August 30th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –
 

Hope y’all are doing well this Friday morning! It’s Labor Day weekend already, can you believe it? We’ve already had a few cool nights. Where did the summer go? I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, I remember it still being hot through most of September before it would cool down. Then in October we would get another warm week or two, which we called “Indian Summer”.

 

Having two or three days in a row in the nineties was rare and hitting a hundred degrees was big news, but now it’s common place. The weather has become very strange. Forty years ago there was a gentle wave that brought you through the seasons; you gradually climbed to the hottest first two weeks in August then slowly fell to the coldest first two weeks in February. It was easy, almost predictable. You hoped to have snow on Christmas, but you pretty much knew there was a big storm coming the second week in January. Unless it was raining, or the once in a blue moon it came really early, you knew you would only have to wear a light sweater on Easter and after Mother’s Day you could get away with shorts and they would get you through until the first week of October. Your heavy coat came out about a week before Thanksgiving. I’m not saying it was always exactly the same, but deviations were unusual and when they happened, folks talked about them for weeks, if not months or years.

 

Now, who the heck knows? We’ve had bathing suits on trying to catch a tan on eighty degree days in February and a blizzard two days before Halloween. One day it’s in the nineties, then boom it’s in the fifties and you’re looking around asking, “Who turned off the heat?”. Record cold, record heat, I’ve said it before and you will undoubtedly hear me say it again, it should have been labeled “Global Unrest” instead of “Global Warming”; because when we are wearing sweatshirts during the day in August, you can’t help but think “Global WARMING” is a bunch of hooey.

Not sure how I got there from basically saying “it’s Labor Day”. I’ll blame it on a pre-coffee blog posting. Today we will be organizing my daughter’s room, closet and drawers so she will have all her ducks in a row for the start of school. I was shocked when I suggested it yesterday, but she jumped all over the idea. We’ll get some done today and then finish up tomorrow. My daughter will be leaving around two this afternoon for another tour of the high school. Hopefully after the tour, she will be less stressed over the transition to the new school.

OK, I’ve rambled enough this morning. I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

 

Your Last Challenge was:

 

I had the hardest time learning how to…

 

I had the hardest time learning how to do many things, and yet others came with virtually no effort at all. It was almost as if I had somehow known the information already. For example, I had never taken a calculus class in my life, but I was able to teach it to a bunch of college students when I was in eighth grade. However, I’ll still occasionally glance down at my hand to see which one makes the “L” for left.

I can tie intricate macramé, but crocheting is beyond me. I can make a soufflé stand six inches above the pan, yet buttering toast is a challenge. My shoelaces still come undone, my spelling is atrocious and I never did learn how to work the VCR, all things which were taught to me over and over again; but there are so many things I have been show only once, or simply figured out on my own.

 

Out of time. You have just received a little more information as to who I really am, all the examples above are me; even the admission of having to consciously think over Right and Left.  

Your Next Challenge is:

 

 

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.