Best Season of All

 

Hi Carolyn,

 

 

 

 

 

First of all. I’m with you 100% about fall as the kick-derriere season. We’ve had a week of just francrastabulous weather ( my collective word to describe the fall weather here…. ) and I’ve been outside doing all of those outside things that I won't be able to do in only six or eight weeks. There have been sailing and motorcycling and gardening and building adventures aplenty.  The pic you see came about yesterday out on the water.  It’s all great but I find myself doing it with just a bit of the whistling past the graveyard feeling since I know its coming to an end for a good long time.  This year especially, Mother Nature has knocked us all down a peg or two.  Still - it’s that great to be out and about season, for sure.




How does it feel to be a centurion, she inquired whilst referring to the hundredth entry accomplishment. I am right now thinking back to that situation and realizing that once the blog got going it just seemed to flow along like it was always meant to be. After all it's a conversation and talking is easy, especially for us teacher types. Plus, I've learned a bunch and encountered some great authors that I might not have otherwise crossed paths with. All in all I'd have to say it's been a win-win scene so far.


Okay, right to the chase here. Your riddle this time I think is/are fireflies. Haven't seen very many at all around these parts recently. I have noticed there are lotsa bats about. I have a feeling the two may be connected in a strictly predatory fashion.


My last riddle was a whatchamacallit. This word may not be part of the common parlance in your neck of the woods but it is here. Its one of those amorphous words used to fill in when the specific word for something can't be found. We have a fair number of such words. There's doohickey, gizmo, thingamabob, or the more visceral dumashitty. There's also gadget, contraption geegaw and the more judgemental junk and crap. And let us not forget the most often used of them all - STUFF - Gotta luv this English language, eh.


Finally, here's mine for this 101st entry:

Singular device with a plural moniker

Pinching pressure permits precise plucking

 

 

Well, gotta go out and continue putting the estate to bed for the winter.


Don





 

Biblical Flooding and Fall

We did it, Don! This is our 100^th entry! How does it feel to be a centurion?

Thanks for the thoughts concerning the rain, Don. It has been interesting to note how the description of the event has changed. First it was just a flood, moved to 50 year flood, the 100 year flood, then flood of epic proportions, was compared to a Biblical flood, and now it is described as a 1000 year flood. In Colorado, most people take seriously the flood plain because insurance will sock it to them. One survivor said that he didn’t use to live in a flood plain, now he does. Many of the smaller mountain towns are still stranded. The air lift to get people out was equal to Katrina. My 6 inches of rain greened my grass and watered my trees. We were lucky, we don’t have a basement. A friend ended up with 4 ½ feet of water in his basement…

I’ll have to look for the texting dictionary. Home Depot you said? Many of my first level students write their first papers in acronyms. Sure would be nice to know what they’re talking about! I’ll go look. And I’m glad it was at Home Depot – it is one of my favorite places to shop. Down to earth, sells things that are truly usable. Ace Hardware is another one of my favorite places.

I’m not sure what to blog about today. I finished my quarter Thursday and have been frantically house cleaning since. This quarter I didn’t keep up with the stacks of stuff as much as I generally do; my husband decided it was time to close up the house, clean out the vents, cover the attic fan so I’ve been trying to get the curtains washed, the floors waxed, the last of the summer laundry done. We’ve been watching the temperatures go down the last few days. We’ll spike up to the 80s for a couple of days, then dive into the 60s and level out in the 70s. Looks like next week we’ll be spiking up into the 70s, diving into the 50s and leveling out in the 60s.

I’m not going to complain. Fall is my favorite time of year. I love the crisp air, the cold nights (good sleeping weather) the warm (not hot) days. Watching trees gradually change their appearance to brilliant is an outstanding visual experience. I’m hoping that this next week we can take a day drive into the mountains to see the color. Maybe get in a bit of walk. We’ll see. I may be on break from teaching, but I have lots of meetings to attend, teleconferences to participate in, and course changes to make. The joy of teaching…

 

 

I also have the great joy of finishing up Transport 25 for publication in October. Got the cover pictures back yesterday. The designer was right on! And today I’m judging a writing contest for sowrite.us.com: Tell a story in 3 sentences. The entries are amazing! These are people who really know the value and power of the word! I’m excited to know who is going to win the $20.00 prize! And the Fantasy Collection Wormhole is giving away. These stories will be available next weekend through Amazon.

If you haven’t guessed it by now, I think I can own up to not being as gifted with thoughts and ideas as I usually am. I’m not “burned out” just “refraining” from thinking too deeply about much of anything. Maybe I'm getting ready to change my appearance - more bulky, sweaters, jackets, shoes. Maybe my fall walk is a walk through my closet.

