A Little Bit of Writing Analysis and the Rest of the Story

Two of my last three blog posts were analyzed as being similar to the way that Stephen King writes and the other blog submitted had me as Dan Brown. Sounds good to me, as both are New Englanders, Dan Brown lives on the coast of New Hampshire and Stephen King is from Bangor Maine. We were just talking about Stephen King and Maine the other night as we went to the movies with my Aunt up in Bridgton, Maine. I guess he was someplace in Maine where my aunt and grandmother were visiting for the day and a store clerk asked if they were there to see Stephen King and my grandmother said, "Whose that?". He is a celebrity in Maine, but not someone that my Grandmother would know. At least if a computer program is going to analyze my writing, I am glad that I know who the authors are and have at least read a few of their books.

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Geese on Long Lake

We have spent a fair amount of time in Maine this past year but haven't run across Stephen King yet, although we did drive by a cemetary on a road from Bridgton to Sunday River that was in the middle of no where, not a house for a mile and here's this graveyard with tombs and levels of tombstones, not a place to hang out at night and definitely a spot where a Stephen King book could take place.
You can see more of Maine driving on the side routes, than on Rte. 95. Besides lakes and oceanfront with vacation home cabins and McMansions, there's also side roads with little towns and beautiful scenery where you see all ranges of homes/lifestyles. You have the "yankee" yards where the home owners have kept every piece of machinery that has ever belonged to their family in the front/side/backyard. Because as you know, you might need it sometime. Then there are homes with huge gardens and homes set in the woods with little dirt roads heading off into the woods where others want to live off the beaten track. The contrast comes when we get to Sunday River where there are mansions clinging to the sides of hills for those who ski in the winter or come up to golf in the summer, when down on the roads leading into the ski are, there are a couple of homes barely standing.

View from Sunday River Golf Course

Sometimes you drive through an area and ask yourself, "Could I live here?' And rarely is the answer no in Maine. The only drawback for me, a wicked long winter, November to April, but the summers are beautiful. What's not to like? Maine has mountains, lakes, woods, ocean and if you want city life, as Portland is a fun place to hang out. It looks like Stephen King and I have something more in common than just our "writing style", we also share an appreciation of Maine. (And the writing style part of all of this? I take web site analysis with a grain of salt.)

Bragging Rights= Blogging Achievement

Simone at All Tips and Tricks has a writing contest going on where bloggers wrote about their best blogging achievement. There are seven entries and the rules for voting are simple: "I want to thank you all nine people for your great articles, and I invite you to read them all, and give your vote to the three of them you liked most (just make a short post on your blogs, and I’ll check them all out to count the votes). I kindly ask you to do this by December 15th, the latest. After that, I’ll publish the results, award the prizes and open up the champagne, so we can celebrate and enjoy."

Shelly, my very first blogging friend has written about her Share a Square project. In writing about this project, Shelly hopes to win the first prize of $100 to be able to pay for postage and supplies that has gone along with this project. My first vote goes to Shelly's blogging achievement post, because of Shelly's dedication and ability to gather squares and support from bloggers around the world to crochet squares to make afghans for children with cancer. On a personal note, this project has given me the chance to learn how to crochet squares, and get my friend, her daughter and my mother involved. I think between the four of us, we may have made about 300 squares. It has been addicting. This project and Shelly's post are definitely worth bragging about in my book as a blogging achievement.

My next two votes go to two other bloggers that I have on my Google Reader, Pearl over at Interesting Observations wrote about the people that she has met. Her blog has evolved over the year into a very professional blog that has still retained her warm personality. Pearl's blogging achievement is that she enjoys interacting with people from around the world.

Vivien at Inspiration Bit is way to modest in her best blogging achievement, and kept it to a personal level where she feels that her best blogging achievement is within the personal relationships that she has made through blogging. I say way to modest only in that she has hosted two very fun writing contests, Sources of Inspiration and Time Management Strategies which had a lot of participation.

In reading these blogging achievements, it really does come down to the people you "meet" and the interactions of others to your work.

Thursday Thirteen #31, What's the Difference?

