Hello St Louis, I've Missed You!

Well, I made it to St Louis and am now all settled in on Cold's PC! I didn't sleep very well last night - I guess 24 hours awake meant I was overtired & that combined with the relief of being close to my man again just messed my sleep pattern up. I've done nothing very productive today but I did have a 3 hour nap straight after breakfast which definitely helped!

I headed straight to the City Diner for breakfast - it's always the first thing I do when I get here! I love that place and my friend Ginny the waitress there was pleased to see me I think. Some of the other familiar faces were missing though - it sucks to miss changes as they happen because they all hit you at once when you do get back.

I also caught up with my friend Robert, the old guy I mentioned the other day. I thought his grin was going to split his face and his hug nearly made me pop, he hugged me so hard! A whole bunch of the other residents were in the foyer area too and they were all happy to see me - talking all at once was confusing.

It made me realise though, just how few people will miss me when I finally leave the UK. Of course, my family will and maybe one set of neighbours but since my divorce, I've sort of lost touch with so many people and I've been working in temporary assignments too so no co-workers to miss me either.

Strangely I'm not lonely at home though - I guess my social life is almost completely internet based and I can do that from anywhere. That meshes nicely with my ambition to make a living from online business too and if that works as I hope it will, it won't necessarily even be St Louis that I work from!

The long term goal for my online business is to be completely independent of location. As long as I have my laptop with me, I can access internet from almost anywhere and I'll have all my files and any necessary programs on my laptop. It's a bit of a pie in the sky dream for now but if I do the work and follow other successful people who live this way then I have no doubt, I can do it too.

That's partly why I'm pushing myself to do this 500 words a day challenge - it's an effort to train myself to write something every day, even if I don't feel like it or am stuck for ideas. These blank sheets don't scare me half as much as they used to and whilst I'm not sure how interesting my random posts are to my readers, it's still good practice!

I would be interested to know what you think so far - am I just waffling on to thin air or do you find this personal kind of post interesting? I know I enjoy random posts on some of the blogs I read. It gives me a better idea of the person behind the blog and some writers are really interesting people apart from what their main blog topic is!

(500 Word Challenge - day 13 word count 543)

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Check out my other projects
Gifts for Gamers and Geeks

and my photography site
HVS PHotography

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Fly Day!

Heathrow Airport Breakfast!

Today I fly to St Louis to see my man and words fail me in trying to express just how stoked I am to see him again! It's been a long 4.5 months, that's for sure.

I was originally scheduled to travel to the airport with my Dad and Stepmom but sadly they've had to cancel their trip. Dad still insisted on driving me to the airport though so we had a good couple of hours chat time on the drive before I headed out. I made a big booboo though - for some reason I was convinced I was flying from terminal 5 which is the newest terminal at Heathrow. But when Dad dropped me off, it didn't look familiar at all and when I got inside, all I could see was British Airways desks!

Oops! Commence mad panic to get to Terminal 2 - which is the most recently refurbished terminal - so I was sort of correct when I picked terminal 5 as the newest but I'd gotten it mixed up with terminal 2. Luckily, the Heathrow Express shuttle train is free within the airport so all I had to do was hop on that and then walk what felt like a couple of miles to get to the check in desks. I still had time for a huge breakfast too - although by the time I got there, I'd been awake 5 hours and it felt more like lunchtime!

Once through security, I got my bearings, glad to see a familiar layout at last. I headed for the bookstore to see if there was anything that caught my fancy. My cellphone started ringing and it's such a rare occurance that it took me a few seconds to realise it was my phone! It was my Mom, just calling to wish me a safe trip but we chatted for about 15 minutes. I have no idea what we were chatting about as I'd spent the previous evening with her anyway!

After that, I gave up on the bookstore and had to dash to the gate. I thought I had plenty of time but it's a 15 minute walk to the furthest gates and when I got there, it was eerily quiet. It turned out, I was one of the last people to arrive and I was just about settled in my seat when we started taxiing to the runway - almost 10 minutes early for a change. Even better than an early take-off - I had a full row to myself. I nabbed some extra pillows to make a comfy leaning/sleeping nest and stretched out to nap.

