Life in progress

Category Archives: Life


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Urban – #AtoZChallenge

The word “urban” is making me want to cheat and find another word.

Although, according to Merriam-Webster online, urban means “of, relating to, characteristic of, or constituting a city,” the word always conjures houses on the outskirts of a city. The city is where the businesses and apartment buildings are, and the residential areas are urban. No?

Or maybe I’m thinking of the suburbs. Which I suppose means sub (below) the urbs (the city).

I’ve only once lived outside of the urbs. On a farm where I shoveled horse poop for a living. Such a glamorous job, and yet so rewarding. I know some people just can’t stand to reside in the city, and some wouldn’t live in the country unless they were dragged there kicking and screaming. Me? I’m comfortable anywhere. I love the quiet and I enjoy the constant noise–mostly because after a while I don’t hear it anymore.

Then again, crickets are everywhere in the summer.

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Want something to drown out the crickets? Then buy my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette, “All Good Stories”! You won’t hear them over the sound of your own giggling.

It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“A delightful read!!” ~ Cheryl Lynn Roberts, 4 stars, Amazon Canada review

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories


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#SoCS – Spirited – #AtoZChallenge

I just looked up my thesaurus word for the A to Z Challenge and I have no idea how, off the top of my head, to use it with the word “spell,” which is the prompt for SoCS.

Now I have that out of the way (did I cheat?), I’ll say that when I hear the word “spirited,” my mind immediately goes to horses. I’ve known some spirited horses in my day. And I’ve known some lazy ones.

Through my 20s, I worked on a dude ranch, taking trails out. Some of the animals we used for the trails always had kids on them–they were the horses that were easy to handle, meaning they did nothing out of the ordinary, never moved any faster than they absolutely had to, and never strayed from following the bum of the horse in front of them. Until we got to the apple orchard. It was fine most of the year, but when the apples started growing, we’d constantly have a paying customer scraped off their horse by the low-hanging branches.

So why didn’t we put kids on smaller horses? Most of them were too rowdy. Or too easily spooked. And apparently people enjoyed being dragged under a tree better than they liked falling off.

I worked at that place for years. I loved it. I was paid $20 for an eight- or nine-hour day, which doesn’t sound like much, but as I often said to people — I was getting paid to do something I loved.

Me and Shadow, my horse
Riding bareback with a halter and lead rope
Shadow after a nice roll in the dirt

I never thought I’d give up riding, but I have. I don’t have the time or the money for it any more. I’ve been on a few trails, but after leading them myself, I can’t stand being told what to do. The last time I took a trail, I took my feet out of the stirrups to stretch my legs only to be told by the trail guide that I HAD to put them back in. I told her where to stick it (in so many words) but the trail wasn’t very pleasant after that.

I hope one day I’ll be able to start going again. My dream was to own a farm, but that’s never going to happen. Even if I could afford it, it would be necessarily too far away from the nearest hospital for Alex’s sake. But maybe, someday, I’ll take out trails again. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll come across the trail guide who told me to put my feet in the stirrups and I can get her back.

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. To find out how to join in, click the link: https://lindaghill.com/2017/04/21/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-apr-2217/ It’s fun!


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Raw – #AtoZChallenge

Real men eat it on the hoof.

The above quote is from a late friend of my father’s. He said it every time he cooked a steak, and though I thought he meant a cow, he always ate his beef medium rare… Ah, the 1970s. I was so young and innocent.

I had a friend of my own, of German heritage, who enjoyed eating raw hamburger meat with spices mixed into it. When I was in Japan, I was given a raw egg to mix with some kind of powder, to pour on my rice for breakfast. I left the egg in its shell. Why? Because here in North America we’re told to cook our food, and if, God forbid, we come in contact with it when it’s raw, DISINFECT! That stuff’s poison! Except there are so many people who survive other cultures.

A few months back, someone died because they ate raw salmon here in Ontario. Yet I love–I luuuuurve salmon sushi. So what’s the diff? Seriously, maybe someone out there can tell me. My best guesses are that they serve fresher meat (and eggs) in other countries, or that they’re more careful to keep their products at a safe temperature.

I’ve eaten raw bacon and survived. I’ve licked the cake-batter bowl clean. And don’t even get me started on cookie dough. Ugh! Nomnomnom.