What's the difference? Today's Thursday Thirteen was found while googling the difference between your and you're for my youngest who thought I was lying to him. How come we were so smart without the electronic tools that our kids have? But that's another blog topic for another day. All of these differences and even more were found at Dictionary.com. I chose the ones that have puzzled me in the past and those that were difficult for my students. Stay awhile, as I lead you down the road to understanding flagrant misuse of phrases or words.

What's the difference between:

1. Road and Street: A road usually runs between two more distant points, such as between two towns. A street is described as being a paved road or highway - in a city, town, or village, especially one lined with houses, shops, or other buildings.

2. Awhile and a while: As a noun phrase after a preposition such as after, for, in, within, one should use two words, a while. In that case, it means 'a short or moderate time'. If one is using the term adverbially, it should be spelled as one word, awhile, which means 'for a short time'. Examples of each are: I will stay for a while at the party. He napped for a while. / She stayed awhile at the party. I napped awhile on the couch. This topic is a fine point of grammar and for many uses only writing it will distinguish which syntactic structure one should use.

3. Blatant and Flagrant: Blatant refers to anything that is offensive, notorious, or shocking, especially in an obvious or conspicuous way. Something that is blatant is often obtrusive in a crass manner - and blatant can be used of persons and things. Flagrant refers to anything that is evil or wrong, a willful or glaring violation of a promise or flouting of law or morality. A flagrant offense or error is so bad that it cannot escape notice. Flagrant is definitely the stronger term.

4. Epidemic and outbreak: An epidemic is a disease that affects many people at the same time, such as the flu. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's official definition of epidemic is: 'The occurrence of more cases of disease than expected in a given area or among a specific group of people over a particular period of time'. The term outbreak describes the sudden rise in the incidence of a disease, especially a harmful one. An outbreak is characterized by a disease's bypassing of measures to control it.

5. Bug and Insect: Bug is loosely used for any very small creature with legs. However, a true bug is defined as belonging to the order Hemiptera. These creatures characteristically have tough forewings and lack teeth, such as beetles. True bugs have a stylet (a mouth shaped like a straw) that they use to suck juices from plants. Insects belong to the class Insecta and they are characterized by three-part bodies, usually two pairs of wings, and three pairs of legs, (e.g., bees and mosquitoes).

6. Cement and Concrete: Cement is any chemical binding agent that makes things stick to it or each other. Examples of cement are "glue," "mortar," and "paste." Concrete is a construction material consisting of cement, water, and some type of granular crushed material like cinders, gravel, sand, slag, or stone. When water is added to the cement and granular material, it activates the cement, which is the element responsible for binding the mix to form a solid object.

7. Literally and Figuratively: Literally means 'with truth to the letter; exactly' or according to the strictest sense of the word or words. Figuratively means 'by or as a figure of speech; metaphorically', or 'in a descriptive, analogous, but metaphorical sense of the word or words'. ( Literally most of my students were unable to understand figurative speech, I had to explain what this bumper sticker hanging in my room meant: Don't Make Me Release The Flying Monkees)

8. Vegetable and Fruit: A fruit is actually the sweet, ripened ovary or ovaries of a seed-bearing plant. A vegetable, in contrast, is an herbaceous plant cultivated for an edible part (seeds, roots, stems, leaves, bulbs, tubers, or nonsweet fruits). So, to be really nitpicky, a fruit could be a vegetable, but a vegetable could not be a fruit. When you go to the grocery store, fruits are those items regarded as those not used in salads and not generally intended for cooking.

9. Quality and a Characteristic: A quality is an 'inherent or distinguishing characteristic, a property, or a personal trait'. Quality denotes the character, disposition, or nature of something. A characteristic is 'a feature that helps distinguish a person or thing, a distinguishing mark or trait'. Quality is slightly more inclusive than characteristic. Characteristic's meaning is more about a distinction.

10. Data and Information: The term data refers to factual information, especially that used for analysis and based on reasoning or calculation. Data itself has no meaning, but becomes information when it is interpreted. Information is a collection of facts or data that is communicated. However, in many contexts they are considered and are used as synonyms. Data, by the way, is the plural of datum. Information comes from Latin informationem 'concept, idea' or 'outline'.

11. Supper and Dinner: Supper is a light evening meal - served in early evening if dinner is at midday or served late in the evening after an early-evening dinner. Either way, it is regarded as the last meal of the day. Dinner is the main meal of the day, served either in the evening or at midday. However, in certain regions of the US (New England in particular), the words are used interchangeably for the main evening meal. Okay, this is so true in our house, one day the kids came up with lupper, a combination of lunch and supper.

