Life in progress

Category Archives: Life


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Just Jot It January 10th – Sane

What does it mean to be sane? According to Google’s dictionary it refers to a) a person who is “of sound mind; not mad or mentally ill,” or b) an undertaking or manner which is “reasonable; sensible.” That’s all fine and good, but who gets to judge?

The obvious answer is a doctor. But before that can happen, someone has to take, encourage, or direct said insane person to the doctor in the first place. Because chances are that the truly insane person doesn’t know he or she is insane at all. Not, of course, to put down anyone with mental illness. But for example, I had to be the one to decide to take my Autistic son to the doctor to get checked out. I was the judge in that case.

Moving on…

I often wonder about my own sanity. Considering some of the things that come out of me in my fiction, I think anyone in their right mind would. The thing is, I have no idea where my darker, twisted imagination stems from. I had no significant trauma (that I can remember) in my childhood. I was loved by my parents until my father passed away at the tender age of 49, when I was fourteen. So where’s the psychology in it? Okay yes, I’ve been reading Stephen King since I was fourteen, but can he have influenced me that greatly? No, in fact I don’t think he did.

I’ve had the imagination of a writer since I was very young. I’m talking four or five years old. I remember coming up with stories that, not having the skill to spell, revolved over and over in my head. Some of them even then involved a certain level of torture and sex. So how? Could I have been remembering another life? You may be thinking what I poor child I must have been to have such imaginings, but I grew up with a healthy sense of right and wrong, with empathy, without anxiety or nervousness, and with an understanding of humankind that has prevented me from hating a single soul on the planet. It’s an understanding that has enabled me to write relatable characters. It’s an understanding of everyone else but me.

But then, does anyone really understand themselves? Or does everyone but me?

 

This questionably “Sane” prompt is brought to you by John W. Howell at Fiction Favorites. Please click on the link to visit his blog, and follow him if you aren’t already!

JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 10th post here!


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Please forgive me

It’s come to my attention after a full week of eight hour days spent reading and commenting on and tweeting all (I think I got them all) of the posts that are linked back here and still being a day behind that I’m not going to be able to keep it up. For some strange reason, my kids are trying to scrape me off the laptop and my glue is getting weaker by the hour. I’ve been trying to read your posts before replying to my own comments, so if your kindly left comment has gone unanswered, that’s why.

From here on in I’m going to do my best to get to everyone at least once every two days. On the odd day I may “like” but not comment. If this happens, it doesn’t mean I didn’t read your post! Chances are I enjoyed it immensely but am just short on time.

I’d like to take this opportunity to once again say thank you to the overwhelming response to Just Jot It January and SoCS. You guys are awesome, and I really do love reading all the posts! So keep visiting each other, keep up the community spirit and keep on jotting. 😀


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Just Jot It January 8th – Honorable

I’ve been procrastinating long and hard on this post. It’s not that I don’t want to write it, it’s more that I want to get it right. But I want to get some sleep at some point tonight (I haven’t had a night off without kids since my last one in Japan, on November 29th) so here I am just writing it.

Honesty, honour (I managed to eke out one American spelling for the title; sorry Tasha, that’s the best I can do), and ethics, to me, are the most important qualities in a person. I’m no harder on anyone else on these points than I am on myself. I demand them of myself constantly. I come by it honestly enough.

The Golden Rule was drummed into me as a child to the extent that I’ve developed a love/hate relationship with it. Yes, it should be followed always, but it seems a no-brainer. While many people consider it a purely ethical teaching, I can see an equal amount of logic in it. Like Newton’s third law (every action has an equal and opposite reaction), “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” simply makes sense. I’ve begun to see it in action on a daily basis, now that I have a puppy in the house.

Alex is on a feeding pump at home for at least a few hours every day. The pump (which is like an IV pump) has a tube running through it which attaches to a valve in his stomach; it delivers his formula directly. There is about three feet of tubing between his belly and the machine, so if he walks away from the device, the tube sits on the floor. Alex is deathly afraid of the dog grabbing and pulling on the tube, so every time the pup comes near, he screams and pushes him away. The puppy, being a puppy, thinks this means he wants to wrestle. Which makes the situation so much worse than if he quietly held the dog at arm’s length until it got bored and walked away.

Golden Rule or Newton’s Law? Or both?

While my example doesn’t really have a lot to do with behaving ethically, honourably, or honestly, it’s a prime example of why we must react to and treat all humans and creatures as kindly as we can, with as much understanding as we are able to muster. Wouldn’t the world be so much better if puppies weren’t pushed away from enteral feeding devices? And we all just got along quietly and calmly?

The “Honorable” prompt is brought to you by Tasha at Corner Of Confessions. Please click on the link to visit her blog, and follow her if you aren’t already!

JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 8th post here!


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One-Liner Wednesday – Enough Said

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“no coffee no workee”

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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.” However, if you’d like to combine One-Liner Wednesday with Just Jot It January, go right ahead!

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!


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Just Jot It January 6th – Cloud

I love looking at clouds, yet I’ve never been very good at seeing things in them unless the shape made it really apparent. Like this for instance:

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Click on it. Do you see it?

The cloud low on the horizon, right behind the cruise ship looks like a giant head of a dragon, facing left. Tell me you see it. Go on. Please.

Sometimes the clouds balance things out:

Sometimes they’re the focus:

sunset

Never mind the Boston Pizza

 
Don’t you love clouds too?
 

