Not saying "God bless you" to a person after they sneeze is like leaving a high 5 hanging, quietly uncomfotable! Do we really only want God's belssing the few times during our lives when we sneeze? What if one has no ability to sneeze?

BREAKING A MIRROR

When a mirror is broken by me or another person in my presence, I declare 7 minutes bad luck is all that is allowed!

Challenge

Ancient wisdom, old wives tales or just plain weird beliefs . . . Write about something (or things) that some people still believe and what you think about it. Don't forget to tag me :)

ginsum

50 reads

Old Wives and their tales

I was born on Friday the 13th, on my gma's birthday, also born Friday the 13th!

ginsum

43 reads

People Watching

It was the first time I had ever been on a deep sea fishing boat. I had never been out to sea to catch fish either! It was a new adventure for sure. There were about 20 or 25 people on the fishing trip. Mostly adults, except for my two teenagers two other kids about tween age. It took about an hour or so to get out through the bay onto the sea. There was nothing to see! The fog lay in thick. All we could see was the white grayness of the fog and the dark grayish black of the see.

A woman wearing yellow rain pants hollered out that we could move to the rails along the side of the boat to the spot we wanted to fish from. We were given an enormously long fishing pole with NO bait!! People and poles lined the outlining of the boat, the only spot without a person or a pole was directly over the back of the boat. We let our hooks fall from the tip of our poles when the woman told us to do so. She roamed the width of the boat , back and forth, watching the poles and the people. She was not quite middle aged, her hair was medium mousy brown and curly, face tanned and lined deeply with gold rimmed glasses sitting atop the bridge of her nose. She walked with a wide gait, stood with a wide stance, smoked heavily and spoke with her cigarette poking out one side of her mouth, and NEVER STOPPED SMILING! Whenever any of the poles showed sign of having a fish on the line she excitedly announced to the person, "Fish on!" and waited there till the line was realed in and she would grab the caught fish and reove the hook while congratulating the person and then chuck the fish into a holding bin nearby. I couldn't help but wonder about how many times the woman had been out on the deep sea fishing charter outfitting people with poles and excitedly announcing each fish that was caught. How many times? She must truely love fishing and get excited no matter who caught the fish or she is an extremely gracious woman to be excited for those people, like myself, that perhaps were on this exciting excursion for the first time. As the limits were caught among all the fishermen, the people began to make their way back into the cabin to get comfortable for the journey back to shore. Nearly everyone fell asleep on the journey back. And, nearly everyone, I noticed, had a little round patch behind their ear. Seasickness prevention! And yes, it makes people drowsy. Funny, I thought, we only got drowsy on the way back, after the fishing was done! I sat drowsily observing the fellow fishermen, musing at the number of seasick patches that i did not see on our way out to the fishing spot! My drowsy gaze settle upon the fishermans' host-(ess). She counted the fish in the bins, smiling as she eyeballed the bigger ones! Smoking, walking widely, smoking, smiling. I began to see her story as I watched her attend to her tasks. Rather, I created her back story! It went something like this;

She once live in a big busy city back east perhaps. Yes! Like New York! She probably worked in a big highrise office building, something corporate and stressfull, like Wall street or CEO of a company, or assistanCEO. I imagined that she had decided one day that she had had enough of the stress, the job, the city and decided to find a new way, a new life. So she go into her car and drove as far as she could from her old stressful life and found that little town on the west coast. She got a job on the fishing charter because she loved every element of it. The sea, the freedom of being on the sea, the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, fishing, and fishing for excitement with tourists. Perfect! I guess that is what I would do if I lived in a big city and never saw anything other then cement and asphalt and went from home to a stressful job and back home again. I would get in the car and drive as far as I could away!!! Or maybe my created back story for the fisher lady was merely my own inner psyche expressing my own inner conflict and desire to change or escape my situation at that time.

Challenge

Changing the Past: If you could change one personal choice you've made in the past...what would it be? How would it have changed your life? Tell the story anyway you wish.

$10 Prize Mass tagging results in automatic disqualification. Honest, quality writing rewarded.

ginsum

28 reads

If only....

If only I had found happiness inside myself

If only I had created art as expression and outlet to my feelings of longing

If only I had felt that I had enough, that I was enough

If only my yearnings of wanting to see what else was out there in life for me had been

satisfied by the adventure of life itself, or travel, or adventure

If only I had not chosen this path in life in which I cannot seem to turn back from or

detour onto a path that connected me to a better path than that I am on, nor leading

me back onto the old path, for one never get back their old life.... not really

If only...

Challenge

Missing someone…

ginsum

29 reads

MISSING

Witty,intelligent, nature-loving woman. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and always exuding happiness from inside that shines the brightest when she is in nature with her kids and her friends. So bright and all-encompassing is this happiness that it infects everyone that is with her and even nature seems to notice and sing!

Was last seen hiking the forest trails in the mountains where she lived with her two children looking for earth's natural treasures, gems, crystals, petrified wood, tiny little lizards with bright blue tails that scamper across the red dirt, sometimes they leave their tiny delicate egg shells behind after they hatch. There's a tree she always made sure to walk by that was only as tall as a sapling and hardly ever had leaves on its limbs, but no matter, as little bright yellow Oregon finches lined the branches and replaced the foliage with their bright color and song.

She was as happy as she had ever been living in the mountains and enjoying nature, daily. Now she has gone, Gone 180 degrees on life's path. Lost? Yes, and so much loss.

ginsum

19 reads

CHALLENGE....kinda sort...Maybe something fun to write about as a group! yay!!!

Close your eyes and think about being in a restaurant or mall or other public place. Sit quietly on a bench and watch the people all around you. I mean REALLY watch the people. Tune out what else is going on in the area, the sounds, anyone that is sitting with you that is distracting you. Just watch. Are you noticing how many phones are out ? Are people watching their phones intently as they walk along? or pausing their walk a moment? or sitting? How many people are sitting with other people and all of them are looking at their phone rather than having a conversation? Notice the family of four that were just seated in a booth at the restaurant you are in. Did they all pull out their phones the moment they laid down the menu after deciding what they wanted to eat? Did they even look at the menu? Imagine that family of four getting ready to go out to dinner together. Its the one thing they all do together one time a week, go out to dinner. And they all sit down to their phones!

Now, here's my thoughts on this and what makes me ponder this!

I noticed one day recently when I was out and about town running errands at an admittedly leisurely pace, just how many people are looking at their phones! I mean this hit me like an epiphony moment! I was suddenly keenly aware of people and their cell phones! Some were listening to music, as evidenced by the ear buds, and scrolling through the screens at the same time. Some were looking and walking. Some were talking into small microphones that were part of the ear buds wires, I guessed they were on the phone. People that were sitting at bus stops were waiting for their ride and passing the time on their phones. Basically what I saw that hit me between the ears was.....people everywhere, moving and not, were looking at their phones! Funny! We are so dependent on them! Amazing!

Now then, I started thinking about writing as story of a utopian society of people that always and forever had something in front of them that they were looking at, addicted to, that is NOT a cell phone! Something humorous, of course! What can I write about in this story? Anyone care to give me suggestions about this? What would be an absolutely ridiculous thing to have to always hold in front of you and look at if there were no such things as cell phones? Is this a challenge? No. I am curious about what you all would suggest. BUT! If you all want to write the story with me, or write a story also (after givingme a suggestion first!) and see what we each come up with that would be fun too!

Reply to this post if you are interested in writing something silly along with me or if you just have a suggestion for me.

Thanks!