First week of August Gone

I think, living in Florida, that August is the cruelest month.  It's generally hot and humid. There are brief respites especially when we have a sudden rain in the afternoon to break the back of the heat of the day. But then, getting older means that joints are more likely to become predictors of those rain storms by their aching. I'll be glad when it's over, this August. Maybe next year I can think far enough ahead to be somewhere else in August.

This particular week I spent three mornings at KinderCamp in the land of  "criss-cross, applesauce" (I talked about this here) and "bubbles and tails" a local elementary school.  KinderCamp strives to introduce 5-year-olds to the wonderful world of Kindergarten. The first two days I took a little of the pressure off the teachers by reassuring a few crying children that this would not only not last forever, but that books held some secret fun and by wasting time crying, we might be missing something interesting. By my return on Thursday almost everyone was finished with the crying thing.

I was reassured that I don't want a full-time job in a school. It's too much for me at this stage. I'll stick to volunteering when I have time.

I volunteered for an editing job for a pattern designer, and she is going to trust me with looking over her work.  She designs bags and purses and that sort of thing.  She may give me a pattern for free as payment. It appears that this sort of thing is the norm among the "indie" designers, especially those patterning for children's clothes and for bags. Usually they call for "pattern testers" and I have responded to a couple of those. I have not been chosen.  However, with this particular one I offered to vet her work since English is not her first language and she appears to have a real desire to produce a quality, highly usable product.  I admire that.

It's 4:30 pm and dark as twilight as today's afternoon rain pours down.

Things Are Hotting Up

It has been in the upper 80's several days this week.  The nights continue to be  cool and the humidity has only gotten a bit higher; but it's not just the temperatures. After months of spending mornings tidying up the house and afternoons reading, I find that I have successfully begun several diverse projects that I can drift between on the days I don't need to go out.

• I have worked on a couple patterns for clothes for the summer that have turned out reasonably well. 
• I have several bags and purses that I want to put together.  
• I have my friendship quilt with the squares made by my Japanese quilting friends. 
• Then there's the vintage double wedding ring to repair.  
• I also have the bi-monthly work in fact-checking articles for Japan Harvest. 

This last bit of work influenced me to explore the world of freelance online writing and copy editing.  When I first looked into this industry I felt that I wouldn't have the qualifications to attract jobs.Through the registration process I took some tests for things like English grammar, spelling, sentence structure, punctuation, even some British English tests.  It turns out that the years of incidental experience combined with education and natural bents has stood me in good stead for some special kinds of copy editing. I always enjoyed working with the Ichikawa Volunteer  Interpreters Society in taking their word by word translations of Japanese to English and smoothing them out to something that sounds more like the words of a native English speaker.

My first invitation to submit a proposal arrived today. A native Russian speaker with an online service wants just the kind of vetting of online materials that I could warm up to. I'm not fooling myself, there are plenty of others making proposals for the same job.  It's all good experience, and might supply some extra cash to keep the air conditioner running.