Tag: dailyprompt

Living the way I do makes it easy to do what I love, which is writing. I use the solitude for my brainstorming, my dreams for filling in the blanks, and my fingers for making something come to life in the eyes of others.

My days consist of an early morning walk, some dishes, and maybe a load of laundry every several weeks… it’s pretty simple. Aside from my husband, I usually don’t come into contact with anyone. A visit from one of my two sweet girlfriends usually happens every few weeks, but other than that, it’s just me and my keyboard.

As it happens, I am right in the middle of creating the holiday story, Tilly, and am actually having a fantastic time! It started last Friday night as I slept. When I awoke on Saturday morning, my mind was on fire and so off I went to the keyboard. Once I had it down on paper, the fever intensified as I began adding illustrations and editing. From this point I was nearly delirious with joy and excitement for Tilly and the story she and I wove… giving life to my voice during the audio recording session.

I love what I do! Do I need others approval? Not really!

What I seek is the approval of my God, which in turn, fuels me to go further, write deeper, and try harder at being a light in the darkness for anyone in need. Since I have no money and no one to physically interact with, writing is the vehicle I use to get it done… hence all the bus rides and train adventures I take you along on.

So todays prompt question was a rather easy one for me, as I’m right in the heart of doing something quite fun. I just released day 2 of my Tilly tale, with 2 more days to go… then on Christmas Eve I want to release an audio of the whole story. 

Tilly’s story wasn’t the first fun thing, nor will it be the last… If I must live in solitude, then I shall thrive in solitude… why… because I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! I do not need to run after the things of this world for happiness, as my God brings joy to me… right where I am!

I have never said that the journey has been, is, or will be easy… but I speak the truth when I say that there is definitely Joy, fun and play in the Journey…

Here, have a cookie…

It used to be, “do you want some candy little girl”… now I guess it’s become “list your top 5 grocery store items”! 

Here is a free tip… if a man in a dark hoodie offers you free toilet paper… it’s a trick… your welcome!

I am trying so hard not to be snarky because, let’s face it, this prompt question is S T U P I D!!!!!! I tried so hard to think of a nicer way to say it, but come on…

I don’t want to sit here the week before Christmas and think of my grocery list, and I highly doubt you want to know about it either. 

It doesn’t help that nowadays most grocery stores come with a full department store, a tire center, hair salon, pharmacy and liquer store! All our desires are met in only one stop… quick fix… instant gratification! Do you realize that it would take us all day to read each others shopping lists… especially right now with the holidays upon us!

This whole idea behind todays question just brings me down… and I ain’t got time… it’s almost Christmas and I have stuff to do before we all hear those sleigh bells in the sky.

I will leave you with a cookie, however, as it always fits the spot…

Come find my story about Tilly, for I promise you’ll like it a lot…

This guy for starters…

He’s handsome and kind… generous to a fault… and he loves me endlessly! 

Aside from my husband, the list of men who have positively impacted my life come strictly from the bible… not sorry!

I think back on the trail that had to be blazed through history by these biblical frontiersman… it was not an easy one, to say the least.

Noah had to build a boat that was the size of a small city… without modern machinery!

David had to kill a giant with a slingshot!

Moses had to lead an entire nation of peoples around the desert for 40 years, while they all learned to trust and obey God.

Jonah got eaten by a whale that then puked him up on the shores of Nineveh!

John the Baptist… well, he spoke the truth til it got him killed!

I could go on and on about the different men in the bible whose stories, failures, struggles and triumphs have impacted my walk as a woman of God… but I will end the list here with the name of only one man that matters… JESUS! Trump that!

I think maybe, for the first time, the daily prompt put the exact perfect question in here at the most perfect time… right before we celebrate Jesus Birthday! This is the time of year that I can say what I think about my God, my Savior, and King… with little or no argument from others. It is a difficult task to buy and receive a bunch of gifts, in His name, on His Birthday, if you don’t plan on acknowledging Him!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukah, the Manger, the Star, the Three Wise Men, etc. I could go on and on with all that we acknowledge during our celebrations, but I think you get my drift. Even those who profess to not believe in God celebrate with everyone, ignoring the Jesus part while they do it! Just saying…

Don’t be grumpy at that… you’ll get your cookie at the end, but I’m not done yet!

I stand by my answers about who positively impacted my life, as, to date there has not been even one single human man that has NOT let me down… even my husband, and he is a good man who loves God very much.

