Daily prompt : Non sequitor

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blogs, forklift, inspiration, postaday2013, writing

Write a post about anything you’d like, but be sure to include this sentence somewhere in the final paragraph: “He tried to hit me with a forklift!”

Our small town Blandford is lucky in that our Main Street rests on route 23 which used to be “the” state highway and it is still considered to be such on the books, since that puts our Main road in the responsibility column of our state. I say that we are lucky because we don’t need to allocate funds for snow plowing or road repair, if we were to be financially responsible for the snow and the repairs, I think that we would wind up cut off from the rest of the state. Our meager tax dollars go to snow plowing the secondary roads and their road repairs and trust me, those aren’t pretty.

We have been experiencing a lot of road work on Main Street over the past two weeks and every morning starting at 7, we are greeted to the sounds of huge trucks backing up and dumping gravel off to the side and countless other loud noises, Jack really doesn’t like to be woken up in such a way and he lets them know it with his barking.

Jack especially doesn’t like the loud and slow moving trucks making their way up and down the road. He gets squittish and jumps away, he is easy-going, but being so little you can’t blame him for being scared of those big trucks, they are very loud for his little ears. I am sure that since he doesn’t know the proper nomenclature for trucks and other types of road equipment, if I were to tell him that those big trucks were called forklifts, the first thing that he would tell his Papa upon our return from walking around the streets of Blandford would be to say “He tried to hit me with a forklift!”

Troubles with Plinky

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blogs, computers, postaday2013, prompts, writing

Plinky.com has been my go to for prompts since early on in 2011, I know that they are affiliated in some way with WordPress because many of their prompts show up sooner or later on WordPress in their Daily Post. Having a go to for ideas is pretty great when you want to maintain posting something on a daily basis and you find yourself stuck or short on inspiration. It is precisely for that reason, that I try really hard to not complain or criticize the prompters. They help me so the least that I can do is take their help without complaint. 🙂

However, over the past two days, I have had nothing but trouble with Plinky. It started the day before yesterday, I tried to log in with my Plinky account to answer the prompt and cross post it over to WordPress and for the second time now, they lost my account. I had to re-register, I know that my account had been either erased or permanently lost because I was able to, once again, register using my email, my user name and the password. The next trouble that I had was I answered the prompt, it prompted you to take the third line from a song and make it your post. I took the time to past a link to a music video, write a whole bunch a words surrounding the third line of a song, clicked on the answer button and nothing, it went off into cyberspace without getting attached to anything or anywhere. This morning, I tried to answer the prompt on Plinky thinking that yesterday was a fluke, and it still didn’t work. I wrote a post related to patriotism, since the prompt was “are you patriotic and what does patriotism mean to you?”. Perhaps it was the universe telling me that my thoughts were too dark, I basically was saying that shouldn’t patriotism be more about how we, as a nation treat each other and shouldn’t we be in this together? I also mentioned that I find it hard to accept that there are some who only associate patriotism with the military and being the best. I expressed it much better than that, but like I said, it got lost. I got frustrated losing my two posts, I wrote them as I normally do, relying on the stream of words that flow out of my head, I liked how it came out, so to lose it was annoying. I know that I could rewrite it, but I can’t remember exactly how I wrote it, I know that I liked it, but the stream is lost to me and it is frustrating. Silly I know, but I wanted to share my frustrations with the internet today.

Daily post prompt : Opposite Day

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blogs, pictures, post, postaday2013, writing

If you normally write non-fiction, post a photo. If you normally post images, write fiction. If you normally write fiction, write a poem. If you normally write poetry, draw a picture.

When in doubt, bake banana bread

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baking, banana bread, blogs, postaday2013, writing

I don’t why I entitled my post “When in doubt, bake banana bread”. I did bake a banana bread this afternoon, not because I felt doubtful or anything, I baked it because I was getting tired of looking at three ripe bananas in the refrigerator, not doing anything but get older and browner. Technically, I baked a banana walnut/pecan bread with the single ingredient being 1/4 cup of sour cream. The house smelled wonderful, all bananany and walnuty, sweet and comforting smells wafting though the hall down to the living room.

My hubby is my food stylist, he arranged the banana bread just so, sliced it and spread some whipped cream cheese on a slice to make an appetizing picture. He is wonderful and talented in that way. My style is the first picture, without adornment, plain and what you see is what you get. More or less who I am as a person, what you see is what you get, pure and simple. At least I think so.

