Despite yesterday's depressing entry, life is really going quite well for me right now. I'm certainly not looking to start a depression journal, so if the sirens were going off, you can silence those. I don't dwell on the sad feelings, as can be witnessed by last year's entries at this time. Sometimes I do need to vent, and then it's done.

So� how am I moving on? Well, even though I was in a big funky funk yesterday, I still managed to give my father-in-law a call and ask him if he would train me in graphic design. I've always been interested in that sort of thing, and since he owns his own graphics business, I thought I'd ask. I figured I'd go in, he'd teach me stuff, and I'd work for free in trade for the training I'd receive. I thought it sounded like a good plan, but what I think and what others think doesn't always meet. This time it did, and I'm going in next Monday. I plan to supplement this training with some online courses at the local community college. Yeah, can you believe it? I'm getting off my duff and working.

I'm really hoping everything falls into place, and FIL will be able to expand his business with me there, so I'll start earning an income without having to go through the hassle of finding a job. Mostly, I don't want to write a resume. Well, I guess I don't want to interview either. Basically, I don't want to have to work to get a job. I want it to fall in my lap and start showering me with money. That's what I want. That doesn't seem unrealistic.

There is the little matter of working with a family member and an in-law at that, but I really like my father-in-law. He's very quiet but not in a timid way. He's the kind of quiet that tends to scare some people, an intimidating quiet. When he does speak, he can be a little blunt and gruff, but most of the time he's just a big sweetie masked in a grizzly bear scowl. It seems I missed his big mean meanie days when he growled at kids, but then they were his own kids along with nieces, nephews and friends that tend to drive any parent into a case of the grizzlies. He's not such a tough guy anymore, even if he does still have the image.

As for working together, that has yet to be seen. I don't expect any problems, because I think we can both be professional even though we're family. I'm not saying there won't be a problem once in a while, but I doubt the cause would be because we're family. Or, I could be wrong, and this will suck worse than that telemarketing job I had for five days.

In other news, I'm done with my role as a panelist in the Diarist.net awards. I sent in my picks last night after reading for what seemed like weeks. Much of my reading was done to figure out whom I wanted to pick. It was no small feat for me. I can honestly say I put a whole lot into this, and my picks weren't made lightly. Even so, I won't be disappointed if my picks aren't the ones to go to the finalist list, because there were so many good journals and entries out there that I would have liked to pick a whole lot more than three. I am glad I did this, and I will probably do it again sometime in the future.

I started bookmarking journal sites and entries under a special folder for awards. (I believe that is a nifty idea I swiped from Bev, but if it's someone else, I'm sorry. Just know it's not my idea.) I've never nominated, always leaving it up to others to do it for me, and that's not how these things are supposed to work. If I want an entry up for an award, I have to nominate it. It might be great, but that doesn't mean someone else is going to do the nominating. People might say they are going to nominate it, but they don't always end up doing it.

The other thing I will do is vote for the winners. I left that up to everyone else too. I was always interested in reading the finalists and the winners, but I never voted for any of them. At least I didn't go griping about the awards--how unfair they are, the same people always win, blah-dee-blah-dee-blah. I was sad about them one time, because every time I read them, I was always reminded how mediocre I am, but that had nothing to do with the awards themselves. That has to do with there being a million and one writers out there who are really, really good, consistently good. And I think I have made my peace with my own writing and abilities. I mean, I just read through a whole slew of fantastic entries, and I didn't feel sorry for myself one bit. But I'm getting off track. As for awards, I will continue to participate in whatever capacity I can. That means voting. It would be really great if everyone did vote, especially after I risked permanent damage to my eyeballs from reading so much. So if nothing else, do it for me. I'll make sure to put up a reminder when that time comes.

I got a little preachy there, didn't I? Go vote anyway.

Since I'm feeling all bossy, today will be the first day to do Tae-Bo since I raced. In fact, it will be the first day I've done any real exercise since the race, because my ankle still swells daily. Problem is, my body is now starting to swell too, and that doesn't go away while I'm sleeping at night, so I'm going to tough it out and try a tape today. The stupid ankle hurts more now that it did a couple weeks ago for no obvious reason, but I don't care. I'm tired of being forced to be sedentary, and there is no way I'm going to run a freakin' marathon in May if I don't start running again soon. So for now, I'll let Billy beat up on me a little bit, and if that goes well, I'll hit the pavement again. Athletes seem to manage to get back in the game without sitting around for weeks like big babies while their ankle sprains heal. I know I'm not exactly an athlete, but I think a month is plenty of time.

And finally in my life update, there is NaNoWriMo, which fell by the wayside the past couple days due to all the reading I did and all the funk I felt, but I'm back at it today. I normally set aside the time between 10 AM and noon to write, but I felt way too groggy to think (could you tell?), so I decided to wait until 1:00 when I've had some lunch and was able to get my eyelids to open all the way. Or maybe I should have tried writing while half asleep. Something good might have come out of it. Too late now. Maybe tomorrow.