Tag Archives: Writing

Taking on Challenges

You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood. What mood is that? Last minute panic.–Bill Watterson

I first saw this quote on my friend Natso’s blog. It was at a time when I was wrestling with the demands of writing a blog. I am new to blogging and began writing posts as an experiment to see if I had a talent for writing and if it would develop through blogging.

The demands to write something on a frequent basis and connect with people in the blogosphere, view who liked my posts and read their blogs was getting to me. I have written a few blogs on this topic, Blogger Burnout and Disconnections, that I thought were pretty good.

So here I go throwing myself into another experiment with the daily posts for November. I think I like pushing the envelope of my comfort zone. Taking risks. I have been known to do this before during other times in my life. I have taken on big challenges. Jumped into things that were outside my comfort zone.

When I decided to go back to college and enter an accelerated teacher training program is one example. Note the word accelerated. Not only did I go back to college at 60. I went into a super demanding program. I was to complete this program in 1 year. It consisted of 21 units the first semester and 19 units the second. The second semester included student teaching. This is when you are placed in a classroom and get on the job training. You need to prepare lessons for your students and have separate written assignments related to it and this added to the work you are already doing in your other classes.

This is not the first time I have thought something sounded like a good idea in theory, to get through quickly, and turned out not to be in practice. I had sound reasons to want to get my teaching credential quickly. As mentioned earlier I was not getting any younger. I hoped to make a quick transition into another field. My first career had been in Nursing. Another determining factor was the cost. If I could do it faster it would not cost as much. The California State University tuition was less than other programs as well.

There were many things I liked about Nursing. I love learning in general. I was very interested in medicine and physiology. I am an idealist and wanted to work in a profession that does good and helps the world.

Although I liked these aspects of Nursing it was not a good fit for me in other ways. I am an empathic type who can take on the suffering of others. Being an idealist can put you into conflict with situations where the bottom line is more important to the companies or hospitals you are working for than the employees or the people you are caring for.

I have read that when your work puts you in conflict with your values it can cause tremendous stress. I can say in my case I found this to be true. I tended to be very self-critical, a perfectionist and a worry wart in addition. So this combined with everything else was not a healthy situation. I did not give up right away. I stayed in Nursing off and on for many years.

I worked in many different areas of Nursing until I felt I had come to the end of it for me. So that is when I thought about teaching. I had done teaching as a Nurse in that you do a lot of patient and family teaching about their conditions, medications and self-care.

I had some experience in the classroom working part-time as a teacher’s aide. I wanted to work with kids who had learning problems. I felt I needed more education to do that. So that is how I ended up in the ACT Program as California State University Northridge.

It is a big challenge to go back to college after so many years. I was barely computer literate. This caused many little challenges. Like learning to order books online from the school book store for my classes, learning how to register online for classes, learning how to access and use the college library online. You notice a lot of these things involved getting comfortable with the computer quickly.

Then it was the whole thing of being the oldest student in the class. I had to learn to relate to people my kids’ age or younger. Thankfully there were some who were open to being my friend. I think others really did see me like their parents. So there was this barrier. But gradually I found I was able to work with most of them pretty well.

I was not the only one who found this accelerated program stressful. I discovered that the 20 year olds were having just as hard a time with the demands of the coursework as I was. I also found out I still had a brain in my head and could learn all this new information and get good grades and cope with learning the technology.

I am not saying that at times it was not a pretty rough go because there were times when I felt like I was barely making it. But it was encouraging to find out that the other students were feeling the same. I was not the only one. It was a tough program.

So now why am I worried about this daily post. It’s a piece of cake.

|Nano Poblano| among other things. 🙂

Fall Back

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Spring forward, Fall Back.

Today, November 2, 2014 at 2 am in California we turned our clocks back by 1 hour to Standard Time. DST or daylight savings time is over until Spring of 2015. Hooray!

I have never liked Daylight Savings Time. I am not a morning person and the idea of getting 1 hour less sleep did not appeal to me. Depending on where you live in the world and in the United States the time changes differ. Some countries do not observe it at all as well as two states in the US which are Arizona and Hawaii.

