Mainely Write

It's time to read and vote!   All writers are anonymous at WRiTE CLUB.  You can still submit writing also, but you NEED to sign up even to vote.  The first two pieces of writing are up now, and there will be two more on Thursday.  Each piece is 500 words or fewer, so it doesn't take long to read and vote!  Enjoy!  I've submitted my piece...but you will not know which one it is because, again, it is a nonny mouse.  I've cast my vote today for one of the writers.  Hop on over there and take a peak at the two selections for today, sign in and vote!

Filling Your Shoes

You left your shoes for me to fill
Sometimes I put them on
And hear you still 
Some days I feel you in the air
Facing indecision
I see you there
Practical words you'd give today
And comfort bestow in
Your special way
In many ways that can't be known
You have lent me wisdom
Beyond my own
So when I wonder what to do
I can look inside me
And see you too.

©2012, Donna JT Smith

Today is the day!  I have had 10,000 hits on my blog!  Yea!

I've been blogging on Mainely Write for just under a year and a half...since March, 2011.  Over the past couple of days I've been watching the stats creep up to 9000 and past, and today, TODAY, I see 10,003.  I missed seeing the 10,000 exactly, but that's okay.  This is so neat.  Now, I'm going to see if I can get the next 10,000 in one year or less.  Not sure how that will happen, but it seems like a goal. I guess I could turn off the "Don't count my own hits" button.  I could really rack up the points that way!  But I won't do that.  I'd have hit 10,000 way before this if I had counted myself as a visitor!

I never had a goal when I started, except to write and write faithfully in a sort of faithful type manner, whatever that is.  I think I've been pretty faithfully writing, and oft times writing faithfully.

I need to think about how I want to celebrate my 10,000 mark.
I thank every…

One of our "things to do" on Saturday now, is to go out for breakfast.  And when I am out I have trouble ignoring the things I see around me.  Most of the time it is wonderful and I enjoy watching the sights and the people as they come and go.

But this Saturday, it just struck me.  We were in a nearby small breakfast/lunch restaurant.  If I were to pick a genre for the restaurant, it would be a diner, just not in an actual "diner" car as one would usually think of a diner being.  Anyway, it has a "sit-at-the-bar" area on one wall and 4 tables on the opposite wall, and two tables with windowseats and chairs in the front window.  It is a small place, that serves up homemade foods.  It has great food and delicious coffee.  The walls are painted a cheery yellow, with a sage green trim, and has small floral print cotton curtains on the windows.  It's a happy, kitcheny place to go for breakfast or lunch...no suppers - they're closed then.


Usually we ar…

Today is Poetry Friday and is being hosted by Tara, over at A Teaching Life.  Go there and enjoy sitting in the poets' corner today...have an ice cream while you read!

Does your dog enjoy a cold ice cream cone treat on these hot summer days?
Pippi says, "Make mine vanilla..."
I Don't Scream

I’d like a treat
If you don’t mind;
I’d like the kind
That you would eat.
Not just a bone,
Though that is good,
I think I would
Like a cone.

So, if you please,
Another ride
Where you have buyed
Cold sweets for these
Sweet tooths of mine.
I’ll lick it up;
Not in a cup
A cone is fine!

I know last time
I got brain freeze
And had to sneeze
And left some slime;
This time I’ll eat
Very neatly
And completely
In the back seat.

You’ll have no mess
I’ll eat with flair
No wear and tear,
Nor drippy-ness.
My tongue will wrap
Around my jaws,
and then my paws
I'll quickly lap.

Slurp steering wheel
Lick floor and door
Could I do more
To seal the deal?
I've heard it said
That you would sc…

Are you ready to try this? Here's the description from DL Hammons:

"Over the course of twelve weeks we’ll be holding weekly bouts to determine winners that will advance to the play-offs, which will ultimately lead to a single champion.  Bouts between who…or what…you ask.  Anonymous 500 word writing samples, submitted by anyone who wishes to take part, that’s who.   The submitted samples should be identified only by a pen name of your choosing (be creative) that nobody has ever seen before.  The writing can be any genre, any style (even poetry) with the word count being the only restriction.  It’s a way to get your writing in front of a lot of readers, without having to suffer the agony of exposure.  We’ll start accepting these submissions today and will continue to take them during the entire twelve week preliminaries, but beginning on July 30th, the first WRiTE will be held."

