Weekly Photo Challenge: Winter

Last winter on Gorsey Bank (the walk near our house):

I like snow when it covers street garbage.  The problem is, the garbage might be covered but the garbage is still there.

It might be a bit of a bleak midwinter here at Bud House: ATOS, the government’s benefit attack dogs, have called the Hub in for a medical.  As we hear of people with more serious illnesses being denied state assistance, I can’t help feeling a little anxious. 

I do believe the benefits system should be overhauled, but revolutions often bring casualties amongst those who start them.  Perhaps it will be our punishment for voting Conservative 🙂

In other news, I had my best month: my December stats currently stand at 15,005.  Perhaps I will be discovered, given an obscene book deal, and we can kiss benefits goodbye.

Hope is what keeps me going.  I so hope Bella chooses Jake over Edward.

 

The latest prompt was:

What ordinary skill are you bad at?

How much time do you have?

• Cooking
• Cleaning
• Taking photographs (all non-blurry photos on this blog are the Hub’s work; not mine)
• Driving
• Walking (Spud says I have a wonky walk that is hilarious from behind but difficult to walk alongside)
• Styling my own hair
• Answering prompts sensibly
• Not worrying

Something a little more cheerful:

 Happy New Year to my readers!

Rather an obvious Six Word Saturday, but when I have I ever been disobvious?  Non-obvious?  Unobvious?  Whatever. 

Happy New Year, and thanks for visiting.

Related articles

• Weekly Photo Challenge: Winter (thirdhandart.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Winter (beijingcityphoto.wordpress.com)
• http://romceg.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/weekly-photo-challenge-winter/#comment-1275

Joke 282

Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off?  He’s all right now.

Up To Date At Last With The Prompts!

Looking back at Post a Day 2011 — how’d you do?

I did okay.  I have posted 880 times so far this year; and people are still coming back for more.  Who’d have thunk it?

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Why is it hard to admit to a mistake?

It isn’t.  Here, I’ll show you:

Wearing an Alice band in my thirties was a huge mistake.  I have Perpetua from Bridget Jones’ Diary to thank for pointing out that particular fashion faux pas (not my first and definitely not my last).  I watched that film for the first time and immediately threw away my extensive Alice band collection.

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Would you rather have $50 million or live for an extra 50 years?

I’ll take the dosh.  Getting old hurts; what’s the point of all that extra time if you can’t even afford a pretty male nurse?

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Who is the most patient person you know?

The Hub.  He’s been sick forever.

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Sometimes you can make a topic appear out of nothing at all. Do the following.
Make sure you are somewhere safe.
Guess how long you can keep your eyes closed.
Close your eyes.
Start counting.
See how long you can go.

Write about any or all of:

How close your guess was to your actual performance.
What thoughts did your mind wander to while you were counting?
Did you feel any fear? Why or why not?

Speechless.

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Write a post honoring veterans

No jokes here.  I have written about our brave military, past and present, several times.  I am always moved and honoured by their courage.

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If you could change how schools work, what would you change?

Permission to leave at fourteen for the world of work; have the option to go back up to the age of nineteen to complete your studies for free.  No state benefits in between. 

Teenagers don’t want exams, they want money and fun.  Let them work for a few years and discover what they really want out of life.  At least they’d be productive.

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Find a word you don’t know, but like, and use it in a short, paragraph length, story, or a clever sentence. This satispassion should indemnify your vocabulary’s indigence.

What an example of aureateness this prompter has come up with!

Image via Wikipedia

Write a sequel to your favorite movie.

Terminator 5: John Connor finally nails those buggers.

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What was the best book or movie of the year?

Serenity. 

You didn’t say which year.

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Would you rather have have the ability to slow down time whenever you want, or to speed it up?

Only when I’m answering daft daft prompts.

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How do you define your identity?

Blogger!

What else?

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Joke 281

Today’s news: Police reinforcements were called to a day care centre.  A three-year-old was resisting a rest.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Between

A friend brought me some flowers on Christmas Eve.  So many, I took half to the cemetery when I went to visit Dad.  I had bought roses for him; I took one out and popped it between the carnations in my vase.  That made him sort of with us.

