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 20th

Hi, it’s Christina –

I just wanted to take a few minutes, while I was having my first cup of coffee, to wish everyone (who celebrates) a Happy Easter! I’m up really early today, because I ran out of steam and didn’t get everything done. My hubby, bless his heart, colored eggs with Dani last night, cooked up the sausage for the sausage and peppers I need to bring to my aunts, and he straightened up the living room for me, and Dani baked the cupcakes. All I have left to do is clean up the kitchen and help T.E.B. with his morning task.

PJ and Alex will be here by eight, and I would really like to be out of the shower and dressed already by the time they get here. The Easter egg hunt, baskets, and breakfast should take us to nine, which leaves Dani and my husband forty-five minutes to shower and dress before we have to leave for church.

Easter morning is fun around here, and if you’ve read Corporate Blues, you already know my family’s tradition. It will be a little strange though, with PJ not waking up here and Lys away at college, but we are still determined to make it nice for Dani.

First we start with a letter from the Easter Bunny. Here’s a copy of the note the kids will be finding this morning:

A dozen eggs for each, you’ll have to find

I’ve done my best, so take your time

Search high and search low, and then you’ll see

Just how clever this old bunny can be

ORANGE and YELLOW will be Alex’s quest

Let’s see if she’ll be able to keep up with the rest

This year PURPLE and PINK eggs are for my Dani girl

Don’t leave any behind, give it a whirl

That leaves PJ, my only lad

BLUE and GREEN eggs this year, are yours to be had

Of course I did not forget sweet Lys,

Even though this Easter, she must miss

If you see eggs of the sparkly kind,

Those are for her, so leave them behind

That’s all for right now, and I must scurry

For as you know, this morn, I’m in a great hurry

Hope your day is warm and sunny

Love your friend,

The Easter Bunny

     

Then when the race to see who can find all their eggs first is over, they open their eggs, one at a time, alternating. Inside each egg is either money, or a slip of paper saying “Pick a Gift”. After all the eggs are opened, and all the gifts unwrapped, they open their Easter baskets and make a bee line for their Cadbury egg – our traditional “Easter Breakfast”, one which, every year, makes my husband wince and shake his head. Then we scatter and start rushing around, like a bunch of chickens with a fox in their hen house, to try to get to church on time.

Some years we’re more successful than others. This year we need to be on time, because with the way they redid the parking lot at church, there aren’t as many spaces as we used to have, so our minister asked, if possible, could we carpool. My mom will be pulling up at 9:45, so we had better be ready. The one thing she doesn’t know is, she’ll be the one driving, because I never got around to cleaning out our car yesterday. I’m safe though, she would never think to kill me on such a holy day.

Okay, I should skedaddle. I hope y’all have a blessed day, and happy writing!