Tag Archives: #Stream of Consciousness Saturday

You Takes It Or Leaves It

What did the caterpillar say to the butterfly? “I’m turning over a new leaf.”

I would like to leave off a few things around here, like household chores. It would be nice to give up dish washing ,cleaning bathrooms, laundry and folding clothes. I do have a dishwasher (machine) but I wash off the dishes before loading them in, and it seems like there are always more dirty dishes piling up in the sink. I did do a new chore this past week, sweeping up some dead leaves in my yard and trimming the leaves and branches off some of the bushes. It was more satisfying that the household chores I mentioned, being outside on a not too hot sunny day with a cool breeze blowing. Wish it would stay like this all summer.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt word is ‘leaves.’ Use it as a noun or a verb.

Featured image of ‘Monarch caterpillar eating ‘ by Bradly Potter of the US Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest Region on Flickr.com

Gatherings

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We are social beings of varying degrees. Some of us like less socializing, and can prefer to observe from the perimeter, others like to be right in the middle of things. I like the scene in the above painting, ‘Cliff Dwellers’ by George Wesley Bellows (1913). A peaceful social gathering on a busy city street with a few people watching from their balconies or window sills, while others carry on with their daily routines, and children playing outside. The clothes lines stretched between buildings. Two women sitting together at the side of the stairs, one with her face turned up to the sun, the other keeps watch on the children. In my early childhood years, we lived in San Francisco. I remember we had a clothes line suspended up high like that from the back of our flat. The neighborhood kids often played on the sidewalks in front of their buildings.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt word for today is ‘social’.

Featured image ‘Cliff Dwellers’ by George Wesley Bellows from LA County Museum of Art via Wikimedia.org

A Way With Words

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The prompt for today is to open a book to a random page, put your finger on it, and use that sentence to inspire your writing. I read this book a few years ago, ‘Ordinary Grace’ by William Kent Krueger and loved his writing. There are many wonderful sentences in this book. One I picked at random: ‘When my mother sang I almost believed in heaven.’

I have felt like that listening to a great opera singer like Pavarotti or Renee Fleming. or a classic rock song. When I hear them sing I am in heaven.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, # SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. Today’s prompt: “Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “open book, point, write.” Pick up the closest book to you when you sit down to write your post. Close your eyes, open the book, and place your finger on the page. Whatever word or phrase your finger lands on, write about it.”

Silence

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I do enjoy quiet times to myself, but even then my mind is usually not silent. It is often mulling over assorted details of my existence, seeking interesting information off the web or streaming from the flat screen. I can get quiet inside and out if I am looking at beautiful nature.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “silent/silence.” Use one or both in your post.

Featured image ‘Enjoy the silence…’byThomas Leuthard on Flickr.com

Murder So Cozy

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“Cozy mysteries, also referred to as “cozies”, are a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community. Cozies thus stand in contrast to hardboiled fiction, which feature violence and sexuality more explicitly and centrally to the plot. The term “cozy” was first coined in the late 20th century when various writers produced work in an attempt to re-create the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.” (Wikipedia).

I am all for limiting explicit sex and violence in mystery stories and have often liked “cozy mystery” series like ‘Murder She Wrote’ or ‘Miss Marple.’ But lately, I am wondering what made me like them with their usual ‘cozy’ premises of small town, and amateur detectives. Isn’t it kind of rediculous to think of murders happening regularly in a small little village or town and to have the local clergyman, landscapers, librarians, as the detective? The exception to this would be the greatest amateur detective, Sherlock Holmes.

‘The Detective’ by József Rippl-Rónai (1861–1927) via wikipedia.org

Jeremy Brett by Insomnia Cured

Maybe it’s because we imagine ourselves to be amateur sleuths who can solve the crime.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt is “rhymes with rosy.” Find a word that rhymes with “rosy” or use the word “rosy” and base your post on it.

Shattered

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Accidentally, I dropped the glass lid of a large pan on my tile kitchen floor just as I was finishing up the dinner dishes. Oh joy! I got to clean up this pile of broken glass and its pieces that spread out from the point of impact to the next room. I am thinking, could the glass lids of these pans be made in a way to prevent breakage like this? (Well, that was not not my first thought, which was probably oh shit! ) I did some quick research and my lid could have been ‘tempered glass’ which is supposed to break in smaller pebble-like pieces and not so many shards. I have swept, vacuumed, and swiffered up the evidence before taking a photo, but I think the glass did break into smaller pieces and stayed together mostly, except for the pieces that got loose and flew everywhere. I wish they could make a glass lid that is really shatterproof.

Image by Jurgen Sieber on Pixabay.com

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt for today is “adverb.” Start your post with any adverb and just run with it.

