A to z challenge

#AtoZChallenge: AccountaClub EVERY Friday!

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(Photo by Moments Immortalized from Pexels. AccoutaClub’s graphic is taking an A to Z vacation!)

Every Friday (see? E? That worked out pretty well) we have #AccountaClub, where we talk about our goals and how they went. They don’t have to just be weekly goals, either; big ones, small ones, whatever.

Bragging is encouraged! So is whining!

This is a friendly, supportive place, so let’s do that for each other.

AccountaClub actually sprung from a post-A to Z Challenge challenge, but we’ll talk about that later (come back for M!)

Do you think I was stalling before getting into my week? Good eye.

The A to Z Challenge is going well, I think, though I’m not visiting as many blogs as I’d like. I had a weather-related headache this week and it really slowed me down. Most annoying is it’s so far out of my control.

Not much writing outside of A to Z either, for the same reason. Fingers crossed for next week.

Fitness was great, though, five days, five workouts, Daily Burn is a perfect solution for me. The variety keeps me in it. Today was yoga, which was great.

That’s me…so how was your week?

Check out  my full-length novels: 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird and FREE!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

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#AtoZChallenge: Begin

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(Photo by David Hablützel from Pexels)

On day 2 of the A to Z Blogging Challenge, I was overwhelmed by the sheer breadth of B words. So I used a random word generator.

And the very first word was “begin.” Which is cosmically perfect.

There’s so much promise in “begin.” So much new, so much that can come from it. The first step to everything that ever was.

Begin.

For those of us A to Zing, that could mean this challenge. We only have to start, and the letters will unfold, one day after the next, until we reach Z.

But that’s not all.

We can begin anything at any time: that novel; that fitness program; mending fences; meeting new people. It’s a word that is limited only on the one side.

The possibilities of the other are endless.

What would you like to begin?

Check out  my full-length novels: 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird and FREE!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#AtoZChallenge: AAAAANNNND away we go!

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(Image By SheltieBoy – Flickr: AKC Helena Fall Dog Show 2011, CC BY 2.0, Link)

It’s April, and with April comes the A to Z blogging challenge! I know many of you are familiar with the challenge because we met doing it (hi guys!) but in case you don’t, during the month of April you blog six days a week, each post relating to a letter of the alphabet, A through Z.

And the best part is you visit all the other blogs who are also doing the challenge. It’s fun, and I realized while signing up that this is my fifth year.

Time flies.

This year will have a bit of an extra complication, as I will try to keep up our ten word photo prompts and #AccountaClub. That should be fun. So make sure you’re here on Thursday and Friday to see how I twist myself into a pretzel to fit the letter (hmm. Pretzel begins with a P. Noted).

Essentially here you’ll get my random thoughts as usual, only in alphabetical order this month. And an extra post on Saturdays.

Yay!

If you’re new here, hi and welcome! And if not, it’s so nice to have you back!

So, A to Zers…how are you feeling about this year’s challenge?

Check out  my full-length novels: 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird and FREE!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

Rewind: Candidly; The Work of Writing Two: #AtoZChallenge

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By Wilson Afonso from Sydney, Australia (Just browsing Uploaded by JohnnyMrNinja) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s time for a blog rewind! A replay of a previous post, originally published during the A to Z Challenge on April 4, 2017. Enjoy!

Again.

(More Work of Writing Posts.)

 

Once again, this account is completely and totally fictional which means it never happened and is not true and is made up and is fictional.

And definitely not true.

Ah. New day. A good day. A good day to get some real work done. Some serious work. Serious work. Ser-ee-ous.

Let’s just move that remote off of the coffee tabl–DAMN IT!

I’ve never seen a glass spin like that. End over end. I barely tapped it. Barely. And now it’s everywhere. At least it’s only water. Only water, it will dry. And the glass didn’t break. Good. Back to it. Wait, need a little paper towel to blot it up. OK. Blog post then editing.

Blog post. Right. Blog post. Blog POST. Bloggity blog blog blog. Post.

Some more decaf? Yep. More decaf. Ah, that looks good, just blot the bottom of the cup, looks like there’s a little coffee there, and–DAMN IT!

It’s fine, it’s fine, the coffee did kind of jump out of the cup, but at least it didn’t go IN the toaster. A little under, sure but a quick wipe and, yep, we’re ready to go.

Cofffee is set and stable (ha! So funny. I’m a spiller! A spiller who can laugh at herself. Hmm. Maybe write that down). Time for some real work. Serious work. Ser-ee-ous.

Right after I make sure there’s no more coffee under the toaster.