You see, placing faith in man is out of line with me… I place my faith in God and allow Him to put good men and women in my life. While I appreciate what differing men and woman have done throughout history, I just do not put my trust in them… they are fallible, just like myself.

If we are really talking about a positive impact, I think it is pretty clear to me that by His living and dying and then living again … well, that’s pretty impacting and noteworthy, wouldn’t you say…

See, I promised you a cookie…

The odds of those who actually end up exactly where they pictured after a year are not that good, I’d wager. 

I can’t even look at the prompt without breaking out into laughter… my life now looks nothing like I pictured it might, this time last year.

From the place that I was in at that time, you probably don’t want to know what I expected things to be now… I was just returning from the deadlands, as I’ve called them. 

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been here since last October… I didn’t even fully start back to writing until March of this year. I had a very very long writers block! Life Interruptus as I refer to it.

The odd thing is… even though our circumstances are still not what I thought they might be, my writing seems to be deepening. It feels kind of like writing in the fire… letting the flames and heat of a tough journey fuel my writing passions. 

The tougher the obstacles, the deeper I write. I think of what it takes to make a really good sword… both Fire and Ice can strengthen the metal so that in battle, it will remain unbreakable!

If you had asked me last year if I was going to be writing a book and making friends in the Lobby, I would have scoffed… I was so broken that I could barely get out of bed! 

I have stopped trying to figure out what will be next year, next month, or even next week… I let God figure things out and I follow His lead… One Day at a Time! Let’s be honest here, there are days that I walk minute by minute.

I have discovered that God is the best planner, the best motivator, the best provider, and the BEST Gift Giver! Whatever I dream up, He will trump it! It might not seem that to you, but it is real for me…

For now, I’m going to work on what I picture things to be like tonight… for dinner… and maybe a show with my man…

Here, have a cookie…

Aside from learning to focus again, now that my eyes are healing from surgery, I have no good answer for todays prompt. 

It did make me think about an old Christmas movie I have loved watching since I was small. Remember that my family didn’t celebrate holidays? We were not allowed to watch most secular television. While I’ve shared about things I could not do, I failed to mention that this child had skills… special skills… skills involving ninja style tv watching, and I was an expert!

You’d be surprised how easy it is for a kid to be sneaky.

So, one of the shows that I watched when my parents were distracted was “The Isle of Misfit Toys”. I was so sad when they all made the little dentist guy feel bad for not being good at building toys like everyone else. 

He was skilled, and he had learned something very important and necessary… folks just needed to accept him as he was. A dentist was very important to a bunch of elves making candy and toys all day. I saw an awful lot of candy and toys, but no toothbrushes!

Now I understand that this answer isn’t a very good answer to the prompt, but you can blame Christmas for that… I can’t help it… there are lights everywhere, music flowing, good comfort food at every turn, and hearts overflowing with love and generosity… I blame you guys!

While I looked the movie up on google, I was taken aback at who all was a voice in that movie… actors like Jamie Lee Curtis, and Rick Moranis… and it was narrated by Richard Dreyfus. All the years that have passed since I watched this movie for the first time, and it was only today that I took the time to read about it’s creation. It wouldn’t have made a difference back then, but it fills me with nostalgia now. I’d no idea of all those who took part in this production. 

There, it’s something new that I learned… hey, I did answer the prompt!

Here’s a cookie…

Before I even tried to answer this prompt I headed to my local google looking for some important information. First of all, I wanted to know exactly what my choices were. 

According to Google, “As of 2018, there are 19,495 incorporated cities, towns and villages in the United States. 14,768 of these have populations below 5,000. Only ten have populations above 1 million and none are above 10 million. 310 cities are considered at least medium cities with populations of 100,000 or more.

This is tough question for me, logistically, since I spent approximately 5 years in a Tractor Trailer with my husband, driving OTR from one corner of our great nation to the other, and back again. We have been to all but like 2 states, and traveled most of the back highways more times than I can count. 

There are a great many cities in this country that no one knows about, aside from those living within these lovely communities. It just seems sort of unfair to so many of these hidden gems. 

The next thing that stumped me about the prompt was the openness of the question… why am I wanting to visit, how long will I want to stay, and who else should be there. If I attempted to answer all of that, we would need a great many more cookies in the room to keep you all here. There is that tiny line that shouldn’t be crossed called TMI or Too Much Information!