So maybe now is the time to move onto the riddle –

Mine was Sand. I’d watched a Making Stuff episode with David Pogue and sand and nanotubes were discussed. I get to teach Technical Writing next quarter and I get myself ready for the class by watching things like this – I especially enjoy Pogue’s “Can I Eat This?”

Wandering… riddles – okay.

It doesn’t matter how I turn your riddle – Uncle! I’m thinking this will be one of those that I’ll kick myself for not getting once you tell me.

This week I offer up:

By day resting in the garden

Gathering get-up and go

At night

Bright floating orbs of colored delight

 

 

Photo credits:

photo credits:

OneStep:

***Looking down

by ~remembermysoul  ©2010-2013 ~remembermysoul

3Miracles:

***fort1.JPG  taken by L.Varvel, 2011

 

 

Water, words and Wands

 

 

 

Hi Carolyn,

 

 

 

Wow, the overwhelming weather, and its consequences seem to be the news where you are.  It's been on the news here as well. I have to admit that when I hear Colorado mentioned I don't automatically get  images of runaway water at all. Four and a half inches is a wackload of rain, not just for a  " Dry "  state, but for almost anywhere.

That's the kind of precip that almost says build a big honkin' boat and start herding the animals two-by-two. We had a very wet April a number of years ago that led to flooded basements galore around here and I don't think even then we had that much liquid sunshine in that brief amount of time.








A couple of months ago I mentioned an article about the O.E.D. and how it's contemplating its future direction as the premier lexicological authority in the English speaking world. I think I just ran into the very other end of that yardstick a few days ago, sort of the matter and anti-matter of dictionaries if you will.  It was in a Home Depot of all places, that I happened upon this texting dictionary of acronyms. I haven't had a chance to really go through it yet but once things start moving indoors again, I shall. I did happen upon something mildly curious a couple of pages in, though. Most folks who text are familiar with LOL but I wasn't aware of ALOL - "Actually Laughing out Loud". Does that mean if you use LOL your not laughing out loud at all ?? - I'm confused.




Most interesting to hear you referring to that " sense of entitlement " phenomenon, Carolyn. I get that very  feeling too. I just can't help but feel that an everybody is special and we are all winners attitude fostered by the education system is fundamentally responsible for that. I'd lay the rap for that more on parents who have been lulled and cajoled by a consumer-centric society into feeling that their kids are gifts from above and should be showered with all the latest of everything, lest they frown or feel inadequate amongst their peers. It's especially rampant at " Back To School " time! - end of rant !
 




As for the wand vs invisibility cloak conundrum, I admit that I thought quite a bit before I made this choice.  I get the feeling that it takes long slog at Hogwarts and beyond to get the hang of the wand thing.  Yes,  it can transfigure and create  things but not really huge stuff ( like making the rain go away from a whole state or moving planets about ) Having a wand and the wherewithal to use it ain’t like having the power of the Q , methinks - BTW, I miss that guy !

 

 

 

Gee, I guess this has turned into a bit of a cornucopia blog this time. So lets just continue the theme by hitting the riddle button.  Your guess for my last one is correct - both of them, in fact. I had been thinking of a keyboard as the actual answer. Each of those items includes that component and does things once done with pen and paper. I put my shopping lists on my iphone exclusively now. I can't remember the last time I made an old school shopping list on a piece of paper.

 

 

 

I seriously have no idea what your last riddle is. I'm fine with it until the final line. I hereby take my turn to cry uncle on this one. I offer the following for this week.

 

 

 

Five syllables gathered together to identify nothing specific. One word fits all.

 

 

 

Catch ya, later -  or should I say  CU ?

 

 

All images sourced fro Google Images

 

 

Fig. 1 - trailandultrarunning.com

Fig. 2 - soulmazal.blogspot.com

Fig. 3 - oup.com

Fig. 4 - cgpublishinginc.com

Fig. 5 - blankmanic.com

This Muggle still floats

Good afternoon, Don, from “still raining in Colorado”. For a dry state, I can truthfully say we are water-logged here on the east side of the mountains. We saw the sun yesterday (Saturday), but not enough to recharge the batteries in the solar lights we have in the garden. Even our little solar lighthouse is dim. According to my rain gauge, in our little neighborhood (threatened only by a couple of very small creeks) we have had 4.5 inches of rain in 5 days. That would be about 12 feet of snow if this were November. We know what to with snow! But Rain?

