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This blog is a wide variety of things. Most titles are prompts I have followed. |
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This journal is a wide collection of things. Some of it is just a free flow of thoughts. Some of it is from Earl's 31-Day Challenge a long time ago. The rest is from given writing prompts that I have found around the Net from various groups to which I belong. It's not often that I rant about life in general, but you will find some of that here as well. Things here are mostly prompts I have followed. Maybe you will find a prompt that inspires you. Welcome to my blog! |
| “Something that will be revealed in time…” There are so many things right now that I know will be revealed in time… I don’t think I can pick one. Whether or not it made sense for me to continue on to school for my MBA will be revealed in time. Had I known I would be moving back to the small, rural area where I was born and raised, I may not have even pursued it. But, the fact is that I did, and now I have to wait to see if it was worth the expense. This is one of those towns where you have to wait for someone to die or retire and beat everyone who may be halfway qualified (or have the “right” last name) to get that coveted position. Another thing that will be revealed in time…. How far we can really go with our business. I have the utmost faith in the idea. My “other half” (we’re not married, but I’m closer to 40 than 30, so ‘boyfriend’ doesn’t really have that ring to it that it did when I was 20, if you know what I mean… but I digress) is, bar none, the best HVAC service tech in the area. He’s worked for so many other people for so long… it was time for him to go out on his own. His reputation follows him, and, as his former customers need things, they will be sure to call, once they know he is back and working on his own…. There’s one thing about being in a northern climate. If your furnace goes out in the winter, it doesn’t really matter what else is going on. You need to get it fixed. Fact of life. I think this business is the best idea the two of us have ever had. So, that being said, with his knowledge and training in the industry, and my business knowledge, we should be the perfect couple as far as starting this business. So, time will reveal exactly how far we will go. Time reveals how so many situations will work out. Time brings new experiences, and those experiences change people. An excellent example is a young man who works for me. He’s a good “kid”… I think he’s maybe 22-24. He hasn’t had a lot of direction and he’s done things wrong in the past. But, he’s really trying to straighten out. He’s got a good girlfriend now, and they are making plans to get everything back on track. She is also pregnant with their first child. A few weeks ago, I caught an interaction between them where she told him to make sure he had the day off when she went to the Dr.’s appointment where they would be able to hear the baby’s heartbeat. He told her the heartbeat wasn’t as big of a deal as him making money and he wasn’t taking an extra day off to do that. I understood his point at the time… they need every penny each of them can make to take care of this little one. He came to work tonight with the biggest smile I think I have ever seen on a human being. He told everyone that he got to hear his baby’s heartbeat for the first time. He even told some of our regular customers. I believe that time will reveal him to be a great father. He grew up with meager means and, even if his child’s life starts that way, I think he/she will have a good start in life, and these two will be loving, supportive parents. One of the great things about being a manager in the restaurant industry it watching your employees change and grow into great adults…. And to see what time will reveal next. ** Image ID #1464515 Unavailable **  ** Image ID #1503218 Unavailable ** |
| Bill wondered how a simple snow day got so out of control. His wife Jenny was visiting her sister and helping with a new baby boy. He was glad she got there safe before the storm blew in. He let the kids stay up late last night; he knew school would be cancelled, and he hoped they would sleep in this morning. Of course, his plans never worked out how he wanted them to. The kids wanted to play outside. That was what snow days were for, after all. When they woke up that morning, it was fairly clear they wouldn’t be going outside right away. The wind has whipped and pushed the snow from seemingly every direction. They could barely see out of the windows of the ranch-style home, and the doors couldn’t open against the snow. Bill surveyed the room. Everything was wet; Chrissy was crying into the phone to one of her friends; John was sulking on the couch, and a vase was broken on the living room floor. It was the vase breaking that woke up Bill from his nap. The room felt cold. It was then that he realized what had happened. “Who started it?” he rose his voice at both of the kids. Neither dared say a word for several minutes. “I was on the phone with Molly, Dad,” Chrissy whimpered. That only left John. “John?” Bill tried to be calm. “Did you open that window and start this indoor snowball fight?” Word Count: 248 ** Image ID #1464515 Unavailable ** ** Image ID #1503218 Unavailable ** |
