Life in progress


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SoCS – A “But” Rant and a Thank You

There are times when I just can’t stand hearing people say “but.” I do it myself sometimes and I hate it when I do it too. I suppose that’s why I hate it – they say the things we dislike in other people are the things we dislike about ourselves – that’s one time it fits to a tee.

“I want to go on vacation, but…” This is the one I hear most often that bothers me. Is there really any good time to go on vacation? There will always be something more important to do than taking time for ourselves. There will never be enough money to go. There will never be enough time. So do it! Stop saying “but”! Either that or stop saying you want to go!

Wow, there was a rant I wasn’t expecting.

A bit of this time I’m taking to write this post should be used to mention that the participation today, and in the last couple of weeks has been awesome! My promise to read and comment on each and every SoCS post is taking longer and longer to do, so I apologize if it’s next Friday by the time I get to your post, but I will get there. I hope there will not be a time when I can’t read everything, but at the same time I hope this prompt will spread further and wider so that many bloggers will have the opportunity to participate and, most of all, connect.

So, thank you!! To all who read the SoCS posts linked in the Friday prompt, to all of those who are part of this wonderful WordPress network, and most of all, to all of you who join me in Stream of Consciousness Saturday!

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.com/2014/11/07/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-november-814/ To join in the fun, please click on the link to get started!


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Blog Hop II – The Name Game

As if one Blog Hop wasn’t enough for members of Team Pepper, our gracious host, Mark Bialczak has given us a new challenge with another, unique Blog Hop game – The Name Game. 😀 I was nominated for this go-round by MeWhoAmI. Thank you my dear!

Here Are the Rules:

1. Write a paragraph or two about somebody from an ordinary walk of life with an unordinary name. It can either be a true story about somebody you know with that name, or a fictional piece about somebody with a name you made up.

2. After you’re done posting your story, send me an email to markbialczak@gmail.com with your Blog Hop II, your blog name and either TRUE STORY or MADE IT UP in the subject line.

3. Pick another Nano Poblano team member from the home page and tag them on their About page. Try to spread the wealth around from Fish of Gold’s original blog hop to start, but duplication is OK as the month rolls along.

4. The writing cutoff is Nov. 28. By the end of Nov. 29, email to me at markbialczak@gmail.com a list with a guess of TRUE STORY or MADE UP for each post on the blog hop. Put Blog Hop II, Final Guesses in the subject line.

5. The Nano Poblano team member with the most correct answers wins a special prize, which I will mail to them. That means you will have to email me your address if you win.

6. Add your link to the chain of writers.

7. Have fun.

My Story: Linda

When I was in my early twenties I worked for the company that distributed Minwax Wood Stains in Canada. My job started out as data entry and later on, organizing travel arrangements for our sales reps across the country. While I was there I made friends with the receptionist – her name was Maria.

We went out occasionally for drinks on a Saturday night and, during one of the outings I had the pleasure of meeting her brother, Sam. He was extremely good-looking and well built and I admit, even though I had a boyfriend at the time, what with the effects of a couple of drinks in me, I flirted with him a little. It wasn’t until I saw Maria on Monday at work that she told me what Sam did for a living.

During the day he had a job as a copy-machine repairman. She said he made decent money, but he supplemented his income with a part-time job. On Tuesday and Thursday nights he was Saddle McFleshbomb, male stripper.

Who has contributed so far?

Markbialczak

Silver Threading

The Chatter Blog

MeWhoAmI

And me Linda G. Hill

Next in line, I call on Lucy at The Excessive Gardener!

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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS November 8/14

Hello, and welcome once again to the Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday! It’s been a while since I presented a choice for the prompt between one thing and another – today I thought I’d expand on that and give a few.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “bat, bet, bit, bot, but.” Focus on one, use them all, or simply include one of these words in your post. It’s up to you!

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page 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 the 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!!

socs-badge

Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

Here are the rules:

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. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on 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,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”

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.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! 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 right 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. Have fun!


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Day 6 – Nano Poblano: My Mama Said…

Expressions. We all have them. We all use them. There are so many we all know–he’s pushing up daisies, or busy as a bee, for instance–but how about the ones you grew up with? You know,  the ones that come out of your mouth with a satisfied grin because you’ve just uttered the most perfect thing at the perfect moment EVER, yet you get a strange look because the person you’re talking to has never heard them before. So then you have to explain that what you just blurted out was something your mother, father, grandparent, or old Uncle Fred always said when blah blah blah and by the time you’ve finished going through the entire history of your fabulous phrase, its lustre has worn down to the brilliance of a twenty-year-old tractor tire.

You’ve been there before, right? So tell me, what are some of your favourite expressions that no one has ever heard before, and where did they come from?

 

This post brought to you by:

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and:

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Day 5 – Nano Poblano: Red Hot Chili Peppers

I don’t know if it’s the subconscious prodding of being part of Team Pepper, or if it’s the weather, but I had a craving yesterday for chili con carne. So while I was at the grocery store, I bought all the ingredients which are now simmering on my stove top, their mingled aromas wafting into my nostrils and teasing my growling tummy.