12. I.e. and e.g. : E.g. indicates an example; i.e. specifies and explains. Compare: She loves to read non-fiction, e.g., reference books and how-to books. / He had one obvious flaw, i.e. his laziness.

13. Passive and active sentences: Active vs. passive is dictated by the verbs used. For example, "Picasso painted a picture" uses an active verb. "The picture was painted by Picasso" uses a passive verb. You should generally avoid writing in the passive voice as it is a more roundabout way of writing and you should try to be direct.
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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Time Management: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

Where do I find the time to do it all? Well, it can be safe to say that not everything gets done all the time. If I really concerned myself with the proper way to accomplish everything that SHOULD be done, then when would I have the time to do things I enjoy?

My mother once said something to me that influenced my home life greatly. After the birth of my second son, she came and spent a week helping me out. She cooked meals and entertained my oldest son and her parting words to me were, " I didn't wash your kitchen floor, but played with your son, the floor can wait. Remember that."
In managing my time at home, my family come first and the house comes second. My house will never make it into any magazine spread due to the shoes, books and projects cluttered on the surfaces. However, the house is kept clean, meals are made most of the time and we are on the sidelines, audience or finish line for all of our sons.

Presently I work 24 -32 hours a week in a sales/marketing position for a hospital laboratory. To manage my time at work, I use my computer at home to read my emails. If there are simple questions that I can answer from home, I take care of those emails. The time it takes to respond from home, gives me more time at work to handle complex problems/projects that need to be taken care of at the lab.

To manage the search for phone numbers and contacts, at work, I print off my day schedules in the beginning of the week and use these papers to keep track of phone calls and contacts. At the end of the week, I file the information in a notebook by date. These sheets also have my to do list printed on it automatically so I have those tasks in my view until they are done. I am also getting better about adding all the contact information in my on line address for non-hospital contacts.

Then there is the food shopping that needs to take place weekly which isn't on my top list of favorite activities. Yet my husband and I have managed to work the shopping around other trips we have to take. On my husband's commute home, he goes right by BJs where he picks up the items that we go through quickly with boys in the house, like gatorade, milk, bread and snacks. He buys hamburgers in bulk and we individually wrap and freeze them. Owning a freezer is huge when it comes to time management and teenagers in the house! To manage the time involved in shopping and meal preparation, I also have an idea of what the meals will be for the week. The night before, I will take out what I need from the freezer.

For me to go food shopping it's a 15 minute drive to the nearest grocery store and if we have to go to "town" to get anything, my husband and I always check with each other to find out what we may need. There is nothing I hate more than to come home from food shopping to find out that I forgot something. When I am really ambitious I will have a running list in the kitchen for me to jot items down when I have to go out.

When I was teaching and had three boys living at home, my Palm PDA kept me sane. I had to have something to keep all my telephone numbers and appointments with me. Even now I use it to sync with my work calendar to have a handy reference to where I need to be. Seriously, without it, I would be wasting time looking for account numbers, telephone numbers and appointment cards.

Basically for me to manage time, it takes communication with my husband, a freezer, my Palm and a laid back attitude. I don't sweat the small stuff and I make time for my family.

Submitted to the Group Writing Project on Time Management at Inspiration Bit

Where do you find time?

Are you juggling a busy family life and career?

Are you working full time and still manage to blog?

Do you have your hands full with multiple projects but succeed in keeping all of them under a reasonable control?
Can you still find time for your favourite hobby despite the loads of work and tons of daily responsibilities?

Vivien at Inspiration Bit has another group writing project and this one is about Time Management. If you answer yes to any of the questions to the right, then you can write about how you make it all work for you. I participated in the last writing project on Sources of Inspiration and it was a great experience. ( My entry) Why? Because it made me think about organization in my writing along with writing with a purpose. Sometimes that parochial school background makes me like "assignments" and the challenge of writing coherently....

One offshoot of the last writing project was the huge spike I had on my blog when the Inspiration project made it to digg it. Not that I kept that spike going, but come on folks, don't we love to have people read our blog?

