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 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.