Life in progress

Category Archives: Life


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#SoCS – In Desperation

Last night I had a dream–scratch that, a nightmare–that Donald Trump was my doctor.
Highlights:
-where did you buy your license to practice?
-no, I don’t need a pelvic exam today, thanks
-the question I had but didn’t want to ask: if you become president, won’t you have to move to the U.S. and give up your practice?
After the appointment he walked me out to my car and planted a kiss on my lips to say goodbye. Needless to say, this one’s going to haunt me for a while.
Bleh.

I’ve been battling a headache all day. The above quote is copied and pasted from my personal Facebook page – and yes, it’s a true story. I’m blaming the headache on that. Or the weather or something.

In desperation to find an excuse: okay, it’s not really desperation. But I’ve been contemplating all the stress in my life and all I have to do (read: all the things I’ve put upon myself) and much of it, I think, is due to desperation.

I haven’t had an income, other than my paper route and I’m not even doing that anymore, in the last sixteen years. Desperate as I am for a career, I’m taking editing courses. Hoping to get some freelance jobs, though maybe not until the new year. I’m desperately trying to finish the editing on my other novel, so I can get that published. I’m desperate for the sanity to be able to do all these things… so I’m planning to do NaNoWriMo this year. Yes, just what I need – to force myself to write 1,667 words a day for a month.

Writing it out, I can see much of my desperation is due to money, or lack thereof. But not necessarily just now. I need to secure my future. If my kids ever decide to move out and I lose the money I receive from the government to look after them, with their disabilities, I’ll have nothing at this rate.

I really didn’t want to make this a rant, nor a pity party. Maybe I should have asked ol’ Donnie for some money to keep quiet about our doctor/patient relationship when I had the chance.

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This super scary nightmare post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the following link to see how you, too, can join in the fun! https://lindaghill.com/2016/10/28/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-2916/


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One-Liner Wednesday – Birthdays

The boy and his puppy both have a birthday this week.

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One is 16, the other turns one today. Happy birthdays, Alex and Winston. 🙂

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Anyone who would like to participate, 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.

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 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. 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!

5. Have fun!

#1linerWeds badge by nearlywes.com

#1linerWeds badge by nearlywes.com


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I’m out

I’m out. Of money, that is. It’s official. I went to the grocery store today to pick up some essentials and I got the dreaded “Insufficient Funds” screen on the debit machine. Though it’s killing me to do so, I’d like to ask a favour.

If you haven’t already, please buy my book. If you have, or if you have a friend who might like it, please direct them to it. Reblog, share on social media, have a parade down the main street of your town or city, whatever it is you normally do to get attention. If I can get to $100 in royalties, Amazon will pay me next month – they hold smaller amounts.

If you know me, you know I never ask for anything. I hate asking for anything. Please, just share this post. And if you have 99¢ and want to read a really funny book, please click on one of the links below.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Linda

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Find All Good Stories on
Amazon.com (U.S.A.) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JQWMQAE
Amazon.ca (Canada) https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01JQWMQAE
Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01JQWMQAE
Amazon.com.au (Australia) https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01JQWMQAE
and on Amazon, in English, almost everywhere else in the world, as well as
Kobo https://store.kobobooks.com/en-ca/ebook/all-good-stories


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#SoCS – Choices

We all make choices for ourselves. Every day, every hour, every minute. Do I get up, or lay in bed five more minutes, what do I eat, what should I buy with the little bit of money I have, what to say, what should I do with my time? Sometimes these choices are hard, many times we make them out of habit. But you know which choices I really hate making?

What to choose for somebody else. I’m sure it’s why I hate Christmas shopping. It’s not the crowds, the parking lots, or the expense… Okay, it’s also the expense. But deciding what somebody else is going to like, want or need is so much harder than buying for myself. And that’s difficult enough.

