New Beginnings!

GRADUATION 2017

We celebrated our youngest daughter's graduation just a few weeks ago.  It is still hard to believe that after all these years Erika is the last of our 4 children to graduate from high school. No more waking up at 6 am to get ready and head out to the bus stop. No more band concerts or football games or even the long drives to get her to cheerleading practice.

Now it's all about her finding her place in the world and what path she wants to take in life.  What type of job does she want to apply for, or does she want to go to college.  For her this is a new beginning and she has her whole life in front of her.

That is how I feel at this time in my life.  After years of working for someone else at a 9 to 5 job. Getting up early day in and day out to drive to a job that is making money for my boss, and not getting any recognition for the hard work that I do for them, only to bring home a measly paycheck that doesn't even pay for my bills.

Since I have become a Travel Writer, I finally am able to do what I want to do and on my terms. I can decide what I want to write about and where I want to go to enjoy new places and meet interesting people. I can set my alarm for a certain time, and if I accidentally sleep thru it and wake up an hour late, I don't have to worry about calling work or getting fired for not coming in on time.  All I have to do is adjust my daily schedule around the time that I did wake up and plan accordingly.

Becoming a Travel Writer allows me to finally see my articles in print whether in my local newspaper, or a magazine. I can finally be me! It also allows me to be able to spend more time with my family and do things together.  If I find an interesting place that I want to go to and see if it's something I want to write about my daughters can come with me, and I don't have to ask anyone's permission.

Living the life of a Travel Writer finally gives me the freedom to live my life my way. It lets me spend time doing what I want and being with the people that are important to me - my family.  Isn't that what really matters?

Till next time

Jenn

Read, Write, Send, Repeat . . . . .

     So, this week I spent a good portion of my time looking for unique and interesting places to visit in Ohio and Pa. I had submitted a query letter to the editor of the local newspaper for a travel article. I didn't expect to receive a response for a few days, but in a matter of 2 hours received a response from the editor saying that he liked my idea but had to run it past his editor first. 

     After a few days I received an email from the editor saying that unfortunately his editor did not have a need for the particular topic I had sent the query on.  He; however, told me to try and find a few other ideas and send them to him and he will again run them past his editor. The soon as I responded to his email I immediately jumped into searching for new and fresh ideas that I could submit to him for approval.  The next day I sent him an email with 5 new article ideas, and he liked them all.  He told me to give him a few days and he would send me the ones that he chose for me to start on.  

Read, Write, Send, Repeat . . . . . 

    
      So, the first thing you want to do is your research (read).  Once you have an idea for your article then you begin to (write) your query letter.  When you are sure that you have everything in your letter, and have spell checked everything, you then (send) your query to the editor. Then you (repeat) the process.  Don't stop at just 1 or 2 publications.  Send out at least 5 query letters

so that you have 5 difference chances to get an approval from one of them. 

Read, Write, Send, Repeat . . . . . 

     As long as you truly believe in something, and never give up even after receiving a negative response, another opportunity will open up for you with something even better. As long as you persevere and keep sending those query letters to the specific publications for your articles, you will have started on the road to living the life that you were meant to live.

Till next time
Jenn

The "Hidden" Cafe

This weekend proved to be very pleasant and unexpected. I had been invited to a graduation party for my younger cousin. It's hard to believe that he has grown up into a very intelligent and handsome young man. Seemed like just yesterday he was running around playing in the backyard.

Anyway, his parents were having it at the Hidden Cafe just up the street from me. I had never heard of it before, and figured it was a new restaurant. Once I had arrived I was surprised to find out that the Hidden Cafe was actually a banquet hall and catering business, and has been in business for 3 years.

It was located behind a small plaza.  It had a very spacious room that could  hold a decent amount of people with an area that also held a bar that took up the one whole side of the wall. It also had a quaint little outside bar and several tables.

After having a bite to eat and conversing with some of my family that I hadn't seen in quite awhile, I grabbed a glass of Zinfandel wine and headed outside to the patio.

The atmosphere was full of laughter and conversation. There was a group of women who were talking about what types of shows and movies they watch during the weeknights while the guys were talking about; what else, sports.

As it so happened this was also the weekend of the air show at the air force base and the Thunderbirds were practicing their passes for the show. So not only was everyone at Danny's graduation party celebrating, we also were able to watch the air show as part of the end of the day entertainment.