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Guided by prompts from WDC blogging challenges... and of course, life |
HI! I'm Jenn - and I'm all over the place (well, at least my mind is). In this blog, I have attempted to gather my thoughts on things prompted/inspired by WDC blogging challenges from "Journalistic Intentions"  , "The Soundtrack of Your Life" , "Blogging Circle of Friends " , "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" and, well, LIFE.    |
19 November 2021  Prompt: We've all had one or several epiphany's in our lives. Tonight, write about a moment in your life that changed the way you view the world. I thought about this prompt then thought about it some more. What should I write about? There have been a few life changing events in my life. Maybe I could write about what it was like the first time I had a seizure in front of the kids at school. How the kids mocked me and teased me for this disease that is out of my control. The names they called me, the looks they gave me, how they distanced themselves from me like my seizures were contagious. I learned just how cruel, ruthless, and unthinking people can be and it began my dislike of being around people. Or maybe I could talk about when I found out my first husband was cheating on me with my best friend's baby's momma. All while I was babysitting the kids she already had on my days off work. Sounds like a Jerry Springer episode, doesn't it? My best friend, who my husband forbade me to see or talk to, he was the one who came to my place of work and told me - shattering the glass cage that was my life. And I grew wings and flew, right into a cage of my own making. Then again, perhaps my great epiphany was the day I looked into the sky blue eyes of the man who would become my life partner, and fell head over heels for a man that at the time I didn't even know. But it wasn't then either. My greatest epiphany occurred as I lay dying in a hospital bed while my kidneys continued to fail. I prayed to God that I might be able to live a even little while longer, to meet my future grandchildren, to see my family. To actually live, which is something I really hadn't done up to that point because I allowed the worries of the world to stress me until the point of my sickness. You see, up until that point, I refused to believe in the Christian God, even though He is who my parents raised me to believe in. We must all choose our own paths after all. I was in the hospital the same time Covid-19 hit our area. The hospital was crazy with activity as the doctors and nurses tried to see to the influx of patients. The hospital locked down and would not allow any visitors to see patients, which meant I was unable to see my husband, daughters, or parents. But in the midst of that craziness, God placed some very caring people into my life; nurses who took extra time to care for me, to brush my hair, to make me feel like a normal person again - doctors who communicated with one another and somehow found a way to stop my kidneys from failing and in doing so found more of my autoimmune problems, some of which had much to do with the kidney failure. But even they were stumped by my kidneys' return to full function. But, somehow, some part of me spoke what I knew deep within me. God had made all of this happen. He brought the right people into my life, He healed me by using those people as the tools to do so. You see, God heard my cries. He told me it wasn't my time, that I still had a purpose here. And I was given more time with my family, more time to enjoy life, more time to live life. So now, I wake each morning, thankful for the opportunity to see a new day, thankful for my family and those few I call friends, grateful to be able to continue to experience the wonder that is life the good and the bad. And I seldom get stressed about the little things like the finances, or big things like when it seems life has taken a crap on me. Crap happens to everyone, not just me. God is back in my life and here to stay. I'm here for a purpose, even if that purpose is simply telling my story. I'm not out to change the world, just survive in it - and maybe bring some light to someone else's day as well. As far as my anti-social tendencies, well, I'm working on those. I have to in order to deal with people in my daily life. And God is helping me with that. I have also found forgiveness for those people who hurt me so much as I went through life. A weight has been lifted off my shoulders I didn't even know was there - but it helps and I'm happier than I have been since I was a kid. |
| 11 November 2021 Prompt: An easy prompt for tonight. I'm tired, don't want to think much, so an easy one. What did you do during the 'Great Shutdown For The Upgrade' of WDC today? Tell us all the 'gory' details! My answer is as easy as today's prompt. I drove an hour to visit my mother, enjoyed some quality mother/daughter time together, then drove the hour home. Once home, I spent time with my husband, unplugged from the rest of the world. It was lovely. |
November 17, 2021 Prompt: You have been invited to a posh dinner party hosted by one of the wealthiest people in your small town. When you arrive, your host is does not greet you, and the butler informs you they have been missing last night. A quick search by all the party goers finds him/her dead. Their body is in a small clearing in the woods behind the mansion. Being a modern day Nancy Drew/Joe Hardy type of person, you begin your own investigation. What do you find that leads you to the murderer. Who is the murderer? How was the host killed? In the office, I find chaos among the paperwork and a half shredded letter still in the shredder. After using my forensic science skills and put the pieces back together, I see that it was a letter stating the paternity of the host's only child. The paper told that the child was in fact not his own. After questioning the wife, I come away with the information that the actual father of the child is the host's business partner. Now, with two suspects, I perform more investigative work and finally determine that the wife and the business partner acted in cahoots. The wife lured the host to the wooded clearing where the business partner came from behind and choked the victim until he passed out, at which time the wife, who did not desire the truth to be known put a bullet into her husband's head then turned the gun on his business partner. |
