December 11th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Good Morning! Happy 500th Blog Post. That’s insane. It feels like I just started the blog, and today is its 500th entry.

My Nemesis 

I started this morning off with another heart attack. Last Monday, I was not quite awake when I went outside to wait with Dani for her bus, and I opened the family room door, stepped into the garage, and then hit the garage door opener. When the door started to open, a bird in our garage flew into the house, where he remained for there 26 hour.

For the past week, in the mornings, I have been opening the family room door just enough to squeeze my arm through, reach out, and hit the garage door button, quickly retract my arm, and close our family room door to where I can peek out to watch the bird(s) fly out. It has been working well, that is until this morning. One of the little beasties, flew in through the less than two inch space, brushing my cheek as he passed. E.E.E.E.W.W.W.W.W!!!

On the prowl...

I kicked Colby out and closed the family room door. Then I started chasing my cats around so they wouldn’t have bird for breakfast. I grabbed Mikey and shoved him down the basement and slammed the door, then scooped up Sebastian and tossed him in the bathroom and slammed the door, all while this crazy bird is dive bombing us. I shut off all the lights in the house, opened the back door, flipped on the back porch light, and went out the garage to spend some quality time with Colby, praying the buzzard would leave on his own.

I wish I looked this cute
in the morning...

Mind you, I just woke up, my hair is standing on end, I’m in my nightgown with my coat thrown over it, and I haven’t had my coffee yet. I only lasted ten minutes in the garage – it’s cold out there. I THINK, the bird has vacated the premises, but I’m not 100% sure. The cats are still acting a little weird, but that may just be the aftereffects of having a bird flying around them earlier. Let’s hope. There should be an unwritten law that you’re not allowed to get traumatized before you’re fully awake.

So that’s how I started my morning, how about you? Have you started your holiday shopping yet? Hanukkah is less than a week away, and Christmas is in two weeks.

TWO WEEKS – Oh bother!

I don’t think I’ll be getting cards out this year, well at least not photo ones. I don’t know if I have enough time. I haven’t even begun to write the Christmas letter yet. I don’t have a single gift wrapped, I haven’t even sorted them out yet to see what I have and what I still need. I know I have at least seven more gifts to shop for, because I don’t have ANYTHING for those family members yet. The tree’s still not decorated, and now there’s a string of lights out on it, so the few ornaments that did get on the tree, need to come off again. The house does not have any decorations, inside or out. How did I get so far behind?

Crachunik on Left
Crutsanik on Right

What’s worse is, next week I leave early Tuesday morning, don’t get back until late Thursday night, and will probably be shot all day Friday after driving 1,100+ miles again. The week before Christmas is when I start all my baking, and the Crachunik and Crutsanik are all dependent on weather conditions. If it’s too cold or raining, the dough won’t rise, so I need to find the mildest sunny day, in the Northeast, a few days before December 25th, to make the traditional Slovak breads.

They looked sort of
like these

I really hope that day isn’t next Tuesday – Thursday, or I would have missed my window of opportunity. If that day is Friday, it just might kill me, but I’ll do it anyway. I am the only one who bothered chasing my Baba around the kitchen so I could learn how to make everything she made, well almost everything. She used to make these spareribs, only on Christmas, that were amazing. All I remember is she cooked them in a pot, and they came out dark brown, fall off the bone, garlicky and delicious. So if any of you out there come from Slovak, Ukrainian, Polish, Russian or Hungarian heritage, and someone you loved made these types of spareribs at Christmas, and you know how to make them, PLEASE contact me. I’d love to be able to make them again.

Okay, I’m off to do one more sweep of the house to make sure that dang bird is really gone. The last thing Dani needs, when she wakes up, is to get dive bombed by a bird. She’s home, sick in bed, and I have to go to work at ten, so I’ll probably be gone before she wakes up. Never a dull moment around this place, I swear.

I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Next Challenge:

I’m running out of room…

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.