It is not my intention to be maudlin, so here are some more cheerful responses to WordPress prompts:

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Are you a good to people you don’t know?

Yes. With the notable exception of WordPress prompters who shove in random prepositions when writing prompts.

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What’s the longest you’ve ever walked in a single day?

I could write about Blackpool, England or Alberton, South Africa here, but the effects of my cold are such that just making it to the kitchen at the moment feels like I’ve crawled a marathon; so I won’t.

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Where do you find strength?

From the Hub. Whenever he talks to me I grit my teeth and say, ‘Give me strength…’

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What will you try to do everyday next year?

Avoid debilitating colds.

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Would you ever fight over a sneaker? (In Seattle, WA, several fights broke out at stores selling the new Air Jordan sneaker.)

Image via Wikipedia

 How shallow do you think I am?*

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What are some possible new years resolutions for you?

• Try not to be offended when people ask me insulting shoe questions
• Be nice to WordPress prompters
• Avoid debilitating colds

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Write about your oldest friend

You can read all about Viv in my France posts…

…oh, you meant, friend I’ve known the longest…

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When you go to an movie theater, do you prefer it to be empty so can sit anywhere you like? Or do you prefer a packed house like on opening night?

So long as there are no WordPress prompters bringing along spare prepositions but leaving their pronouns at home, I don’t mind.  Extraneous words make me uneasy and I don’t like to be around them.

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Finish this sentence: there are two kinds of people in the world, those that….

There are two kinds of people in the world, those that are comfortable around misplaced prepositions; and those that are not. 

Those that?  Those who, surely?  Or which?  And there are more than two kinds of people in the world.  I’m pretty certain about that. 

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who drive themselves nuts about silly things; and those who don’t.  Guess which kind I am.

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Joke 280

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

Twilight: A Real Horror Movie

I don’t watch horror movies; I watch few suspense movies; thrillers?  Not at all.  I don’t like feeling frightened.  I don’t read scary books.  I had to forego my daily dose of the excellent Kate Shrewsday over Christmas, because she wrote a three-day ghost story.  The Muppet Christmas Carol is as ghostly as it gets for me.

So vampires…forget it!  The Hub, before he fully understood my need to live in a bubble of niceness, made me watch Scream and Interview With The Vampire.  Being clutched from behind in the middle of a deep sleep in the middle of the night by a terrified wife who woke up and hallucinated giant spiders and pretty vampires and knife-wielding masked men gave him so many near-heart attacks that he decided to stop my film-nasties education, and never resumed it.  Particularly after the night I jumped out of bed, screaming ‘Fire!  Fire!’, having watched The Towering Inferno at last, because ‘it is a classic’, and he realised he was living in a nightmare of his own making. 

Cover of Twilight (Two-Disc Special Edition)

 

The Hub likes the Twilight movies.  I bought him the trilogy box set for Christmas, to the amusement of our sons, who laughed at him for being a teenage girl and offered to buy him a Robert Pattinson poster for his wall.

The Hub made me watch the first one.  He assured me I would love it; it wasn’t frightening.  He promised.  He swore.  He was right.  It wasn’t frightening.  I did love it.  It was a romance between a lonely teenage girl and one of the undead.  What could be more natural?

Robert Pattinson was sexy in Twilight; I’ll admit.  It’s not pervy of me to think that because he was seventeen in 1918 which makes him 110 by my reckoning; and that makes him the perv, if you think about it: chasing after a teenage girl.

He was brooding and dark and all of those things women like in a fictional man.  Not so much fun when you have to live with it, I imagine.  Edward (RP) wants Bella (Kristen Stewart); he enters her room while she’s asleep, and watches her.  Just stands there and watches her.  He doesn’t sleep, you see; so that’s okay then.  He follows her, but that’s all right because if he didn’t follow her, he couldn’t save her from the nasty gang of young men who have horrid thoughts about her.  Better the devil you know, I suppose.

