When you’ve got a cold, do you ever wonder why you didn’t appreciate being healthy when you were? And then, when you get rid of the cold, you sigh and think, yes – I will always appreciate this feeling of not being sick until, like, the next day when you totally start taking it for granted again.
Why do they call it a cold when it makes you hot?
When it was hot in the summer, my mother used to swear by drinking hot tea. This was back in the days before homes were air conditioned and we just had to live with it. Her theory was that a hot drink made you sweat more, and when you sweated (is that a word? It doesn’t look like a word. Don’t you hate it when that happens?) …anyway, when your body produced sweat (better), the air, though hot, cooled you off more than if you had just been sweating normally. Like you do on a hot day.
My mother may have been crazy. I realize that now.
Yet it means that I don’t shy away from drinking the hot coffee I crave, nay, need in the middle of summer. Or in stupid temperatures in the fall like we’re having now.
Gah! Why do I struggle so much to write something positive these days? To write something – anything – of my own volition? I swear, if it wasn’t for these prompts, I might not write at all for weeks on end. Which is strange, really, because when I start, it’s natural. It just goes. Before I go off on a tangent, I want to say thank you. To all of you who help me keep going with my prompts. Because though they may originate here, if it wasn’t for all of you reading and participating in them, I’d have no motivation to keep it up some weeks. Thank you. 🙂
I’m not going to get this posted on Saturday, but I’m happy I at least started it with a minute or two to spare. I’ve spent the day working and occasionally tending to my son Chris’s needs. And talking to my mother on the phone about half a dozen times, allaying her fears that there really is nothing to worry about when she finds a note in her room that she wrote about something she was trying to remember to do three years ago. I swear sometimes it would be best to go through her room when she’s not there and empty it of every scrap of paper once a week. She’s always been a worrier. Now she finds something to worry about and with her dementia, she can discover it for the first time ten times in the space of an hour.
I actually tried not giving birth to an only child, as I am, so that only one child would be stuck looking after me as I age. As it turns out, my eldest will likely be stuck with both me and his two disabled brothers. Life just isn’t fair.
Gah! Why do I struggle so much to write something positive these days? (Yes, I copied that.)
So I was at the hospital with Alex the other day, and I was amazed at how many people I recognized from when he was there for the first eight months of his life. Not only that, there were so many of those people who recognized me. I must have made an impression. Or Alex did. He was admitted for a night after vomiting as he came out of anaesthesia and they were afraid that he may have aspirated. He spent the night with the nurses at the desk, apparently, hanging out and flirting. He didn’t want to leave the hospital when it was time to go. I remember one time he was in ICU after having a second surgery in the space of two days. He’d had sleep apnea and the first surgery wasn’t as successful as they’d hoped. Even after all that, he managed to wrap every nurse in the ICU around his little finger. I’ve never seen so many nurses drop what they were doing (in the bloody ICU!) to wave goodbye to him as they wheeled him on a stretcher out the door and back up to the ward where he would spend another few days recovering.
He gets it from his dad, I’m sure. I’m simply not that charming.
But soon we won’t have that particular hospital to go to anymore. It’s a children’s hospital, and Alex will turn seventeen in five weeks. I fear the adult hospital may not be as good.
Not sure whether or not this is technically cheating (since I make up the rules), but I’m using this week’s one-liner Wednesday to let you know I’m going away for a couple of days – Alex has dental surgery on Thursday morning.
Here’s a pretty picture to make up for my sucky one-liner.
If you would like to participate in this prompt, 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 pingback, 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.
NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback 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. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.
3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
4. Add our very cool badge to your post for extra exposure!
There are times when motivation to see results is enough to get me to do the things I need to do, like dishes, or cooking for my kids so they don’t starve (okay, most of that is complaining, but whatever), or writing something so other people can read it. But other times, procrastination has a louder voice in my head. Facebook taunts me to see what the next thing on my newsfeed will be, and all the while procrastination is screaming, “Make me! Make me sweep the floor!” like an errant toddler.
Because really, procrastination is like a stubborn child. Think about it. It does what IT wants to do, not what’s gotta be done. It only cares about itself. It’s greedy and doesn’t like to share us with its grown-up counterpart, Responsibility.
It’s no wonder we need nice, shiny things to keep us motivated a lot of the time. In our everyday lives, when all is well and we’re stuck in our daily routines, something shiny is what we look forward to. To reach for. It’s no wonder I get more writing done during NaNoWriMo, what with that lovely graph to reach the top of. Something you might be able to relate to as a blogger, if you’re not an author, is the stats page. Who doesn’t want to get to the next level? Get more views than the year before? (Yes, I know some of you don’t pay attention to stats. Weirdos.) Goals. We all need goals. Otherwise, life is static.
So I’m off to do something I’m supposed to do. And not feed the screaming toddler. (Procrastination–I don’t mean my kids.)
