Life in progress

Tag Archives: realizations


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#SoCS – Fail

Despite everything, despite all precautions, I have failed.

We have a cold.

Two of my kids came down with it first—the two who haven’t left the house in a month—and now I have it.

I blame it on chicken.

I ordered out for Valentine’s Day. Swiss Chalet. Do you have Swiss Chalet in the US? They specialize in roasted chicken dinners.

The two kids had chicken, I had ribs.

I figure someone sneezed on their chicken skin. It’s the only explanation.

I know the very moment I caught this cold. Standing in the hallway beside the bathroom door, Alex yelled at me (we were playing around) from only a few inches away. I felt his breath on my face and had a moment of absolute clarity.

I’m sick, I thought. This is where I got sick.

And sure enough …

I’m sick.

It’s totally the chicken’s fault.

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley! https://www.quaintrevival.com/

This blame-y post was brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt here and join in! It’s fun!


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#SoCS – Modern Photography

There was a time long ago, back when I walked to school uphill both ways, when I was very careful about the photos I took. There were only so many available on the film, after all. I didn’t want to waste them! I had to buy the film, take it to the store when it was full of pictures, then pay to wait a week until it was developed.

Now that kids have it easier and presumably walk downhill both ways to school (like seriously, did the schools move?), I can take a thousand pictures of nothing and it doesn’t cost me a cent. AND I have them immediately—no waiting a week.

Why am I going on about this? I’m getting there, young whippersnapper.

Because we were so careful, we’d make sure not to get strangers in the backgrounds of our photos if we could help it. And yeah, I still try to be careful, but I can take ten of the same picture to make sure the majority of the strangers are facing the other way.

There’s always been the danger of getting sued by someone who ended up in your picture, especially if you post it publicly. But we take so many pictures these days without really thinking about it. Videos too. It’s a national pastime to photograph as many things as we can.

So that got me thinking—how many strangers have taken pictures of me? Not because they wanted to, but just because I was there at the time.

It’s kinda creepy to think about it.

Kinda.

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley! https://www.quaintrevival.com/

This kinda creepy post was brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt here and join in! It’s fun!


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#SoCS – Ah ha!

I noticed last month that my blog stats were a little light on the views. And by a little light, I mean it was the second-worst January I’ve had in ten years of Just Jot it January. 2024 was tied with 2015.

And only just now, I realized why.

(I’m so behind the times, but that’s what you get when you pretty much drop off the face of the blog-earth for three years.)

What darkness came to light?

It’s because of the whole subscription thing. The fact that we don’t follow blogs anymore, we have to subscribe to them.

When I look at my email opens, I find they sometimes weigh heavier than my views on my blog.

Friends don’t need to visit anymore. They can just read in their emails.

Which is great! Don’t get me wrong. WordPress is still as clunky and unreasonable as ever, maybe more so.

(Definitely more so when you have to sign in fifteen times a day because you made the mistake of trying to comment on a blog you’ve never visited before. Grrr.)

I’m just glad to have figured out why my stats were so dismal, despite following the prompts every day. 🙂

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley! https://www.quaintrevival.com/

This enlightened (and bonus-point-ful) post was brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt here and join in! It’s fun!