April 30th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Good Morning! Can you believe it’s April 30^th already? The year is a third over.

My blog is a little late this morning because I wanted to catch up on an episode of one of the four shows my daughter and I started watching together at the beginning of the season. She watched it last night, but I was too tired, so I went to bed.

The show is called Star-Crossed, and it airs on the CW on Monday nights. We have yet to actually watch it on a Monday night, and quite frankly, I’m not even sure which channel number is the CW. Anyway, it is the story of an alien race whose ship crashed a few miles out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2014.

In the ten years since the crash, the Atrians, the tattooed race of people from the ship, have been held in a government detention center – think the Japanese containment camps during WWII, Called The Sector. Emery, who is played by Aimee Teegarden, was a six year old girl who saved Roman, played by Matt Lanter, an Atrian child, on the day of the crash. It is now, ten years later, that seven of the Atrian teens are part of an integration program, and are allowed out of The Sector and into a local public high school.

The Red Hawks are a radical human group opposed to the Atrian integration, and are making things difficult – picture the picketing, violence, and riots of the racial integration in this country in the 1950s. The Trags, a handful of Atrain radicals, are against the integration as well. They want to overpower the humans, to gain their freedom. The Atrian leader is killed, a less than honorable man takes his place, there’s racial tension, interracial relationships, a fight for freedom and equality, gang wars, and a whole lot more.

I absolutely love the show, and I was very disappointed to hear the CW will not be picking Star-Crossed up for a second season. I don’t get it. This has happened to me a number of times. I find a show, which I deem worthy of my time. I get into it. I watch it religiously, and it gets cancelled. This show has mass market appeal. It’s a sci-fi, but not over the top wonky. It’s a drama, but not overly heavy. It’s a romance, but not sickeningly sweet. There is action, a good story line, and the acting is believable. I haven’t made one eye roll yet. Okay, enough on a show you’ll probably never get to see, which, in my opinion, is very sad.

If you missed yesterday’s post, and considering only 33 people saw it, I’d say you did, I hit my Camp NaNoWriMo goal. I can still update my numbers again today, but I made it official yesterday. It was strange. When I entered the actual writing for verification, the NaNo counter said I had almost a hundred more words than the my Word.doc counter. Not quite sure how that can happen, and honestly I don’t care since it showed I had written MORE than I had thought, not LESS.

Oops, just noticed the time. I have to get my hubby out the door. I hope you have a fabulous day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

I wonder what’s in the box…

I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but we all seem to do it. Perhaps the kids witnessed their father and I doing it, but every Christmas or birthday, we don’t tear through the wrapping paper to see what’s inside. First we hold the box or package and wonder what’s inside. We turn it over in our hands, give it a little shake or squeeze it – unless someone yells “DON’T!” Then we make a guess as to what could be inside.

Sometimes our guesses are logical, and sometimes, usually when we don’t have a clue, our guesses are outlandish. We laugh, and then, with great anticipation, open the gift to see how close we got. There have been times when we have been spot on, and others when we were totally surprised. We all know it is a silly thing to do, but it is a way for us to draw out the moment, because, admit it, we all love getting presents, and sometimes the anticipation of the gift is just as good as the gift itself.

Yeah, I know it’s short today, and I didn’t use the whole ten minutes (not even close), but sometimes, if you can get a point across in a minimal amount of words, it’s a good thing.

Your Next Challenge is:

Use these three words: Specular, Strengthen, Scandalize

You have ten 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. (If you need to look up a word to know its meaning, it doesn’t count toward your ten minutes.)

April 29th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina -

Good Morning! Yeah, my daughter finally turned down her radio so I can concentrate enough to write. She HAS TO have the radio on when she’s in the shower, and in order to hear the music while in the shower, it has to be a quite loud.

I don’t know about you, but at 5:00 am, I kinda like it quiet. I require just a little bit of time in the mornings, before everyone else is up, to sit, have my first cup of coffee, and wake up. I don’t need much time, fifteen – twenty minutes or so. Now, with the weather getting warm, unless I plan on waking up at 4:30 every morning, I won’t get that time. Warm weather means shorts weather, and shorts weather means extra time in the shower to shave weather. Which means Dani wants to be woken up at five, so she has time to get ready for school.