I’ve had all kinds of bugs in my house: when I moved in we had pantry moths; it took two years to get rid of those. We’ve had flies, fruit flies … we even had a spate of lady bugs one year. Since spring this year, I’ve had an overabundance of snails slowly making their way around the front outside wall of my house. And now, this …
Two mornings ago I was in my kitchen, chatting with my son, when he pointed to the floor and said, is that a dead wasp? It was. They were. About two dozen of them, some still alive and walking around stupidly, but most were dead. They were all around my kitchen table, in the windows and on the table.
Yesterday morning I only found two, both dead.
This morning, I found out at least what was killing them. When I came downstairs to prepare Alex’s feeding pump at 5:30, I turned the light on. By the time I went back upstairs, there were a couple of wasps flying around the kitchen light over the table. I left it on, as I do, and went back upstairs only to realize I’d forgotten my phone. When I came back down, there were about half a dozen wasps, all flying around the unshaded incandescent bulb.
I deduced that the heat from the lightbulb is killing them. When I finally investigated, after Alex had gone to school–if I tell him about it, he’ll never sit at the table again–I found about a dozen, this time as many alive (but stupid) as dead. Problem is, I have no idea where they’re coming from.
So I’m guessing my best bet is to leave the light on, and hope they die when it gets cold outside. Because I ain’t hanging around in my kitchen to see where they’re crawling in while they’re alive and active.
Or maybe I’ll just go live outside with the snails.
It’s been a while since I just rambled about my life in progress. Some of what I have to share has to do with my blog as well, since what is life without the Internet? Seriously.
Yesterday I spent an hour trying to change the size of Alex’s Youtube movie on his screen, because he said it was too small. I tried the settings in his account, I tried the settings on the computer, I switched computers, I switched browsers … I even downloaded a new browser onto his laptop, all the while with him screaming in my ear and signing “fix it! It’s too small!” For an hour. All to discover he wasn’t having a meltdown over the size of the movie, but rather the brand new Youtube logo on the top left corner of the screen. Ah, the joys of living with a kid with OCD.
Alex goes back to school on Tuesday!!! (To understand my excitement, see above.)
I’m so busy with my new freelance editing business, I need a schedule to fit everyone in.
It cost me $73 the other day for the dentist to look at my sore gums and tell me I need to rinse my mouth with salt water for a week. I suppose it could have been worse.
I have a book signing at Chapters on October 1st in Kingston, where my novel is set!! Equally nervous and excited!!!
As of tomorrow, there’s a change coming to this blog. I’ve started scheduling my fiction series, “Scenes from the Second Seat on the Right.” The scenes will appear once a day for the next year (there are 365 of them). Some are funny, some serious, some downright sick, most are realistic, yet some are pure fantasy. If you want to learn more about them, see the link in the menu at the top of my blog page. I’m happy to be posting them here, but at the same time I’m a bit worried that I’ll lose followers over them. We’ll see.
The internal battery in my laptop is almost dead. It gives me a warning every time I turn it on. Is this important?
I may be reserved in my fiction writing, but here at home we use adjectives with wild abandon.
(The original message was “Dead Bee under counter no stinger,” spelled out after my son stepped on a bee in the kitchen in the middle of the night. Leave words on my fridge and they morph over time.)
If you would like to participate in this prompt, 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 pingback, 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.
NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback 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. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.
3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
4. Add our very cool badge to your post for extra exposure!
The obligatory eight-legged occupant is back in my kitchen this year. Every summer, a small spider moves in and makes a web far enough away from where I normally walk that I leave it, thinking why not? It’ll eat the occasional fly and I won’t have to race around my kitchen with a tea towel chasing it (the fly). By July my occupant is medium-sized and by the end of August it’s a giant, sitting in the middle of its web patiently waiting for its next meal. It’s definitely more patient than my kids, I’ll give it that.
Except this year I have two eight-legged occupants in my kitchen. They’re about six feet apart and so far I’ve seen neither stray from its web. I just hope one of them doesn’t decide to visit its neighbour.
If I have hundreds of eight-legged occupants in my kitchen next year, I’m moving out. I already have hundreds of six-legged occupants in my kitchen. Fruit flies have six legs, don’t they? They’re too small to dissect, and anyway, by the time I’ve gotten one to slow down, it’s flat.
This post is going downhill. I’d better put an end to it.
Awesome new badge up there ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 😀
Stream of Consciousness Saturday is a weekly prompt that I run … and sometimes I even participate before Sunday gets here! If you’d like to check out the prompt and read some of the other posts (which you’ll find links to in the comments) click on the following link: https://lindaghill.com/2017/08/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-1917/
July 19th, 2013: My trip to Kingston was interesting indeed. With so many strange goings-on, I can’t help but wonder if I somehow ended up in my own novel. Without giving too much away, this is how it went:
The Hochelaga Inn was much as I expected. Built in 1879, it has been well-preserved not only in its physical appearance, but for its ambiance as well.
