%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |   Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland |
|
Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland  Welcome to the place were I chronicle my own falls down dark holes and adventures chasing white rabbits! Come on In, Take a Bite, You Never Know What You May Find... "Curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland    |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 2243 January 9, 2019 “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. Hopefully we've a long time ahead of us but it is nice to think ahead. Contemplation is good for soul, don't you agree? What will you leave behind, what difference do you hope to make? Maybe it is the same with everyone who is a parent, but I feel like my legacy will live on in my daughter and in my daughter's children. The lessons I teach her, the passions I encourage to her pursue, the feeling that she has been loved unconditionally...those are all parts of me I leave with her when I go. I like to think they are like building blocks in her soul and though she will build her own life and future, those blocks remain like keystones or cornerstones - a permanent like to me. I also leave her my words...all the things I wrote about her, about raising her and loving her. My writing is the truest reflection of who I am as a person, so once I am gone, she has this forever representation of who I was and how I felt about my world and her place in it. I dream about writing a book for her, a collection of these pieces, that she can keep forever as a testimony. I have been diligent about keeping a blog, writing through her milestones and hope to continue to do that as long as I am able to. It is nice to think about leaving some more physical behind...a building or a park...a tree? I'm obsessed with this idea about natural burial alternatives. I think it would be absolutely lovely to have my body fertilize a tree. I think about how much nicer for my loved ones to visit with my memory by sitting under the branches of a broad, lush tree than with a cold gravestone in a cemetery somewhere. I hope I live the kind of life that my loved ones still feel my presence even after I am gone..and are grateful for it. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 1850 January 9, 2019 Prompt: In the winter, she curls up with a good book and dreams away the cold. What is your take on this? My take on this prompt is that this is exactly what I would like to be doing right now. It might be odd but I actually enjoy the cold. I am a child of Fall and Winter. I enjoy snow and a fire in the fireplace. It is calming when I don't have to navigate snowy New England roads to get to work at least. I love the idea of a mid-week snow storm that means there is no school, and by default for me, no work. The idea of having free time to curl up and read is like balm on my soul. I'm imagining it right now....  |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT January 9th Tell us about the pet you had for the longest amount of time or the one that made the most significant impact on you. If you have never had a pet (I’m sorry), what pet would you want? The pet I have had for the longest time is still with me. Turk, though he goes by many names, is our miniature Doberman of the red or copper variety. At nearly twenty pounds and almost 18 inches tall, he is a fairly large specimen of his breed. His tail is docked but his ears are natural. They fold over at the tips and are easily the softest part of his rougher, short-haired coat. He has dark, soulful little eyes marred now by a creeping white film, the beginning of cataracts. As he rounds on the age of thirteen, Turk is not aging very well. He suffers from some arthritis in his back legs and a very testy gut. He has one inner eyelid that lags a bit giving him the illusion of always winking at me. His recent dental appointment resulted in his losing 17 teeth, including of his two canines and most of the tiny teeth in the front of his mouth. These ailments coupled with the shadow of grey around his snout, shelter him from a fair amount of our rage and Turk gives us plenty of reasons to rage. We love him but he is evil, even in his frailty. His presence in our lives has provided us with as many memories, not all of them good. Turk has committed a host of crimes for which another dog might easily have been cast out. These crimes are not merely misguided “doggie” things but highly coordinated attacks on our sanity and the sanctity of our home. He has committed crimes against bathroom rugs, space heaters and treasured toys. He has disrespected boundaries and made unforgivable overtures with our food, our garbage can and once upon a time,our cat. He may have even tried to kill me on at least one occasion. The fact that he is still alive and in residence in our home is a miracle in itself. Turk has always been a swarthy opportunist. He discovered how easily he could invade the garbage, standing on his hind legs to tug wrappers, yogurt containers and dirty diapers, anything he could reach. One day he managed to get a pound of ham out of the garbage and devoured it all of sixty seconds. He swelled up like a fat tick, unable to walk or move. I was convinced his stomach would kill him. Two hours later, I caught him back at the garbage can again, his determination and resilience are astounding! After my daughter was born, a whole new world of “grab and dash” opened for