So, Monday through Friday for the next seven weeks until school gets out, my writing is going to be done in fits and starts – a couple of minutes before she wakes up, a little bit more while she gets dressed (the music is on low then and it’s in her bedroom, so it doesn’t disturb me), and then I’ll have to wait until she leaves at 6:45. Then I’ll have until 8:15, when I have to stop to get my hubby up and out of the house. Then, depending on the day, I may have from 8:45 – 10:15 before I have to get ready for work. Basically, if all things go smoothly, I get four hours to write every day.

Not sure how things work around your house, but around here, they rarely go smoothly. It’s going to take a whole lot of days to finish FTQ and Simply by Chance, only being able to work for four hours a day. I was hoping for a July release date for FTQ (before the next camp starts), and then a November release for Simply by Chance (before real NaNoWriMo starts), but I’m a little concerned now if I will be able to make those deadlines.

My first two weeks in May are going to be spent editing a book for a friend and also reading and reviewing another book. These were promises I made before Camp NaNo, which I had to put on hold until camp was over. After I finish these two, I am going to hang up my editing and reviewing hats for a while, so I can focus all of my energy on my own work. It’s hard to be creative when I’m stressed, and even though the deadlines are self-imposed, I’m still stressing.

My readers have waited a long time for the next installment in the Bradford Series; and I really don’t want them to wait too much longer, they may lose interest. Although I will be sad when my character dies, I do think I am ready now to proceed with the story. I still have a ton of research to do, but I think I’ll just write and then highlight areas I think need more fact checking, then go back and add it in during the editing / rewriting phase.

Okay, let me get going, because I have holy mess to clean up. I left a double load of clean laundry, in a basket, in front of the dryer, for my hubby to bring upstairs for me. He didn’t get to it last night, and Lys went to take a bath. I realize that statement doesn’t make any sense to you. You see, for some reason, whenever we use the jets on the tub, water leaks into the basement; and, you guessed it, the water drips right over the spot in front of the dryer. Now, if I want to have clothes to wear to work today, I need to go rewash and redry my clothes.

Oh yeah, and the second part of the double load, was all my husband’s work shirts, which were laid out on top of the basket. UGH! Laundry is one of my least favorite chores, so having to do it twice really fries my cookies. I don’t blame Lys though, she forgot about the leak, and it took me about fifteen minutes to register she was taking a bath, before I ran downstairs and moved the basket.

I hope you have a great day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

This is going to be a tough one, for ten minutes straight – WITHOUT STOPPING – do a stream of consciousness writing. If you get stuck and don’t know what to write, write “I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write…” The most important thing is you DO NOT stop writing until your timer goes off. Your subject is OUTDOORS.

Outside? Why did I pick outside? Was I thinking I would write about the beach or a walk in the forest? I have no idea. I know, outside is something I get to look at through the window and wish I could spend more time out there, but I’m inside on my computer instead. If the screen was better on my computer, I could sit outside and write, but the battery would die too quickly so that would be annoying. I guess I could drag an extension cord out there. Boy wouldn’t that look ridiculous. If I was outside I would get distracted by the noise or a squirrel or something. You know me, shiny objects. I don’t know what to write. These things are such a pain. By the time I get done with what I call a brain puke – ten minutes of non stop writing, my head hurts and my fingers are all cramped up. I don’t know what to write. I hate it when Kieth does these in our writing group. So why the heck did I suggest one here. My head is starting to hurt already and my pinky is getting cramped. My right pinky. I hold it up in the air while I type. My left pinky I actually use while I type, but that right one is poised like I’m at high tea. I’m glad no one watches me while I write. I have some really quirky traits. What does this have to do with outdoors? Man, another shiny object. I’m hopeless. Three more mintues and I don’t know what to right. I don’t know what to write, I don’t know what to write Outdoors. Outdoors. I want to be outdoors. I want to be at the beach. Watching the waves, listening to the surf, smelling the salty air. I love the beach, but I love the beach when I’m the only one on the beach, and that never happens. It’s always so dang crowded. Even if I go in the off season, and a not so nice day, I still run into someone. It makes me a little annoyed. No that is not accurate it makes me mad. I selfishly want the beach to myself. My quiet time, my time to think or not thing.

