Life in progress

Category Archives: Life


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JusJoJan24 the 28th – Families

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and today’s prompt comes to us courtesy of Kim. Check out her blog here!

Some family members you can happily live with, some not so much.

But I don’t think you’ll disagree that there are some family members none of us want to live with: the members of the rodent family.

True story that happened many years ago:

I walked into my kitchen one morning in time to see a mouse run under my stove. I shrieked, not because I’m afraid of mice, but because it startled me. I immediately got down on my hands and knees to look for the little critter, but there was no sign of it. I pulled out the drawer under the stove—nothing. It had disappeared.

But there were droppings. Lots of droppings.

I had someone pull the stove out from the wall to see if there was a hole it could have gotten through, but nothing was obvious. The next step was to take the side panels off the stove. Sure enough, there were more droppings in the insulation between the outside and inside walls of my oven. They’d built a nest. In my stove.

So I sold the house.

…

…

Okay, the family of mice might not have been the entire reason I sold the house, but I never cooked in the oven again—I didn’t want to bake the little buggers alive!—and the oven stayed in the house when I moved.

I did leave a note for the new owners.

It went something like:

The stove is yours, but not yours alone …

This reminiscing post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thank you so much again, Kim, for the prompt!


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JusJoJan24 the 28th – Changes

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and today’s prompt was kindly provided by Fandango. Check out his blog here!

Ah, how I’ve changed.

I used to be happy to walk into places where people congregate.

Malls, planes, crowded city streets, concerts—squashed in a sea of screaming, singing people? Let’s go!

But now …

No thanks.

I wonder sometimes if I’d have changed in this way even if it hadn’t been for the pandemic.

I mean, we change as we get older. Right?

There was a time when I thought I’d be happy to live my life spending all my spare time riding a horse. Sure, I’d like to do it again, but I don’t miss it.

So yeah. Congregating online has become more my speed. I can do that and be a desk jockey at the same time.

This thought-inducing post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Many thanks again, Fandango, for the prompt!


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JusJoJan24 the 26th – Who knew I’d miss it?

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and today’s prompt was kindly provided by Jemima. Check out her blog here!

Here in Ontario, Canada, we’ve had some pretty atrocious snow storms. I remember one year—I think it was in 1977—when the snow came down so hard and fast and there was so much wind, it completely buried our back door. There was a five-foot window above the door and the snow covered half of that too.

But that was then.

Now we have all this rain coming down, and it’s almost February!

I miss the snow. I miss the predictability of it.

And I miss winter feeling like winter, no matter how much I inevitably complain about it.

This strange harking-back post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again, Jemima, for the prompt!


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JusJoJan24 the 22nd – It’s the mood

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and today’s prompt comes to us from Dar. Check out her blog here!

I get heartburn. Like, sometimes it goes on for days, then sometimes it just disappears.

I’ve been watching what I eat for almost four years now—it started when the pandemic did—and trying to figure out if it’s something I’m consuming or how much or how little I’m consuming. For a while, I even thought it might be too much water.

But as it turns out, it’s looking more and more like mood that brings it on.

Things like worry and stress.

So okay, fine. I can just relax and be happy. Right?

Easy.

But seriously, knowing what’s causing it has helped. I’m learning to accept things I can’t change.

And I’m learning that the more I write things down that I need to do, the less I have to stress over remembering to do them.

So in a strange way, you could say my heartburn is helping me.

This rather convoluted post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thank you again, Dar, for the prompt!


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JusJoJan24 the 21st – Not a chance

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and today’s prompt is courtesy of J-dub. Check out her blog here!

If there was one thing I wish I did better, it’s growing things. I’d love to have a house full of plants, but they don’t stand a chance with me.

Maybe if they could scream at me like my kids do when they want attention…

This short, sweet, non-green post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks so much again to J-dub for the prompt!


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JusJoJan24 the 19th – Tenaciousness pays off

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and today’s prompt is courtesy of Cheryl. Check out her blog here!

