Monday, February 28, 2011

I'm not sure how to say this in a politically correct fashion...

...so I'm just gonna bust right out with it...

...

...

I need a wife.

Another month has almost come and gone and I just can't help but think how much more I could have accomplished in February if I had a wife.

A wife could cook dinner for me. And do the laundry. And iron my shirts. And pick up Grandkids. And organize the perpetually messy cupboards around the house.


A wife could put fresh sheets on the bed that have been dried out in the afternoon sunshine, and buy flowers for the bay window in the kitchen, and bring me glasses of ice water when I'm working away in my office.

A wife could brave Walmart for me. And pick up my prescriptions. And bake me pies. Sour cherry, please. With extra flaky crust.


It's not that I want a wife...like...ummmm...that...you know...

Because I'm very happy being the girl in... ummm... the more intimate parts of a traditional marriage.

blush

It's just that sometimes I think a wife would be handy.

...

Do you know what I mean?

...

I think this is really how I feel or it could be just the pain meds from my mouth running away with this post...but either way...I'm totally open to having a wife.

The only downside of this whole idea is that the documentation could get confusing...for insurance and stuff like that you know?

Mr. Jenny would be the husband, the wife would be the wife...and I would be ... ummm.... FREE TO DO WHAT I WANT, WHENEVER I WANT!

Wow.

When I put it like that it makes me realize that I really do NEED a wife.

It sounds like a good plan! Right?

Right!

And, hey, I heard that...

sigh...

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Sunday, February 27, 2011

Sundays with Steve - Crossing the Plains

These Sunday's segments are written by my husband, Mr. Jenny. Here's what he has to say about his posts:

Since I’ve started writing “Sundays with Steve”, I’ve been thinking about vignettes of my life growing up in North Idaho. I realize the town where I grew up and the life I lived with my family is really a classic, all-American story. Perhaps you will recognize some of your childhood in these writings. And perhaps you will recognize the town you grew up in along with some of the characters you knew. Mrs. Steve has encouraged me to write these attempts of “creative writing” as opposed to the more factual journalistic style I was trained in and practiced in my early career many years ago. So my apologies if I stumble a bit here and there trying to blend the two styles together.


This is a continuation of Crossing the Plains, a fascinating tale of a covered wagon trip from Missouri to the Washington Territory in the post-Civil War period when the U.S. population poured to the West. It was written by a distant great great aunt, Barbara Jane Matlock McRae in 1939, when she was 81. This story will occupy this space for the next several weeks, as it is a fascinating peek into what we often consider the pioneer days.

Part 5


The next morning after the excitement of the night before, the men all got together and decided to travil together and camp together and take turns to stand guard ever night, now that we were on the indian war path. They apointed my father captain or maniger of the emigrant train. Their were other emigrants who joined us along the way at diferent camping places till there were nearly a hundred wagons in the train. Evry night too men would stand guard till midnight and too more would get up and stand guard till daylight. Evry night my father would have the wagons drove in a circle and all camp fires would be built inside the circle. There were plenty of green grass for the horses but they were not aloud to get far from camp.

We traviled along the plat river in the hot sun and dust in a slow moving train of emigrants wagons. It was very montnous. We could see in the far distance large citys steeples and spires and tall buildings reaching toward the sky and lakes with ships and boats floating on the surfas but to our surprise it was all a mirage. We could hardly beleave our eyes when we could see it no more.

Game was plentyful. Deer and antilope and some buffalo. We onley saw one herd and they were wild. No one could get a shot at them. In early times in 1869 – 70 and up to 74, there were thousands of buffalo but hunters and sportmans and indians had slaughtered them by the thousand. When the kansas pacific rail road was under construction as far as fort sherdon, Bill Cody, Buffalo Bill as he was known on account of killing the most buffalo in a contest with one Bill Comestock, Buffalo Bill had a contract with the rail road company to hunt meat for the crew of 12 hundred working men dureing the year and a half that he suplied them wtih fresh meat. He killed four thousand too hundred and eighty buffalo. No wonder the buffalo disapeared from the plains and the wild indian went to the war path to see all this game disapear. When the rail road reached fort sheridan it was decided to build no further at that time, so Bill Cody went to scounting again as the indians had become troublsom again. Buffalo Bill was one of the best poney express riders and indian scout and stage driver in troublsom times, and a union army scount, that the pioner dayes of the plains had ever known.

One evening just after we drove into camp a booted and spured cowboyish looking fellow road up to our camp. He had a new modle rifel and too large six shooters buckled around his waist and had on wooly shaps. He asked my father if he could stay in camp that night and get his supper and breakfast and sleep in our big tent with the boys. He had a roll of blankets tied to the back of his saddle. He looked tired. His horse was very tired. Father told him he could, so he handed his rifle and both pisoles to father and unsaddled his horse which was a fine horse that was covered with sweat. He rubbed him down and took his lass roap, the kind all cow boys carry at the front of their saddle in those dayes, and staked him out. He sat down till supper was ready. We always thougt he was Buffalo Bill on a scouting trip. He had long dark curly hair with black mustach and a wide cow boy hat. After seeing Buffalo Bill in 1908 in Walla Walla Washington at his wild west show, I was more convinst it was him. Of course he looked much older then but he still had his long curly hair down on his shoulders and a long mustach but that was quite gray, he still had a wide cow boy hat. The night he staid with us in a camp way out on the plains we thought it was him. The other emigrants what was campts with us, their were about sixty wagons in all then, some of the men were so freightened of this cow boy that had nothin to hich up and drive on, they were angry at my father for taking him in. But father said if he intended to do us harm he wouldent have turned over his guns, and as we were in the middle of indian country at that time, and was liable to an atact most any night, he was rather glad to have such a man in camp. Some of the men thought he was some kind of a spy. My mother game him some beding and with his own blanket he slept in the big wagon where my three brothers slept. Father took his guns in his wagon for the night. One man especialy was so freightend he could hardly talk. He said he would rob and kill us all. The stranger notist that some of the emigrants were freightend and he told my father they dident need to be afraid of him, that he wouldent molest or harm any one, that he was a friend of the emigrants, that he was on an important mision and was tired and sleepy from his long hard ride. The next morning after he had his breakfast he sadled his horse. My father gave him his guns. He thanked my father and mother courtely for their kindness, waved his hand and road away. I am sure he was Buffalo Bill of whom I may speak of later in my story.

TO BE CONTINUED ON SUNDAY, March 6

(c) 2010 Stephen J. Matlock
This publication is the exclusive property of Stephen J. Matlock and is protected
under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws. The contents of this post/story may not be reproduced as a whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, without consent of the author, Stephen J. Matlock. All rights reserved.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Saturday Centus - The ATM machine began...

Jenny Matlock
Welcome to week forty-three of Saturday Centus.

I see you cringing.

Please. Don't be afraid.

I'm going to be nice this week. No wicked prompts based on weird canine romance or strange song lyrics.

Just a plain, old, regular boring SC based on a prompt.

I pinky swear...this is not a trick.

This weeks prompt is:

The ATM machine began dispensing twenties...

You can use this prompt and UP TO 100 additional words to write a story of your choosing in any style of writing you prefer. Just keep your story PG and try to visit as many of the other links as you can!

Please display link button or just a hyper-link back to Saturday Centus. Be careful to link your SC URL to the Linky and not just link to your main blog.

Please e-mail me directly with ???'s or ask your question in a comment and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

OK. You can exhale now. No tricks at all this week. Just a sweet little treat of a prompt for you to play with.

Feel free to link up anytime between now and next Saturday!

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Friday, February 25, 2011

I want to tell you a terrible tale about root canals...

...but I can't.

Because...

I didn't have one.

Instead I had a ...

GULP!

SURPRISE extraction!

After three days of wicked tooth agony, my dentist told me to come in and he would 'numb' the nerve. Since the pain was so intense, he told me to go home, get some rest and come back at 5 and he would remove the root...kind of a pre-root-canal thing to let the nerve become less inflamed.


