Coursera: the Science of Gastronomy

I've been taking a course at coursera.org called The Science of Gastronomy. So far I've learned I can defrost meat faster if it is in a metal bowl submerged in water. I also learned my taste buds don't work well. I had to do an experiment based on the taste map. I had to rub something sour, bitter, sweet, and salty across four different areas of my tongue to see if I could detect the sensation, and if I could, how intense the sensation was. I actually could not taste anything. 

I wish I had more to post but I'm still working on a few things. I want to get them good enough to publish somewhere online. I'd like to get paid for something I write for once. 

I hope I hear from some of the jobs I applied for. The drive to work is driving me insane.

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My Blogit Days

So I did some searching and I found that blogger I mentioned yesterday. She can be found at www.ahermitt.com. She left blogit a few years after I did and started a self-hosted blogger blog.

I need to send her a quick thank you. She was my first bread crumb.

I ended up finding my profile on that website. SCAREY!!! I'm not proud of it at all. I was a different person back then. I'm glad my idiosyncrasies haven't been completely erased from the web. I like being to see where I used to be and how far I've come in my life journey. 

I received an email from a lady I met at a meetup a few weekends ago. Networking has paid off. She wanted me to forward my resume. I'm hoping to get an interview. Even if I don't get a job, I still need the practice of selling my skill sets. 

I need to cut my nails. I'm having difficulty typing this. 

Nothing but random thoughts today. I plan on taking a rest from staring at a computer screen. My eyes have been blood shot red for the past couple of days. I didn't realize how much I missed blogging.

I'm working on a serious piece, one that I'm hoping to be able to sell. Now that I think about it, it's probably outdated as the topic is a subject that is done but the repercussions will be around for generations. I just hope I can finish the piece without it coming off as hate speech. Some topics are hard to write about even when it's done with the most tact. People don't like viewpoints unless they are politically correct.  

I Didn't Know What I Wanted

I didn't know what I wanted until someone showed me what I could have. I'm very fortunate to have found people who want me to want more than what I was used to seeing around me. And it all started with blog.

I stumbled across a blog at blogit.com written by a black woman. (Blogit is a website where you can get paid to blog.)  She was a married, Christian black woman who homeschooled her children. Not only that, but her husband (a small business owner) could provide for their family without her having to work.

I've personally never a black woman who lived like that. Growing up, I was surrounded by single moms (mostly never married). The women who were married worked and they weren't married to business owners.

Some years later I was introduced to a couple who lived a similar lifestyle to that blogger I stumbled across years ago. What I loved most about the couple is, the wife adored her husband. I could tell by the way she looked at him. She had respect for him. That's something I don't see much from married women.

I never wanted to get married or have children because the examples of marriage and motherhood were what I considered to be nightmares. But, I got glimpses of what I now what because there were people who showed me what I could have. Now, I just need to find a husband.

Shavonne (the blogs)

 

I've been meaning to post to the blog but haven't felt motivated. My main reason, I don't have much to blog about and two, It isn't easy to blog from  Tiny Mac (my iPhone). I can't seem to want to do anything if I have to turn on an actual computer. I have two apps that work great on my blogger blog, but posting to my self-hosted Wordpress blog is proving difficult from my iPhone. The images and text formatting is all screwed up. I get around that by posting a draft and doing some really painful editing on my iPhone from the Wordpress dashboard. Not. Fun. Or. Easy. At. All.

Wordpress does have a free app, but I was only able to get that to work once. When it did work, it was great. And easy. And fun. And then it stopped working. And mobile blogging to my Wordpress blog from my phone is a nightmare.

I have two options, I can find other platform to blog from (I think I'm limited because my web hosting only supports Wordpress or Blogger). But I love my blog template. I paid for it!! Graph Paper Press designs beautiful blog templates that compliment photograpy and display well on mobile devices, specifically Apple mobile devices. (Sorry Android and Windows fans, I don't use them, don't have an interest in how they work or how my blogs display on their screens). Anyone have some advice on how to solve my dilemma? Or how to get the Wordpress app to work? The Wordpress forums are useless.

It would also helped if I narrowed my focus of my blog. Then I realize, the blog is called Shavonne for a reason. It's about me. And I'm interested in everything, so I should blog about the things that interest me. Politics, food, religion, men, dating, being single, those are the things I like talking about. Lately, my obsession has been food.

I don't like dating, so I won't be blogging much about that. I blogging about dating mostly because I don't date.

I hate cheaters! Sorry, I'm watching Army wives and the Sherwoods are cheating on each other. Army Wives is my guilty pleasure. I served in the Army, but I was never an Army wife, so I'm seeing it from a very different perspective. I couldn't marry a soldier. I witnessed too much cheating and I'm a clingy woman. I wouldn't want my man away from me for too long. My heart doesn't grow fonder with distance and time.

Must get cook my cilantro lime cauliflower then get some shut eye. Happy Independance Day.

The weekend

I went to a Game Night meetup at The Charleston in Santa Monica last night. It was fun. I met some really great people. I even got a job lead out of it. These events are really great for networking because getting a job nowadays is all about who you know, not what you know. I've been wanting to get out of my field of work for a while now.

Speaking of getting out of my line of work, it's one reason I haven't been blogging much in the last year. I'm really passionate about politics. I've wanted to blog about some pretty important issues but because of many of the government scandals, I'm glad I've kept silent. But I can't keep silent too much longer. It just doesn't feel right. So look for more posts about politics.

As far as my reading goes, I've been reading mostly Paleo cookbooks. I will be sharing the names of these cookbooks at a later date. I've cooked at least one recipe out of each cookbook and they turned out wonderful.

I need to get working on my resume and continue my job search. If I plan to move to the Los Angeles area before the end of this year, I'll need to find a job ASAP.

Good night.

Lost

I feel like I've been traveling on this road and I don't know where I'm going, I don't know why I'm on it, and I feel like I've been on it FOREVER with no turn offs or end in sight.

My life. This past few years I've been to weddings, I've seen babies born, marriages fall apart and my life has stayed exactly the same.

No love. No new job. No nothing. Just me living in what feels like the middle of nowhere with nothing to show for it.

This picture is a perfect representation of me. Of my life this far.

I've prayed and had others pray for me. I've questioned whether there is a god. Does he hear my prayers? Is his answer to everything I pray for 'No'?

Doors are supposed to be opened but it feels like they are being shut in my face. Urgh! That's not supposed to be. I'm not supposed to feel this way.

Maybe I need a vacation or something.

Strawberries

Strawberries are in season and I'm loving it! I bought some at the farmer's market this past Saturday but they weren't sweet. The ones o bought today are much sweeter. Yum.

I'm watching The Amazing Spider-Man. I thought Peter's love interest was a redhead?