Time is up. Yeah!!! Thank God. Ugh, those are tiring. Don’t worry, you won’t get another for a long time.

Your Next Challenge is:

I wonder what’s in the box…

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.

April 28th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Happy Monday! First, I want to make a correction from yesterday’s blog. My husband was born at 8:11 am, not 8:12 am. My Mother in Law went and checked his baby book Saturday night, just to be sure.

To say my husband was surprised by his gift, would be a gross understatement. We didn’t plan it this way, but everyone brought him a small gift, so he wasn’t expecting anything big. Fran and Carl got him a big bag of gag gifts. The girls and I gave him a refill for his beer making kit. PJ and Alex got him as

a gag, treats for “his” new dog (he’s not thrilled with Riley joining our house), and some Gear Ties, which are basically giant reusable twist ties to hold things in place – the ladder to the roof of the car, your tool belt to a ladder, etc. My mother made him a lap quilt. His parents got him sneakers, and our nieces and nephew got him a mug and a shirt.

He thought he was done, and he was happy with his gifts, but then we handed him another box. This time, the card was signed by everyone. You should have seen the confused look on his face. He opens the box and pulls out a stack of papers.

The first one said “Pack your bags” – then all the banter went around the room about him getting kicked out of the house. The next page had a picture of an

airplane saying “The plane leaves early”. The next one was a picture of a yellow Hyundai saying “We’ll be driving this bad boy.” The fourth slide was a picture of the hotel we’ll be staying at, and the fifth slide said “Because you’re going to see you beloved Cowboys.” The final slide was the Ravens vs. Cowboys with our seat section and numbers, and the dates of our trip. He couldn’t even read the slide out loud. All he kept saying was, “Holy S*&T!” It was priceless.

Lys’ chocolate stout cake was a big hit. Everyone, except me, loved it. It was really moist, and really decadent, and it came out beautiful, but I just did not care for it. My husband however, who rarely eats sweets, finished every bite of his piece. We were all amazed. We had a couple of bottles of the chocolate stout beer left over, so my husband poured some in our cordial glasses so everyone could have a taste. It’s funny, I don’t think anyone liked the beer itself. I didn’t even take a sip. It smelled disgusting.

By the time everyone left, and I finished the last little bit of straightening up that needed to be done, unwound for a little, it was one in the morning before I fell asleep. I’m so glad I don’t have to work today. After I finish this blog, and get my hubby off to work, I’m going back to bed. I’m wiped! Then, when I get up, I can deal with the grocery store, and hopefully a little more writing.

Unless I get hit by a bus or my computer blows up, I can pretty much guarantee I will reach my Camp NaNo goal. I have 2,355 words to go, and three days to do it. Phew! Glad that’s just about over. The second I hit the 50K, I’m posting my final count, even if it isn’t the 30^th, just so I can be done with it. Then I’ll have May and June to finish Faerie Tale Queen, so it can be published before the next Camp NaNoWriMo starts. I hope I’ll be able to do it with working and Lys being home.

Okay, challenge time and then I have to make my hubby’s coffee. There will be a delay in this post though. I have to wait for Lys to wake up so she can send me the photos she took from yesterday’s party. I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

You come home to find a “Dear John” letter … from your pet.

Dear Mom & Dad –

It is with a heavy heart I am writing you this letter. Even though I was very young when you rescued me and my “brother” from the pound, I remember it as if it were yesterday. I didn’t even mind you brought us into a house with a dog, because Mitzi was so sweet and she treated us like we were her own kids. I didn’t even mind when two years later, you brought Corona home. Yes, she was another dog, but she was smaller than us, so it didn’t matter too much.

I was really sad when Mitzi died, so I understood why you added S.P.I.K.E. to the family. He was so dopey, and honestly, I think he thought he was a cat, so he wasn’t an issue either. When S.P.I.K.E. died, and a few months later Corona died, I was sad, but I have to tell you, I was looking forward to it just being my brother and me.

Just as I had imagined, things were great. We had run of the house. We had all your attention, all your love. We were living high on the hog. Then last year, you brought that big hairy beast Colby home and things changed. He has been a nuisance. I realize he’s still young, and things have been getting better, but I’m getting entirely too old to be chased all the time. All that dog wants to do is play, and I just want to take a nap.