Turk. He would follow her around as a toddler, waiting for the inevitable crumbs to fall. Turk would circle her like a shark, waiting for just the right moment to swoop in and snatch the cracker or cookie from her fist. She is eight now and though she has grown a lot wiser, he has also grown much more patient and less picky. One time my daughter came home proudly brandishing some magic pink dough she had made in school. A hour later my rare post-dinner solace was interrupted by aggravated screaming. Turk had gotten a hold of her treasure and he had eaten. He sat under the table, just out of arm's reach, smugly licking his sugared lips. If stolen food were Turk’s only offense our frequent threats to disown him would be unjustified. As it turns out though, our Turk has many other malicious talents. For example, he can partially poop outside while retaining just enough inside his bowels to deface our newly washed bathroom rugs the very minute he is allowed back inside. You could leave him outside in the yard for an hour and he can still make this happen. Turk can also pee with remarkable aim. He can pee directly into the face of a space heater so that the accident goes unnoticed, until we turn it on. The smell of burning dog urine is surprising difficult to rid oneself of. We have lost multiple heaters, humidifiers and various other appliances in this way. The amount of underwear we have all lost to Turk is mind boggling. He has chewed through the crotches of countless intimates, tights and pajama bottoms. In perhaps the biggest insult to injury, after having his fill he has often returned them to the laundry basket to be washed, folded and put away. The discovery of his crimes go undetected until we put them on, dismayed to learn that he had perversely modified them. I have reluctantly owned more crotch less panties than most exotic dancers. Turk has been responsible for threats on my personal well-being. One evening when my husband was working the night shift, I took advantage of a quiet house and sleeping child to take a rare, long and extravagant shower. I left my daughter and Turk, soundly sleeping in our big bed. When I was well into my shower and I had managed to dose my head in shampoo, Turk began a rapid, frenzied barking downstairs. This was not the typical “a car went by blaring a radio” or “I heard the dog four houses over barking". No, this was the “there is a serial killer in the living room”, full-on, aggressive barking that set off every alarm in my body. I burst from the shower, eyes burning from the soap, struggling to take in the dark landing and navigate the stairs to the lower level. On my frantic dash downstairs the sleeve of my bathrobe hooked on the banister yanking me off my feet and sending me, rump first down the stairs. Frightened and straining to see through the film of shampoo, my ass hit the hardwood just as Turk rounded the corner. He looked at me, tail wagging, and then leaped casually past me and up the stairs. After completing my full and thorough inspection of the house, I returned upstairs. Nursing a much bruised tailbone, I found Turk conspicuously curled on the bed again, comfortably. He looked at me and yawned. I felt the adrenaline leaching from my bloodstream as I stood there, contemplating tossing him downstairs on his ass. For all his naughty habits, Turk has managed to be ultimately forgivable through one redeeming trait. Turk is a class A cuddle bug. He knows how to crawl into your lap and your heart with those weeping eyes and small, sweet face. He knows how to bury his face in the crook of your neck, or cover your arms with tiny, fleabites of affection. Turk evokes our compassion by having the patience of saint as our daughter drags him around by the leash, dresses him in hats and scarfs or attaches toys to his collar so he can give them “rides”. We are overcome with gratitude to see the way our daughter glows when he plops down beside her, choosing her company over ours. Sunday mornings would not be the same without him creeping up the bed to insert himself into our family snuggle time. No matter how annoyed he can make us, we can't help but welcome him into our laps to stroke his velvety ears. He loves to simply be with us, as close to us as possible. Make no mistake, Turk is an evil genius but he is, wholly and completely, our evil genius and we love him.  |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 2242: January 8, 2019 Prompt: “There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.” ― Erma Bombeck What do you think? This prompt makes me think of those moments that feel wholly inappropriate like getting a fit of giggles at a funeral or feeling inexplicably sad during a snowfall. The line between emotions is a thin veil at times, highly relative to where we are in our lives at any given moment. It is the reason we can rise above loss and tragedy and find the silver lining in a rain cloud. I think as human beings we have a built in fail safe to our emotions. We have the ability to adapt, which gives most of us authorship over our emotions overcoming or consuming us. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 1849--January 8, 2019 “I am still committed to the idea that the ability to think for one’s self depends upon one’s mastery of the language.” Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem: Essays What are your thoughts on this subject? At the risk of producing a post with political leanings...this prompt makes me think of President Trump completely as someone who very clearly does not posses mastery over language and thereby does not posses the ability to think for himself. He is someone who consistently fails to express himself with anything but a crude command of the language, speaking with a coherency more appropriate for a fifth grade classroom than from the highest office in the land. He is someone who gives the ultimate impression that his thoughts are influenced and even dictated by what he sees and hears on television or reads in the headlines. Oddly enough, it is this truth about him that bothers me more than some of his policies. I find it very difficult to listen to him speak publicly - I have higher expectations for our President. A leader should inspire people, they should be eloquent and gifted as an orator, they should rally people rather than offend and divide them. They should at least be able to think for themselves and have conviction. He has never given me the impression that he can do either of theses things. |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT January 8th How is your online persona different from your real world persona? How much attention do you pay to your personal privacy when communicating with others online? This is an interesting prompt to consider. I would like to think my online persona isn't all that different from my real world persona with the exception of my handle. I publish under a handle, not my real world name for a few reasons. Initially I adopted the handle when I began to gain acceptances and publications in the erotic and erotic horror genres. There was something about the gender neutrality it gave me that strongly appealed to me. At the time I first started with those genres, there wasn't that same main stream acceptance for the genre. Back then, it still felt like something I had to explain to people. Back then I still suffered from some residual shyness about the material I produced. Then, the more I had pieces accepted, the more I read and met other writers, both my confidence and my love for this particular genre blossomed. I began to understand that Erotica was the genre that most empowered me as a writer. Regardless of my personal feelings about the work itself (and I am not fan), the popularity of Fifty Shades has really opened doors on a genre for which there is a bonified, appreciative and loyal audience. It has also given a much deserved renaissance to the truly great and gifted erotica writers like DH Lawrence and Anis Nin. In fact, another reason I first adopted my handle was as a nod in appreciation for two of my favorite classical writers, DH Lawrence and CS Lewis...both of whom employed their initials in their pen names. I still get that classic reaction when people ask me what I write and I tell them Erotica...but now that reaction is followed by unapologetic interest too. This is nice. These days I write less erotica then I used too, I write less of everything that I used too - demands of life and all. I still write under my handle. I still enjoy the mystery a bit, especially when I dabble and explore genres that are still tend to be more male-dominated. As far as who I am in the real world? I'm a full-time working mom, traits that have come to describe more of me than I would like to admit. I try to be "more" most days, try to follow my passions and my interests - carve out as much "me" time as I can - which isn't nearly enough to write as much as I would like too. I still hope in the coming year to add more publishing credits to my bio. In the meantime, I try to keep active with the blogging because it keeps the muse from getting rusty and complaisant. Blogging keeps me honest, keeps me real and help me keep the craft in focus. Blogging also lets me "meet" other writers, helps me connect with a community and a fellowship that I really enjoy. |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 1848--January 7, 2019 Prompt: Psychologists claim that some people feel they don’t deserve to be happy. Why do you think this is and what may be the reason or reasons some people feel this way to undermine their own happiness? I think the basis of people suffering from those feelings have to do with self-worth. I believe they won't perceive themselves as having value and as such, they don't feel entitled to happiness. I have a brother who has struggled with substance abuse from his early teens. I think his belief that he has little value is behind at least some of his issues with addiction. He was adopted by our family after his mother failed to retain custody of him due to her own problems with alcohol and drug use. I think he has always felt cast off, more like an outsider than a real member of our family. His problems with substance abuse started with the onset of puberty and what I have always believed is improperly diagnosed mental issues that caused him to start self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. He has been on a roller coaster of recovery and relapse for decades. It has left him mostly isolated from all but a few family members. His addiction has fed his insecurity and self-doubt and his life is a painful battle for consistent sobriety. It is very sad to watch someone self-sabotage their life and happiness the way addicts do. "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 2241: January 7, 2019 Prompt: Pick a title either (1) Happy Monday or (2) Blessed Monday and write about the reason Monday is either happy or blessed. Monday isn't typically the day of the week I would normally assign the words "happy" or "blessed" too. For one thing, it follows the weekend too closely and almost always comes too quickly. Mondays are often met in our house with a frustrated screaming match with my nine year old who is simply not ready to rise and shine or bounce back into the weekly routine. However, every day I get to live this life with my family is blessed so by default, any Monday could be a "blessed" one, even if it starts with discord and struggle. |
