Well, Did Your Diet Survive

Well, Did Your Diet Survive



Mine sure didn't. I'll be being an extra good girl today and make sure I climb the basement stairs a few extra times to make up for that full plate of yummy that I made disappear. As we drove away into the sunset snowflakes began to fall but fortunately they only flurried and didn't pile up anywhere. Whew. Because I was on tap to drive home and I for sure didn't want my first winter 2013 snow drive to be on Hwy. 29 in the dark.


The newest member of the family, baby OWZ, was in attendance charming everyone in sight and being a colicky baby through the meal and almost until he and his family left. It took a bit of convincing to assure his mama that no one minded the crying baby, we just all wanted a turn to try to soothe him, especially Grandpa Doc. It was fun to see him so wrapped up in that little scrap of humanity. OWZ's favorite soothe spot was under the exhaust fan in the kitchen so there was a rotation of adults leaning against the stove swaying from side to side. DIL1 was the one who got him to sleep, but not for long. Oh well, he'll grow out of that, they all eventually do, and he sure is a cutie patootie. Can't wait to have our own baby of our blood, not just our hearts, to walk, rock and trot. When DS DD wouldn't be soothed by rocking in a chair, when only standing and rocking would do, Durwood and I called it "giving 110%." We did a lot of that; these new parents will serve their time standing and rocking and shushing while mostly asleep too. I think it's a rite of passage.





Oh, but the food was sublime. The turkey, our first roasted instead of fried turkey in many a year, was succulent and done to a turn, the gravy was lump-free, there was cornbread-sausage and sage apple dressings, green bean casserole with those crunchy onion things on top, AS's homemade mac cheese, roasted root vegetables, corn pudding, cranberry sauce relish, traditional green jello with pomegranate seeds sprinkled on top, each one more delicious than the next, and a lovely red wine on the side. For dessert there was pecan pie with bourbon in it, traditional pumpkin pie, and my pumpkin bread pudding with rum sauce (I put in extra dark rum this year, it was extra cold outside) and decaf. See what I mean about diets crashing and burning? I took a tiny spoonful of everything and my plate was nearly overflowing--and those were some good-sized plates--but I managed to make it all go away, except I only had pecan pie for dessert, I just couldn't face "some of each." (Dad used to say he'd have "Russian dessert" [someovich"] I couldn't go there, I was just too full) The company was lively and entertaining. We missed WAZ but they stayed home since they're expecting in less than a month too, and GZ, OZ's daddy, had to work.

I just took a step further down the road toward being a real Grandma--I ordered a Pack Play from Overstock.com. Half-price! Yippee! Pretty soon our baby will be here. I'd better lay in some diapers. I already have a rocking chair.

OMG, Durwood's watching Sale of the Century on the Game Show Network and one of the prizes was a fabulous cellphone that cost $3000 and lived in an aluminum spy-type briefcase; and one of the defeated champ's prizes was a typewriter. A typewriter! Turns out the show's a rerun from 1974. Good lord.

November 28--Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Harvesters. The last field was too steep for the reaper and tractor so Levi and Tom harvested it by hand. They joked about stepping back in time as they pulled scythes out of the back of Levi's truck. They walked to opposite corners of the one-acre plot, each man settled his wide-brimmed hat more securely on his head, then they got to work. Each of them soon got into the rhythm of swinging the scythes, blades flashing in the late afternoon sunlight. Tom found her. He was in the middle of the plot when he saw something blue. At first he thought it was the reflection of the sky, but on closer inspection it was a blue skirt that was half-on and half-off of the slender form.

Okay then, that's not too bad for midnight on Thanksgiving. I'm off to collect eggs and get my nails done, oh, and pick up bananas at Kwik Trip, a person can't pass up their 38 cents a pound price for them. Are you out shopping today? Good luck finding what you want, I'll be over here where it's quiet.
--Barbara

The Curse of The In-House Staff Writer

The Curse of The In-House Staff Writer


I don't know if you've noticed, but increasingly, when I look through potential magazines for my article pitches, I see there seems to be an alarming number of such magazines who only seem to use their own staff writers with minimal or no scope for free lance contributions. So where does that leave the freelance?