The “Cloud” prompt is brought to you by Geoff Lepard at TanGental. If you don’t already know him, check out his blog!

JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 6th post here!


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Just Jot It January 5th – 2016 (My Bucket List)

For the 2016 prompt I’ve decided to take a page from Opinionated Man’s book and write my 2016 Bucket List. Here we go:

  1. Finish my novel and get it published. (I cringe to think how many times this has already drowned in my bucket.)
  2. Get paid for something I write. (It might even be my novel!)
  3. Have a weekend to myself. In my house. Alone.
  4. Teach the dog sign language as well as voice commands so Alex can communicate with him.
    5. A boy and his puppy

    A boy and his puppy

  5. Get my house spotlessly clean top to bottom. (Look for this one on the list every year for the next ten years … a girl can dream.)
  6. Do something with the pot hole that is my back yard. (Okay, it’s not that bad, but it’s not that great either.)
  7. Keep the weight off that I’ve already lost. (This is starting to sound like a list of resolutions. 😛 )
  8. Finish writing the novel I said I was going to finish by Christmas. (My bad.)
  9. Get inspired some more!

What’s on your bucket list for this year?

The “2016” prompt is brought to you by Fiona at Fiona’s Favorites. Click on the link and have a read!

JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 5th post here!


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Just Jot It January 4th – Dachshund

Yes, my prompt for today is “Dachshund.” It’s the most challenging prompt so far – it may just end up being THE most challenging prompt for me. Thanks, Bee. 😉

I’ve lived with a few different breeds of dog in my life – my first dog was a black lab. We had him for only half a year because my parents kept saying he was “too big for the house.” As a five year old I could never figure out what that meant. The dog was much smaller than the house.

So the next time we got a dog it was a black miniature poodle. We named her Cindy. Cindy had seven pups – I wanted to keep them all but my parents would only let me keep one. Perhaps seven (or eight with Cindy) was equal to the size of the lab and would be “too big for the house.” Who knows?

My mom still had Cindy and the pup (her name was Gigi, because what else do you call a poodle?) when I moved out. I got married to my first husband and the first thing we did when we moved in together was bought George from the pound. Guess what kind of dog George was? Yes, a Saint Bernard. He was a fantastic dog. So well trained, he even knew sign language – we could make him lay down past shouting distance. Strangely enough, I never thought he was “too big for the house.”

George was the last dog I owned until I got Winston, just two weeks ago. He’s a beagle mix – the vet thinks he may have some basset hound in him. He’ll be ten weeks old tomorrow; even though he’s just a puppy he has quite the character already. The cats think he’s “too big for the house,” but we humans think he’s just right.

So what does this all have to do with Dachshunds? Only that I’ve never owned one.

The “Dachshund” prompt is brought to you by The Bee at Just Fooling Around With Bee. Please check out her blog!

JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 4th post here!


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One-Liner Wednesday – This Is Irony

The definition of irony:

Finally getting the puppy to go to sleep so I can sleep, only to wake him up with my snoring.

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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!


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What we make of things

They say some things in life only have as much significance as we give to them. I suppose you could say that about everything and everyone – the things and people we find dear to us are those that have a place in our hearts. A person can have significance to us because we relate to them, or because they’re family. An item can be meaningful for its monetary value (if money in general matters to us) or for the memories it conjures.

Then there are the things we make up meanings for; a recurring dream, the sighting of a black cat, or a ring around the moon for instance. For me, for the past twenty years or so, it’s a number sequence that keeps coming up. I think of it as maybe something that pops in once in a while to say, hey, I’m still here watching over you. The number sequence is 911. It doesn’t always have to be precisely in that order – sometimes it’s a whole jumble of 1s and 9s that gets my attention. Sometimes I even have to add up the numbers in a sequence to come up with it. Like this little gem I encountered the other day:

1111119999The 1s are obvious. But then 4+7=11 and for the 9s, 18 halved is two more. So out of this I got 1111119999. I think that’s pretty cool.

By now I predict you’re either you’re intrigued or your finger is hovering above the let’s-move-on button. But before you go, let me ask you; what have you invented a significance for? Is there anything? Or do you just stick to people, objects, or even places? Or hey, feel free to let me know if you think I’m just weird.


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Unclobbered – #SoCS

Usually, and this year is no exception, we Canadians are sitting around waiting to be clobbered by the freezing cold that comes with January. The year is exceptional however for the fact that we haven’t yet been clobbered by a load of snow. We are (many of us) snowless. Decidedly unclobbered.

This was taken November 4th.

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This was taken yesterday in the same stretch of park.

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See how green it is? It’s neither red nor white. It’s green.

Waiting to be clobbered by the cold is similar to sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, knowing you’re about to get a needle. Only the needle lasts for several months rather than several seconds. Because it really is painful. -40 degrees on your face feels like a whole face full of needles. When it reaches the fingers it burns. Even your nose hairs revolt and freeze into teensy icicles that close up your nostrils… which could actually be a natural response to prevent brain freeze.

But with all this green going on, maybe I’m just working myself into a frenzy of fear for nothing. Hey, maybe I won’t have to pull my clodhopping boots out of the closet this winter at all.

Right.

This chilly disclosure is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday: https://lindaghill.com/2015/12/11/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-1215/ Click the link and join in today. Yeah, you!

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