I don’t think that I would be a great representative for most of the big cities we traveled to or through, while making deliveries. Perspective changes everything, including this prompt question! From a truck driving wife’s view… most big cities leave much to be desired, and they hide their ugly side pretty well from the average visitor… but not us! We got to experience the dirty underside of most those places. To be honest, from my perspective… the little cities were much more memorable in good ways than the bigger ones. Things would have looked much different if I were a tourist, though, so I am not sure it is fair for me to talk smack about the big places. 

Truth be told, I have no place that I really desire to visit. I have a great many lovely memories of the travels we had, but I really just love my local park and squirrels… I’ve no reason to want to go anywhere at the moment. 

I do have a dream of sorts, though. Wanna know what it is? 

I have this dream that one day we will be traveling on the open road again, but with a greater purpose than ever before. Our Motor Home will have an overhaul so that it can be trustworthy. We will have a new skin wrapped on the outside of her that reads JOURNEY WITH ME! We will travel to wherever we are called and I can do live performances for children in hospitals, schools, orphanages and churches… giving stories of Acorn Valley, Just a Bag, Brutus and more… If they have a hook up, we will come!

That is really the only visiting I feel like doing…

Here, have a cookie…

Whew! You all are soooo lucky I fully reread the prompt before answering, or this whole blog could have taken a crazy turn…

I’ll be honest in saying that at first, I thought the question asked what I thought people were saying about me, rather then what I hope they say. I stopped and made a cup of coffee and reread the prompt before answering.

While I am fully aware of what has been said about me in the past, what is possibly being said at this moment, and what may be said of me in the future… I no longer care! 

In truth, I do not wish for anyone to SAY anything ABOUT me… instead, my hope is that they SEE something IN me! 

There is only One whose opinion matters to me and only one thing I hope that He says… “Well done, my good and faithful servant” Matthew 25:21 … that’s it! 

Whenever I think for any time at all, on what others may say of me… I feel like being Snarky or sassy, and that makes me not like myself. I consciously make the choice for my thoughts to dwell elsewhere!

Anyways… talk is cheap, and there’s a lot of it flying around most days. Sometimes folks say nice things about us and sometimes not! Depends on the day, the time, how they feel, if they liked you, and/or if they want something from you. Remember, I said sometimes… not all the time! 

My answer reflects the only opinion that should matter for anyone… care about the words said by the one sitting in that Fox Hole with you, instead of everyone else barking at you from the field outside…

Here, have a cookie…

When I first saw the prompt this morning, I was momentarily perplexed. I’ve done way too many things in my life to try picking just one to remember the first day.

What are the odds that you can remember your very first birthday or your very first holiday? I wouldn’t go to Vegas with those odds if I were you… just sayin!

I, however, can remember both my very first Birthday and Christmas celebration. Why? Well, I’ll tell you, if you wish to stick around long enough to read.

Most of you have already read most of my history… born into a family that celebrated NO holidays whatsoever! I think I may have even written about a time as a small girl, where I made a tiny tree and gifts out of twigs and toilet paper and hid them under my bed. I waited for everyone to go to sleep on Christmas Eve and just sat on the floor next to my bed pretending. I was trying to celebrate something that seemed like it should be important.

Years later, when I was 15 and just landing in one of the first healthy foster homes I’d seen, it so happened to be during the Christmas Season. Somehow, I got chosen by a local family to be their guest for the upcoming holiday. Maybe you would have been scared to be handed over to complete strangers for a overnighter… but I was so used to be passed around that this was nothing!

They came and picked me up two days before Christmas, taking me to stay at their very large estate… yeah… they were very wealthy! Apparently, they owned the local timber mill that supplied the area with all its lumber needs. 

I woke up on the morning of Christmas Eve to a massive table of every breakfast item imaginable… and………….. my first gift… for my Birthday!!!!! They took me horseback riding in the snow and I was wearing my first Birthday gift… a Members Only Jacket with a fur lined hood! I actually wore that thing for several years, until the fur wore away from the edges and the zipper actually dropped off.

We stayed up late into the night watching movies in this massive theatre style family room, where I eventually fell asleep from all the days adventures. While I was asleep that night, the whole family snuck in a giant Christmas tree, decorated it, and filled the entire room with gifts and stockings and all the holiday trimmings. I woke up to a wonderland of lights and packages everywhere I looked. It was amazing how the whole of this family took the time and effort to do this for me… little ole me!