Now I know that for some of you readers, rain and flooding is a yearly thing. Not here in Colorado! We are a DRY state, just recovering from drought and forest fires. This rain and not seeing the sun in 3 days is beyond us! And one of the bigger problems is the humidity! We’re talking 100% humidity. For us, 20% is a really humid day. So will we mold? I remember living in the Ohio River Valley wondering if my hair would ever dry!

Okay, on to Harry Potter. I agree, Don. The first movie, and second one too for that matter, followed the book amazingly close! But the movies began to digress a bit after that. But I can fully understand why. As Harry Potter grew up, so did the plot and characterizations in the books. The language and sentence structure changed with each year – became more complex. The plots became more tangled and deceptive, more extensive. For a script writer, the later books definitely presented a challenge.

My biggest complaint was book 7. Rowling was granted full writing privileges which meant there was no “official” content editing and there should have been. Movies 7-8 did okay given the book, but the book should have been judiciously edited.

And the wand! What a gift! Invisibility is nice, but to flick your wrist and have your wish come true! WOW! That's my favorite contraption.

I enjoyed your thoughts on British Education as experienced through the arts and literature. As much as I envied British kids who got to go off to school each year, I’m pretty happy with what I got. And yet, I have to admit that the “happy, be true to your school” attitude hasn’t done us any favors. We’ve developed a culture of “everybody is a winner.” This has led to a lot of students who feel “entitled”.

I’m at the end of our 11 week quarter, finally. I’ve been grading papers for the last 2 weeks – have one more round of papers to go then I’m done for a couple of days. I bring this up because the research papers are finally coming in. One of those many papers I read was a paper on visual effects and its effect on movie goers. Interestingly enough, the research indicates that people have finally reached their tolerance for fast paced movies with lots of explosions, big races, no plot, and characters that are on an endless treadmill of calamity and desolation and can’t get anything right. As an audience, we don’t even know if they got their lines right because we can’t hear them. This was from a visual effects student – interesting. He’s toning down the number of explosions in his scripts and going more for the skyline effects, the small environmental effects that enhance a story instead of detract from it.  Smart kid.

Okay, riddle cave – my guess to your riddle is iphone or a calculator.

So here is my contribution for the week:

The little remains of once giants that get into everything

Porch for great adventures

Substance of carbon nano tubes

 

Before I forget!! I'm judging the sowrite.us.com writing contest and Wormhole is providing some of the prizes. And because of this, I've been given the privilege of giving to the first person who comments (and leaves a way of getting back to you) the passwords so you can enter the contest for free! It's a great little contest - write a complete story in 3 sentences! And earn the opportunity to win one of the books that are being offered! Wormhole is offering up the Fantasy Collection and

and the Sci-Fi Collection! Both great books chalked full of the best of our fantasy and science fiction from our most talented authors! These are a fast read collection of stories that will keep your finger on the screen - you won't be able to turn the pages fast enough!  
 
 
 
 
Contact me! Let's make this happen!

 

Have a great week everyone!

Carolyn  

Figures 1 – 4 downloaded from Google images:

Fig 1 – 30 beautiful rain wallpapers retrieved from wlneel.com

Fig 2 – downloaded from Google images

Fig 3 – Harry Potter: Visual Effects Wizard Tim Burke retrieved from herocomplexlatimes. com

Fig 4 – MarketSay- 3D movies, gaming and technology retrieved from marketsaw.blogspot.com

Fig 5 – 6 – downloaded from http:/www.wormholeelectric.com  

School's Out for the Muggle

 

Hi Carolyn,

 

 

Well, my first semester at Hogwarts is over and I offer a few observations therefrom. First thing that struck me - because I'd seen the flick first - was how well and completely the movie stuck to the book's blueprint. I can't really think of another instance where the film adaptation was just about verbatim. I'm not able to think of a key component of the  written story that was not carried over to the screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The thing that struck me most about both this fantasy tale and The Hobbit was just how much everyone likes to do the banquet/feast thing and how both authors spent some fair detail on just what all was to be found on the tables. Luv that food appearing and disappearing bit at Hogwarts - no cumbersome cleanups for these wizards and wizards to be!  The "owl mail" thing was cool as well. Beats snail mail all to smithereens. Plus, a whole magnificent hall filled with young folks sitting together and intently texting or fingering their personal smartphones would be clumsy and sophomoric social commenting, for sure.

