Tag: #writingprompt

New Day

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Three Line Tales is hosted by Sonya at Three Line Tales.  If you would like to join us follow the link.   Three Line Tales, Week 122

three line tales, week 122: a canal, boats and colourful houses

photo by Fabio Mangione via Unsplash

Bright colored buildings bask in the wakening sun, a new day has arrived.
Serenity fills me as I get lost in the beauty as I walk toward the sunrise. I am thankful for this day’s wondrous potential, excited to see the gifts that it brings.

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Making A Plan

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Daily Prompt:  Patience, Incubate, Wrinkle

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Image from Gulf News Readers Blog

How do you come up with a good plan?  Well, I think that you need to have patience, utilize the principle of incubation, and smooth out the wrinkles in your ideas.

Here’s what I mean.  To devise a good plan your thoughts cannot be rushed.  It takes time to sift through all of your options and do some research.  If these options are not considered, your plan may not be successful.

As you are considering these options, you have to ponder their value.  Hence incubation.  These ideas have to be twisted and turned in your mind so that you do not miss any important information.  They sort of simmer there for a bit.

As for the wrinkles, well these are the thoughts that cause some doubt or they present an obstacle to your plan.  With the right information, we can determine the best course of action.

Now, that is not to say that we still cannot come up with an unsuccessful plan.  But, if we make our decisions with the best information we have, and for the right reasons, our plan is not faulty.  Rather, the information available to us was incomplete.

It is important to note that our life experiences, education, cultural experiences, and geographic location affect the information that is readily available to us.  When I was a young mother, I did not have the experience to make all the right decisions about my daughter.  By the time the next one came along, ten years later, I was much better equipped to raise him.  My oldest constantly tells her brother and sister that she broke me in for them.  There is a lot of truth to that statement.

 

 

It’s Not Easy Being Green

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Linda G. Hill’s prompt for #SoCS March 17, 2018:  green

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I love where I live.  I live in a clearing in the middle of the woods.  It’s quiet back here and there is a lot of wildlife.  I often see bear tracks on my property.  I even had an alligator in a small pond once.  It wasn’t a big one, but still an alligator!  Of course, there are deer, rabbits, squirrels, red foxes, coyotes, anoles, and raptors that fly around all the time.  I have to be careful because one could easily swoop down and pick up my little Gracie.

Gracie is my little 12-pound Cairn Terrier mix.  She’s a sweetheart and so much company for me.   So when she goes out into the yard, (woods) I have to check on her often.

One of my favorite critters are the tree frogs.  I love the noise they make singing to each other.  At night they gather around my porch light by my front door to feed off the bugs.  I get the biggest kick out of seeing them on the storm door and on the wall of the house.  They just sit there getting fat.  They don’t even move when I get close.  They are always kind enough to stay still so I can take photos of them.

Last fall, there were a ton of baby frogs.  Around the light that is on the wall by my door, there is a small ledge about a half inch wide.  There were five baby frogs in a row sittingDSCF4676 on it.  Too cute.

I almost think of the frogs as pets.  I check on them each evening.  They just make me happy.  I don’t particularly like to hold them or anything, just like to look at them.

Here is a picture of the first frog that has come to the house this year.  I always get excited when I start to see the tree frogs.  It means winter is over and spring is on the way.

The color green always reminds me of Kermit the Frog and his famous song It’s Not Easy Being Green.  You remember the Muppets right?  Kermit was lamenting about blending in with so many ordinary things.  I always thought it was cute.  Maybe that’s why I love the tree frogs so much.  🙂

Spring

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Daily Prompt:  Provoke

 

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Image from Google

 

I love spring.  I love seeing all of the plant life wake up after their long sleepy winter.  When I see the leaves bud on the trees and the daffodils popping through the ground they provoke memories of my childhood.

The spring brought with it daylight savings time so I could play outside after dinner.  All of us kids in the neighborhood would play hide and seek until it was time for bath and bed.  We usually fell asleep right away from all of the running around and fresh air.

Spring also brought Easter one of my favorite holidays.  We went to Mass in the morning, meeting my aunt and uncle and cousins, then to my grandmother’s for brunch.  My dad did the cooking for everyone.  Then my dad and uncle would take all of us kids to the cemetery to put flowers on my grandfather’s grave.  My mother, grandmother, and aunt would stay home saying they had to clean up after brunch.  When we got back, there was an Easter egg hunt.  What fun.  I loved those family days.

