Life in progress


28 Comments

One-Liner Wednesday – Living

Live each day to the fullest, but not as though it is your last: the danger in this is it can lead to fear. Living in fear is not living at all.

CAM01097

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Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Have fun!


21 Comments

Hide Your Valuables: Guest Poster, Pavowski

The internet is this wonderful place where you can meet new people, engage in scintillating conversation, build a lovely virtual community, and then hand over the keys to a lunatic to house-sit for you while you take a long weekend.

The lunatic would be me. I’m sure Linda will pardon all the selfies I take as I put all her furniture into compromising positions. And these vomit stains will wash right out, I’m sure. Also, the bullet holes were totally already in the siding before I got here. And let’s not discuss details, but you might want to take all your potted plants outside and burn them, for their own good. We’ll just say that they’ve seen things that the average botanical ought not see. (I blame Helen Espinosa for that, actually. Do you even vet your guest hosts at all?)

Anyway, I’m taking over this joint for the week, and more to the point, I’m in the driver’s seat for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this weekend, so, you know, brace for impact and hide your kids and all that. You will probably also see an unrelated ramble from me of the sort I usually post at my own nest of iniquity. If you like what you see, feel free to stop on by and pay a visit to the cubby I knocked out of the drywall where I do my own not-quite-daily driveling at Accidentally Inspired. If you don’t like what you see, well, uh, I’m sure there’s some bleach around here somewhere. Or at least, there was, before I had to clean up after Helen. (I’m pretty sure she killed a guy in the basement, Linda. It definitely wasn’t me. Either way, uh, sorry about the corpse in the basement.)

It occurs to me that you might be curious who I am, just in case you need to make a description for the authorities later. I’m a jack of many trades, master of maybe a quarter of one. I’m a father of two, husband of one, and I sometimes write about that. I teach English at public high school just outside of Atlanta (fear for the future), and I rarely write about that. I run often, for escape and inspiration and to prepare for the zombie apocalypse, and I write about that probably more than the average person cares. Finally, I’m a writer, with two novels drafted and in various stages of editing, and about a thousand more ideas kicking around inside my skull, looking for a way out.

That’s what my blog is really all about — the day-to-day trivialities of the average Pav, working a full-time job and more or less meeting the criteria of a dad and trying like hell to write good stories that might, one day, get published, so that you could hold a book of my work with my name on it, and so that I might hopefully get a couple of dollars for my trouble.

So, yeah. That’s me, and you’re you, and if you’ll just sign these non-disclosure agreements and your life-and-limb waivers, we’ll get started.


17 Comments

To Tokyo – #SoCS

If you look very closely, you can see Mount Fuji sticking up above the clouds.

Mt. Fuji, just below the engine.

Mt. Fuji, just below the engine.

I took another picture too – I took two – but this one turned out better.

Find Stream of Consciousness Saturday here and join in!

SoCS badge 2015


43 Comments

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Nov. 21/15

It’s Friday again and unfortunately, Linda isn’t here, so you’ll have to settle for me instead. I hope I can fill her very large shoes without falling on my face. (I guess I made it out alive last year, so I don’t know why this one is making me shake so much…)

Do you ever have something that gets stuck in your head and you think “that’s not very good so I’m going to think of something else;” only, you can’t come up with anything else because all you can think about is that very first thing? Yeah, that’s what happened when I was thinking about this week’s prompt. I finally decided to give in and post the original prompt because it obviously wants some air time.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “to/too/two.” Use one, use them all, but most of all, just have fun!

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!

To make your post more visible, use the SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!

SoCS badge 2015

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!


14 Comments

NanoPoblano Day 18 – …okay, not really. But there’s coffee!

Saying it’s been a rough couple of days is an understatement of mammoth proportions. But the time’s finally here: I’m packed (almost) and just about ready to wake up to a day of traveling. By this time tomorrow night I’ll be a little more than half-way across the Pacific Ocean on my way to sunny (or actually, according to the forecast probably rainy) Tokyo. I’ve mapped out my route from the train station to the hotel this time, so no more wandering the streets until my legs threaten to fall off.

Since I won’t be around for a while, I thought I’d post this tonight. It’s something you can all discuss amongst yourselves in the comments. The subject is coffee. Who doesn’t love coffee? (That’s not what I want to discuss, but if you have to… just try not to get into any fights, okay? Some of us are pretty passionate about our caffeinated beverages.)

