Tag Archives: blogging

Still Christmas? Time to Move On?

Not bad feet if I do say so.

Here is my view for the evening.  Astute viewers will see that my leggings are Christmasy while my slippers are neutral yet fun.  That is symbolic of my mood right now: reluctant to give up Christmas yet cognizant of the necessity to do so, and ready to have fun.

Right now I am sitting on my couch having a wonderful time with my husband Steven and our friend Kim. I must — or at least I very much want to — make a blog post, but it is difficult to do so while also participating in the conversation.

I guess that could make this a Wrist to Forehead Sunday post.  I am having a nice time but may be unable to make a blog post. What to do, what to do?

I guess it need not escalate to swooning proportions.

Here are the jingle bells.

I thought I would include for comparisons sake my view on New Year’s Eve.  Same leggings, different slippers.  I was wearing the jingle pair last night and part of today.  Steven is having a hard time letting go of Christmas and I guess so am I.

My main focus right now is to make my blog post today.  I have had far too many days of making a post in the early hours of the next day, and even a couple of shamefully missed posts. It is a new year. A new chance for me to make 266 consecutive posts (leap year, you know).  I love a new year and a new start.

OK, it is five days into the year (my  WordPress timestamp may say six, but I daresay that is not important). More didactic sorts (you know who you are) may say that renders my new start late and therefore ineffective.

I cannot deal with this sort of naysayers.  All I can say is Happy Sunday, and I hope to see you all on Monstrous Monday.

 

Lame Without Parole

I pause in my viewing of Snapped to make this week’s Friday Lame Post.  Incidentally,  this is a really good —

I was about to say a really good episode, which I have not seen before, when I got distracted by another twist in the case at hand.  I just can’t get enough murder and mayhem.  Now it is a commercial, so perhaps I can progress on my blog post.

Of course as soon as I typed that I went blank. What else can I expect on Lame Post Friday?

OK, that episode is over.  Before I get all absorbed in the next one, I have a not so random observation to share.  In fiction, when somebody gets murdered, many people have a motive.  It is much more interesting that way.  When I write a murder mystery, my victim is usually a real slime bucket and few are sorry that he or she is dead.

In real life, however, murder victims are often nice people.  They are kind and loving parents, siblings or spouses.  It’s the murderer that is the real son of a bitch.

I guess this observation falls under the heading No Shit, Sherlock.  Well, what does anybody expect from me on Lame Post Friday?

 

Ah, Shakespeare!

“Much Ado About Nothing”

Anybody remember this fun bunch of people?  It is LiFT, the Little Falls Theatre Company.  It was their second year, and the first year I participated with them.

“The Tempest”

And here they are again, a year later, a different script, and a few different cast members. Another great theatre experience!

This has the makings of a fine Throwback Thursday post. However, that is not my intention today.  I want to invite all local theatre folks to help us bring Shakespeare back to Little Falls!

You see, for one reason and another, LiFT has not presented a Shakespeare play for the last two years.  A few of us are hoping to not make it three.  To that end, we have planned a preliminary meeting, to discuss ideas and make plans.  We will meet at 3 p.m. Saturday,  Jan. 18, at Meeples Mug House, 598 E. Main St., Little Falls, NY.

For non-local readers, I hope you will find this post interesting as a Preview of Coming Attractions.  You know that I will make a lot of blog posts about a new theatrical endeavor!

For local readers, you can find out more on Facebook on Meeples Mug House page, LiFT’s page, or the event Brainstorming the Bard.

I’ll close with one more Shakespeare picture.  Wish us to break a leg!

My colleague and I look ready to break a couple of legs here.

 

Happy New Year Anyways

Can I treat New Year’s Day like a Wrist to Forehead Sunday?  I had a very nice time last night and took a pretty good run this morning.  OH!  I do have one major bit of news:  I registered to run the Boilermaker 15K in 2020.  They did a special early registration deal starting at midnight.  I was asleep at midnight (don’t judge), but I got online and registered as soon as I got up.