Sometimes my blog sounds like I juggle time well, but my house would beg to differ. I will be writing for this next project. Does it sound like something you would be interested in? At least check out Inspiration Bit to get more detailed information about the project.

What will Dear Abby say about this?

Shelly at This Eclectic Life has a very fun contest for all to enter. The contest rules are to write a funny Dear Abby letter that is 50 words or less (not counting the “Dear Abby” salutation and the “signature”)

My entry here is probably going to date me but I based it on the comments my Dad would constantly make while watching a certain show.

Dear Abby,
My family won’t let me come and visit them. They seem to think that when I visit, there’s another funeral to attend. It’s boring in Cabot Cove because I suspect people pretend not to be home when I ring their doorbells. Can you suggest where I can find friends?

Lonely in Cabot Cove, Jessica Fletcher

7 Word Story Contest

There is a 7 word story contest being held at The World according to Suz,
with the last entry date being 7/7/07. How fitting! Here are my entries:

Can I go home?
I am famous.

By Paris Hilton


Pretty big flower,
Ouch!
Damn, it's plastic.

By a bee

Do you have a funny post? Enter it in Shelly's, You blow up my dress contest.

And the Envelope please.........

After reading through all the limericks the judges have come up with winners for my first blog contest. It was a tough call and there was discussion about the limericks, with the following limericks ending up being the winners! Thank you all for participating!

The Wittiest, Funniest limerick won on being the wittiest: The World According to Suz

Best Advertisement for a Blog: The Hidden Side of a Leaf

The Random winner: Life is RANTastic!

And how was the random draw done you may ask? I cut up all the limericks printed, shuffled them while sipping a lovely glass of pinot grigio and my friend drew one from the pile. It couldn't be anymore random.

5 Reasons Why I Blog

I just found out that that I have been tagged by a new blogger that I read last week, Interesting Observations, by Pearl to write the 5 Reasons Why I Blog. ( The blog is a mix of blogging information and observations).

Why do I blog?

1. I enjoy using the computer and wanted a reason to learn more. There's just so many games one can play before realizing you can be productive and learn using technology.

2. Blogging provides the opportunity to write. We were all taught how to write in school, but how often does the average person really write about anything?

3. Blogging makes me think! My poor brain doesn't get a rest anymore, I think about what I will write about, what others have blogged, and my template.

4. Communicating with others: Through the Thursday Thirteen lists, I have found kindred bloggers out there, or as Shelly would say, a clan.

5. Creativity- I have found blogs with recipes, patterns and ideas that I would never have thought of on my own. I hope that I have shared the same with others.

What are the five reasons why you blog? I am tagging the following.......comment back and let us read your five reasons.

• This Eclectic Life
• Tea Time Ramblings
• One Gal's Musings
• Special K Family
• Just Blogging Along
  

What a Life!

This has a been a great week of blogging, work and family life. It has been fun getting back into the creative part of writing through blogging. Through the TT13 post, I have learned about the Poetry Train blog which I will check out on Monday. Plus, I am still reading through the blogs written for the group writing project last month at Inspiration.com. I read a few every other day or so and it's an interesting concept to see where people find their inspiration. So if you're looking for inspiration, reading through some of these blogs may lead you in a direction that you might not have thought of for yourself.

The limericks are coming in and there are links to all the limericks on the right. Rock Chick wrote a whole post in limerick form and you know, I think she could write a few tragedies and comedies in that fashion just like Shakespeare! Speaking of comedies, Shelly has a "Blow up My Dress" writing contest going on over at This Eclectic Life for your funniest posts. You know, the ones where you get a comment that tell you people laughed through reading it, the old "laughed till I cried".

Work was productive this week, but with "this time of the month", I am always tired. So at one particular meeting where my supervisor was talking about a new chlamydia (a sexually transmitted disease) test that we needed to bring out to the offices, I was too tired to say much, but caused giggles around the table when the directions for the male test were being read aloud....." Place the shaft in the tube and break the shaft"...... All it took was just raised eyebrows at one other person at the table and we lost it. Who says that you can't act like a pre-teen when you're over 45?

