Saturday Centus 103

The prompt this week is: "Not for profit. For comfort..."
Number of words: 100 PLUS the five words of the prompt for a maximum word count of 105
Style of writing: Any
Pictures: As many as you like

http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/2012/04/saturday-centus-not-for-profit.html


--"Wow, you have a lot of animals! It's like a mini-farm. Do you sell the eggs from the chickens?"

" Not for profit. For comfort that's what we raise animals for."

--"How do you mean?"

" We take great comfort in knowing where our meat comes from, the conditions they were raised in and what they were fed. It is the same reason we try to grow some of our vegetables as well. "

--"Well, I'm not worried about that. I know where my food comes from. It comes from the store! Ha, ha!"

"I'm pretty sure the joke is eventually going to be on you."

Have you ever felt...

Have you ever felt...
life was going too well for you?
That something bad must surely happen soon
because things were entirely too  nice right now.
Have you ever felt...
your life was quite lovely--
but you didn't dare think it...out loud
or surely you would jinx it?
Have you ever felt..
every day was just a waiting game,
that surely the tragedy was waiting,
it just hadn't found you yet?
Have you ever felt...
like this? 

Alphabe-Thursday V

My Aphabe-Thursday V post will be on Vegetables.

I did not grow up in a house where we ate a lot of vegetables. Only when we lived in my grandmothers house (see this post) and we grew our own did we ever have a lot of vegetables. There my mother canned and pickled lots of garden produce so there were vegetables available with every meal.  After we moved away from there, because of finances (of which we had very little), vegetables came from cans and had a very small reserved spot on the plate--if they were there at all. I think this fact is why I have always tried to grow things at whatever house I lived in. Even when we lived in a little trailer park, I had herbs growing outside beside the flowers. Today I have a small garden of raised beds and I am very proud of anything that they produce. Not to mention the taste of these homegrown vegetables is far superior to those in the store. This spinach is so soft it feels like it just melts in your mouth. You don't get that from a can or bag of spinach in the stores. It could almost be a different vegetable completely.

I am trying very desperately (and with some family opposition, I might add) to break away from the meat, potato and tiny spot of vegetable mentality of eating. I am trying to make that vegetable spot BIGGER. I seriously doubt it will ever get it to the point that we are actually having a vegetarian dish as my other half would revolt but maybe he will not totally reject the southwestern salad I have planned for him for tonight. It does, after all, have some chicken in it and his beloved tomatoes and corn.

Writing for Self-Discovery Exercise 3

Exercise 3 -Desert Island

You’re on a desert island. You have food, water, shelter, no dangers from animals. Write about:

a)      What would you miss the most and explain why?

b)      What you would be glad to get away from .

c)       Which two objects would you like to have from home to make your life more bearable and give it some interest. (not phones, tv, computer, or radio)

d)      How you would cope with isolation and structure your time.

I, of course would miss people the most. Having someone to talk to, show things to, do things with would be the worst part. I am pretty optimistic though and think I would be able to keep my hopes up that I would be rescued so I think I would be always thinking that there would eventually be someone to tell my adventures to.

I think I would be glad to get away from living by the clock. Having to get up at a certain time, to get work done at home by a certain time so that I can be to work at a certain time. I don’t think it is necessarily natural and good for people to live this way.

Two things to take with me to make my life more bearable is a hard things to answer. The instructions say we can’t have a radio but music would definitely be sorely missed.  I guess if I had to choose other things. One would be paper and pencil (I will count them as one choice) so that I could write down the things I discover and do. I think that would keep me busy, be important to me, and also keep up hope that eventually someone would get to read it. The other thing would have to be a book. I am not sure it matters which book as long as there was something to read. The longer the book the better, I suppose.

To cope I am sure I would try to keep busy all the time. Taking care of myself would be a lot to do but there would be a lot of leisure time too so I would have to keep myself busy to keep my mind off the isolation.  As for structuring my time, I am not sure that I would structure it. I would be free to do what I want when I want. Eat when I was hungry, sleep when I was tired. I don’t think I would try to structure it.

Writing for Self-Discovery Exercise 2

Personal Landscapes

"Write about an outdoor place or landscape that was special to you in your childhood or some years back. Describe the place, picking out features that were important to you. Include any sounds, colours, textures, and smells you remember. Explain how you felt about the place and also how you feel as you think and write about it. Mention any incident you  remember connected with the place or any other thoughts you have about it. "

My Perfect Place
 

When I was 4 years old my grandmother died and we moved into her house.  It was a house we should have kept forever but because of some bad choices my father made we were only there 5 years.  My grandmother’s house is where all of my self sufficient  lifestyle started.  It was a lovely place to be self sufficient in.  There were a couple of cleared acres. Some of that was “yard”, the middle acre was “garden” and the end next to my uncle’s house was “field”.  Behind the cleared acres was the steep hill of “woods”.

The “yard” was where most of the fun stuff happened. It had a very tiny hill in the middle that inexperienced bike riders could go to coast down before they learned to pedal.  It had one small maple tree which each year provided more and more shade. To one side by the “shed” or my father’s workshop, there were chickens and rabbit pens.  These were not so well liked as rabbits had to have buckets of grass picked for them every day.  I never remember taking care of the chickens though I suppose we must have.