It has been tough, but I think I have been handling it very well, considering. But, now I hear you’re bringing another dog into the family. Why? Weren’t we enough for you? I’m sorry, but I do not have the patience or the energy to break in another dog. I just cannot handle it. So unfortunately, this is goodbye. I love you, and I’ll miss you.

Love,

Mikey

(The last couple of sentences and the closing took me twenty seconds past the time limit.)

Your Next Challenge is:

This is going to be a tough one, for ten minutes straight – WITHOUT STOPPING – do a stream of consciousness writing. If you get stuck and don’t know what to write, write “I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write…” The most important thing is you DO NOT stop writing until your timer goes off. Your subject is OUTDOORS.

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.

April 27th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Happy Sunday Morning! First order of business, I want to wish my wonderful husband a very Happy 50^th Birthday! 

At 8:12 this morning, he officially turns fifty years old. We told him we were all going to come in and wake him up, at exactly that time, to wish him a happy birthday, but I think I’ll just let him sleep in. He is getting older now, and needs his rest. LOL.

My Niece Grace’s Confirmation went really well yesterday. It was a nice surprise NOT to have Communion at church. Please don’t get me wrong, Communion is a wonderful thing, but when the church is packed to the gills, as it is during Confirmations or First Holy Communions, it’s an hour long process. Without Communion, we were in and out, in just over an hour, and that’s with over fifty kids being Confirmed.

Me, Dani, Grace, Lys, Hubby

The weather actually held out for us too. We did get some rain in the early evening, but for the most part, we were able to spend the day outside. How good it feels, to be able to say that, after the winter we had!

The Baker is in the house… which means my kitchen will be a war zone right when I have a house full of guest coming. My husband loves beer, so Lys got it into that pretty little head of hers that Daddy has to have a chocolate stout cake for his birthday. For the most part, my husband doesn’t do sweets, and usually only takes a bite or two of his birthday cake, which means, the rest of us will be eating this cake. I, for one, am not a great fan of beer; and the thought of beer and chocolate together holds zero appeal. Why would anyone want to ruin chocolate that way?

Since I have the whole house to clean (around all the bins that were Lys’ dorm room), grocery shopping to do, and basically a Thanksgiving dinner to make, I should really get going. By the time everyone gets here at six, I’ll be ready to go to bed! Okay, let me run. I hope you have a terrific day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

Use the following three in a story – Lamppost, Fedora, and Banana

A few years back, I surprised my husband with a long weekend in New Orleans. It was well after Marti Gras, so I thought things would be a little calmer, and I guess they were, marginally. The town was still hopping. During the day, we would walk through the outskirts of town or through the French Quarter, admiring the ironwork or learning about the history of the town.

However, when the sun set, Bourbon Street was our destination. We’d walk among the throngs of people, stop and watch street performers, listen to jazz at Musical Legends Park. We would grab a po’boy from Rick’s, and a ‘hurricane to go’ from the Calico Cat, and we would continue to meander, because the street was where everything was happening, and we didn’t want to miss a second of it.

Late Friday night, or maybe I should say Saturday morning, we were walking back to our hotel. The night had turned a little foggy and misty, so the streetlight were casting strange images, and playing tricks on our eyes. As we climbed, an image began to form under the lamp near the top of the hill. The closer we got, the more we began to realize, there was an actual figure under the lamppost, and not just a play of light on the mist. It was a man, a man wearing a fedora. We slowed our steps, and seriously debated over crossing to the other side of the street.

 

Then the shadowy figure belted out, “Day O. Daaaay Ohhh. Daylight comes and I wanna go home.” The last thing we had expected was Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat song. We laughed. It was just another street performer. We tossed a few bucks into his jar, and continued to our hotel.

Your Next Challenge is:

You come home to find a “Dear John” letter … from your pet.

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.

April 26th

Hi, it’s Christina –

Good Morning. So we made it back to New Jersey. I was a wee bit concerned if the van was going to make it, but it’s a trouper. We had it so loaded down, it was actually difficult to break on those hills by Lys’ school, and climbing those hills, the van was doing some serious protesting, but we got out of there and on to the highway, then we were good.