I will never forget this first day at something I had never before experienced… a FAMILY! They were so loving to one another and the house was filled with laughter, love and hope. F.Y.I. … they even had a birthday cake with candles sitting amidst the holiday foods… for me! 

Looking back on these memories ended up being the perfect answer to the prompt, and at Christmas time even!!!! What are them odds… maybe I should go to Vegas!

Nah…

But I will share some cookies with ya…

While I could fill these pages with stories of some of my antics in the past, I will instead regale you with memories we all can relate to… our moments with Mr. Microphone!!!

I think that most of us have performed or given a speech at one point or another. It started when we were small children and still full of imagination! Who didn’t play pirates at the public park… we didn’t care who was watching.

Did we, or did we not play act at any given moment? We had baby dolls to feed, change, and spank… yes, I used to put my babies in the corner for time outs. I will even wager that many of us dressed up our dogs and cats and locked them in a room with us while we sang a song, or gave an award winning performance of Laura from Little House on the Prairie.

When Mr. Microphone came on the scene in 1979 I was 11 years old. I never bought one myself, but it wasn’t necessary since nearly everyone I knew had them. Now you may understand why I figured we’ve all done a bit of song and dance at some point in the past… you just sort of forgot… or blocked it out, depending on how bad you sounded on Mr. Microphone.

While I can’t say how good I was, I can say with certainty that I was LOUD! I figured that with the feedback we got from those things, if I just yelled into the mike, no one would know the difference… and they didn’t! Oh I’m sure they heard how bad I sounded, but you see, none of us cared… because we were still kids.

Looking back over the years, I have been on stage a good many times, but it wasn’t nearly as fun and fulfilling as when I was young and didn’t care what people would think.

When my girls were small, we spent a great deal of time in different children’s programs at Church and School. Every change of season brought some form of program or other that required our little ones to cross a stage, whether it be a piano recital or Holiday Pageant. The girls did great in groups of kids, but not the solo stuff… I’m talking deer in the headlights!

Get them together with their closest friends, however, and it was a completely different story… let the drama commence! All we had to do was give them some form of recording device and either lock them in… or lock them OUT! Hours later there would be food and a premier performance of whatever they came up with… sometimes a video, sometimes a talent show, or sometimes a Live Performance!

If you are ever wondering about personality and character dynamics… just watch a group of kids trying to organize themselves into a functioning show of music or acting. You will see the directors come out, the stand-up comedians, the drama queens, and last but not least… the OCD kids that will have a melt down if things can’t be perfect! Remember, they are grown ups in training, so this is where they are figuring out how to act and respond to those around them.

When I was a kid we did this kind of stuff too, but there were no lightweight cameras or Video Recorders. All we had was the 80 lb. movie production size Camcorders needing the strength of Thor to carry them… and Mr. Microphone! No Problem… we got the job done… in the back of cars driving down the street, in bathrooms across America, and in school hallways before a teacher could confiscate them.

I better stop here, or we will end up down some memory lane that lands us in a part of my naughty days that, fortunately, were not caught on camera.

I do really miss the I Don’t Care What People Think days… yes, I miss you Mr. Microphone!!!

Have a cookie…

With new eyes, the possibilities are endless…

Right now I am thoroughly enjoying my new eyeballs… so I’m doing a good bit of blinking, which is pretty nice. If you’re wondering, it’s because they took out the astigmatism in my right eye during the first surgery, so blinking doesn’t hurt anymore.

Today also marks the first day I shall be walking on my trails again… I am sooooooo excited!

However, I shall first be drinking a cup of coffee while I answer this prompt. Reading and writing are some of my other favorites. My new eyes have made these activities even more wonderful than I remembered. I have placed a hold on my first choice of good reads with my new peepers. I decided on Redwall by Brian Jacques. I started reading this book for my children years ago and ended up falling in love with the characters. I basically binge read everything written by the author. Whenever a new book came out in the series… I had it! I know it’s for younger readers but I don’t care… talent is talent and this author owned it with pretty much whatever he wrote. I aspire…

I also have plans to pick a camera back up, as well as a paintbrush and also my faithful crotchet hooks… why not, I say?!

Whatever my favorite activities are or will be, it is fitting that my eyes now work fully… to be a light in the darkness, one needs good vision!

Here, have a cookie…