"Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Writing Well"
Oh look! Another wonderful excuse to scan old pictures and bore you to tears!! Yay!
Me. Thinking I’m all that because I have a camera in my hand. This was taken in 1989 by Lake Springfield. Kevin and I were really big into photography back then and we had gone on a “shoot.”
I’m holding an old Olympus 35 MM camera (which I never did learn how to use properly because I’m an idiot. But ya’ll knew that so ….)
Are you ready for some fun ideas to keep your kids busy this next week?
Here are five ideas to get the creative juices flowing (and please, take these ideas, build on them, make them your own, use them as a springboard for bigger and better ideas):
Day One – Encourage your child to check out two books this month from the library.
Day Two – Write a list of your child’s favorite animals. Talk about what makes each animal special.
Day Three – Include your child in preparing a healthy meal. Talk about the importance of healthy eating – try something new, like couscous or tofu.
Day Four – Explain origin of holidays, such as Independence Day.
Day Five – Ask your child to write a thank you note or write a note to a relative or friend.
Featured Craft of the Week:
Toddlers
Prints Charming
4 to 5 year olds
Yogurt Cup Shakers
6 to 8 year olds
Recycled Bird Feeder
9 to 12 year olds
Mable Maze
Here is a fun activity from the book, “A Lithgow Palooza!”:
Pulpture
What I love about this palooza is that it’s a sneaky combination of brainstorming, problem-solving, and making art.
What to do:
Use the news to create an unusual work of art. A work in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City called Bedspring is a mixed-media assemblage on wire bedspring created in 1960 by artist Jim Dine. Dine’s work is composed of old clothing, bedsprings, crumpled paper, and other trash taken from the city streets. Have a look at Bedspring and try not to want to create an assemblage or sculpture just like it. That’s the idea behind Pulpture: create a spontaneous work of art made from newspaper, twine and tape.
Forget about recycling for a week and save stacks of newspapers for Pulpture. Gather a good-sized stack of papers, several day’s or a week’s worth if possible, along with masking tape and twine. Clear a workspace in the family room or kitchen, or set up outdoors in the yard or on a patio or driveway in nice weather. Parents give yourselves over to this one, and don’t worry about containing the mess, at least initially.
The goal is to create a Pulpture, aka newspaper sculpture, using the paper, twine, and tape in any way you can imagine. Think crumpled paper. Think folded paper. Think paper taped to the twine. Think about how it’s possible to tape one piece of crumpled paper to another to create a figure. Or how a Pulpture can hang from twine that is taped or tied to the ceiling or to other household objects. Pulptures can also be mounted with tape onto everyday items such as a garbage can lid, a sled, or a tricycle. Or Pulptures can stand on their own. How might a Pulpture stand up — perhaps folded paper bases and tripod constructions — figuring it out is the most satisfying part of this process.
You can work for hours (or days, if the spirit moves). Have at it for as long as it takes. Make Pulpture animals or human figures. Pulpture buildings. Pulpture forts. Alternatively, use a timer and a start a frenzy of Pulpture design and construction. Who can make the tallest Pulpture in five minutes or less?
Name the Pulptures and — here’s the best part — display the sculptures prominently in your home for a week. Out of respect for the art and artist, of course. Take pictures. Invite the neighbors in for the Pulpture Gallery opening.
How To Shower Like a Woman
Take off clothes and place them sectioned in laundry basket according to lights and darks.
Walk to bathroom wearing long dressing gown.
If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.
Look at your womanly physique in the mirror – make mental note to do more sit-ups/leg-lifts, etc.
Get in the shower.
Use face cloth, arm cloth, leg cloth, long loofah, wide loofah and pumice stone.
Wash your hair once with cucumber and sage shampoo with 43 added vitamins.
Wash your hair again to make sure it’s clean.
Condition your hair with grapefruit & mint enhanced conditioner.
Wash your face with crushed apricot facial scrub for 10 minutes until red.
Wash entire rest of body with ginger nut and jaffa cake body wash.
Rinse conditioner off hair.