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

 Sign up for my spamless newsletter!

#AtoZChallenge Wrap-up and #MAYkingItWork

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Took this yesterday, April 30. Told you it’s spring!

Well, it’s May! After a month of blogging six days a week (and seven in the first marathon stretch…whoa) we’ve glided on through to May. Hello real spring (do you hear me, Chicago weather? What you’re doing out there right now, keep it up), hello MAYkingItWork.

What’s that you say, hypothetical reader? What’s that jumble of letters at the end of that sentence there? We’ll get to that in a second.

So I kind of wrapped it up yesterday, but overall, though this A to Z Challenge was, well, challenging, and I didn’t do as well as I wanted, it was definitely worth the time and effort. Every year it’s like a blogging reset, settling us into the habit of daily posting. And this year, coming up with posts, even with the headaches, wasn’t even that hard.

I think I’d call that growth.

You all know how I did with the visits, but I’ll try to catch up.

So from A to Z to MAYkingItWork. We all have those projects we mean to get to, and we keep meaning to get to, and yet somehow never get to. And they haunt us. They nag at us. They demand our attention. Kind of like the prepositions hanging out at the ends of each of those clauses, but the whole thing is far more awkward to when it’s grammatically correct.

But I digress.

In May, MAYkingItWork encourages you to pick one of those buzzing neglected bees and do something with it. Make some progress. Take a few steps toward finishing it or finish it outright.

This is a no-pressure challenge. So no pressure that it’s more of a support group. So if you’re interested, blog about it and post a link here, or come here and talk about it on Fridays during the month of May. This Friday, we declare ourselves, what we will do.

I’m tempted to make MAYkingItWork my MAYkItWork, given I wasn’t planning on doing it again this year until Breaker of Things sent a gentle nudge, so entirely without his permission I declare him co-host. Debs too, if she wants. Anyone else want in? Let me know.

So, non-hypothetical readers, think about what you’d like to get back to, or even start, if it’s something new. It doesn’t have to be writing if writing isn’t your thing; it can be craft related, home-related, anything. It’s a spring renewal for the dusty parts of the to-do list.

And come let us know what it is on Friday.

Thanks again to all my A to Z buddies, I couldn’t have done April without you, and hey, how much do you rock for completing the challenge?

(Spoiler alert. It’s a lot.)

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

Yoga

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Yak in Tibet. By Dennis Jarvis via Wikimedia Commons

So I’ve known I was going to do yoga for Y since the beginning of the challenge. Look at me! Planning!

At the end of February of this year, I decided that I wanted to do yoga daily. It wasn’t a resolution or challenge. It was merely a choice. So most days, I get up and do a short practice on Gaia, where the practices stretch as far as the eyes can see. When I have more time, I do a longer practice later in the day.

I try different styles. I like the vinyasa yoga, the kind that flows from pose to pose, but I don’t limit myself to those practices. Sometimes I do yin yoga, which requires you to sit in a pose for a long time, to be still.

That, for me, is the most difficult.

Yoga is more than the physical movement; yoga shapes the mind as well as the biceps. As I mentioned earlier in the challenge, it’s helping me to let go of the idea of perfection. It’s teaching me to appreciate the body it I have for what it will do and what it will try to do. It’s shown me the vast universe inside of each of us.

It’s shown me that we can each form our own morning rituals, whenever we want them. It’s as easy as making a choice.

***EDIT: If you’d like to try a practice, here is a beginner one for free from Clara Roberts-Oss, one of my favorite instructors on Gaia! Free Practice on Gaia from Clara Roberts-Oss***

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

 

Xylocarp

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By marlin harms (Flickr: Xantus’s Hummingbird, Hylocharis xantusii) via Wikimedia Commons

OK, I’m just going to start with this: X words are the worst. The worst. Absolutely the worst of all the letters of all the days in April.

I’ve cheated with X in the past, chopping off bits of words; I’ve used the standards. But today, I decided I would use a bona fide X word that maybe most of us (some of us…me) don’t know.

And here’s the thing with X words. They look cool. They sound cool. But their meanings are dry as toast when the only thing you have in the house is salt.

That’s dry.

Take, for example, today’s word, “xylocarp,” which I chose because it made me think of a fish with a built-in musical instrument, swimming around, adding a colorful tropical musical flare to the reef. The kind of fish that’s the life of the party, who always has a happy tune ready to go.

Xylocarp.

Know what it means?

It’s a hard dry covering, like on a coconut.

I told you. Dry. In both senses of the word.

X is just one of those letters. It looks cool. It sounds cool.

It’s rarely cool.

