Member: Pagedove

Hi, Mary Beth!
You must have have your hands full with four dogs and a cat! Some days my two cats manage to drive me nuts, when they get in a playful mood and go tearing through the house chasing each other.

I got into closed captioning when I went to court reporting school. We actually use the same steno machines that court reporters use, they let us write much faster than a normal keyboard, 225 wpm or faster. It took three years for me to get through school for that. I've heard of people who did it in 18 months or so, but they usually went to school full time and didn't work or have any other responsibilities, so I don't know if you'd want to pursue that option. There are people in our company who do offline captioning, which is captioning of pretaped shows that uses a regular computer keyboard, where they can spend most of a day working on one half-hour episode, but as far as I know, they all work full time, in the office. I hope you find something you like, it's hard to find any new job, much less something that's not as traditional and that's flexible enough to let you work the hours you want.

posted by ShanM816 at 11:33 am (EST) on Mar 22, 2009

Hello Mary Beth,
Isn't little Jackson the cutest thing?!!

The John Adams is really great, I know that you'll enjoy it.

My Christmas village (you can see all the pictures on facebook,(http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1... ) I started collected the Dickens village by Dept 56 in 1986. My husband's name is Tim and his office staff call him a Scrooge so when I saw two little buildings, one Tiny Tim's cottage and the other Scrooge and Marley, I just had to have them. So that was all for a few years until I saw the Old Camden Town Church, and since I grew up in Baltimore where the Orioles Park is at Camden Yards, that one got added to the collection. I then found Ebay where I could get the pieces at a lower price and seriously started collecting. Every year Tim and I setup the village with new improvements to make it grander, and then invite all our friends and their families for an open house to show off our handiwork. We usually start setup about October and I am just now starting takedown. For Christmas 2008, I had 115 buildings and a populaton of 459. It took about 6 weeks to complete the setup. Before it had grown so much, I used to be able to set it up in a few days but now it takes that long just to unpack everything. I have made some of the accessories (signposts, butter churns, etc.) but the ain pieces are all from Dept. 56. Whenever I go on vacation, I always check out where their stores are and going shopping to pick up something new.
It really s great fun and the kids love it - my nephew and his daughter even helped with the snowstorm this year. Let me know what you think of the pictures!

posted by cyderry at 8:55 am (EST) on Mar 4, 2009

Page,
I'm glad you decided to join in the Presidents Challenge. I hope that you will post any of your questions, suggestions, or miscellaneous information for the presidents on the General Thread. If you get a chance, post a ticker on the Ticker thread so that we can keep track of your progress/

Welcome to the fun!
Cheli

posted by cyderry at 4:55 pm (EST) on Jan 31, 2009

Hey, Page!
I am more than happy to make a new friend! I'd love for you to join us for the Presidents Challenge and don't worry about keeping up. There's 4 years to finish 43 books and if you've already read some, they already count! If yoiu don't finish, I'm not coming after you for detention.

So, what kind of books do you like to read? Me, I like mysteries (cozy and regular), romances (I'm married to an accountant so I have to get my romance somewhere!), and I'm really getting into history and biographies with the Presidents Challenge. Right now I'm working on Thomas Jefferson and I didn't feel like I got enough info with 1 book, so now I'm on my third and have another waiting.
I'm going out to find your 999 thread and star so we can keep up.

Nice to meet you!
Cheli

posted by cyderry at 12:43 pm (EST) on Jan 30, 2009