Shave armpits and legs.
Turn off shower.
Squeegee off all wet surfaces in shower. Spray mould spots with tile cleaner.
Get out of shower.
Dry with towel the size of a small country. Wrap hair in super absorbent towel.
Return to bedroom wearing long dressing gown and towel on head.
If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.
How To Shower Like a Man
Take off clothes while sitting on the edge of the bed and leave them in a pile.
Walk naked to the bathroom.
If you see wife along the way, shake willy at her making the ‘woo-woo’ sound.
Look at your manly physique in the mirror.
Admire the size of your willy and scratch your bum.
Get in the shower.
Wash your face. Wash your armpits.
Blow your nose in your hands and let the water rinse them off.
Fart and laugh at how loud it sounds in the shower.
Spend majority of time washing privates and surrounding area.
Wash your bum, leaving those coarse bum hairs stuck on the soap.
Wash your hair. Make a shampoo Mohawk.
Wee.
Rinse off and get out of shower. Partially dry off.
Fail to notice water on floor because curtain was hanging out of bath the whole time.
Admire willy size in mirror again.
Leave shower curtain open, wet mat on floor, light and fan on.
Return to bedroom with towel around waist.
If you pass wife, pull off towel, shake willy at her and make the ‘woo-woo’ sound again.
Throw wet towel on bed.
I did not write these tips. These tips, and many more like these, can be found at Common Errors in English. So, if you disagree with these rules, then please, don’t kill the messenger. These are here just for your learning/entertainment, nothing more, and nothing less.
Now that you know my disclaimer, let’s move on to the juicy stuff … *rubs hands together in glee* …
(Some of these seem pretty obvious – but if you read as many blogs as I do – you’d be surprised how many confused people there are out there. I don’t care how much it is argued, grammatically incorrect writing makes writers look foolish).
1. BACK/FORWARD/UP IN TIME: For most people you move an event forward by scheduling it to happen sooner, but other people imagine the event being moved forward into the future, postponed. This is what most—but not all—people mean by saying they want to move an event back—later. Usage is also split on whether moving an event up means making it happen sooner (most common) or later (less common). The result is widespread confusion. When using these expressions make clear your meaning by the context in which you use them. “We need to move the meeting forward” is ambiguous; “we need to move the meeting forward to an earlier date” is not.
Just to confuse things further, when you move the clock ahead in the spring for daylight saving time, you make it later; but when you move a meeting ahead, you make it sooner. Isn’t English wonderful?
2. BETWEEN YOU AND ME: “Between you and me” is preferred in standard English. See I/me/myself.
3. BELOW TABLE: When calling your readers’ attention to an illustration or table further on in a text, the proper word order is not “the below table” but “the table below.”
4. BLATANT: The classic meaning of “blatant” is “noisily conspicuous,” but it has long been extended to any objectionable obviousness. A person engaging in blatant behavior is usually behaving in a highly objectionable manner, being brazen. Unfortunately, many people nowadays think that “blatant” simply means “obvious” and use it in a positive sense, as in “Kim wrote a blatantly brilliant paper.” Use “blatant” or “blatantly” only when you think the people you are talking about should be ashamed of themselves.
5. BORN/BORNE: This distinction is a bit tricky. When birth is being discussed, the past tense of “bear” is usually “born”: “I was born in a trailer—but it was an Airstream.” Note that the form used here is passive: you are the one somebody else—your mother—bore. But if the form is active, you need an “E” on the end, as in “Midnight has borne another litter of kittens in Dad’s old fishing hat” (Midnight did the bearing).
But in other meanings not having to do with birth, “borne” is always the past tense of “bear”: “My brother’s constant teasing about my green hair was more than could be borne.”
6. BROOCH/BROACH: A decorative pin is a “brooch” even though it sounds like “broach” — a quite different word. Although some dictionaries now accept the latter spelling for jewelry, you risk looking ignorant to many readers if you use it.
7. BEMUSE/AMUSE: When you bemuse someone, you confuse them, and not necessarily in an entertaining way. Don’t confuse this word with “amuse.”
