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 |  Life, Adventure, Family, Writing what else is there? Random thoughts. |
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WELCOME TO: GEMINI RISING   UPDATED INTRO 28 MAY 2024: Just a little about me. I've been married for 32 years this past NOV and currently live in Southern California, but I grew up in New Hampshire. I've got 2 boys who are young adults. I work as a 911 dispatcher for LAPD. I enjoy my job a lot. Still. If you can believe that. I love to write. Thankfully both of my boys achieved Eagle Scout. My Scouting days are over and I'm back to focusing on my writing. I like to get out in nature, drink coffee and watch football. Here's a little bio about my zodiac. GEMINI: Gemini, the sign of the Twins, is dual-natured, elusive, complex and contradictory. On the one hand it produces the virtue of versatility, and on the other the vices of two-facedness and flightiness. The sign is linked with Mercury, the planet of childhood and youth, and its subjects tend to have the graces and faults of the young. When they are good, they are very attractive; when they are bad they are more the worse for being the charmers they are. Like children they are lively, and happy, if circumstances are right for them, or egocentric, imaginative and restless. Their good qualities are attractive and come easily to them. They are affectionate, courteous, kind, generous, and thoughtful towards the poor and suffering - provided none of the activities resulting from expressing these traits interferes too greatly with their own lives and comforts. Geminians can be successful in many walks of life though their general characteristics tend to make them unreliable. They are often skilled manipulators of language, in speech and writing, and may be: debaters, diplomats (though in politics they are more interested in theory than practice), orators, preachers (brilliant rather than profound), teachers, authors, poets, journalists, or lawyers. This is me. I am a Gemini. Pure, Raw, passionate. The NEW focus of this blog is to share my adventures, travels, random thoughts, book reviews, thoughts, opinions, and writing adventures from actual writing, writing/editing tips, marketing, research. I'll get there. BLOG ACCOMPLISHMENTS: SEPTEMBER 2024: I participated in the
![Merit Badge in Nonfiction
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Congrats on your Honorable Mention in Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/type-Nonfiction.gif) Big thanks to WakeUpAndLive   for hosting the contest! OCTOBER 2024: I participated in the
![Merit Badge in Halloween
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Congratulations on completing the 13 Poetic Days of Halloween.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/group-Halloween-2026567.gif) Big Thanks to Lyn's a Witchy Woman  for hosting the contest!Find me at: WEBSITE: http://www.stephanieburkhart.com FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/StephanieBurkhartAuthor GOOD READS: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4031660.Stephanie_Burkhart YOU TUBE CHANNEL: http://www.youtube.com/user/botrina?feature=mhee Previous GRATITIOUS Warning, that I decided to keep in case I post about something that might offend.  WARNING I intend to be open, honest, and forthright. No topic is off limits from religion to you name it, I'm going there. If you think you might be offended...back up now - this blog isn't for you. For those who "dare"  check out the "Gemini Rising..." 
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| Today, the boy's old boy scout troop, Troop 2 out of Newhall, will have their annual chili cookoff. Even though the boys are out, I still enjoy a good bowl of chili so I reached out to the organizer who said, come on by and be a guest judge. Who am I to refuse? While I'm not actively involved in Boy Scouts anymore (now Scouting America) , I think I will probably always think of it as Boy Scouts. Andy joined the troop in 2013 and Joey joined in 2017. At first, I wasn't very active. My husband enjoyed all that camping stuff and he was pretty active with Andy. When it was Joey's turn he was all gung ho, but then got a job working vice in LAPD and the hours conflicted with the time Joey would need to go to scouts so I got involved. At first I just took him, but as less dads stepped in to be leaders, I reluctantly raised my hand. I started off as a Den Leader, then Cubmaster and became an assistant scoutmaster for Troop 2. I was an active committee member and I my position was activities. I helped to plan several summer camps and weekend overnight outings. Most were car camping outings, but there were a couple of backpacking adventures. I never camped when I was kid and honestly, I didn't really get into camping until my husband started camping with the boys. The one thing camping reminded me of was growing up in New Hampshire and being out in nature. Honestly, my appreciation didn't really hit me until I started camping. There's something to be said about getting up early, camp breakfast and camp dinner. It builds character. Back to chili. In 2018, Milia and I hosted the first annual chili cook off for the troop and it's been going ever since. We started meeting at Castaic Lake, but the venue has switched throughout the years. Joey's patrol won several awards for their "BIG BEEF CHILI" - that's what they called it. The boys did all the cooking. I just supervised the dutch oven and the coals and made sure no one got hurt. The last year Joey's participated in, their patrol won 2nd place. Not bad. If anything, I learned that everyone likes different kinds of chili. Question for you: Do you like your chili with beans or without?  |
| Good day to all -- I'll try not to ramble, but I wanted to check in and do a post. This will probably be about Misc. things, but one of the big motivators for my checking in is --- did you know --- There's a post 7 days in a Blog and get a merit badge? I had no idea. And it's kinda' motivating me to check in.  I've got lots of misc thoughts but I thought I'd ramble a bit about home improvements. We've owned our home now for 25 years. I'm pretty impressed. We moved in DEC 1999. At time, we could barely afford it. We've refinanced twice, made it manage, and here we are. Our kids went from 0 to 23 and 18 in this house. It's a decent sized house, about 2700 square feet, but I've found that as we gotten bigger, the house seems to have gotten smaller. Heck, we thought it was HUGE when we moved in. That said, 25 years in the same house and you're bound to have natural wear and tear. We replaced the dish washer, washer, and dryer at least twice. We've had the house repainted in 2020. The hubby painted inside about 10 years ago. And back in 2019 we had the AC replaced - and we needed to give it some maint. last year. Now it's time for flooring. Our downstairs carpet has seen better days. There are 25 years of stains from pets and boys. Hubby and the boys are at the local flooring place looking at samples. It's the next great house adventure. I just want to say it hasn't been easy being a homeowner. I think one thing we didn't think about was having a budget for "home improvement," and if I had to do it all over again, I'd set aside some money for home improvement. Mind you, we had some pretty lean years. I didn't figure out about 529 plans until Andy was in Jr. High. It was about that time I started setting aside a little money for the boys to go to college. I also started using an envelope system. I started putting cash in envelopes to help out with misc expenses like car maintenance, saving for my USC football tickets, emergencies, vacation air fare, and my 52 week savings plans so I have some spending cash at the end of the year. Question for you: Does anyone else save using an envelopes? |
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