I’ll be off in a couple of hours to take my mother home and spend the weekend there with her. She doesn’t have internet, so my status will be set to “offline” for the weekend. If there’s time I’ll write a post to schedule. If not, I’ll see you all Sunday night.
Take care everyone!
Oh, and here’s a pretty picture of my deck from two days ago. The two feet of snow looked like foam – it certainly kept it’s own shape!
On the final day of Just Jot it January, I’d like to take the opportunity to say a huge thank you everyone who participated. I discovered some fantastic blogs during the course of the month. I was going to design a badge for everyone who joined in, but, life happened and I ran out of time. If I get a chance over the weekend, I’ll send one to each of you.
So here are a list of the amazing people who stood with me in this event, held my hand, and played along in the fun that has been JusJoJan! I strongly suggest you check them out if you haven’t already.
In the seemingly random order of the pingbacks:
Margaret (Myas) at A Tragic Lady But No TB. Her blog is like sitting down over a cup of coffee in a warm and inviting kitchen.
Willow at Willowdot21 for wonderful and adventurous poetry.
Miss Lou at Miss Lou Aquiring Lore for opinions, excitement and fun.
Bill at The Frisco Kid of Texas for great reviews and more.
Pamela at Poetry by Pamela. She’s new to the poetry game, but she’s a natural.
Cindy at Dreamsinalaska. If you love Haiku, you’ll love Cindy.
Belinda at Idiot Writing. Her witty articles and art are a must to see.
KG at Books, Music, Photography & Movies for fabulous photography … and books and music and movies.
Deborah at Container Chronicles for her teaching adventures overseas.
Susan at Putting in a good word for poetry, book reviews, fiction and life in Australia.
Randee at A String of Pearls for an interesting slice of life.
Give yourselves a pat on the back, and let’s all do it again next year!
I didn’t want to go to bed tonight without saying at least a broad thank you for all the congratulations on my blogaversary, and to all those who visited my fiction site and read the first installment of my story. I’ll be back tomorrow to say thank you in person… yes, I will be knocking at your door. 😉
I’ve been away from the computer today because I was busy retrieving my mother from hospital after a five day stay with pneumonia. Trust me, pneumonia is not a nice thing to stay with. After that, I had to drag 124 newspapers through the snowbanks around my neighbourhood to get them delivered. The good news is (apart from my mum being well enough to come home) I got a picture of the same old house I posted a photo of last week, but at night.
Enjoy!
Thanks again!
Today is unofficially my one year blog anniversary!
I joined WordPress in July 2012, wrote one post and promptly forgot about my blog. Then, on January 30th of last year, I began what has grown to what you see here. I had no idea what to expect at first. I remember being both thrilled and confused when I received my first ‘like.’ Who could possibly like me? I thought. How would anyone even know I exist?
The more I explored my reader and found people with similar interests, the more I learned. And then one day I took a chance. I made a joke in a comment on someone else’s blog. He was fairly new at the game as well and, as it turned out, he seemed as amazed as I was at how many people had noticed him. Granted, at the time I only had ten followers (he was one) and he had already 300. It won’t surprise some of you that that fellow blogger was the one and only Opinionated Man. I’m so grateful to him for teaching me so much about blogging, and especially how to form friendships here in our WordPress world. Thank you, Jason, my dear.
In celebration of my anniversary, I’m re-posting my first post. I’m putting it up on my fiction blog, since my foray into blogging started with my semi-fictional series about a boy: a poor boy who survives abuse and rises up to become a star.
Click here to find One Poor Boy
While it’s not fireworks; nor anthems; nor parades, it means something to me. I hope you’ll go today, and each day to read it and to celebrate with me the life of a character I care so much about.
Now pass the champagne!
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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!
1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!
When I came across this statement (above) on Facebook it made me think. And then it made me think some more.
My first reaction was to recognize that I say this all the time: Everything happens for a reason. And while I do believe somewhere deep inside that it does, I believe even more the two word statement, everything happens. The other saying I often use is, Shit happens and there’s nothing anybody can do about it, which is probably the more accurate of the two. I don’t say it often to anyone but myself however, since it’s not very consoling.
Saying everything happens for a reason is a way to make me feel like I’m in control of a situation I have no control over. By considering what happened, whatever it is, and going through everything that happened as a result can be comforting, especially if the results were in some way positive. And let’s face it – you can always find something positive in something awful if you look hard enough. While it may not make up for the bad thing that happened, it’s better than nothing.
I have to realize, in the end, that there are things that are beyond my control. Whether I look for the good in them or not, they happen. Am I lying to someone when I console them with the statement above? I don’t think so, not if I can help them to find a glimmer where there would otherwise be a lack of hope.
Whether or not everything happens for a reason, you can decide for yourself. But to me it seems that simply saying “Everything happens,” is freeing. It takes the burden away of trying to control that which is out of my hands.
I’ll still look for silver linings, and I probably still won’t be telling people that shit happens and there’s nothing they can do about it. But I’ll be thinking it, now more than ever.
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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!
1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!