When I got married and had a family, the Easter celebration moved to my home.  My kids got to have the same kind of memories that I have from my childhood.  It warms my heart when my three kids are together and they start talking about the family times from when they were young.

I sigh as I look out my window, I see the grass turning green, the forsythia is blooming and the sun is brightly shining in the most beautiful Carolina Blue sky.

 

Color Your World

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Weekly Challenges hosted by Tourmaline for February 10-24

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I shot these photos this morning in my forest behind my house.  The mist was just beginning to lift.

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This one is of the moisture dripping off of the branches.  I love how the bark is peeling back off of the branch and the silk threads of a spider’s web between the limbs.

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I looked up and saw these turkey vultures high in the tree branches.  They just sat there and posed for me.

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yellow

I took these photos last summer when I was in Florida.  I found these pretty bright yellow wildflowers along a nature walk near the water in Kissimmee.

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Wanda

 

 

Birthdays

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Daily Prompt:  Tend, Simplify

Today I get to celebrate two of my favorite people’s birthdays.  My grandson Andrew turns fourteen today.  I can’t believe the years have passed so quickly.  I tend to still think of him as a little boy.  He certainly is growing into a fine young man.  His mother, however, isn’t always convinced.  She’s in the teenage shock years.

I chuckle and tell her he is just like you.  To that, she asks how I ever put up with her.  I simplify my answer by just saying it was illegal to murder your kids and my reward for not doing so is my grandchildren.  🙂

The other birthday is that of my youngest granddaughter, Isabella.  She turns two today.  She has turned into a toddler who is smart, funny and simply one of the brightest lights of my life.  Unfortunately, she lives far away and my only visit with her will be via facetime.  I am not really complaining, just wishing I could be with her in person.

Tomorrow all the family with the exception of my son’s family will be going out to dinner to celebrate Andrew’s birthday.  I am blessed to have him living close.I hope we can also get Isabella on the phone so we can celebrate a little with her too.

This modern world with cell phones that allow visits across miles is wonderful.  What a great time we live in.  I remember the show the Jetsons.  It was an animated futuristic show that had picture phones they used.  Who would have thought that they would become a reality that everyone used?

Today I will be spending the day at my granddaughter Alannah’s dance competition.  The kick off of her season is today and thankfully it is being held at the local community college.

God has truly blessed me with a wonderful family.

Have a wonderful day!

Wanda

 

 

Welcome To My World Or My Tale of Woe

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February 10, 2018 tail/tale

Have you ever had one of those days?  You know, the kind of day that makes you just want to buy a gun and shoot something.  Well, I really would never do anything like that, but I sure came close yesterday.

Actually, yesterday was not really the beginning of this tale of woe, but rather just the last in a series of incompetent, thoughtless, events that have been making my life miserable.

My banking institution lost a deposit that was made by my daughter into our joint account.  This account was opened because we do not live in the same town and she and her husband have been helping me financially to help get me through some rather unfortunate circumstances.  I am truly blessed.

Ok, getting back to the lost deposit.  My daughter made the deposit the last week of January.  It was a week before I called her to see if she had forgotten to go to the bank.  She informed me the had gone.  I hated to tell her that it was never credited to our account.

My daughter went to her branch to investigate.  She was told that they could not locate the deposit and since she did not have her receipt there was nothing they could do.  Did you just hear my head snap around to look at the teller?

Ok, fast forward to this past Monday.  I went to my branch of the bank to pick up some papers that were faxed to them from the mortgage department.  The first thing I get told is that no one has seen these papers.  You guessed it.  The steam began to flow out of my ears.  The teller supervisor at my branch is a wonderful, caring, helpful woman who walked from behind the teller window and investigated what might have happened to them.  After a few minutes, she came walking out from a back office with papers in hand.  Needless to say, no one else was interested in assisting me.

It was at this point that I decided to voice my dissatisfaction with the institution that had the honour of taking care of my money.  I spoke to one of the officers of the branch explaining all of the unbelievable crap that I had been going through since my husband had passed away in 2016 and the lost deposit was just adding insult to injury.