So here I am at 36,000 feet in the air somewhere near the coast of Newfoundland and like the soppy cow that I am, I'm crying over a cartoon character! I chose to watch Big Hero Six as it looked like a fun and light-hearted movie but I had no idea there were sad bits. I won't say what happened as I don't want to spoil it for anyone but if you're a bit soppy like me, you might want to take a few tissues with you when you do see it!

Maybe I'm over-tired or a bit sensitive today and it's not that sad but whatever, it did give me some real laugh out loud moments too. I guess I have a kids sense of humor still because when he had to let the air out, I nearly lost my coffee through my nose, I snorted/giggled so hard!

I finally made it to Newark and on to the next plane. The guy sitting next to me is snoring already but he did manage to stay awake long enough to say he'd been travelling for over 40 hours already. He'd come from India via Brazil to Newark and this was his last flight. I thought I was going to be tired after 24 hours awake but heck, that's nothing compared to his journey!

Only an hour to go until I land at St Louis now. I'm so tired I don't know how I'm going to get from the airport to Scott's apartment but I know I'll have a huge burst of energy as soon as I see him. We're planning pizza for food tonight - I just hope I can summon up enough energy to actually chew my food!

(500 Word challenge - day 12 word count 728. As promised, I wrote this on my trip so I apologise if the tenses and phrasing are a bit mixed up!)

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Check out my other projects
Gifts for Gamers and Geeks

and my photography site
HVS PHotography

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Up, Up And Away!

Just 24 hours from now, I will be at Heathrow Airport, hanging around waiting for my flight to take me to St Louis to visit my darling man. I have so much to do today, I don't know whether I'm coming or going right now but all I can think is a mixture of /squeee and oh my gosh, where's the time disappearing to!

I was determined that this trip, I would pack earlier than the last evening but I've been awake for 3 hours and I'm only now getting round to being productive! Maybe it's the 4th coffee kicking in at last but I'm getting so hyped to see him again, it could be that which is fueling my mad panic to get all the things done.

This trip is special to me, it will be the third anniversary of my first trip to see him and I just can't wait! It's been a rollercoaster three years, divorce, selling a house and surviving breast cancer as well as learning to live alone for the first time in my life. I've said it before but I don't know how I would have got through it all without him. He's been my tower of strength, my butt-kicker when I needed it but mostly, he's just been there through every thing with me, holding my hand and giving encouragement, love and being a total goofball at just the right times.

Inspiration for Ghostbusters building

I love St Louis too - it's so very different from anything I expected from an American city but then my impressions of American city life come from TV and movies. Of course, I know those aren't accurate depictions of the way of life but it was and is, still a shock to me. I think the huge difference in lifestyle helps contribute to the culture shock too - I've always been a country girl, living in a small town rather than a city girl.

Having so many facilities and restaurants close at hand where he lives is great but it doesn't help my waistline, that's for sure. The City Diner is literally just across the road and it becomes my second home from home when I'm there. Two of the waitresses have taken me under their wings and took me out for a Girls Night last summer. I can't wait to see my friends again - both have had some heavy duty life experiences since my last trip & I need to give them big hugs.

There's also a few friends I have made in his apartment building that I'm dying to see again. Robert is an old man who spends his days hanging out in the foyer or watching the world go by from the sidewalk outside. I struggle with his deep voice and accent sometimes but he's such a nice old man and has some really interesting stories to tell. I know I'll get a big hug and a huge grin from him on Wednesday morning when I see him.

We've made a few plans for some of my visit, including a day out with his Mom, a must do Crawfish Festival at the Broadway Oyster Bar and possibly even a meet up with a Twitter friend or two. There's also an Italian Calzone restaurant he's promised to take me too and I'm insisting we have to go back to the little Mexican restaurant where he took me for my first Margarita way back on my first trip! It's going to be a great 3 weeks and I'm stubbornly refusing to even think about coming home. There will enough time for that later, much later!

Can you tell I'm excited? I feel like a kid on my way to Disneyland :)

(500 Word Challenge - Day 11 word count 621)

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Check out my other projects
Gifts for Gamers and Geeks

and my photography site
HVS PHotography

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Return To Stormwind - Again!