Time and weather

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aging, blogs, postaday2013, seasons, weather, writing

I’m in a quandary. This winter has seemed so long that I am chafing at the bit for a proper spring to arrive, but I can’t help but think time is passing too quickly and I should embrace how slowly time seems to be moving in relation to the weather. My thinking and feeling about this are not logical by any measure; if spring takes its time, the calendar will still unfold and time will still move along closer day by day to my birthday.

Vanity is ruling my grasp of logic. I should be willing the weather to be warmer instead of wanting time to stay stuck in a cold rut. I am not looking forward to turning 46. That however shouldn’t mean that I have to be chilled about it or deprive my gardens of more greenery.

I suppose I am thinking that if the days become warmer and lovelier than time will just fly by and before I know it, summer will be upon us because when the days are grey and cold it seems to be a never ending glimpse down a dark tunnel. If memory serves me correctly I did write at one point asking where in the world February went, so my feelings at least in the case of February, shows that time did speed by even though it was freezing outside.

So I should set vanity aside and not view my upcoming birthday with such dread; it is only a number, at least that is what I am told by all those who are older than I. I definitely never complain about my age to the ladies at weight class because I am scared to be thrown out. Just kidding, I don’t think that they would throw me out, lol.

Margaret Thatcher has passed

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blogs, England, Great Britain, news, postaday2013, Prime Minister, writing

Today the news coverage was very extensive over the passing of Margaret Thatcher at 87 years of age. The coverage was quite varied from extremely complimentary to quite critical, I would think that the varied reactions show how important and influential Margaret Thatcher’s policies were domestically and internationally. If she hadn’t had such an influence, her passing would have elicited less of a response

What I remember about Margaret Thatcher is her close relationship with our former President Ronald Reagan, they seemed to be two peas in a pod. I used to wonder if Nancy Reagan was ever jealous. I was a teenager back then so my mind would go to the potential love triangle and such, just like in my favorite soap opera’s General Hospital and One Life to Live. Former President Reagan said himself that in Margaret Thatcher he had found a soulmate, so one could see how I could have wondered about any jealousy on Nancy’s part. That reminds me of something a former governor of South Carolina or was it North Carolina, anyway it was one of the Carolina’s, Mark Sanford when he explained why he had lied about his disappearance on the Appalachian Trail; he had told everyone that he went hiking when in actuality he had gone off to see his mistress. His explanation for keeping a mistress was that she was his soulmate. I don’t think married men should refer to other women as their soul-mates, it just doesn’t seem right.

Anyway, I am not saying that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were doing anything untoward but it seemed odd to me that one would refer to the other as a soul-mate. They did share the same economical and limited government vision even though they had an odd way of showing it. They both seemed to view big military as crucial to government. Ronald Reagan had his “Star Wars” initiative, his explosive defense spending that had put the U.S in the red for years after. Margret Thatcher had her war in the Falkland Islands which I never understood why it happened in the first place. The Falkland Islands are so very far away from Great Britain but that was then and Reagan sent help during that time.

Seeing Margaret Thatcher’s tributes and reactions to her passing just reminded me about how much Ronald Reagan and she had influenced both their own countries and the world beyond their terms, the direction that the United States and Great Britain would go far into the next century. I wonder if they realized this when they were discussing policy and when they were just talking, if they would dream about the future and their own legacies. I see those two sitting in easy chairs sipping brandy and agreeing with each other over a variety of issues. It’s a vivid portrait of two people comfortable with power.

I will be in my easy chair playing spider solitaire on my iPad feeling very comfortable with my special power of solving my little mental gymnastic games.

Gifts, better received or given?

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blogs, gifts, postaday2013, prompts, spirit, writing

One of my first friends on the blogosphere gave me a lovely prompt since I have been experiencing technodifficulties with Plinky.com. You can find my friend at weescoops.wordpress.com. She has a wonderful blog full of beautiful poetry, book reviews and musings. Her question was about gifts and the thought behind the gift and which one meant the most. I took that question and went with it in a slightly different direction. I have always preferred giving presents over receiving them and one of the favorite presents that I have given someone was the time that my hubby and I presented my mother with a silk scarf that I had picked out at the Chanel boutique for Mother’s Day one year. It made such a strong impression on me because my track record for my mother’s gifts and their success was pretty poor. My mother has very nice taste and for some reason I always fell short of the desired effect until this scarf. This scarf was a very bold choice, strong colors and I was quite nervous while she was opening the package, her eyes lit up at the sight of the colors, quality of the silk and handiwork that one can always appreciate with Chanel. I was so much happier after she opened her present that I didn’t even register what I had received that day.

