Category: blogging

SoCS: Simple

I could really go for some simplicity right now. I haven’t been able to devote much time to what I had intended to be a simple daily schedule becuase life has been complicated by my mother-in-law’s backache which over the course of a month became a diagnosis of a compressed vertebra which then collapsed and then got treated with an injection of bone cement which entailed an unexpected two night hospital stay. We just brought her home yeaterday and spent the rest of the day there. We will be heading back up shortly with some ginger creams that my husband is baking becuase we are trying to give her tempting things to eat to help gain back the weight she lost while dealing with the back pain. She is pretty lightweight to start with, so Ensure Plus and as many calorie dense things as we can come up with are in order, as her appetite is also tiny.

Maybe this is simplicity though. Take care of what has been presented to us this day. Drop everything else.

Simple.

This is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Join us! .http://lindaghill.com/2014/10/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-october-1114/

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Babge by Doobster@Mindful Digressions

One-Liner Wednesday – Ziglar quote

“Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile, and a grateful heart.”
– Zig Ziglar

This part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday. Join us!  http://lindaghill.com/2014/10/08/one-liner-wednesday-dangerous-driving/

SoCS: Find the time

This week’s prompt is “find.”

As I write this, it is not Saturday, but Friday morning. My first thought in reading the prompt was how am I going to find the time to do this and I figured if I didn’t plunge in now, it was not going to get done, so here I am, with the washer running a load of towels, dashing this off before I go back to what I am trying to do today, which is catch up with some of my electronic life, especially my overflowing inbox. 516 emails to deal with, at this second. No doubt it will be more by the time I hit save and schedule.

People who read my blog may recall that my parents had simultaneous health crises this summer.  What I haven’t been blogging about is more recent life complications. I am happy to say that my parents, after losing most of August to recovery, are mostly back to their routines and doing well.  I spent the first part of September battling a GI thing, but recovered in time to prep for and participate in the Alice Parker tribute at Smith, which I wrote about here and here.

Within hours of my return from Northampton, we got word that my mother-in-law has a lumbar compression fracture due to osteoporosis. The time since then has been a blur of appointments, errands, transport duty, trying to get her to eat and use her medications properly, and rest, and not twist or bend or try to do things that put strain on the back, like changing the bedsheets or picking up the paper from the stoop.  There is also a lot of mental energy going to figuring out the next steps, which may include having a neurosurgeon inject a cementing substance into the collapsed vertebra, but first we have to get through an MRI and another consult appointment next week.  And a caucus with my brother-in-law, her elder son, who is a physician but who is several hundred miles away.

Meanwhile, I have been able to carve out some time yesterday and today to tackle the backlog on my computer.  It’s impossible to get to everything, so I am trying to jettison everything I can bear to, while still attempting to create at least a shadow of my presence here at Top of JC’s Mind, through my personal correspondence, and for my Facebook friends.  There are at least half a dozen blog posts that I have in my head that I need to find time to get worked out on screen, unless I suddenly become a stream of consciousness blogger.  No, that would be a bad idea. Forgoing editing once a week is one thing.  All the time?  Shudder…

And, as you read this on Saturday, I will be “celebrating” my birthday. Under the circumstances, original plans have been pared down and even those are vague, pending seeing how today goes for my mother-in-law and what she is like in the morning.  At this point, I’m hoping to be able to at least have dinner out with enough notice that we can wrangle an early dinner reservation at a fine dining type of place.  If push comes to shove, we can go impromptu, even if it means picking up a wood-fired brick-oven pizza and eating it with my husband at the kitchen table. Maybe we can put a candle in it….

519 emails…

socs-badgeBadge by Doobster @Mindful Digressions

This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays.  Please join us!  Visit http://lindaghill.com/2014/10/03/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-october-414/ to find out how.