I think my personal hardest choice is what to do with my time. There are days when I have so little that I have to prioritize by logic, doing the things that absolutely must be done first, and there are days when I suddenly have lots of time… Then I start looking at my non-priority tasks and have to decide where to start.  Which is where I begin to procrastinate, because choosing what to do first is just too overwhelming. So I end up on Facebook, reading about what’s going on with the US election (talk about choices!) (I’m not going to know what to do with myself when it’s finished) (where was I? Oh yeah, Facebook) or finding cool writing or publishing tips to read about, or silly memes to giggle over, not to mention the little movies that start automatically now – why do they do that to us?!? They’re too irresistible, like the snack aisle in the grocery store when you go shopping whilst hungry.

Today I chose to go to the library, to get a little work done on my novel while the babysitter was here. It was a good choice, since it didn’t cost me any money… except the book I bought at the library’s fundraising store. Ugh.

What good choices have you made today?

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This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Why don’t you click the link and join in? 😀 https://lindaghill.com/2016/10/21/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-2216/


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#SoCS – Screen

“Experience is the screen through which we see the world.” ~ Linda G. Hill

I just came up with that. Someone else probably has as well, but just in case I’m not subconsciously plagiarizing it, I’ll leave it up there all by itself.

It’s always been true, I think. The whole nature vs. nurture thing may be something we’ll never all agree on – I believe there’s a balance there somewhere. There’s no doubt our experiences shape us, whether to turn us into what we’ve seen or give us the determination to be the opposite. Either way, our experiences colour how we perceive things, how we judge things to be true or false, comforting or scary, acceptable or not.

If the above statement has always been true, isn’t it more literally true now? When almost all we see of the world is through a physical screen, compounded by opinions that read as facts, and facts that are difficult to believe, it’s no wonder we’re often confused. Or maybe I just speak for myself.

With the world on the brink of change (if my screen is to be believed), we are witnessing history, close up and from afar at the same time. Will we always have this medium to express our thoughts and connect with one another? Loss of this is what I fear the most.

Note: I looked up my “quote” – this is the closest I came to it: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/483575-we-don-t-see-the-world-as-it-is-we-see So I’m sticking quotation marks around it and calling it mine. I’ll await the claim of whomever beat me to it.

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This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the following link to join in: https://lindaghill.com/2016/10/14/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-1516/


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#SoCS – Jagged

It’s strange, the edge upon which we exist here on earth. Half-way between life and death, birth and life. Full of ups and downs, we tip this way and that. Joy and sorrow, anxiousness and contentment. If we’re lucky enough to find a balance, we can make it through without much fuss.

I’ve been teetering today. Thrown off balance by the news of a friend’s passing. We, many of us, knew him well. He saw the joy in life through most of what he went through. He was always there with his own brand of encouragement and support. His friend contacted me through my comments on Facebook, to say that he talked about this world here in blogland often. That blogging had become his life.

Our friend’s name is Paul Curran. I like to think of him looking down on us, knowing we’re thinking of him, as he knows we have before. And that, to coin his favourite interjection, he’s pointing down and saying “Ha! I actually made an impression.”

You certainly did, Paul. And a good one at that.

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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Oct. 8/16


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#SoCS – Awkward

Don’t you hate awkward exchanges between yourself and a stranger? They talk to you and the conversation finishes but you’re not sure how to walk away? I’ve had a couple of those this weekend. It’s been an exhausting one, mentally and emotionally. I’ve cried, I’ve laughed, I’ve learned, I’ve read my work out loud (something I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to do), and I’ve met some people who’ve inspired me. In all, I’d say it has been a good time. But now I’m about ready to shut down.

I had an awful conversation by text with my ex. If you know my pseudonym, you can find my rant on that blog. The rant helped, but the conversation helped to drain me. I think now I’ll go look for something to just zone out with. I’ll write more about my weekend later, if I have a chance.

Thanks again to Joey for hosting this week. Please, everyone, stand and applaud. She won’t think it’s awkward AT ALL. 😀

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This post is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday: https://lindaghill.com/2016/09/30/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-116/ Click the link to join in!


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#SoCS – Bussing

If a busser bussing tables runs into you in a restaurant, is it like getting hit by a bus? I’ve always wondered why they call it “bussing.” And why does my spell-check not like the word? Does it like “busing” better? Yes, it does. When I finish this post, I’ll check to see if it’s a Canadian spelling. Spell-check also doesn’t like “colour,” after all.

