Life in progress


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One-Liner Wednesday – Snowin’ Like a Bugger, eh?

I think you have to have spent a lifetime in a climate such as the one we have in Southern Ontario, Canada, in order to be able to say with a straight face,

likeabugger

“It’s snowin’ like a bugger, but at least it’s not cold out!” and mean it.

snowbank

This is two day’s worth of snow.

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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!


89 Comments

Insane or just a vivid imagination?

Okay, bear with me for it seems that perhaps no one saw my angry rose quite the way I did.

I drew you a diagram.

Here’s the original:

dead roseangry

 

and here it is again with my mad paint skillz added:

click to have a closer look... if you dare

click to have a closer look… if you dare

Now look at the original and tell me you can’t see the crazy-assed disembodied-headed dead rose that’s still sitting on my kitchen counter waiting to eat me for dinner.

Seriously, you can’t expect me to deal with this insanity alone…


28 Comments

One-Liner Wednesday – You’ve got something stuck between your teeth…

All this instantaneous gratification of social media and being able to have our words read immediately is somewhat dangerous: It’s not just “putting your foot in your mouth” anymore; now you can “put your keyboard in your mouth.”

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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!


26 Comments

JusJoJan 26 – It’s the Little Things

While there are large things in life that cause stress, like selling your mother’s condo whilst trying to maintain your own home, keep your family reasonably comfortable and happy and hanging on to your sanity (yes, I’m making this about you, because if I don’t I may realize what seventh circle of purgatory I’ve landed myself in), sometimes it’s the little things which finally make you snap.

Like when you take your kid for a haircut and the barber grazes the back of his neck with the trimmer and oh my Lord it’s the end of the world. He gets home, strips off his shirt and wraps himself in a fleece blanket that he refuses to take off even when he goes to bed that night, waking himself up at 2:47 (and you with him) because he’s so tangled up in coverings and the next day you find yourself applying Polysporin to a pink-tinged area that (point to it again? I can’t find it.) is so minute but he still refuses to wear a shirt over.

And then! And then! later when he’s almost forgotten about the agony he’s in over his haircut and he’s helping your mother wash the dishes (he’s washing, she’s drying) and he’s all done and putting the Tupperware bucket upside down on top of the clean dishes in the dish rack and your mother is taking it off to get to the dishes that HAVE to be dried and your kid is putting it back on and she’s taking it off (because by this time your mother’s OCD is battling to the death with your kid’s OCD) and he’s putting it back on and screaming and she’s taking it off and yelling at him in a language he can’t even hear (because he’s Deaf) let alone understand and all you want to do is run away from home…

…because it’s the little things that finally do you in…

JJJ 2015

This crazy slice of YOUR life was brought to you in conjunction with none other than Just Jot It January. Click on the link and join in today – only 6 days left! https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/

 


19 Comments

JusJoJan 21 – Write Drunk, Edit Sober

“Write drunk, edit sober.” Some say it was Hemingway who said it, some say Peter deVries. Whoever. More than this quote has made me wish I could handle being an alcoholic for the sake of my writing. When you consider how much genius has come out of known drug abusers (see any number of rock stars), you have to wonder if there’s anything to it. I mean, seriously, so much comes to mind when you’ve had a few that appears, at least in that moment, to be the most brilliant idea that anyone ever has ever come up with, that how can you possibly be wrong? What can you possibly say that’s not completely off-the-wall enlightening to the whole of mankind? Poetry flows, prose splats onto the page like the very sunshine that beams through your window – or would if it wasn’t actually the middle of the night while everyone else is sleeping, like you should be…

But then.

You wake up in the morning and read that is which is splatted unceremoniously upon the page and you think… I need to be sober to edit this crap.

Ah, it’s an artist’s life.

JJJ 2015Just Jot It January – it’s the bomb! Join in today! https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/


76 Comments

JusJoJan 18 – What’s Your Useless Talent?

It seems, to me anyway, that the last few days have been wrought with uncertainty and a balance in which negativity outweighed the positive. Time to lighten things up – who’s with me?

Almost everyone has a completely useless talent. It’s not easy to find an appropriate reason to show them off, is it? So here’s your chance.

My useless talent is the ability to recite the ingredients of a Big Mac – backwards. A girl who sat in front of me in the fifth grade had them written on the back of a t-shirt and, as boring as geography was, I memorized them.

What’s your useless talent? Show ’em off in the comments!

This post is part of Just Jot It January. Click on the link and join in: it’s never too late! https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/

JJJ 2015


21 Comments

JusJoJan 14 – Annoying Phone Calls

For some random reason I was thinking today about a series of prank phone calls I received a while back and, as I often do, I thought about what I should have said. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Thinking of the perfect response half an hour – or half a year – later is one of my pet peeves. But I digress.

