January 27, 2012 by Silvana H.V.N

Charles Dickens again

I am, again, reading Charles Dickens. However, this time I am reading it in Spanish. Reading C. Dickens is like reading the scriptures to me, I cannot read it only one time! There is always something that it makes me go back and re-read it. Now the journey will be on my first language =i=

November 2, 2011 by Silvana H.V.N

NaNoWriMo-Day 2

This is day 2 for the NaNoWriMo, and I have written 2367 words!! My daughter and son are participating too. I am a homeschool mom and I enjoy teaching and spending time with my children and family.

I wonder if I will be able to write these many words each day! I am following my children’s progress in a very fashion manner. There is a program for the youth that motives them to keep writing. For the entire month of November we will be writing a novel. This is the first time for the three of us doing something like this.

I am not going to lie, my boy is a little bit skeptical in participating, but he likes the fact that is going to be the main subject and he will not not have to do other things for school except writing and checking spelling and learning about the writing process.

I am happy, they are happy. So, it is a win-win situation. CFN

November 1, 2011 by Silvana H.V.N

NaNoWriMo

October 6, 2011 by Silvana H.V.N

Still Writing

Last time I checked I was writing, and I still am; but a novel? In two weeks I will stop working at CTC. I don’t know if somebody remembers, but I mentioned that I am homeschooling and the majority of my writing time goes to it.

I always receive updates from wordpress.com about writing tips and tricks about this so fascinating art. At least that’s what I think about the written word, anyhow what am I trying to get at? Well, last time I checked my e-mail there was an invitation about writing a novel, because November is the Novel Writing Month.

I think I am going to do it! I m inviting my daughter too. CFN

September 21, 2011 by Silvana H.V.N

Trust me, I have been writing; just not on my personal blog. I have started homeschooling my children and it has been challenging for our entire family. So many things to organize and schedules to keep up with, that I barely have time to write on my personal blog and writing nooks I have all over the place. I see my blogs as books I never published on paper! I see them as an excellent way to practice English and my typing skills. Am I a writer? I don’t know. All I know is that I truly enjoy the written word. I like to sit at the computer or in my garden just thinking about writing. Everything I see, every situation I am in, every picture I take, it becomes a great opportunity for me to write about.

When I went to Argentina last year, one of my closest friends in high school reminded me that I liked to write back then. I did not recall doing this in High school; however I do remember doing it, a lot, during my early years. It was very nice to hear from someone who shared time with me during our crazy time in High school that I enjoyed writing. My family already gave up telling me not to have many blogs, I cannot help it! I enjoy writing, I like to see my words on a piece of paper, I enjoy other peoples writing and I love to read. I don’t always have the time to do it, but I surely strive to accomplish writing, reading and typing.

I discovered I like to write and where I like to do it? You guessed it; in my garden and on my desk, facing my garden! I have been practicing writing for, at least, five uninterrupted years! And I always feel that I am so inadequate and that I need more practice! Anyhow, I think my next thing will be trying to discover my voice. Everybody talks about “the voice of the writer” “find your voice” “what is your voice” I am not quite sure I understand what this is, but I will work on it.

August 14, 2011 by Silvana H.V.N

The Name of my Blog

I never thought about writing why I chose to name my personal blog “In my Garden”; I think today is a good day to write about this. I have always, and when I say always, I mean since I was five, connected with three things, Gardens, Pictures and Writing.Since I was very little, my mother always took me to her gardening projects activities outside. I was always helping her with her plants and flowers.

Since then I have always wanted to help her, when I was a teenager, she worked full time and I was in charge of her garden. I would get up early before I went to school and water all my mother’s plants and flowers, I would line up every single pot on the patio and I would start from the littlest to the biggest pot, and continued by walking along the wall where all her shrubs and trees were and
finally my tour would end with the flower beds. When I had children of my own, I taught them to be in the garden with me. We have made so many projects together, they loved it! Even though now they are teenagers they still help me, but they are not as interested anymore, hopefully they will come back and help me the way they did when they were little.
When I went to the University, my dad was working in the States and my sisters and I were in charge of my mother; she still worked and made sure we where fine and that we had everything we needed. During this time things were not that stable anymore, busy life took over our peaceful family time. I had to complete long hours of hospital practice to achieve my goal to become a physical therapist and the economy was not great in the country I am from. So, to make things short I became passionate about capturing life’s moments either in the written word or in pictures. This name also embraces my other blogs that I write in my garden and on my desk at home. I see myself practicing this over and over again. This is what I like to do the most.
To reconnect with the initial quest, I think I chose the title of my personal blog for the following reasons: “I like to be in my garden, working, writing, thinking and picturing moments of my personal life or the life of my favorite people”

January 6, 2011 by Silvana H.V.N

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,600 times in 2010. That’s about 4 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 27 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 73 posts. There were 54 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 70mb. That’s about a picture per week.

The busiest day of the year was March 5th with 48 views. The most popular post that day was P.O.E.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were google.com, facebook.com, mail.live.com, mail.yahoo.com, and cynthiastone.blogspot.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for visiting teaching, turkish food recipes, patlıcan musakka, relief society seal, and vegetables.

In my Garden