Last chance…please vote for my idea in Name Your Dream Assignment so I can take some amazing photos. To have a chance at winning, I need at least 500 votes. Please pass this along to other people. I don’t get enough traffic here. The voting ends Friday! Only those ideas in the top 20 will be looked at by the judges.

Here’s my plan:

A new wildlife reserve is being created in Ethiopia. I want to photograph the current conditions of wildlife in Ethiopia and the people involved in the rescue and transfer of these animals to new homes.

Born Free, a nonprofit wildlife rescue organization, is creating a new wildlife preserve in Ethiopia to save the wildlife from poor conditions. In Ethiopia, cheetah cubs are bred and traded. They are tied up and barely fed. The population of big cats is declining in Africa to the point were some are endangered species.

Due to the conditions in Ethiopia, wildlife preservation and animal welfare are of little importance. The animals in most need are lions, cheetahs and other wild cats.

I am interested in creating a photo story of conditions the animals are found in as well as their transfer to the reserve. I want to photograph the people involved from Born Free and the Ethiopians who are involved in saving these animals.

So recently I activated my Yahoo Personals account–don’t get too excited–it’s no longer active. I had gotten a weekly matches email as usual. Usually there is no one interesting, but this time there was, so I activated the account. This guy seemed normal and incredibly good looking. I didn’t plan on being on the site for long, so I gave him one of my email addresses–the one that doesn’t completely identify who I am. We did have a little trouble getting emails through. I probably should have left it alone, but I suspected that somehow the email had been missed by me. Probably not. Could have just as easily been a typo on his part.

So finally we actually communicate, and he suggests dinner. I thought, “Wow! This guy is actually interested rather than prolonging emails back and forth.”  At the time, I thought this was good. A few more emails pass between us over an hour, and he complains about the women on Yahoo being too conservative. Of course, I ask what he means. That’s when I finally find out what he’s really up to. Now, his profile says “soulmates apply.” Since he’s on Yahoo and included that in his profile, I think he’s looking for a relationship. Then comes the surprise–or not, since I meet these types all the time–he’s only interested in having sex. Well, dinner first–at his place, and then sex. That’s not exactly what I had in mind. I’m also not expecting that from his profile. Then I understand why he complains about the women on Yahoo.

Silly man. You don’t go into a Mexican restaurant expecting to eat Italian food. You don’t create a post like that on Yahoo and expect sex. He’s on the wrong website. There are “dating” websites that cater to exactly what he wants. While I’m not prude, I’m no longer interested in hopping into bed immediately with someone. I’m not looking for sex. I prefer great sex. Great sex requires stimulating the brain. It’s more than good food and hot bodies.

Anyone else tired of the news? I know I am. I have only been reading articles here and there. I stopped watching the news years ago, but I continued to read. Now I can hardly stomach reading the news. I’ve become the ostrich with it’s head buried in the sand. While being uninformed isn’t the best road, I’m certainly happier. It’s interesting how much the news affects one’s mood.

Ok. I’m officially sick of the rain. It has rained the entire day here. Sometimes hard. Crazy me went to Costco today–in the rain and wind. My car kept getting knocked out of the lane as I drove on the highway. My dog doesn’t want to go outside, so he’s holding it all in. I hate to see what he produces tomorrow. At least when I ordered him to “pee,” he did. One less mess I have to worry about. This heavy rain makes my yard into a shallow lake. It also means that Jasper, the Border Terrier, finds the mud. He’s much lower to the ground than my Great Dane, so he tends to bring in belly mud. It has rained off and on for a least a week, so the yard has been too muddy to mow, so, of course, the grass is tall. Jasper’s legs disappear in the grass.

It has been awhile since I posted. This keeps happening. I can’t say that I have a lot to say either. Actually I don’t know what to write about here that anyone would find interesting. Blogging isn’t too much different from life. I am far more interested in other people’s lives than my own. I didn’t even write last week when I had an amazing week. Things happened that I neveer would have expected. I would like to see that happen again, but it feels like all of it was outside myself–like I had nothing to do with it. I have a busy week this week with many things to do each day. I am still looking for a job and doing whatever I can to bring in money. No luck there so far…at  least nothing major. I need a certian level of income, and I haven’t even come close to reaching that. Although I’m not miserable over it. I am tired of job hunting. It’s boring. I haven’t yet found a way to make it interesting for more than a few days at time. For awhile I decided I would try out different approaches, different ways of selling myself and see what happened. If only job hunting gave instanteous results. It doesn’t.

So I don’t know what would be interesting for others to read:  my complaints, my ways of getting through the mundane and ordinary circumstances we all deal with? I definitely don’t deal with my circumstances in an ordinary way.  However, I find it difficult to describe exactly what I do.

I had the first birthday party in my life.  I didn’t have parties growing up, and then not as an adult either. Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. There was plenty of cake and other foods. I gained more alcohol than I got rid of. The whole point was to get rid of the alcohol I had bought for the party I had in September.

Everyone liked the cake. I forgot to take a picture of it. There was far more cake than I needed. I wish I had bought a smaller pan, then I wouldn’t have had the cake accident when I was baking. I had another today when I was cutting it up in sections and putting some into the freezer and some to give away. Lost a good section of the cake on the floor when the cardboard bent and the cake tumbled onto the carpet.

I don’t know how I ended up not writing for a week. I spent my time either looking for work or completing this project I took on for money. In the past couple of weeks I passed on a few projects because the communication between me and the other person didn’t work. I would rather not deal with people who I have to keep prodding to start a project…or they hardly remember what messages have been sent, and I am starting new every time I contact them. The whole situation is looking up, but it’s not moving at the pace I would like. As usual

It’s that time again. I’m off in San Francisco on my birthday this year, but I am having my first party–ever–on January 31. So why no birthday party ever? My dad was a Jehovah’s Witness, so I didn’t have birthday parties as a kid. Once my parents divorced, it didn’t matter. I never thought about how weird it is not to have a birthday party until I started telling people. So this is the year! I have preparations to make next week. Mostly I have to make the cake. I don’t think I should have to, but I can’t get the kind of cake everyone else can. I have to have a gluten free cake. Not a problem though. I have some great recipes, and no one will know that it’s gluten free.

So I have been dreaming about the same man for a couple of weeks now. I thought that if I actually got the chance to go out with him that the dreams would stop. Fat chance. We have plans to meet for lunch on Wednesday. Perhaps the dreams will end after that. It’s crazy. I can’t remember any other time when I have dreamt about someone who I met casually for weeks.

I really don’t know that much about him, and yet I do. I don’t have a lot of facts–those typical descriptors. He is Jewish, which is why he’s available to have lunch on Christmas Eve when everyone else is busy (I suppose).