Hobbies

At first, I noticed that I could have written many of the articles that appeared in Instructor magazine. Having earned a B.A. in elementary education and taught for a short time, I had some experience in dealing with challenges in the classroom and wanted to capitalize on it. I also read writer’s magazines and reference books, which encouraged me even more.

Initially, my biggest challenge was summoning courage to just go ahead and describe my idea to the magazine’s editor. My query letter began with a hook that lead to my working title and a brief description of the article’s contents. Toward the end of this letter, I explained why my related experience made me the perfect writer for the job! A few weeks later, a reply arrived from the magazine. They were interested in seeing my article and would I please submit it on speculation.

So I wrote an article, which filled a single page, and submitted it. A few weeks later, it came back in the mail bearing a rejection slip. Feeling discouraged, but unwilling to give up, I developed and submitted an idea to another education magazine. I really felt good about this idea. Evidently, the editors did as well and a few months later, accepted my article, paying 75 dollars for it. Subsequently, I submitted ideas to Instructor and after a few more months, saw my work featured in the magazine.

It is very important to decide whether to keep your horse with you or choosing a nearby stable that would accommodate your horse. It all depends upon the size of your property and the amount of money that you can spend. If you think that it is difficult for you to keep the horse on your land, you can find a suitable stable maintained by professionals to keep your horse. However, this would cost money, and your horse would be away from you.

If you decide to keep your horse on your property and are ready to invest on the facility for your horse, a few things should be kept in mind.

Your horse would require a huge amount of space to roam. Make sure you have large grounds for your horse.

Be prepared for a regular maintenance of the stable, once it is built. Unhealthy and dirty stables can lead to diseases in your horse. Make sure you have proper arrangements and equipment to clean the stable on a regular basis.

The food storages should be extremely clean. Remember it is very important to keep food clean to avoid diseases. Adequate supply of water should be arranged. Storage tanks should be installed to avoid lack of water.

Want to write an article or book, but are stuck for ideas? Here are a few practical ways to awaken that muse.

- Keep a writer’s journal. A hardcover notebook will do nicely for keeping entries on a variety of topics including, but are not limited to: problems, daydreams, quotes, bits of conversations from “real life” or your characters, character sketches, anecdotes about you, your family and friends, jokes and quotes that caught your attention, names of books that you plan to read and have read, the newest craze, letters that you wish you wrote to the editor but didn’t, reasons why something did or didn’t work out, musings about trends, the good old days, cute quotes from the kids, frustrations, interesting stuff that you heard on the radio or TV. For example, I heard about a guy who was shaving his head while driving at 80 mph on the highway and another who was changing his wardrobe while driving at about the same speed on a radio talk show. These tidbits might be great triggers for a short story or novel, especially if you can create answers explaining why and/or how these guys could do that.

Tips for Organizing your Scrapbook Photos
 by: Lisa Fleming

As winter turns to spring each year, many of us turn our thoughts to spring cleaning. Our lists of projects typically include mundane tasks such as sweeping the garage, cleaning the gutters and washing the windows. So why not add a little pizzazz to your spring cleaning this year by tackling a fun project like organizing your scrapbook photos? “Fun?” you say. Well yes, organizing your photos can be fun if you have some tips on how to do it. Read on to learn how to gather, sort, label and store your photos so that they’re ready for your scrapbook albums.

Gather your photos

Grooming means taking care of the physical maintenance of the horse. The sight of a well-groomed horse gives immense pleasure to true horse lovers. The process of grooming also brings the owner close to the horse, who in turn gets the feeling of being taken care of. The horse is an incredible creature, and if it looks good, there’s nothing like it!

Naturally, horses have a tendency to groom themselves. They do it by their tongue, by scratching, rubbing against trees etc. However, no matter how well a horse self-grooms itself, we as owners have to take care of them, and additional grooming is required from our part as well.

Not only from the beauty point of view, grooming also helps in detecting any physical injuries, or diseases related to the skin. Moreover, a dirty horse would be more prone to diseases and infections than a clean one.

Grooming is not an easy task. It is also time consuming. Grooming involves a series of things to be done including cleaning, taking care of the feet, brushing and so on and so forth.

Before starting to groom your horse, some things need to be collected. These include brushes, hoovepick, sponge, water

If you are a gardener you probably already do a bit composting to recycle yard and kitchen waste. This homemade “Black Gold” does wonders for your plants and soil. But, have you discovered the gardening benefits of harvesting and recycling rainwater to use in the garden?