I’m really amazed at how these turned out. The colour seems to depend on how much light is in the frame when I take the shot. Taken with my LG Smart Phone, through the window; these are basically pictures of where I was standing when I took the photo the other night of the icicles on my house. Taken tonight:
I came across an article today which drives home the importance of editing and putting out one’s absolute best work when self-publishing. I would have re-blogged, but that wasn’t an option.
This: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/01/28/follow-up-on-self-publishing-readers-are-not-good-gatekeepers/ is the article, by Chuck Wendig. In it, he explains how self-publishing is becoming a decent and viable option to traditional means, and how that could change if self-published authors present sub-par efforts to the reading public. It’s an excellent article. You should read it, even if you’re not an author.
If you’re wondering about the “Part Two” in the title, and you’re new around here, you can find my original post on this subject here: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/the-future-of-publishing-crap/
Before I started writing poetry, I hated reading it. Half the time I found it boring, and the other half I simply didn’t ‘get.’ It was unexciting and confusing. When I came across it in the middle of a novel (Lord of the Rings is a perfect example) I skipped over it or skimmed it.
What I realized, however, the first time I wrote a poem, was that it’s a way of drawing a mental image on paper. Unlike fiction, in poetry anything goes and no one is going to question whether or not a heart can sing, or a colour can have a scent. Good poetry can connect people on a deep level: through senses.
In my experience with poetry since I started to write it, I’ve never managed to accomplish writing in any of the dozens if not hundreds of forms, other than a couple of haiku. The idea of following a rhyming scheme or a particular metre hurts my brain in ways that cease to make the writing of a poem pleasant. Occasionally I’ll write something that actually rhymes, and I do try to keep to some type of rhythm – mostly I’m scribbling to the beat of my own drummer – but the importance, to me, is getting the mood and the sensation across to my reader.
There are people out there who won’t read free verse poetry; some even believe that it’s hack writing, and turn their nose up at it. There are those who will read it and enjoy it, but never practice writing it.
I’ve learned that poetry, like music, is a universal. Well written, it can convey the human condition in ways that no other art form can. It speaks to our emotions, our senses, and connects our life experiences.
I’d like to know what you think: what is most important to you? What is your criteria for reading poetry, or for writing it? Is it the feeling, or making sure it rhymes? When you come across it in the middle of a novel, do you skip it, or do you read it and re-read it to get the full meaning?
Expound at will, and feel free to illustrate your thoughts in poetry, in the comments! Or just tell it like you see it. I want to hear from you!
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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!
1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!
It must be incredibly frustrating to lose one’s memory. We’ve all been there. It’s like when you’re having a pleasant conversation with a friend and something happens to distract you, and when you turn back to continue talking, you can’t remember what you were discussing.
For my mother, at almost 84 years of age, it’s gone far beyond. It started with the memory, then progressed to logic. For instance, last weekend I came down the stairs to find her trying to drag Alex into the next room by the hand. When I asked her what she was doing, she said he’d been bugging the hell out of her, screaming in her ear but now she was trying to get him into the next room to hook him up to his feeding pump.
“It doesn’t matter what I do,” she said. “I try ignoring him, but whenever I walk away he follows me.”
“So, why are you trying to drag him?” I asked.
“Because when I ask him, he won’t come with me,” she answered. “He won’t do anything I ask him.”
“So just walk away… he’ll follow you…”
I waited for her to get it, but she didn’t–not even when she walked into the room where his feeding pump was, and he followed her.
Most of the time, all I can do is roll my eyes.
Now, however, she’s in the hospital with pneumonia. They’re talking about letting her out on Wednesday, but her memory has begun to get so bad that she can’t remember what day it is. Not a good combination when she has meds to take.
I’m going to have to seriously start looking into retirement homes, before I end up in the hospital, sick with stress. That I’m going to have to figure out a way to look after her is precisely why I wanted to have more than one child: I didn’t expect two of them would probably never be independent, let alone unable to help with my care when I get to my mother’s age. Government and community run home care is going to be an even worse state than it is now; I’m at the tail end of the baby boom, and resources and funds will surely be depleted.
Now, where was I? Oh yes. Memory. If I leave my mother on her own I’m afraid she’ll under- or over-medicate herself. Just last weekend, she forgot it was still Saturday and she took Sunday’s pills as well. She needs supervision. There’s no way Alex would let her get a moment’s rest here – so what do I do? I’m only one person. I can ask my friend, John, to help out, but he has a life and a job. I need a babysitter for my mother.
The sandwich generation strikes again.
Why is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse playing on my television screen?
Because it’s a snow day.
Why is it a snow day?
Because the plows haven’t been out yet, so the buses aren’t running.
Why haven’t the plows been out? This is Canada!! We get snow!!!
Purportedly, the town I’m in hasn’t seen a real winter in five years. I haven’t been here that long, but I can say that out of three green Christmases I’ve experienced in my lifetime, two have been here in the last four years. So, okay. I get it. They probably didn’t budget for a real winter here this year.
But come on! The equipment is there – I’ve seen it. It came by yesterday. The staff has been hired … look out the window, city snow removal people! There are kids who really REALLY want to go to school! I can tell by the completely-absorbed-in-tv-and-computer-look on my little darling’s face that he can’t wait…
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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!
1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!
lindaghill.com 