Life in progress

Category Archives: Random


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Just Jot It January 16th – What #SoCS

What should I write about? Should it be about the puppy, who is now ripping my front door mat to shreds? (Not conducive to writing a SoCS post at all.) Or should I write about the fact that by the time this post is published I’ll be firmly ensconced in a hotel room, dreaming the night away? Yes, it’s my first night of sleep since November 29th. I’m looking forward to it.

Should I write about… how nice it is not to have to listen to the TV when I’m sitting in the living room with my Deaf son while he’s watching whatever he likes? I’m surprised when the sound is on – that’s how often it happens. He’s really the only one who watches it.

Ah, there are endless possibilities when the prompt is so open. It’s almost overwhelming, isn’t it? I sincerely hope that doesn’t sound conceited. I know I’m the one who came up with the prompt, but honestly I never have much of an idea what I’m going to write until I sit down to do it. Any more than you do. Hey, there’s a question – do you like the completely open-ended prompts like “what”? or do you prefer when it’s a more concrete one? Personally I enjoy the balance between the two.

Anyway, my ex is on his way to watch the kids for the weekend. Unless his mom told him about the puppy (hi Lucie!) he has no idea he’s looking after an extra soul this weekend. Surprise!! Hehe. Word.

The “what” prompt is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click here to join in, and leave your link for everyone to see!

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JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here. Join in today! It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 16th post here at this post.

Note: If you combine SoCS and JusJoJan in one post, make sure you ping back to both this post and the Friday Reminder post.


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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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Missing – #SoCS

I’m cold. I miss the warmer weather. Funny, I remember missing the colder weather when it was hot outside. Those of us who enjoy spring and fall spend most of the year in a state of discontentedness.  (Why is that not a word, spellcheck?) Discontent. That’s better.

When I came up with this prompt I was thinking about how Paul Curran went missing online. It’s very easy to just up and disappear from the internet. Much easier than it is, say, to go missing from home. When you go missing from home you’ve got to find somewhere else to go. I know – I try to go missing often. Not that I want to worry anyone, but it seems the only way I can get any writing done. So I go out, to restaurants and coffee shops. But then I have to buy something. Going missing can be very expensive. And fattening too. Potentially.

It’s hard to dismiss thoughts of one who has gone missing. You might wonder where they are, how they’re doing, whether or not they’re thinking of you. And waiting – oh waiting for someone to come home is the worst, isn’t it? Even if you know where they are and that they’re on their way. I suppose it’s much easier to know such things in this age, with cell phones. Way way back when I was a girl ( 😛 ) and there were no such things as portable phones, waiting was insufferable. If someone wasn’t at home there was no way to reach them. Back then you didn’t know if they’d gone missing or not until they showed up.

My grammar sucks sometimes when I write stream of consciousness… it’s positively gone missing.

This likely misstake of a post is part of SoCS. Find it here and join in today!

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I made it!

Just a quickie to say I got home safely. I woke up this morning at six – thirty one and a half hours ago – and now I’m ready for bed. As you can well imagine. I’ll go through the pictures tomorrow if I can actually stay cognizant long enough.

Nightie-night all!


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Random Stuff – #SoCS

It seems the concert I came all the way to Japan to see was the stuff of inspiration. I started writing a new novel today. Only 1,333 words into it – not quite up to NaNoWriMo standards, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to finish my first draft by Christmas. Thanks, as always, go to this guy for his inspirational lyrics:

12274334_1045119602207521_734740232482917681_n

Sakurai Atsushi

And the rest of the band for the awesome music:

The Mortal

The Mortal

Some of which you can listen to here:

(I’ll leave the video here for a limited time, so if you’re interested, listen to it soon.)

And so that’s most of my interesting stuff, at least the stuff I’ll disclose before I get back home to Canada. I have loads of fantastic sights to share and stories to tell. It’s been a trip for the books… so to speak.

This random update post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt here: https://lindaghill.com/2015/11/27/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-2815/ and join in!

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NanoPoblano Day 11 – A Bucket of Sludge

If exhaustion was a bucket, mine would be filled with the sludge from the bottom of Loch Ness, where the monster has been pooping for centuries.

