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 |   Here you will find my daily journal of small stones and inspiration! |
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| Simplicity. How important is that to you when you write? I don't write simply. I love to throw lavish descriptions in my writing. While this is a good thing for my poetry, it can be detrimental to my short story writing. I tend to throw in all these big words and tons of descriptions. The meaning and meat of my story can sometimes be lost in all the extras. Last September, I took part in Fantasy and Science Fiction Society's September Flash. For thirty days I wrote flash fiction and it was difficult. Far more difficult than participating in NaPoWriMo. I rarely write fiction and to do it for a whole month was a daunting task. I survived it and even managed to pull off some of the daily wins. But, to get back to 'simplicity', some of the days had restrictions on them regarding the word counts. At times I needed to edit my stories, ripping whole sentences out of them to get them to fit the day's requirements. I learned much from this. But, I seem to still ramble on... |
| “Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.” ―Malcolm Forbes. Agree? Disagree? How do you feel? This quote rings very true, especially among those of us with low self-esteem. Those of us with confidence issues not only believe in our inabilities but wallow in them. We not only accept our faults but point them out to those around us and then when someone agrees with us we fall further into our funk. If someone points out a wonderful quality in us we pish posh it and then disqualify their statements. Why can't we believe in ourselves? If we expect great things from ourselves does it hold us to a level of accountability? If we don't believe in ourselves, and we cause others to not believe in us then no one expects anything from us and we never need to follow through. If we expect great things from ourselves then we need to follow though and accomplish great things. Perhaps we claim to be mediocre so that we can maintain the status quo. It is much more comfortable there, you know? |
| Talk Tuesday! What is your preferred method of falling asleep? Does it differ from how you actually fall asleep? I prefer to fall asleep in my husband's arms, nestled against his chest. Unfortunately, due to his chronic back pain and bad discs we sleep in separate rooms. He kicks his legs out and moves WAY too much for me to be able to fall asleep with him.  |
| Mouth Watering Monday! The best way to top french fries, mashed potatoes, or baked potatoes is... The best ways to top french fries, mashed potatoes, AND baked potatoes ARE... If they are fast food french fries then it is ketchup If they are steak fries then gravy is the topping of choice If they are waffle fries then you will need cheddar cheese, bacon, and sour cream I don't particularly enjoy mashed potatoes unless they are from Kentucky Fried Chicken and then I pour on the gravy and mix them with the Cole Slaw (I know, right?) Baked Potatoes are best with cheese and broccoli OR chili and cheese OR butter and Bison French Onion Dip... |
| This week, New York State opened its first medical marijuana dispensaries . Should governments support the decriminalization of marijuana in small amounts for recreational users as well? People are going to use it anyways, so, I think it should be legalized in small amounts for recreational use. The best way to control it is to legalize it and then tax the hell out of it. Might be working for tobacco could work for pot. Now, I am not saying to legalize ALL drugs, that would be irresponsible. I also am not saying that pot is as benign as alcohol. I don't even know how bad for you pot is. I am just saying that making it legal could pave the way to regulating it more... |
| Creation Saturday! Oh, you believe in something? That's cute. Make us believe in it too. I have seen them and heard them. Others in my family have seen and heard them, too! My grandmother saw one pass by the window the year my great-grandfather died. She opened the oven to check the Thanksgiving turkey and one passed by the window. She nearly fainted at the sight of the shadow. All of my family was gathered at my aunt's home. We retired to the living room and the old folks began to spin their yarns of olde. Just as the story of the shadow in the doorway was being recited there were thumps from under the floorboards. A few of us thought they were behind my aunt, others thought they came from the kitchen doorway. One never knows how or when they will make their presence known. They are plentiful in Gettysburg, Pa. I felt their presence when I was at the top of Little Round Top, the site of some of the roughest fighting on the second day of the Battle. When I got my photos developed you could see clearly the orbs, marking that they were there. My mother and I took pictures of re-in actors at Spanglers' Spring. They were all over the meadow, some by a flag and others by tents. After developing these photos there was nothing there. Only green grass could be seen. There were no tents, no flags no men! Finally, and to me my most damning evidence, I tape recorded myself walking down Steinwehr Ave. in Gettysburg the first night we were there. About ten minutes into the tape the ambient noise suddenly stops and you can hear a regiment of soldiers marches past. You can hear them tramping past and the sound of their tin cups hitting the guns they are hanging from. Yup, I believe in Ghosts...How 'bout you? |
| Fun un-Fact Friday! On this day in 1935, the spectrophotometer was patented by A.C. Hardy. Have at it, you guys. What is it, where did it come from, what does it do, and why should you care? I'm not looking it up to see what it's all about, so let's hear your takes on it. Oh, I love the spectrophotometer! It was patented by A. Crazy Hardy after he had developed it in Gettysburg, PA. He used it to measure ghosts in photos, the only problem was when he patented it he spelled it incorrectly. He should have named it the specterphotometer. After all this time, the meter is still used by ghost hunters everywhere to determine the size and strength of the spirit in the photos, whether they be manifests, orbs. or even just wisps in the midnight darkness. |
| WDC is a home to many charitable groups and organizations geared toward helping other members. Take a quick look around WDC and tell us about one you're familiar with (maybe you even run a contest or activity that donates to one of these groups). On Saturday afternoon, I'll roll the Virtual Dice to select the winner out of all eligible entries to receive five raffle tickets for "Share & Care Raffle Run " ...where both you and your selected group each will have a chance at winning 10,000 Gift Points. Good luck, and thanks for spreading the word about groups your fellow challengers might not have been aware of! Well, this is a prompt that is very near and dear to my heart. There are a great many deserving groups on this site, many run by good friends of mine. The group I would like to highlight though is "SIMPLY POSITIVE GROUP"  by Simply Positive  . I became involved with this group after receiving some wonderful reviews from members. I went to the home page and liked what I saw in both rewards for reviewing and the idea of sending out positive reviews. The group's premise is to review members of the wdc community and find positive aspects to their writing. When you find something that needs to be edited within a piece then you can still point it out but be positive about it. You don't need to totally rip apart an author to help them with a review.I have since become one of the leaders of the group. The group was on hiatus for a while and I approached Sherri Gibson about becoming a leader. What a wonderful friend I have in her. I miss her so much! (she passed away in 2015) She helped me grow as a leader and a writer. When mistakes were made she was very understanding and helped pick up the pieces. I really do miss her! In order to help keep Sherri's dream of Simply Positive alive I started an auction. I was hoping to raise One Million Gp's for the group but there are only two days left so I am really hoping to get a half million at this point. If you get a chance and you have a few gp's to offer check out the great packages at
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| If your government offered to give you anything and everything you want in life in exchange for allowing them to perform experiments on you, would you do it? Why or why not? Okay, call me cynical, but MY government is not going to offer me jack poop to perform experiments on me! They are just going to run the experiments, collect their data and move on. I am not going to be offered any exuberant amounts of money and fame. They aren't sending me to Jamaica or DisneyWorld. The best I can hope is they won't send me to the morgue. The United States government has done this before, they are probably doing it now and there is nothing to stop them from doing it in the future. I found many articles online about how the government is running experiments but in my limited time to research I only found the following article from a 'reliable' source. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39456324/ns/health-sexual_health/t/us-apologizes-guate... I am positive if I spent more time I would find more examples. I also think that just by implementing some of the laws they are performing experiments upon us. The officials add a law and then see how it works, then if it fails they repeal it. But the ones determining the success are the people in the country living under that law. |
| Facebook games: waste of time, occasionally necessary distraction, or borderline obsession? Why or why not? And have you or would you ever spend money on in-game purchases specific to the game itself? OMG! They are an incredible waste of my time! If I am not scrolling my way through posts on Facebook or trolling my way through entries on WdC then I am probably wasting my time playing those games. I have been known to play Angry Goats and Panda Pop (which actually gave my laptop a virus), I have attacked other dogs in a junkyard in...I can't even remember the name of the damn game. I even played Margaritaville, where I was on an island making a resort and I can't even remember what else. I did play money for that one so I could join the Parrot Head club. I played Dragons of Atlantis and Kingdoms of Camelot and made friends in the games until some bullies came and ruined the fun for all of us! I just went through the games that I have played and I scared myself. I used to spend forever on Facebook playing games. Wow! Those are countless hours I will never EVER get back! Thanks Fivesixer  for pointing this out to me! |
