March 4th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

I got to sleep in a little today because they are doing HSPA testing for the high school juniors, so the other three grades get to go in three hours late. I was pleasantly surprised my internal clock allowed me to do this, I’m not usually so lucky. I did wake up at my normal time, but then I rolled over and went right back to sleep. This may seem boring to all of you, but I’m excited. That was the first time, in I don’t know how many years, I got seven hours of sleep in a row.

Lys is still running a fever and still feeling miserable. She’s taking antibiotics as well as Motrin every six hours. I just gave her her fourth dose, so hopefully she will start feeling a little better by the end of the day. She has been good about drinking even though her throat is really sore, and last night she even ate a bowl of oatmeal. I was worried about her taking the antibiotics without having any food in her stomach, but it doesn’t look like I’ll need to worry too much. After I bring Dani for Dunkin’ Donuts (she’s been begging for days, so I relented) and then drop her off at school, I’ll make Lys some eggs. They should be soft enough that they don’t hurt her throat and heavy enough to pad her stomach from the meds.

Today I will continue gathering everything together for my taxes, and hopefully by tomorrow I will be organized enough to put the information down on the proper forms. Although I had everything written down in my appointment book, what I really should have done from the get-go was have a monthly income and expense report. It’s taking a bit of time to get everything set up properly, but if I do it correctly now, and enter everything on a monthly basis from now on, future years will be a breeze.

As a writer you need to wear so many hats, and so many things take time away from actually being able to write. Obviously you need to be a writer, but you also need to be a marketing agent, a PR specialist, a social media guru, an editor, an accountant, an event coordinator, a research analyst, a public speaker (oh, I forgot to tell you, I have a speaking engagement next Tuesday…yikes!), and I’m sure several other things I’m forgetting to mention or haven’t come across quite yet. This past year has been a learning experience to say the least. There have been high points and low point, and I have stumbled a few times, but I am learning. Thankfully, there have been other Indie authors out there willing to lend their support and advice. I cannot imagine what kind of disasters I would have gotten myself into if I had to do this completely on my own.

Okay, I need to go get lunches made and get my hubby out the door. I hope y’all have a phenomenal day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

Oh, that will never work…

Science projects. I hate science projects! I hated them while I was in school. I hated them when I had to help my oldest two children with theirs, and I still hate them now while I’m helping my youngest child with hers. We’ve had to build ecosystems, volcanoes, apparatus to keep an egg from breaking when dropped from great heights, and mousetrap race cars. As if those weren’t challenging enough, now we need to build a roller coaster – with a loop, none the less. Are you kidding me? Are we in high school or engineering graduate school? To top it off, it needs to be made from scratch, no prefabricated pieces, and it needs to be made small enough to be able to be transported. Good grief!

After days of sketching and scrapping the sketches because we realized the designs would never work, we came up with a simple design; one which simply used gravity and centripetal force to make it work. Now all that was left was to transfer what was on paper to an actual working model and to pray it would actually preform the way we had planned.

Thank GOD, this roller coaster project was one the kids had to do in class and not as a take home project, because I seriously doubt I would have been able to help with this one, and I am positive we would not have been able to build it in the two weeks allotted. It does amaze me at how much more difficult projects have become since I was in school. The stuff they are now learning in junior and senior high, we weren’t learning until we got to college.

Your Next Challenge is:

(I’m going to step WAY out of my comfort zone here) Your challenge is to write a poem – silly or serious, rhyming or not – the choice is yours

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.

February 22nd

Hi, it’s Christina –

Now I can add barking like a seal and a low grade fever to my list of complaints. My eyes aren’t watering quite as bad, but then again, I just turned on the computer. I woke up a little before five, coughing my head off, so I got up and left the room so I wouldn’t wake up my husband.

It stinks waking up at your regular time on the weekends. I wish my internal clock had a weekend mode. It is rare when I can roll over and go back to sleep, so once I wake up, I’m up, at least for a few hours. Likely today, I’ll finish this quick post, take the dog out, grab something light to have something in my stomach so I can take some cough medicine, and then go back to bed. Even though I’m okay at the moment, I know, just doing those few things will sap all my energy.

Now that the coughing has started, I know this cold will be hanging on for a few more days. Hopefully, if I take some Mucinex (however you spell it) it will keep the cough from turning into bronchitis. I haven’t had bronchitis in years, and I don’t want it now!

Thankfully this is all happening this week and not next week. I leave Thursday to pick up Lys from Vermont, we’ll be back on Friday and on Sunday we have my nephew Max’s “Sweet 16”. Yeah, our family is a little silly. We make the boys pink cakes, complete with roses and “Happy Sweet 16” on them for their 16^th birthdays. My son and his friends all thought it was hysterical, and now my nephew is actually expecting his pink cake. The one difference from PJ’s cake is Lys will be making Max’s cake. Let’s just say, a week from today I’ll be avoiding my kitchen like the plague.

Okay, writing while coughing is becoming more of a challenge than I am up for at the moment, so I think I’m done for the day. I hope y’all have a terrific Saturday, and happy writing!

August 4th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Good Morning! To say I was unproductive yesterday would be a gross understatement. I did NOTHING. At around eleven yesterday morning I was so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I went to bed, then proceeded to sleep for six hours. Now, I have been known to take naps. Because of a really bad back, I usually only sleep for a few hours during the night. It just becomes too uncomfortable to lie in bed, so I get up. (Hence the periodic four am posts you might see from me.) But when I take a nap, it is only for an hour, two tops. Yesterday however, I think my body just shut down, saying enough is enough.

I have been running at top speed for quite a while now, and I think I just needed the rest. Today I feel much better. I think I will start making my lists of all the things that need to be accomplished in the next few weeks as well as my “to pack” list for vacation. This way, as I check things off, I will feel I actually accomplished something, and I will also have less chance of getting distracted by shiny objects. Number one on the “to do” list, daily writing challenge, so let’s go.

  

Your Last Challenge was:

 I remember the first time I…

 

I remember the first time I saw a ghost. It was the day after Father’s Day and I was ten years old. It was around two in the morning and I awoke when my grandfather sat down on the edge of my bed. He brushed the hair out of my eye, like he did whenever he woke me up. I sat up and asked him if it was time for breakfast and he told me no, he just wanted to talk to me. He told me he was sorry that he wouldn’t be able to see me for a while, but for me to remember how much he loved me and how special I was to him. I told him I loved him too and I didn’t want him to go anywhere and I didn’t understand. He said I would understand real soon.

I heard the phone in the kitchen ring, my mother get up to answer it and a mumbled conversation through my closed bedroom door. My grandfather gave me a hug and a kiss on the forehead and said he had to go, and he was gone. I hugged my knees to my chest and started to cry. That was how my mother found me a few minutes later. She came into my room to tell me my grandfather had died, and I told her I already knew; he came to say goodbye.

 

True story, and since that night, let’s just say, I’ve had some interesting experiences in my life. My grandfather was my most favorite person in the world. Still, almost forty years later, I miss him terribly.

 

Your Next Challenge is:

 

Write a story containing these three words: Light, Cave & Shell.

 

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.