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.

June 29th

Hi it’s Christina –

Good Morning! Yesterday we were up early (summertime early, not real life early) and out of the house. Lys needed to be at work for nine, so Dani and I dropped her off and…ready for this?... headed to the mall. That’s right, I voluntarily went to the mall.

We got there around 9:20, which I thought was good, because I thought they opened at 9:30. I could swear, when I worked there, we opened at 9:30. I was wrong. They open at 10:00. Now I’m at a mall, with a fifteen year old who was woken up five hours early on a summer Saturday, and all the stores are still closed. Yikes!

I suggest we walk to the furthest store from where we are, to kill a little time. (My idea was to start at the furthest store and work our way back to where the car was parked.) Anyway, five minutes later, we get to the opposite end of the mall, and lo and behold, Vera Bradley’s door was open. They were having a huge sale, so I wanted to stop in and see if I could find anything.


As if I wouldn’t. I got their Grand Traveler, a huge weekender bag, which will be perfect for my trip to Dallas in August. It was available only in a few select colors, and in my opinion Venetian Paisley was the least annoying, but $120 bag for $60, I wasn’t going to be too picky. I also picked up two cosmetic bag trios – one to give as a gift, and a towel. The towel was free with a $100 purchase, so it and the other cosmetic bag trio, Dani is putting away to give to me for Christmas. Not bad, I get three Vera Bradly bags in my pattern (petal paisley) and a towel in my pattern, for $20. I think Dani will get the bargain of the season award this Christmas.


After we were done at Vera Bradley, we still had fifteen minutes left before all the other stores opened, so Dani ran our purchases back to the car so we didn’t have to carry them around the mall while we shopped. When she got back, we hit Bath and Bodyworks, swapped out a lotion Lys got as a gift for a scent she actually liked, and I picked up some stocking stuffers – they were having a buy three, get three free sale. Then we were finally able to get to the stores Dani wanted to go to. 

She did some damage in Forever 21 and Love Culture. Dani got some shorts, a bathing suit, some really cute tops, and a hat that says “Selfie” on it. She was a happy camper. We then bid ado to the mall, and made a quick stop at Barnes & Nobel to pick up her summer reading book. They had three of the books on the suggested list, and of those three, Dani chose The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, not because the story actually interested her, but because it was the shortest of the three books. 

The child absolutely hates to read, which I find sad. I’m hoping, like what happened to her sister, one day she’ll find a book which sparks her interest, and she will begin to see what she has been missing. I guess to each her own, but I couldn’t imagine not reading. 

Even though The Alchemist was not on my “must read” list, because it’s the one Dani chose, it is now. I have read every single book each of my children has had assigned to them for summer reading, so I really don’t have a choice. The story seems interesting, so hopefully it won’t be too painful. A few years back, Lys was assigned that “cups of tea” book, and I was pulling my hair out trying to get through it. I never could understand what all the hype was over that book.

On our way out the door, we spotted a sign for iced drinks, and I asked her if she wanted one. You know, a peace offering after making her pick a summer reading book. I went over to the café section of B&N and ordered us two Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccinoes. Oh my word! I am not a Starbuck’s fan. I think their coffee tastes burnt, but these were YUMMY! I’m sure they contain about a zillion calories, so I need to limit myself to one a month, and only during the hot months.

When we got back home, I wanted to take a nap because I knew we were going to have a late night, and I still wasn’t feeling 100%. Just as I dozed off, Dani knocks on my door and tells me Lys needs to be picked up from work. They weren’t supposed to be done until four. This is the second day this has happened to me.

On Friday, she was supposed to be there until nine. I wasn’t feeling well, so I went and laid down. I was probably asleep for no more than fifteen minutes when Dani woke me up and said I needed to pick up Lys. It was 4:15. Not only was I feeling crummy and was now foggy from an interrupted nap, I had to deal with Friday rush hour traffic. Let’s just say, I wasn’t good company on Friday evening.

So, I go and get Lys, and then when we get home, I try again to take a nap. It didn’t work. After lying there for twenty minutes, I gave up. There wasn’t enough time before we had to leave to finish making the jelly I started on Friday, so I just chilled for a little while in front of the idiot box.

Last night, we all went to the town’s fireworks display. I had planned on sharing some photos with you, but for some reason, my phone is refusing to send them to my email. The fireworks were great, they even had a few I had never seen before which was cool. I bumped into a few folks I haven’t had the chance to see in a while, so that was great as well.

All in all, it was a lovely evening, but when I got home, I realized I never made the bed after I had stripped it. So there I am, at ten thirty at night, wrestling with sheets and pillowcases. Thankfully, my hubby is the one who puts the sheets on the bed because, with my back, I can’t lift the mattress from the bed to get the sheets in place properly. (Our bed used to be a waterbed, but now we have a regular mattress, which sits in the old waterbed frame, and I can’t lift it out of the frame to tuck the sheet under the corners.)

We finally get the bed made. I fall in, get comfortable, then realize I forgot to do something. So I drag my butt back out of bed, finish what I needed to do – five minutes before the midnight deadline, and then crawl back into bed. I was completely exhausted, but wouldn’t you know it, I tossed and turned for at least an hour before I finally fell asleep. I really hate when that happens!

Okay, I have rambled on for long enough, so we will do the writing challenge tomorrow instead. I hope you have a super day, and happy writing!