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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS January 31/15

Hi there! It’s early morning here and as I’m waiting for my coffee and still trying to come alive, I’m contemplating all the things I want to do on my blog this weekend. At the very least I’d like to get the reports and pictures of my trip to Japan posted… which brings me to my idea for your Friday prompt. Imagine that!!

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “scene/seen.”  Let your imagination wander. You could even add a picture!

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at 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 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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JusJoJan 27 – How Parenting is Like the Weather

Long ago I read a story–it’s probably a famous one, but I’ll relate it here in brief–about how the sun and the wind entered into a competition to make a man take off his coat. The wind, of course, tried to blow it off, but the harder the wind blew, the tighter the man held his coat around him. The wind eventually gave up and then the sun came out. The man, becoming hot, took off his coat. The moral of the story is that sometimes coaxing is better than trying to force someone to do something.

The story came to mind today, as it often does on a bitterly windy day, when I try to bury myself in my scarf. For some reason the thought led to parenting.

My motto has long been, “Pick your battles.” If it’s not that important, meaning no one is going to get seriously injured or be more than ten minutes late for something, I tend to either let the issue go or do my best to be persuasive rather than forceful. The practice has improved my powers of persuasion to the point that I’m getting pretty good at it. Failing that, I’ve learned to be patient. To take a deep breath and remind myself that it’s not the end of the world if Alex completely empties a drawer of perfectly folded clothes to do it again himself, or insists on cleaning his own feeding tube when I know damned well he’s going to ask for the help he at first refuses because it can’t reach where it has to hang.

But I’m only human. There are times when I feel I must stuff him in the car against his will, or restrain him to keep him from falling out his second storey bedroom window. Part of these necessities come down to the fact that I’m not completely fluent in sign language – part of it comes from his own behavioural issues and the fact that he’s mentally well below his age level but physically entering puberty. This puts him in the range of adolescence mixed with the terrible twos.

Still. It’s better to be sunny than windy.

JJJ 2015

Just Jot It January is nearly over – link your post today and get your participant’s badge at the end of the month! https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/


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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/

 


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SoCS – Pain and Gratitude

If you’ve been hanging out at my blog for a while you’ll know I hate whining. The last thing I want is for people to feel sorry for me – that’s not what this is about. What it is about is something I’m reminded of during every waking moment.

Other than when I was pregnant, I’ve never dealt with this much prolonged pain in my life. I’m talking about my shoulder. In December, just before my trip to Japan, I went to see an Occupational Therapist, who told me I needed to “stay off” it, so to speak. To try not to do too much with it. The timing was actually perfect for this. Going to Japan meant that I didn’t have to reach for things in high places like I do at home – things like plates in cupboards and hanging laundry near the rafters in the basement. I could give it a rest. Therein lies my biggest problem.

It turned out that I was exercising the muscles around the joint and protecting it with these regular household tasks. What happened when I came back from Japan? Pain. Pain like nothing else. Gone were the protective muscles. Now I’m told I have tendonitis on top of the degeneration in my shoulder joint. It’s not just the shoulder now, it’s the elbow as well. Nerves are affected and as I sit here typing my funnybone is numbing my baby finger. Good thing I don’t have to hit the “enter” key at the end of every line, eh?

I fear I’ll be living with this for the rest of my life. Gone is the ambition to ever go back to Karate, though Tai Chi I might be able to manage. It might even help. What I really seriously need is a series of exercises to build up the correct muscles around the problem so that I can function properly. I have hope! In the meantime, I have pain. Oh, and Advil. Lots of Advil.

I did want to take the time today to thank everyone who participates in SoCS. It’s been a while since I did that, and it’s now in my own stream of conscious to do so. I’m grateful for so many things in my life and I rarely have the feeling that I’m showing my appreciation enough. I do appreciate every single one of you who take the time to write using my prompts and visit one another. I earnestly don’t know what I’d do without this community of writers, of people who care, of like minds who relate so well with not only me but with each other. Nothing gives me a thrill quite like the one I get when I see people meeting one another for the first time and it’s SoCS, or JusJoJan, or One-Liner Wednesday that brought them together.

So thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Cheers with pain killers!! 😉

This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-january-2415/

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

And JusJoJan: https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/

JJJ 2015Click on the links and join in both today!


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JusJoJan 23 – The Shortest Jot

Never blog drunk; never blog angry.

Have you ever written something that you regretted enough to erase it from your blog?