| New category for the new year... Mouth Watering Monday! Many people like to use the start of a new year as the springboard for making healthy changes in their diets. If you're one of those people, what's your go-to healthy snack...something simple, or something a little different? Feel free to include a recipe, or just offer encouragement for anyone trying out a healthier lifestyle. I think some of you already know this but I have been losing weight since last April. So far I have taken off twenty-five pounds. I have been using Richard Simmons' Food Mover to help along the way. It pretty much tells you how much of each food group you can eat each day and then you determine what to eat. I will admit that some days I will take the calories 'allotted' to the vegetable or fruit category and spend them on starches or proteins, I figure I am still getting the correct amount of calories even if I am not eating quite the way I should. It seems to be working.  As the holidays approached I became highly concerned about the amount of weight I would possibly put on, considering I usually can pack on a good 10 pounds from Thanksgiving to New Years. I decided I would not attempt to lose any weight over the holiday time. I figured if I struggled too hard with the diet I would throw it to the wind and backtrack on all the good I had accomplished. My goal for the holidays was to maintain the status quo. I decided that by this Friday January 8th I wanted to be at the same weight that I was the Monday before Thanksgiving. The Monday after Thanksgiving I had gained two pounds but by Christmas I had taken that off and one more. Then by the Monday after Christmas I had put on four again, meaning I was up three total. I weighed myself this morning and overall I am only up 1/2 pound since Thanksgiving. I say MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!  Now, as far as having a 'healthy' snack I go to, I really don't. I try not to keep too much chocolate in the house because that is my trouble food, but I do keep chips. I buy the individual bags and take one or two and I use my food mover to keep track. I also love to drink a cup of tea when I am hungry. I put in a touch of honey and it usually satisfies my sweet tooth. My husband got me a Nutri-bullet and I like to make healthy fruit smoothies too. I add spinach to them and they taste fine. (filling too). Nutribullet Smoothie Recipe half frozen banana handful of frozen raspberries cup yogurt drizzle honey tsp vanilla extract tsp almond extract milk to fill line no need for ice because the fruits are frozen this would work in a regular blender as well. |
| On New Year's Day, police seized various weapons from someone outside of a national sporting event. How many weapons do you need to enjoy a sporting any event with your friends and family? (If you say you're a "good guy with a gun", I'm disqualifying your score from today's tally, jerk.) I'm sorry but I am totally against open carry of weapons. Maybe this is because I did not grow up around guns, maybe if I had I would have a different opinion, but I didn't and I don't and this is it! I am so afraid that with this open carry, vigilante, wild west mentality running rampant right now that somebody, not just the bad guy, is going to get hurt. With all the anti-Muslim idiocracy going on right now some redneck with a gun is going to see a person who just looks like they are from the Middle East doing something they find 'questionable' and that idiot is going to pull out his gun and kill an innocent person in the name of "protecting America". Please, this is wrong on so many levels. We shouldn't be taking the law into our own hands, we shouldn't be profiling people, we should let LAW Enforcement do their jobs. Now, that being said, if you happen to see something questionable make sure you tell someone. Just this past week in Rochester, NY a man was arrested for plotting a terrorist attack on a bar New Year's Eve. He had been to Walmart and picked up two knives, a machete, ammonia and gloves. Now, just because he is Middle Eastern does that make him suspect? No. But put his ethnicity with the items that were purchased and you might have something to report. Hell, put those items with a white,shaved head kid with a Nazi symbol on his shirt and you better tell someone as well. Nobody needs that many weapons. If you really fear that much for your life maybe a god self defense class would come in handy. As for me I am going to put on my rose-colored glasses and walk through life hoping that everyone else is doing their job! (Damn, that does not sound like a good plan) |
| Saturday is 's 21st birthday, and the 30DBC wouldn't be what it is now without her leadership. In lieu of the traditional Creation Saturday prompt, what is your best birthday memory? I can't really say these were my best birthday memories but the ones from college were certainly memorable. I honestly can't remember which years the represent either. I seem to only recall three of the four college birthdays as well... wonder what happened during the one I can't remember? My first birthday at college was spent in my friends' dorm room. It was when I turned nineteen. My friends got me all kinds of funky gifts. Up until this time I had never had....wait for it...Ben and Jerry's Ice cream and they bought me a pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk...all these years later and I remember the flavor. They also got me a Chippendales g-string and Chippendales playing cards. That was an interesting birthday. I don't remember what we did for my twentieth. God only knows but it couldn't have been too interesting. For my big twenty-first birthday I had strep throat and refused to take the medication until after I went out drinking. My best friend made me a Buffalo Bills themed birthday card and another friend Matt gave me a Happy Birthentines card (my birthday is Valentines Day). We went to the bowling alley across the way and I got my first legal drink, a Tequila Sunrise. On my last birthday in college my best friend invited me to her townhouse for dinner. She made meatloaf and put the candles in it and they melted. We were picking wax out of our teeth for days. She also made mashed potatoes and used a mixer and all the teflon came off the nonstick pan. For her bridal shower I gave her a 11x9 baking pan and she burst out laughing remembering the meatloaf! These birthdays were half a life time ago and they still make me smile and that is what it is all about!   |
