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Friday, October 01, 2010
What's Next?
Any of you ever wonder what, exactly, does life have in store for you? I know I’ve been wondering that for quite a while. The Yin and Yang of given situations always interest me.
Things like-okay the pipe between the floors of our home created quite a mess, but when all was said and done, our house is completely redone (at least about 85% of it) and we’re settling in to everything comfortably.
However, we didn’t even had time to enjoy it and pay off the bills when that strange gurgling noise we heard in my car during our road trip to Reno returned. With a vengeance I might add. While driving we smelled something akin to rotten fish and the engine overheated.
P-U.
By the time we were ¼ mile from home-my poor PT Cruiser overheated and the bells were ringing in alarm! Next morning I called the AAA and had them tow it and me to the car dealership. The diagnosis? It needed a new fuel injector, radiator, air filter, all 4 motor mounts, a throttle, a few other things in there and oh-a new rear wiper!
My question was-“You had this car here for a servicing a month ago and we told you we were driving 1200 miles and then some-you didn’t notice any of these things???”
Now I never actually got an answer on that…they just gave us a bill of almost $1,800. Luckily they gave us that 10% loyalty discount.
I’ve also run out of my unemployment funding. Hard to believe I’ve gone over 100 weeks without being employed other than my few measly dollars as a free lance writer. Even that gave me some bad news.
It seems that one editor (I wrote about the problem in a blog a while back of the venue wanting me to take a cut in pay) took offense when I mentioned that how much lower could one be paid for their art. She decided without even speaking to me or ever getting back to me about what the pay would be that I wouldn’t be interested. In that blog entry-I did say I wondered how much of a cut it would be, but that I would still like to do the work. My thinking was after hearing her reply that “it sounded as if you weren’t interested so I made other arrangements”-that meant that it was such a low amount that even she was embarrassed to give me the chance to accept or refuse the work.
I did find another client in a really nice regional magazine-in fact you will probably see a link to my first article with them posted here this week! This publisher does quite a number of high quality monthly editions and the editor and I have had some very nice and informative e-mails going on-and a few nice phone conversations as well.
Keeping that last paragraph in mind-I’d love for you all to read the online version and let me know what you think of my story in there and of the publication in general! It’s called OC Family and then its sister Inland Empire Family.
If you have any subjects or ideas that you think other parents would also find interesting to find out more about-let me know! What I’m finding is that writing for a magazine is a luxury-you have more of a word allowance, which means you get to include more information!
As the old saying goes-whenever one door closes, another one usually opens up. Now I’m still not sure if in fact every rain cloud may have a silver lining-I’m just hoping that at least it won’t be made of iron and rust.
Things like-okay the pipe between the floors of our home created quite a mess, but when all was said and done, our house is completely redone (at least about 85% of it) and we’re settling in to everything comfortably.
However, we didn’t even had time to enjoy it and pay off the bills when that strange gurgling noise we heard in my car during our road trip to Reno returned. With a vengeance I might add. While driving we smelled something akin to rotten fish and the engine overheated.
P-U.
By the time we were ¼ mile from home-my poor PT Cruiser overheated and the bells were ringing in alarm! Next morning I called the AAA and had them tow it and me to the car dealership. The diagnosis? It needed a new fuel injector, radiator, air filter, all 4 motor mounts, a throttle, a few other things in there and oh-a new rear wiper!
My question was-“You had this car here for a servicing a month ago and we told you we were driving 1200 miles and then some-you didn’t notice any of these things???”
Now I never actually got an answer on that…they just gave us a bill of almost $1,800. Luckily they gave us that 10% loyalty discount.
I’ve also run out of my unemployment funding. Hard to believe I’ve gone over 100 weeks without being employed other than my few measly dollars as a free lance writer. Even that gave me some bad news.
