Linda Nelson

photography of people graduating — Photo by Emily Ranquist on Pexels.com

That’s right. I just entered my last Undergraduate class. I will have one month off during July, and then I will finish off my Bachelor Degree and at the same time, begin my Graduate classes. I expect to finish the Bachelor Degree this coming October 2019. Three years ago, I could barely imagine getting this far with my education. College was only a pipe dream up until 2016 when I began poking around on the Franklin Pierce University website. I thought it was only a dream.

A student advisor from Franklin Pierce immediately called me and began asking me questions, and I responded by telling her that I had been out of school since ’83. That was when she said to me that it didn’t matter all I needed to do was send her a copy of my high school transcript, which she then told me how to go about doing that.

Filling out the Financial Aid form was not that hard. I already was used to doing my own income taxes every year and found the form pretty self-explanatory.

I wasn’t all sure as to what I wanted to study in the beginning. I thought that social studies would help me with character building as a writer, so I took a handful of those courses which I added business studies to. Then a job opportunity happened for me at work. Once again, I changed my education course. Since then, I have been focusing on accounting and Financing.

What will I do next when school is over?

I will go back to writing. There are several works that I need to finish up writing the first drafts. I think I will shoot for the goal of finishing the first draft once a month and sitting on that draft while working on the next draft. When I have three drafts done, I would like to cycle back to that first of the drafts and go through the 2^nd draft of that story and cycle through those for up to about 3 drafts each. When I finish the 3^rd draft of the first work, I will need to begin working on a new first draft. It is all about trying to remain productive and keep the creative wheel turning.

Writers need to keep goals. If they don’t, they become complacent. I want to be a spontaneous writer.

Who knows, maybe I will finish the first draft during July while I wait for that next class to start.

What are your plans for the summer? Do you have writing goals? I would love to hear about them.

After watching the video for making Muttloaf, I decided to go ahead and give it a try. The recipe was pretty easy, and all the ingredients were simple.

The recipe I used is as follows:

2 lbs of 80% ground beef ( I went with more fat content because Keelaa does not get too much fat in her diet.
2 medium to large carrots – shredded or ground
3 medium potatoes – shredded or ground
1 can of kidney beans ( color does not matter)
4 fresh eggs

I mixed all the above ingredients in a large bowl as though I were making meatloaf.

Do not add any breadcrumbs.

I left out the garlic powder when I made these for Keelaa because I have since learned that garlic in any form is not an approved spice for dogs to eat.

I did, however, give a dash of salt and pepper along with a bit of cinnamon.

As I was mixing this, it looked tasty.

I shaped the Muttloaf into individual meatballs and made about 22 of them and baked them for about 55 minutes in a muffin tin and on a cookie sheet. The balls do hold their shape well.

Keelaa is about a 30 lb terrier cross, and she ate 1 1/2 meatball for dinner which filled her up so much that she didn’t have enough room left in her stomach for her cottage cheese.

Best of all – She loved the recipe!

Note: Mike, myself, and my son all gave this meatball try since it did not contain any dog food products. It was pretty tasty, a little on the bland side for my taste buds and may have needed a little more salt and pepper. I knew that if we liked the Muttloaf Meatballs, she would love them.