Summer Produce

I have had a passionate love affair with fresh fruits and vegetables lately. Because it’s summer, so many delicious fresh produce items are available. To me, nothing says “summer” like a sweet, juicy slice of watermelon. I’ve also been enjoying some fabulous nectarines, which I believe are superior to their fuzzy-skinned counterparts — who actually wants a mouth full of fuzz? I’m also delighted to be consuming so many tomatoes. They’re excellent sliced up for burgers and sandwiches, chopped up for salads, or just by themselves.

I absolutely wish I had a garden full of my own home-grown produce. For starters, I don’t have to pay the grocery store, the truckers who transported them, or the farmers who grew them. I answer to myself — okay, maybe my husband as I am the opposite of a green-thumb, and I would definitely require his green thumb skills. Moreover, I wouldn’t have to worry about where my food came from in the event of a recall. If I got sick? I’d have to chastize myself for improper food safety protocols. I could have fresh, delicious, organic produce that traveled from my backyard to my kitchen. Considering I’d like to live in southern New Hampshire, I think I also might like to try out hydroponics — because why should I have to resort to pricier options at the store just because we’ve got a few feet of snow on the ground?

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Affiliations!

I have decided to sign up for HostGator’s affiliate program (see my banner on the side bar) because they’ve treated me so well and provided such excellent webhosting since I switched to their services nearly a year ago. I admit, they had two particular deciding factors when I signed up — 1) I was able to pay month-to-month to test out their servers and service, and 2) I’m a *Florida* Gator, why shouldn’t I be hosted by a *Gator* company (even if they’re not affiliated with the University of Florida). Convenience and coolness aside, I have yet to experience downtime as a result of their services (please note I did have some downtime last November due to a lapse in memory to renew my domain name — oops!). I highly recommend them if you’re in need of webhosting.

I’ve also included a link to YouData in the side bar as well. They didn’t seem to have any handy little banners for me to use, so I decided a text link would do just fine for now. I’ll figure out the aesthetics of my link at a later date.

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Where Did She Go?

Life has been rather busy these past few weeks, considering I finally got our Spring newsletter pulled together and approved for printing. Needless to say, I’m extremely proud of this accomplishment, considering I designed the layout. I employed my husband’s graphic talents for the cover, but everything else was by my own hand. I delved into the realm of bleeds this time around. CMYK? Child’s play at this point.

I must also admit I’m rather frustrated that I had been posting so much, making a few bucks here and there using [redacted], and then I went from a Google PageRank of 2 down to a 0 within a matter of months. I see that my page statistics have gone up, so I’m really not understanding that logic. Of course, [redacted] doles out opportunities based on PageRank. Yes, you guessed it — I haven’t seen a reasonable offer in weeks. Well, so much for that little money-making stint.

Of course, I’ve also committed one of my usual crimes — I started something and haven’t gone forward to finish it. I began that series on child birth in the United States months ago, and I haven’t even followed up on my own personal journey. I think if it wasn’t for the daily postings by Brenda Della Casa, I’d probably feel like an awful writer at this point. Thankfully, her musings tend to cheer me up or brighten my attitude, even if only minutely.

And in case anyone happens to be wondering, I still have no idea what layout design I’d like to go with. For now, the white ibis will have to do. I’ve seen plenty of them on campus lately, anyhow.

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