| 30 Day blogging Challenge PROMPT January 7th You and several friends are marooned on a desert island. Everyone is looking to you to lead. What are your first actions? (List at least 2 please) will award a MB for his favorite entry today. I've spent the morning catching up on two prompts from the weekend so by the time I pull up today's, I'm feeling a little tax mentally but I want to approach this prompt methodically because that is honestly, how I would lead anyone, anywhere - most of all a deserted island. I'm going to table the fact that the success of even surviving a full day on a deserted island would depend entirely on which friends I found myself marooned with. For the sake of the prompt, and to have at least one prompt in the last two actually delivered on time, I'm going to assume my fellow maroon-ies are those friends of the more of the kind, reasonable variety. Having found oneself marooned on an island, I can imagine there would be all sort of ways to die from making strictly emotionally charged decisions. I think my first action would be to launch a throughout exploration of the island, the interior and coast. That would be the only way to know what kind of resources and dangers surround us. It would also be a good way to determine the best place to set up base camp, which would be my second goal. My third directive would be to delegate and assign responsibilities to each person, so each one of us is invested in our own survival. As we established a foothold, I would ease off on having an active leadership...shift focus more to the group and how each person has a lead or role in the group's decisions, moving things to a less autocratic situation. After all, I've read Lord of the Flies...who wants to hold the conch shell until someone challenges your authority and knocks you over a cliff? So that's my plan in a nutshell, get them settled, assign the roles and then back the heck down and hand over the conch. |
| 30Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT January 6th What was the biggest news in your life from last year? Last year we purchased a house and made the move from a much more urban location to one I would term, "more rural". Our old home was situated on a main road on the outer edge of a small city. It was efficient when we were younger but not the place we wanted to raise our daughter. I wanted her to grown up in a neighborhood, a place she could ride her bike and play in a yard bordered by trees. After a stressful summer we finally found the right house. My daughter's room is three times as large and she has ample space to run and play outside in the back yard. This past Halloween she was able to trick or treat in her own neighborhood, walking from house to house amid a gaggle of other groups of kids doing the same. It hasn;t always been easy going, we have discovered our "recently remodeled" foreclosure, also sometimes translates to "cheaply and hastily done". We have encountered several issues we hadn't anticipated and it has been frustrating at times. Still, I know it was the right time and the right place. Besides, every new house is going to present issues and obstacles....we've learned to relax a little bit and take them one at a time. Ultimately we are blessed and grateful to have found a beautiful home to make our own together. |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT January 5th Write about a time you learned something new. Use and highlight at least 3 words in your entry that are not part of your normal vocabulary and provide your readers with definitions for those words. My daughter has recently taken up horseback riding. It has been an education for me, horses and horsemanship has always resided squarely in my little sister's wheelhouse. Since my daughter is only nine, I have become an active participant in her new hobby and as such, I have learned a lot about something I once believed was "simple", is really about much more than just jumping on the back of a horse and grabbing the reins. It is about balance and posterior, about confidence and connecting with your horse. In order to learn, my daughter has to listen with more than just her ears, she has to be more intuitive and aware at all times. She has to be thinking about steering and about the messages she is sending her horse by the position of her legs, and movement of her hands. I have learned that the "half seat" is the posture riders adopt for jumping but also to allow their mounts to rest by temporarily relieving the weight of their riders bodies at regular intervals. Her instructor is always telling her to "put him in the corners", referring to the far reaches of the ring, getting her horse to use the full area of the arena during the lesson. I can tell from her face that she is always concentrating now, especially when they are working the patterns like Serpentines, figure eight patterns that weave between poles or cones, in preparation for the shows. I think