I never took a bus to school. It was only half a mile to walk, so they let me walk. Even when I was five and six, I was walking to school by myself. There weren’t many crazies about. But I do remember sitting on the curb on the way home from school one day with a friend, and we were throwing stones under cars as they went by. One woman stopped and yelled at us, even though we didn’t actually hit her car. By then we were getting good at clearing the wheels before the car got past. We stopped after the lady yelled at us… until the next day. I think I eventually got bored with it.

What I did do when I was little was make up stories in my head. All the time. That is something I still haven’t gotten bored with.

My kids have always taken the bus to school. When we lived in Gatineau, Quebec, the school board payed a student $5/day to sit with my Autistic son, Chris, on the bus. The first year a student we didn’t know did it, but after that they let his brother do it. Years later, I still have all that money sitting in a bank account for him, for when/if he decides to go to college.

I’m actually appalled at the fact that they no longer have an aide on the bus my Deaf son, Alex, takes to and from school. The bus driver doesn’t know sign language, and the kids, by the time June comes, are up to all kinds of antics. I should probably advocate for an aide.

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This post is brought (not by bus) to you as a response to Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link for the prompt and join in today! https://lindaghill.com/2016/09/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-2416/


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Angriest, a #SoCS Rant (with swear words and everything)

There are a few things that annoy me about people, but what gets me angriest is when people get annoyed at my kids. This rant is brought on by a trip to the grocery store earlier today and a woman behind us in line. There isn’t much room once you’ve paid for your groceries and you’re packing your own bags. Alex, my Deaf son, was helping me – I was standing at the end of the belt and he was moving things closer to me while standing in the lane where we came out after paying. There was a woman there with a cart who had just paid for her groceries. All she had was a cart full of cases of pop (soda, for those of you in the U.S.). When I turned, after she had raised her voice (I didn’t know she was there) she was saying to Alex that she just needed to get out, that she didn’t have to pack anything, she would just very much appreciate it if we’d excuse her.

Normally an “excuse me” doesn’t require that much explanation, so it occurred to me that she’d probably been saying it to Alex for a while. He had his back turned to her, so he didn’t know she was there. As she walked away, she looked at me and said, “Thank you very much for moving out of the way.” Waaay over the top, even for a Canadian. So I said, “Sorry he didn’t move right away, he’s Deaf.” Or I tried to say that, but she cut me off: “No, no, no, no, I really appreciate it!”

Fuck you, sarcastic bitch.

I want to say I wish people wouldn’t judge, but I realize I’m judging her. Maybe she’d been having a really hard day? But does she need to take it out on us?

I always say that you can make someone’s day with a smile, no matter who they are. Even if they’re a stranger. You can also ruin someone’s day by being sarcastic and jumping to conclusions. Or rather jumping to conclusions and then being sarcastic.  Or maybe I’m just overreacting because I want to protect my son.

One way or another, be nice out there. And be patient.

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This post is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Check out the rules and join in here: https://lindaghill.com/2016/09/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-1716/


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#SoCS – Accumulation

When I think of all the things I’ve accumulated in my life, aside from dust-bunnies, the first thing that comes to mind is words. It fascinates me that we can express so much with such a small combination of possibilities. 26 letter comprise our alphabet, but oh, how many ways they can be arranged!

I love the idea of painting a picture with words. I’ve always wanted to be able to produce art. However, even my stick figures are hardly believable as humans. I once found an instruction on how to draw a sitting cat, when I was about 7 years old. I drew that cat everywhere, until I managed to forget how. For a while I had an intense obsession with dragons. Probably around the time I first read The Hobbit. I drew them everywhere as well. I think I stopped around the time I got a tattoo of one. I still love me a good dragon though.

I tend to accumulate books. I can’t bear to give them up, in case I ever want to read them again. In actuality, my to-be-read pile is so high that there’s not likely any chance I’ll get back to them. I can’t imagine how many shelves I’d need if it wasn’t for ebooks. I do still love paperbacks though. Not only are they more fun to collect, they’re easier on the eyes after a day of being on the internet. And writing, of course. Accumulating my words.

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This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link to find out how you, too, can join in the fun! https://lindaghill.com/2016/09/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-316/