BUT...

When I went back for the procedure with Mr. Jenny, the dentist found out the tooth was shattered.

Since I have such a dainty, tiny mouth (OK, these are my words, not his!) and my teeth are all jam/crammed together, the fractures didn't show on the x-rays. I warned the dentist that teeth extractions and I were not on very good terms and that based on past experiences with attempted tooth removal that I knew for a fact my teeth were very firmly attached to my jaw bones.

The dentist assured me he knew what he was doing AND he'd done 100's upon 100's of extractions and there wasn't an extraction too difficult for him...

HOWEVER...

Almost two hours later...

Mr. Jenny had my fingernail marks semi-permanently imprinted in his hand...

My dentist AND his assistant were covered in sweat...

I was so exhausted I could hardly move...

And I learned with total surety that laughing gas is most definitely a misnomer.

My tired dentist admitted that I was definitely one of the top three worst extractions he had ever attempted...

Woo hoo! I would feel proud of this fact, but sadly there was no trophy for that dubious award.

There was, however, a big hole in my mouth, a bruised and swollen jaw and face and lots and lots of memories...all bad!

BUT...

Sadly, not a root canal horror story to share with you.

I'm sorry.

I tried to have one. I really, really did.

But on the other hand, now I can reassure you that root canal's really aren't that bad without even lying a little bit.

Sigh...

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Thursday, February 24, 2011

No, I'm not stuttering...

This picture is T - T - T !

Three Terrific T's!


This tiny, timely T post is linked To Alphabe-Thursday's letter "T". To read other T's, just click here!

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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Alphabe-Thursday's Letter T


Good morning class.

Welcome to Alphabe-Thursday. Today we will be talking about the terrific letter:


Please link directly to your Alphabe-Thursday URL (if you don't know how to do this let me know!) and please continue to visit the five links before and after your link and leave a comment. Minimum of 10 links visited please. You can visit more if you like, of course.

I also want to let you know that each week I visit every blog. If it appears I haven't visited your blog by Wednesday evening, please let me know!

If you have any difficulties with your link, please make sure to include the number of the link when you e-mail me. It is really difficult for me to find you easily otherwise.

If you have any questions about Alphabe-Thursday or problems doing your link just post it in a comment or send me an e-mail. I'll do my best to help you as quickly as I can.

The McLinkey will be live from 1:00 pm MST time Wednesday afternoon in an effort to assist our lovely "friends across the pond" and continue through 10:00 am MST time Friday morning!

And remember.... link back to this post, you need to be registered as a follower of my blog, PG posts only, and try to visit the 5 students before and after your post at minimum. The links will stay live after the final post deadline has passed so you can even wait and visit over the weekend or whenever you have more time.

Please share your take on the letter T now. Class is dismissed.

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Oh the secrets my tooth could tell...

I need a root canal.


And did you know that dentists give you pain pills now to see you through until your procedure so at this exact moment I am typing carefully...afraid that my medicated tooth might make me blab...

You know?

Have you ever done that?

A friend says "How are today?" in a truly "just semi-polite" way and you start babbling away. Crying into tissues. Your friend gets all freaked out and uncomfortable and pats your hand. And make you tea.

And the next day you feel like a fool cuz you told them all this stuff you didn't plan on telling them...

...and you have to lay low for a few days until you think they might have kinda/sorta forgotten some of the dirty details...

Huh?

This has never happened to you?

Are you kidding me?

Seriously?

OK, See? See? The tooth is making me talk already so I better sign off for now.

When I told somebody I was needing a root canal they started telling the horror stories of how bad theirs was and it made my tooth all frightened.

... and now the tooth is wanting to whine to you about how much it hurts and how scared it is about the root canal and wah, wah, wah...


Geez. What a baby of a tooth.


But me?

Jenny?

I'm just fine.

Not scared a bit. La. La. La.

Really I'm not.

That's my story and I'm totally sticking to it.

Sigh...

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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Story-Time Tuesday - Writing Fiction

Jenny Matlock
If you missed where this story started just click here to read it or simply click on the Story-Time Tuesday link at the top of my blog to take you to previous chapters.

Writing Fiction - Chapter 25A (this is long so I split it into two pieces)

Here's where Chapter 24 left you.

I stood up. “Bob? This isn’t the Shakespeare room, is it?” I interrupted. “No,” he quietly replied, pointing to his right. “The Shakespeare room is one door down. This is Chapter 8 of the local Grief Support group founded by…”

I didn’t stop to let him finish his sentence.

I all but ran out of the room and across the deserted lobby of the library. Priyanka smiled at me as I approached her desk. I raised my hand in a wave of goodbye, or perhaps panic, as I raced by her.

When I finally reached the sanctuary of my car, the tears started. “I can’t… I can’t…I can’t…” I echoed Ugly Christmas Sweater Lady until I thought I was going to be sick.

Finally I took a deep breath and, with shaking hands, started my car and began a careful and slow drive home.


And now, Chapter 25 A continues...

I heaved a sigh of relief as I pulled into my driveaway. I could hardly wait to get inside the kitchen door and hide from the world but suddenly, like a replay of the Great Flood or another unnatural disaster, I saw Millie teetering toward my driveway on her ridiculous hot pink, high-heeled, feather-trimmed slippers.

I thought about beating myself unconcious on my steering wheel for a moment. I so, so, so did not feel up to dealing with Millie, but onwards she teetered, wearing a very snug zebra print sweater, holding Princess tightly in one arm and a crumpled up brown paper shopping bag in the other.

I was trapped. I felt like one of those wildebeasts with big, panicked eyes I've seen on the Discovery Channel. I could almost hear the announcer’s English accent…”The herd of wildebeasts is trapped…the pride of hungry lions scents their fear and stalk closer…”

A tapping on the car window cut into my nonsensical musings. It was Millie. Of course.

Warily I got out of the car. I held up my hands in surrender. "Millie, I don't know if you noticed but Sp…EDGAR hasn't been at my house. I was ...ummm...just watching him for a friend. Edgar told me he was so, so, so disappointed that he couldn’t have a play date with Princess before he had to go home, though”.

Millie squinted at me through her cat’s eye glasses and then she tried to pat my arm with the hand holding the bag, "Oh dear. I am so, so sorry that your little friend won't be able to have a play date with my sweet Princess. Princess and I are so, so disappointed but we understand. But dear, that's not why I came over tonight. This afternoon when I was making dinner, I told Myron that I was just so, so ashamed of myself. Here it's just been months since I thought to bring dinner over to you...so tonight, as a special treat, I've brought you a Pearl-sized casserole of my scalloped potatoes and ham and I know you like those crunchy crumbs, dear, so I put extra on just for you."

She handed me the bag. I caught a whiff of potatoes, cream and butter and I almost starting weeping. "Millie," I stammered, "You made this casserole for me?”

Millie squinted at me again through the rhinestone studded glasses. “Of course I did, dear. I’m sorry to tell you that I had to put it in an aluminum pie pan this time, though, since you never returned the four other dishes I brought over to you.”

I thought guiltily of the many empty casseroles I’d washed and stashed in the hall closet. I’m sure Millie’s four dishes were somewhere in the heap. Oops. Instead of admitting I might know the location of the MIA dishes, though, I burst into tears. Darn. Darn, darn, darn.

Millie looked startled. She began patting my arm again and I just stood there in my driveway like an idiot, holding my crumpled up paper bag and crying my eyes out. “Dear, Dear,” Millie patted faster, “If the aluminum pan upsets you so much I can take this casserole right home and put it into a glass pie dish I have. I didn’t think the pan would upset you so much. Here, let me just take that bag home right away and…”

I resisted her attempt to pry the bag from my fingers.

“M…M…Millie, no…no… the casserole is so ssss-wwweeet…it’s the nicest thing anyone has done for me in a long time…it’s just that I can’t…I can’t…I can’t….”

And I couldn’t.

