Life in progress


23 Comments

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS March 2, 2024

It’s the first Friday of March, and I’m here with your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. Seriously, I went to put the date on this prompt and was surprised that it’s March already. How did that happen? Here’s this week’s prompt:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “clump.” Use it as a noun or a verb. Have fun!

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!!

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

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. 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 particular 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.

8. Have fun!


23 Comments

#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!


40 Comments

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Feb. 24, 2024

It’s Friday again and I’m here with your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. It’s also pizza day again today. Woohoo! Here’s this week’s prompt:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “rhymes with ale.” Find a word that rhymes with ale, regardless of the spelling, and use it in your post. 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!!

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

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. 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 particular 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.

8. Have fun!


14 Comments

#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!


43 Comments

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Feb. 17, 2024

Friday’s here, and so am I with your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. I normally try to schedule these posts on Thursdays so they’re on time on Fridays, but today I’m posting extra early because I’m going to get my eyes checked. I expect to be blurry afterward. Good thing I have an audiobook on the go! Here’s this week’s prompt:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “photograph.” Use it as a noun or a verb or both. Have fun!

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!!

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

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. 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 particular 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.

8. Have fun!


30 Comments

#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!


39 Comments

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Feb. 10, 2024

It’s Friday! And that means I’m here with your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. I’m quite proud of myself so far with keeping up on the blogging. I hope it will last. Here’s this week’s prompt:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “heavy/light/dark.” Use “light” and/or its opposites. Bonus points if you use all three. 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!!

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

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. 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 particular 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.

8. Have fun!


24 Comments

#SoCS – Watch this

Watch this.

It’s me, writing a SoCS post on a Saturday morning. On one cup of coffee (it’s not enough).

I’ve spent the last half an hour looking for the last time I participated in my own prompt—barring Just Jot it January and the occasional post, I think it’s going on three years.

Here’s what I wrote in April 2021 in one of my last posts:

“I’ve been paralyzed every time I’ve thought about writing something. It’s not fear, exactly, but it kind of is. Anxiety, maybe? I dunno. Maybe I’m just totally out of practice.”

And as far as blogging goes, that hasn’t changed. Until now, when I’m still running on momentum from January.

So I’m going to try to be here more often.

I wrote six (6!) posts last year that weren’t One-Liner Wednesdays or Friday prompts.

I need to remedy that.

Just watch me.

 

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

This determined post was brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt here and join in!


42 Comments

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Feb. 3, 2024

Hey! It’s our first regular Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt of the year. Thanks so much again to everyone who participated in Just Jot it January. It was great! Here’s this week’s prompt:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “watch.” Use it as a noun or a verb, use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

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!!

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

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. 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 particular 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.

8. Have fun!


9 Comments

JusJoJan24 & #SoCS the 27th – The hardest thing

This post is part of Just Jot it January and my weekly prompt, Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt and see how you can join in HERE.

When I post my SoCS prompts every week, I really take the idea of writing off the top of my head to heart when I sit down to write my own SoCS post. Sometimes.

Case in point: today, all day, I tried to figure out how I could put “make the call” into a post. What could I write about? I make so many calls every day, some literal, most not—I make a heck of a lot of decisions in a day.

But today, I just couldn’t decide what to write about.

So I made the call to just sit down and write my post.

And here I am.

Writing a post and having no idea what to write about … except not knowing what to write about.

Very meta.

This nonsensical post is part of Just Jot it January and SoCS! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

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