After writing my post the other day about my feelings for World of Warcraft, I realised that I was being silly by not using some of my stash of gold to buy a token. Ok, so yeah, maybe it is twice the price in gold of the US realms but then I have so much gold, even buying 6 or 12 months gold tokens isn't going to dent my gold balance.

I haven't been feeling the pull to play like I used to but I do sometimes wish I could just pop in for half an hour here and there so now I can and guilt free too! So yesterday, I patched my World of Warcraft, updated all my addons and resubbed for 6 months with gold tokens. I didn't get the best deal because what's a couple of thousand gold here and there huh?

I spent a happy hour or so, doing my garrison stuff on the three alts I've got to Draenor and then I went hunting for my heirlooms to fill that tab up. I'm pretty sure I've lost a bunch of heirlooms somewhere - probably in the mail as I'm terrible for just leaving stuff in the mail system!

I know I had a full set of plate heirlooms but I couldn't find them anywhere - even using altoholic to search alts on other realms. But it's not a huge problem - again, I have so much gold just sitting around, I can easily buy all the ones I might ever need from the Guild vendor.

I can't remember if that's all of them though. I've forgotten so many little details like that. Not only have I not played any length of time since last summer but I haven't leveled a new alt since well before then either.

I head out to the States this week so I don't know if I'll be able to play much for the next three weeks either but it felt good to be back for a little visit at least! It was sad to see the state of my guild though - only one guy still playing by the looks of it but he was always my favorite guildie anyway so I sent him a little note in the mail to say hello!

I think gold making might have to take a back seat for a while - I never did get my head around all the garrison options and I barely even know what the names of all the herbs and crafting materials are, let alone how to make best use of them.

So my first goal is to get my Paladin main to level 100 - she's almost level 94 now so she has a long way to go yet. I might even update my Zygor leveling guide to get there quicker! After that, I don't know - maybe I'll focus on her Leatherworking and see if I can understand all the profession changes or perhaps I'll level my Hunter. I don't know - I think I'm just going to take it easy, pop in when I feel the urge and see where I end up.

It did feel good though - there's so many new things popping up in real life to learn and deal with, WoW was like slipping on an old comfy pair of slippers at the end of a long day!

(500 Word Challenge - Day 10 word count 555)

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Check out my other projects
Gifts for Gamers and Geeks

and my photography site
HVS PHotography

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One Minute Gaming #49 - Back To Bed

This week, I've been playing an unusual puzzle game called Back To Bed. It's quite surreal but definitely gets your brain working.

The basic idea is that you are a weird little dog who has to stop his owner from falling off rooftops as he sleep walks in a weird landscape. You have to pick up a giant apple and place it in your owner's path to make him turn away from an edge but then you have to grab the same apple & place it again at the next danger point.

The objective is to guide your owner back to bed which could be anywhere on the map. One little tip I can give - the owner always turns clockwise so sometimes you have to be really quick with placing the apple as there may only be 4 or 5 steps between turns and edges all around.


It's not the fastest puzzle or the hardest but it is compelling in a weird kind of way.

I'd give Back to Bed a 6 out of 10 - it's not my favorite puzzle game but it's ok if you like this sort of game.

If you have a game you'd like me to try, you can contact me on Twitter @NevAHAddict or leave a comment below.

So until next time, have fun!

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Check out my other projects
Gifts for Gamers and Geeks

and my photography site
HVS PHotography

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My First Kindle Book - Improve Your Flower Photography

Black Eyed Susans or Rudbeckias

One of the new ventures I undertook in the first couple of weeks after my temporary job finished was to create and publish my first Kindle book - Improve Your Flower Photography. I'd had the idea in the back of my mind for months but trying to work out how to format it for Kindle in the evenings after work had proved tiring and time consuming. Once I'd finished work though, I could tackle the challenge fresh in the mornings and have all day to work it out.

The writing part was actually the easiest bit - like this blog, I was writing about stuff I know well so it just flowed easily. Finding the best photos from my portfolio to illustrate each point was a little harder and I had to make some tough decisions as to which ones to include.

US Kindle Store

Being your own editor can be pretty difficult - you have to try to look at your photos without bias and not include a sub-standard picture just because it's one of your own favorites! But once I got the images selected, it was fairly straightforward to adjust the sizes for inclusion to my book.

Uploading to Kindle was also fairly straightforward but when I downloaded the 'new' Kindle version to check the layout and formatting - oh my word! It was bad! Kindle says you can format your book in a Word document but there are many limitations on what you can and can't do in Word. Much of my layout just went haywire once it was processed through the Kindle system so I had to then work out how to correct it!

That took me nearly two days but I got there in the end. It didn't help that I needed to zip all the separate bits into one zip file to re-upload and although Windows 7 has a zip facility, it isn't compatible with the Kindle system! I must have tried about 10 times in various ways to zip that damned file but it just wouldn't work so I had to download Winzip in the end and use their free trial to get it sorted out!

UK Kindle Store

This first book is a practical guide on how to improve your flower photography - a fairly niche subject but one I know a lot of amateur photographers struggle with. My book isn't aimed at experienced photographers at all - it's aimed at those people who love flowers and use their cellphone or little point and shoot camera to take photos in their gardens.

As the sub-title says - you don't need any fancy equipment to get some good flower photos if you know the rules of composition and if you spend just a few seconds thinking before you take your photo. One lady left me a 5 star review and said it inspired her to go find some flowers to photograph!

I have a few other topics in mind for further books but those are more travel photography photo essays rather than practical guides. I also have a couple more how-to book ideas in mind. I really enjoyed putting this book together and even without much promotion by me, it's selling too! That, of course, makes it even better and gives me some hope that I can continue to come up with book ideas for future income generation! It's just one of the mini projects that I have on the go at the moment though.

They say everyone has at least one book in them - I'm not sure a small, 30 page Kindle book is quite what they had in mind but hey I did it!

(500 Word Challenge - Day 8 Word Count 600)

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Check out my other projects
Gifts for Gamers and Geeks

and my photography site
HVS PHotography

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Thank You, Ladies of my Twitter Feed

There's The Love!

I've been out and about a fair bit today so once I got home, I sat down with a big old mug of coffee and scrolled back to catch up on my Twitter feed. It's something I do regularly - every morning, I catch up with the overnight chat and when I'm working, it's Twitter that keeps me occupied in my lunch break too.

I love my Twitter feed - I've managed to miss most of the drama llamas and a few of the less than positive people I used to follow have stopped tweeting lately. It was the Twitter community around World of Warcraft that gave me an audience for my AHAddict blog and this one too. It was Twitter that led me to Cold (in a roundabout way) and that was one of the best things that's happened to me in years!

I also have a bunch of wonderful ladies on my Twitter feed - strong, opinionated, funny, outspoken, generous and kind. Some are going through the same long distance relationship journey as I am and some have their own problems but still stay positive on this public space. Some are just plain outrageous - in my slightly old-fashioned eyes anyway.

I will admit to a bit of a twitter crush on one or two of my wonderful ladies. I was brought up with the old adage 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything' so I struggle to be outspoken on stuff or really to voice any strong opinions but these ladies just say it & stand tall. They've learned to not give a shit what others think of them and to stay true to their beliefs and opinions. I still care what others think of me although as I get older, I find that I am worrying less about it. I'm still on my own journey after all.

I've known other women who gaze longingly at slim models and wish their own less-than-perfect body was like that - I don't do that very often, I just envy those women who seem to have it all worked out, the ones who seem to know where they are going and why. Oh don't get me wrong, I know they probably have their own secret doubts and fears too - they are only human after all but that inner strength still shines like a beacon to me

So my lovely strong, funny ladies - keep saying what you think or coming out with the most crazy stuff. There's a lot of us out here, reading your words and wishing we had the balls to stand up publicly like that and we admire you for your individuality and strength. You may not always feel you are strong but those of us who are quietly strong in the background, still stand by and look on, wishing we could be so forthright.

So if I favstar one of your tweets, please know that it resonated with me - either made me smile, giggle or nod my head in full agreement of your statement. I've been told I'm too nice for my own good sometimes but I'd rather be known for being nice than many other things!

(500 Word Challenge - day 7 word count 535)

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Check out my other projects
Gifts for Gamers and Geeks

and my photography site
HVS PHotography


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