| As my loving boyfriend is so fond of saying when I fish with him, “Hook-sets are free!!” My reaction time, however, is not always the best. Ah well. I haven’t fished in years, but for the last few have started bass fishing again, and it is my other love, right next to writing. Yes, there have been many times, as I am relearning the sport, where I set the hook too late, or not at all while watching another fisherman reel in a Pig… I wish I could tell just one story of “the one that got away.” Actually, there are several that come to mind. LOL. So, I will talk about the one that would have been a great story if I actually got the fish to the boat. I was fishing with an inch and a half Crappie swimbait on Pool 4 of the Mississippi River. It was early spring and the water was quite high. I’m using a medium-action spinning rod and eight pound test mono. We’re fishing along this shoreline, which, at other times of the year would be the middle of the woods. There should be some bass up in here. I feel like I’m hooked on a log at first. But then, the log moves. At first I thought that it was one of the big Carp that I’d seen lurking in the shallows. In northern Wisconsin, we don’t have Carp – which is good, if you ask me. They are just ugly, junk fish… but I digress. This fish is going to take me for a ride. The line starts screaming off the reel. I let him go for a while, losing and gaining line as we went. Finally, my mystery fish was near the boat. He dove under the boat once. He took me from one side to the other. Finally, I think I’m going to get him in. The whole time I’m screaming, “Get the net! Get the net!” The fish decides to come close enough for me to see him (and, yes, it was completely his decision) and then takes a hard right, pulling me to the other side of the boat. “Where the heck are we going?” I ask the fish… Looking back, I’m not sure why I was attempting to reason with him. “That,” my boyfriend started, seeing the fish before I did, “is going wherever he wants!” He ran to the front of the boat in an attempt to chase it with the trolling motor until it got tired enough that we could get it into the boat. “Holy…” was all I got out of my mouth as the 40+ inch Musky came up, laid on his side near the top of the water, flapped his tail…. And was gone. I was heart-broken at first. Even if it was a “non-targeted” species, it would have been great to get that monster in on my light tackle and line. Yes, hook-sets are free… but the battle of a lifetime is priceless! ** Image ID #1464515 Unavailable ** ** Image ID #1503218 Unavailable ** |
| “When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not” – Mark Twain – Youth seems to be the time of imagination. As a writer, I feel lucky knowing that my love of storytelling allows me to never truly leave that time. There are always stories to be told and, once a person opens his or her mind to those stories, “growing old” never really has to happen. As I breathe life into my characters, I find I also breathe life into myself. I have also learned, through writing, not to take myself too seriously. Criticism and rejection letters are not for those who cannot laugh at themselves or who think that they have the ultimate answer to a prompt. My love of writing started young and, in the sixth grade, when a story I wrote for a creative writing class was picked to be one of the very few that would be in our library for other students to check out (“just like a real library book,” I excitedly told my mother when I went home that day), I was hooked. Before school each day I went to the librarian to ask how many people had checked out my book and read it. Any student checking out a student-written book was asked to answer a few questions about what they thought of the story. At that point, I realized there were so many stories to tell – whether they had actually happened or not – and I just may be the person to tell them. I will never stop writing, no matter the outcome, and I can easily say that: when I am older, I will remember anything, whether it happens or not! ** Image ID #1464515 Unavailable ** ** Image ID #1503218 Unavailable ** |
| My main frustration right now is my dog. We picked him up from the animal shelter about two months ago. We knew he had a history of nipping at children. Not knowing what happened in the home he was in since he was a pup, it’s hard to understand his behavior. He is a one year old Rat Terrier. They have a tendency to be possessive and territorial, as all dogs do to point. But, from what I read about the breed, this is a common problem. It is obvious that he has been beat, which I hate. A dog should never be beat, in my opinion. Correcting a dog means much more than hitting it. The one thing I do know about this dog’s behavior is that, when he nipped at the children of his former family, their solution was to muzzle him. This, of course, does nothing to change the behavior of the dog. I understand the need to protect the children, and all people involved. I do believe in muzzles when they are also used with behavior correction. This does not seem to be the case in my dog’s life, however. It is