It’s not the first time I’ve seen strange lights in the sky. I had a stationary light, too bright to be a star but too far away to be anything but celestial, shining in my bedroom window for weeks.
But this is the first time I’ve actually managed to get a picture of one.
Click and expand to get a better look.
It’s about 11 o’clock from the moon, which is right in the middle of the photo. To describe what it looked like with the naked eye, it was like a giant bird with two halves that looked like wings, and it was just as bright as the moon.
It didn’t move from its position in relation to the moon, even when I drove. I watched it for a good five minutes.
Did anyone else see it? Has anyone else seen such a thing?
Hi there! You’ve arrived at the first regular day of Just Jot it January 2020! I’m looking forward to blogging every day this month–hopefully you’ll see more from me than just the prompts.
If you’d like to see the “Rules” post for what I have so far on your prompt list, you can find it HERE (I hope).
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 2nd, 2020, is “a picture you’ve taken in the last week.” If you don’t want to share the photo itself, talk about it. If you haven’t taken any photos, talk about a moment you wish you had. Have fun!
Here are the rules:
1. Please be sure to link back to THIS POST for January 2nd, 2020.
2. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a “jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
3. I’ll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). You don’t have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. You’ll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.
4. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if you’re blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.
5. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
6. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!
7. The prompts will appear every day that’s neither a Wednesday nor a Saturday–Saturday’s JusJoJan prompt will be Stream of Consciousness Saturday. You’ll find the list of prompts below as they come in, which means I’ll be updating this post. Remember, you don’t have to use the prompts. Please write whatever inspires you. NOTE: If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.
8. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
Happy New Year! It’s January 1st and time for your Escapist Coloring Club prompt. If you’d like to join the club, all you have to do is post pictures of your own colouring, your kids’ colouring, or that of anyone you know and have permission to share. This is a month-long prompt, which means you have all of January to link back here.
Here’s the before picture of my December calendar page:
Knowing I would have a busy month, I decided to colour the entire picture in marker. I think this is the first one I haven’t used any pencil in at all! Here’s the closeup bits: (Click for a closer look.)
And here’s the whole thing.
I look forward to seeing all of your colourful projects throughout the coming month!
Please find the “rules” below.
1. This prompt is designed for relaxation. As such, I encourage you to take your time to link your own post here, BUT, when you comment, please click the “Notify me of new comments via email” button. That way you’ll receive a notification when someone else links their project and you won’t miss anything. As with all the prompts, the more you visit others, the more your community of like-minded people grows.
2. Ping back! It’s important so that I and other people can come and read your post. To execute a pingback, just copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into the body of your post. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
3. There will be a prompt on the first of every month. I will try to post the prompt here on my blog at 9:30am -5 GMT. The prompt will simply be photos of my own colouring project. If you would like to host this prompt on your blog on another week during the month, either once, occasionally, or on a regular basis, please e-mail me at hilllindagmaru at gmail dot com and we’ll get you set up. All I ask is that you have an active blog and that you regularly reply to comments and visit other blogs.
4. Feel free to use The Escapist Coloring Club badge in your post.
You might remember my mention that the retirement home where my mother lives is penalizing the residents $100 when they get caught smoking too close to the building. Here’s what the feisty octogenarian residents think.
Photo: A sign that reads “ONTARIO BY-LAW: No smoking within 9 meters of building entrances. FACILITY POLICY: No smoking on property. Use designated smoking area only. Violators will be fined $100 penalty.” The sign is surrounded by cigarette butts.
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.
Here are the simple JusJoJan Rules:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a “jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. I’ll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). You don’t have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. You’ll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.
2 a) 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 lovely badge to your post for extra exposure!
5. Have fun!
Badge by Laura @ riddlefromthemiddle.com
3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if you’re blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!
6. The prompts will appear every day that’s neither a Wednesday nor a Saturday–Saturday’s JusJoJan prompt will be Stream of Consciousness Saturday. You’ll find the list of prompts below as they come in, which means I’ll be updating this post. Remember, you don’t have to use the prompts. Please write whatever inspires you. NOTE: If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.
7. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
Can you believe this is the seventh annual Just Jot it January challenge? Time flies when you’re blogging!
Just Jot it January, AKA JusJoJan, is a challenge to write a post every day of the month of January. To start the year off with a a blogging bang, and to meet others in the blogging community. We’ve grown from a handful of participants in 2014 to close to fifty for the past couple of years. Why? Because it’s fun!
Here are the simple JusJoJan Rules:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a “jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. I’ll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). You don’t have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. You’ll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.
3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if you’re blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!
6. The prompts will appear every day that’s neither a Wednesday nor a Saturday–Saturday’s JusJoJan prompt will be Stream of Consciousness Saturday. You’ll find the list of prompts below as they come in, which means I’ll be updating this post. Remember, you don’t have to use the prompts. Please write whatever inspires you. NOTE: If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.
7. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
8. Have fun!
I’ll fill in the prompts as I have them, along with a link to the blog of the person who supplied the prompt if it wasn’t me:
January 1 – One-Liner Wednesday
January 2 – a photo
January 3 – poke
January 4 – SoCS – “ow”
January 5 – Intention – Faye at Faye’s Mystical Musings
January 6 – Possibility – Jill at J-Dubs Grin and Bear It
January 7 – Mix – John at Sound of One Hand Typing
January 8 – One-Liner Wednesday
January 9 – Scrumptious – Maggie at From Cave Walls
January 10 – Dogs – Di at pensitivity101
January 11 – SoCS – start your post with the first three words from a random page in a book
January 12 – Gravity – Zhenzhen at Hinuha
January 13 – Subscribe – Willow at Willowdot21
January 14 – Publish – Ritu at But I Smile Anyway
January 15 – One-Liner Wednesday
January 16 – Experience – Dan at No Facilities
January 17 – Jade – MB at Words Less Spoken
January 18 – SoCS – movie title
January 19 – Gobbledygook – Jim at Hoping to make the world more beautiful
January 20 – Humor – Sadje at Keep it Alive
January 21 – Scraggly – Cheryl at The Bag Lady
January 22 – One-Liner Wednesday
January 23 – Drive – Janet at Janet’s Smiles
January 24 – Change – Wendy at Wendy’s Waffle
January 25 – SoCS – last call
January 26 – Busy – Saumya at Randomness Inked
January 27 – Dazzle – Debbie at Debbie Gravett
January 28 – Television – Barbara at Teleportingweena
January 29 – One-Liner Wednesday
January 30 – Finished – Lauren at LSS Attitude of Gratitude
January 31 – Chaos
I’m working on organizing this year’s JuJoJan. If you’re not familiar with what that is, there will be a post soon with all the details, the rules, and what you can expect if you’d like to join in.
The real purpose of this post is to let you know that my area is expecting 20-30mm of freezing rain overnight and mixtures of rain and snow all the way up to 6pm on Tuesday. The possibility of losing power is so great, I’m planning to schedule a bunch of posts to last the blog through ’til Saturday.
These will include:
1. The Rules post for Just Jot it January 2020, scheduled for December 31st.
2. One-Liner Wednesday/JusJoJan Day 1.
3. The Escapist Coloring Club Prompt January 1st.
4. The JusJoJan prompt for Thursday (Day 2).
5. Same for Day 3 plus the Friday SoCS prompt, which will also be the JusJoJan prompt for Day 4.
6. The request for JusJoJan prompts for the week starting January 5th–I’ll post that on Saturday the 4th without scheduling it.
In the event that I don’t show up online, I’d appreciate it if those of you who have participated in JusJoJan before would help those with questions. If I lose my power, I’ll try to at least get word out. Watch my Instagram feed @linda.g.hill as it will likely be easier to post there than anywhere. It’s the only app I have on my phone.
If, for some reason, I’m not back by Saturday, just link your posts to the December 31st Rules post and write whatever you want since there won’t be any prompts. And if I don’t lose my power, at least I’ll have all that done in advance!
Any questions, let me know. Watch for the Rules post first thing December 31st! All posts will be scheduled for 2am EST except the Friday SoCS prompt and the Coloring prompt, which will go out as usual at 9:30am EST.
It’s been a long year. Normally I’m wondering where the time has gone, but this year–2019–has been extra eventful, it seems. Thank goodness the hospitalizations of my mother and Alex, my youngest son, ended by the spring. My mum has fallen a few times this year, but (touch wood) she hasn’t broken her neck again. The smoking is usually the culprit. She always loses her balance outside.
On a personal note, the year has been productive. I’ve either written or finished two novels and three novellas over the past twelve months, on top of my job as an editor. It’s nice to have that sense of accomplishment.
Today I accomplished tripping up a curb while out walking with Alex. I managed to get my hands out of my pockets before I faceplanted on the pavement, thank goodness. But I have a goose egg on my knee, a nice bruise on one elbow, and my knuckles look like I’ve been in a fistfight.
And I don’t even smoke.
For those wondering if I’m doing Just Jot It January 2020, the answer is yes. I’ll post about it soon, I hope. The busy-ness of 2019 continues, and not having had a break from Alex since the beginning of July (aside from my weekend in Kingston when I was as sick as a dog) and no idea when I will again, I tend to be tired most of the time.
It’s the last Friday of the year, and still it’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. It’s the prompt that goes on through everything! I’ve had a busy couple of days with no real end in sight. Hope everyone had a happy Christmas! Here’s your prompt for this week:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “year.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here to this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use our beautiful SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
Here’s a strange photo I took yesterday; a light-cloud-covered day with no sign of rain whatsoever. Weird.
A rainbow around the sun.
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 lovely badge to your post for extra exposure!
It’s Christmas Eve here in Canada, in my time zone. With my late mid-month reminder to get colouring, I wanted to reach out and say Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it, and to remind you, especially the caregivers out there, to take time for yourselves to escape. Whether it’s colouring or doing something else you enjoy, it’s important to take a break, to run away and escape from all you do for others, even if you never leave your home.
And for those who don’t celebrate Christmas, I understand the chaos this time of year brings to schedules. I wish you peace throughout the season and into the new year and beyond.
On to the reminder to colour! You’ll find the links for the two bloggers who have participated already this month below. Make sure you check them out! I’ll leave the comments on in this post, but please go to the December 1st prompt to link your entries there, if you haven’t already posted. Or if you have, feel free to leave another link!
Here’s what I’m working on this month. I’m almost finished, so I have high hopes of completing it before the year is out.
This is the first year I’ve had no holiday themes in my calendar. I’ve bought the new one for next year already–looking forward to seeing what’s in it!
Thank you to our members who have posted so far! Here they are:
lindaghill.com 