 

 

 

 

 

As to what gadget or item in this story I'd most like to have - a Nimbus 2000 broomstick perhaps, but I'm not into reaching heights without a very strong, visible and encompassing means of support - like an airliner. The choice is fall off a log easy, though - the invisibility cloak , for sure! It trumps Bilbo's ring simply because one can use it to cover/conceal other stuff  and people as well as oneself. I think turning invisible at will is one of those truly timeless fantasies.

 

 

 





 

 

There was something underlying about the whole Hogwarts experience that got to me as much as anything, I think. I couldn't pin it down initially but a couple of sessions in class with Snape really brought it out. I suddenly heard my inner soundtrack playing Pink Floyd's  " The Wall " and that ominous voice droning " no dark sarcasm in the classroom " .  It got me off on a tangent thinking about how British Arts and Literature paint such a grim picture, at times, of the whole education process.

 

 

 
 
 









 For me, at least, the first inkling of this came from Dickens. Young Oliver asking "Please, Sir, may I have some more " and all of those young minds being ground down by Thomas Gradgrind in Hard Times especially.  Historically There seems to be a strong streak of utter disdain for formal education and it's effects on spontaneity and individual creative thought.







 

 

 

Musically, as well as the Floyd, I  hear Supertramp singing about  "School"  and being sent away to become a " presentable vegetable " in   "The Logical Song" and other edgy  observations  from bands across the pond. In North America, meanwhile,   The Beach Boys warble on about being true to your school, Chuck Berry rocks on with  "School Days" spent listening to the teacher teach the golden rule and The Coasters tell us about Charlie Brown, that irreverent fella who  " ...called the English teacher  Daddy-o ". Oh yes, and  Alice Cooper reminds us lasciviously that " School's Out " for the summer or forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm also reminded of a young John Lennon at Quarry Bank School and later at The Liverpool College of Art  who, when he wasn't busy evolving his band " The Quarrymen" ( who would further evolve into you know who ) was feeding his love of doggerel, and illustrating and expressing his disdain for the education process he found himself in, by circulating a newsletter of sorts known as " The Daily Howl ". He would use it to take aim in a humourous but quite edgy way, at his instructors. Later, in his solo career he'd revisit this area in a much more visceral and vindictive manner with songs of therapeutic self-analysis like Working Class Hero.

Now, did I get any of this effectively reinforced by my time spent with Harry and his cohorts at Hogwarts - most definitely not! But I did get reminded of that particularly British - or perhaps non-North-American sense that education was to be a one way process and an endless procession of Socratic method. It appears to have sent me off on one of them there, non-linear  musically induced tangent thingies, I guess.!  ( Besides, I haven't had a chance to work in The Fab Four lately )



Anyhow, I'm back now from wherever I was above.


After your last blog, Carolyn, I'm quite sure that you and I have ideas about what constitutes clutter that are as diverse as our musical proclivities. I'll admit that if the clutter is piled high and haphazardly and could fall on you causing injury - that's too much clutter!  Short of that I'm sorta laissez-faire about it.


Riddles haven't been cluttering things up here lately, though,  and that's hereby changed. Here is one to clutter up your consideration:

Symbols and letters and numbers galore

Poke them and prod them and peck them and more

Showing the pencil and paper the door

 

See ya later,

Don



All images sourced from Google Images

Fig. 1 - gryffindorglory.tripod.com
Fig. 2 - flickriver.com
Fig. 3 - mattlowenmusic.com
Fig. 4 - lovliestbookgroup.com
Fig. 5 - articles.philly.com
Fig. 6 - meetthequarrymen.com




 

Clutter! and Daydreaming 101

Good Afternoon, Don. Some of your relatives sound like me. As much as I love the advantages of technology, there are some days I wonder if life would be simpler. I know better. But, I do want to submit this thought – before technology over took my life, I think I was better at time management; I was better at creating and following a plan of action over a longer period of time.

Your grandmother reminds me of mine – idle hands are the devil at work. I enjoyed your Devils workshop and it got me to  thinking about what Daydreaming 101 would consist of. What kind of “supplies” would you need to have? A blanket? A towel for laying in the grass so you can look up at the sky to watch the clouds? Smells  - what kind of smells would it have to have? I’m fond of “pine” and rich deep just turned earth (spring garden smell). Tools – a pencil and a pad of unlined paper perhaps, maybe some crayons or colored pencils, paints and brushes as you’d want the clouds to have silver linings. Tastes - chocolate? Temperature should be "comfortable", light breeze. Sounds - birds? Maybe some crickets ... quiet music playing in the background - instrumental, no words.