I did it! I managed to authenticate my email address without breaking my blog!

It took a lot of determination and more than a little confusion over all those acronyms, but it is done.

You see, Google and Yahoo are changing what they’ll accept and what they’re going to send to spam in regards to email addresses with endings that aren’t from Google (@gmail dot com) or Yahoo (@yahoo, etc.). So there was a good chance that a great majority of the lovely people who subscribe to my newsletter wouldn’t get it after February 1st, since my email address is linda@lindaghill.com.

All this to say the job had to be done.

And I did it!

This celebratory post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Much appreciation once again to Cheryl for the prompt!


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JusJoJan24 the 18th – Ahhh!!

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt for today comes to us from Carol Anne. Check out her blog here!

It’s been an interesting day for my blog. And by interesting, I mean scary. You may have noticed it kinda went down for a while.

I spent most of the morning trying to authenticate the email address that’s associated with my domain. I still don’t know whether it worked, but whatever I did in the attempt made me despair for the coming days and weeks of Just Jot it January!

Anyway, in changing the DKIM and the SPF and DNS, I apparently DNR the instructions ASAP and ended up UN-securing my website. I cried. I screamed, I … Okay, I didn’t do either of those things, but I might have yelled “WHAT THE HELL?”

And then I emailed WordPress. And they got back to me three minutes later with a fix.

So my despair was short-lived. For now. But the authentication thing? Still not happening.

If my website disappears again, know it’s just me fiddling around with things I probably shouldn’t be touching.

TYFL to my rant.

This decidedly UNcomfortable post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again to Carol Anne for the prompt!


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JusJoJan24 the 16th – Little variation

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt for today is courtesy of John Holton. Check out his blog here!

I’m finding myself more and more becoming a creature of habit, and I’m comfortable with that.

Some of it comes as a result of COVID. I used to go to the grocery store whenever I needed something. But when the lockdowns started, I chose a day of the week, first thing in the morning, and got everything I needed for the entire week in one go.

And I’m still doing it almost four years later.

But it has gone beyond that.

Because I always go to the same store, there are always the same things on the shelves. Which has made it difficult to get inspired to buy different things to eat.

So I pick up the same things with little variation every week.

And most of the time, I’m comfortable with that.

This decidedly comfortable post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again to John for the prompt!


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JusJoJan24 the 15th – But why?

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt for today comes from Astrid. Check out her blog here!

I remember waaaayy back in Kindergarten loving arts and crafts. Being able to paint and make things to take home was the best part of my day.

But somewhere in there, between those earliest days of my schooling and Grade 8, I decided I didn’t like making things in class any more.

And I don’t know why.

Considering my love for creating things with yarn, you’d think I would have loved arts and crafts. Unless I got turned off by my inability to draw.

Case in point: the Just Jot it January badge below.

Because I really suck at drawing.

This overly honest post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Much appreciation to Astrid for the prompt!


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JusJoJan24 the 14th – It’s what I do

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and today’s prompt comes from Joanne. Check out her blog here!

“Writing” is the prompt of the day—it’s something I’ve written about many times here on my blog. So in deciding what to write about writing today, I’ve come up with only one idea: what writing is to me now.

I was told long ago that having a career as a novelist would inevitably turn what I love into a job.

And yes, there are days when it does feel like a bit of a grind, but they are few and far between.

When I’m in the thick of a novel and discovering, plucking out of the air the stories that my characters are telling me, writing is still every bit as much fun as it was when, as I child, I used stories as an escape from loneliness. Back then, sometimes I wrote them down, but most times I just wrote them in my head, going over and over them, starting from the beginning every time and adding a little to the end.

The joy of those stories meant that I was never really alone. I had my characters to keep me company.

In that, not a lot has changed.

And no, it’s still not so much a job as it is a way of living.

This thought-inducing post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks so much again to Joanne for the prompt!