantabuBLISS!

Pears and Pecans

I found a new ice cream flavor I had to try:   Haagen-Dazs Caramelized Pear and Toasted Pecan.

My searching for more information seems to say that this was a limited release flavor from 2007.    Eek!  and it’s just now for sale at my grocery store?   Please tell me they’ve re-released it and I’m not enjoying 2 year old ice cream.

And/but, it’s only OK.     I think it would taste better as a pie! So that’s what I’m going to do next week:   I am going to invent a Caramelized Pear and Toasted Pecan Pie.

I did find a few recipes to bounce off from when I searched “Pear Pecan Pie” but none of these required any caramelizing nor toasting, so that’s my plan!

Wish me luck.

Thanksgiving Alphabet of Gratefulness

A – Apples, attitude, ancestors, automobiles, autocommentarianism, the alphabet

B – Books, Blogs, Book-Blogs, BlogBuds, bees, balls, balloons, beer, baubles

C – Chocolate, caramel, coffee

D – Dogs

E – Energy, electricity, exclamation points!

F – Friends, flowers

G – Gardens, the words go and golly, goodness

H – Health, hearts, hands, happiness, my husband, the word hootenanny

I – Imagination, ideas, my Intuition shaver

J – Joy, jumping, jolliness

K – Kindness, kissing, kites

L – Light, love, left turns with no traffic

M – Money, music, marbles

N – Nice people, noodles

O – Opportunities, oranges, Oscar

P – Parties, panthers, plumbing, pie

Q – Queen Elizabeth

R – Rascals, rest and relaxation

S – Sunshine

T – Trees, travel, trust, toes

U – Understanding

V – Volunteering, velocity, the words: very, vroom

W – Wonders of the world

X – XRays? Xylaphones?

Y – the color yellow, YES!

Z – the words zippy and zowza

Bad Poetry Minute and Linkity Love

Inspired by Teeni…

Oscar has to follow me…
But gets distracted by dog-TV.

He stares out the window and barks at a cat
(sorry, can’t think of anything interesting to rhyme with that)

I could point out  Annie’s latest post on change
But what rhymes with that besides home-on-the-range?

Yippee that Joan’s a bit more free of teeth-pain
Cuz entertainment with her blog is always our gain.

With Moonbeam asking questions of art cut-outs
For and of her great writing, we all give shout-outs!

OK, gotta go –  I can’t think of one more thing…
And, I’ve got Alice’s Restaurant and CHER in my head to sing!!!

So, I know this poetry is really quite bad,
But on the fact that I’ve posted again, aren’t you really glad???