If exhaustion was Lego, mine would be a minefield on the floor between me and the bed and not a shoe in sight.

If exhaustion was light, mine would have the intensity of the sun. The sun four feet away from my living room window and me without my sunglasses.

If exhaustion was a beverage, mine would be lemon juice. A pure, squeezed, warm bottomless cup.

If exhaustion was a calculator, mine would be the internet. Google, in particular.

If exhaustion was a blog post, maybe this would actually make sense.

Did I mention I’m tired? I’ll catch up on all the one-liners and comments tomorrow. G’night, WordPress friends. 🙂

nanopoblano2015dark

This less-than-energetic post is brought to you by the good folks at NanoPoblano. Click and enjoy!


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Under the Category of…

…things one thinks about at one in the morning after a couple of glasses of wine…

Something the people who have met me in person know that most of you cannot is that I have a slight English accent. I acquired it from my parents, even though I was born and raised in Canada. I used to say I was born with an accent – I was teased relentlessly as a child for it. Most of it has disappeared but…

I was talking to myself at one this morning after a couple of glasses of wine (did I mention that?) and I said to myself, I wonder if I think in Canadian or English? And then I got to thinking.

What accent do we think in? Do we think how we speak? Or is there a language of thought?

In the immortal word of Bill and Ted on their excellent adventure, Whoa!!

bill_ted_whoa


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What Type of Believer Are You?

There are different types of believers in this world. Those who are religious (or not) are usually the first to come to mind. Some believe devoutly in one political party over another, others are positive there are aliens hovering, just waiting for the right time to be taken to our leader (which may or may not have something to do with the example before). But none of these have anything to do with my ponderings, nor my question to you.

This morning, while I was preparing my son’s tube-feeding, I started thinking about the difference between people who believe in superstitions versus those who swear things that happen which are related to one another are mere coincidence. And then I thought about Murphy’s Law. You know, the one that goes something like, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” I then started to wonder if there’s any correlation between the pessimistic old Irishman and the half full/half empty glass.

Keeping in mind the fact that I was thinking all this at 5:30am, I’m sure you’ll bear with me through my semi-conclusions to this riot of contemplation. Right? Okay. Here we go.

If a person believes in Mr. Murphy’s doom and gloom prophesy, he (using male pronoun for no other reason than ease) is more likely to be superstitious. Why? Because it’s his only defense against a probable negative outcome. It follows then (or at least it did in the wee hours of this morning), that superstitious people are glass half-empty people. So, Murphy = superstition = pessimist.

Alternatively, if a person does not believe the infamous Mr. Murphy had a leg to stand on, then she (see above pronoun explanation) is more likely to believe that relatable happenings are coincidence. Why? Because why not. This happens, that happens, chances are if we do it right in the first place then it’ll be okay. You see where I’m going next… she is the glass half-full person. The coincidence believer. No Murphy = coincidence = optimist.

All cut and dry, right? It is until I take into account that I believe in some superstitions and most of the time our dear old Murphy AND I’m an optimistic glass half-full type. What to do with this confusing information… Hmm… Oh I know! Ask my wonderful friends in WordPress land! Where do you fit in to all of this gobbledigook?

To make it easier, I’ve created a poll.

Please answer it as best you can.

Further to the poll, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Am I way out to lunch? (Or breakfast, as the case may be.) Should I keep my 5:30am thoughts to myself? Let me know. And don’t forget to vote! This is science, people!

 


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Envy me if you must…

This is the sort of thing I wake up to in the morning:

Minion stuck in a roll of paper towel

Minion stuck in a roll of paper towel

It’s a hard life.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends!


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Creepy or Convenient? Part 2

Google is at it again, reading my gmail. You might remember the first time, when Google noticed I had written the word “attached” in the body of my email but I hadn’t attached anything. This time it waited until the right time to pounce.

I received a notification yesterday to let me know the good people (computers?) at their organization had added the flight information for my upcoming trip to Tokyo to my Google calendar. So I won’t forget I’m going, I suppose.

So I have decided: If I receive an email suggesting that I drink less before I go to bed so I won’t have to get up to go to the bathroom at 1:37 am, 3:03 am, and 4:26 am again the next night, I’m going offline permanently.