Slim pickings in the prompt department

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blogs, inspiration, postaday2013, posts, prompts, thoughts, writing

As I said, today there are some slim pickings in the prompt department on either of the websites; Plinky or the Daily Post at WordPress. I am still having issues with Plink, I e-mailed them about my dilemma, but I was still planning to respond to their prompt over at WordPress. I was disappointed to see that today’s prompt was a repeat, “What would you un-invent?”, I have already answered this question several times in its different forms; the cell phone. Over at WordPress, I think that the DailyPost had either “describe your most special meal in exquisite detail” and I know that I have done this one more than once, or write about your VIP person and I have already done that as well. So I got nothing, well not really nothing. I suppose that I could come up with something else besides the weather today.

Spring forward! Today we woke up to one more hour of sunshine since last night we turned the clocks ahead. What a difference an hour makes in your outlook. It is 6:30 in the evening and it is still light out,

See what a difference an hour makes. It already feels that much closer to spring. I am not talking about the weather, I am talking about seasonal moods and how daylight can lift a mood like nothing else can. Hooray for longer days and shorter nights!

Is Plinky being hacked?

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blogs, hacked, logging in, postaday2013, websites, writing

I am so frustrated. I have tried to log into my Plinky account since yesterday and the Plinky people keep telling me that they are unable to log me in. Are the Chinese hacking into my Plinky account? Do they think that I hold the state secrets? If not the Chinese then what other hacking group? Did I tick off Anonymous? I am just joking of course but it is so weird. I have been faithfully visiting and answering the Plinky site and it saddens me that they are having issues because their prompts have offered me so many great ideas for writing, small things but fun things. I can’t wait until they get their stuff back on track for themselves and for me.

If I am “right” and that the Chinese did hack my account, you are monitoring the wrong person, I promise you . All I got going is food, Jack (the cutest Jack Russell in the world), my babies and other inoffensive stuff. You guys needn’t worry or bother with my writing, Chinese hackers, give me back my Plinky.

If it is Anonymous, I’m not a republican or a wealthy banker. I’m one of the 99%, the average Laurie who is trying to write about her daily journey through life. May I please have my Plinky back? Can you tell that we in the U.S have been listening to a lot of hacker threats done against us from the media and our government. They are blaming the Chinese. So there you are. This ramble is in fun and in play, I’m fairly sure that I haven’t been hacked. I’m far too boring to be hacked.

Forwarding jokes and the like

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appreciation, blogs, jokes, postaday2013, posts, writing

My blogging mentor and friend Tilly from The laughing housewife posted such a funny joke today. She posts jokes everyday which I am in awe of because you really have to do your homework to find a fresh joke every single day. Today’s joke at thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/joke-714/ describes the trial and tribulations of AAADD or Age activate attention deficit disorder. I forwarded it to my mother and my sister. My sister called me but never mentioned the joke, she had bigger things on her mind, such as my niece home sick from school with a head cold. That kind of childhood illness is the roughest on the parent. Why you ask? Because a head cold is never severe enough to make the child want to spend the day in bed sleeping, they are too ill to go to school but not ill enough to not be easily bored in no time. My poor sister, my poor niece of course, she is miserable, but nevertheless I have more sympathy and empathy for my sister.

Now, my mother read the forwarded joke and boy did she get a kick out of it. She felt that at last she found the correct diagnosis for her own daily happenings at home. Since I found the joke so relatable, I knew that my mother would definitely find a commonality with it. There are days where I am exhausted without a single thing accomplished besides a lot of coming and going for no purpose to show for it. It feels good to laugh at one’s self. I excel at it. Hee, hee.

So after my mother and I had our laughs, my mother started talking about a potential trip that she wanted to plan for the future. She has for her bucket list, dreams of a trip down to the Amazon Basin visiting Brazil, Chile, Argentina and perhaps Peru. As we were talking about the logistics, we were encountering all sorts of memory lapses; we couldn’t remember the capital of Brazil or even the famous city where the beautiful people hang out. It was so sad. In our defense it was late in the afternoon, when our brains aren’t very fresh, so our geography was in fact very hazy. After I got off the phone, I went on Bing to see the map of South America to refresh my memory and I couldn’t believe that I had a memory blank on Rio de Janeiro and Brazelio, the capital. My mother remembered the city of Buenos Aires for Argentina which she was happy about, sad isn’t it? When we are happy to remember just one city in a country. Tilly’s joke was so apropos for our conversation today.