So today we go around the house and reset our clocks and wrist watches and the clocks on our stove, microwave and in our cars. Usually some of these gets missed. I am pretty good at doing the mental calculations if I realize the car clock is off by 1 hour. It really doesn’t confuse me. What time is it again?

There have been many reasons given for why we need DST. Conserve coal energy during WWI, more daylight to play golf, sports, watch sporting events or search for insects after work hours among other things. The insect idea was from an entomologist from New Zealand.

All I know is I love the Fall Back and do not like the Spring Forward. There is scientific information that all this artificial time changing is not good for our health. It messes with our natural circadian rhythms. There are more car accidents and heart attacks from this man-made sleep deprivation. Would you rather have more time to hunt for insects even if it may lead to your death? Well, I guess it depends how passionate you are about these evening hours pursuits.

Ask Smithsonian: How Does Daylight Savings Affect the Body? | Smithsonian.

What do you think? Do you have the time changes where you live? What time is it there?

|Nano Poblano|

|NoBloPoMo| still trying to figure this one out 😦

A Post A Day Will Not Cause An Emotional Breakdown I Hope

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All right. I have committed to write a post a day for, and I am terrible at acronyms and why do we need them anyway, NaBloPoMo and Nano Poblano. OK I know poblano is a type of chile pepper and not an acronym.

This is the first day of November and we have had our first rain of the season all last night here in Southern California. It really gave me such a great feeling. In case you are unaware, we are going through a drought here.

I usually love listening to the rain at night but last night was particularly wonderful. I had just finished writing a post. My husband had the radio on in the bedroom. I think that blocked the sound of the rain at first. Then I heard a loud drip, drip, drip like there was a leak somewhere. Our plumbing has been noisy lately so I couldn’t be sure.

Then I thought maybe it is rain. It had been predicted for last night. I turned on the light over the backyard patio. I was so happy to see the dripping noise was the rain running off the edge of our tile roof.

It is like any everyday thing that you haven’t experienced for a long, long time and when it happens again it is so special. As if it has never happened before and this is the first time.

|Nanopoblano| among other things.

SoCS-Memento Means Remember

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The origin of the word memento was, according to Thesaurus.com, from “c.1400…in the Canon of the Mass which began with the Latin word memento and in which the dead are commemorated.” The Latin word memento means remember. The English definition is: an object that reminds us of a person or event. Two synonyms for the word memento are a souvenir and curio.

We have a curio cabinet that belonged to my husband’s maternal grandmother, Nana. We acquired it when she died several years ago. Some of the items we kept in it were hers or gifts from her as well. The cabinet and some of its contents are our mementos of her.

When we were putting in new floors in the living room the furniture was being moved around and the curio cabinet tipped over and the mirror inside shattered. I was upset because this cabinet meant something to me.

It has been lying on its back on an old table ever since while we try to decide what to do with it. My daughter said it looked like it was waiting for surgery. A brother-in-law said it looked like a coffin. This evening I did have some candles on top of it for Halloween which goes along with the coffin image.

The broken curio cabinet reminds me how fragile things are and that they do not last forever. Although I may not always have this memento of Nana we will still have our memories of her and her love.

Forget-me-not

|SoCS November 1 LindaGHill|

Trio No. 3 – Esmeralda the Good Witch and Candy Bar Pie

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Cassiopeia

It was a dark Halloween Night. The trick-or-treaters had all gone home to assay their sugary loot. Esmeralda turned off the porch light and sighed with relief. Finished with the relay she and her husband Cornelius had made back and forth to the front door with their bowl of assorted goodies. Cassiopeia, their cat, has observed the goings on from a safe distance.

Many of the kiddies had commented on how authentic Esmeralda’s costume looked from her beautiful star-studded pointed purple hat down to her pointy green high heel boots.

Her emerald-green eyes surveyed the remains of the treats. She was able to resist the temptation to sample a few. There was something better waiting for her in the refrigerator. She was looking forward to this late night treat.