Is it still worth pitching to them on the off chance that they might take you up on it? Or do you leave yourself wide open to, at best being ignored completely or getting a polite decline, or, at worst, see your article idea written by a staff writer in the magazine you pitched it to!

Now, there's no way of proving that they 'stole' your article. There is no copyright in ideas and it could be the reason you didn't hear back from the editor was because they'd already got the topic you pitched covered. The only reasonable and professional thing you can do in the case of a magazine that has the staff writers' names on all of their articles is to move on and find another magazine that welcomes freelance contributions.

You could also save yourself and the editor of such a magazine a lot of wasted time by actually contacting them first - by phone is ideal, if you can get a number, as it's not so easy to avoid a phone call as it is to ignore an e-mail - and ask them if they are open to freelance submissions. Then you'll have your answer and know either not to bother or to pitch.

It's always worth approaching the editors with your intention to pitch article ideas as you never know if they'll say yes or no. Maybe a staff writer is off and they need someone to cover, or perhaps content is a little light for a couple of issues and you can help them out. Maybe you are an expert in something topical and their staff writers aren't and the piece would be better written by you. Who knows? So don't be afraid to try but do move on if it's an outright no. Remember to keep checking periodically as editor's change, staff writers leave and there may be openings in the future.

Happy writing
Julie

Preparing to Self-Publish

Preparing to Self-Publish


My experience with my latest novel is completely different from my first book. With my first--an epic fantasy--I didn't know what the ending would be, but once I approached the end it simply came to me and I finished the book off very quickly. With my new book--a sci-fi thriller--I also don't know the full ending, but I've been close to the end for some months and I just can't come up with the perfect ending yet.

So, I've temporarily set the new novel aside in order to go back and prepare my fantasy novel for self-publishing. I have three major obstacles before I can actually do so. I've been working on two of the obstructions--editing the text one final time to put in some final improvements, and trying to prepare a good enough map to include in the book. Here is my latest attempt at the map.

click to enlarge
The final obstacle will be managing the formatting so that the book looks good in both Kindle and print editions. I want to include the map for certain, and if possible I'd like to figure out how to also include both of the paintings that I commissioned from artists. My friend Ivan Amberlake seems willing to help with some formatting issues, but he didn't have a map or artwork, so I'd be thrilled to hear any tips on how to manage those issues.

Middle School Mathematics Praxis

Middle School Mathematics Praxis


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Including additional data with the file in SimpleUploads

Including additional data with the file in SimpleUploads

A question that many people have asked for a long time is how to include additional info (for example the state of a new checkbox in a dialog or some Anti-CSRF tokens) when a file is uploaded in CKEditor with the "Quick upload" option available in some of the dialogs. Most of the time no one answered, or the answer involved modifying the core files of CKEditor. In any case, there isn't a simple solution available. WIth SimpleUploads 4 that's a very simple task, just set a listener for the "simpleuploads.startUpload" event that it's fired and you can the modify the target URL if you want to change the Query parameters, or include an "extraFields" object to the event data and the properties of such object will be sent as additional fields in the POST request. Let's see this with an example, for me it's the best way to understand things. First, suppose that you have modified the image dialog to include a custom checkbox, and that in your page you have defined an object that provides some tokens that should be used on each upload to verify that it hasn't been tampered. That's not part of the exercise so I'm not gonna explain that here, the problem is how to add that data to the uploads, not the system that you're using. You just need to write a listener for the editor, and you can even create a listener for any editor in the page.// Let's add this to every editor on the page. You can instead add it only to a specific editor.
CKEDITOR.on('instanceReady', function(e) {
// the real listener
e.editor.on( 'simpleuploads.startUpload' , function(ev) {// write code here... });
}); the inner event will be fired on each upload that it's started, we just have to check if it's fired while we are on the image dialog to add the checkbox, and always add the additional POST fields. Remember that this is just a basic sample, you can decide to send all the info as POST, or include more fields, check other functions, this is just a sample about how to modify the URL and query String and include extra POST fields: var data = ev.data;
// the context property provides info about where the upload is being used
// var context = data.context; // Check if there's a dialog open:
var dialog = CKEDITOR.dialog.getCurrent();
if (dialog)
{
var name = dialog.getName();
if (name=="image")
{
// Get the value of our new checkbox and if it's checked add it as a parameter to the URL
var value = dialog.getValueOf("Upload", "chkCustom");
if (value)
ev.data.url += "checked=on";
}
} // add CSRF tokens
var extraFields = {
// These is sample code, the CKEDITOR.config.action, CKEDITOR.config.formID and Core objects
// are items specific to a custom implementation of CKEditor.
// Fill the extraFields object with whatever you might need.
"Action" : CKEDITOR.config.action,
"FormID" : CKEDITOR.config.formID
};
extraFields[ Core.Get("SessionName") ] = Core.Get("SessionID"); ev.data.extraFields = extraFields; All of the code is up and running in a new demo. As you can see customizing the uploads in CKEditor now it's a very simple task and you have full control about what happens. PS: Although I've said that those POST fields are fictional, in fact they are based on the setup used by OTRS 3.2.9. In order to integrate CKEditor they are using a custom build to modify the file uploads, but with this plugin such custom patches are no longer needed.