8. BACKUP/BACK UP: To “back up” is an activity; “back up your computer regularly”; “back up the truck to the garden plot and unload the compost.”
A “backup” is a thing: “keep your backup copies in a safe place.” Other examples: a traffic backup, sewage backup, backup plan, backup forces.
Older writers often hyphenated this latter form (“back-up”), but this is now rare.
9. BIAS/BIASED: A person who is influenced by a bias is biased. The expression is not “they’re bias,” but “they’re biased.” Also, many people say someone is “biased toward” something or someone when they mean biased against. To have a bias toward something is to be biased in its favor.
See also “prejudice/prejudiced.”
10. BREACH/BREECH: Substitute a K for the CH in “breach” to remind you that the word has to do with breakage: you can breach (break through) a dam or breach (violate the terms of) a contract. As a noun, a breach is something broken off or open, as in a breach in a military line during combat.
“Breech” however, refers to rear ends, as in “breeches” (slang spelling “britches” ). Thus “breech cloth,” “breech birth,” or “breech-loading gun.”
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends,” means “let’s charge into the gap in the enemy’s defenses,” not “let’s reach into our pants again.”
11. BUTT NAKED/BUCK NAKED: The standard expression is “buck naked,” and the contemporary “butt naked” is an error that will get you laughed at in some circles. However, it might be just as well if the new form were to triumph. Originally a “buck” was a dandy, a pretentious, overdressed show-off of a man. Condescendingly applied in the US to Native Americans and black slaves, it quickly acquired negative connotations. To the historically aware speaker, “buck naked” conjures up stereotypical images of naked “savages” or—worse—slaves laboring naked on plantations. Consider using the alternative expression “stark naked.”
12. BREATH/BREATHE: When you need to breathe, you take a breath. “Breathe” is the verb, “breath” the noun.
13. BELIEF/BELIEVE: People can’t have religious “believes”; they have religious beliefs. If you have it, it’s a belief; if you do it, you believe.
By the by, if you’re hungry for more writing tips, you’ll find some EXCELLENT advice/lessons at Daily Writing Tips.
Visit the new Thursday 13 hub for more TT participants.
I’m SO with this guy. Lines drive me NUTS. Especially when I get behind someone who is obviously lacking a brain cell or two.
What about you? Do lines make you impatient?
Writing Prompt:
Write about an argument between two people. Your definition of people can be as loose as you want it to be.
Brace yourselves, this is edgy stuff. 🙂
By the way, this is fictional and didn’t really happen.
Or did it? 😉
_________________________
“Yeah! Hang on a sec honey, let me check my emails.”
Karen curled a leg under her and sat down in her brown, and slightly stained, computer chair. She clicked on her Yahoo email box and was surprised to see five messages from someone called LabelGrl. She clicked on the oldest first.
“Hi Karen! Love your blog! Look, I have a question. Could you sign onto your Yahoo Messenger account so we can talk?”
“How did this girl know about my Messenger account?” Karen mumbled under her breath. She proceeded to check the remaining four messages but they all asked the same thing, only the way it was asked changed slightly.
“Uh, okay. Sure, I’ll bite.” Karen signed onto her account and proceeded to check the rest of her messages. She had just clicked on the second one when she received an IM from LabelGrl.
LabelGrl: “Hi Karen!”
Karen arched a brow and typed back, “Hey LabelGrl. What’s up?”
LabelGrl: “Yeah, thanks for signing on. Look, I have a question concerning the video bit you posted today.”
“The … what?” Karen asked her computer monitor as she minimized the chat window and looked at her blog. Was LabelGrl talking about the “Who Owns a Pair of Mom Jeans” entry?
Karen: “Um, okay.”
LabelGrl: “The thing is … why did you post it?”
Karen blinked and typed her response. “Because I thought it was funny.”
LabelGrl: “To whom?”
Karen bit back a grin and was secretly impressed that LabelGrl used whom instead of who. “Well, I thought it was funny.”
LabelGrl: “So you think fat women are funny.”
