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 |   The simplicity of my day to day. |
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This is where I write my thoughts, feelings and my daily trials, tribulations and happy things
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| PROMPT November 30th Congratulations on making it to the last day of the competition! What was your favorite prompt from the last month? What was the most rewarding aspect of participating in the competition? Well I didn’t complete the whole 30days owing to circumstances beyond my control, as they say! However I really enjoyed the process of coming up with some sort of answer each day. There are some people who are natural bloggers, they write so effortlessly, or so it seems. This month Charlie ~  has touched me with his openness and his unique take on things. Robert Waltz  is as usual his normal entertaining self, and WakeUpAndLive️~🚬🚭2024  always makes me smile. Thanks to everyone who gave this challenge a go this month. I very much enjoyed reading all your blogs, thanks for all your comments too. There were lots of good prompts this month, most were insisting I reach into my psyche, look deep into my soul and reflect on some part of my personality and life. I enjoyed reading about the indigenous people of different regions and countries. There is so much forgotten history we know nothing about. Most countries it seems tried to eradicate their first peoples, it never worked. |
| PROMPT November 29th We need your help filling the Challenge War Chest! In your entry today, write three of your own prompts and then choose one of your own to complete your entry. What’s your favourite season and why? If your family weren’t your family would you choose to spend time with them? Why do you think people love having pets? If you choose not to have a pet, why? I’ll choose number two to comment on today. Family as a whole consists of many members. Although I truly love them all and would be devastated if anything bad befell any of them, there are some of the family I wouldn’t choose to spend much time with. The old saying you can choose your friends but not your family is so true. And yet it is expected we’re supposed to love spending time with family members purely because they are connected through blood or marriage. It doesn’t make any sense at all. You can probably tell, today has been one of those times when I’ve asked, “Really, are you related to me?” Christmas time can be stressful for many people, often because of expense, but more so the expectation of “being with family”. Or for some the fact of having no family at all, when the myth of togetherness is thrust upon us at every turn. Advertisements showing the ‘perfect’ family, opening presents around the tree and Mother carrying in the perfectly cooked roast and all the trimmings. It’s not fair that this image is foisted on the people, making them feel failure or sadness. The older I get, the more disillusioned I become, which is so sad. For years I was that person who tried to achieve perfection. The beautifully set table and the perfect meal. Everyone was welcome at our house. I cooked meals for thirty seated guests and family. Then when I said I’d had enough, no one seemed to take over the reigns and I don’t blame them either. So I haven’t really figured it out. Could we really do Christmas without the guilt? Simply spend the holidays with the ones we wish to, the ones who give us pleasure? Not sure we could get away with it. |
| PROMPT November 27th What do you want for Christmas? (Or for your next birthday if you don’t celebrate Christmas) What I really, really want for Christmas is coolish weather. We are going camping in the bush, at a damn. We’re going water skiing with the extended family. Includes, six children under twelve. one pregnant granddaughter, with morning sickness and who’ll be missing her Xmas alcohol, two vegans, two old people(us) and the rest of the clan. Oh and I almost forgot the two dogs! So please no hundred degree days. |
| PROMPT November 26th I am writing this prompt today from the current and ancestral home of the Anishinaabe people. In your entry today, research and write about the indigineous and native peoples who lived on the land where you currently reside. If you are in the United States, take time during your Thanksgiving meal to thank your ancestors and the indigenous people of your area. The most important story which happened in my neck of the woods was the killing and beheading of a young Noongar warrior. Yagan was an Aboriginal Australian warrior from the Noongar people. He played a key part in early resistance to British colonial settlement and rule in the area surrounding what is now Perth, Western Australia. Yagan was pursued by the local authorities after he killed Erin Entwhistle, a servant of farmer Archibald Butler. It was an act of retaliation after Thomas Smedley, another of Butler's servants, shot at a group of Noongar people stealing potatoes and fowls, killing one of them. The government offered a bounty for Yagan's capture, dead or alive, and a young settler, William Keats, shot and killed him. Yagan's execution figures in Australian history as a symbol of the unjust and sometimes brutal treatment of the indigenous peoples of Australia by colonial settlers. He is considered a hero by the Noongar. After his shooting, settlers removed Yagan's head to claim the bounty. Later, an official sent it to London, where it was exhibited as an "anthropological curiosity" and eventually given to a museum in Liverpool. The head was held in storage for more than a century before it was buried with other remains in an unmarked grave in Liverpool in 1964. Over the years, the Noongar asked for repatriation of the head, both for religious reasons and because of Yagan's traditional stature. The burial site was identified in 1993; officials exhumed the head four years later and repatriated it to Australia. After years of debate within the Noongar community on the appropriate final resting place, Yagan's head was buried in a traditional ceremony in the Swan Valley in July 2010, 177 years after his death. |
