Creatively Cool

My blog buddy, Becky Povich, offered up a link to Microfiction Monday, where "a picture paints 140 characters, or even fewer."  Becky's blog links up to Susan at Stony River, who hosts Microfiction Monday. She posts a picture and our job is to compose a story in 140 characters or less. For further instructions, click on Susan at Stony River.  There are also links to other bloggers who have joined in the fun, so you can read their stories, too, and maybe find a cool new blog along the way.

 

Here's this week's picture, followed by my story for it :

I'll never baby-sit cherubs again! The little imps play star tag and slide away on moonbeams. Ooh, just wait 'til their Father gets home! (139 characters)

Feeling creative? Give it a try.  You'll have fun in 140 characters or less. . .I promise!  (Thanks Becky!)

Just for fun -

Lisa

Grandma's Hot Toddy

It is with great joy that I share this important news:  I am no longer drowning in snot!  I've been upgraded from "drown" to "wade".  Mucinex and Aleve are still my closest companions, but we've agreed to stop seeing each other so often.

During my forced bed rest I revisited a home remedy that stands head and shoulders above the rest, and if you read the comments from my last post you may recall the mention of Grandma's Hot Toddy.  This wonderful elixir---used only for medicinal purposes, of course---works wonders on sore throats and weary muscles.  It even helps clear a stuffy nose. Here it is:

1 cup boiling water
1-2 shots whiskey
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2-3 tablespoons of honey

Mix til blended and drink it up! The quantities of whiskey, lemon juice and honey may be adjusted up or down to suit your taste.  Grandma's Hot Toddy won't cure a summer cold, but after downing a few of these babies, buttercup, your outlook is sure to improve.

Per Grandma's Cold Timetable (a week to get the cold, a week to have it, and a week to get rid of it) I am on week three of the program so things are looking up. My old pals Mucinex and Aleve will pack their bags and head back to the medicine box, and Jim Beam will reposition himself in the downstairs pantry where he will start collecting dust on his shoulders again.

Well. . .okay.  Maybe Jim can stick around a little longer.  He doesn't take up too much space and you never can tell when the need will arise for an emergency hot toddy.  These summer colds have a habit of relapsing, you know.

Til next time -
Lisa

A Cold Summer

"Heddo. By dose is stuffy and by throat is od fire. The good dews is that this is a virus you cad't catch over the idderdet." 

Yes, buttercup, my word pronunciation sounds like the above, thanks to this nasty summer cold invading my sinuses. I caught this villainous virus while performing a good deed.  My daughter, Stephanie, suffered from this icky stuff last week.  She sounded pitiful, and I rushed to her apartment armed with chicken soup, cold medicine, juice pops, OJ, a thermometer, and lots of sympathy.  My "mommy ministrations" brought a smile to my girl's face; they also left me vulnerable to the dreaded Summer Cold.

I know I taught her to share, but does she have to be such an overachiever?

Why are summer colds worse than winter colds? And if I present this question in writing with lots of scientific sounding gibberish do you think the government will award me a grant for the study of this perplexing puzzlement?  Just asking.

Colds are rotten any time of the year, but in the summer they seem especially awful.  Maybe it is because summer brings mental pictures of water and beaches and lots of sunshine.  Winter, with its bare-limbed trees and icy winds seems destined to be inhabited by viruses.  Summer is supposed to be the anti-winter.  Unfortunately, cold viruses didn't get the memo.

My grandma always said a cold sticks around for three weeks:  one week to catch it, one week to suffer with it, and one week to get rid of it.  Lucky for me, even though I'll be a mouth breather until the first of August, my fingers can still fly over my laptop's keys, unaffected by the traffic jam in my nose. 

"I bay be stuffy, ad by eyes bay be itchy ad red, but I cad still read ad write.  That bakes it a good day."

Til dext tibe -
Lisa

Smiley Board

In a recent post on her blog Cathy C's Hall of Fame my writing Yoda posed the question, "What's over your writing spot?"  I thought it an interesting question because we all have different ideas about what should motivate/inspire us to get our butts in gear.

As it happens, I have a bulletin board full of family photos.  This was not the original use for the bulletin board.  The board was supposed to be a place for me to post submission deadlines, inspirational quotes, snippets of grammatical and spelling reminders, you know, writerly stuff.  It is, instead, a collage of pictures. Not exactly what I had planned for my mad rush to publication.

In considering this, I realized that no matter how frustrated I become with the tap-tap-tapping of my fingers on the keyboard and the way it translates to the screen (rarely flashes of brilliance I'm sorry to say), all I have to do is look up and there are a dozen smiling faces reminding me that if I never publish another thing the world won't end. My life is on that board in the images of people I love, and as it turns out, that is a pretty strong motivator, especially when I'm balancing the checkbook which requires frequent glances at those photos of happy people and, often, a big fat glass of wine (but that's for another post).

Lest you think my writing space is all fun and games, I do have an erasable two month calendar tacked up next to my smiley board. This keeps track of submission deadlines and other writer type stuff so I don't feel like a total slacker.

What is your great motivator? I don't mean just for writing; I mean for anything. What motivates you to keep going on days when you'd really rather halt the world and go take a nap, or hide under one of those little umbrellas the bartender drops into your Mai Tai? Personally, I have a lot of motivators, internal and external. But I gotta say that smiley board is the best shot in the arm ever.

Til next time -
Lisa

Butter Lovers (not so) Anonymous

My name is Lisa, and I'm a butter-a-holic.

There is no reforming me as I admit my vice with no remorse and only scant shame.  Over the years I have slathered butter on everything from Pop Tarts to ham sandwiches, doughnuts to pizza crust.  I have even put butter on steak and used it as a dip for pretzels. Yum.  Haven't tried it with ice cream, but I bet if mixed up just right it would taste heavenly.