Well, that paragraph took an unexpected turn.  I thought I had logged on merely to pose dramatically and swoon.  You know, Wrist to Forehead Sunday.  Even though it is not Sunday, it feels like one.  New Year’s Day often does.  Not like a holiday, mind you, just a run of the mill Sunday, hence, the Wrist to Forehead aspect.

I will share with you at this point that I fear I may be coming down with a cold.  I keep coughing, and I can kind of feel it down in my chest. Dammit, I can’t deal with that now!  For one reason, I don’t want to go using up my precious paid days off in January!  People say you should not go to work if you are sick with something contagious, but employers are notoriously unsympathetic. Oh well, maybe it is a false alarm.

So I guess this turns out to be Yet Another Post about Not Being Able to Make a Blog Post.  What a way to start the new year!  But I hope you will all stay tuned.  In addition to the Boilermaker,  I have one or two other projects in the offing that I hope to write about soon.

 

Year End Monsters?

Very festive, no?

Here is my view of New Year’s Eve.  Our plan all along was to not go out to party hearty, but to sit home on our couch.  Well, sometimes things do not go as planned.  Sometimes they go even better.

I unexpectedly got out early from work today, leaving at 10:30 a.m. rather than 3 p.m.  Woohoo!  I went to the grocery store with Steven and to the post office.  What else?  Well, I had put on my new Christmas llama leggings.  I thought it would be nice to go out for a drink.

We ended up at the Waterfront Grille in Herkimer,  sitting at the bar and sipping wine.  It was a lot of fun!

Now I am home again and, to be honest, not inclined to write much else. Are other bloggers waxing eloquent about the year ending and the year ahead?  How excellent for them if they are.  I, personally,  have very little of substance to say.

However, I am having quite a nice time on this last day of 2019. Perhaps I can, leave it at that for today’s post.  Well, maybe a monster picture or two,  just for good measure.

“Was somebody looking for a monster?”

I don’t know that we will be looking at Nosferatu tonight.  But I would like to look at other monster movies tonight.  Then again, New Year’s Eve isn’t the only night that is good for monsters!

“You can find me any time of year in the warmer climes!”

Happy 2020, everyone!

 

Will My Post-Christmas Letdown Cause Me to Snap?

I continue to work through my post-Christmas letdown with a Wrist to Forehead Sunday post.  I so much prefer the Christmas weeks I have more time off work, but as I often observe, you can’t have everything.

My favorite!

We have been looking at Snapped for most of the day.  It is a great relief to me to get back into murder and mayhem after all those uplifting Christmas movies Steven has been watching.  Oh, OK, I like Christmas movies and specials, too.  Of course my favorite is How the Grinch Stole Christmas,  narrated by Boris Karloff.  That neatly straddles my love of Christmas and my love of classic horror.

One of my all time favorite pictures.

Perhaps we will watch this one again later this evening.  In the meantime,  I feel I must bring this post to at least 200 words.  Perhaps another illustration would help.

A handsome picture, to be sure.

Here is another mash-up of my two favorite holidays.  I hope to make both last all year.

Bonita will help me in my ambition.

One more picture illustrating my obsessions.  You see my skeleton with Christmas gear in the foreground.   In the background is a Santa Claus who is actually only half there!  Do you find that creepy?  If so, you’re welcome.  Happy Post-Christmas Letdown,  and how many days till Halloween?

 

Do Not Forgo the Memory

Regular readers (if I still have any) (I hope I do!) know that I rarely forgo Lame Post Friday.

OK, this is usually something I would confine to a parenthetical comment, but this being Lame Post Friday, I will give it its its own paragraph. “Forego” with an “e” means to go before, to precede.  “Forgo” means to give up or go without. I learned that just now,  when my computer told me both spellings were correct (well, not in so many words, but it did not underline or autocorrect either version). I pulled out my dictionary and looked it up.