So head on over to Cruising Altitude 2.0 and sign up right away!  It sounds like it will be …

look down
swing up
then go again
the green goes on
forever

replace
retrace
then count your swings
the score is ending
never

deep grass sand trap
then in the pond
the hazards rather
clever

look far
look wide
then go inside
this was my last
endeavor
On Since You Asked, Dawn was talking about the relative safety of golf versus football for her two sons.  When anyone brings up the topic of golf, I am instantly transported back to my childhood experience with the sport of golf...and I just have to disagree with its receiving a "Sporting Safety Award".   I know, I know, it is generally a safe sport.  But in my household, with two brothers close in age, we two sisters observed many a safe sport or activity turn treacherous.  I learned a lot by watching them.  There were so many things I decided not to do.  I really should thank them officially some day.
So, about golf. My mom and dad had decided to take up golf.  It was a short-lived jaunt to the country club life, just before t…

Thanks Jone at Check It Out, for hosting Poetry Friday today.  If you are visiting here, go there and check out more awesome links to all things poetic posted by others.

I'm hoping to get a picture today of a seagull on a pole or post to put here.  I tried a couple of days ago, but none of the seagulls were interested in poles that day...only rooftops.

People hate them on rooftops.  What a mess!  We used to have 60 -100 that would sit atop our school roof adjacent to the parking lot.  Needless to say, we complained - a lot!   At the end of the day our cars looked like they'd been splattered with white paint.  It didn't come off easily, so you had to decide if you wanted to drive looking around that splat, or if you wanted to try to use your wipers and make a fine skim coat of it to look through.  The school actually has installed a rooftop speaker system that periodically plays the sound of an injured seagull, and that seems to keep them away now...not a very empathetic gr…

Yesterday I had the most fun with some flash fiction!  
I had gone to a website to see about inspiration and challenges for writing some flash fiction, and came across Flashpoints: a site-specific mass writing event.  The challenge was to go to a public place, bring a pen/pen and paper, look around and get inspired in the area to write something that relates to your flashpoint somehow, write your piece on only one side of the paper, leave the piece of writing for someone else to find and read, record with a photo where you left your piece of writing, submit the writing and photo to the web site.
So, I went to Starbucks after doing some errands, and while I was there I thought..."Hey, I could try this out here."
I didn't have any paper, but I got a napkin and wrote on one side of it.  Then I typed it into my iPad, so I'd have a digital copy to email in to the Flashpoint site.  I took a picture of the blue wall and lights there, referred to in my writing, with the writ…

Head on over to Tabatha Yeatts: The Opposite of Indifference, where this week's Poetry Friday is being hosted.  Thank you, Tabatha for hosting everything poetic this week! 
Okay, Linda, I did it. Thank you for the gritty grain of an idea you left in my comments from my previous post. And thank you Stacey for the idea for the "I Wish" poems from your Sunday, June 24 post.  I combined the two thoughts with my post from yesterday.

Two Rainbows and the Moon

I wish for you bright days ahead,
Joys full within your soul, 
A happiness that grows within,
As waves to shoreline roll.
I wish your days be long and light
With butterflies and breezes;
I wish for you the clearest skies
And nights with firefly teases.
When rain quenches the dry land's thirst,
May drops pit-pat a tune
And after that, be overhead
Two rainbows and the moon,
Reminders that forever more
Is just around the bend;
The past has just slipped past us and
To that we've put an end,
Today is what we ha…

I seem to have been so busy for the past two weeks, that it has been nearly impossible to settle my brain to writing something.  I have been either on the go or sleeping it seems.  There have been some good "Words With Friends" and "Spider Solitaire" games, too... perhaps that is when I should have been writing.  But it still seems like my games were more to try to settle in for sleeping after a long day.
So now I am sitting.  It is finally not too hot, too!  I cannot think in hot weather, and we've been having a bout of hot weather after all the rains.  We are still getting some great rains between sunshines.  Which reminds me of Sunday night.
Sunday night I drove home from church alone.  My husband had to catch an early flight the next morning out of Manchester (NH) to Salt Lake City, so we drove separately.  After evening church service, I headed home on my hour plus drive.  The sky was spectacular, but I was driving, so I couldn't get a picture of it wi…