Many communities nationwide are experiencing either short-term or long-term water shortages. Some communities have begun rationing programs and impose fines if a homeowner uses too much water. Why not try some simple rainwater harvesting techniques and use the water to irrigate your garden? You’ll be able to water your plants when they need it and you may see a bit of savings on your water bill at the same time.

Harvesting rainwater is as simple as placing a rain barrel under a roof gutter downspout. Practically any large, clean container can be used as a rain barrel. For instance, you can use a plastic or metal trash can. However, there are major benefits to using commercially designed rain barrels. Features of commercially available rain barrels include: childproof and pet-proof lids, mosquito screens, overflow hardware, spigots for attaching hoses, and the ability to link multiple barrels together. These features make using your rainwater much easier and safer. Many city water departments will give homeowners a rebate on their water bill if they buy a rain barrel.

Maybe you should write a book! This is not as difficult as it sounds. You’re already an expert in a field by virtue of your work experience and/or academic credentials. And even more important, you are enthusiastic about your field and would like to share it.

Fine, but with whom? Decide what specific group of people, such as lawyers or gardeners or teachers or social workers or colleagues, as an audience for your book. What would your audience be most interested in and why? How would your book address that audience’s needs?

Next, make a list of tentative titles for your book and keep adding to it. Words such as “how to” are effective. Find other possibilities by visiting a bookstore and browsing in the stacks of related books. Pay attention to books that you pick up and leaf through and glance at their tables of contents. What material do those books cover and who are their publishers? What aren’t they covering? How could YOU fill in what is missing?

Put yourself in your reader’s shoes. Suppose he or she wanted a book in your topic, but was unable to locate it in a library or bookstore. What material would he or she be most interested in?

Flowerhorn Cichlids
Flowerhorn cichlids is a hybrid cichlid that was developed in Malaysia during the second half of the 1990: s. It was created by crossbreeding different South American cichlids. Exactly which cichlids that were used to create the Flowerhorn is a well kept secret only known by the breeders who developed the species but they did most likely crossbreed Trimacs (Amhilophous Trimaculatus) and one or several other South American cichlids like Cichlasoma Festae, Amphilophus citrinellum (midas cichlid), Amphilophus labiatum (red devil) or Vieja synspila (redheaded cichlid). Flowerhorn cichlids are unlike many other hybrids fertile and can easily be breed in aquariums. They are very easy to keep and can be kept in the same way as other cichlids from the same area. The only requirement is a large aquarium to house these big aggressive fishes in.

If you’re a recent vintage guitar collector, the stories you’ve heard are true. You once could step into pawn shops or flea markets and find vintage Gibson Les Pauls and Fender Stratocasters for $50 to $100. True. These guitars now sell for thousands of dollars on Ebay and Gbase.

Those days are gone — but there are still deals if you know what to look for.

The simple thing to remember in vintage guitar collecting is … American guitars. Not to say Japanese or European luthiers haven’t made fine guitars, but the vintage market isn’t looking that way. If you stay American-made, you’ll have the best chance of an instrument that will appreciate in value.

Next, forget about those who claim certain years of American guitars aren’t desirable. It’s true that folks once looked down on ’70’s Stratocasters — but folks are now scrambling and paying top dollar for 70’s and 80’s models! Same thing with ’80’s Gibson guitars — once thought of as poor-quality examples, people now bid high amounts for them.

Why? Well, once the most desirable pieces are gone, whatever’s left is going to command attention.

Have you ever had a student write to tell you they’ve achieved Grade A’s at exams? I have, and one of them was a grade A in English!

The apostrophe seems to be the most misunderstood punctuation mark in the English language, and yet its use is really very simple.

There’s really only one rule: an apostrophe is used to replace one or more missing letters.

Nothing more - nothing less.

Contractions

A contraction is a word that is a shortened form of on or several words through the removal of one or more letters.

The following are examples of commonly used contractions.

Do not -> Don’t
Did not -> Didn’t
Can not -> Can’t
Was not -> Wasn’t
We have -> We’ve
They are -> They’re
It is -> It’s
It has -> It’s

The following are examples of contractions used within a sentence:

The boy is walking the dog -> The boy’s walking the dog
I did not steal the buns -> I didn’t steal the buns
They were not walking to town -> They weren’t walking to town