December 27th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

I have come to the conclusion that having an abundance of baked goods in my house is not a good thing. I have absolutely NO willpower!! But all the things took a lot of effort and time to make, plus they are really yummy, so it would be a sin to let them go to waste, right? I have decided to wrap up ¼ of the crumb cake and stick it in the freezer, but I’m not sure if the nut rolls would freeze well, and I’m pretty sure the cookies and the Christmas bread wouldn’t, so… Perhaps if I just counter with some fresh fruit and veggies… lol.

I forgot to tell you a cute story yesterday. Every year we end our Christmas day with dinner at my sister-in-law Cindy & brother-in-law Frank’s house, then go over to my in-laws where all the grandkids open their gifts from Grandma & Grandpa. So we were at Cindy & Frank’s, and my 23 year old son and my 15 year old nephew are chasing each other around with these Nerf type guns my ten year old niece Holly got for Christmas.

 

We are all ducking for cover to avoid being hit in the cross-fire, and Holly grabs my hand and pulls me into the hall so I don’t get beaned by flying bullets. We get into the hallway and she stops me and points up. I look up and noticed we stopped under a ball of mistletoe. So I laugh and give her a big kiss on the cheek. I thought it was the sweetest thing that she wanted a kiss from Aunt Chris.  That small gesture really made my night and I wanted to share it with you.

Last night Dani decided she wanted to see exactly what she got for Christmas. So she goes and gets a blanket and lays it on the living room floor. Then she proceeds to place EVERY gift she received (from us and everyone else) on to the blanket, and then takes a picture of her haul. That is the only way to describe it, a “haul”. Almost the entire blanket was covered with stuff, and this was the Christmas where we “seriously cut back”.

 

Perhaps if one of the kids had done this same exercise when we did Christmas in full swing, we would have cut back years ago. I’ll admit, I was feeling guilty, because money was tight this year and my Christmas budget was about 1/3 of what it used to be; but then I saw Dani’s display, and now I’m not feeling so guilty anymore. I am feeling a little silly that it took me this long to realize how overboard we used to go on Christmas.

So the girls will be up shortly packing for their trip to Great Wolf Lodge. It was their Christmas gift from their aunt and uncle. They are leaving at noon and won’t be back until late tomorrow night. What a perfect gift! It doesn’t take up any space, and the girls get something much more important than a soon to be forgotten “thing”. They are having bonding time with their cousins and making a memory they will have forever.

Okay, I didn’t get much accomplished yesterday, so I really need to get some work done around the house today. I hope you a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Oops, almost forgot. Jason sent over the pictures from his phone. Take a look at this handsome group.

 

 

Your Last Challenge was:  

Write a story containing the following three words: brush, mirror, shadow.

 

Katie sat down at her vanity table, removed the pins from her hair, grabbed her brush, and began raking it through her long tresses.

“Could tonight have gone any worse?” She asked her reflection in the mirror. “I have never experienced such a string of disasters. If I didn’t know better, I would think someone had purposely set out to sabotage the event.” She laid her brush down and scowled at her reflection. “What if someone did?”

“Meow!” was the only warning Katie received before her cat pounced onto her lap.

“Oh. Hey there Shadow. So what’ your opinion? Do you think someone purposely caused the food table to collapse, or the ice sculpture to topple, or the power to go out?”

“Mee Oww!”

“You’re right. You add those to the teleprompter acting up and the weird music starting to play, it’s just too much to be a coincidence. But who would have wanted to ruin the charity event? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Your Next Challenge is:

You are straightening up the presents under your Christmas tree when you find one last wrapped gift. There is no tag on the package, and you do not recognize the wrapping paper.

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.

December 24th

Rushing around, my heart all a flutter
Cooking and baking, dang where’d I put the butter?

The house is a shambles, I am in distress
I seriously don’t have time to deal with this mess!

The cats and dog are wrestling, there’s dust bunnies galore
And the list is getting longer of what I forgot from the store

I’m starting to stress, I’m beginning to twitch
But because of the season, I refuse to be a *****

In a few short hours, everyone will be gathering here
And I just know I won’t be ready…this is my fear

The kitchen needs cleaning, the vacuum needs to be run
Oh how I long for the days when holidays were fun

The house is now stirring, the kids are alive
With a “Hi Mom” and a kiss, reinforcements have arrived

Suddenly there’s  laughing and singing, one kid’s baking, one kid’s cleaning
Can I finally breathe, or am I dreaming?

