This has been a brutal recession. A lot of things have changed as a result of this economic downturn. I had to turn to different ways of generating income. A lot of my favorite stores have closed down. At the same time, I have found that I am actually able to get some side work. A lot of people see the recession as a great tragedy. I see it that way too, but I also see an opportunity to build something greater than just a job. Because of this recession, I have found myself doing something I wouldn’t have tried to do otherwise, which is build a business.

My day is actually going okay. I am getting a lot of income and I will receive it in my bank account on Wednesday if not tomorrow. I’m finding some work which is also helping. It is a little hot today after the monsoon storms where I live in Arizona. I’m at the library right now and it is a different library than I usually go to. I’m also getting a lot of work done. People are being nice to me and I’m not having too much drama going on around me. School has started so a lot of kids are busy.

I would like to take a moment and say something about the feral cat population.  At my home, there can be 24-26 cats and kittens in one year.  Some of them run off and predators kill some of them, but the majority stays around and has more kittens, either by the cats that are all ready in the colony or it could be a strange cat from the neighborhood.  What I would like to propose it that you get your cats spayed or neutered as I have been trying to do with the feral cats.  This will cut down on the population and give the feral cats a better life.

Feral Cat (Photo credit: A Little Coffee with my Cream and Sugar)

I live on the outskirts of a town of about 70,000 people.  I guess you could call that a city.  I dwell in a three-bedroom home with an acre of land.  I foster feral cats and have a small, old dog of my own.  I raise a garden with potatoes, onions, cucumbers, and have a greenhouse with tomatoes and peppers. I can look out my living room window and see the Rocky Mountains.  I have a deck and a patio, which I sit on when the weather is cooperative and awe at the spectacular view I have from my patio.

I got up this morning, and without much thought, put on a pair of jeans and a sleeveless sweatshirt; the most comfortable things I could find.  I do not like anything constricting or anything that makes me look dressed up.  I want to be able to think I can accomplish anything from household chores to garden duty in whatever I wear.  If I were to slip on clothes that made me feel like I was dressed to go to a party, I would not accomplish anything around the house.  I would be afraid that I would ruin what I was wearing.

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I would like another chance at life!  I would like the chance to correct all the mistakes I have made in my life and amend all the wrong I have done to others.  The guilt I carry around with me has proven to be unbearable at times.  Although, I know that it would be impossible to go back in time, I try to live my life now as well as possible.  As I grow older, I see the errors of my ways, and I hope God has forgiven me and that I have forgiven myself by the time I die.

I believe there is only one thing that I could not live without, my son.  Ever since the day he was born, he has been the light of my life.  I worry about him constantly, especially when he is not here with me.  I am so absorbed with: has anything happened to him, is he all right, does he need something that I have very little time for myself.  I really do not need anything when it comes to what my son needs or wants.  Yes, he is spoiled and yes, it is my fault, but I only have the one child and he means the world to me.

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 23: Pro-life activists gather for the March for Life rally on January 23, 2012 in Washington, DC. Pro-life activists gather each year to protest on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

The Girl Scouts were going on a camping trip on a farm in my hometown.  We arrived at the pasture with tents and sleeping bags in hand.  After setting up the campsite, it was dark by this time; we had a sing along and ate S’Mores, that Graham cracker and marshmallow, chocolate thingies.  Soon, everyone was ready for bed, so I crammed into a tent of five or six other girls.  As I lay there, I looked up at the roof of the tent and saw these Grand Daddy Longlegs.  There looked like a hundred of them.  I screamed and caused everyone else to scream, as we ran out of the tent.  They could not talk me into going back inside, so I spent the rest of the night sleeping in my sleeping bag with it zipped over my head.

I had a few jobs -among them freelance journalist and software developer- and all of them had their allure. Freelance work is refreshingly free, but hard to monetize. Software developer was a solid job, but ultimately a bit boring. For sure, the best job I had was when I was a young scientist. I now leaved the academic career, but my first year and a half after the Ph.D. were just cool. I finally had full responsibility for a couple undergradates and even a graduate student; I was a “senior” in a lab of mostly fully young people, I managed to pursue my own side projects and in general I was satisfied. It was a focused but friendly place.

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Since I was a kid, I wanted to go to Antarctica. There are several reasons for that. First, I really like cold, desolate places. I like the feeling of silence, eternity and natural elements at their highest and purest. I like the place to feel inhuman. And Antarctica -a desert of ice and sea and wind- is the closest we have to such an alien place on Earth. But also, Antarctica is not devoid of life -there are penguins there! And penguins are the cutest birds ever, no question: always had a soft spot for them. Finally, Antarctica is a wonderful place for unique panoramas and photographs -pictures you couldn’t take almost anywhere else. Sure, it won’t be as comfortable as Tahiti, but so much more unique!