Southern California Skys Clouded With Butterflies

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Have you heard about the great migration of Painted Ladies to California? I am not referring to the saloon hall girls of the old west or aspiring starlets, but butterflies, lots of butterflies known as Painted Ladies. Some have been flying through my back yard and appear to be heading North. Wherever they are heading they are sure in a hurry. No leisurely gliding through the air for these Lepidoptera. A few did rest on the blossoms of my Pyracantha in the backyard but they tend to stay on the very top branches and when I try to approach with my camera they quickly fly away.

Pyracantha blossoms in my yard

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt for today is “fall from the sky.” Write about anything that falls from the sky–real, imagined, or idiomatic. Featured image ‘Painted lady nectaring’ (caption: Painted lady butterflies prefer nectar from flowers that are 3-6 feet high.) by Mara Koenig US Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest Region via Flickr.

Expectations

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Isn’t it frustrating when stuff that usually works without delays or glitches suddenly doesn’t work. Like when your internet connection goes down. That happened to me recently and boy did I miss the internet. It is such a big part of my day. My connection to the world. Then about a week ago my browser had really slowed down to a snail’s pace and I decided to clear my cache. Later that day I wanted to sign into my WordPress account and guess what, WordPress did not recognize me and could not find my account. That was pretty upsetting because I didn’t expect to be cut off from my blogs and all my stored posts. It was like I did not have an account and never had a blog, the ‘twilight zone.’ Around the same time another blogger friend, Dan Antion, was posting about glitches on WordPress, like the ‘comment’ section not working. I realized I had noticed other people’s ‘Like’ function not working. It would say, ‘loading…’ and then not load. I discovered that if I refreshed the page the ‘Like’ feature would work. But then I thought it probably hasn’t been working on my blogs either and maybe several people were not able to ‘like’ my posts because the ‘Like’ button was broken,(that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it). It took me what seemed like a very long session with the Support person on WordPress and then I was transferred to the Happiness Engineers and we finally got me back to my blog site. So all good, and life returned to normal, at least on WordPress. But this morning I go to sign in and I am having problems signing in and then my Reader page, with the other blogs I am following , is not loading. I am getting this message in a red square with an exclamation point to boot, that ‘sorry we are unable to find the posts you are following’ or something like that. So more time with Support person and then after some crazy voodoo, I don’t know what we did, I am able to sign in and see who I am following.

by rawpixel on Pixabay.com

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt “for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “xp.” Use it as a word, or find a word with “xp”in it. As always, use any way you’d like. Enjoy!”

Time Slips By

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Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

I have been looking back across generations quite a bit lately and discovered so much about my family tree. I have connected with cousins in Ireland who were wonderful to share a copy of the family tree and another who helped me do research. At first we did not know we were related but discovered his great-grandmother on the family tree. Two volunteers, Margaret and David, at ‘Ireland Reaching Out’ helped me connect with my cousins and with research. Geraldine at The North Tipperary Genealogy Center with rootsireland.ie was a great help with questions about records. I met another cousin who spotted my posting on a message board and met a more distant cousin through Ancestry.com whose family came from the same county in Ireland as my great-great grandparents. I found the grandchildren of two of grandmother’s sisters. I have found the grandchildren of my Great Aunt and much more. Other Ancestry members have been generous with their help as well.

Now I need to pause and look at my own life as I am living day-to-day and the people living in it. I don’t want to lose track and let it all slip by. Lifetimes pass much too quickly.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “lip.” Use it as a word, or find a word with “lip”in it.

Fabulous

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I made an exciting discovery in my search for members of my family tree. In the late 1970s my aunt wrote in a letter information about my father’s family. She told me about my paternal grandparents and their siblings. At that time, my aunt still corresponded with a cousin back in Ireland. She told me what she remembered about her aunts and uncles. She said three of my grandmother’s siblings had remained in Ireland and her two youngest sisters had emigrated to Canada. She mentioned that one of the sisters had 3 children and other had none. At the time I received the letter there was no internet and I never thought I could access databases to locate family members. I envisioned myself making a trip to Ireland or Canada in search of ancestor records and maybe living relatives. I did not ask any follow-up questions about the married name of the sister or where they lived in Canada. When I recently started doing genealogy research I was amazed by all the information I could find online. But because my great aunts names were common I could not be sure of the records. I thought I might never find out what happened to them. After I had been researching for a while I decided to have a DNA test because I though it might make it easier to identify ancestors. I did have several cousins confirmed through DNA that I already knew belonged on my tree. I have used the DNA matches with various surnames to try to find answers when the records are not clear or not available. During a recent search for DNA matches and surnames a new name popped up on my match list. Ancestry was saying our DNA match was extremely high and this person could be my first or second cousin. I contacted him through Ancestry and as I read his answer I became very excited. It turns out he is the grandson of one of the sisters who emigrated to Canada. Through him I now know who my great-aunt married and the names of her children. I am in touch with her descendants and to me this is just fabulous.

‘Wild Irish Rose-Royal Canal’ by Peter Mooney on Flickr

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The ” prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “fab.” Use it as a word or find a word beginning with “fab.”