obvious that he lacked a “pack leader” and, thus, took that position himself. He has become more “normal” in the two months we have had him, but he jumped at me again the other day. He is very possessive of my boyfriend – that is his person. He listens well to me, and also to my boyfriend. They problem we have is in close interaction between the two of us. The dog must have some sort of anxiety issues, and, because he is possessive, thinks I am either taking too much of my boyfriend’s attention, or hurting him in some way, or he’s hurting me. The other day, though, we were both laughing, standing in the hallway. I was trying to get to the door to our upstairs, and he was standing in front of me, tickling me. So, this was a happy interaction. The dog didn’t see it that way, though, and jumped up, grabbing (luckily, just) my shirt sleeve. He growled and shook my sleeve in his mouth. I “barked” my correction at him and he instantly knew he did something wrong. My main problem is that he still randomly acts as though he’s going to be beat. He is usually very happy to go outside, but, for about two days before he attacked me again, he would crouch on the floor and not go near the door, no matter how badly he had to “go.” When I reached for him, he cowered away even more, thinking, I guess, that I was going to hurt him. I’ve dealt with abused dogs in the past. I’ve fixed chewing problems and digging problems. I thought this was simple aggression, and that we had it under control. Obviously, for one, it’s not under control. For two, I think it is more than aggression. I think it’s an anxiety, and I don’t know how to handle that. I’ve even gone to the point of emailing Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer. Of course, now that he’s incredibly famous, he is no longer accepting emails and, instead, his company directed me to buy all of his books and DVDs instead. I guess some people just become all about the money eventually. That’s sad, and so is the fact that, if I can’t get through to this dog – if I can never trust him – that he will not be part of my life much longer. I feel very bad for him. He’s not a bad dog and, most of the time, listens to our every command. Yes, he still tests his place in the pack, if you will, but he backs down quite quickly. I’m at a loss with what to do with this dog… and that is very frustrating to me. ** Image ID #1464515 Unavailable ** ** Image ID #1503218 Unavailable ** |
| Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. ~Jack Benny~ It’s been said many different ways, but the fact is that age is nothing more than a number. It is a chronological stage of your life. It adds structure to things: You need to be five to enter kindergarten; you need to be sixteen to drive, eighteen to vote, twenty-one to drink, thirty-five to be president…. And on and on it goes. The thing is, though, as Mr. Benny so eloquently points out (I’ve always loved Jack Benny), that if you decide that your age makes no difference, then it truly doesn’t. Life is more about the experiences you have that make you who you are than about the number of years you’ve spent on the planet. Some say that with age comes wisdom… however, I have found that age, sometimes, comes all by itself. I know some thirty-year-olds who have a higher emotional intelligence level than some fifty-year-olds. It’s just a fact of life. Age, to me, has little to do with anything – job performance, ability to be a good friend (I have good friends from ranging in age from the seventies to the twenties), ability to problem-solve, or a plethora of other things. Age has very little bearing in my life. Intellect, emotional stability, and ways of thinking are much more important. Of course, the natural aging process, which is related to chronological age in some ways, reminds me that I am no longer eighteen. But it’s not the end of the world. Even those things bother less a person with a positive attitude. I guess what I’m saying is that, in the battle of age versus attitude: attitude will win every time! ** Image ID #1464515 Unavailable ** |
| "Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894) Life is a process of learning and growing. If we are open to new ideas, we will truly never see the world through the same eyes for the rest of our lives. Once we accept and embrace an idea, it has changed us, if just in some small way. A profound, if clichéd instance, would be that of the world being flat. Once it was embraced that the world was indeed round, this brought forth a whole new way of thinking. It made clear so many more possibilities. Once the idea is accepted, we never revert back to the original thought. Never again will we think the world to be flat. The same can be said of other ideas. I also believe that, as more new ideas are accepted by a person, the more willing they are to stretch the bounds of imagination to accept other ideas. This is not to say that all ideas accepted are true or correct, but an open mind is more willing to accept new lines of thinking. Thinking breeds more thinking, at least in my opinion, and ideas are generated from other ideas. To close one’s mind to ideas is to cease to grow and learn – it is a state somewhat like death. I fancy myself a student of life, and a product of my experiences – as I think we all are. In that vein, I will not be the same person in ten years as I am now. And, now, am not the same person I was ten years ago. Ideas breed change, and if we do not change, we falter. ** Image ID #1464515 Unavailable ** |
