Life in progress

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I give up

Ever feel like if it’s not one thing, it’s another?

With my stomach upset still lingering but steadily going away I figured, great! I’m gonna be okay! Even my shoulder is feeling better – maybe the day I spent just sleeping did it some good after all! So I’m just coasting along with barely a health concern in the world and BOOM! My eyes are gone again.

The doctor couldn’t figure out what might be wrong, the optometrist didn’t have a clue… I thought it might have been lack of hydration, and that seemed to work for a while. Lutein supplements didn’t help – the optometrist told me not to bother so I went off them and saw (literally and figuratively) no difference. So what can it be?

As I type this I’m sitting with my laptop as close to my face as is reasonable, I’m wearing my reading glasses, and I’m still having to squint hard enough to leave permanent dents in my forehead in order not to see double. When I do relax my eyes it feels like there’s air blowing in them. Maybe they’re still dry, even though I’ve drunk about 3 litres of water today. Who knows? I’ve even tried convincing myself that it’s all in my head. My eyes don’t buy it.

So I give up. After I’m finished typing this I’m turning the computer off, the lights off, and the music up. I hate not being able to read and it’s even worse that I’m sitting here, it’s lovely and quiet and it’s the perfect opportunity to edit… but what can I do?

I’ll persevere through the SoCS prompt tomorrow, but if my eyes don’t get better (and sometimes they miraculously do overnight, so again, who knows?) then I might not be around much until they do.

Please wish me luck.


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JusJoJan 31 – We Did It!! 2015 edition

Hard to believe the month of January is done and dusted for yet another year. Just Jot It January 2015 was a roaring success this year, and I have all of you participants to thank for it. 😀

I think the idea of having prompts worked out well for some, so I’ll think about doing that again next year – maybe even one per week or every three days.  Anyhoo, here are the links in case you’d like to read some of the pingbacks.

Prompt # 1 for January 1st to 10th inclusive: reading.
Please visit the prompt post for more details. https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/jusjojan-day-1-10-prompt/

Prompt # 2 for January 11th to 20th inclusive: ‘rithmatic.
Please visit the prompt post for more details. https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/10/jusjojan-day-11-20-prompt/

Prompt # 3 for January 21st to 30th inclusive: sex.
Please visit the prompt post for more details. https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/20/jusjojan-day-21-30-prompt/

as well as the main pingback and rule post, where you can find most of them:

Just Jot It January – Pingback Post and Rules

I promise to get to all the posts in the next month or so. In the meantime, I’d like to invite everyone who joined in to choose their own favourite JusJoJan post and link it in the comments below–please keep it to just one so as not to overwhelm–and I’d like to invite everyone to check out the posts that are linked!

Thanks once again!

Oh, and here’s a present for you! Your official Participant 2015 badge. Grab it and post it as a widget on your blog! Remember, whether you posted your jot every day, or simply jotted down a phone message for a loved one, you’re a Just Jot It January Winner! 😀

JJJ Part 2015

Happy February, all!


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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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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.”

__________________________________________________________________________________________

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!


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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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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 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/


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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!