What do you eat raw?

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You know what you don’t need to cook before you consume it? My A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette, “All Good Stories”! It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“A delightful read!!” ~ Cheryl Lynn Roberts, 4 stars, Amazon Canada review

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories


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Occupancy – #AtoZChallenge

In the head of an author, multiple inhabitancy is par for the course.

Strangely enough, I didn’t have imaginary friends when I was a kid. I just made up stories in my head. Occasionally I wrote them down, but mostly I told them to myself over and over again, perfecting them–editing them, I suppose you could say–until I was ready to move on to the next story.

The characters of my tales inevitably took up residence in my head. Even now, when I go for a walk I’ll often see the world through the eyes of my characters. Sometimes another of my characters will walk beside me. I wonder if someone with extrasensory vision could see my characters with me, like an aura or a ghost.

This photo was not manipulated in any way – this is exactly how my camera captured the scene

P.S. I’m so sorry I haven’t been around to respond to comments for the last few days. I’ll do my best to catch up tomorrow. Hope everyone is well. 🙂

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O look! You can buy my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette, “All Good Stories”! It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“A delightful read!!” ~ Cheryl Lynn Roberts, 4 stars, Amazon Canada review

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories


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Ne’er-do-well – #AtoZChallenge

The odds of being the black sheep of the family are drastically increased when you’re an only child.

“Ne’er-do-well” isn’t a word I’d have looked up in my thesaurus, but sure enough, there it is. I wouldn’t say that growing up I was a complete good-for-nothing, but I got into my share of trouble. I used to envy my friends who had siblings they could, in turns, play with and blame things on. I was the only one who could have done whatever was done in my family.

I love some of the synonyms for “ne’er-do-well.” Rapscallion, scapegrace, and wastrel are my favourites. Apparently I’m too old to be a scapegrace, but I can still be a rapscallion.

Any siblings of mine would have hated me for sure.

I can’t let this post go by without mentioning that another “n”-word of mine today is “nest.” I went for a walk earlier, and came across a swan building a nest. Not something you see every day.

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You know what else starts with “N”? Ninety-nine cents! And that just happens to be how much my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette, “All Good Stories,” costs. It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“A delightful read!!” ~ Cheryl Lynn Roberts, 4 stars, Amazon Canada review

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories


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Later – #AtoZChallenge

I was going to write this post before lunch, but my thesaurus had other ideas.

The temptation is great to take a picture of my thesaurus, to prove the word second from the bottom on the right-hand page is really “later.” And my quote above is not a lie. I procrastinated purely because of the word itself.

There aren’t very many synonyms in my book for “later.” There are seven: “after, afterwards, next, sequentially, subsequently, successively, thereafter.” Strangely enough, procrastination isn’t there. But “later” is certainly the word I use most when I’m putting something off.

And I put far too many things off lately. I have an excuse – I’m working. For money. Like, real money and everything. It’s my excuse for not publishing the book I was going to get out before this year, and then by the spring, and now, hopefully, before summer. And yes, it’s a good excuse, yet I’m getting angry at myself, because I really want to get my own book published. What I need is someone to kick my ass every time I say the word “later.” Yeah, that’s what I need.

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Don’t wait ’til later, buy it now!  For only 99¢, you can get my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“A delightful read!!” ~ Cheryl Lynn Roberts, 4 stars, Amazon Canada review

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories

 


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Jumble – #AtoZChallenge

When life is chaotic, it’s good to know a cup of tea is as close as the kettle, even if my bed is hours away.

Yippieee! Today my thesaurus has given me a word to play with that’s both a noun and a verb! That means I can jumble my jumble, or confuse my gallimaufry (which makes sense, because I have no idea what a gallimaufry is). I can muddle my mishmash, scramble my potpourri… I can even tangle my rat’s nest! Wait… my pillow does that every night. That’s what my comb is for.

But you know what? I’m too tired to mix up my miscellany tonight. My house is a hodgepodge, a farrago (another one I have to look up), a mess. It’s disarranged. Yeah, let’s go with that one. And my mind is all higgledy-piggledy, so I think I’ll just tumble off to bed and start all over again tomorrow.

Goodnight, all!