| January 1st, 2016 Happy 2016 you guys! It's Fun Fact Friday, so let's start there... On this day in 2007, Binney & Smith Company became Crayola LLC under its parent company Hallmark. What crayon color are you? I am that broken, blunt crayon at the bottom of the box, lying sideways, the one that has flecks of wax on it from all the others. The one you dump the whole box out to find. I am your favorite crayon, I am your favorite color. The one you use on your happiest days to brighten the pages of your coloring books. I am the color of the lion's eyes and the little bird's wings. I fill in all the blank spots. I am the crayon you roll between your fingers as you ponder what you are going to color next. I am the crayon you find on your saddest days. I help to brighten the hours you spend sick and alone. I will never lose my color, never will I grow too small to use. I am your favorite crayon, I am your favorite color. |
| 30D Blogging Challenge Day 5 - Haunted Halloween - Almost everyone loves a haunted tale. Write about a haunted place, could be fact or fiction. "Invalid Entry" This was written for Thirteen Days of Halloween. Actually based on a true story. |
| 30D Blogging Challenge Day 4 - Halloween Menu - You have decided to host a Halloween Party. What will your house look like, describe the costume are you wearing, what creepy foods will you serve? Share a recipe or two. I love parties... I am wearing my brand new Panda footie pajamas and I put black make up around my eyes and on my nose... I just won't be doing any pole dancing... Fivesixer , Wordsmitty ✍️  , Brother Nature  .My house is decked out both outside and inside. I have spooky Halloween lights and strobe lights going outside and creepy music blaring to the point the neighbors threatened to call the police. I told them to join the party and they calmed right down. The inside of the house is full of spider webs giant spiders and rats, a few black cats, a giant witch's cauldron and mummies. There is a scarecrow in every corner and a coffin with an animated Dracula who rises when guests pass in front of him. In one room there is a dance floor in another a scary movie is playing and the kitchen is full of food. A platter is full of witches hat cookies and I have a bowl of 'bloody brains' (spaghetti). There are eyeballs floating in martini glasses (olives) and all kinds of chips and dips. My favorite is my puking pumpkin. I have guacamole spewing out of a carved pumpkin... I know gross, right? Everyone is having a great time, I hope someone volunteers to come back Sunday to help me clean up. Will you? https://youtu.be/VneQ4tQ0Qxc |
| 30D Blogging Challenge Day 3 - Halloween Memories - What is your favorite memory of Halloween when you were young? I remember one year when I was sick on Halloween. I don't recall what I was sick with but I was sick enough to not be able to Trick or Treat. I had to be really small because I remember having this adorable little elephant costume. The mask was grey and had a big trunk on it. I had huge elephant ears as well. What I remember most about this Halloween, though, was my Dad going to the grocery store and picking up cider and doughnuts. Mom, Dad, and I sat around the kitchen table that night and eat doughnuts and drank cider. I don't remember missing Halloween I just remember having fun with my parents. |
| 30D Blogging Challenge Halloween Controversy - Many Christian Churches encourage their congregations to boycott Halloween Celebrations. What is your opinion, is Halloween pure evil? I have read through most if not all the entries for today's prompt and I am surprised by one thing. Most, if not all took the side of Halloween being an innocent holiday as celebrated today. I read a few rants on the Christians, which did not surprise me. The rest of the prompts are much more fun than this one. Thank you all for participating! |
| 30D Blogging Challenge Day 1 - Halloween Traditions - In my area, suburban Rochester, NY, the kid's go out Trick or Treating about 5:30 pm and are in by about 8:30. Kids over thirteen aren't usually out trick or treating, on occasion you might get a group of teenagers but they are few and far between. Some adults have Halloween Parties but not many and not many people dress up in costumes at their jobs. What does Halloween Night look like in your area? I have read through a few of the Challengers blog entries for the day and I have learned a great deal about Halloween celebrations in different areas. I never thought about how dangerous Halloween could be in an area like Las Vegas, or how difficult trick or treating would be in rural areas. I hope you all enjoyed today's prompt and you find the rest of the week just as interesting. Thanks for participating! |
| 30D Blogging Challenge We're coming to a short end now. Since it's Funny Friday, it must be fish or pasta. Close, but no bananas. It seems someone made off with them. However, there is a sale on banana daiquiris at The Blogging Banana Bar . Let's hear your opinion of one of the funniest things we have to put up with in life: advertising! Is it worth it? Can you believe it? Does it even matter any more because we are flooded with it? Can you even recall the product from an ad that you liked? How do you advertise yourself and your writing? I think advertising was more effective in years past than it is now, at least television advertising. We have learned ways to fast forward through them or we go to the kitchen, bathroom etc during them. THe most effective advertising now seems to be ones with recurring characters, ie Flo, Energizer Bunny, Budweiser Clydesdales. Things we are routinely bombarded with. |
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