It seems that one editor (I wrote about the problem in a blog a while back of the venue wanting me to take a cut in pay) took offense when I mentioned that how much lower could one be paid for their art. She decided without even speaking to me or ever getting back to me about what the pay would be that I wouldn’t be interested. In that blog entry-I did say I wondered how much of a cut it would be, but that I would still like to do the work. My thinking was after hearing her reply that “it sounded as if you weren’t interested so I made other arrangements”-that meant that it was such a low amount that even she was embarrassed to give me the chance to accept or refuse the work.
I did find another client in a really nice regional magazine-in fact you will probably see a link to my first article with them posted here this week! This publisher does quite a number of high quality monthly editions and the editor and I have had some very nice and informative e-mails going on-and a few nice phone conversations as well.
Keeping that last paragraph in mind-I’d love for you all to read the online version and let me know what you think of my story in there and of the publication in general! It’s called OC Family and then its sister Inland Empire Family.
If you have any subjects or ideas that you think other parents would also find interesting to find out more about-let me know! What I’m finding is that writing for a magazine is a luxury-you have more of a word allowance, which means you get to include more information!
As the old saying goes-whenever one door closes, another one usually opens up. Now I’m still not sure if in fact every rain cloud may have a silver lining-I’m just hoping that at least it won’t be made of iron and rust.
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A new writing venue, how exciting! Of course, becoming new grandparents soon, I would like to see an article on what it means to be grandparents nowadays. Or something else in that vein.
My brother-in-law has a PT Cruiser and they've had quite a bit of trouble with it. I don't think they even make them anymore. Maybe time for a new car?
Your salary plight reminded me of when I started out as a journalist, a weekly newspaper asked me what kind of salary I expected. Since I was new and needed experience more than anything, I suggested minimum wage, which was $3 an hour at the time. Unbelievable, he thought that too much! Makes me wonder if editors are cheapskates.
My brother-in-law has a PT Cruiser and they've had quite a bit of trouble with it. I don't think they even make them anymore. Maybe time for a new car?
Your salary plight reminded me of when I started out as a journalist, a weekly newspaper asked me what kind of salary I expected. Since I was new and needed experience more than anything, I suggested minimum wage, which was $3 an hour at the time. Unbelievable, he thought that too much! Makes me wonder if editors are cheapskates.
IF? Actually Dave-many I've talked with tell me the pay in almost a "questioning" way. ex. "well, I hate to say this but we pay $---, what do you think?"
some have even turned beat red in embarrassment.
but, pay is pay and at 50 something and living in a state w/ the 3rd highest unemployment in the country-you start to consider everything!
As for becoming a grandparent-I actually did some blogs when we were going through this wonderful stage. It's an exciting prospect isn't it? Today-we had 2 phone calls, one from each grandson-unbeknownst to their mom, our daughter. The older one called grandpa to let him know he "have to come right away-PopPop(the bear we gave him w/ grandpa singing a song)had a terrible accident, his nose fell off! Come and save him grandpa!"
We almost cried at that one.
Then I had a call from our younger "dividend"-he stayed dry all day and for his treat he wanted me to come out and give him a kiss in person-not through the phone.
Both calls made us laugh, cry and miss them ever so much more.
some have even turned beat red in embarrassment.
but, pay is pay and at 50 something and living in a state w/ the 3rd highest unemployment in the country-you start to consider everything!
As for becoming a grandparent-I actually did some blogs when we were going through this wonderful stage. It's an exciting prospect isn't it? Today-we had 2 phone calls, one from each grandson-unbeknownst to their mom, our daughter. The older one called grandpa to let him know he "have to come right away-PopPop(the bear we gave him w/ grandpa singing a song)had a terrible accident, his nose fell off! Come and save him grandpa!"
We almost cried at that one.
Then I had a call from our younger "dividend"-he stayed dry all day and for his treat he wanted me to come out and give him a kiss in person-not through the phone.
Both calls made us laugh, cry and miss them ever so much more.
Oh Dave-I've had my PT 7-1/2 years and honestly, this is the first thing other than typical maintenance that we've ever had to do on it. I love that little car!
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