The special treat Esmeralda had stashed away was Ben and Jerry’s Candy Bar Pie. She took one of her pretty ice cream bowls out of the cupboard, gathered her ice cream scoop and opened the refrigerator eagerly. But wait. It was right here. Where did it go? Oh no!

Cassiopeia sauntered into the kitchen to see what all the commotion was about. The container sat on the counter. A few dribbles of ice cream running over the side of the carton. Esmeralda peered inside the container and saw it was empty. Cassiopeia jumped up on the counter and approached the carton curiously. She tasted the remains of the yummy treat. She looked at her mistress as if to say ,” Any more?”

” It’s all gone Cassie,” Esmeralda said as she slowly turned and noticed Cornelius. He was on the couch watching one of their old DVDs, ” Bedknobs and Broomsticks” while spooning something into his mouth. “This ice cream is great! This is my second bowl,” he exclaimed.

Esmeralda felt the heat rising inside her. She marched toward Cornelius with the empty carton, brandishing the ice cream scoop like a weapon. Cornelius looked into her eyes and said, ” You’ve got to stop spending so much time on your computer with that blog. You look terrible and your eyes are red and bulging.”

“Thanks for saving some for me,” Esmeralda said sarcastically as she held up the empty carton. “What, oh, no worries,” Cornelius replied with a grin. She stood glaring at him and pondered whether or not she should turn him into a toad when he said, ” I know how much you love this stuff so I bought another carton this afternoon. It’s out in the freezer in the garage.”

The strange red glow in Esmeralda’s eyes disappeared and her eyes glistened with tears of joy as she realized how thoughtful Cornelius had been. She smiled sweetly as her grip relaxed on the ice cream scoop she had been clutching a little too menacingly.

So their Halloween was saved and Esmeralda settled in to watch the DVD and have some Candy Bar Pie of her own. Even Cassiopeia got to have a dish of it. Which was just divine in her opinion.

|The Daily Post Trio No. 3|

This little tale is based on a prompt from WordPress to write something that includes a dark night, a refrigerator and tears of emotion. In case you wondered at where this was going and why. 🙂

The Witch’s Broom

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I sat abandoned in the corner near the hearth. My mistress had gone on to the otherworld. Dust and cobwebs gathered at my feet. A few insects had made a home in my wood. The cottage felt so lonely and cold. I wondered what would become of me.

A troublesome shadow appeared in the doorway. Tom Prattle, a pestiferous bootlegger surveyed the abandoned cottage. He called to his buddies, “Hey Buck !, Carl ! Come over here and take a gander. This would be a great place to set up a still and store the brew.” The scruffy bunch clomped into the cottage with their muddy boots making tracks all over.

” We can clear all this old stuff out of the room and see what we’ve got, ” Tom thought out loud. The men started tossing my mistress’s meager belongings out the door of the cottage. Tom grabbed me to toss out with the rest. I decided I did not like this new master and his plans for my home. I lifted off from the ground with him still attached.

We went for a wild ride around the tops of the trees. He gripped me with his stubby fingers, his eyes popping in horror, his mouth forming a silent scream. He buddies watched gape mouthed from below. After making a couple of loop-the-loops, I swooped down and threw my passenger down the old well out front. He was screaming and hollering for his friends to get him out. The last I saw him he was making a hurried retreat down the road with his gang close behind.

As I floated back to the cottage I saw a ghostly apparition at the door. My mistress smiled and said, ” There you are. I almost forgot you. I could not leave my loyal besom behind.”

Then we flew off high above the tree covered hills and across the boundary to the otherworld.

|Which Witch|

Masks Off Channeling My Innermost Self

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A Costume that would channel my true innermost self…. I am not sure I know everything about my true innermost self. I like to think I know parts but I think I am still learning. I will tell you about the positive aspects or ones that I aspire to. The different characters are: the Idealist, the Dreamer, the Comic, the Romantic, the Observer, the Imaginer and the Adventurer ( usually armchair variety or in my mind 🙂 )

A costume would be like one of Gertrude Bell.

