July 5th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Good Morning! What a GLORIOUS day! It was actually a little chilly last night, and today is bright and sunny, there’s a slight breeze, and NO humidity. It is going to be perfect weather for my girlfriend Sharon’s picnic. I already have the broccoli salad made, and all the fruit is ready so all I have to do is assemble the dessert. All I have left to make is the baked beans, and I’m golden.

Did you have a nice 4^th of July celebration? We did, for the most part. At the party yesterday, after my son cut his birthday cake, one of his friends pulled the cord on one of those popper cannons that blow out confetti, and wouldn’t you know it, the stopper on the top hit my son in the eye. After half an hour of flushing it out, it was better, and we resumed our partying, but it was tense there for a while.

My son, I love him to death, but you would think, by twenty-four, he would have outgrown being an accident magnet. The poor kid, calamity seems to follow him around. Oh, did I mention this was the same eye that got hit with a screwdriver a few months ago? He has caused more than a few of these grey hairs on head.

Ugh! It is 7:15 on a Saturday morning, and Lys just walked out of her room. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up around six, thinking I’d have a quiet house for several hours. Apparently, she couldn’t sleep either. Phew! She grabbed a bowl of cereal and went back in her room.

Before I started my blog this morning, I thought I should clear out my emails. One of the emails I clicked on before deleting it was my Twitter week in review. I swear, if I didn’t get those weekly emails, I’d completely forget I have a twitter account. My tweets are directly linked from my other accounts, so I rarely tweet anything from the Twitter page itself.

It was interesting, my June 21^st blog post wishing everyone a great longest day of the year, got just shy of 300 views. The second highest amount of views I had was about my books being on sale for $0.99. That tweet had 18 views. What was it about the summer solstice that garnered so much interest?

So, of course, the update made me log on to my actual Twitter account, and there I found six notifications. Five of the six were ones showing the ninety new followers, but one was from a man named Ron Shaw asking me to check out his page. Ron is an author and a radio talk show host – no, I had never heard of him before he sent me the tweet.

It was still ridiculously early, and I didn’t feel awake enough to write, so I went and checked out his page, Seven Fish Tree. This guy seems to be quite a character. From what I’ve gathered from his page, he is happily married to Donna who unfortunately is battling breast cancer at the moment, he is a retired police officer, he is a garage/yard sale junkie, and he lives in the Atlanta area. None of those make him a “character”, they are all fairly mundane facts. However, his stories of his 4:00 am battle with a four legged masked intruder, and his Victorian ghost, Mary, who lives in a camel backed trunk, do make him one. I laughed at his raccoon escapade, was touched by Donna’s battle, and found myself actively scrolling through his page to find out more about Mary. If his books are as captivating as his short posts, I would probably enjoy them immensely.

Here I was, thinking I would spend ten minutes or so clearing out the junk from my email, and I got distracted for over an hour. It’s going to be a shiny object day.

Okay, since I don’t know how long the quiet will last, I should skedaddle. I hope you have an wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

Fireworks

The crowd begins form, they come from near and far

Brought to the grassy meadow by foot, shuttle bus or car

The food tent’s bustling and the band begins to play

We’ll be sharing festivities with ten thousand friends this Independence Day

Chairs are set, the blanket’s spread on the plot of grass we staked

Anticipation builds as we sip lemonade and indulge in funnel cake

Games of Frisbee and tag cease as the light begins to fade

A brief second, a lull in the din, and crickets begin their evening serenade

The mayor speaks, the anthem’s sang, the time has finally arrived

The first launch, a warning shot, booms and flashes in the night sky

The crowd all cheer then settle in to watch the marvelous show

In rapid succession, six rockets launch, then cause the sky to glow

With shimmering gold and green, yellow and red, silver and blue

The gathering replies with spontaneous “Ahhs” and “Ooos”

***

There were probably two more stanzas to wrap it up, but I ran out of time.

Your Next Challenge is:

(S)He looks so familiar…

(It took me quite a while to come up with this new challenge, so if you have any suggestions for a writing prompt, I’d be more than happy to entertain ideas from you!)

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.