The  “ garden” was first a place of wonder. Someone would come with a tractor and as they plowed we kids would walk far behind it and pick up worms that would be deposited in the worm bin/bathtub for summer fishing fun.  Soon, however, the “garden” became the dreaded place.  It was where you got sent daily for “pickin’ rocks”. At one time the garden had been an old river bed or so my mother said anyway, and it never ran out of rock. Piles and piles of rocks would be deposited beside the garden for a couple weeks before my  father decided enough had been removed and we could plant.  The fun planting part was done by my parents and  late the dreaded weeding job was saved for we children again.  Harvesting was a lot more fun. I can remember carrots so big that me as a small child could not remove them from the ground.

The “field” was where we went now and then to play ball. You didn’t go to the right to far because that is where my cousin kept his bee hives and you didn’t go to the fence on the left because we were sternly told not to bother the bull but the empty part in the middle was perfect for playing ball with the cousins or friends . Other than that we seldom used the field.  Once in a while one of us would ride our bikes all the way around the garden and into the field but it was an arduous and bumpy ride.

The “woods” were perhaps the best place.  It was where the sugar maples were for winter sap collecting. It was where the hill was for sledding. It was where the trees were for climbing and making children’s “ houses”.  It was where the wood was cut for the fireplace which was sometimes a chore but in winter it was fun because it had to be sledged out with snowmobiles.  The woods were all we needed to round out our self sufficient lifestyle.

Why my father ever wanted to leave such a place I don’t know but since then I believe myself and my siblings would love to find such a perfect place again.  Perhaps my own house is as perfect to my children. I would like to think so but for some reason I don’t think it will ever quite come close to my grandmother’s house, in my mind.

Writing for Self-Discovery Exercise 1

I picked up a new book at the thrift store called Writing for Self-Discovery by Myra Schneider and John Killick.
It has exercises which I will be doing and posting on the blog as long as they don't get too personal.

The first exercise had you look around the room and pick one or two things in the room to write about. My two things aren't nearly as interesting as the examples they gave in the book but then, of course, I am not those people. Here is Exercise 1:

Our room is the usual mess. I try to keep it tidy but it seems to get away from me more often than not. It is mainly untidy because of the books. Piles of books. Why I have so many, I don’t know. Some of them I buy and never even use. Yet I keep them anyway thinking that someday they will come in handy.

They are mostly things that have to do with self sufficiency which is my passion. Books on wood carving, old time skills, gardening etc. Even the fiction books have something to do with self sufficiency. Apocalypse books, books about ancient people, all can be found in the piles in my room.

Not all of them are books however, some are magazines also dealing with self sufficiency. I seem to like magazines better as there are more of those.  Several of those have not been read either.  The unread ones are mostly the cooking ones. For some reason, I love to cook but tend to find all my recipes on the Internet now. Letting the search engine find my recipes instead of taking the time to look through a book myself. Another example of how lazy we as a people are getting.

The second thing I choose to write about in the room are candles.  There are a couple of big red pillar candles on the entertainment center.  I bought them for just a couple dollars at the thrift store.  I have only lit them once.  They sit there waiting for a power outage which will be their day to “shine”.

I have lots and lots of candles.  The power has been out too many times for me. Once it went out for 2 and a half days and I ran out of candles. I was re-melting wax trying to make more to see us through.  It is unlikely I will have to do that ever again with the stock of candles I have stored now. Not to mention the oil lamps and extra oil stored. It never hurts to be prepared.

Saturday Centus 4/14

The prompt this week is: "Why oh why oh why..."
Number of words: 100 PLUS the five words of the prompt for a maximum word count of 105
Style of writing: Query
Pictures: As many extra pictures as you like

 Check out other Centus'

lhttp://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/2012/04/saturday-centus-why.html

Why Moan?

I am always amazed at the people who ask why. 

"Why oh why oh why...me?"

Growing up we weren't allowed to ask why. If it happened to you, you just dealt with it. If you asked "Why?" you might be "feeling sorry for yourself". It seems like a harsh way of raising a child but we lived a harsh life and that had to be dealt with. You couldn't just sit and moan "Why?". 

Looking back on it now, I do not regret that we were raised this way. I seldom have trouble dealing with what life hands me. Why oh why? .....Because. 

Alphabe-Thursday

 The letter U for Alphabe-Thursday.
http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/search/label/Alphabe-Thursday

U

U are everything to me,
U  make my heart see,
U have taken me to new heights,
U make my soul fight
U steal my heart with little kisses
U make happen my little wishes
U could go anywhere

Yet

U are always there.

Saturday Centus

I am late for this Saturday Centus but still want to try it.
http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/search/label/Saturday%20Centus

Easter is always a lovely day

Baskets, eggs and bunnies galore

but when you dress me up this way

you I simply do not adore!

This Day

I am weary, my eyes tear,
my feet hurt, yawns are never ending,
I can't wait to crawl beneath the covers
between those clean cool sheets
where I can stretch out and finally relax
letting the pleasure engulf me.
I have accomplished much today
and am proud of myself. 
What more could I ask for?