Don't worry. I don't eat like that all the time. I temper my butter consumption with a rabid fear of acquiring thunder thighs and a rotund rumpus.  Also, I can't afford a whole new wardrobe, so if my derriere exceeds my size 6 Levi's I'm in big trouble.  This is motivation to keep my butter loving ways in check, but occasionally I go on a bender.

Last Thursday was one of those days. I took my youngest to the movies and treated myself to buttered popcorn. I usually don't buy popcorn at the movies, because if I don't have to rescue the kernels from drowning there isn't enough butter in the bag. I don't know how many Weight Watcher points comprise a bag of popcorn after it has been Lisatized, but the number would render me unconscious, so avoidance is my usual action. Not Thursday.

My young 'un and I moseyed from the snack counter to the condiment bar where "butter flavored popcorn oil" is available, "butter" being the operative word. My daughter had a large Icee and a bag of Sno-Caps, but she knows the drill so stopped with me while I prepared my popped corn.

"What are you going to do with that?" She asked when I pulled a gallon size zip-up freezer bag from my purse.

"Behold, buttercup," said I.

I dumped half the bagged popcorn into the plastic bag and then buttered the bejeepers out of both bags, stopping to add salt and shake up the two bags to distribute the yellow delight evenly.  I dumped the popcorn from the paper bag into the clear plastic bag, added more buttery stuff for good measure, zipped it up tight and gave it another good shake.


"Uh, I'm going in to find us a seat," she said, backing away. "This is embarrassing."

"What? I just want my popcorn evenly buttered."

"What a great idea!" A woman behind me declared. "I hate when you get halfway into the bag and the popcorn isn't buttered.  This idea is a keeper! I love buttered popcorn. Love. It.  I am so going to do this next time."

Clearly, this woman possessed great insight and taste, and I beamed at her.  It isn't often I meet a fellow butter lover of such grand proportions.

Since my Thursday binge I've dodged the scale and ignored the butter dish. I'll be good for a few months and then, heaven help me, I'll fall off the wagon again. I could try to act guilty about it, but that's hard to pull off when I'm doing the shake-up-the-butter-and-popcorn dance.

Til next time, buttercup -
Lisa 

Clip art courtesy of hasslefreeclipart.com.

Tomorrow - Plan On It!

I have spent a lot of time sitting on my backside waiting for things to happen.  And by "things" I don't mean an end to the laundry spin cycle or the percolator to brew that perfect cup of java. I mean THINGS, like a new job or an opportunity to do something important. You know...THINGS.

How often have you heard a friend say, "Next year when I have more money. . ." or "Once I find a better job. . ."  Maybe you are even the person saying it.  The question is, what is being done to make the THING happen?  

My brother told me once that a goal without a plan is just a dream.  Boy, was he right.  It turns out that THINGS rarely happen on their own.  We have to make them happen, or at least point our lives in the right direction.  Who knew?

Yeah, that sounds pretty obvious, but as a kid I was a natural optimist, be-bopping along figuring whatever was wrong with today would surely be better tomorrow.  A little angel magic would come along, right?  What I know now that I didn't know then is that waiting for THINGS does not make them happen.  The angel magic exists, but it is found in the planning and the working, the sometimes sweating and fighting for our end goal.

Whatever it is you want, go for it. Life is too short, buttercup, to wait for tomorrow. 

Better that we plan for it, instead.

Til next time -

Lisa

DeMille Part Deux - 48-Hours and Counting

My last post explained how/why my daughter became involved with the 48-Hour Film Project.  Now I'll explain what the 48-Hour FP is and how it works.

Teams sign up to participate in a weekend that begins at 6:30 pm on a Friday night and ends 6:30 pm on Sunday. During that 48-hours they must write, shoot, edit and score a short film, all within the 48-hour window.  Several teams invited Christina to join, but she could only commit to one.  She jumped at the chance to participate.

On Friday night each team receives a genre, line of dialogue, character and prop, all of which must be included in the film, to be submitted by Sunday night.  A short time later the films show at a local theater. The cream of the crop (international winners) debut at none other than the Cannes Film Festival.

To give you an idea of the scope of this, the 2009 numbers from the organization's website show that approximately 40,000 filmmakers shot 3,000 films in 76 cities all over the world.  Pretty cool, huh?

Our experience began with a phone call at 10:30 pm Friday from the director asking us to be on location by 12:30.

"I don't suppose you mean noon tomorrow, do you?" I asked, already in my PJs.

"You're a funny lady," he answered.  "See you in two hours."

So began Christina's (and our) first film experience.  Shooting lasted through the night and all day Saturday.  It was by turns exhausting, boring, exciting, fun, and crazy.  Since Christina is a minor her dad and I stayed with her throughout.  And by throughout I mean the 16 hours we remained on location. (Director, producers, varying crew members were needed for the full 48.) My young 'un saw the hard work and long hours associated with film making.  She loved it.

The 48-Hour FP was an interesting experience, one I expect to repeat next year.  It was fun to pull an all-nighter/all-dayer with a bunch of creative people who love the movie process, and way cool to see our kid on the big screen, even if she was only up there for a minute; and we are proud of her for sticking it out through the long, often boring, hours.  All for a film that ran less than 10 minutes.

Christina achieved the hard earned film acting credit she wanted, and seeing her name in the final credits (she played Darcy, a kleptomaniac) was enough to remind her about that whole "persistence is king" thing.  She learned about commitment, team work, patience, determination and a hundred other things.

Amazing what you can cram into 48-hours.

Til next time -
Lisa

Clip art credit to dreamstime.com