Leaving all her friends was difficult for Lys, but I had expected it. We got to her dorm around nine yesterday, and she had hardly anything packed. Her eyes were red rimmed and puffy, and she looked so sad and exhausted. I felt so bad for her. So, I started packing up her stuff, and Tim started hauling it out to the car. Lys’ packing was continually interrupted by people coming in for hugs. Everyone was complaining about the school year ending, how they didn’t want to say goodbye, and how it wasn’t fair that they all wouldn’t be sharing the same dorm next year.

Lys did well, and I think all the hugs helped her along, but then it was time for Rhea, her roommate, to leave. I had to leave the room so I wouldn’t start crying. I went out into the hall, outside her door, and stood amongst a gaggle of guys, which wasn’t much better. They looked like they were about to burst into tears at any second too. When Rhea came out into the hall to say goodbye to them, I didn’t stick around to find out if they did.

After Rhea left, Lys looked like a lost puppy. I told her to see if she could get some friends to walk with her to the bookstore so she could return the things she had said she needed to return. While Sammi, her best (female) friend, and Tyler, her boyfriend, went with her to the bookstore, Tim and I finished loading the car, so all Lys had to do when she returned was to say her final goodbyes to her dorm mates.

The “gaggle of guys”, plus several others were waiting for Lys in the common room when she got back. A round of hugs, and a few tears, then she got to John, her best (male) friend. Long goodbye, short, John will be visiting at some point this summer. It turns out he has family near us, so I can just about guarantee it was not an empty promise. What I thought was really sweet was Tyler was standing right next to me, in the doorway to the common room, watching Lys say goodbye to all her friends, and he was getting choked up.

So we manage to get Lys out of her dorm and into the car, and we bring Tyler back up to his dorm (this is why I had to get up and down the hills in town, instead of just hopping on Route 7 and heading out). You see, it wasn’t enough I had to get all of Lys’ stuff into our car, Tyler had a mountain bike which wouldn’t fit in his car. It took a couple of tries, and a little rearranging, and it only cost one skinned knuckle and one space bag fatality (it got caught on the chain, and split open), so I think we did well; and even though the content of the space bag was now four times the size it was when we had loaded it into the car, we still manage to get everything to fit.

Surprisingly, Lys did really well saying goodbye to Tyler. He lives less than two hours away, so I’m sure they will be seeing each other quite often over the summer break. So now it’s 11:45, and we are finally headed home. Unfortunately, because of the repacking, we missed the ferry by a few minutes again. Now, we’re another hour behind on our commute home, but with all the extra weight in the van, I wasn’t going to drive the extra miles, so we waited for the ferry.

Around three, we were all starving, so I suggested finding a Subway, so we could grab sandwiches real quick, and eat in the car. The kids had other plans. They saw a sign for Johnny Rockets, and wanted to go there. Since Lys had eaten virtually nothing for the past few days, between stress over exams, and stress over leaving school, I relented. So I detoured to the Johnny Rockets at the Great Escape Lodge, and we had lunch.

An hour later, stuffed to the gills, we were back on the road. That’s when the phone calls started. Thursday, Dani participated in Take Our Kids to Work Day. She went to work with her friend Adam and his mom, Barb. Barb works at a facility where they do testing on animals. Dani is a huge animal lover, and this practically broke her heart to see they were running tests on Beagle puppies.

While they were there, she became particularly attached to one of the puppies, and the guy told her, she could adopt the puppy. As a matter of fact, all nine of the puppies (they’re around a year old) were up for adoption. These poor things have spent their entire life indoors, they have never played outside, their paws have never touched the grass. Plus, they have been getting injected with various drugs their whole life.

Over the phone, the girls cooked up a PowerPoint presentation to convince their father of the need to save puppy 78459 – they tattoo the dogs for identification, like they do prisoners – who Dani has now named Riley. Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. Dani is pretty convinced she can sway her soft hearted dad, but that’s only one puppy she would be able to save. She wants to figure out a way to save them all. Multiple phone calls later, we may have placed four of the nine puppies. When we got home, we called Barb and on Monday she will begin the adoption paperwork process.

Okay, it’s eight o’clock and I have to run. Today is my niece’s confirmation and we need to be at church by 10:30, so I need to wake up Lys so she can get into the shower. Since today’s blog has been really long, I’ll hold off on the challenges until tomorrow.