A Welcoming Prayer
Peace and rest, however, although perhaps wished upon me by the Management and Staff, were not what the Inn itself had in store.
Having not a great deal of money, but wishing to take an extended weekend away, I booked the cheapest room in the Inn for the first two nights, (Saturday and Sunday) and the Tower room–the most expensive–for one night (Monday).
My first night didn’t include much sleep. Three times during the course of my slumber, I was awoken by the fire alarm, which was situated on the ceiling beside a spinning fan, for no apparent reason. When I asked about it at reception the next morning, because I thought there might have been a problem in another room, they said they had no idea what had happened. Unfortunately, I was told, the Tower room was booked for that night, otherwise they’d have moved me in there early. So I gave back my room key with an assurance that I would be moved to another room for my second night at no extra cost.
The conversation between the two ladies I had spoken to at the desk, overheard after I walked away, went something like this:
“Her fire alarm went off three times last night.”
“Wooooo …” in a ghostly voice.
Okey dokey then.
Later, when I arrived back at the Inn after spending a lovely day wandering around Kingston and getting burned to a potato chip by the sun, I was handed the key for the Tower room.
“We were able to move you up there a day early,” the lady said without further explanation.
The house wants me in the Tower, I thought.
I happily I went up to my room to take a few pictures before dark.
The lower part of the tower.
The view from the top
It was a long day and I didn’t feel like doing much, so I sat on the bed with my feet up and watched a movie on my laptop. I didn’t bother to turn on the lights, and by half-way through the movie (The Brave, with and by Johnny Depp if you’re wondering) it was dark. That was when my friend decided to come along. I didn’t take a picture of my friend, and in fact I’m quite proud of myself for not throwing my laptop across the room. Let’s just say he had eight legs and appeared to be the size of Jaws as he scurried across my screen.
My second night didn’t include much sleep either. I think my camera catches quite well the state my eyes were in by Monday morning:
A lovely blurred view from the lower tower window
I spent most of Monday driving around town. I went to the VIA Rail station, where my two main characters disembark after having met on the train, and I was able to record many small details such as the waiting room seat colours and the fact that there are sliding glass doors on both the back and front. I drove from there to where my story is set–where I imagine the house to be–to see how long the journey would take, as well as noting different things they might see on the way.
When I got back ‘home,’ the first thing I did was look for the spider. There was no sign of him whatsoever.
Yay! I thought. I’m going to get a good night’s sleep!
HA!
So I was downstairs talking to the lady at reception again after having spent a few minutes poring over a framed blueprint of the Inn, from 1920 when they were hooking up the electricity. The house had changed quite a bit, and we were having a lovely discussion about where the rooms were and the staircase that wasn’t there any more etc.. when she mentioned the ghost.
“There’s a ghost here?” I asked, my eyes like saucers, I’m sure.
From there I went to a bar. Okay, I went to a restaurant. But must say I indulged just a little. As it turned out, I was sitting on the patio waiting for my bill when a strange looking man wearing a black cape and holding a lantern (click on the Haunted Walk link above for a visual) exited the building that housed the restaurant. He stopped and stood not six feet away, waiting. It took me a few seconds to realize he was the tour guide for The Haunted Walk. (Like I said, I’d had a few.) So I thought it might be fun to talk to him.
“Excuse me, are you guiding the Haunted Walk tonight?” (All right, all right. Maybe I was sloshed.)
“Yes,” he replied.
“I’m staying at one of the places on your tour: The Hochelaga.”
“Yes, that is one of the places we visit,” he said politely.
“Would you like me to put a sheet over my head and stand at the window in the Tower?”
I thought he was going to blow a gasket.
“YES!” he exclaimed, all but jumping up and down in excitement. “The people would love that!”
So guess what I did?
At dusk. I turned on the lights in the Tower so they would glow.
After the people left (they actually pointed at me, standing at the very top window at the front, looking down) I turned on the lights and went outside to take a picture of the most incredible Hochelaga Inn.
And that night? I slept like a baby knowing the ghost was safely tucked in bed.
Spooky, no?
To this day the spirit of the place haunts me. My characters, whose footsteps I was privileged enough to walk in, are with me in a way they weren’t before. The sights I saw are imprinted on my vision, deep and immovable. I’m lucky to have been able to visit the wondrous settings from which I was able to tell my story.
If you’d like to visit The Hochelaga Inn, click here for their website. I highly recommend it for its ambiance, its breakfast, and for the experience of sleeping in such a beautiful old Victorian mansion.
My Gothic paranormal romance, The Magician’s Curse, which is set in Kingston and features a house that is inspired by The Hochelaga Inn, is available on Kindle, Kobo, and in paperback on Amazon, as well as on the shelf in the Novel Idea Bookstore at 156 Princess Street in Kingston.
If you would like to participate in this prompt, 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 pingback, 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.
NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback 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. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.
3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
4. Add our very cool badge to your post for extra exposure!
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