16 November 2012 Prompt: This one will cover one of my favorite subjects, Food. Do you follow a certain regimen/diet when it comes to eating? Other than something you might be allergic to, are there any foods you avoid or limit yourself to? What's your favorite meal to prepare. Share your recipe if you like. (I have a 'killer' chocolate recipe!) Diet?? What's that?! I have always eaten whatever sounds good to me (or whatever I have available) whenever I get hungry. As far as foods that I limit or avoid other than what I am allergic to (which takes sour cream out of it), I have in the last year and a half had to learn how to limit my green vegetable intake. Which for me is difficult because I love most veggies - but because of a certain blood thinner I have to take, I have to limit my intake of foods with vitamin K. My nightmare scenario come to pass. But I still sneak in some salads, olives, or okra from time to time. And I am not a fan of fast food. When I do eat that stuff, my stomach hurts for days! As far as avoidance goes, avoidance is always the case when it comes to my relationship with beets. Yuck! Maybe one day I'll try them again, but it won't be today. My favorite meal to prepare? Depends on my mood, as most things in my life do. I love to slow cook a good venison chili with chopped onions, fresh garlic, jalapenos, and cilantro thrown in. But I also enjoy a nice dish my Mom always called "Continental Zucchini" - take sliced rounds of both yellow and zucchini squash, 1 can whole corn (drained), and fresh onion. Grill up the onion and squash then add the corn once the squash is tender. Mix in your choice of cheeses to the extent of cheesiness you like (you can also put some on the top to melt if you'd like) and cover the food. Allow cheeses to melt. Season to taste and enjoy. I prefer mozzarella and a mild cheddar in mine but combinations including pepper jack also work well. |
November 15, 2021  Prompt: You and your two best friends are going on a month-long road trip. Where are you going? What three items must be in your luggage for this trip to be a great experience for you. A month long trip would mean I would have to sweet talk a friend into caring for my animals for a month because I sure as heck would not take my GSD or the cats with us! Who: I would take along my best friend/hubby of course and I have thought and thought but couldn't come up with anyone else I could spend an entire month in close confines with. Where: We'd fly to Seattle or Vancouver where we would rent an RV. I'd want to spend a bit of time in Van, going to the big market and visiting the botanical gardens. We'd have to go north from Van to visit family in Prince George and Kamloops. From there, we would travel east throughout the Canadian provinces all the way to Ontario, stopping in to see more family along the way. The course of travel once we left Kamloops would be designated by disc golf courses that were on our way. Luckily, all of these can be found, along with their addresses and driving directions, on a few different web sites. We'd take it slow and enjoy every second of our get away, after all, we'd have an entire month to do this! Once in Ontario, we would visit with family there, go see Niagara Falls from the Canadian side, and visit the Thousand Islands - and of course, play more disc golf! What I'd Bring: In addition to the standard items like clothes, toiletries, phone, passport, money, etc. - I would of course have to bring my bag of golf discs, then I would also have to bring my camera (I seldom go anywhere without it), and my laptop so I could chronicle our journey. |
14 November, 2021 Prompt: A Mystery Genre prompt tonight. You are researching your genealogy and find that ancestors from different generations and different countries made visits to the same remote place. Tell us about this remote place. Why were your ancestors going there? I was reading again over MeMaw's notes. She had continued Grandmother Bragg's legacy of writing down all of the oral stories told through the generations of our family, along with her own stories. Grandmother Bragg's journal was next since it went farther back in time. So far, I had read stories dating all the way back to the early 1800's and there seemed to be a recurrent theme which niggled at the back of my mind. If only I could put my finger on it! And then it hit me. Right there on the page in front of me I saw what had been troubling my mind so much. Why on earth would everyone want to go visit Turner Falls in Oklahoma? And why did that place sound so familiar to me? So I called up my mom to ask her; after all, this was her side of the family. After she had answered the phone and the usual niceties, I ask, "Momma, what do you know about Turner Falls? Why does it sound so familiar to me?" Momma replied, "You don't remember? Your Dad and I took you and your brother there quite often while you were little. There are even pictures of us out there that are floating around somewhere around here." And I did begin to remember. I was there in the Fall. It was chilly so I had to wear a jacket and the leaves of all the trees in that part of the mountains were bursting with color. I remember the roar of the waterfall and how the pool around that set of falls reflected the mountains and clouds off its surface. I vaguely remember visiting a castle nestled amongst the trees atop one of the smaller hills as well. Most of all, I remember a feeling of rightness about the place. Momma didn't ask why I wanted to know about Turner Falls, so I didn't tell her. She never really showed any interest in her family's history. Maybe she got that from Grandma. My mom's mother