JJJ 2015

This very short post is part of Just Jot it January. Click here and join in: https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS January 24/15

Welcome! It’s that day of the week again – Friday, and time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. I’m using one of my stockpiled ideas this week for the prompt – been quite busy with not much time for writing or being inspired. But you know how that is, right? That’s why prompts are good! 😀

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “most/least.”  Use one or both of the words in your post or just write with one or both in mind. But whatever you do, have fun!

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at 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 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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JusJoJan Day 21-30 Prompt

Aaaand now for something completely different. I agonized long and hard over this prompt and finally I’ve decided to take the plunge.

Your final prompt in the 2015 edition of Just Jot It January is, sex.

Want some suggestions on how to use this prompt? Do you really need them? Okay, here we go:

1. The obvious.

2. The not-so-obvious. Try really really hard NOT to write something overt while sticking to the subject. In other words, keep it subtle.

3. Sex – everyone’s got one. Write something educational!

4. Don’t use the prompt at all! It’s not mandatory – it’s only if you get stuck. Alternatively, use the prompt every day for 10 days. It’s up to you!

5. I’m adding a fifth suggestion this time around. I strongly suggest that if you write something explicit, you write “Explicit” in the first sentence, so as not to surprise anyone at work. ALSO, if you write something non-explicit but you have a suggestive title to your post, write “Non-Explicit” in the first sentence so that your readers will know it’s safe to go ahead.

Please make sure you check back both here and at the pingback page and see who has posted – it’s a great way to build your blogging community and reciprocate. And don’t forget the most important part – have fun!! Let’s finish the month off with a bang, shall we? 😀

This post is part of JusJoJan: https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/ Anyone can join in!


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JusJoJan 20 – Alexa Rank

I thought as it’s the last day of the second Just Jot It January prompt, which is ‘Rithmatic, I’d take the opportunity to talk about a little website called alexa.com. Actually, it’s a huge website, dedicated to calculating every other website’s world ranking. Mine, this one you’re reading now, apparently comes in a little over 1.7 millionth in the world, and a little under a respectable 400,000th in the United States, where, according to Alexa, 80.1% of my traffic comes from. Cool, eh? It does the ‘rithmatic for you!

The numbers seem to fluctuate often – every minute perhaps? How accurate it is is anyone’s guess.

You can look up your site too. Just google “alexa rank” and your web address. There’s a search bar there too. If you find your site high in the ranking compared to mine, take heart. My fiction blog (at http://lindaghillfiction.com/ – go visit sometime!) ranks just under 17 millionth in the world – so high that it refuses to give me any more stats. (It seems the closer you are to #1, the more stats you get.)

If you’re interested in checking your own website, comment with your ranking!

JJJ 2015 Join in Just Jot It January today! https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/ It’s a great way to get motivated!


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SoCS – Happiness is a Choice

I’m a true believer in the concept that anyone can choose to be happy, in any circumstance. I understand it seems impossible at times. Times of loss, of grief, of depression can darken the world around us to the extent that there is no light to be found anywhere. And yet…

There is a time to grieve. Being sad and allowing ourselves to be sad is a vital part of the healing process. There is benefit in sadness in that it allows us to relax our expectations of ourselves.

I remember when my father died. I was fourteen at the time, an only child, and my mother was devastated. I was sad, of course, but I refused to allow myself to show it in front of her. I felt that I needed to be strong for her.  Days before he died (it was completely unexpected–a sudden heart attack) he sat me down and told me that as long as I could laugh, I could survive anything. They were, obviously, words I took deeply to heart. And so, at his funeral I sat beside my mother and I said something to make her laugh. I can’t not believe that my father would have wanted that. He was an extremely funny man, and he loved to make people laugh, as I do.

I wonder about the psychology behind making her laugh – was it because if she could, I wouldn’t lose her too?

Was it actually happiness? No. But I have since, through all the trials and tribulations I have faced with failed marriages, with disabled children, decided to be happy. I can let it all get to me or I can laugh.

It can be difficult. It can be done. But it’s not for everyone.

with Robin Williams.

This post is part of SoCS https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-january-1715/

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

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

JJJ 2015


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS January 17/15

As I head off to the dentist this morning, free to do so since Alex is FINALLY back to school, I can’t help but think of a single, positive word. Most relevant at the moment for me, and I hope in some way for you as well. So without further ado:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “heal/heel.”  Have fun!

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at 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 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!