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 |   The simplicity of my day to day. |
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This is where I write my thoughts, feelings and my daily trials, tribulations and happy things
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591 words
How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.” -John Burroughs Let this quote about aging inspire your entry today. I’ve found myself commenting on the ravages of old age lately. I suppose that’s only natural as one sees those same aging affects each day in the bathroom mirror. It saddens me though to see the movie and music idols of my youth, those stunning women and strong handsome men, now just fragile, unrecognisable images of their former selves. With age comes wisdom, though in the imparting of that wisdom those younger ones in our lives take it with a pinch of salt. They’re probably too kind to say what they’re actually thinking, wondering how we could possibly know what they’re going through. So what, if anything, can be good about aging? Yes, leaves grow old beautifully as the quote suggests, but can it be said of humans? The cosmetic and beauty industries make millions out of our insecurities selling the idea that age can be beaten or delayed. I admire people who are so comfortable in their skin as to not give a hoot about how they look, although many, men in particular, take that to the extreme. I often sit having a coffee at a cafe and people watch. The thought that mostly passes through my mind as I watch the vast variety of people, is that we all started life with the perfect body, a flawless canvas with which to do with as we choose. Yet many of us abuse it throughout our lives. So if there is beauty to be found in the aging leaf, where can it be found in human beings? Maybe it’s the beauty of spirit many older people develop in later years. Lines, wrinkles and sagging flesh have been portrayed by artists throughout history as having a kind of beauty. Life drawing classes prefer the fuller figure, giving the artist more interesting contours to draw than the flat stomached counterparts. Although having said that a flat stomach is one I’d willingly swap my roundness for. I personally wouldn’t mind all the outward crumbling of my body if I could retain the energy and suppleness of youth, with no pain. With age comes pain and that’s what I find the worst part. Up to being aged 75 I thought I’d cracked this growing old stuff. I could walk, climb hills, hop from rock to rock over streams without even thinking I might slip and fall. In five years I’ve lost so much mobility I see myself as a different person altogether. So I’m finding it difficult to see the beauty in old age although when I began to write this blog I thought I would discover something positive I could say. Having said that I really ought to end on a positive note and to find some light in the darkness. 🤔 Okay! I’ve developed an even sharper sense of humour than I already possessed all my life. I’ve come to the realisation that life is a joke. I’ve worried and had sleepless nights over all the sad and difficult times throughout my life and things either got better or worse but it had nothing to do with my worrying. Things happen, nothing stays the same and problems get resolved one way or another. And at the end of the day, life is short, and after I’m gone it will carry on without me. I’ve learned to accept and there has to be a sort of beauty in that. |
Prompt: Taking risks What is better, staying safe or taking a risk? Did you ever have to make such a choice and would you do it again? Life is all about risk. I was very risk averse until I was in my mid twenties. It was about that time we took the biggest risk in my life by taking our three years old daughter and leaving everything behind. We came to Australia, a place where we knew no one or even anything about the place. We risked everything to find a better life. On a much smaller scale, I’ve risked abseiling when everything in my body was screaming at me not to walk backwards off that cliff! I’ve scuba dived in shark infested waters, been less than a few feet from a jumping crocodile and probably the most scary thing of all was to join a writers group at aged 75 and read out loud something I’d written. |
Day 3656 November 7, 2024 We're all going to pass at some point in time, which piece of your own writing would you like to be remembered by/with. If not a piece of writing what other remembrance would you choose? Ha, great prompt, to which I have no answers. My Portfolio currently stands at 541 items. Each entry is one I must have thought was worthy at the time of entering, but selecting one particular piece would be too big an ask. As a whole, I may be convinced to believe, the portfolio itself is proof of what I’ve been doing for all these years, and wouldn’t mind being remembered for. Each time I receive a review for a story I might have written some years before, I cringe when I spot glaring errors or in spelling or grammar. So as I would no longer be here when my portfolio is being read I’m not about to spend weeks going through each item and editing to spare my embarrassment.😩 |
Prompt: Precious and few. Write about these words in your Blog entry today.