always seemed angry when asked about her childhood. It was my great-grandmother, my MeMaw, who chronicled the stories told to her by her mother, which in turn were passed down to her by her mother. But even though my Mom and Grandma wouldn't tell the stories, they went to Turner Falls. They all did, even before it was named Turner Falls in the late 1870's after the man who "discovered" the falls when he and his wife set up home on Honey Creek quite near the beautiful waterfall. The stories tell of the falls long before Oklahoma became a state. It isn't clear as to why everyone had gone there, just that they had. Perhaps the falls felt sacred to my ancestors. They even drew my great-grandfather there after he arrived stateside from Germany, before he had set up home or found as his bride a beautiful Cherokee woman. What is it about this waterfall and my family? This was a mystery I surely had to solve. Author's Note: ▼ |
| 30DBC Blog POST FOR YESTERDAY, 11/13/21 Prompt: A Science-Fiction type prompt tonight. In your world, all citizens are temporarily neutered at birth. When you want to become a parent, you must prove to the government that you’ll be suitable caretakers and providers before you are allowed to procreate. How do you 'prove to the government' that you'll be a good caretaker/parent. In this world, so much would be different from what it is now. But the thing is, there will always be those who rebel against society's norm. There would be that factor of people who, for various reasons, were not sterilized at birth. Could have been because their forbearers chose not to follow the government blindly and instead stole away to some unknown place to live a life free of Government influence and as such, the offspring of this community would not be sterilized at birth. That's most likely where I would have grown up and where I would fall in love and plan on having my own children. However, if I had grown up with total Government influence, it means I would have also been brainwashed by said government. In which case, I would not be a breeder and instead be one who hunts down unlicensed breeders to imprison them so they can eventually be indoctrinated into "The Only Way" - or kill them if they gave me too much of a problem. The offspring of those people would be taken to the city, sterilized, and placed into camps where they could be taught by any means necessary what is expected of them by the Government and eventually assigned their roles in society. |
12 November 2021 Prompt: A reminder I could say to myself before I’m tempted to respond to anger with anger, to fear with fear, to negativity with negativity is... I'd tell myself it ain't worth it. It's not worth the stress I would put myself through. It isn't worth doing something that I'll regret later and/or getting locked up in a mental hospital again. It's not worth the potential of another bipolar attack because I am stressed out. And it isn't worth getting sicker over, again because I get overly stressed. BTDT as the younger ones like to say. I learned through much introspection that I am the only one who can control what I allow to affect me - good or bad. And I realized that it isn't worth it to allow all the negativity to get to me. I've been in that crap hole and I don't wanna ever go back to it. So, my reminder will continue to be It Ain't Worth It. |
11 November 2021 Prompt: You are desperate to use the bathroom. But, you share this with several others. It's down the hall (waaaay down the hall), and it's cold despite the heat being set to the 'normal' temperature. Being an older person, your legs and ability to hold it ain't what it used to be. How do you handle this dire situation? Not to worry! That's what the adult diapers or pads are for!! No, really. The "pee pads" as I like to call them will catch anything that leaks out on the way to the bathroom, allowing your clothes to stay clean and dry and unsmelly - and saving you some personal embarrassment. .Were I a guy, I'd say I'd just pee in a bottle and put the lid back on and throw it into the garbage (guys do it when working on jobs in the middle of nowhere around here all the time - then again, what's normal for one person is shocking to another I suppose) When you gotta go, you gotta go - and the older you get the more important it becomes not hold it. Onward Marches Life My eldest phoned me this morning. She said she had some "Good News" to tell me.... Honestly, it's news I have been dreading to hear since she ran off with her boyfriend. I'm gonna be a Grandma. I have mixed feelings about this if I am going to be truthful. The guy already has one kid he doesn't take care of - and he moved my daughter half the state of Texas away from everyone she knows and loves. He also admittedly engages in illegal activities. What's a mom to do?! I have to remind myself that she is an adult and as such makes her own decisions about her life. I don't have to like them, it isn't my life. But it is painful to hear that she is going to bring a new life into this chaotic situation in which she lives. And painful to hear she is planning to marry him. All I can do now is hope like hell that she learned some things from watching my struggle as she was growing up... |
| November 10th Prompt: Your neighbor’s hay crop is ready to harvest. Everyone in their family is sick and their Combine is broken. How do you respond to this situation? So, the neighbor needs help harvesting the hay. No problem! That's what neighbors are for, especially out in the country. This is the way it works, my family or a group of neighbors come together to get it done for them. Besides, it isn't like they haven't helped some of us when we were in need. We'll discuss repayment of some kind once they are well. I hear that wife of his makes one heck of strawberry rhubarb pie! |
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You're so right, they are definitely perceptive. They know when you need extra attention, and they know when to keep an eye out for you. They are definitely a blessing from God.