I couldn’t finish my sentence. I don’t even know at that exact moment what I was trying to say.

Millie and Princess both tipped their heads and looked at me and then Millie firmly yanked the bag from my hands and said, “I know just what you need. You go right into your house and take off your coat. Princess and I are going to go home and be right back. Shoo. Shoo now. You just go into your house and sit right down at the kitchen table. Go. Go on, Pearl. I’ll be right back.” She gave me a shove in the direction of the kitchen door and tottered off as fast as her feathered pink high heeled slippers could carry her.

Through tear-filled eyes I somehow managed to get the door unlocked and go inside. Following Millie’s firm instructions, I sat down at the kitchen table. Her bossiness didn’t include whether or not I was supposed to continue crying, so I just made an executive decision of my own, put my head down on the table, and continued to cry my eyes out.

A few minutes later, I heard a rap at the door and Millie’s cigarette harsh voice announcing her arrival.

I didn’t bother looking up but I could hear her begin fussing as soon as she came into the kitchen, “Oh dear, here, let me help you out of that coat.” She pulled and tugged a bit and finally managed to remove the offending garment. Then she thrust a handful of paper napkins from the counter into my hand. I put my head back down and continued to cry.

Soon I heard some clicking sounds as she turned the oven on. The rustle of a paper sack announced the re-arrival of the scalloped potato casserole. I perked up slightly as the comforting smell wafted through the room.

More creaking and rustling as she placed the casserole into the oven and then I heard two odd metallic sounds.

“Dear?” her raspy voice inquired, “Are you done crying yet?”

I slowly poked up my head quite possibly resembling a swollen-eyed turtle, and Millie immediately thrust a cold can into my hand. “Drink up!” she said and following her instructions I took a giant swig. It was beer. I sputtered. I gagged. I almost spit it out.

I’ve never been much of a drinker. My husband had always teased me and told me I was a ‘cheap date’, and he was probably right. The only drinks that had every appealled to me were the ones that were all fruity and sweet and tasted exactly NOT like alcohol. Beer, most definitely, was not on that list.

“Good, isn’t it?” Millie asked happily, “I told you I knew what you needed. We have the rest of the six pack here, your casserole is heating up AND Myron is babysitting Princess so we can just have a big, old henfest until you feel better.” I was startled to realize that the chuckle she shared after that statement DID sound like a hen cackling.

To be continued, Tuesday, February 29.

(c) 2010 Jennifer R. Matlock
This publication is the exclusive property of Jennifer R. Matlock and is protected
under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws. The contents of this post/story may not be reproduced as a whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, without consent of the author, Jennifer R. Matlock. All rights reserved.

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Monday, February 21, 2011

My dishwasher broke last week...

My dishwasher broke last week. I went to unload the dishes and they were disgustingly caked with dried bits of who-knows-what. This is the dishwasher that the saleman had convinced us would last us until we were old.

Well, we are old...but I thought he actually meant just a teensy bit older.

Sigh...

I filled the sink up with soapy hot water and started putting dishes in to soak. Soon I was up to my elbows in sparkling suds, washing and scrubbing away.

It felt good. It felt wholesome and healthy and brought back so many memories of standing by so many sinks doing the same thing. My parents had four dishwashers (each of us girls reluctant and complaining) and for all of the first years of my marriage I did dishes by hand. It always felt like such a chore back then. You know?


Other than those memories, I only end up doing dishes by hand after family parties and, of course, doing Thanksgiving dishes is almost a written-in part of the holiday itself.

Doing dishes by hand doesn't seem like much of a treat, does it?

But as soon as our Granddaughters saw the process, they clamored to help. They dragged the beaten-up old brown bench over and stood bright-eyed and excited and armed with their dishcloths ready to dry, dry, dry away.

They always help load their dishes into the dishwasher when they're here, but I never see their bright blue eyes light up in anticipation of that task.

And I personally never stand dreamily at the dishwasher watching the morning awaken the side yard and illuminate the just unfurling ash leaves with tender golden color.

This dishwasher is all fixed now which is probably a good thing considering we will have a house full of people for a family get together this weekend.

But for the day and a half that machine was broken I actually felt kind of lucky.

I wonder if in years to come our sweet Grands will remember 'washing dishes the old-fashioned way' with their Grandma.

And if they will smile with the memory.

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Sunday, February 20, 2011

Sundays with Steve - Crossing the Plains

These Sunday's segments are written by my husband, Mr. Jenny. Here's what he has to say about his posts:

Since I’ve started writing “Sundays with Steve”, I’ve been thinking about vignettes of my life growing up in North Idaho. I realize the town where I grew up and the life I lived with my family is really a classic, all-American story. Perhaps you will recognize some of your childhood in these writings. And perhaps you will recognize the town you grew up in along with some of the characters you knew. Mrs. Steve has encouraged me to write these attempts of “creative writing” as opposed to the more factual journalistic style I was trained in and practiced in my early career many years ago. So my apologies if I stumble a bit here and there trying to blend the two styles together.


This is a continuation of Crossing the Plains, a fascinating tale of a covered wagon trip from Missouri to the Washington Territory in the post-Civil War period when the U.S. population poured to the West. It was written by a distant great great aunt, Barbara Jane Matlock McRae in 1939, when she was 81. This story will occupy this space for the next several weeks, as it is a fascinating peek into what we often consider the pioneer days.

Part 4


On the 8th day of may 1875 we loaded our wagons and started from council bluf iowa to cross the plains to washington terrytory. We dident know but what we would be scapled by the indians but we were brave enough to try.

I forgot to mention that we sold the pony and saddle way back in misouri. We children certainly felt bad to part with him, he was such a gentle nice dark prety pony. Father thought we beter let him go, it would be extra expense to try to keep him and take him across the plains. When we left him and started on he looked after us, whinneyd as much as to say goodby, the youngsters all creid.

We were all ready to start bright and early may the 8th 1975. Our furniture had all been sold, we dident have much. I and my sister had slept all winter on a big feather bed on the floor. The three families all lined out with my father in the lead. We stoped on the council bluff side of the misouri river and got our dinner. Our little black and tan dog was with us but when we drove on the ferry boat he was afraid . He was always afraid of fery boats and bridges. The boys always would pick him up as he was a small dog and carry him, but they forgot him, so we left him. We dident miss him for a while then we dident know what became of him until long afterwards. Our neighbor children at council bluf wrote our children that he came back to our old home and cried, and they took him in and gave him a home as long as he lived. We felt bad to think we lost our only dog.

We passed through Omaha and on out about 12 miles and campt for the night. The next morning we were astir early as we had made a start for the far western country. It was quite warm and cludy in the fore noon and about noon we drove by a little stream and campt for the noon hour. A terirific thunder storm came up. I don’t think I ever saw rain poor like it did that day. It poored through our wagon covers like they were sives. We just nearly drowne. After the storm ceast my father went to a store in the little town and I believe the name of it was cresent city nebrasky. He bought black oilcloth and put it over the tops of both wagons and sewed it fast with corse thread. After our too wagons were marked clear across the plains and it surely kept out the rain and answered as a shade from the glaring sun of the plat river country.

We four wagons traveled a lone for several hundred miles. There was nothing to brak the manotiny, only the union pacific train would pass going one way or the other. Some times the wagon trail would lead off from the rail road and some times we could travil for miles and miles a long the side of the rail road track. Their were no habitation only an ocational ranchers cabin for some batchlor. Once in a while an doba house that had been built in earlerier times for a pony express riders station would be occupied some family who was keeping some cows. They would sell milk and butter and cream to the emigrants who were very glad to get it. Some times we could get fresh buffalo or dear or fresh beef.