These particular calls came one night when I was alone in the house, trying to get some hard-earned sleep. They started after midnight with someone, a party blasting in the background, asking me for somebody I wasn’t. Apparently it was so hilarious that Mona or whoever they were looking for wasn’t at my number that they called back again. And again. And again. Drunk out of their gourds, I think they were passing the phone around each time they dialed.

Back to my brilliant idea. What I should have done:

Me: Domino’s Pizza

Them: (or so I imagine they would say) Hey, you dialed Domino’s!

Me: How can I help you?

Them: You guys want a pizza?

Me: Will that be for delivery?

Them: Sure!

Me: (muffling a giggle) What’s your address? Phone number?

Ah, drunk people are just too easy. At least in my imagination. If I ever get a chance to try this, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Just Jot It January! https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/ Do it now!

JJJ 2015


20 Comments

One-Liner Wednesday – What a Tired Brain Can Get Up To

My best friend John and I were born one day apart – I’m a day older. This is a conversation we had this morning (after he got here for breakfast following a 12 hour shift, shunting transport trailers around a yard):

John: Do you realize next week we turn 51 and it’s 2015? The next time the numbers of our age and the year is inverted is 2026, when we’ll start off the year being 62.

Me: Do you realize you have waaaay too much time on your hands?

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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!


19 Comments

JusJoJan 11 – Just Random

Remember last week when I tripped over the suitcase in the dark? I have the weirdest injury from that. There’s a spot on the outside of my knee that’s numb except when I touch the front of my knee. If I touch it lightly it feels as though someone is rubbing their fingernail down the numb spot. If I forget about it and kneel on it, it hurts like hell. Nerve damage anyone?

I spent twenty minutes this afternoon looking for an excuse to have a glass of red wine. I finally found one. I shared it on my Facebook page, which, if you’re not following you should be. Here, I’ll make it easy for you to find it. https://www.facebook.com/lindaghill.fiction Cheers!

I’m absolutely dying to get to my notes from Japan and share them with the world. Alex is better today again, (yesterday was horrible but that seems to have passed) so with any luck he’ll be back at school tomorrow. 😀 I’m also hoping that the urge I’ve been feeling today to be more creatively sociable will remain with me. I want to start interacting more on Twitter and Facebook. It’ll be a challenge, but I think I’m up to it.

I have to admit I’m getting a little antsy over my novel’s beta readers. The only feedback I’ve had so far is that the first 20 or so pages weren’t that interesting. I know I can improve them. What I don’t know is if anyone got past them… *bites nails*

We haven’t had much snow here but it’s freakin’ cold. Here’s a picture of me in a 20km/hr, -26°C head wind:

CAM00546

In other news, we have a temporary cat. Actually, two of them. They go with the temporary cave dweller in my basement, also known as my eldest son. The good news is, the more sociable of the cats is keeping Alex busy. I’ll get pictures soon. Right now I believe Alex is trying to pry the cat out of a box…

Gotta go.

JJJ 2015Join in! https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/ It’s never too late!

(meow, smash, ahhh!)

 


27 Comments

SoCS – Poles and Double Negatives

Maybe I was dreaming of my prompt this morning but when I dreamed this morning it was of the poles changing direction. I dreamed of the end of the world. The water in my house didn’t work, the sewers were running backwards as was a natural spring in my house that reversed and became muddy and the electricity went out. Several times I think I woke a little (because Alex was coughing) but I drifted back each time into the dream, knowing I was dreaming but unable to stop it. I don’t remember if I was awake to imagine the end of the world but I stood with my children and told them I loved them as the world imploded…

And so then I was thinking I should tell Alex’s dad that he’s still sick but I may send him to school on Monday regardless since he doesn’t seem contagious, which led me to think of the word “irregardless” which shouldn’t be a word. Should it? Spell check likes it. But it makes no sense. To “irregard,” one would think, would be a negative meaning “not to regard” and so putting a “less” on the end turns “irregardless” into a double negative meaning to regard. So sending Alex to school regarding his cough would be senseless… (Yes, Doobster, I looked up the Webster’s definition of “irregardless” but the looking up of it was ruining the flow of my writing which is why I didn’t copy and paste it.)

And so this is an account, really, of my morning so far. Not really stream of consciousness thought (though it was at the time) but I have written this unedited and as it came back to me, which is kind of a double negative in and of itself.

The good news is, if you have made it to the end of this post, at least the world hasn’t ended yet. Hooray!

This post is part of SoCS. Join in today! https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/09/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-january-1015/

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions