A few tears...

Ok..truthfully...I have cried more in this past week than I have in a very long time.

The first breakdown occurred at work Saturday night but that was pure exhaustion coming out.

Monday night was fifth grade night where the staff held an awards ceremony and social for just the fifth graders. I thought it would be like any other award day. Boy was I wrong. One of the PTA members put together a slide show of the students as they grew throughout the years. Immediate tears! The music choice alone had me weepy...add pictures of our children's happy smiles and experiences as they blossomed into fifth graders and sheesh!!

Then my beautiful little girl was honored by a WWII Veteran with am American History award.

And then I wrote a poem just for her. It brought me to tears again..and poetry is not where I excel! I want to share it here as well.. in case Rhiannon loses it along the way :)

I remember the day I brought you home. You were tiny and perfect; God gave you to me and I called you my own.
Much too quickly you were a baby no more and I held onto your hands as you practiced walking the floor.
Before too long school days came to call. I cried knowing I wouldn't be there to catch your every fall.
Each year continues to fly by; I never really imagined the day you'd be tall enough to look me in the eye. There are times I know I yell louder than I should. Some days seem to be nothing good.
However, in my life as a mother, I've always found the world to be a brighter place with your smile around.
On this special day when I know you've risen to every challenge along the way; I wanted to have the chance to tell you that I'm proud of you in every way!

Friday Photos

What's your favorite Summer Activity??

Wednesday Writing

For today's post I'm typing on my touch screen phone...the internet bill had to take a backseat to the electric bill and various end of school costs that popped up unexpectedly!

At first I was really mad. But then I remembered that with these phones..there's an app for that. :)
And with that I set off to find and download blogger.

Success! Now I can keep that promise to myself about posting this week. However ...the sample of writing is on my pc and not my phone and I don't think my cheap version will handle an app for that.

And so I'm sorry for not having a writing sample up. Instead I think a prompt will be more fun.
Apparently I can't schedule posts with this app...so it will be published early.

Here it is.....
A young man finds himself lost in the underground tunnels of Portland, Oregon. Why did he go there?  And will he find his way out?

Monday Mania!!

Every once in a while I run across a word and definition that still leaves me with a little bit of the .... "HUH?" factor.

Zeitgeist: the spirit of the time;the general intellectual and moral state or temper characteristic of any period of time.
Thank goodness for examples!
As most critics and all professors of cultural theory note, Madonna is nothing if not a skilled reader of the zeitgeist.
Callithump: A children's parade, with prizes for the best costumes.
Purlieu: a place where one may range at large; bounds or confines 2. A person's haunt or resort 3. an outlying district or region 4. A piece of land on the edge of a forest, originally land that, after having been included in a royal forest, was restored to private ownership, though still subject, in some respects, to the operation of the forest laws.


I've been reading Mark Twain's autobiography...the one he actually wrote (which is by far the worst example of writing and yet the most hilarious example I've ever seen.) and realize a little more each day that writers, as a rule, have completely lost our minds. To read the internal musings of such a great classic...well, I just have to say WOW. 


What's your Monday looking like? :)

Random Theories

Here is my mash-up of Thursday Theories and Friday Random....

Theory #1
The squeaky wheel is always the defective one. I do also see, unfortunately, that the squeaky wheel gets attention. But....it's always the person wheel that gripes squeaks the loudest that is usually guilty of something.

Theory #2
Business management has gone all wonky. Certain...qualities that are searched out are no longer the ones that REALLY matter. Where it used to be that hard work paid off and moved you up...it now seems that hard work is the last rung on the ladder of qualities an individual must possess. The most important qualities that businesses want in their upper level of management are no kids, no husband, no knowledge and no respect for peons.

Random.....
I can't seem to figure out how to get pictures from my phone to my hard drive. I can get them to facebook and then I suppose I could download them from there, eh? Look at that. Talking to you Cool Kids just solved one major problem. So..here is a random picture I wanted to share...

Princess Rhiannon thoroughly enjoyed her choir experience. After the performance she received flowers from her very proud Poppa. :) I am so proud of her. They did an excellent job...you would not listen to them and think they were little kids. I hope this is something she decides that she likes enough to pursue.

Oh look....a new business card! I have way too much fun on vistaprint.com and now I'm having way too much fun on Cafe Press. They allow you to "open shop" for free and create different slogans/designs which they will produce when ordered and you receive a commission. Kayla and I have one....we love it. We're not breaking the bank, but we figure it's got to take some time before our designs hit the red carpet. ;)

That's all for now. I have been blogging sporadically because I haven't worked on any work in progress steadily in so long that I kind of feel like I would be a bad influence to all of you writerly Cool Kids that are still writing along. :) 

So tell me something random from your week!! :)

Monday Mania!!

I've been unfaithful, Cool Kids. I'm sorry. I started this writing thing over at Triond.com where you write short articles or submit recipes or creative writing. They have deals with other websites to pretty much publish what they want (which is what you write) and you get a certain percentage of the income generated by people reading and clicking etc.. At least that's the way I understand it. I'm very new to this. It's not anything I'm trying to break the bank with or catch the eye of some dream agent with. But it's allowing me to write short bursts of junk that is in my head without all the strict guidelines. It's like my free-writing exercise. (And if you clicked on any of these links you will see that I shamelessly led you to my little articles. Fun game, huh?)

So, for today's vocabulary I have some fun words. Seriously fun.

Vociferate: to speak or cry out loudly or noisily; shout; bawl
Coruscate: to emit vivid flashes of light; sparkle; scintillate; gleam
Sedulous: diligent in application or attention; persevering; assiduous
                persistently or carefully maintained

Wednesday's Writing.. .Lazy Writing

I was looking over an old manuscript and found this passage.....

The mountains soared all around me with incredible color. I couldn’t name half of the trees or plants in the mountains, but I had always loved walking this road for the scenery. The mountains remained my highlight through everything over the years. I had even hiked them a time or two.

I was immediately struck by my laziness. Instead of naming off trees and plants that this character would obviously know...just by them being a highlight over the years; I made my character take the fall as ignorant. What kind of lame friend does that??

Have you found any examples of lazy writing in your manuscripts? Or are you too scared to call yourself out on it? :) Until next time....

Keep a Smile on!