After we had been traveling for too or three weeks, late one eavening we drove off the trail down in a kind of bacin, in the bacin were probly 10 acres. There was a bubling spring of clear water with a small stream running down a little revene. It made an ideal camping place. Late in the eavening when the sun was going down behind the clouds of read and gold with a purple hase behind, a man came to the rim of the bacin and called down and askd if there were room for any more campers. Father called up to tell him there were plenty of room so about twenty five wagons drove down and formed in a circle kind of a corel, as they had been in the habit of doing in fear of an atact by the indians. This bacin of a place where we were campt would have been one of the best places in the world to be attacted. Down in this bacin place the indians could have swarmed over the hill and killed the whole of us.

That night we had eciting experience. After these wagons got into camp it was prety late. They hobbled or staked there horses a round camp and up on the hill above the camp. They built several camp fires to cook their evening meal. We had ours and was all to bed early as we were prety tired. Travling slow that way gets prety tiresom. It seemed too of the women at one camp and too men at another camp did not go to bed when the others did. It seemed the women did not know the men were up and the men did not know the women were up. One of the men went up on the hill among the horses. The women dident know he went up and they saw him on top of the hill silueted againsted the sky as their was a pale moon. They got freightened and instead of calling some of their own men, they being strangers to us, they ran to my fathers wagon and told him there was a man up on the hill among the horses. Father jumpted out of bed, sliped on his clothes, grabed his gun, woke the boys and told them to get up and get their guns as some one was among the campers horses. He told the too women to wake up their men. He started up the hill to where the man was standing looking a round among the horses. He got within ten feet of the man without him knowing and told him to put his hands up, which he did quickly. He asked him what he was doing and what he wanted. He said nothing, that he belong in the camp and just thout he would take a look among the horses and see if they were all right. Our mules were tied to our wagon, and were always tied to the wagons at night and fed grain when we could get grain. My father told this man if he had not put up his hands he surely would have shot him, that he thought he was a horse thief picking out a horse or an indian scouting a round to stampeed the horses and atct the camp. The whole camp was aroused and excited. No one could figure out why those women and men were at seperate camps at eleven o clock at night.


TO BE CONTINUED ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 27

(c) 2010 Stephen J. Matlock
This publication is the exclusive property of Stephen J. Matlock and is protected
under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws. The contents of this post/story may not be reproduced as a whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, without consent of the author, Stephen J. Matlock. All rights reserved.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Saturday Centus - I'd catch a grenade for ya...

Jenny Matlock
Welcome to week forty-two of Saturday Centus.

I've had a minor obsession this week with a Bruno Mars song. I've tried to make Mr. Jenny dance with me to it (not successfully), I've sang it over and over to the point that my daughter told me if I sang it one more time she was going to scream (she didn't) and I know every single lyric by heart! If you don't know this song scroll wayyy down to the bottom of my blog, pick song 117, hit the play button and get your groove on for inspiration!

And after you've listened to the song a few times you'll be all ready to write a rockin' Saturday Centus around this word prompt:

I'd catch a grenade for ya...

So after you're finished chair dancin' you can continue writing UP TO 100 words (not including the six word prompt) in any style of writing you prefer...fiction, sci-fi, romantic, western...

Just keep it PG and try to visit as many of the other links as you can!

Please display link button or just a hyper-link back to Saturday Centus. Be careful to link your SC URL to the Linky and not just link to your main blog.

Please e-mail me directly with ???'s or ask your question in a comment and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

My playlist is always sitting down there on pause, so any time you want to try to make someone dance with you to this song feel free to hit play! Link anytime between now and next Saturday morning.

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Friday, February 18, 2011

Am I skinny yet?

BEEEEPPPPPP!!!!! I INTERRUPT THIS BLOG TO BRING YOU IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS...

Researchers at Osaka University in Japan found that exposing rats to the scent of grapefruit oil for 15-minute intervals, three times a week helped reduce not only their appetite, but their weight. Inhale this fresh citrus scent and dial back the portion of your next meal.


I'm not certain that I am a rat but my ex-husband used to call me that along with other names, one rhyming with rat and another rhyming with witch so I'm thinking this might apply to me!

AND...

I have grapefruit trees in my yard...


SO...

I am going outside to harvest a bushel of grapefruit which means...

BY THE WEEKEND I AM CERTAIN TO BE SKINNY!

Woo hoo!

Rock on!

I may need to borrow some clothes from you as soon as the pounds start peeling away...just to tide me over until I'm like a size two or something.

If you're already a size two, just never mind, OK?

And now...

BEEEEEEPPPPPPP!!!!!

I AM NOW RESUMING REGULAR BLOG PROGRAMMING!!!!!!!

...

Sigh...

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Thursday, February 17, 2011

S is for Mo's Sweet Heart Braids!

Our daughter-in-law can do all kinds of crazy things with hair. Seeing heart-shaped braids on our little Grand for Valentines Day really made me say, 'Awwwww...'




Hope it makes you smile, too.

This post is brought to you by Alphabe-Thursday's Letter "S". To see other spectacular links, just click here!

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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Alphabe-Thursday's Letter S


Good morning class.

Welcome to Alphabe-Thursday. Today we will be sacheting around the letter:



Please link directly to your Alphabe-Thursday URL (if you don't know how to do this let me know!) and please continue to visit the five links before and after your link and leave a comment. Minimum of 10 links visited please. You can visit more if you like, of course.

I also want to let you know that each week I visit every blog. If it appears I haven't visited your blog by Wednesday afternoon, please let me know!

If you have any difficulties with your link, please make sure to include the number of the link when you e-mail me. It is really difficult for me to find you easily otherwise.

If you have any questions about Alphabe-Thursday or problems doing your link just post it in a comment or send me an e-mail. I'll do my best to help you as quickly as I can.

The McLinkey will be live from 1:00 pm MST time Wednesday afternoon in an effort to assist our lovely "friends across the pond" and continue through 10:00 am MST time Friday morning!

And remember.... link back to this post, you need to be registered as a follower of my blog, PG posts only, and try to visit the 5 students before and after your post at minimum. The links will stay live after the final post deadline has passed so you can even wait and visit over the weekend or whenever you have more time.

Please share your "S" link now. Class is dismissed.

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Looking for meaning in all the wrong places...

I've been in my office a lot today. The bay window in the room overlooks a magnificent flowering Bradford Pear tree.

Each branch is loaded with white blossoms that make me think of snow and lace and romance.


I am enchanted with the play of light on the blossoms, the blur of bees surrounding the tree, the bright green winter grass flecked with white fallen petals as if strewn by the hand of a whimsical flower girl.

My beguilement lasts until I walk out the front door. I know from past experience that this vision of loveliness is going to smell like a boatload of decaying mackerel, but somehow the charm of the vision gives me olfactory amnesia.

This morning I decided I would write a poignant blog with all kinds of wonderful lessons learned about beautiful things that smell ugly...and how beauty is only nostril deep.

But since I write my blog in my office, the tree is beckoning from the front yard in an enthralling fashion telling me, "I am so beautiful...you were mistaken...I smell like apple blossoms falling into a blooming patch of hyacinth"...


And there remains nothing left for me to do here except make Mr. Jenny go out and take a big whiff of that lovely tree just to be sure I wasn't mistaken. And until I have him check, I think I just better not try to share any lessons learned today.

Sigh...

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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Story-Time Tuesday - Writing Fiction

Jenny Matlock
If you missed where this story started just click here to read it or simply click on the Story-Time Tuesday link at the top of my blog to take you to previous chapters.

Writing Fiction - Chapter 24

Here's where Chapter 23 left you.

I waited a few long moments.

“Yeah, weird,” he finally continued, “Looks like he’s not coming back today. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him miss a day. Really weird.”

It was working very difficult to refrain from interrogating Griffin, but finally I blurted out, “What do you mean his share of troubles?”

My tattooed friend looked a little uncomfortable. “I probably shouldn’t say, him being a regular and all.” His face looked sad for a moment.

I just sat quietly.

One thing I learned when my kids were younger was, if something was bothering them, my silence would usually make them start talking. So I just sat quietly sipping my coffee.

It was hard to be patient. I felt like a bottle of pancake syrup in the microwave. You know how the bottle kind of explodes if the lid isn’t left open? My silence was making me dangerously close to imitating that particular mess.