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For more humorous reading, please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories


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Idiotic – #AtoZChallenge

I’m beginning to think my cretinous thesaurus is out to get me – I really don’t want to talk about politics, but where else are there idiots? 😉

Whether or not my thesaurus hates me this year, it sure is challenging me. So what can I say that’s idiotic? I’m sure I can come up with something. We all do idiotic things once in a while. I locked myself in my car the other day. Not that it was difficult to get out, but I set the alarm off, causing everyone in the parking lot to turn around to see who was breaking into a car. No one, as it turned out. I was breaking out. It was the second time it’s happened to me. I may have already blogged about the first… That would be a birdbrained thing to do, wouldn’t it?

I’m more likely to do stupid things when I’m tired. Trying to take shortcuts in the kitchen is a classic example of when I’m prone to breaking or spilling things. Walking into rooms and having no idea why – that’s pretty daft.

But being an idiot isn’t all bad. I often act like an idiot with my kids, dancing with them in public and just being generally loony. That they’re embarrassed to be seen with me is their problem…

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It’s nutty, a bit sappy, it’s definitely funny, and it’s only 99¢! Check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories


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#SoCS – Giddiness – #AtoZChallenge

Give me a glass of wine, and I’ll show you one light-headed lady.

I admit it – I cheated. I said I was going to write a post on whatever word showed up on the right-hand page, second from the bottom in my thesaurus, no matter what, but the word I found today was “genocide.” I’m not going to apologize for turning the page. So what did I get instead? “Giddiness.” Couldn’t be more opposite.

Anyway, welcome to the Stream of Consciousness version of the A to Z Challenge, where nothing is deleted and nothing is planned. Also, nothing but typos are edited. Yeah, yeah, sometimes I go back and fix the punctuation. But that’s mostly for your sake. If I didn’t, you might not be able to figure out what I’m trying to say. …or maybe you can’t anyway…

It’s been a less-than-giddy-inspiring day today. My darling son is up to his antics, whining over a game he’s been playing all day. Oh, he’s as good as gold for ten minutes if I threaten to take it away. But every time I walk away, he’s at it again. He’s sitting beside me now, leaning on me, “singing” in his own way – he’s Deaf, so it’s more like a one-note elongated scream – knowing there’s nothing I’m going to do about it because I’m typing. If I don’t do it (post this) now, it’s going to be so late that I won’t feel like doing it. All freakin’ day it’s been like this.

So after he goes to bed, I think I may open a bottle of wine and get… let’s look in the thesaurus… (I’ll take all the “-ness”es off the words, since the original has it.) Dizzy, faint, light-headed, nauseous, vertigo, wobbly, or woozy. I see a few there I definitely don’t want to become. Wobbly sounds good. I remember when I was younger someone calling beer “wobbly-pop” on a regular basis. It fits.

Okay, the kid’s getting overwhelming again. Wish me luck. And wine.

This wobbly post is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link and learn how you, too, can join in the fun! https://lindaghill.com/2017/04/07/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-apr-817/


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Diversion – #AtoZChallenge

May I divert your attention here for a moment?

The first thing that springs to mind when I see the word “diversion” is magic. Which isn’t surprising, since I’ve been writing and editing a novel (or three) about a magician called “The Great Dagmaru” for the past five and a half years. Making someone look the other way is an art, whether it’s in order to perform a trick behind their back or whether it’s to cause them to pay more attention to you.

Yet some might say it’s easier now to create a diversion: our attention spans are shortening with so much going on around us and in our own living rooms, on our screens where everything is the next biggest or cutest spectacle.  For as far as entertainment goes, it seems to me that those of us who still read novels are the last holdouts of the ability to concentrate. And still, so many books, so little time. A novel must capture the reader’s attention in the space of a few sentences or it will be passed over. And authors wonder why the blurb is so much harder to write than the book itself.

Oh look! It’s a chipmunk.

But I digress.

All this talk about diversions and how they entertain has led me to seek the difference between a diversion and a distraction. According to my trusty thesaurus, it seems diversions are happy things and distractions are less-than-desirable things. Somewhat. The synonyms for distraction range from “delirium” to “relief.”

One way or another, diversions and distractions add up to procrastination.

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Looking for a fun diversion? Look no further. Please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“Delightful, Light-hearted tale with great twists!” ~ Lori Carleson, 5 stars, Amazon review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories