Category: blogging

What Is the United States?

Most of my readers are from the United States, as am I. This post has some fun questions for you to weigh in about the US.

Jay Dee's avatarI Read Encyclopedias for Fun

Most of you are American.  I can safely say that, because more than 50% of the readers of this blog are American.  In 2014, Americans made up around 60% of the readers.  So, chances are you’re American.  If not, forgive me.  I’m not American, either.

This is the first post in a new series where I explore each country that my readers come from, starting with the biggest and going down to the smallest.  However, I need your help.  I’m going to provide the most basic information that you can find, but I want opinions from you.

Are you American?  Have you lived in the United States?  Or have you visited the United States?  Even if you aren’t, please read on.

320px-Flag_of_the_United_States.svgThe United States of America

It’s a big country.  With an area of 9,857,306 square kilometres, it’s the third largest country in the world.  It has a population of…

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SoCS: The T is silent

I wasn’t sure what I would write about using the prompt of including the letter T until I read this:  http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/2014s-runner-person-year about how Stephen Colbert was the runner-up to Pope Francis to be National Catholic Reporter’s Person of the Year.

We are fans of Stephen Colbert and his just-completed nine-year run of The Colbert Report. I wrote about it here.

When I told my family about the NCR piece, our daughter T immediately began to concoct a segment of “Who’s Not Honoring Me Now?” about how Stephen (in character) didn’t much care for this pope but that now it was personal.

In real life, Stephen Colbert is a practicing Catholic and I’m sure is fond of Pope Francis. That would be the Stephen who pronounces the T at the end of his last name.

From the first promos of The Colbert Report, it was pointed out that both the T at the end of Colbert and the T at the end of Report are silent. It was how you could tell that someone was familiar with the show or not. Fans would never have pronounced those Ts.

Stephen, being runner-up to Pope Francis is still a great gig!

This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday, with the prompt being the letter T: http://lindaghill.com/2015/01/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-january-315/ .  It is also part of Linda’s Just Jot It January:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/ . Come join in the fun!

JJJ 2015
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Badge by Doobster @Mindful Digressions

One-Liner Wednesday: Light

“There are two ways of spreading light:  to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.”
– Edith Wharton

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday:  http://lindaghill.com/2014/12/31/one-liner-wednesday-yolo/

My 2014 blog-year in review

The WordPress.com stats helper prepared a 2014 annual report for Top of JC’s Mind. Instead of a Sydney Opera House or Louvre comparison like larger blogs, I am a subway train level blog. 😉  I saw the reports for some of the larger blogs I follow first and fleetingly considered keeping my summary report private, but decided that I should share because I am proud of the progress I made as a blogger this year and proud that I managed to stay active through my first full calendar year here at WordPress, despite the topsy-turvy path life has taken.

I’m sending out a big thank you to Linda G. Hill at Life in Progress! Many of my views this year were due to participating in her One-Liner Wednesdays and Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. Everyone is invited to join in the fun! Just check her blog for links on Wednesdays and Fridays, when the prompt for SoCS is published.  I found new blogs to follow by participating and gained new followers for Top of JC’s Mind through it, too.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,600 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Blogger evolution response

One of the first bloggers to follow me was Jason Cushman who blogs as Opinionated Man (OM) at HarsH ReaLiTy. He has put in tons of work to powerblog his way to over 50,000 followers and 1,000,000 views in less than two years. He is also very helpful to the blogging community and I’ve been honored to have been re-blogged by him on a few occasions. I’ve also found a number of blogs that I follow through visiting people who comment on his posts, which in turn led me to other blogs to follow. I follow OM by daily email, so I am generally at least a day late getting to his posts  This one:  http://aopinionatedman.com/2014/12/26/a-blogger-evolution/ on his evolution as a blogger made me think about my own history as a blogger. I wrote the comment below and decided I wanted to share his link and my comment here at Top of JC”s Mind.