Finally, after what felt like an hour had elapsed, Griffin cleared his throat.


“I just feel bad for the guy, you know? And I mean all the stuff about him was in the papers, right?”

Although my heart started beating faster, I simply murmured a little sound into my coffee cup and finally Griffin continued.


AND NOW CHAPTER 24 CONTINUES...

“It’s not like I’m gossiping, right? And I’m not trying to be like all those people who hear about an accident with someone else and then act like they know all about it because of that stupid ‘Kevin Bacon 6 degrees of separation’ thing…(I had no earthly idea what Griffin was talking about) and they come and tell you this story about how their neighbor’s sister’s daughter-in-law’s father’s uncle’s friend had this horrible mishap and they act all like they were there and saw the whole thing and it gets really irritating…”

The only thing that was irritating me at that exact moment was Griffin’s filibuster of babble; I’d learned nothing more than I’d known at the outset.

I swear, my tattooed friend must be pretty amazing at staying under water for a long time, because, without even taking a breath, he continued, “…because you try to figure out which parts of the story are true and which parts are made up because I think those people just try to embellish everything to make their five minutes, or is that fifteen minutes? of fame last longer and…”

Just then the jingling bell over the door interrupted Griffin’s attempt to say the longest run-on sentence in the history of the world.

I glanced up hoping to see Mr. Moro…I mean, Jay, but instead four well dressed women walked in, filling the small space with talk and perfume.

Little snippets of their conversation floated through the air along with the dust motes, “Can you believe she said…”, “…book club choice was horrible…”, and, “that quilt class was so…” I tried not to listen, but my ears perked up when the women ordered their coffee drinks and muffins. Muffins! I didn’t know the coffee shop had muffins!

I pretended I wasn’t eavesdropping as I continued to sip my now chilly coffee. I was surprised at how delicious it tasted, even cold. Maybe I should tell Griffin or Walden about my idea to serve cold coffee drinks when the weather was hot. I wondered if that might catch on.

Instead of taking their drinks and muffins with them, the four women took a larger table in the other corner of the shop and continued filling the space with noise. I’m certain they were all talking at once, and over the commotion I glanced up to see Griffin raise his eyebrow at me. His blinding smile made me smile back and I was determined to wait until the women left to learn more about Jay.

Instead, the coffee shop became very busy. For the next hour or so, the bell jingled almost nonstop. Finally I gave up, left a generous tip on the table and headed to the door. Griffin’s shouted, “Bye Pearl!” made me feel good. I waved to him and told him I’d be back soon!

Instead of hurrying home, I decided to walk up Main Street a little bit. Not only was I thinking about what he’d told me about Mr. Moro…I mean, Jay, I was thinking about him asking me, “What ARE you planning to write about?” I realized I didn’t have one interesting thing going on in my life.

I’d spent so many years being a mom, wife, chauffeur, cookie dough fund-raiser coordinator and rescuer- of- sweat- pant- cords- lost- inside- waistband- casings, I couldn’t even remember what hobbies and interests I’d now forgotten.

I plopped on a bench in front of a store filled with colorful fabrics and quilts. They were pretty and happy, but somehow I didn’t have any interest in going inside.

Instead, I got out my little magnetic notepad and decided to list things I was interested in and could write about.

I tapped my pencil for quite a while and couldn’t think of a thing.

Nada. Zip. Nothing.

I tapped some more.

Finally, I began writing down things I used to enjoy doing.

1. Ride bikes? No way. Too old. Too fat. No bike. I crossed it out.

2. Play piano? Couldn’t remember how to read music. No piano. I crossed that out, too.

3. Read? I’d never stopped reading. I just didn’t read as often or as much as before.

4. (tap, tap, tap) How dismal was it that I couldn’t even write down four things I used to be interested in doing?

I ripped the paper up and threw it in the glossy green trash receptacle by the bench.

“OK, Pearl,” I told myself, “Think of things you’d like to do.”

1. Quilt? Darn, darn, darn. I wanted to say that sounded interesting, but it didn’t. PLUS I didn’t have a sewing machine, so I crossed it out.

2. Write? Maybe. That sounded a little bit tempting.

3. Take a writing class. I liked that idea. I wonder where I could find out about one.

4. Volunteer. With kids? Little kids? That might be fun.

5. Research what had happened to Jay. I circled that idea.

Just then, I realized maybe the library was the place to start my list. I could find out about writing classes there and libraries need volunteers, don’t they? And don’t they keep copies of local newspapers?

I was excited. The library was the start of this new direction in which I was going to take my life.

It took me just a few minutes to zip across town to the Carnegie Library. I had a brief moment of panic in the car when I realized there might be a chance I’d run into someone I knew there. I didn’t want anyone asking me questions about my husband or offering me consolation. I worried for a moment that someone at the library might still be missing one of the many empty casserole dishes I’d washed and stashed in the hall closet. That might prove a bit awkward.

But I squared my shoulders and told myself, “Pearl, no cupcaking out, you can do this.”

And I did.

I walked right up to the small brick building and entered through the double glass doors. The inside was cool and slightly cavernous. I inhaled that smell peculiar only to libraries. I think it’s the smell of paper, glue, history and drama.

So far, so good. The young woman behind the desk was definitely someone I didn’t know. I’m sure I would have remembered her golden skin, big, brown, liquid eyes and platinum blonde/ bright pink hair. Although she looked to be about twelve years old, I’m certain she was older. The name on her nametag was obviously misspelled, unless Priyanka was her last name. If it was, indeed, her first name, that only served to re-enforce my newfound belief that there was no one left in the world named Bob or Susan. In a lovely, sing-song voice, Miss Priyanka asked me how she could help. I asked her where I could find local newspapers from a year ago and whether she could give me information about volunteering at the library. At the last second, I also asked for information about Cairn Terriers and blogging.

It was good to see Miss P pull out a small cut piece of paper and a pencil. Some things were still the same in this world. She handed it to me, saying, “Here’s where to find the books on that dog breed and blogging, check at the Periodical desk for the newspapers, and you’re in luck! There’s a volunteer meeting starting in about ten minutes in the Shakespeare Room.” Just then her phone rang, and she pointed a slim, golden finger toward where the meeting was being held. I smiled my thanks at her and decided to go to the meeting first.

The room was obviously set up for a meeting. Twelve or fifteen chairs sat in a semi-circle around a small table at the front. I was the first one there and I chose a chair at the very edge of the circle. A few moments later, the room began filling up. An older man wobbled in with a dull, silver walker. Two women, obviously friends, followed after him. And, just when it seemed like all the seats were full, a thin, younger man with chaotic brown hair stood in front of the table. “Hi Bob!” several people greeted him. I was so excited to see someone named “Bob”, I said it, too!

His brown eyes lit up for a moment. “Welcome. It looks like we have a new person here today. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?”

Using my best ‘former PTA president voice’, I said, “Hi. I’m Pearl. I’m hoping to work with children…maybe in the reading room or with arts and crafts, but I’d be happy to help with whatever you need me to do.”

Bob looked at my quizzically for a moment and then said, “Well, Pearl. We welcome your enthusiasm and we’ll talk more in just a moment.” Then he called the meeting to order by saying we would all join in a brief prayer.

For some reason, I thought prayers were not allowed in public buildings anymore. It was nice he wanted to create a feeling of fellowship among all the volunteers by having us join in worship before the meeting commenced.

Bob then asked if anyone wanted to share, and the older man with the walker raised a shaking hand. In a quavery voice he said, “You’ll be happy to know that I started getting rid of her sweaters this week. I packed a whole box of them and donated them to charity.”

Everyone in the room murmured praise and encouragement. I was puzzled.

Then another woman spoke up. It was too bad the old man hadn’t donated the box of sweaters to her because she was wearing one of the most hideous sweaters I’d ever seen in my life. It was chunky and snagged and had a picture of an ugly Santa Claus across the entire front of it. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would wear it at all, much less when it wasn’t the holiday season.

The woman clenched some shredded Kleenex in her hands and tried to talk. Stammering out the words, “I can’t...” interspersed with sobs, it finally dawned on me I was not in a volunteer meeting. “I can’t…(sob)…I can’t…(sob)…” the woman continued.

I stood up. “Bob? This isn’t the Shakespeare room, is it?” I interrupted. “No,” he quietly replied, pointing to his right. “The Shakespeare room is one door down. This is Chapter 8 of the local Grief Support group founded by…”

I didn’t stop to let him finish his sentence.

I all but ran out of the room and across the deserted lobby of the library. Priyanka smiled at me as I approached her desk. I raised my hand in a wave of goodbye, or perhaps panic, as I raced by her.

When I finally reached the sanctuary of my car, the tears started. “I can’t… I can’t…I can’t…” I echoed Ugly Christmas Sweater Lady until I thought I was going to be sick.

Finally I took a deep breath and, with shaking hands, started my car and began a careful and slow drive home.

To be continued, Tuesday, February 22.

(c) 2010 Jennifer R. Matlock
This publication is the exclusive property of Jennifer R. Matlock and is protected
under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws. The contents of this post/story may not be reproduced as a whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, without consent of the author, Jennifer R. Matlock. All rights reserved.

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Monday, February 14, 2011

Well...Happy VD and all that mushy stuff!

Last week I told you about my younger sister who used to embarrass the conversation hearts right out of us by yelling loud and clear every Valentines Day to anyone who would listen, "Happy VD!"

And we sisters, being all kinds of mature and all and not laughing over swear words like "The Hoover DAM!" and "Su-SEX, England" were suitable mortified each and every year.

If you missed that amazing literary link, please feel free to click here so you don't go to your grave regretting not reading it.

But because I am the master of tangents and not timing, I am now left Valentine-postless on the actual day because I shared this meaningful post LAST week.

...

Grrrr...


So sinced I mucked up that whole timing thing, I had to dig around on the internet to find some funny VD wishes for you!




And to complete this romantic and heart-warming post, I am going to share a little poem with you. There is a horribly mean person who hosts a meme called "Saturday Centus" and this week she made us write a Hallmark style Valentine wish around this ridiculous picture using only fifty words! To read other mushy works of art based on this soul touching graphic,click here.



Ahem....

Some say love, it is a bulldog,
Dressed in Wonderwoman clothes
Some say love, it’s droopy brown eyes
And a large, black sniffing nose.
Some say love, can be surprising
And sometimes very kind.
But if you think this dog’s romantic…
Some say you would be quite blind.


...

...

Sometimes I just get carried away with the romanticism of VD!

You're overwhelmed, aren't you?

Yeah. Me too!

Sigh...

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Sunday, February 13, 2011

Sundays with Steve - Crossing the Plains

These Sunday's segments are written by my husband, Mr. Jenny. Here's what he has to say about his posts:

Since I’ve started writing “Sundays with Steve”, I’ve been thinking about vignettes of my life growing up in North Idaho. I realize the town where I grew up and the life I lived with my family is really a classic, all-American story. Perhaps you will recognize some of your childhood in these writings. And perhaps you will recognize the town you grew up in along with some of the characters you knew. Mrs. Steve has encouraged me to write these attempts of “creative writing” as opposed to the more factual journalistic style I was trained in and practiced in my early career many years ago. So my apologies if I stumble a bit here and there trying to blend the two styles together.


This is a continuation of Crossing the Plains, a fascinating tale of a covered wagon trip from Missouri to the Washington Territory in the post-Civil War period when the U.S. population poured to the West. It was written by a distant great great aunt, Barbara Jane Matlock McRae in 1939, when she was 81. This story will occupy this space for the next several weeks, as it is a fascinating peek into what we often consider the pioneer days.

Part 3 - Winter at Council Bluffs


Negrow boys picking apples would throw big red apples at the boys when we were passing. We could buy a bushel of apples for ten cents, all kinds of vegetables were cheep. One evening father bought some sweet potatoes which we were all very fond of. One of them weighed seven punds, it just made the family one meal, it was the largest sweet potato any of us had ever seen. In that country farms were not very close together.

When we were there, it was getting late in the fall, the autum leaves were turning to red and gold and the beautiful sunset of lavender and blue in a purple hase or gray on the water of the misouri river made a picture I can never forget. It was about 20 of October and the nights were getting cold and frosty and the days shorter. Father thought we beter begin to look for a place for the winter but the roads were fairly good and not hard finished as they are now, but just good dusty dirt roads. On the second day of November we arrived in council bluff, Iowa, and camped at the out skirts of the city by a little stream of water.

The next morning November third 1874 every thing was covered with snow, so my father and mother left us youngsters in camp and took one of the teams and went to hunt a house for the winter. They came back about noon, and had rented a small house and a good barn for the mules. They bought second hand furniture enough to do and we moved in, and as they say now days, just camped for the winter. The weather was getting colder and father bought hay and corn for the mules; we had a good well of water which furnished plenty for the family and the mules. Though strange as it may sound, the weather got so cold that it was sometimes froze though it was 25 feet deep.

There was a leanto at the side of the house and dad bought a half a beef dressed and five or six dressed hogs for our winters meat. He had them put in the leanto and intended to make bacon of them. Finally they froze hard, and staid forze all winter. When we wanted to cook some of the meat we would just cut it off with a sharp ax or saw it off with a meat saw. When spring came it thawed we had used all the beef. My father made beacon out of the hams and sides of shoulders. We had most enough left to do the rest of our journey with ocational fresh meat and game my father and brothers got out on the plains the next summer while traveling.

While at council bluff the two older boys and a younger one, who as just 13 years old and a stout husky boy, all got a job cutting cord wood for a man that had a lot of timber. He gave the boys all they wanted of the dead down so we had plenty of dry good wood to keep us warm. This timber man gave the boys 150 cents a cord for cutting. Each boy cut a cord a day, the 13 year old boy cut his cord as easy as the older boys did. He shuld by all means have been in school if it has been in those days as it is now. He would have compelled to go to school. I should have been in school too as I had never attended school much in my younger days. I been a sickly youngster and couldent attend school and where we lived in misouri we had a very poor school facilities and poor teachers. We only had about three months a year of school. The younger children went to school and did real well. My mother wasent very strong and with such a large family and so much cooking and dishwashing and washing and ironing and sewing by hand and so many children to take care of and keep clean, I had to stay home and help my mother.

In council bluffs three of the youngsters started school soon after we got settled . The others were too young to go to school. The weather graduly got colder until it got 40 below zero. The misouri river froze over and the trafic went a cross on the ice betwene council bluff and omaha all winter. We had been accustomed to cold weather where we lived in Misouri but not as cold as Iowa. The boys kept busy cutting cord wood.

My father decided to haul brick from the brick yard for a company so he had sharp shoes put on the four mules, got his wagons in trim, and the day before he was to start work he hitched a span of the mules to a wagon and as the habit was in those days, he put one of our old hircrybottom chairs in the wagon to sit in, he went to cross a vacat lot to help a man haul some wood. In crossing there was a low place in the ground and one front wheal droped down and the bed of the wagon was frosty, his chair sliped forward and when the other wheal came up on the oposite bank he fell out on his head and shoulders. The fall broke his colar bone and put his shoulder joint out of place, so that put him out of hauling brick or doing any thing elce for the rest of the winter.

The man the boys were cutting wood for wanted the boys to take their own teams and haul cord wood and deliver it to customers in town then they cut some of it into stove length and delivered it. Then the boys bought a lot of timber and cut it in stove length and sold it. They did well in the wood business and made a lot of money out of it, which the whole family were grateful for as we were geting ready to continue our journey on west to washington terytory as soon as spring came and the weather settled.

It was getting now near the first of march 1875. My fathers shoulder had got so he could use his hand and arm a little. We wanted to start on the 1 day of May if possible. There were too other familys who were getting ready to come with us. One was a german by the name of Bensing. He had a wife and two small children. She had never been out of a city in her life and never camped out of course. It was all new to her, a new experience for her. The other mans name was Tolbert. He had a wife and four children, the oldest a bout eight years old. They had been to california and had travled all over the middle west for his wifes helth. She was a little woman. She never talked a bout any thing but her ailments. She never did any thing. Her husband did evry thing a bout the camp and was a prince of a man, in fact the best natured man I ever saw. It was a pity there isent more born like him, they are fiew and far betwene. They came clear across the plains with us and parted from us on top of the blue mountains when we turned off to go to walla walla wash. and they went on down the trail to milton oregon. He had a brother there, we never saw them again. But our children got leters from there children. They went back to California. The next summer they did nothing but travil around, she imagined they had to for her health.

TO BE CONTINUED ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20

(c) 2010 Stephen J. Matlock
This publication is the exclusive property of Stephen J. Matlock and is protected
under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws. The contents of this post/story may not be reproduced as a whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, without consent of the author, Stephen J. Matlock. All rights reserved.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Saturday Centus - So...you want a job at Hallmark?

Jenny Matlock
Welcome to week forty-one of Saturday Centus.

I've been nice for two weeks now giving you fun little easy, peasy guest prompts.

But since it's close to Valentines Day I want to do something extra special to show you how much I love you all.

I'm not 100% certain, but I think a lot of you probably have dreamt, albeit briefly, of being a Hallmark Superstar. It's OK to admit it. You're among friends here. How can you not want to attain the absolute pinnacle of writing success...cheesy sentiments for greeting cards!

With that in mind I scoured the web searching for the perfect romantic picture for you to create a mushy Hallmark-ish masterpiece around.

It was not an easy task but I finally came across the perfect image...and here it is:


I know. I know. It's touching, isn't it?

Take a few deep breaths to calm your emotions.

Ready to continue now?

OK. So for this weeks Saturday Centus your challenge is to use UP TO 50 words to write a Hallmark card around this image for VALENTINES DAY!

Isn't that a cool challenge?

You're welcome!

I knew the second I laid eyes on this romantic little picture you would all be overwhelmed.

So...to recap...

50 words or less based on the picture written in the style of a Valentines Day greeting card!

You have the entire week to link your work to the meme and you can link more than one story if you like. Please try mightily to visit all the other weeks.

Please display link button or just a hyper-link back to Saturday Centus. Be careful to link your SC URL to the Linky and not just link to your main blog.

Please e-mail me directly with ???'s or ask your question in a comment and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

Link anytime between now and next Saturday morning.

And Happy Valentines Day Centusians! I heart you all!

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Friday, February 11, 2011

Practicing for horrible things...

…doesn’t work.

You can spend years of your life worrying about someday.

You can image how you will feel…you can grieve…you can mourn…you can wake up at night with your face covered in tears from dreams that feel so real you feel certain they are the truth.


Your heart hurts because you are so convinced about what is sure to occur and how the pain will feel.

When you get caught up in practicing for horrible things, it’s hard to remember that it is only your imagination and fear creating the scenario and the emotion, and that imagination is not reality.

Practicing for horrible things not only doesn’t work, it robs you.

It robs you of small joys missed while you are grieving something that has not yet occurred.

It robs you of missed moments while you are hiding your face in fear for a future you are certain is predestined.

It robs you of the ability to embrace hope…and possibility…and optimism.

And then when the bad thing finally occurs that you have spent so much time imagining, you tell yourself, “Aha! I am ready! I am prepared! I know what to do because I’ve already been here a hundred or more times in my mind! I know what this is going to feel like!”

But it doesn’t always feel like that.

And you’ve spent so much time on your mantra of maybe that you have been unable to…

…see a perfect sunset because your eyes were dimmed by copious tears, or missed a special smile on the face of a loved one because your heart was turned inward to suffering you were certain was coming.

‘To everything there is a season…”

The season for now is now…right now…

Don’t let your fears and worries and practicing for horrible things, take you to the place where you have lost the ability to sing a song, feel a joy, or give a hug that starts down at the very tip of your toes.

Practicing for horrible things is the worst kind of practicing…


…for often when the horrible thing occurs you aren’t ready anyway,

You stand confused and amazed and stunned at what is going on…

…and all that practice was for naught.

‘To everything there is a season…’

Live the season of now.

Practicing for horrible things is nothing but a way to have a broken heart for a lot longer than might be necessary.

Practice kindness. Practice the piano. Practice making the world shine just a bit brighter in the place you are.

Just don’t waste any more of your time practicing for horrible things.

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Thursday, February 10, 2011

R is for wicked cute...

... little girl with a blue sharpie!





Oh, and Mo's word for R is 'racquet ball hitter thing."

This post is linked to Alhabe-Thursday's letter "R". To visit R links, just click here!

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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Alphabe-Thursday's Letter R


Good morning class.

Welcome to Alphabe-Thursday. Today we will be discussing the really radical letter



Please link directly to your Alphabe-Thursday URL (if you don't know how to do this let me know!) and please continue to visit the five links before and after your link and leave a comment. Minimum of 10 links visited please. You can visit more if you like, of course.

I also want to let you know that each week I visit every blog. If it appears I haven't visited your blog by Wednesday afternoon, please let me know!

If you have any difficulties with your link, please make sure to include the number of the link when you e-mail me. It is really difficult for me to find you easily otherwise.

If you have any questions about Alphabe-Thursday or problems doing your link just post it in a comment or send me an e-mail. I'll do my best to help you as quickly as I can.

The McLinkey will be live from 1:00 pm MST time Wednesday afternoon in an effort to assist our lovely "friends across the pond" and continue through 10:00 am MST time Friday morning!

And remember.... link back to this post, you need to be registered as a follower of my blog, PG posts only, and try to visit the 5 students before and after your post at minimum. The links will stay live after the final post deadline has passed so you can even wait and visit over the weekend or whenever you have more time.

Please release your "R" link now. Class is dismissed.

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So...my youngest sister

...who passed away several years ago has come back to haunt me.

Actually she comes to mind every single Valentines Day, but this year she totally messed me up.

When she was a little girl she used to run around telling everyone, "Happy VD!" on Valentines Day.

I was mortified.

That was back in the day when ummm.... bad diseases from ... ummm... doing bad things with ... ummm.... other people caused horrible sicknesses called ... ummm... venereal disease.

You might remember this if you're as old as me.

Now, of course, they call these ... ummm... bad diseases from ... ummm... doing bad things .... ummm.... STD's for ... ummm.... well ... you know.

(Geez, it is totally obvious in this post that I went to a Catholic school when I was a kid? ... sigh ...)

BUT...

What happened this year is I was all on top of my game getting my Valentines made and addressed and ready to go to the post office tomorrow...


...until I realized I had written on the inside of probably 20 or so of them..."Happy VD!"

And now I'm worried that if I send them to someone kinda/sorta old like me, they'll think I'm prying into their... ummm.... you know... ummm... personal life and be all offended.

So now I have to go back to cards I messed up and put some paper over that message so I can say something more intelligent like "Happy Heart Day".

I'm certain that was a little practical joke from my sister.

I can just visualize her now, chuckling, "Ha! She wrote Happy VD on all those cards!"...

and frankly...

it just ticks me off.

So ...

If you get a Valentine from me and see a piece of paper double-sticked taped to the inside, just ignore it.

If you don't, you might find yourself with a ghost in your house.

Just sayin'.

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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Story-Time Tuesday - Writing Fiction

Jenny Matlock
If you missed where this story started just click here to read it or simply click on the Story-Time Tuesday link at the top of my blog to take you to previous chapters.

Writing Fiction - Chapter 23

Here's where Chapter 22 left you.

Heavens. It seemed like there were as many responses to that question as when I googled “What to do about depression”.

Apparently all I needed to do was write what people wanted to read, ask questions on my blog, talk about interesting things, join memes (whatever that is), visit other peoples blogs, join blog hops, be witty, be consistent, don’t have too big of pictures, don’t use too small of font, etc., etc. etc.

I didn’t really know that blogging was going to be this complicated.

I definitely needed caffeine. And what better place to get it than the cute little coffee shop on Main Street? Surely Walden wouldn’t be working today. I could just sneak in there, get some coffee, and then come home and sort through all the blah, blah, blogger’s do and don’t’s.


And now Chapter 23 continues...

I know what you're thinking. But it's not true. I am NOT wanting to go back to the coffee shop to see if Mr. Grumpy is there. I just feel the need for a fancy coffee drink.

I run upstairs to fix my make up and comb my hair. My mother, God rest her soul, had raised me to take care of my appearance and never leave the house with uncombed hair. Actually my Mother had also raised me to never leave the house wearing old underwear, too. I never actually understood the underwear thing. She would always tell us, "Do you want to be wearing old underwear if you're in an accident?" I never understood her reasoning for that. Would the paramedics not help me if I was wearing torn, stained underwear? Would they so busy snickering and pointing that I would die trapped inside my mangled car before they could get around to using the jaws of life to rescue me?

Since I had been married for about a 100 years to same man, my underwear had pretty much degenerated to plain white granny panties. But since they were almost brand new, I figured it would be safe for me to drive to the coffee shop. I promised myself, though, that someday I was going to live on the edge and wear the old, ripped pair I had stashed in the bottom of the drawer for some reason. It wasn’t going to be today, though.

Today I was going to avoid Millie, see Walden and get coffee!

Avoiding Millie had been successful since I snuck around the side of my house and made a quick sprint, quick for me anyway, to my car. The rest of my plan went awry, though, because when I went inside accompanied by the jingling of the bell on the door, Walden wasn't working. Instead, there was a young, scruffy looking guy behind the counter. His muscular arms were covered in tattoos. I hesitated for a few moments, slightly afraid to approach the counter. After a second, though, he looked up and smiled at me with a happy, white smile that automatically made me smile back at him. He seemed really nice, too, so I put my fears aside and approached the counter.

"Hi," I said, "I thought Walden might be working today."

"Nah, Walden has class this morning. Can I help you?"

I couldn't quite recall what amazing coffee drink Walden had made for me and I must have had an incredibly blank look on my face. "So what do you like? No, wait, let me guess..." He put his palm dramatically to his forehead and thought for a moment, "OK, I've got it. How about a white chocolate caramel latte?"

Wow, that sounded great. "I'll take it!' I said and he made the machines hiss and make all kinds of funny noises and then he handed me the same kind of over-sized white mug filled with magic that Walden had given me. This drink was just as amazing as the peppermint thing I had tried the day before. I started seriously thinking about going on a coffee diet. These drinks were absolutely astonishing.

I sat in the warm sunshine at one of the wooden tables again. The coffee shop seemed pretty empty and after a few minutes the tattooed coffee guy came over, pulled out a chair, and sat at my table. "So how do you like it?" he asked, and I told him it was wonderful. I asked him how long he had worked at the coffee shop and he just started talking away. "Yeah, I've been here about a year now, and yeah, I really, really like it. I can go to school and work on my class stuff when we're slow, so it works out really great, ya know?”

“I’ll be honest…ummm….ummm…” I looked in vain at his muscular chest for a nametag.

He glanced down and then his face lit up with that blinding white smile. “Oops, forgot my name tag…again! Yeah, I’m Griffin.” Just as I was wondering if there were any people named Bob and Susan left in the world, he held out his non-tattooed hand to shake mine. "I'm Pearl," I told him.

I asked him what he was going to school for and he told me something called Social Media Marketing. Since I was unsure exactly what that was, he went on to explain, "it's a lot of stuff like commercialization of virtual space, global brand management, blah, blah, blah.” I had no earthly idea what he was talking about, but somewhere in the midst of the white noise, I heard the word blogging and my ears perked up.

"So…ummm… Griffin, I have a blog," I told him.

He looked surprised. "Wow, that is so cool," he said. "Let me get my laptop and we'll take a look at it!"

When my first little post popped up onto the screen I quickly saw there were no new comments.

Embarrassed, I explained, "Well, I just started my blog yesterday, but I wanted to do it so my daughter could keep track of what I'm doing."

"What are you doing?” he asked. "What are you planning on writing about?"

"I'm not totally sure yet. I was going to write about this dog I found, but then the nasty owner took the dog back and then I was going to..." I just started babbling. Griffin's eyes started glazing over a bit so I wrapped it up quickly by concluding, "OK, I guess I don't really know what my blog is going to be about."

Griffin sat for a moment and then mused, “Just listening to you talk it sounds like you are really just going to have a 'stream of consciousness' kind of blog.” He went on to explain that was kind of like an on-line diary of day to day happenings.

"What if there aren’t very many day to day happenings in my life?" I asked him. For a guy covered in tattoos he was really, really nice and easy to talk to.

"Just keep it real, Pearl. Write about your hobbies and your interests. Don’t like…ummm… ladies your age put all kinds of pictures on that fancy looking paper and make those blankets out of little pieces of material and stuff like that? My Mom is always doing stuff like that.”

“Griffin,” I told him in a haughty tone of voice, “All ladies my age don’t necessarily spend all day scrapbooking and quilting. In fact, some of us…”

Just then the little bell over the door jingled and Griffin hopped up from the table to help the customer.

I looked up and almost jumped out of my chair! Yes, you guessed it. The customer was HIM!!! HIM!!! The dog thief!

Our eyes met…and not in a good way.

It was like a shoot out at the OK Corral. His hand froze on the door. My hand froze on my coffee mug. My eyes narrowed. His eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared and then, before I could say a word, he turned around and stomped out of the door. The jingling bell chimed incongruously in his wake.

I watched his back disappear down the sidewalk.

I looked at Griffin.

“Wow, that was really weird,” he said.

I looked at Griffin some more. I think my brain was frozen from shock or something.

Finally I managed to stammer out, “What was weird?”

“That. Maybe he had to run back to his car to get his wallet or something,” came his unhelpful reply, and then he set to polishing the fancy machines with a coffee stained white rag.

I calmed myself down and then in a casual, nonchalant voice, I inquired, “Do you know him?”

“Jay? Yeah, I know him. He’s been coming in here since right after I started work here. Man, that guy has really had his share of troubles!”

Jay? Moron Guy was named Jay? Shouldn’t he have been named something like Hatchet? Or Machete? I puzzled over this as Griffin infuriatingly stopped talking and continued polishing the coffee machines and wiping down the counters.

I waited a few long moments.

“Yeah, weird,” he finally continued, “Looks like he’s not coming back today. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him miss a day. Really weird.”

It was working very difficult to refrain from interrogating Griffin, but finally I blurted out, “What do you mean his share of troubles?”

My tattooed friend looked a little uncomfortable. “I probably shouldn’t say, him being a regular and all.” His face looked sad for a moment.

I just sat quietly.

One thing I learned when my kids were younger was, if something was bothering them, my silence would usually make them start talking. So I just sat quietly sipping my coffee.

It was hard to be patient. I felt like a bottle of pancake syrup in the microwave. You know how the bottle kind of explodes if the lid isn’t left open? My silence was making me dangerously close to imitating that particular mess.

Finally, after what felt like an hour had elapsed, Griffin cleared his throat.


“I just feel bad for the guy, you know? And I mean all the stuff about him was in the papers, right?”

Although my heart started beating faster, I simply murmured a little sound into my coffee cup and finally Griffin continued.

To be continued, Tuesday, February 15.

(c) 2010 Jennifer R. Matlock
This publication is the exclusive property of Jennifer R. Matlock and is protected
under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws. The contents of this post/story may not be reproduced as a whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, without consent of the author, Jennifer R. Matlock. All rights reserved.

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