She very diligently lodged a complaint with the home office.  By the time I arrived home, my phone was ringing.  This woman, I’ll call her Pia, (get it? as in pain in the ass) was not the least bit happy with me for lodging the complaint because she was the one responsible to locate the missing deposit.  She also felt that for my daughter and I to suspect that the money was pocketed by the teller was just the worse thing that she had ever heard of.  I explained that when my daughter investigated what happened to the deposit she was basically told that there was no recourse.

Now, here is where it gets really good.  My daughter used her debit card.  So, how is there no record of the deposit?  I specifically asked this Pia if there isn’t a record of every time the card is swiped.  I was told yes.  I asked if the bank card number was a unique signature.  I was told yes.  I asked her if the teller used the bank card, can’t she determine what happened.  I was told yes.

My daughter went back to the bank to again look into it.  She did not remember the exact date, but it was the last week of January.  She was told that there was no way for the bank to generate a report on her bank card.  So, in other words, tough cookies!

Ok, that’s the history.  Today Pia, called me to tell me that my daughter’s story is inconsistent and that there was nothing she could do about the missing money.  In other words, she insinuated that my daughter lied about the deposit.  Her reasons for saying nothing could be done was the fact that there was no receipt, she could not remember the exact date and that there was no record of her accessing bank 24 the online customer service site to have the home office look into it.

Can you imagine my reaction?  I told her that number one, my daughter was taught not to lie and she had no reason to lie about a deposit that was causing her so much grief.  For the record, my daughter is 46 years old.  Number two, I reminded Pia, that she had told me that a receipt was not necessary and further told me the debit card would indeed have a record of the transaction so it was not necessary to know the exact date.  Number three, the darn bank 24 customer online service has not been working for the last several days.

Now here’s the kicker.  Pia told me I was lying.  I asked for the name of her boss and a phone number I could reach that person with.  She refused to give it to me.  Can you believe this?  I was livid!

First thing Monday I will be closing my accounts.

I was so upset that I sliced open two fingers as I tried to cook supper last night!

Wanda

 

My Home

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Daily Prompt:  Unfurl

Durning the summer when we celebrate our independence on the 4th of  July,  I often think of the many men who gave so much for us to be free.  I also wonder what it was like the first time our flag was unfurled and the feelings it evoked.  I can only imagine the feelings of relief that the struggle was over and the pride in a country that was new and had so much history to be written.

In the beginning, God played a large part of our lives and Christian beliefs fed our Constitution and laws.  This country was blessed with many natural resources which gave way to industry and wealth. As in all countries, our road to freedom for all has not always been easy or paved evenly across all of our citizens.  Race, religion, ethnicity have been sources of prejudice during our struggle to become a leading nation in the world. Our treatment of Native Americans was atrocious.  Slavery was evil.

Today things are far from how they should be.  Sadly prejudice remains.  We still have poor in our country.  We have veterans who do without after risking everything for our continued freedom.  God is being placed in the background of our governments, schools, and neighborhoods.  Abuse of natural resources continues.  Rudeness, selfishness, and disregard for the property of others are the norm.  Our elderly can barely exist on social security that has been raped by politicians in the past and the new word for it has become an entitlement.  Big business continues to rip off the American public.  This saddens me.

Our country needs to come together.  It needs to stop the waste of money over politics.  It needs to take care of the citizens who elected our leaders.   The worst waste of money in recent history is the nonsense going on in our government fighting the election of President Trump.  He won.  Move on and stop this outrageous spending to prove otherwise.  In four years there will be another election.  I believe our congressmen and senators would be less anxious to spend our money if they received the same benefits as we do in insurance and retirement and didn’t have the luxury of voting themselves a raise each year.

The worst invention in our recent past is cable TV which has opened the door to 24 hours a day news programming.  Unfortunately, to fill the time news is created and defined for us rather than reported.  So much for journalistic integrity.

If we wish to remain a leader in the world, we need to act like a leader.  We need to remain the USA and not an off shoot of other countries.  We need to expect and demand assimilation to our country, not force our citizenship to assimilate to immigrants ways. Never in history has this been the way immigration has been handled.  Immigrants were welcomed legally with a specific set of requirements.  In my mind, this is not an unreasonable requirement.

When the Stars and Stripes are unfurled and hoisted up the flagpole it is a symbol of the United States.  It is what we pledge our allegiance to under God.  It is my home and I am tired of people showing it disrespect.

Wanda