Farm Bill Reduces Spending, Grows Opportunity

Farm Bill Reduces Spending, Grows Opportunity



Farmers and ranchers across the country may seem a world apart from lawmakers in Washington, but they share a common challenge: How do you stretch a limited supply of resources to meet an ever-growing demand?
For ag producers, the question is about feeding a growing population with limited land and natural resources to cultivate a crop or raise a herd. In Washington, its about finding ways to be more efficient with taxpayer dollars, especially in the midst of a slow economic recovery.
Our national debt is $17 trillion, and our habit of spending more than the government takes in is causing significant stress on important government programs. So it is imperative that we take every responsible opportunity to reduce government spending.
One great way to achieve meaningful savings is by passing the farm bill, which is being negotiated in conference committee. Disagreements exist on several fronts, but the final product is likely to save between $20 billion and $30 billion, regardless of who comes out on top in the policy debate.
But the farm bill is much more than a tool to reduce government spending. Fresh ag policy has proved elusive for those who feed and fuel our world since it expired last year. Ongoing droughts and freak blizzards in our region underscore the need for replenished disaster assistance that expired in 2011.
Farmers and ranchers tell me they can live without costly annual direct payments, and they are happy to pay into a crop insurance program that provides a backstop in tough years. They are prepared to do their part to help reduce government spending so long as they have the risk management tools they need to succeed. Lawmakers must also be prepared to provide these tools while reducing government spending.
The House and Senate plans both eliminate direct payments and streamline duplicative program in the ag portion of the bill, which ultimately save about $13 billion dollars. The food stamp program is the biggest challenge in farm bill negotiations. The Senate bill saves $4 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or about one-half of a percent. The House bill saves about ten times more. Admittedly, theres a lot of pasture between those two figures. And both sides should be prepared to live with something in the middle.
As these negotiations move forward, we must acknowledge that we are working with a limited pot of resources. Nobody wants to block assistance from folks in need, and we should seek ways to protect limited resources for these families. One way is to crack down on states that enroll folks who dont meet federal SNAP requirements. This would save $20 billion and ensure limited resources are being used by those truly in need.
The farm bill is not out of the woods yet, but passing it would provide needed certainty for the rural sector. It would guarantees real savings while protecting vulnerable families. And it may be just the example Congress needs to inspire responsible solutions to the fiscal challenges facing our nation.

Church Social Media Chat Do Your Social Media Accounts Represent You Well

Church Social Media Chat Do Your Social Media Accounts Represent You Well

Giving thanks! Being grateful!
And how do you come across via social media?

The topics:
T1: As an icebreaker, check out these SM accounts and give me one word to describe their social media.
T1cont.: For example, if I showed you @dianabutlerbass, you might say “thinker” or “academic.”
T1b: So, how would someone describe YOUR SM? And, how would you like them to describe it?
T2: There are many great #ChSocM folks to admire. Anyone (or any org) in particular that inspires you or that you aspire to? Give thanks!
T3: Next, lets go around the table and share our favorite blessings from SM. Personally, or for your org. Specific or just general, share!
T4: You've seen the month of thankfulness, no doubt. What do you think? Have you seen any particularly good/creative use of the meme?
T5: I made pie! What does your #ChSocM pie look like? Any piece youd like to shrink/grow?

Tonight's chat moderated by Amy Rork (@azrork)

Happy Thanksgiving!