I don’t like cooking, as a rule, except when I’m making something that I can see coming together in stages. To me, making a pot of chili, or spaghetti sauce, or dish I call “slop” (which is basically all the veggies you’d put in spaghetti except without the tomato sauce but including chopped tomatoes, and chicken and rice with a dash or two of curry) is more like building a dinner than cooking it. To me it looks like life.

You start with the basic ingredient and it’s like a newly formed child. Add in the next, which may be language, and a sprinkling of different spices (which we all know are actually experiences) and before you know it, it’s turned into something entirely different, and yet the same.

And then you eat it! Which incidentally is where it stops being like a person… unless you’re into that… but we won’t go there, will we…?

Where was I? Oh yes, peppers. My chili is going to be hot and spicy. Just like Nano Poblano… and the people involved. Who I won’t eat.

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Writer’s Quote Wednesday – As I See It

I’m trying something new today. I’m participating in my dear friend Colleen’s prompt over at Silver Threading. Her rules in “Writer’s Quote Wednesday” state that the quote can be by a famous writer or by ourselves, since we’re all writers after all. So I’ve taken the liberty of writing my own statement, as I see it. I have to say it’s a little weird quoting myself. I hope it doesn’t seem too presumptuous.

 

quote lindaghill.com

 

Here is the link to Colleen’s prompt today: http://silverthreading.com/2014/11/05/writers-quote-wednesday-silver-quotes/ Please join in!

 


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One-Liner Wednesday – Grammar is Funny Like That

Even when I was 10 years old, I was a stickler for grammar. I remember a slogan on a used car dealership’s lot in my hometown, meant to attract customers passing by on the road . It read:

“Little used cars use little gas.”

The potential double meaning of this sentence has agitated me–yes, agitated–for forty years.

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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.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, 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.

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.

Have fun!


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Day 4 – Nano Poblano: Invasion of the Teeth Eating, Six-Legged Creatures!

My pumpkin had pointy teeth.

 

CAM00463

Then the ants came. It’s the same every year; the infestation begins the moment the pumpkin goes outside. I know, I know there are ways to prevent this: I just wait until the last minute to put them out.

What really amuses me is the large chunks of skin the ants manage to throw out. You can see them on the step… and if you look really close you can see all the ants. Most of them were sleeping. Pumpkin must be to an ant like turkey is to a human.

So I propose the name of a new band. Who needs the Smashing Pumpkins when you can watch the Slowly-Being-Eaten Rotting Infested Jack-O-Lanterns?

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Speaking of Masochism

Why do I set such high goals for myself? Okay yes, it feels great when I achieve them, and usually I do because I don’t like giving up on a challenge I set for myself. But the downside is that I end up getting stressed when I have too many things to do.

The latest goal of course is NaBloPoMo – write a post every day during the month of November. Together with Nano Poblano which gives me the extra challenge to make my posts spicy, I’m thinking by the end of the month my posts will be unreadable garbles of swear words. That should be fun!

Yet there’s something extra I’m contemplating to drive myself crazy reach for, and that is to extend my Scenes from the Second Seat on the Right series to 365. An entire year. I’m working on getting ahead of myself to cover the period in December when I won’t be around. They’re already scheduled a day or two in advance, so what’s two weeks? Nuthin’! My eventual goal with the series is to turn it into a calendar. I’m not sure exactly how that would work as an e-pub, but I’m sure I can figure something out. The idea came up a while ago, and I spoke to another blogger about possibly animating it, but that sorta fizzled out into nothing. So far. I should re-visit the idea and see if there’s any interest, though the 365th episode is still 300 away from being completed.

Any thoughts? Anyone who’s reading it think it might be a good idea? Click here for a link to one of the scenes that stands alone (meaning it has no back-story nor any follow-up so far) if you’ve never read one. You may just be amused.


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Random-after-a-glass-of-wine-type-Team-Pepper-post

Well this should be interesting.

First off, what the hell is going on with WordPress today? I woke up and this blog’s “best ever” day has gone up by nine views, and my fiction blog’s has gone down by four. Has this happened to anyone else or are they just screwing with me?

Second, I really am going to finish replying to all my comments soon. Tomorrow, if all goes well. But when does it ever? Can anyone answer me this question?

Third, I need another glass of wine.

Fourth, … oh yeah! Another WTF WordPress. I scheduled my 63rd Scenes from the Second Seat on the Right post for 11am this morning but it went live at 10. Did WordPress not get the memo that the time changed last night? Was it only Canada that changed? I’m confuddled.

Fifth, what do I do with all these Hallowe’en candies?

Sixth, if anyone can answer the above questions to my satisfaction and (as always) with humour, you get a point. Extra points if you send me a bottle of wine.

Go!