August 31st Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

It’s Saturday! First and foremost, I want to wish my Godmother a very Happy 78^th Birthday. Love you!

I spent the first few hours today completely unproductive. I read articles online about how Costco gave a mentally challenged man an opportunity for a career with their company, giving him a sense of pride and worth. It was truly heartwarming. Another article was about a growing trend toward childlessness – I couldn’t even imagine. I checked out the weather for this weekend and was distracted by various weather stories, like a man’s van getting hit by lightning, holy crow. Commented on a few friends’ posts, and before I knew it, two hours had slipped by. The internet can be a dangerous thing!

Now it’s time to be more productive! My neighbors are hosting their annual church picnic this weekend, so I want to get some yard work done so we are not an embarrassment to them and I’ve been bugging my hubby about cleaning out the garage, so hopefully we’ll be able to tackle it this weekend as well. We have an older house, and our attached garage is too small for our car (we can pull it in, but if we do, we can’t open the doors to get out of the car), so we use it for storage; Aka: the black hole, the garbage dump, hoarder’s heaven. It’s a holy mess and in desperate need of a serious purge.

I need to run to the post office again. B&N delivered yet another of my daughter’s school books here instead of shipping it directly to her school. The money I saved by ordering the books through them has been sucked up by having to turn around and mail them up to her. If their screens would show the actual delivery date BEFORE the order is finalized, this would save a whole lot of problems. Even still, I contacted them MINUTES after the order was placed and was told they would be able to correct the shipping address. One book was supposed to arrive on 8/21 and the other on 8/22. When I received a book on 8/21, it didn’t dawn on me it wasn’t the one from B&N but from Amazon (I thought I had cancelled it). When we returned home from dropping my daughter off at school, one of her books was waiting here for us, which I assumed was the one that was supposed to arrive on 8/22. Then another book was delivered yesterday – 8 days after they said it would arrive. I will think twice before I order books from B&N in the future.

OK, off to be more productive…hopefully. I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

  

Your Last Challenge was:

 

If I continue to sit here, will I hold Autumn at bay? I’m at the beach, so it must be summer; and if I stay right here forever, that means summer never has to end, right? Don’t call the men with the butterfly nets, I haven’t completely lost it. It’s just wishful thinking on my part. Although Autumn holds a certain charm, colorful foliage, apple picking, crisp clear days; I am not looking forward to the drop in temperature. I don’t want to think about snow and slush, nor the pain the cold weather causes both mentally and physically.

If it’s not summer anymore, that means the holidays are right around the corner. That’s right, only sixteen weeks left in the year. If I keep sitting here, then year end is far away in the future. There is no need to reflect on what was or wasn’t accomplished over the past year. I can just close my eyes, lean my head back, soak in the warm rays of the sun and think about nothing – no back-to-school, no cold, no holidays, no end of year, nothing.

Your Next Challenge is:

 

I can’t seem to get that song out of my head…

 

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.

July 16th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina – 

I never explained yesterday why I was watching Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture. Every year our school system assigns summer reading projects to the kids. This year the entire high school has to read Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture. OK fine, no big deal. I have a B&N gift card with a few bucks left on it. I figure I could use it up to defray the cost a little. So I go into B&N to get the book, thinking I’ll only have to pay about $5 which I’m rather happy about. I ask for the book. They hand me this tiny little hard cover book, and I say thank you. Then I turn the book over and nearly have a heart attack. $21.99! Are they out of their tree? No, there is no paperback version. The electronic version is the same price.

$21.99 + tax for a 4”X5”X1” book. I want to know what the school board was smoking when they assigned such an expensive book. Money is crazy tight for us since I have been unemployed for 16 months, but we are still in much better shape than many families in our area. (Mind you the school board all live in McMansions.) Yes, The Last Lecture is an amazing story, but there are thousands of amazing stories you could get for under $10!

I left B&N without the book and with a head full of steam. There was no way I was paying that type of money for a summer reading book and I was outraged the school board was yet again being so irresponsible (see old FB posts about them unjustly suspending a teacher earlier this year). I was going to call the school. I was going to write a letter to the editor (which I still may do). I told my daughter she did not have to read the book. We’d find cliff notes on line and she could watch the video.

Why didn’t I just get the book from the library you ask? 4 or 5 copies available, 3,500 students assigned to read the book. You do the math. Needless to say, I was pissed, and actually I still am, but I have calmed down. I found a used copy for $4 and the video on youtube for free, but that really isn’t the point. The point is such an expensive book never should have been assigned as mandatory reading in a public school. Do you agree?

 

Your Last Challenge was:

K.M. Kinsley, another author, tweeted this question and I thought it would make a great writing challenge. Here’s her actual tweet:

“What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail? Take a moment to think about it......now go do it.”

If you could do anything without fear of failing, what would it be?

If I could choose to do something, knowing I would not fail, I would choose trying out for a local production and actually getting through the performance.

Since my freshman year in high school, I have suffered from horrible stage fright. I had decided I was going to try out for the high school play. I had my sheet music selected and I practiced and practiced and practiced. As try-out time neared, I had gotten myself so worked up about it, I ended up in the hospital. Since then, I never tried out for anything again. I have performed in the band and in the choir, but only as one of many, never on my own where all the focus is on me.

A few years ago, I tried to be brave and agreed to do a quartet number at church. OK, there will be four of us singing, no one singing alone, I could handle it. Although, no one sang alone during the song, each voice was more predominant depending on which verse was being sung. When we got to my verse, I opened my mouth and nothing came out. I was fine in practice, but there, during church, with hundreds of eyes staring at me, I froze. It was 9^th grade all over again.

The strange part is, although I do get nervous, I can speak in front of large groups of people without issue. Heck, when I was eighteen, I addressed a room of over ten thousand people, not once but twice. My problem comes when I have to sing in front of someone. That’s when my stomach twists into painful knots and I get physically ill.

 

Your Next Challenge is:

 

You are doing the “right before the holidays thorough cleaning”, so you are actually dusting off all the movies in your collection, when something very strange happens…

 

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.