Precious, it’s a word I connect with my childhood. My mum used to tell me I was precious. I think all babies are precious, they are a miracle. Each time we have a new baby in the family my emotions run haywire and I can hardly believe they’re here and are absolutely perfect. How can nature produce anything so exquisite? There are few things I count as precious, I’m not interested in jewellery or in what is called a precious metal, gold. I have a few people whom I class as friends. I think if anyone has those few core people who are there for them in good times and bad that’s all you need. The ‘friends’ on Facebook aren’t real and the platform has diminished the word friends. So I’m happy with my precious family and my few real friends. |
| How about having some more fun with word couplets: black stallion, sugar cookies, whipped cream. farm hand, peanut butter and grape jam. Jack, the farm hand, put down his stable rake and without washing his hands unwrapped his peanut butter and grape jam sandwiches. His favourite horse, a black stallion called Midnight, shook his head. “What are you looking at, Midnight? You wouldn’t enjoy peanut butter. It’s not for horses.” Jack sat in the straw and ate. To him, horse manure smelled fine, it certainly didn’t put him off his food. The horse watched every bite. “You’re making me feel sorry for you, aren’t you?” “The horse’s lips trembled. “Okay you’ve won.” Jack opened his lunch box and found his wife’s sugar cookies and a container of whipped cream. “Look what Jenny made, just for us.” Midnight opened his mouth and ground his large teeth. Jack dipped a sugar cookie into the cream and offered it to the magnificent beast on an outstretched, flat hand. The owner of the horse, famous horse breeder entered the stable and laughed seeing Midnight and Jack standing side by side, unaware they both had sugary cream all over their mouths. |
| Have fun with these word couplets: black silk, blue dress, bow tie, corner booth, police sirens and the coroner. “The Coroner gave the verdict of accidental death!” Sonia was incredulous when she spoke the words. “It wasn’t accidental, my daughter was poisoned, I’m sure of it.” “Your son-in-law stated that he thought he was using peppermint leaves to make her cup of tea.” “He knew only too well it was Oleander, but how to prove it, Mary?” “You can’t do anything about it now but accept it.” “I’ll never do that!” Sonia’s eyes flared with anger. The funeral was a subdued affair. The body of Louise was dressed in her favourite blue dress and black silk stockings. She appeared to be sleeping peacefully. “She can’t be dead!” Her mother sobbed , turning her gaze onto her daughter’s husband, hatred in her eyes. It was a few weeks after the funeral when Sonia sat in a corner booth in her favourite café sipping a latte when she saw, through the window, ‘the bastard,’ as she’d begun to think of her former son-in-law. Dressed in an evening suit and sporting a flashy red bow tie, he was holding the arm of a gorgeous young woman, escorting her to his car. Sonia’s blood boiled, a red mist of anger filled her mind and without thinking she left the café. She followed his car back to his house and as he stepped out and was walking around to open his passenger’s car door, Sonia planted her foot down hard on the accelerator and ran him down. Police sirens filled the still night air. Neighbours left their homes to see what the commotion could be in their normally peaceful street. They would have seen a young man, blood pouring from a massive head wound, lying dead on the road and a middle aged woman handcuffed and escorted away from the scene. |
| Prompt: Take any cliche and subvert it to bring it alive again in a poem or a blog entry. ONLY TIME WILL TELL That clock that hangs upon the wall Ticks away those hours and days Its face is blank yet observes it all And sooner or later it betrays |
| Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 3637 October 29 What are you writing in November? I’m just happy/relieved that October will be over. There are going to be new challenges, prompts and activities on WdC which don’t involve Halloween. I know I’m in the minority, but I’m not a fan of the event myself. I don’t begrudge the children of all the fun of dressing up and everything else which goes along with it, but as it wasn’t a thing in the UK when I was a kid it just doesn’t resonate. At this time of the year we were getting excited for Bonfire night or Guy Fawkes night. We would be saving all our pennies for fireworks, making bonfire toffee, building the biggest bonfire we could make and creating a guy to place on the top to burn. The bonfire would be a great excuse for all neighbours to get rid of anything that would burn. All the kids would be dressed warmly, waiting for the first fireworks to be lit. The sky would be filled with smoke and the air with the sounds of rockets as they screamed skyward. Penny bangers would make people scream as naughty boys would light them and throw them at the girls legs. All this takes place five days after Halloween, so that’s probably why it never really took off in England. However I’m sure it’s popular now, as it is worldwide, and that Bonfire Night has lost some of the joy that we innocent, social media lacking, breed of kids delighted in back then 80 years ago. |
| Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 3641 October 23, 2024 Use these words in your prompt today: selection, onions, potatoes, food recalls, awareness, and listeria. Well these are a great selection of suggested words today. They make me think of the impending summer season here in Australia. The warmer months and picnics, barbecues and flies. Yes, those pesky flies can ruin an outdoor event like nothing else can. The foods which call for the most awareness in the heat are those which need to be refrigerated at all times, like meat and especially chicken. There’s nothing worse than a platter of mixed items which have been standing in the sun. Wilted lettuce, cheese which has either dried up or melted come to mind. One needs to watch out for soft cheeses when pregnant or Listeria is a possibility. When I was pregnant with my babies no one knew anything about Listeria and all the other warnings new mums to be get told to watch out for these days. Sometimes there are food recalls when something gets contaminated. There was a case of a recall here last year when a fruit picker/packer decided to put sewing needles in strawberries! Thousands of punnets of fruit were recalled or dumped before dispatching them to the stores. If you really want to play safe, then stick to onions and potatoes, you really can’t go wrong. |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 3261--October 21th, 2024 Prompt: Contacting the Dead How would you like if we lived in a world where contacting the dead were as easy as making a phone call? Who would you contact: family, friends, or any famous persons from the past? Tonight, about three hours ago I received a call from my son. His wife’s mother had called her a few minutes before to say my daughter-in-law’s father had just dropped dead! He’d been absolutely fine a few minutes before, then he’d just said he was feeling strange, then he stood up from his chair and literally dropped dead. His poor wife was left to give him CPR as well as calling an ambulance. Both their daughters live far away in different states. I’m sure my daughter-in-law and her mother wish with all their hearts they could just pick up a phone and call him, to ask him what happened and if he was ok wherever he was. I suppose that’s the only reason to contact the departed, to find out what happens after we take our last breath. We need reassurance that they didn’t suffer and to be able to say a proper goodbye. I hope I get to say a final goodbye, either when it’s my turn to go, or if anyone I love goes on before me. I was in Australia when my mother died in England. I never got to say goodbye to her. If I could, I’d give her a call today to let her know how many grandchildren I have now and great grandchildren too. I know she’d be surprised.😳 She is the only dead person who I’d want to contact, just to tell her how much I loved her and how much I still think of her today. |
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