Karen: “What in the world are you talking about?”
LabelGrl: “That video implies that women have to have a nine-inch zipper in order to get jeans over their fat asses.”
Karen thought about that for a moment before nodding at the screen. “And …?”
LabelGrl: “And you thought that was appropriate to post on your blog?”
Karen: “It’s a Saturday Night Live skit, yeah, I thought it was funny. Saturday Night Live cracks me up.”
LabelGrl: “Well, I didn’t appreciate it.”
Karen: “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
LabelGrl: “Take it off.”
Karen: “Take what off.” She knew what she was asking; she just couldn’t believe she was asking it.
LabelGrl: “The skit. Take it off your blog. It’s hateful and derogatory.”
Karen: “Let me get this straight … you’re asking me to remove something from my own blog because you didn’t like it?”
LabelGrl: “Yes.”
Karen: “Look. I’m sorry you found the bit offensive, but SNL has a reputation for being edgy and a tad tacky and though this piece is certainly not the most flattering to moms, I still think it was funny because in some ways, it’s true.”
LabelGrl: “So, you ARE making fun of fat people!”
Karen sighed at the screen and continued to type. “No, I think the skit was mainly making fun of moms and their fashion choices. I really don’t think it had anything to do with a size of a woman’s ass.”
LabelGrl: “So now you’re making fun of moms.”
Karen: “I think you’re putting words into my mouth. No, I’m not making fun of moms. I’ve caught myself falling into this same trap. Hell, I’ve even wore the vest they advertised at the end of the skit!”
LabelGrl: “I’m disappointed, Karen. I really liked your blog and you’ve disappointed me.”
Karen: “I’m truly sorry to hear that, LabelGrl. I know SNL stuff doesn’t appeal to everyone.”
LabelGrl: “I’m not the only one disappointed, Karen. There are lots of bloggers who think you take your humor too far.”
Karen: “Oh?”
LabelGrl: “Yeah, so if you want to continue receiving traffic from (such-and-such) blogroll, I suggest you remove that offensive skit immediately.”
Karen couldn’t resist asking the burning question, “Or … what?”
LabelGrl: “You’ll lose readers.”
Karen: “And that’s okay.”
LabelGrl: “What! How can you say that? Don’t you care?”
Karen: “Of course I care but I’m not going to change my personality every five minutes to accommodate a certain type of crowd, nor do I plan on censoring what I do post, or do not post on my blog. I’m truly sorry if this skit offended you, but I simply posted something that I thought was funny and that I thought other readers might find funny, too. The whole purpose of my blog is to make people laugh and share a bit of my boring, mundane life. That’s it. I’m not doing this to generate hits or gain popularity.”
LabelGrl: “I think it was a bitchy thing to do.”
Karen: “I’m sensing you have issues. I’ve said I was sorry, it’s not like I made the stupid thing myself. I’m simply a messenger.”
LabelGrl: “I DO NOT HAVE ISSUES! I’m only speaking as a concerned reader.”
Karen: “And I appreciate your concern, really. And again, I’m sorry you were offended. But I’m not taking it off.”
LabelGrl: “Fine. I’m never visiting your blog again.”
Karen stopped typing her response as soon as she noticed LabelGrl sign off. “I didn’t mean to make anyone mad.”
“What’s going on?” Karen’s husband said over her shoulder.
“I made a reader mad because of an SNL skit I posted about mom jeans.” She brought up the offending post and sat back so her husband could watch it.
He laughed. “It’s funny.”
“That’s what I thought!”
“And true,” he said.
She blinked up at him. “Do you think so?”
“Yeah. A lot of women DO have fat asses and wear unflattering, frumpy clothes after having kids.”
“Wait a minute,” Karen got out of her computer chair and faced her husband. “You try pushing an 8 pound baby through the opening the size of a straw and think …”
He held up his hands to fend off her temper. “I’m just saying …”
“I know what you’re saying,” she snapped back. Suddenly, she didn’t find the Mom Jean’s skit very funny either.
thursday thirteen
Write From Karen 