| If you think you will fail, fail gloriously – Day 5 Journal Entry Even if you think you will fail, you still have to give it all that you have. You may surprise yourself, or help may come from a place you least expected. It’s about a “can do,” “never give up,” attitude. We are starting a small business right now. Reading this, you are probably thinking…. “In this economy?” Of course. Why not? If you wait for the absolute right conditions, the absolute right timing and for all of the stars to be in place before you act, you will never act. I firmly believe that, and I always have. You have two options in the world. You can sit on the couch and wait for life to happen to you, or you can go out there and happen to it. How many millionaires do you think made it big on their first attempt? Better yet, how many successful authors got a book contract their first time out in the market? My problem with this prompt is the word “fail.” Failure is the end of something. There is no failure if one keeps trying. Learning experiences? Oh, those are many in what one may call failure. Is a rejection letter a failure? Maybe, to a writer who does not want to learn… for a writer who does, it spurs them on to do more, better, etc. In this context, I take the word “fail” as a momentary bump in the road. If you are going to do something that you truly believe in, then you must do it gloriously and grandly. Put yourself out there. Do what you believe in! An old quote says, “If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life.” It’s true. Yes, I’ve gone to business school and run businesses for a long time. There are feasibility studies, market analyses, and many other, logical things that must be done to ensure that you are doing the right thing at the right time…. But it’s 80% heart. Another person could have the same idea at the same time…. What, was Bill Gates all alone in his thoughts… no! No one else pursued their thoughts (in that particular segment) with the ferocity of a man who is hungry and who knows he can prove himself. Even if you think you will fail, fail gloriously…. It’s about going for it. It’s about doing what you believe. It’s about believing enough that, sooner or later, others start to believe as well. That’s most of the battle right there! My parting thought on this: there is no failure where there is growth. ** Image ID #1464515 Unavailable ** |
Robots of sorts are making their way into our lives. We have ovens now that will keep food cool until a preset time at which they heat up and cook your dinner. Viola! You casserole is ready when you walk in the door from work. We wake in the morning to a perfectly brewed pot of coffee at the ready: all very reminiscent of Rosie from the Jetsons. We have “robots” to mow out lawn. We have others who can sweep or vacuum or floors without our assistance. We have programmable thermostats that will cool or warm our home on command, all the ensure our comfort. We have voice recognition software and retinal scans for our own security. Robotics? Well, I guess that’s pushing it, but it’s on the verge. Sony has made a robot in a human form and is perfecting the tasks it can do. Robotics is at the forefront of technology, for good or for bad. It makes for some great sci-fi when robots take over the Earth causing various problems and destruction… at least in this writer’s mind. From computers, the next logical step is robots. As with computers, they may be great… when they work right, and wreak havoc when they don’t. Robots, right now, are part science and part science-fiction. Being the “geak-o-saurus” that I am, a handle given to me by my best friend, I look forward to main stream robots. It will be interesting to see what simple daily tasks these things will perform for us in the future. It is also interesting to think of the other side… the “what if…” What if some nanotechnology implanted in them learned to create more of itself. What if it learned evil. What if they decided to take over the world. All of these questions make the field of robotics fun for an author…. Even if it may be the beginning of the end of the world… Mwaa haaa haa haaa. ** Image ID #1464515 Unavailable ** |
| I'm not sure that I have too much to say about this category. I don't have a whole lot of experience with the raffles and auctions, but I like the idea. It seems to be a great way to earn GPs for a cause. I like the idea of Merit Badges. They are meant for specific things, and are... well, basically badges that show various things such as levels of involvement or committment. I think it is great that writers can award other writers with these sorts of things. Writing seems to be such a solitary pursuit that it is good to have a place to give and get feedback, see what others are doing in your genre, and be able to reward them (and be rewarded) for good deeds and for a job well done. ** Image ID #1464515 Unavailable ** |
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