So I’m going to stick to my improvised definition. Some where, out there, a xylocarp is rocking it out as the anemones dance.

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

Well

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Sperm Whale Pod by Gabriel Barathieu, via Wikimedia Commons

Here we are, all the way down at W. So many options for W and I choose “well.”

Oh well.

I came out of the last migraine and ricocheted right into another one thanks to our frenemies at Uncle Julio’s, so I can’t say it’s been my best A to Z, at least when it comes to be being neighborly. There are so many stories I’m WAY, WAY (W!) behind on, so much travel, so many songs, so much so much.

Well, the posts will still be there when my migraine isn’t, I assume. I hope.

When I have one, my ability to absorb what I’m reading goes way down. Something I’ve learned: bite-sized twitter is OK in batches. Posts where I have to synthesize from top to bottom less so, especially when they’re complex.

Thank goodness for coffee! This post is written entirely in it.

There are more external distractions, too, as I watch the circus that used to be our government, and for my friends in distant lands, yes, it looks even worse from over here. But even with it all, I’ve managed to write the posts (WRITING. I’m a WRITER and I didn’t even think of WRITING for W. Oh migraines), so that’s something.

Well, imperfect.

But something.

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

Vicissitudes

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Baby vicuna (related to to the llama. Might be the ancestor of the alpaca). By Thomas Quine (BabyfaceUploaded by Dolovis) via Wikimedia Commons.

It was another day–oddly, only the second one in this year’s A to Z Challenge–where I didn’t have a word pop easily into my head, so I decided to let google lead me again. And I ended up with vicissitudes. Actually vicissitudinous, but given that the definition was: “Characterized by, full of, or subject to vicissitudes,” that wasn’t entirely helpful.

Vicissitudes are ups and downs in various forms, but I like the word as it pertains to life. From our friends at Merriam-Webster:

1 a : the quality or state of being changeable : mutability
b : natural change or mutation visible in nature or in human affairs
2 a : a favorable or unfavorable event or situation that occurs by chance : a fluctuation of state or condition 

  • the vicissitudes of daily life
b : a difficulty or hardship attendant on a way of life, a career, or a course of action and usually beyond one’s control
c : alternating change : succession
To use it entirely incorrectly, it seems at this precise moment in time, we are all up to our necks in vicissitudes. That’s that’s not a mixed metaphor; it’s a hard-churned one.
The word itself is as undulating as a snake, especially in its plural form, all sharp, biting S sounds. It holds no clue to its meaning at a glance, yet when you say it, it practically acts it out. Vicissitudes.
A word for our current experience, personal for some, universal for all. Vicissitudes.

Sensitivities

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Today’s post is not as fun, but I’ve got to rant. So rant I will.

Remember how I had that headache the week before last? It went on and on? Well, my migraines are sometimes triggered by food. And one of my triggers is cheddar cheese.

I know. It’s heartbreaking. But that’s the life I live.

In celebration of a friend’s birthday, we went to Uncle Julio’s, a fancy-ish Mexican restaurant. I ordered something that I didn’t think had cheddar. I admit my cheddar guard was down; most traditional Mexican restaurants don’t use it, they use Chihuahua cheese, which is fine.

Well, you know where this is going.

The waiter took away the obviously-covered-in-cheddar dish, and I emphasized I needed an entirely new plate. He said he understood.

And then, minutes later, he returned with the plate and said that the manager said it wasn’t cheddar, it was “yellow velvet cheese.” You know that situation where you’re skeptical but don’t want to make a fuss? Yeah, this was it.

So I try a tiny bit.

Obviously cheddar.

I asked to see this manager who sent this dish back to me assuring it was safe to eat. He still denies it’s cheddar; he claims now it’s “American cheese.” I said to him you and I both know there’s cheddar in that dish.

Finally he says, well I told him there wasn’t any in the sauce. But there is cheddar inside the enchilada.

MMM.

I asked him who can possibly not eat something when it’s on top of a food, but it’s fine when it’s inside it?

He said “he understood.” Clearly he did not.

I tried to emphasize how dangerous it was to lie to people about ingredients with which they have issues. I told him he could kill someone with an allergy. I could see it went nowhere. He looked at me from his happy place behind his eyes, waiting for me to stop talking.

I will survive a migraine, I’ve done it before. But what galls me is instead of just getting me something else, he tried to “trick” me into eating the food I made clear would make me sick. It was insanely dangerous.

So much for not making a fuss.

A fuss was made. Oh was a fuss made.

Please be careful when you’re eating out if you have issues relating to food. Be your own food police.

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.