part of the appeal of the sport is that she gets to engage her mind as well as her heart doing something she loves. |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 1845 January 4, 2019 In your own non-fiction,have you struggled with representing yourself honestly while being conscious of how others might view you? Do you have any suggestions for non-fiction writers? My one suggestion, and it is a personally difficult one for me to make, is to always "write your truth" - regardless of the reaction that might provoke in others. Understand that you will never go wrong being true to yourself and whatever you write will have credibility because it is written from that place of honest emotion - even if that means facing opposition from others. I have written several pieces over the years that, for one reason or another, have put me at odds with loved ones and family members. While their duress was an unfortunately side effect of my writing, I could justify it only by saying I never censor my non-fiction. I always write from a place in my heart, that is the only way I can assure my writing is as honest and as candid as it should always be. It has not always gone well admittedly but I take pride in that fact that I have never compromised my writing for anyone. I've never set out to intentionally disparage anyone, never written anything out of spite or malice. I have however, written with unflinching honest about my feelings and perceptions, my opinions and my thoughts - and that has been enough at times, to leave me more isolated than I would have imagined. At the end of the day, my non-fiction work represents me most accurately and it is the part of my craft I give the most credit too. I protect my integrity as a writer even though it is not the easy path sometimes. "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 2238 January 4, 2019 First loves are often depicted in literature as feverish obsessions that last forever. Let's discus one example of this type of obsession or better described as a toxic romance between Catherine and Heathcliff in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Has romance writing evolved from Bronte's time? What's more marketable classical romance or modern romance? Do you think today's readers can relate to this kind of obsession or would they be turned off by it? I've never been a huge fan of romance. I think while there are some lovely virtues around the classical romances like that of Catherine and Heathcliff, that kind of romance can not help but seem dated. Society has changed so much as it relates to social norms and romantic interactions. However, clearly given the success of the Fifty Shades franchise, there is a still a market for obsession soaked romance. I personally saw Mr. Gray as borderline psychotic but that's just me. I tend like my romance with a little kink but a lot less crippling insecurity. |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT January 4th High schoolers graduating this year, in May 2019, are as old as the first iPod. Make a prediction for how technology will advance in the next 18 years. I might be weird but talking about advancements in technology always makes me feel a little strange and uncomfortable. I've never been huge into technology (I refrained from getting a smart phone for years!) and so thinking about how much it will advance in the next 18 years seems like a task I am not equipped well to tackle. In 18 years I will be in my early 60's and my only child will be 27 and likely well into her own life. I honestly can't imagine what life will be like then on a ground level let alone as it relates to technological advances! I hope when I hit my 60's I'm at least planning a more "unplugged" existence...maybe even running a tiny, little beach side B&B in the keys perhaps? But in case I am still working then (which is pretty bloody likely) and for the purposes of the prompt, let me see.... I imagine by then that we will have fully automated self driving cars - we are quite close to that now I think. I am almost certain we will have found a way to capitalize off space travel, enabling those uber rich private citizens to be among the first to not only travel too but stay on the moon in some ultra-exclusive version of an Airbnb courtesy of NASA. I think we could see many more kiosk-based service, for everything we could need from food to pharmacies. If you need or want to acquire anything, there will be a colorful and user-friendly kiosk for that. I would like to believe technology will also make major advances to aid in supporting our environmental - from new sources of sustainable energy to finding ways to grow produce in arid deserts and in more of those inhospitable habitats. I would hope that in the next 18 years technology has figured out ways to make our schools safer, or at least figured out how to make people stop blowing past school buses on our roads. I really hope by the time I am in my 60's, technology has enabled our CT DOT so people do not have to take the day off of work to register their cars! But, I also really hope technology then won't have rendered many of our hard working men and women obsolete, hasn't afforded people the ability to design perfectly engineered super children or crafted humanoid-like robots that eventually take over the world and force technology-challenged individuals like myself to live in community hovels near the edges of landfills  |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