What I’m really interested in is how you all go about ordering coffee. In Japan you ask for “kohi” (pronounced almost like coffee) but I was warned that if I don’t want something I can suspend a spoon in, I should always request an “American kohi.” So there’s that.

Last time I was in London, I ordered a coffee and they asked me if I wanted it “black” or “white.” … coffee’s black, right? So I ordered black. The look I got when I asked for cream could have backed up a parked truck. I was told off that I should have ordered it “white” in the first place. Lesson learned.

Here in Canada on the other hand, we ask more for what we want IN our coffee than we actually order coffee. If you walk into a Tim Horton’s and ask for a “double-double,” they’ll give you a cup of steamy deliciousness with two shots of cream and two spoonsfull of sugar. There’s no question that what you want is coffee – everyone wants coffee! Right? Right. Of course Starbucks is a different story altogether. No matter what country you’re in, if you don’t brush up on your Italian at the door you can expect a tutorial before you empty your wallet.

What about where you live? Or where you’ve traveled to? Talk about it with each other and I’ll read all your anecdotes the next time I go online… IN JAPAN!!

See you on the flipside!

NanoPoblano’s a blast even if you cheat – check it out!

nanopoblano2015dark


17 Comments

One-Liner Wednesday – The Best Season

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Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

~ Wu-men ~
Found here: http://cookdingskitchen.blogspot.co.il/2015/08/internal-martial-arts-explained.html

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Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Have fun!


4 Comments

Tuesday Use It In A Sentence – Cabalistic

Her cabalistic habits sometimes got in the way of her household budget – she couldn’t go to the grocery store without buying half a dozen candles in different shapes and sizes.

 

Join us at Tuesday Use It In a Sentence! Visit A Word Adventure this week to find out how. 😀

 

 


6 Comments

NanoPoblano Day 15 – kind of

Yes, I’ve posted every day this month so far. No, I haven’t linked every day to NanoPoblano. Coz you know what? It feels like the first thing that goes when I’m stressed is the enthusiasm for anything that’s not deathly necessary. And a lot of things right now are deathly necessary. On top of that, it seems the world is in turmoil and there’s nothing I can do about it. So I offer you a picture. I’ve been waiting for the right time to post it and this feels like it. It’s not a dove, but they are white birds.

May you have peace this evening, where ever you are.

CAM00994

https://rarasaur.wordpress.com/nanopoblano-2015/


13 Comments

#SoCS – Describable

This is a post I’ve been procrastinating on all day, because … there is nothing to describe. It is, of course, about the attacks on Paris. The attacks all over the world, but understandably it is Paris we relate to because if it can happen at a concert somewhere in the “civilized” Western world then it can happen in our own back yards. But that’s not where my mind is going. Where my mind is going is how do we stop it.

I’ve spent the day considering how a follower of Tao, as I am, would handle this and the only thing I can come up with is this: teach by example. We must teach our children tolerance. We must be tolerant. Human suffering goes on everywhere. Yes, some suffering is more … extensive? That’s not really the word I’m looking for. Prolonged. Yes, prolonged. But suffering is a human condition. And until we can teach our children that we are all equal, whether we are disabled, or have different languages, or colour of skin, the truth is we are all human and we all feel the same things… until we can teach our kids that THAT is what is important and not what we believe is out there in the cosmos, or what might have created us or guided another human being to write a book – until we can teach our children that what really matters is that whomever our neighbour is that they feel the same things we feel and dream of the same happiness we dream of, until THEN, there will be wars and intolerance and discontentedness and hurt and pain in the name of that which only matters within the confines of our own minds and our own homes.

All lives are precious. ALL of them. This is not indescribable. It does not defy description. It transcends it.

SoCS badge 2015Join in today: https://lindaghill.com/2015/11/13/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-1415/ Stream of Consciousness Saturday is for everyone. 🙂


45 Comments

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Nov. 14/15

It’s Friday the thirteenth and it’s your lucky day. Why? Because I’m here with your prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday! This will be my last prompt for a few weeks since I’ll be in Japan, but don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. You’ll have two exciting guest posters to create your prompt for the next two weeks. They’ll be posting before Friday to say hi; make sure you give them a warm welcome! In the meantime, here’s this week’s prompt:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “indescribable.”  Use the actual word in your post or just base your post on something that defies description. My suggestion on this one; think about something that you’re passionate about and just start writing. Have fun!

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!

To make your post more visible, use the SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!

SoCS badge 2015

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!