I put a lot of bang in each post. Some prefer to have separate entries but I like keeping it all together. Don’t feel obligated to read every word but you’re certainly welcome. I more than understand if you’re looking for a particular thing and don’t have time, just scroll down to find the segment that brought you here today.
I’m going to begin by joining the IWSG. This is my second month in a row to participate. See, I’m committed. At least, I’m trying to be. 🙂 This month’s question is Everyone has a favorite genre or genres to write. But what about your reading preferences? Do you read widely or only within the genre(s) you create stories for? What motivates your reading choice? I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it but I don’t enjoy reading anything of great length. I wrote many years ago briefly how I never got into the reading click. My initial disinterest stems from bad childhood experiences. I stumbled through the whole learning how to read process and I had a teacher who lacked patients and tenderness to deal with a child who fell behind. The truth is every child learns at a different pace. The worst part is this teacher ridiculed intentionally or not those who couldn’t keep up. Nothing is worse to a young child than to feel belittled in front of her peers. It really causes one’s self-esteem to bottom out. From that point, I felt less intelligent and less accepted by others. Around grades five and six, my best friend, who was an avid reader introduced me to the world of reading. Her parents encouraged her interests by building her private library with some of her favorites. She let me borrow me her Nancy Drew books. I had no problem reading silently and soon found I enjoyed books. This helped to boost my confidence in time. Throughout my childhood years continuing through high school, my BFF, shared her book collections ranging from Harlequin Romance to Dean Koontz. I don’t know if I ever thanked her for sparking this interest but I do give her the credit. Once I started college, reading for pleasure didn’t happen often and then career life followed. I did manage to squeeze in a few novels once in awhile but after our first child was born then I really lost all interest in reading anything more than magazine articles or bedtime stories. As our family grew, I only had time for short spurts of reading and if I attempted to read anything of length, like a book I found I couldn’t keep my focus on the material. That’s when I pretty much gave up reading books. I feel I’m out of touch with this month’s question but in a way I could say I prefer non-fiction because after all I do a lot of blogging reading which is mainly people sharing their interests with me, real life stuff. What motivates me read the blog content that I do is you. In the 10 years of blogging I have made some good friends. The common bond that brought us together keeps our relationship rolling along fueling a desire to read these daily posts to researching the Internet for blog content. Blogosphere not only opens my mind to what others share but spurs my curious side. I really can’t imagine my daily activity to not include my blog or my blog friends.
I invite you to take part of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group community, just click the button below and you’ll find you’ll be transported to their site. 😉
Moving right along with today’s song challenge. This week’s picks popped in my head fairly quickly. Sarah McLachlan, In the Arms of an Angel always comes to mind when I think of angel songs. A song with bad grammar in the title brought to mind a big complaint of an elementary English teacher on double negatives. We were really bad for saying something like “That ain’t no reason…” for which she was quick to correct our poor English. The Rolling Stones’ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction is a perfect example of double negatives. Two negatives give you a positive so Mick was really saying “I can get satisfaction”. 😀 The third prompt ‘ a number’, was a no-brainier as I went with One is the Loneliest Number by the Eagles. Anytime, I think of a number song this one comes to mind but it so happened I recently had to repair an older post featuring this tune. You’re invited to listen to my choices, just hit play.
I’m rounding things out with this week’s hodgepodge Q&A hosted by Joyce from this side of the pond.
1. Is March coming in like a lion where you live? Aslan, Simba, Elsa, The Cowardly Lion…your favorite ‘famous’ lion? March came in more like a lamb. My favorite lion character is perhaps Aslan.
2. In what way do you ‘march to the beat of your own drum’? I am not one motivated by fashion or what’s in and what’s not, and I don’t cave to peer pressure. I’m true to myself. It blows my mind when I see kids who act and dress like every other person yet they say they are unique. While it’s true they are unique in God’s eye, you’d never know it looking from the outside, though. These poor individuals are merely sheep.
3. What item that you don’t have already, would you most like to own? Any chance of that happening soon? A new-to-me house. Yes, there is a chance of this happening but first we must find it. An investment like this needs to be weighed carefully.
4. March is National Flour Month…are you a baker? Cookies-cakes-or pies…your favorite sweet treat to bake? What’s the last non-sweet thing you made that called for flour? Yes, I like baking. The last thing I made that wasn’t sweet is pizza.
5. There are 31 days in the month of March…where were you and what were you doing when you were 31? If you haven’t hit that milestone yet, then tell us where you were and what you were doing 31 months ago? (if math is not your thing, that would be August 3, 2018) I turned 31 in December 1992. That doesn’t give me a lot of time to do much, but in March of 1993 we were hit with a blizzard dumping almost two feet of snow on Knoxville. That was so wild because prior to the storm our weather was spring-like. We had just gotten our young daughters’ swing set a few days earlier with plans to put it up the weekend the snow arrived. No one did anything except stay indoors while we waited for Mother Nature to clear our street.
6. Insert your own random thought here. Years ago I made a spicy chicken casserole that we loved. I went to pull my recipe but couldn’t find it. After looking on the Internet I found one that sounded close to the way I remember the one I used. I served this for dinner Thursday night with some left over Green Chile Rice on the side which was a perfect compliment to the casserole. I’ll share the casserole recipe with you in just a minute. I had a large package of chicken in the freezer which was more than I needed for the recipe, so I decided to use part of it to make for the first time homemade chicken salad. I served the chicken salad on whole wheat bread with pickles and plain potato chips on the side. We had the sandwiches Friday night and again on Saturday. Both recipes turned out well but I think our favorite might have been the chicken salad since we had two nights in a row. Here are the modified recipes I used from various sources. Feel free to download your copy and adjusting to fit your taste if you want. 😉
Tomorrow I plan to be back for Rain’s art date along with another blog hop participation. I hope to see you here. Here’s hoping your day is as wonderful as I think you are! X💋X💋, Cathy
I’m linking with these Wordless Wednesday Communities… Sandee, Natasha, Marie, & Wordless Wednesday!