Life in progress

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One-Liner Wednesday – Ask Not

dog barkss

Ask not for whom the dog barks. It barks for thee.

Alex and Winston

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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#SoCS – The Artful Dodger

When I came up with this week’s prompt, my outlook on “art” was so very plain. I was thinking, you know, art, music, writing… the “arts.” But now that I’m writing this post I’m realizing that everyone has an art that they’re good at. I might be an okay writer, and you might be a proficient draw-er, but how about all the other things we can be artful with?

The art of manipulation is one that comes to mind. Very big in the news these days – politics in particular. And how about the art of wine-making? That art is currently my friend. But hey, I only bottle it. My friend Al is the expert.

Some people turn their bodies into art.

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Hell, some people do it daily before they’ll walk out the door.

I’ve never been one for make-up. I’ll put some on once in a blue moon… actually, there are more blue moons that have happened in my lifetime than there are occasions when I’ve put on make-up. I’m a little awestruck at how some women find the time to do it on a regular basis. Like women (or parents in general) who have the time to work outside the home and then come home and take care of their families.

We finally did the lemonade stand today (speaking of parenting). There was no art put into the lemonade itself. It came out of a carton. But Alex did make up some nice signs. Three of them said “Lemonade 25¢” and the one we put up down the street said “Lemonade $25.” Needless to say, we didn’t get a lot of traffic from that direction.  Having said that, one man actually gave us $10 for 3 glasses, so we were close!

Apart from that it’s been a rough day. The dog has found a way under the fence into the neighbour’s yard, so I can’t let him into my back yard anymore. At least not until I can get some extra boards nailed up. Luckily he didn’t decide to take a dip in their inground swimming pool.

Escaping is an art, isn’t it? Yeah, let’s go with that to get me back on track before I end the post.

SoCS badge 2015

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday: https://lindaghill.com/2016/07/29/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-3016/ Click the link to see how you can join in! 😀


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#SoCS – 60 per minute

When I had my first child, I was told it was best to rock him about 60 beats per minute – the same as the average heart rate.  I paid attention to that, and now it’s funny how I use that habit. Having a child (my third) with a heart condition makes it necessary to check his pulse occasionally. I can usually tell without looking at a clock if it’s fast or slow. Makes you wonder how they came up with how many seconds there should be in a minute, doesn’t it? And how it works out that our hearts beat, on average, the same number of times the clock ticks by the seconds in an hour, a day, a month, and a year. It’s like we power the universe!!!

Mind blown yet? Mine is.

My first child flew the coop today for the first time. Literally. He’s gone to Florida to see his girlfriend. It was his third time on a plane (we went to England together in 2007) and his first time on one alone. He must get that from me. So I’m looking after his cats for the next week. He didn’t ask about them when he texted me to say he’d made it. Girlfriend. Right.

My second son has the travel bug too. He wants to go everywhere, but he can’t go alone. That darned Autism thing. And my third son – I’m sure he’d love to go places too. But with his health conditions, insurance would be astronomical. Which leaves him with going only one way… up.

To the moon, Alex! Haha. I actually make myself laugh sometimes.

SoCS badge 2015
Click the link and you, too, can participate in Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Go on – you know you want to! https://lindaghill.com/2016/07/22/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-2316/


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#SoCS – Advice needed from parents and horrible grammar

“If you let the dog out of his crate, you’re not getting your lemonade stand today.”

That’s how today’s disaster started. Over and over again I tell my mentally delayed son that if he doesn’t do as he’s told, he’ll suffer the consequences. And over and over he goes ahead and does the opposite anyway. And then we all suffer the consequences.

I’m sure he understands the “if/then” concept. But like a two-year-old (he’s 15), he enjoys pushing his boundaries. He is, in fact, caught somewhere between the terrible twos and puberty. The “what ifs” and “I can do what I want.” And it’s scary.

It’s been so long since I’ve raised a child in a normal situation, that I don’t really remember how long it usually takes a child to understand consequences. It’s normally after a few failures, isn’t it? I’m asking the parents of “normal” toddlers and young kids. If you add the deafness and the fact that Alex and I don’t speak the same language to the mental delay, my situation is hardly “normal.” I want to add to this that I am very consistent. If I say there will be a consequence, I stick to it, no matter how long the screaming, hitting, and breaking things goes on. Him, not me. But I’m tempted sometimes. 😛

To be fair, it’s not a very good day for a lemonade stand today anyway. It’s cool, cloudy, and there aren’t many people about. I promised him next week, if he can be good.

So instead he’s gone with his brother for a ride on the city bus. On the way back home I was listening to the radio in the car (from dropping them at the bus station) and the announcer said the following:

“Get your face painted or get your kids’ faces painted. It don’t matter.”

This in regards to a festival going on in the next town. Wouldn’t you think they’d hire people at a radio station with maybe not impeccable, but at least good grammar? Am I being too picky?

So anyhoo, if I’m not around too much next weekend, you’ll know I’m outside in my driveway selling lemonade. We’ll see what the weather’s like then.

SoCS badge 2015

This post is part of the fun that is Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link to see how you can join in too! https://lindaghill.com/2016/07/15/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-1616/


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One-Liner Wednesday – The Opposite of Feverish

First, a little explanation: I have a spring in my basement. There’s a concrete hole in my concrete floor, and into it runs a constant flow of natural spring water. So my brilliant best friend, John, has decided he’s going to use it to concoct air conditioning for my house. However, it has to be 55 degrees Fahrenheit or lower. In order to check, he needed a thermometer. So he asked me, “Do you have an old thermometer around? One you put under your tongue?”
“John, I don’t think they make them go that low.”
His temperature is above 55! He might still be alive! *rolls eyes*

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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.