Home- Everyone is getting along. Whoopie, right? Ha! You just try working around one car for two teenagers, one working fulltime and the other still in high school with a part-time job. Kissinger's got nothing on me when it comes to bringing warring countries to peace, bet he would find it tough with two testosterone surging young males with one car. Yea! My middle guy is working at a fast food place and learning about the real world. Work is the best thing for teenagers, shows them how important it is to do well in school, so you don't end up making sandwiches for the rest of your life.

Weight Watchers- Went to a meeting this week and decided that it was time to do it on my own using WW etools. I have already lost over 23 pounds and the whining about being denied at the meetings gets boring. As a lark, I bought the Hostess 100 calorie packs, and it was indeed a lark, check out the "untruth" in advertising, I put the quarter up for size comparison. At the cash register, the cashier and I discussed the size and I was pretty close to the actual size ( or lack of). I would rather have a lindt ball for 2 pts than the three bits of cupcake.

Well, it's a rainy Saturday and I better get out my jewelry stuff and get creative. Uck, a James Bond movie is on tv, like when is one not on? Got two of my guys on the couch saying the lines before they're spoken, yep, we are cultured in this house.

There once was a day so rainy and wet
That Jen just wanted to sit and forget
The laundry to be folded,
The children to be scolded,
That she just beaded with nary a regret.

J's Blogging Limerick Contest

Time for the first J's Blog Limerick Contest

There once was a musing blog written by Jen
Who thought of contests that anyone could pen
From a story to haiku
What could a blogger do?
And a limerick contest was begun by Jen

The rules are clean and simple: Write a limerick about your blog. What makes you unique among bloggers? What do you think makes you stand out? Write about that. I have four non-blogging judges lined up, two friends, one who is a teacher and the other who reads just as much as I do and my husband and my son. My son is very opinionated, does improv and both he and my husband have a dry sense of humor. (Just letting you all know who your audience is).

Prizes will be awarded for : 1- The Wittiest, Funniest 2- Best Advertisement for the Blog (makes you want to read the blog) 3- Random Draw.

The prizes will be: 1- Matching Beaded Earrings and Necklace, 2- $10 Borders Gift Certificate, 3- $10 itunes gift card.

To enter:

1. Write a Limerick about your blog in a post following the rules for writing a limerick from my Thursday 13 post. ( five lines, aabba rhyming)
   
2. In that post, please use one of the two images for the limerick contest.
3. Link back to my Blog: J's Thoughts and Musings
4. Comment in any of my posts, since I get comments emailed to me.
5. I will then put a link to your limerick post in the limerick box on the right sidebar.
6. Plus I will post the limericks in my blog with links back to your blog.
7. Contest Deadline: All Limericks must be submitted by Sunday, June 17th.
   

Now I know it's tempting to write an original bawdy (naughty) limerick, but please write one that you would let your mother read.

Limerick Inspiration: Puss Reboots gave me a great link yesterday to OEDILF- The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form. On this site, people write limericks for words in the dictionary, who would have thought of that one? Very creative!

Rhyming Help: Rhyme Zone, I have had this site bookmarked for years and used it when I was teaching.

Thank you to Shelly from This Eclectic Life who designed the images for this contest with a picture of sea glass that I sent to her.

Keep those fingers counting out the syllables and have fun with rhyming.

#17, Thursday Thirteen: Limericks

In school, I always loved writing poems in English. From haikus, free verse to limericks, I enjoyed the counting of syllables and the search for the perfect rhyme. Last year, I spent a lot of time in 9th grade Humanities ( the hoity, toity name for what we used to call English and History) and learned even more about iambic pentameter, tetrameter, and who knew that there were feet in poems? For Thursday Thirteen, here are 13 lessons/facts about limericks.

1. LIMERICK (noun) a humorous, frequently bawdy, verse of three long and two short lines rhyming aabba, popularized by Edward Lear who published a volume of limericks called: A Book of Nonsense in 1846.

2. The history of limericks: Variants of the form of poetry referred to as Limerick poems can be traced back to the fourteenth century English history. Limericks were used in Nursery Rhymes and other poems for children. But as limericks were short, relatively easy to compose and bawdy or sexual in nature they were often repeated by beggars or the working classes in the British pubs and taverns of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventh centuries. The poets who created these limericks were therefore often drunkards! Limericks were also referred to as dirty. (www.poetry-online.org )

3. How to write a limerick: it's a poem of five lines with lines 1, 2, 5 being longer lines than lines 3 and 4

4. The first line usually identifies a person or location.

5. Second line should expand upon the first line.

6. The third and fourth line should be about some action or problem for line 1.

7. And if you've forgotten what aabba stands for, it means that lines 1, 2 and 5 (the a's) all rhyme for each other which leaves 3 and 4 to rhyme with each other (the b's).