Bella is much safer with Edward, because he will protect her from the really mean undead who want to dine on her.  Too bad he’s the one who exposed her to them in the first place.  And it’s fine that he tells her he can’t promise never to kill her, because she trusts him, you see; she loves him.

I loved this film; I did.  I’m eager to watch the sequels.  The Hub was right: it was a romance; it wasn’t frightening.  In the conventional sense.

But sending out the message to impressionable young women that it’s okay to love a man who stalks you and who tells you he might kill you one day?  That’s a real horror story.

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Postscript

Creating Reciprocity left such a great quote in the comments, I have added it here:

Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend. 

Stephen King

Joke 279

Thanks to Cindy for this one.

Somebody’s just thrown a massive lump of cheese at me!

I thought to myself, that’s not very mature.

It’s As Far Away As It Ever Was

That’s Christmas over with for another year.  How was yours?  I don’t really remember mine.  I have some photos so I’ll upload those at the end of this post and we can all find out together.

I have almost caught up with your posts that I get by email.  I may not have commented but I clicked ‘Like’ to let you know I read them (and because I liked them).  Tomorrow’s job is to catch up with the comments you have left here over the last few days.

Thanks for sticking with me when I’m grumpy, snotty and not quite all there.

Here are some pictures, as promised.  They were taken with my camera.  Once the Hub is well enough, he’ll upload the ones taken with his camera and I’ll share some of those.

 

Joke 278

Granny1947 loaned me this one.

At a wedding reception recently someone yelled, “All the married men please stand next to the one person who has made your life worth living.” 

The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

Christmas = Boxing Day

Image by RobertFrancis via Flickr Cough and the Common Cold

 

Thank you to everyone who visited me yesterday.  I’m sorry I couldn’t return the favour – when I wasn’t unwrapping presents, cooking or eating, I was feeling ill and fighting with my family.

I was ill last week with a head cold, but the worst head cold I’ve ever had.  I’ve never been incapacitated by a cold before, but on Wednesday I was fit for nothing except lying on the couch and groaning intermittently.  In bed by seven, I had the best night’s sleep for a week, and felt much better on Thursday.  Friday I cleaned up a frenzy and Christmas Eve I was happily preparing for a great Christmas Day.

About six p.m., my throat felt a little sore.  By ten, I was aching all over.  I had a dreadful night: too hot, too cold, aching, coughing.  I was not alone: the Hub and Spud had equally bad nights.  Tory Boy has been working sixty-hour weeks and can’t see through his bloodshot eyes, and our house guest has issues of his own. 

Yesterday was a bit of a blur for all of us.  I remember holding back tears over undercooked brussels sprouts and carrots, though the other seven vegetables were fine; the Hub and I almost came to blows over the wrong-sized roast potatoes; and the use of a camera to record the happy day was the subject of furious disagreement.  On the plus side, I made my best Yorkshire puddings yet, though they did look like those mushrooms that grow out of the sides of trees.

I went to bed for an hour after dinner, got up for Dr Who (we always watch it as a family), and then back to bed.  I slept to nine this morning – unheard of!  I feel a lot better although I’m coughing more.  Spud has gone to the sales with his brother and cousin, coughing all the way and spreading the Christmas germ.  The Hub woke me up to stop me snoring, so I assume he had another terrible night.

Never before did the word, Humbug!  have such meaning.  They really soothe my throat.

 

Joke 277

Mum, can I have a dog for Christmas?
No; you can have turkey like everyone else!

Who is never hungry at Christmas?
The turkey – he’s always stuffed!

What bird has wings but cannot fly?
Roast turkey!

We had grandma for Christmas dinner.
Really?  We had turkey!

What Today Is All About

Joke 276

Lifted from yesterday’s ‘BC’ by Johnny Hart cartoon:

Wiley’s Dictionary

Buckshot: Rudolph’s preferred libation.

Here’s your Christmas bonus:

Madam & Christmas Eve