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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#SoCS – Belonging

I think it’s going to be a long month. I signed up for NaNo Camp but I haven’t written a word yet. I haven’t even opened the story that I want to finish off for the NaNo project. I’m kind of at that paralised stage at the moment, where there’s so much to do I don’t know where to start so instead I play a mindless casual game in order to escape the pressure. And so I got this image in my head that I wrote about on my fiction blog about half an hour ago as my SoCS post over there for today. It’s fiction, but only in the sense that I’m not quite at that stage yet. I might be, before August gets here. You’ll find the link to that post in the comments below the link for this one – it’s not a long piece.

I sometimes wonder where I belong, you see. I belong to my family and to myself, to the extent that I have my own interests to pursue. I signed up for the editing course I’ve been talking about forever. It’s online at Simon Fraser University in BC, Canada. If I can earn the certificate I will have the opportunity to get into Editors Canada, the highest qualification in the land. From there I may start working toward my English degree. But that’s a long way off. I need the editing courses to freelance and earn the money I’ll need to get my BA.

At times I feel as though I belong to the world of literature. I thrive there. At times I feel like I’m biding my time, waiting to get there. But my responsibilities will always be at home, to my kids.  Now I have to decide what Chris, my middle son will do with the rest of his life. He’s ambitious but autistic and largely unable to secure a position anywhere for himself. He, too, would like to go back to school, to college, but he’s never been without one-on-one help. It’s scary for me to contemplate.

So many decisions, so little time. So much to do, and not long enough to do it. And yet, July will take forever to be over. What a paradox.

SoCS badge 2015

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is fun! Click the link to see how you, too, can join in! https://lindaghill.com/2016/07/01/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-216/


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Is it Live? Or is it Internet?

Do you remember the old Memorex commercial? No? If you’re wondering why I’m asking, see the title of this post. Okay, on with my point.

What kind of person are you? Are you like me and wonder what happened to someone if they don’t show up online for, like, twelve hours? Or do you figure they’re just living their life in real life? Because seriously, it’s hard to differentiate between online life and real life sometimes. If someone stays offline for three days it’s not the same as if they don’t come out of their house for three days. But we still wonder, are they laying on the kitchen floor in the puddle of grease they slipped on because it’s been thirty-six hours since they last posted a picture of a cat on Facebook?

You hear stories of how the mailman calls 911 because the old lady in 226 hasn’t emptied her mailbox since last Tuesday, but you do the same thing for your online friends and you end up with the police knocking on YOUR door with a restraining order. Okay, there may be exceptions: like when they don’t show up online for months (yeah, I’m looking at you, Paul Curran). But the fact is, we don’t really (usually) know what goes on in the background of our online friend’s lives. Just like we shouldn’t judge people by the way they look, we shouldn’t necessarily worry or think others are ignoring us when they’re not around the internet at the same time every day.

I do consider my online friends as friends. It’s a totally different friendship we have with our physical neighbours though. Right?

How soon do you start to worry?


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One-Liner Wednesday – You could feed a family of 4 with that!

major asparagus

Asparagus, anyone?

_____________________________________________________________________________

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.

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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#tuesdayuseitinasentence – To Serve

I often feel like a servant in my own house. Because of their disabilities, there’s a good chance I’ll always have to serve my children, to some extent.

But it’s something we all do, isn’t it? There are times when it’s much easier to do a thing ourselves than take the time to teach the kids to do it. In many cases it’s justified: while in the way out the door to an appointment, or getting ready for school in the morning, when we’re tired and just want to get the thing (whatever it is) over and done with. At some point we need to stop and teach though. We do our kids a disservice by waiting on them hand and foot.

Ah, but it’s so hard to be perfect.

This post is part of Tuesday Use It In A Sentence, brought to us by the lovely MLW. Click here and join in today!


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Stepping Back

CAM01623

I’m tired. Not just from lack of sleep (though there is that) but because of the news. I’ve never paid much attention to what goes on in the USA except for the past few months. It is, of course, due to the Great Orange Threat. I find myself obsessed not only with what it spews but the reactions to what it spews as well, until I find myself mired in so much rhetoric that it leaves me distracted, miserable, and unable to create. A death knoll for someone like me.

My enabler is Facebook, that bottomless pit of drive-thru opinions and baseless regurgitation we all know and despise. So I’ve decided to walk away from it for a while. My posts from WordPress will continue to automatically post to my author page, but I won’t be around to comment. I’m giving it a week, if I’m strong enough. I’ll try to finish as many of the Scrabble games that I have going tonight, and that’ll be it. I’m pulling the plug.

It will be an experiment. To see how much more I get done; to spend the time I would have wasted scanning my newsfeed to write, edit, read books, read blogs, play with my family, exercise, and spend time in the place where I took the picture above. As I sat there this morning, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much we take for granted. That there will always be places like this. There won’t, unless we start doing something about changing our attitudes and caring about everyone and everything. Without exception.

I need to step back from the rhetoric and find out how I can make a difference, no matter how small. Do you know the definition of the word “rhetoric”? It is the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing ~ Google. I find it necessary to stop listening to all the voices telling me how to go about doing what’s best for me. And especially, I have to stop watching what I have no power to control. I realize I must decide what is best for me, for my family, for the city I live in, for my country, and for my planet all by myself. Only then can I act. Facebook, for me, has become a means to pointless, futile worry. We’ll see what a week teaches me. Will it kill me? I’ll get back to you on it.