8. The first, second, and fifth lines have the same number of syllables usually 7 to 10 syllables. The third and fourth lines rhyme (forming a couplet), and have the same number of syllables, which are less than the first, second and fifth lines at 5-7 syllables.

9. Limericks often begin with: There once was. . . or There was a. . .

10. Here is a clean version of a famous limerick found at Wikipedia.

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket

11. Yes, even the Bard himself wrote some limericks and here is a sample from Othello, Act II, Scene III

And let me the canakin clink, clink;
And let me the canakin clink
A soldier's a man;
A life's but a span;
Why, then, let a soldier drink.

12. A true limerick is supposed to have some sort of twist to it.

13. With the easy rhyming sequence, limericks are easy to create and are a great way to teach kids about rhyming and beats (syllables) in poetry.

Now that I have perhaps piqued your interest :

There once was a musing blog written by Jen
Who thought of contests that anyone could pen
From a story to haiku
What could a blogger do?
And a limerick contest was begun by Jen

Come on back to the blog on Friday for Contest details! Hint: Think about your blog and a limerick.

Thursday Thirteen Header found at Bluestar Chronicles

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Where Do I Find Inspiration?

...What do you turn to when you feel mundane? How do you lift your spirits when the work stresses you out? How do you get inspired when you feel passionless? What motivates you to strive for perfection?...

Shelly at This Eclectic Life had this link posted for Group Project: Source of Inspiration to write about Inspiration. I took this on as a challenge to myself to answer the questions given. If you are looking for a writing challenge, I encourage you to check out the link.

Inspiration is defined as the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative according to the Oxford American Dictionary. In order to really think about this topic of where I turn to for inspiration, it was important for me to fully understand what it meant. After reading the definition and reflecting on the questions posed, I believe that inspiration is an internal choice that we make to express how we feel at any given time.

When I feel mundane, how do I turn that into creativity? Well, I think it's an internal kick that I give myself in one of my endless conversations that go on in my head. How I feel and how I live everyday becomes a result of all the choices that I make. Whether I am happy, sad, active or passive are all decisions that I have made. So when I am feeling mundane, and want to be creative, then I need to figure out what it is that I want to do and then do it. If it's making a beaded necklace, then I might just look through some books or websites for examples of others' work to figure out how to use the beads I have, or I just take out the beads, play with them in patterns and go with it. Same with blogging, I ask myself what is it that I want to share today? Are there other bloggers out there reading my posts who can share the same experiences, or maybe have a comment that makes me smile or think?

When the stresses of work get to me and I am feeling passionless, then I know that I need to make changes in my life. A recent job change has made a world of difference in my life, both physically and mentally. Now that I work with people who appreciate and recognize the job that I do, I am now happier, feeling better about myself and was able to lose 25 pounds. The weight gained in my previous stressful job was symbolic of how I felt going to work and never knowing what kid didn't do their homework, which parent was going to email me with a complaint and which teacher was going to ignore an IEP's accommodation because they didn't think it was important. What inspired me to leave a job with great benefits and the summer off? It was the feeling that I had inside of me that work is not my life and when it affects my life, then I need to change my job. It was exciting to start a new job and what a feeling it is to be happy going to work. Over all, it's a "can do" attitude that lifts my spirits. We all can do much more than we ever give ourselves credit for and what a waste it is for us to accept less.

What motivates my to strive for perfection? My motivation comes from within and is a result of my upbringing. When my parents asked us to do something, it was expected that we do what was asked and to do it well. The expectation was that we would get the job done and that has extended into my life. Whatever I do, I always look to see what more I can do to help others. Overall, in answering the questions, my inspiration comes from within. It's the choices that I make that drives my creativity. Whether it's blogging, working, hobbies, cooking or choosing books to read, they are all choices that I make based on my feelings. It could never be said that I like to be told what to do. Tell me I can't do something and I will prove to you that I can!

Group Writing Project: Source of Inspiration Blog