Ein Paar Mohrrüben

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Palm Springs, California, with my family. The company my dad works for will be putting us up in a nice hotel for their summer regional meeting, which means during the mornings my dad will be in meetings, my mom will be in spouse meetings, and my sister and I will get to run around the hotel like we own the place. I see a lot of pool time and fruity drinks in our future.

But I'm not going just to have fun and spend time with my family for Father's Day Weekend, I'm also going to be "working" a little. My plan is to collect enough information while we're there to enable me to write two or three different articles on the hotel, that area of the city, things to do, things to see, etc. I don't know, I'll see what I find when I get there.

If I find an interesting topic or trend right away while I'm there, I'll start writing this weekend, and then next week commit to finishing the articles, and then the following week send out queries to sell them.

One week after that, I head out to Santa Fe to check out Encantado Resort and write another travel article for my ex -- my ex-employer, that is -- the magazine. And then, three weeks after that, my family and I will spend one week in Barcelona, Spain, where I will be doing my best impression of an information sponge so that I can write another two or three travel articles on that city as well. I already have a publication interested in buying one of those, so that's a plus.

Currently, I still have a regular blogging gig and am applying like crazy to many others, as well as full-time positions. Just whatever will stick. I'm also working on a beauty product feature for, once again, my ex-magazine, that will hopefully publish in August. 

And, today a lady from the state unemployment office called me to ask my why I had reported a few hundred dollars on my last weekly claim. I told her it was from odd jobs, freelance writing, and assured her I was not employed full-time again (which would, obviously, mean that I didn't need unemployment benefits anymore). But she said she was going to send me a "survey" anyway, which I have to fill out in order to provide more information regarding this tiny sum of money I've acquired so that they can determine whether or not my benefits can, in fact, be paid out to me.

Yo ho, yo ho, it's a writer's life for me.

Anyway, all this talk of varying income hurts my brain, so to end on a different note ... For the last few weeks, when applying for writing jobs starts to make my eyes cross, I've been taking breaks on Livemocha.com, brushing up on my German and doing beginners' courses in a few other languages. Some of the exercises they ask you to complete have this entertaining feature where other users can submit helpful tips that will appear on the bottom right of your screen. That's all I'm gonna say. That's really all I need to say.