No, it’s real, and my turmoil can now cease
Just having my babies home puts my heart at peace

They are my reminder of what this holiday should be
A time for love, and for faith, and for family

Wishing you all of the blessings of the holiday, from our family to yours…
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

December 16th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina – 

Only nine days left until Christmas, and I’m starting to stress over how much I still have to do; and I won’t get much accomplished today either. At ten, I’m supposed to be at the Somerset County Home for Temporarily Displaced Children wrapping donated gifts. Hopefully I’ll be finished by two. Actually, I have to be finished by two so I can make it in time to pick up my daughter when she gets home from school and get her to her chiropractor’s appointment. I’ll have just enough time to pop a chicken in the oven before we leave so we’ll have something for dinner tonight.

Yesterday’s cookie exchange was postponed to Thursday night. Even though the roads were clear, my driveway was not, and it was far too dangerous to allow folks to try and walk on it. We couldn’t get the snow blower working, but I doubt it would have mattered anyway because the snow was probably too icy to blow.

My husband started shoveling by hand around noon. By three, he was about half way down the driveway when a truck with a plow on the front pulls up and the driver yells, “Get out of the way, I’m tired of watching you.”

My “big brother” Kenny drove by on his way to plow out his sister Sharon’s drive and saw my husband shoveling. After he finished his sister’s house and was headed to the next place he had to plow, he saw my husband was still shoveling and pulled in to the drive. He could have just driven past the house, gone on to the next appointment – which he was late for, and we would have never even known he was in the area; but he didn’t. How sweet was that? So, Kenny Ball, you are my hero of the day!

Okay, as I said, I have TONS to do, and I would like to get a jump on them before I have to leave, because from 9:30 on, my day is pretty well shot.

I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was (I thought this one would be a quick one for you):

 

Since this has inadvertently become the season of wishes, tell us your one most outrageous wish from Santa, one you know would never happen, but it is still fun to wish for…

 

Have any of you heard of the band Trans-Siberian Orchestra?  They are this group who do the Christmas classics as well as Tchaikovsky on electric guitars, keyboards and such. Trust me when I say, even your kids would love classical music if they heard TSO playing it. They are incredible and they put on an amazing show. I have been to a couple of their concerts, and I can’t wait to see them again when I can afford the tickets.

Anyway, their first album was Christmas Eve Sarajevo, and the title song from the album is the first thing I put on to get me in the Christmas spirit. It is a powerful piece, and it has always been my secret wish to someday be allowed to conduct it. Actually, I don’t know how “secret” my wish really is, because EVERY time it’s played, I can’t help but conduct – even with full gusto when there’s no one there to watch.

Your Next Challenge is:

 

Write a story containing the following three things: A Gingerbread Man, Candy Cane(s), the Police

 

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.

November 30th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina – 

I DID IT!! Just before 10:30 yesterday morning, I hit the 50K mark for NaNoWriMo!! YEAH!!! The official number is 50,864. Yeah, I know I was over 68K last time, but last time I wasn’t driving back and forth to Vermont or having two major parties at my house two days apart. I’m happy I reached goal, and I rewarded myself with a piece of pumpkin pie and a long nap.

 

I had planned on pre-making the potato pancakes yesterday and then just throwing them in the oven to heat up today, but I just couldn’t force myself to cook two days in a row. The nap helped, but I was still exhausted from Thursday. So now, after I finish the blog, I will start making them – all ten pounds - and hopefully, by four o’clock, when people start showing up, the house won’t still smell like cooking oil. I doubt it though. I made a small batch last week for just the three of us and I could still smell the oil two days later.

I will also be making thirty individual pot pies, the ones you do in the muffin tin with a refrigerated biscuit for the crust. Plus I have cheese and crackers, chips and dip, and pie. Others who are coming are bringing, appetizers, desserts, and one person is bringing a third main dish. I think we’ll have enough food.

