Monday poetry and lots

Friday wrap up

(*image from Google.)

Well, I have been away. It was why I was not updating this week. I rented a car on Monday with a plan in mind… Yeah, as usual, nothing went as I planned.

The plan was to go to North Carolina and see my brother. Then I would head slightly north to see my eldest son and meet my newest grandson. From there I would go up to the hotel room I rented near my childhood babysitter and my dad.

I got half way to my first stop, running behind… It took over an hour to rent the car due to a bank snafu. My brother is not too far from my best friend. She lives roughly an hour to an hour and a half from him. Now, mind that I had not been able to do the in person meet with her yet. So I kinda figured that I would stay half an hour to an hour with my brother… Yeah… Lol, I think I ended up staying three. I knew that neither my brother nor my son had the space for my daughter and I. I also realized that making it to my motel was not happening that day.

I asked my bestie if I could come meet her. I was not sure yet what I was going to do about sleep. We would cross that bridge when we got there. If nothing else we would crash in the car. Of course she agreed, and insisted that we crash on her couch. (She has a huge couch that easily fit both of us). She fed us and we enjoyed the visit. We stayed there overnight and then I had to force myself to leave when the time came.

The next stop was to my son’s house. I ended up running later there because of rush hour traffic in Raleigh. That was not fun. My daughter was “Dj’ing” and we spent a great deal of time talking. Still traffic made me have to concentrate more on the actual driving.

The rental was really good on gas. So I really only had to fill up three times the whole trip. The gas prices are so much better in North Carolina, and in Virginia as well. Here in West Virginia, gas prices are around two eighty. I think that the highest price I paid was $2.55.

I got to finally meet with my beautiful grandson. He is such a active and happy little man. My son and his family welcomed us with dinner. Both my bestie and my son’s mother-in-law spoiled my daughter, making her feel so special.

We stayed with my son and his family for about three hours. His house is around three hours to the motel… We pulled up to the motel around two thirty in the morning. Check out was eleven, and we couldn’t afford to miss it. So I did a shower, as I felt so gross, and crashed.

The original plan had me staying at the motel three days. The car had to be back by Thursday noon. So I had to be home Wednesday night sometime.

I got to visit my dad, and my childhood babysitter. I enjoyed myself. The downside is that I spent the majority of this week driving, or peopling. I am exhausted. I have poetry challenges to still catch up on. I have done no writing this week really. Nor really any art. Next week I will be posting again on schedule. Monday poetry, Tuesday Tunes, Wordless Wednesday, Thursday Tea Party, and Friday writing. Thank you for being patient with me.

Monday Poetry

It’s Raining Men – Patricia Harris

This one was fun to write.

braveandrecklessblog's avatarBrave & Reckless

Patricia Harris is a dreamer, crafter, gamer and digital artist who loves creativity in life. She is a devoted mom who can be found doing a variety of art when she isn’t penning poetry and writing words. For more from Patricia, check out Facebook or her blog.

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I Kissed A Girl – Patricia Harris

I am loving this challenge. I look forward to doing more of it.

braveandrecklessblog's avatarBrave & Reckless

Patricia Harris is a dreamer, crafter, gamer and digital artist who loves creativity in life. She is a devoted mom who can be found doing a variety of art when she isn’t penning poetry and writing words. For more from Patricia, check out Facebook or her blog.

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True Colors – Patricia Harris

My poem was found worthy!

braveandrecklessblog's avatarBrave & Reckless

Patricia Harris is a dreamer, crafter, gamer and digital artist who loves creativity in life. She is a devoted mom who can be found doing a variety of art when she isn’t penning poetry and writing words. For more from Patricia, check out Facebook or her blog.

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Prompt me

So I have posted prompts for poetry before. Prompts are useful in all forms of creativity. It is the best way to Spark that muse for many.

There’s prompts for all of the writing styles out there. I have seen prompts for journal, journalism, short stories, dialogue, poetry, and characters. There is also prompts for art/sketchbooks.

Where do you find prompts? I find a lot on tumblr. There are blogs that post daily prompts. Pinterest is also a good place for this. I found several boards in a single search just today.

For me, prompts are not a guarantee that I will be inspired. It is like a focus, sometimes it will help me to see an idea… Others it is just words that don’t have any meaning. I used to turn my nose up at the idea of using prompts. It felt like I was cheating… After all, how is the idea mine if I am using prompts? It took me time to realize that the art, poetry, or writing is still mine. It is in how I handle the idea that makes it my own.

Time flies

Tuesday I did a “date” with my teenage daughter. This is time for her and I where she is the absolute center of my attention. Don’t get me wrong… She always has my attention. However, as mom, there is a million things that have my attention. Our dates are where dad, house, writing, and other assorted hats that I wear are thrown in the closet for the time we are together. This time we watched some television (her choice of shows) and made bath bombs.

Bath bombs are apparently more her craft than mine. She was brilliant with the crafting. Hers stayed together better, and generally were neater.

Making bath bombs were easy and fun. The recipe we used was:

1 cup baking soda

1/2 cup Epsom salts

1/2 cup citric acid

1/2 cup corn starch

1 tbsp water

1 tbsp mineral oil

1 tsp essential oil

4-6 drops food color

She made some neat variation in the color of the bombs. I only had picked up a very basic mold set as I was unsure whether or not we would enjoy it or not. She wants to continue with crafting them, so I have been eyeballing some other equipment on Amazon.

Y’all would not believe the mess this made. My dining room is covered in a layer of dust.

Black food coloring comes out a dark green.

You really have to put some pressure on the mold to get the bombs to hold together. There is a definite need for patience with this.

I was responsible for the “half ” bombs. One I made split after being set to the side to dry. The bombs need to sit for 48 hours to dry.

Mistakes were made. But isn’t that part of the fun?

The drying rack at the end of the making. All in all the bath bombs were not incredibly expensive to make. Walmart carries many of the supplies cheaply. It was a fun adventure with my girl.

Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday Tea Party

Hi all! Hopefully you had a good memorial day. I have a few announcements. And I am about to take a vacation… The first in years.

My first announcement is that I am going to be part of a new ezine/blog. We will be focusing on indie authors. We are going to accept submissions of stories, poetry, and art. It will be at faecorpspublishing. It is also the publishing house that we will be using to publish Under the mists anthology. We are looking at a July release of the anthology. I can tell you the stories in Under the mists are a wonderful read. We are already discussing what our next anthology topic will be.

My vacation is a roadtrip with my daughter. I will try to take pictures to share. I plan to visit my brother, meet my beautiful new grandson, visit my son, visit my dad, and see my babysitter. I haven’t seen my babysitter in 20+ years. She was a second mom when I was a kid. I am looking forward to the trip and the girl time with my teenager. We are going to start today by making bathbombs to take as gifts.

I plan to do some prescheduled posts for next week. However I cannot promise to do a daily post as I am busy packing for a trip that is longer than I have been on in twenty some years.

I hope that I will have a lot more to post about in the months ahead. Between the new publishing group and other upcoming events, I think that I will have much to share with you.