| PROMPT November 25th Write about tinkering, brainstorming, or the process of creation. What brings out your creativity? I must admit I do like a good prompt. I read the prompt, store it in my brain and forget about it until Eureka! Out pops an idea, or several, for a story. I don’t know how that works but it seems to for me. I find staring with dialogue always gets me going too. It’s like walking into the middle of someone having a conversation on the phone. You need to fill in the replies and before you know it you are embroiled in a situation. Although someone told me it’s a no no to start with dialogue, I prefer it to descriptions of the scene where the story takes place. Other times I simply start to write, not knowing where I’m headed and before I know it I’m off and running. That’s great when that happens, it’s exciting. |
| PROMPT November 24th Think back to a time when you felt completely at peace. What made you feel that way? Well, I’ve just been for a three mile walk with my dog Lucy. I realised I was at peace walking along, thinking my own thoughts, even though I was hot. My poor dog just wanted to get home. It’s been about 35degree C today. I just had a thought. You know that moment when you’re just going under, the moment when the anaesthetic is starting to kick in? That’s peace! You don’t know whether you’ll wake up again and don’t actually care. 😂 I like getting in my car, the radio station tuned to my favourite programme, driving on my own. That’s when I feel peaceful too. On reflection I find peace in all sorts of situations. I think it’s all a matter of turning off the rest of the world and trying to be in the moment, whether it’s gardening, listening to a podcast or walking. |
| PROMPT November 23rd Write about a time you discovered a new skill in yourself. Or write about the first time you put a new skill into practice. I think it was about ten years ago, I nervously joined a local Creative Writer’s Group, I had no idea if I’d be any good at it, whatever ‘it’ was. My husband said to me a few days ago, “ you know, your writing has improved!” Honestly I think he’s right. It has taken me that long to get ‘it’ right. Well, as much as one can ever get writing right. So maybe that’s my skill. I love singing too. That’s a skill that only comes with practice. Since Covid when my singing group had to disband, my voice has disbanded too. I’m a good listener. Is that a skill? I think it could be classed as one. It’s hard not to but in with opinions or advice. Most people just want to be heard. |
| PROMPT November 22nd Write about a moving performance you’ve witnessed. Consider musicals, theatre performances, dances, operas, orchestras, etc. Why did it have an impact on you? Well I’ve seen hundreds of musicals in my life. I love the genre. Movies or theatre. The first ones I remember as a youngster would have been the Rogers and Hammerstein musicals. The King and I was my absolute favourite. I fell in love with Yul Bryner in his role as the king of Siam. Fifteen year old sigh. I cried in Carousel when Billy died. I still know all the words to ‘My boy Bill’ Later on there was High Society with Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly. Then came the stage shows. Jesus Christ Super Star was the best musical on stage I’d ever seen. Since then I’ve just about seen them all. But the most moving of all was watching my Granddaughter Beth. She was a student at the West Australia Academy of Performing Arts. Seeing her on stage in the musical, Chicago, was one of my proudest, emotional moments of my life. |
| PROMPT November 21st Write about a “cruicible moment” in your life. A challenging time that shaped you and altered your view on your life and/or the world. Well first thing I need to do for this prompt was to look up the meaning. I always thought it was a vessel of some sort. But although that’s true it’s also a place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause or influence change or development. I suppose a crucible moment then is like an epiphany and we had this prompt last week I believe. I’m not sure there has ever been a dramatic shift that tilted my world on its axis, more of an awareness of where I may be going wrong and an adjustment is needed. There have been times when no matter how much you try to help someone, nothing you say or do makes the slightest bit of difference. Sleepless nights, worry and anxiousness about a problem or situation that’s non of your making and therefore out of your hands. Like as in an epiphany you can see clearly. You realise you’re not Atlas, and can’t carry the world’s problems on your shoulders. |
| PROMPT November 19th Share a time when an interaction with a stranger had an affect on you. I’m struggling to answer this prompt. I have met hundreds of strangers whilst travelling and yet I can’t think of one who really had an affect on me. Maybe they did effect me unknowingly when they directed me to destinations where I wouldn’t have necessarily gone and I never realised. Who knows when you’re lost in a foreign country one place is much like another. You know that sliding doors moment? We must do that all the time, making choices which change destiny but we are unaware. I’m like Kåre Enga in Udon Thani  and always remember kindnesses. It’s the actions of others I remember not necessarily the actual person or stranger. |
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