One of the fun things about my tree decorating parties is, I really never who is going to show up. Word just gets out there and friends start walking into my house, picking up and ornament or two, sticking them on the tree, then they start chowing down. Everyone brings some food with them to share, so there’s always enough, except for my potato pancakes. I swear I could make twenty ponds of them, and every single one would go, but I draw the line at ten pounds.

Okay, off to peel potatoes. I’m pretty sure I’d rather be “off to Ireland” like I have been for the past twenty-nine days. Oh, don’t forget, you’ll be getting your last installment, chapter 16, of Faerie Tale Queen later today on my Facebook page. So, until tomorrow, I hope you have a great day, and Happy Writing!

 

Your Last Challenge was:

Tell a little something about you and the holidays – what makes them special for you, a tradition you’re pretty sure is only done by your family, you’re little holiday secret, whatever you’d like to share.

 

I am going to let you in on a little secret – I am a total Christmas sap. The very second radio stations start playing Christmas songs, even before Thanksgiving, I have them tuned in, but I make sure to flip the station before anyone else gets in the car. Ooo and if I can sneak in a Christmas show on Lifetime when no one’s looking, woohoo!

I get excited when I see the first Christmas lights go on in our town, and I even drive home different ways, just so I can see more lights and decorations. Although everyone rolls their eyes over the silent decoration war between my one neighbor and another neighbor a few houses up the street, I anxiously await to see what’s new every year in their displays. Pretty soon both families are not going to be able to add anything new unless they swap out with an old, because they are seriously running out of lawn space.

The holiday also turns me into a bit of a water fountain. I can’t hear Christmas Shoes on the radio without crying. I get a touching card in the mail, I cry. Heaven knows most of the Christmas movies make me cry at some point, and I will admit, there are a few commercials that get me going as well. This year’s zinger was the Budweiser commercial where the snowmen offered their carrot noses to the team as a thank you for saving the mail truck and delivering the presents. Want to hear the really sad part? I only caught a glimpse of the commercial on Thanksgiving. My husband simply told me what had happened and I got choked up.

 

See, I told you, total Christmas sap. Today I was glad for the time limit because, believe it or not, there’s more, but I ran out of time…

 

Your Next Challenge is:

 

You hear your mom’s (or your dad’s) words come out of your mouth for the first time.

 

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.

November 19th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina – 

Good morning!

I really need to stop reading Facebook first thing in the morning. More times than not, I stumble on a post which manages to aggravate me, and that is not the way I want to start my day.

Today I saw a post from a young person who I have known practically their entire life and I just wanted to reach through my computer screen and smack them and tell them to get their head out of their butt. (Yes, I know in proper English I should have used “he” or “she”, but I wanted the comment to remain as ambiguous as possible.) First off, what they did was so incredibly stupid and second, it was even more stupid to post about it. I just wanted to scream! Okay, I’m done ranting, even if I’m not done seething.

By this time on Friday, I will be on Route 87 a couple of hundred miles into New York State, on my way to pick up my daughter. Can you tell I’m getting excited already? She called yesterday, and she is equally as excited to come home as we are to have her home. She will be home for eight days, and almost every minute of the poor girl’s time will be accounted for; come Sunday the 1^st, she’ll be more than ready to return to school.

Since I caught up on NaNoWriMo a few days ago, I have managed to stay pretty much on track. Yesterday’s milestone was 30K and I only missed it by a few words. I think I can handle a few dozen extra words added to today’s writing. My main concern is the limited time I’ll have to write all weekend.

Friday I’ll be traveling, but I am bringing my computer with me this time so I can write while my daughter’s in class on Friday. Saturday morning we are leaving her school bright and early for our trip home, and then when we get home we are having dinner at Grandma’s. Sunday is church, and then after church we are going to my son’s house to watch the Cowboys vs. Giants game, so Sunday is completely shot. I am going to be hard pressed to even get my blog out on Saturday and Sunday, let alone spend any time on Faerie Tale Queen, and I seriously doubt I will have a blog post at all on Friday.