And now you know how old school (which sounds somewhat better than just “old”) I am:  I use an actual dictionary.  It is a large red book: Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (New York, 1991).  It was given to me many years ago as a Christmas present from some friends who knew I wanted to be a writer.

Ooh look, I just related this post back to Christmas.  But now I am thinking about the friends who gave me the dictionary, a couple we were very friendly with when we lived up north, in the Potsdam and Norwood, NY area.  We pretty much lost touch with them when they left the area, although we exchanged Christmas cards and eventually re-connected with the wife on Facebook.  Sadly, she died from cancer a few years ago.

This has gotten rather melancholy for a Friday Lame Post, but I think it is important to remember friends.  So, a lexicographical note and a memory.  Sounds like a Friday post to me.

 

Merry Day After Christmas

Ho ho ho!

I thought I would share a few images of Christmas, to help those of us who are working through post-Christmas letdowns.  Some prefer to go cold turkey (or just eat cold turkey leftover from Christmas dinner) (sorry, couldn’t resist).  I’m going with slow withdrawal this year.

The Santa pictured above has been in my parents’ house since before I was born.  My husband, Steven, has threatened to steal it for as long as he’s been seeing me.  No luck so far, but we have amassed our own collection of old fashioned Santa’s.

Mrs. Santa seems to be a woman after my own heart.

Here are our guys.  This photo is from December 2016, so I guess this is a Throwback Thursday post now.

Pretty!

Here is my parents’ Christmas tree all lit up on Christmas Eve.  I love looking at their tree and seeing the ornaments through the years: the old glass ones we’ve always had, ones that we made in school (Oh, Mom, you didn’t keep THAT one!), ones we’ve given them…

The ingenious decorator!

Mom made this arrangement of garland, balls and wreath, and did not think too much about it till my sister Cheryl said, “Oh, you just had to sign your work!”  After that, it did seem pretty obvious that it spells “MOM.”  Mom would have changed the window, but we insisted she keep it that way.  Why shouldn’t she take credit for a house well decorated?

We don’t take our decorations down till at least New Year’s.  I suppose the cold turkey contingent mentioned earlier has theirs down already.  Oh well, to each his own, as the old lady said when she kissed the cow!

 

Merry Christmas Anyways

I wonder if anybody has noticed that I have not posted since Sunday.  I have no valid excuse.  I have a few lame ones but I am loathe to share them, largely because my mother reads this blog and I don’t want her to worry.  Ooh, too late now, unless I delete this paragraph.

I can’t do that.  I haven’t posted for three days; I can’t get the type-it-in-backspace-it-out disease now.

However, it seems I can possibly get the hit-Save-but-don’t-Publish-it disease.  I confess to having a few atrophied partial posts floating in my Drafts.  Every so often I pull one out and try to finish it.  No luck so far.

So basically, what I am offering today is Yet Another Post About Being Unable To Make A Decent Blog Post.  Could that possibly be worth a three day wait?  You tell me.

The main reason I have not been able to post is my ongoing struggles with depression.  I dislike mentioning it, because I do not want to be whining, especially as I feel my problems are far less than what others deal with.  Incidentally,  the latter reflection makes me feel even worse.  What an ungrateful wretch am I!

However, perhaps other readers also suffer from depression, and they might like to feel that they are not alone.  They may even get a frisson of superiority if they are dealing with their problems with greater aplomb than I can muster.  Remember: no life is wasted, because one can always stand as a bad example.

In summary:  I have not been posting lately, because I have felt paralyzed by my depression.  However, it is nothing for anybody to worry about, should anybody feel so inclined.  This will probably just morph over into a common or garden post-Christmas letdown. I have survived those before.

On the brighter side (see, I can usually find one of those), once I hit Publish,  I have finally made a blog post.  Phew!  I was getting worried that not posting was going to become a habit.