One Liner Wednesday: Mark Twain quote

“Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
– Mark Twain

Join in Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday:  http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/one-liner-wednesday-swingin/

SoCS: First/second

We just found out that our firstborn daughter and her husband will be visiting from Hawai’i for Thanksgiving week. This will be their first visit since Christmas 2011, when we were happy witnesses to a Christmas morning marriage proposal. To make this visit even better, our secondborn daughter will be home all that week on break from her first semester of graduate school. So, YAY! Thanksgiving with our daughters and son-in-law and the three grandparents will be soul-warming and prefect, even if the turkey is slow to cook or the pies don’t come out perfectly.
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Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt was use of ordinal numbers.  Please join us! Details here:  http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-september-2714/

Badge by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions  socs-badge

One-Liner Wednesday: Richard Rohr quote

“Soulful people, invariably humble and honest about themselves, are also risk takers: they both know the rules and how to break them properly.”
– Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond (page 20)

Join in Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays:  http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/one-liner-wednesday-self-consciousness/

SoCS: average

Average is a mathematical construct. You add up all the numbers in a list, divide by the number of items in the list, and you call the result the average.

Other than that, I don’t find the term very helpful.

Average as a noun, as defined above is useful. Average as an adjective almost never is, especially when used to describe people.

A student could have received an average score on a test, as in the score matched the average score arrived at by summing up and dividing. That does not make the individual an average student.

We are each too unique and complex. No one can ever be average.

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This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays.  Join us! Read about it here: http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-september-2014/

One-Liner Wednesday: Hildegard of Bingen

“The earth which sustains humanity must not be injured, it must not be destroyed.”
~~~ Hildegard of Bingen

I chose this quote for today because this is the feast day of Saint Hildegard of Bingen and because of the upcoming People’s Climate March in New York City on Sunday.

Join in with Linda’s One Liner Wednesday:  http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/one-liner-wednesday-sleeping-in/

 

SoCS – funny

My heart sank when I saw Linda’s prompt for SoCS this week: funny. I have missed the last couple of weeks due to illness and wanted to participate this week, but here is the thing – the last word which anyone would use to describe me is funny. Not haha funny and not even peculiar/funny.

I’m much more likely to be described as serious or thoughtful. I don’t joke. I do have a sense of humor, but it is in reacting to others, not any real ability to be amusing myself.

Sorry, Linda, but I fail at funny. I’m sure, though, that lots of other SoCS participants will succeed splendidly at being funny and end your week with levity. Cheers to you and to them!

JC

This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. Join us! Read all about it here: http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-september-1314/

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badge by Dooobster @Mindful Digressions

First Blogaversary!

Today is my first blogaversary.

This is my 164th post, which includes some re-blogs from other bloggers and the occasional re-blog of one of my own posts.  I’ve at least proved to myself that I can keep a blog going, resolving what was the biggest doubt in my mind at the start.

I have been happy to read and follow other blogs, especially those that, like Top of JC’s Mind, are eclectic in their choice of topics for posts.  I am very grateful for Jason Cushman of HarsH ReaLiTy for his generosity via re-posts, meet and greet threads, guest author posts, and blogging advice posts.  I also grateful for Linda Hill for her features, One-Liner Wednesdays and Stream of Consciousness Saturdays.  I have connected to many blogs that I follow and have gained a good share of the followers that I have through following, reading, commenting, and meeting other bloggers on their blogs.

I am also grateful for my readers and my stalwart band of followers.  I realize that some are more interested in certain kinds of posts, such as poetry.  I’ve tried not to drown you all in anti-fracking commentary, which is a frequent topic in my daily writing.  Believe me, if I cross-posted all my fracktivist activity, there would probably be at last 500 posts this year.  Such is life on the NY/PA border! 😉

In the coming year, I’m hoping to learn to do more with images with my blog.  I want to get some of our Hawai’i pictures uploaded and re-post my travel posts from May with photos.  I also hope to continue to refine the look of my blog, either with a new theme or by tweaking the one I am using.  I am very slow on the uptake with techie things, although I did finally get an image uploaded so that ,when I comment, there is my picture rather than a graphic.  Score one for me!  I know it will be good if I can use images on most posts so that the Facebook and WordPress shares are more striking. I just need to learn how to do it without it taking too much time and fiddling and without violating anyone’s copyright.  The upshot is I’m much better with words than images!

Anyone have any advice/requests/well-wishes they would like to bestow?  Just pop down to the comments and let me know!

JC