While I’m on the subject, there probably won’t be any writing challenges over the weekend either. I know they are only ten minutes long, but coming up with them takes considerably more time than I can afford those three days. This will be the first time since I started the blog where there may be three days without a challenge, but I am not going to feel guilty. If you look at other blogs where they do writing challenges, they usually only post one challenge a week. There are some that only post challenges once a month. You would have a hard time trying to find another blog that does almost daily challenges like mine does.

So, to my non-Facebook audience, did you see my last installment of Faerie Tale Queen yesterday? Since NaNoWriMo began, every even day, I have posted a chapter of Faerie Tale Queen. Yesterday’s post was supposed to be Chapter Eight, but when I posted chapter eight, I noticed it was one of the really short chapters, so as a bonus, I posted Chapter Nine as well.

I am still waiting for you to chime in with comments as to if you are enjoying the story, which errors you are finding, and most of all, if you think I should change the lead male character’s name. If I go on much longer, I am going to get attached to Caleb and then no other name will feel right, so time is running out. Speak now or forever hold you peace.

Just a reminder, there are only a few day’s left for you to enter Heidi Angell’s contest on my blog. Also, something I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded about, but I am going to anyway; the holidays are rapidly approaching. The first night of Chanukah is a week from tomorrow and Christmas is only 36 days away. As a suggestion, books make a wonderful gift for either holiday. They even make great Secret Santa gifts.

On my website under the “LINKS” tab, I have several direct links to some Indie books as well as to my own books. There are a few romance novels, some straight fiction, a horror novel and a couple of mysteries which might interest you or someone on your list.

Since time has been at a premium lately, I have not been able to spend any of it on my website, so I have not had the chance to add the following book. If you want a fun, silly, gift for someone, you may want to consider the newly released Tickle Me Funny by John Sweeney Jr. The book is so new, it won’t even be on Amazon.com for another few days, but you can get your copy now by clicking on the title if you’d like. You’ll laugh, you’ll groan, there are some spots where it is “udderly” ridiculous. If George Carlin was still alive, the book would make him chuckle. I’m thinking it may be a good stocking stuffers for my son and husband.

Off to Ireland… I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge:

 

You find yourself in a Groundhog Day loop…

 

(For those of you who might not know, Groundhog Day was a movie from 1993 Starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. In the movie, Murray plays Phil Connors, a weatherman – and a bit of a jerk – who is unhappy he has to cover the annual Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, and he gets sucked into a time loop. He has to keep repeating the day until he gets it right.)

 

One more tick mark on the calendar, one more entry in my journal. Today was the 353^rd April Fool’s Day in a row. Two more weeks and I will have been stuck in this loop for an entire year.

One way I could look at it is, technically, today is my 400^th birthday, because this is my 401^st April Fool’s Day, but even that thought isn’t cheering me up. Birthdays tend to become a little mundane after you’ve celebrated so many.

After the first two weeks in this loop, I became tired of celebrating my birthday every day and started to try and find my way out. I alternated as many things as I could think of, different cake, different gifts, not asking for gifts, different venue, refusing a party all together. Nothing worked. I’d go to bed at night and when I woke up the next morning, it was my birthday all over again.

Since I wasn’t having any luck breaking the cycle, I spent the next ten April Fool’s Days trying to figure out how I ended up in the loop in the first place. I retraced my steps, mimicked everything, down to the last minute detail, of the first April Fool’s Day, but to no avail. I had no clue how I ended up in this mess and no clue how to get out.

Remembering the old movie Groundhog Day, and being the eternal optimist that I am, I took a page out of Phil Connors’ book and decided to spend my time more productively, to better myself. Like Phil, I had always regretted not learning how to play the piano, so, I began lessons at a local shop. I’m no Chopin, but I can now play well enough where I’m happy with my abilities. I have taken the time to read books I had always intended on reading, but never had the time.

I can honestly say, I am a much more rounded person now than I was a year ago. Yet, unlike in the movie where at this point the loop is broken for Phil, I still remain, adding one more tick mark to the calendar, and one more entry in my journal.

 

Your Next Challenge is:

 

What fictional character would you like to meet in real life and why?

 

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.