“Thanks for the thoughtful post. I have been blogging even less time than you have, but see my own evolution, albeit with totally different scale and issues from yours. Fortunately, I am neither angry nor frustrated. I am overwhelmed, although that has to do more with the rest of my life than with my blog, which needs to stay small and intimate for the time being. Thanks to you, I know how to grow it when the time is right for me. I’m not sure when that will be, other than not anytime soon, due to my own choices of priorities. And, if that time never comes, I have already accomplished my most important blogging goal, which was to actually be able to write about varied topics on a consistent basis. That I have been able to reach some other people with my words is a bonus. I truly appreciate the small group of regular readers that I have.”
Joanne at Top of JC’s Mind

One-Liner Wednesday: Heaven

“All the way to heaven is heaven.”
– St. Catherine of Siena

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! More information here:  http://lindaghill.com/2014/12/24/one-liner-wednesday-festive-edition/

A new excuse

A few days ago, I gave myself an excused absence from posting.  I now have a new excuse. I have shingles. I started on anti-viral meds fairly early in the course of things, so, while I am uncomfortable and not sleeping well, I am not having the extreme pain that I have heard others describe. My family is taking over nearly all the holiday prep and chores. I did manage to address envelopes for holiday greetings to go in the mail today…

Addendum:  I have been participating in Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday and Stream of Consciousness Saturday posts regularly – until the last few weeks when things have been pretty hectic. I didn’t even look at the prompt this Friday, but, in reviewing some of the blogs I follow by email this morning, I realized that I had inadvertently posted on the SoCS prompt this week because the prompt was “excuse.” So I am adding this explanation and message and adding the link to create the pingback to Linda’s blog. http://lindaghill.com/2014/12/19/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-december-1914/  Not bothering with the badge, though…

Excused Absence

I know my posting has diminished of late and will probably be sparse for the rest of the month. We have been dealing with medical issues with my mother-in-law and most other things, including holiday preparations, have fallen into the background. I’ll put something out when I get some time and brainpower to do so. Meanwhile, keep reading and writing and enjoying your December.

One-Liner Wednesday: Maya Angelou quote

“Hate – it has caused a lot of problems in this world, and has not solved one yet.”
– Maya Angelou

Join us for Linda’s one-Liner Wednesdays:  http://lindaghill.com/2014/12/03/one-liner-wednesday-putting-off-the-elusive-noun/

 

SoCS: Special Cents

In the US, money is denominated in dollars and cents. We still have a one-cent coin, called a penny.

People tend to ignore pennies, but they have a special meaning for me.

My elder daughter was an early reader and we were always on the lookout for stories that matched her reading ability without being too grown up in content. Her elementary principal suggested “The Hundred Penny Box.” The story is about a child and an elderly relative who has a box with a penny from every year of her life. We decided not to let our daughter read it because no other adults in the book really listened to either the child or the elder, but I loved the idea of having a penny for each year as a memento.

I have given penny boxes to family and friends for milestone birthdays or anniversaries. My parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. My friend and now spiritual mentor as a memento of her 40th birthday sweat lodge ceremony. My college roommate’s 50th birthday. I give a new penny for the current year each year on the anniversary or birthday date.

The only penny box I started that is no longer being added to was the one I gave my friend Angie for her 49th birthday. With a doctor-husband and many friends in the medical community, she was worried about turning 50, knowing that the fifties is a dangerous decade, health-wise, with many serious health conditions cropping up. Because the penny box commemorates the beginning of a year rather than its completion, the penny box for 49 contains 50 pennies. I thought it would be a good way to ease into her 50s the next year.

Within weeks of her fiftieth birthday, Angie was diagnosed with lung cancer, a shock as she had never been a smoker.

She fought hard and we added pennies for her 51st, 52nd, 53rd, and 54th birthdays.

We knew the 54th was going to be the last birthday she would celebrate.

As 2005 began, I wanted to find a new penny to add to the box while she was still alive, knowing her October birthday would not see her alive. I even went to a coin shop, hoping to find a newly minted penny, but it seemed that the mint had not yet started making them yet.

Angie died on March 25.

Later that spring, when I found a 2005 penny, I sent it to her husband to complete Angie’s penny box.

However briefly, 2005, her 55th year, was Angie’s year, too.

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This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. Join us! Details here:  http://lindaghill.com/2014/11/28/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-november-2914/.  This week’s prompt is sense/scents/cents/sent.socs-badge
Badge by Doobster @Mindful Digressions