My apologies!

Oh, I've been remiss in my duties as a blogger! I admit it. I havent posted in a long, long time. My midterm week ended up being a midterm month! Some teachers kept changing the dates for their tests so it was a very intense month of cramming and studying and stressing over work and friends and family!
Alas, it is done, it's all finished. The funny thing is that I'm just adapting to sleeping more than 4 hours again and in two weeks the second midterms begin.
Just wanted to stop by and let the world know that I am alive and WILL be posting regularly soon enough!

love out,

Isabel

Independence

Choices

Bibi

This is Bianca, warmly and lovingly known as Bibi to all her friends. As I said before, she's the main character from my novel and I hope that this exercisetz will help me make some sense of my story and guide me towards the next "step" in the story. This is my first cartoon. I didn't have much time to make an actual cartoon, but I wanted you to meet her. So here she is, in all her glory.

love out, Isabel

A girl named Bibi....

I would very much like to introduce to you, my dear dear friend Bianca Ellis. She's the main character of the novel I've been trying to write. She's in her early twenties, and has just come out of a bad work experience. Now, she's trying to find out what to do with her life and in the process is finding herself.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been having some trouble with the development of my story. As an excersise, I've decided that every once in a while, I'm going to post a little cartoon based on Bianca's, warmly nicknamed Bibi's, life. I hope that it's as enjoyable for you to read as I intend it to be for me as I write them.

Love out,

Isabel

New projects and other stories

It's been a while since I last wrote.... I hope that there wont be many blog entries in my future that begin with those words. Life does seem, sometimes, to take it's toll on me, rendering me a tired, sorry looking mess, with absolutely no energies to type a few cordial words.

However, I am happy to report that I battle the dragons of stress and pull myself back together in what I consider, little time. I have so many little projects going on in my life that I really don't know when to do what. For one part, Ive been working on my novel for about 10 months and its nowhere near finished. My characters seem to be floating around in a nebulous road of self discovery but not one step closer to doing exactly what they have to do so the story can progress. Needless to say, I've punished them all by neglecting to work on it for a couple of months. But it is always on the back of my mind. I can hear my heroine going at me in her incredibly temperate voice: "Seriously, Isabel this is enough! As you MADE me do in chapter 3, stop wallowing in your self pity: 'Oh! I don't know where this story is going! Poor me!!.' Well, stop playing with those markers and stand up (or in this case, sit down) and find out where the heck its going! Make a choice and live with it. You can always make a sequel." Okay, fine maybe she's not that temperate, but whatever.

Then there's this whole artistic facet of me that I didn't know existed. Its been unraveling itself to me, right here. When I began blogging, I wrote about how my sister was the artistic one in the family. Turns out, I'm not that bad. I'm drawing some cartoon characters that I've been making up and I've been stitching some cards, which Ill post on a later date.

I've also been trying to talk my mom into buying me a sewing machine. Ive always been very good at hand sewing and I'm ready to tackle the big leagues and by big leagues I mean the occasional weekend project.

Then there's the blog. I love the whole idea of blogging. Its a bit like journaling, but with an audience. I really am enjoying it. It makes me think about things to write about, makes me sit down and actually practice my writing when I'm not working on my stories.

Parallel to my literary and artistic aspirations, is my actual life. There's work and college and family and friends, all of which and whom, require and demand bits and pieces of my attention. Oh! and my Blackberry. Yep, that demands quite a bit of attention. I don't think Ive reached the point of being a Crackberry, though, which is good.

All in all, its seems like there's so much going on right now and I love it. I love every minute of it. Although, please don't ask me to admit it when I go to bed at 12:00 am studying to wake up at six to go to work and go to bed at the same time the next day.


On another note, today was mother's day in the Dominican Republic. We celebrate it on the last Sunday of May. My family had a brunch, which turned out to be a lunch. We dominicans don't put too much stock on being early. We jokingly call it "dominican time". You invite someone at 6 and you expect them at 7. That's more or less how it works. Here are a few pictures of our delicious food. It's not really "dominican" food. Well, maybe the "pastelitos", but other than that its pretty much latin in general. We had rice casserole, quiche, spanish tortilla, pastelitos (sort of the same thing as empanadas but round and filled with chicken or cheese), quipes (no idea what it's called in english. It's an arab finger food consisting of ground beef and wheat, seasoned and fried.) and croquetas (it's made out of chicken and flour and then fried but I don't know the specifics.) It was a great day spent with a wonderful family celebrating the incredible women who have raised us.
The round yellow circles are pastelitos, the big brown thingys are quipes and the thinner ones croquetas. Yum.


Some quiche...

And of course... PRESENTS!!

I've been working on some articles to post. Hopefully, I'll be able to put them up sometime between tonight and tomorrow. Have a good day!

Love out,

Isabel Cristina

P.S. The internet connection here at school is atrocious, so I'll post the pics later.

Blogs that inspire...

My journey into the world of blogging is merely beginning. I still have so many new and wonderful things to learn about it's inner workings. I'm making it my goal to write at least once every day. There are so many benefits of Blogging the least of which is being able to practice my writing and keep my brain active. It's a wonderful way to have to read and surf the net and actually come up with new topics to write about. This is probably the best exercise an aspiring writer can have.

Every morning, before work, I try to surf the net and read other blogs. I've found so many great writers and I have to admit that I've become a regular reader of many. What surprises me most is the passion that some writers put into their Blogs. Their topics are always interesting and entertaining.

One of these blogs is A Beautiful Mess by Elsie Flannigan, a young artist who constantly posts about her life and her art. She posts pictures of her friends and the crafts that they make. She also has a wonderful store where she sells her art, from Scrapbooking art to paintings of beautiful and delicate girls. The truth is that if I lived in her town, I would probably blow my paycheck in her store. The main reason her blog has caught my attention is the fun way she writes. Reading her blog has become a way to draw inspiration from her work and to encourage myself to find my artist within. Her pictures are always fun and artistic, so colorful. This is one blogger that I intend to keep in sight.

Pink for Perfection is another favorite of mine. My sister introduced me to her blog and I was psyched. She reminds me so much of us (Sister and I). She writes about many different subjects, from crafting and designing to delicious recipes. She writes about the stuff she finds online: cool jewelry, good blogs. She also writes about her findings in flea markets and about her opinion on different subjects. It's definitely a good read.

However, the ultimate Blog, the one that started it all, the inspiration to begging blogging: The Pioneer Woman. My sister gave me the link and told me to read the story of how Pioneer Woman met her husband, Marlboro man. So I began reading her Confessions, and trying her Recipes and learning about life in a farm. This is the blog that started it all for me. I loved her voice, if that makes sense, the way she wrote, her style. She really inspired me to try and begging blogging. So, thank you Pioneer Woman for inspiring me to begin this journey into Blogging.

Well, these are my favorite blogs. Although there are so many more out there that are simply wonderful. These are the one that I read on a regular basis. I hope that one day I can too achive what these women have achieved in the Blogging World or, as if heard some say, the Blogosphere.
I have to mention my sister's blog, Confessions of a Designer. She was the one who introduced me to blogs. She's the editor of the Dominican magazine Interiorismo, the first magazine in the Dominican Republic to focus on the work of local designers. Ana has a blog where she writes about her tastes and opinions on trends. We started our blogs at about the same time and she's always telling me about cool blogs that she finds. She's pretty cool I guess, for an older sister.

Love out,

Isabel Cristina