Summer with cj Continues

Jenny Matlock has done it again, thrown us a slider. This week our assignment is to continue a previous Saturday Centus post - ours or someone else’s - with the usual 100 word limit. Her button is on my sidebar, so check it out. It’s a wonderful writing exercise, and for me this week, a great outlet for anger and frustration and pain.

I am continuing “What I did over my Summer Vacation.” My addition is in bold type. And yes, it is true.



What I did over my Summer Vacation


I went to Miami, not to vacation, but to see to my son, who was bitten by a Brown Recluse spider and nearly lost his hand. I got calls from the mental hospital where he went because he started hearing voices again.

I began my job with Hospice, and after two weeks, I was tossed from the high dive in to the deep end of the pool - ten patients for me to take over. I sweated and ministered and prayed and was prayed over. I did not drown. I’m still swimming and ready for whatever tomorrow brings.

I am grateful.

As my son heals and readjusts, the crippling heat in Georgia continues, and I spend my work days driving from house to house, seeing to my patients. The full moon brought a spate of deaths, most pain free and serene.

One, though, was an agonal and torturous leaving. Her children refused morphine, accused me of trying to kill her with it, insisted I not enter her room without an appointment.

The anguish on that woman’s face will never leave me. She was dead before we could make an appointment that suited her daughter.

She is at peace. And I’m grateful.




This post is linked to Saturday Centus.



Read more at The Red Sweater.

Waiting

Late again for Six Word Fridays! Fridays at work are hard, so I rely on Melissa’s patience to allow me to squeeze my entry in on Saturday. She runs this very cool blog hop in which she gives us a word or prompt. We can use six words to say it all, but I am rarely capable of that, so here is a little poem of six word lines. You will find Six Word Fridays on my sideboard, so click on over the join us. It’s a great writing exercise and a wonderful opportunity to network.



Waiting


Waiting is hard, no one wants
to wait in a queue for
a cab or a ride at
the amusement park when it’s hot.
Waiting for payday is never easy.
Unless, of course you don’t need
the money. Hah! We all need
to pay the bills and feed
the dogs and ourselves and sometimes
have friends for dinner and use
the fancy French coffee maker from
Lyons that entertains the guests as
you finish up with the preparations.
Waiting sucks. Who wants to wait
for a plane that is late
or a bus that cannot be
seen, so far down the street
it is? I wait impatiently every
month for the first Saturday so
I can attend my writer’s workship,
see my precious granddaughter at the
same time. I am not patient.
Well maybe I am patient - occasionally
but not often enough to say
it’s a habit, a good habit.

Summer with cj

Jenny Matlock hosts Saturday Centus, a writing meme in which we are allowed 100 words to write a little essay or story. Jenny gives us a prompt, and from there, we begin to build our submission for the week. Please click on the Saturday Centus button on my sidebar to join in. You will find some good writing that runs the gamut from silly to serious.





What I did over my Summer Vacation


I went to Miami, not to vacation, but to see to my son, who was bitten by a Brown Recluse spider and nearly lost his hand. I got calls from the mental hospital where he went because he started hearing voices again.

I began my job with Hospice, and after two weeks, I was tossed from the high dive in to the deep end of the pool - ten patients for me to take over. I sweated and ministered and prayed and was prayed over. I did not drown. I’m still swimming and ready for whatever tomorrow brings.

I am grateful.



(Yes, this is true). Read more at The Red Sweater.

MMOM - cj Schlottman

Woops! It’s already Tuesday, and I haven’t yet posted on Java’s great blog hop, Meet Me on Monday. Every Sunday she posts questions for us to answer that might reveal more about ourselves than just what is in our blog posts. It’s a “get acquainted” kind of thing! Her button is on my sidebar, so click on over and join in!

Here are today;s questions and my answers:


1. What is your favorite dessert?
Creme Brulee!

2. What do you wear to bed?
Panties and my late husband’s Red Sweater

3. Do you get regular manicures/pedicures?
Yes! I need pampering - lots of it.

4. Did you play any sports in high school?
Nope. I gave up swimming when I learned
about boys!

5. Do you have an iPod?
I have THREE - Classic, Nano and Shuffle.
I adore gadgets of all kinds, but I
haven’t gotten an iPhone because I’m
addicted to my Blackberry.

Christmas Eve

Saturdays come around so soon these days. Having a JOB has cut into all of my time, but I am determined to make time for Jenny Matlock’s Saturday Centus, my favorite meme. Each Saturday, Schoolmistress Jenny gives us a prompt around which to write a 100 word story - I have even seen poems - not counting the words in the prompt. The trick is to keep the prompt intact and keep your piece to 100 words. You will find the Saturday Centus button on my side bar, so click on it and become part of this wonderful writing exercise. That’s why we’re all here. Right? We are writers who want to be better writers.

This week’s prompt is:

I listened to them from my perch on the top step and didn't know whether to laugh or to cry...

Here is my post for this week. You will see the prompt in bold letters.


It was after midnight, and my five year old head was spinning. Would he come? Did Santa exist? I thought so, but my brother, Henry, said Santa was made up just to trick little kids.

I heard a sound downstairs and slid out of my bed, cracked my door and squeezed through it into the hall.