I have always liked strong women characters as portrayed by the likes of Katherine Hepburn or Angelina Jolie. I aspire to be courageous.

|Masks Off|

Addendum: I love this post on Senior Planet about costumes. Very funny!

SoCS It’s All a Matter of Degree

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Climate change is often in the news and on our minds. Especially if you have senses to be aware of the changes in the weather. Here in California we are aware of the lack of rain and the length of our summers which can extend far into autumn. Our air conditioning bills are increasing. The Salton Sea is drying up. I have read that Southern species of birds are moving North and competing with local birds. Can we and the creatures that share our planet adapt to the changes wrought by changes of climate?

Some encouraging news in this post I read from Smithsonian is that some species are showing the capacity to adapt and are doing so. This is a counterpoint to all the doom and gloom.

I have told myself to not let all the bad news get me down. We can not see the future and, although I believe we need to address global warming, that all outcomes may not be as bad as we fear.

|Stream of Consciousness Saturday SoCS|

Smithsonian article link below:

Can evolution save species from death by climate change? Maybe. Kinda. #ItsComplicated.

Tipsy Lit Flash Fiction Contest Entry: The Chronicle of Aine Part I

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Chronicle of Aine Part I :The Shapeshifters

My name is Aine. I am a Druid priestess of Ireland. It is the 5th year since I shape-shifted. I fly over the beautiful land of my birth. I see my people being persecuted for the old faith. I have enjoyed swooping down on the traitors and gouging them with my talons. I must be more careful because one of them almost caught me last time.

I am descended from a long line of Druid priests and priestesses. I began my training as a priestess twenty years ago. I was taken from my family home when I was 5 years old and brought to the temple. Our teachers were very patient and loving. We were required to memorize all the holiday rituals and prayers. Some of my earliest lessons were the prayers that are said on the arrival of the new moon. I learned to read the weather patterns and the signs of the change of seasons.

If we learned our lessons well we were allowed to have time to explore the wild areas near our temple. I enjoyed learning about all the local plants and animals. Many of the animals and birds were my playmates and friends. I learned to speak their language. They would tell me of all that happened in their world. They would warn me if any stranger approached.

We were encouraged to spend time with the Old Ones. I always liked the Old Ones the best. They would tell us the history of our people from time long past. The Old Ones taught me the skill of shapeshifting. Only a few of us were chosen for this training. It takes a lot of energy and concentration. When I first started to practice shapeshifting it would exhaust me and I would need to sleep for several days afterwards.

I take pride in saying I was one of the best students. There was one other who was my equal, Aodhan. He would often join me in exploration of the wild areas. He was very skilled in reading nature signs and the traces of the outsiders. He mastered shapeshifting quickly and enjoyed taking the form of some of my animal friends and playing tricks on me.

As we grew older our relationship changed. He became very jealous when I was with other friends. One day as I walked in the sacred grove Aodhan quietly approached in the form of a stag. I recognized him before he could startle me. He told me he had grown tired of the training and felt he knew enough to leave the temple and practice as a sorcerer on his own. I said that he was wrong to think himself wiser than our teachers and the Old Ones. He became very angry with me and disappeared in a cloud of smoke and fire. I heard the next day he had gone.

Reverse Shot: The Swing

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What’s your earliest memory involving another person? Recreate the scene from the other person’s perspective.

I am 15 years old and living with my mother and step-father and my little step-sister Debbie in Lake County. Debbie is 3 years old and looks like a Campbell’s Soup Kid according to her father. She is pretty chubby but cute. She really looks up to me but I have better things to do than hang around playing with her.

She wanted me to push her on the old tire swing that is at the front of the house. It’s a strange looking thing made of rubber with a bucket seat and long ropes going up to a high branch of an old tree. I was pushing her and she kept going higher and higher up over the roof of the house. She was looking down between her feet at the roof.

The next thing I know, my step-father is running out the front door of the house yelling, ” Mickey, stop pushing her!” Turns out he and my mother could see Debbie’s feet coming over the roof from the big picture window at the back of the house.