Until then, I hope y’all have a glorious day, and happy writing!

April 25th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Good Morning. It’s six a.m. and I’m up, showered, dressed, have my first cup of coffee, and I’m typing away. When we came back from dinner last night, the room was a little chilly, so I cranked the heat (which had been off) to seventy so the room would warm up. I had every intention of turning it back down to sixty five before I went to sleep, but I forgot. At four thirty, Tim woke up because it was rather toasty in the room. He turned down the heat and promptly fell back asleep. I, on the other hand, laid in bed and wished I could fall back to sleep. It didn’t work so well. I gave up at about a quarter after five, and got up. It’s going to be a long day.

After I finished my blog post yesterday, Tim took a look at my computer. I guess he couldn’t stand all my grumbling, cussing, and hair pulling, so he put me out of my misery. I’m not sure exactly what he did, and I really don’t care, but I can now type, navigate pages, and do searches without all the redirect pop-ups detouring me every five seconds. Yeah!!!

Around seven last night, even though I was still pretty stuffed from lunch, we went out for dinner to a restaurant they don’t have by us, but I have eaten at before, when we went to the Hunter Hayes concert last year in Connecticut. It’s called Ninety-Nine, and it’s really good. They have a huge selection to choose from, and the prices are very reasonable. Tim was so excited when I told him he could have one beer. It was so cute, the waitress, Chrystal, asked if he wanted a pint or a tall and he hesitated. I chimed in and said, since I

was only allowing him one, he’ll take the tall. She laughed, I laughed and Tim turned red.

I cheated a little yesterday. When I went to check my word count, I noticed I was really close to a cool number, so I added, “Oh beans, I needed to write just a few more words to have 44,444 be my word count for the day, so I’m cheating a little bit here.” There have been times where I was close to an even number, and I’ve gone back and added a few words or a sentence, or I un-contracted a word into two

words, but the changes always pertained to what I was writing. This addition of twenty eight words was an out and out cheat, but I don’t care. Sue me.

Our “cabin” for Camp NaNoWriMo is doing great this time. I think there will be five of us who actually make goal. I was the only one who made goal in July. I have no idea about November, because we aren’t in cabins then, just kind of on our own. What I don’t understand is why some folks sign up, and then either don’t write at all or never post their stats, or why people put up ridiculous goals of 100K words, and then freak out and don’t write at all. They don’t realize by them not doing what they promised to do, brings down the

whole cabin.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to fall short of a goal, like your goal is 50K and in the end you wrote 46K, at least you tried. Your effort supported the cabin, it kept the group’s spirits up, kept them working toward goal. When you log on in the morning and you see stats of zero, or that your cabin as a whole is at 25% when they should be at 75%, it’s discouraging to all of us.

Sorry. I’ll step off my soap box. It’s time for me to sneak back to the lobby for another cup of coffee. These little 8 oz. cups don’t cut it. I’ll do the challenge when I return and then I may be able to squeak out a few paragraphs on Faerie Tale Queen.

I hope y’all have a fantastic day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

The students have taken over the classroom (or school)

Thank God this only happens once a year. I don’t think I could survive it, if it occurred more often. In all honesty, most of the kids do a good job, really put forth an effort, but there are always a few who leave me scratching my head.

Five years ago, we got a new Principal here at Crestmont Middle School, and let’s just say she was forward thinking. She has implemented many new programs which get the students involved, excited, and thinking toward their future. The teach/principal for the day program was one of them. Every February, on the last day before the kids have off for Presidents’ weekend, select kids and teachers swap places for the day.

In the weeks leading up to the event, teachers choose the students who show an aptitude for the subject and the possible desire of becoming a teacher in the future, and they are given the opportunity, for one day, to test the waters. Ms. Davidson, the Principal, also makes her selection of who will replace her for the day as well. The only difference is, that student plays Principal for the entire day, whereas the other students may be only teaching a class or two.

If I had more time, I would have went into detail as to how the program was to work, and probably a comical anecdote or two where the program did not go exactly as planned, but there’s only so much you can do in ten minutes. Oh well.

Your Next Challenge is:

Use the following three in a story – Lamppost, Fedora, and Banana

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.