“Hang it all, Gladys! I’ll never get this bike put together! Why don’t they write instructions in a language that’s understandable?”

“Shhh, Hank, you’ll wake the kids and Sally won’t believe in Santa.”

I listened to them from my perch on the top step and didn't know whether to laugh or to cry...
so I tiptoed into my room and cried my eyes out.



This post is linked to Saturday Centus.

08/12/10

It’s time again for Six Word Fridays, and I am posting on time this week! This blog hop is hosted by Melissa at Making Things Up, and each week she gives us a word or prompt. The rules are simple. Using six words, or maybe a poem with six word lines, write what the prompt brings to the end of your pen. You will find her URL on my sidebar, so click on over and start taking part! (Read my post first, of course)! If you are a poet or a lover or poetry, please visit me at My Poems. There aren’t a great many there, but I would love to share.

This week’s prompt: “This Much I Know”

I am feeling sad and wounded and my contribution reflects that. I am reminded of the famous quotation from Ernest Hemingway:
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.



This Much I Know

My head spins with confusion, angst
has me in a headlock, squeezing
my confidence into tiny bitter pills
that scorch my throat, burn holes
in my stomach as they force
their way into my blood, muscle
skin, now prickled, spiked with pain.

Gone. Forever? I extend my hand
am rebuffed, left alone to feel
my tears trickle, splash against my
seared cheeks, seep into the sides
of my mouth. This much I know.





This Post is Linked to Six Word Fridays

Tell Me More Tuesdays

Today I am introducing another blog hop to Small Stories and Stuff. It’s called Tell Me More Tuesdays, and you will find Traci’s button on my sidebar. It is a great follow-up to Java’s Meet me on Monday. Like Java, Traci gives a series of questions that are are intended to help us get to know one another better. Read my answers first, of course! Then click over to join the hop.


?s for 8/9 are:
************
1. Can you swim?
Yes. I swam competitively until I was 14 - backstroke and breaststroke. I held a regional record in Georgia for girls 15 and under for years!

2. Is telling a lie ok?
No. I just broke up with my friend-boy because I found out what a liar he is. Every time I lie about something, I pay for it, Then, again, sometimes it's okay not to tell the whole truth to spare someone's feelings.

3. Do you have any body piercings?
One hole per earlobe.

4. Are you related to anyone famous?
I am a direct descentant of Robert E. Lee.

5. Do you have any tips on approaching companies about sponsoring reviews and/or giveaways?
No. That is way out of my field! I'm a writer and a nurse and that's about all I can handle.

6. What is the best thing you have ever won?
Over the course of the last ten years, I have won about $6000.00 in a friendly betting pool around the four major golf tournaments! Alas, the owner of the pool retired it. I was the only one who ever one it more than once!

7. Is sex ok before marriage? (I kinda borrowed this one).
Yes. You wouldn't buy a pair of shoes without trying them on, would you?

8. If you borrow something for someone should you return it? And in what shape?
Absolutely! ASAP and in the shape you received it.

Meet Me On Monday

08/08/10

Gad! Mondays roll around too fast now that I'm working, so I'm posting on Sunday night as a part of Meet Me On Monday, Java’s blog hop that reveals more about us than might be gleaned from our posts. She poses a set of questions for us to answer and these are the ones for tomorrow:


1. Do you watch any Soap Operas?
I watched Guiding Light from the time I was in tenth grade until it went off the air. I was devastated when I lost my soap opera family.

2. What appliance is used the most in your house?
My washer and dryer, followed by my coffee maker. I don’t cook since my husband died, except for very small groups, so I rarely have dirty dishes.

3. Do you wear make-up every day?
Nope. In this heat, it just rolls off my face! Thank goodness I inheritied my mother’s clear skin, and since I have been using Lastisse, my lashes are long and dark, and I have a little stain of eyeliner from the product.

4. What is your worst pet-peeve?
This is not easy, but if I have to choose just one, it’s wild-ass drivers who think they own the road.

5. What is your favorite lunch meat?
I don’t eat lunch meat! I try to eat whole foods, so I mostly eat fruits and veggies. If I eat meat, it has to be cooked by me! (And since I rarely cook any more...........)

Wish I had time to post great photos like Java, but alas, this is the best I can do.

NIce to meet you!

Closer to My Heart

After missing last week's Saturday Centus except for reading others' posts, I a glad to be back. This is my favorite meme, and I am determined that my work schedule not keep me away. Jenny Matlock's prompt this week was, at first, a real puzzler for me, but after I published a post on my blog, The Red Sweater, the meme wrote itself. You will find the Saturday Centus button on my sidebar. Please click and join the wonderful writers you will meet there. Here is my contribution for this week. You will see the prompt in bold letters.


My mind wandered as I drove over country roads, verdant and more lush than to be expected in the incredible August heat wave. Checking my rear view mirror occasionally as I usually do, I saw the small town of Barnesville dissolve in the distance and turned my thoughts back to Jenny’s prompt.

Objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear...

I had just left a dying man, having been at his home by a fluke, and I had treated him and taught his family how to help him die.

Yes, objects in my rear view mirror were much closer to my heart than they appeared.



This post is linked to Saturday Centus.