Ah well, my daydreaming has been overrun by clutter. It is time to clean off my desk and table. Besides the volume of incoming papers (we’re at the end of the quarter), I’m also incorporating a new book into the Technical Writing course I’ll be teaching starting in October. That means I have lots of “ideas” spread out here and there, piled high. I’m playing my mom’s “pilot” game – pile it here, pile it there…

I read an article by Lee Dye about “Clutter is Good”. Really? Just the suggestion that a messy environment could be good for me makes me cringe! I don’t believe that my desk has to be spotless, but I should at least be able to find things! The thought that an untidy work surface might help me think outside the box makes me wonder if that isn’t lazy speaking!

The researchers did redeem themselves in the end: “a little clutter may bring out the freshest and most creative side of you…orderly environments encourage adherence to social convention and overall conservatism, whereas disorderly environments encourage  people to seek novelty and unconventional routes.”  I am not conservative nor do I adhere to social conventions without questioning it first.  I just want to be able to find my pencil and favorite pen!

There have been a lot of firsts for you, Don, since we started this conversation! The Hobbit and now The Harry Potter series! I’m impressed. But I hate to tell you, you need to pick up the pace a bit. Potter has been surpassed by Twilight; Hunger Games is just finishing its run with the next movies based on the books, and City of Bones series is just finding its audience. Young adult fiction is alive and well. I believe it is also one of the more competitive genres to write for.

As for riddles – a bass drum?! No wonder I missed it. I never even considered an instrument. And you’re right – a point and shot camera. I’d just finished consolidating the pictures for a scrapbook for my grandson’s “Most Excellent Day” book I’m building for him.

And thanks for taking the week off from riddles – I’m still looking at papers to grade before tomorrow’s classes. But, the research class came through as usual! Amazing topics – “clean eating” instead of dieting, PTSD, IEDs, the value of zoos … my students are helping to feed my curiosity!

Have a great week everyone!

Carolyn

 

All images downloaded from Google.com.

Fig 1 – Idle Hands retrieved from yipes5.com 

Fig 2 – Crayons retrieved from www.infinitezoom.com

Fig 3 – Witty Poster Cluttered desk retrieved from www.poster-street.com

Fig 4 – Mortal Instruments Canada retrieved from tmicanada.blogspot.com

 

Harry Potter and The Devil's Workshop

Hi Carolyn,

Okay, I’m back from  days spent in the land that Wi-Fi forgot. I must admit, it really wakes you up to just how immersed even our generation is in the digital, social networking world, after you’ve spent a few days with older family who don’t have - and don't want -  any kind of access whatsoever to the web, et al. Even ordinary conversations have to be altered as you go. "E-mail me the news article " ," Google it and you’ll see ", "Check the website "  and  other phrases we have fully internalised, might just as well be in Swahili for folks who have an abiding suspicion of an electric can opener, or a microwave. It was eerie sometimes.



Very much enjoyed your stuff about daydreaming, Carolyn. 


Daydreaming is sort of my  philosophers stone. I do sinful, hardcore amounts of it. It is so cool to be able to transport to a place instantaneously where such things can be contemplated with a patina of reality. (  I'm in row one, desk one in Daydreaming 101 -  and I won’t give up my seat for anyone! )
   
 
As a very young boy I was occasionally beset by a grandmother who tried to pound into me that  daydreaming was sacrilegious. She truly believed that        " Idle minds are the devil's workshop " and spread the word to me with evangelical zeal.  I was taken by this saying, it's true.  I just didn't click into it the way my Grandma would have approved of.

 It was daydream fodder of the first order!

 What kind of tools, I wondered then, and still do now since I have a workshop of my own, would there be in  The Devil's very own workshop . ??




 
 
 
 

Hmmmmm, let's  consider this a bit.


First,  gotta have safety equipment! There should be solid,  steel-toed  workboots for walking all over people and kicking them when they’re down. Also,  goggles that allow you to see only what you want to see and to see red at the slightest provocation.  There would be a healthy supply of  brushes to paint people green with envy, red with anger and to paint hearts black, and certain journalists yellow. There would be no brushes available to paint the cloud's lining silver, though.   There would be ample varieties of screwdrivers to screw things up, pliers to bend the truth and hammers to drive wedges between lifelong friends.  There would be lots of vices, of course



I could meander on with this at great and tedious length, but I simply use it to show just how completely lovely I find the whole daydreaming thing.





I must leave off, though and get to other items. In my time away I got to initiate  something I'd been meaning to do for awhile. The Harry Potter mania never got to me in that decade or so that it was unfolding. I did tell myself, though, that I should crack a volume open sometime and see just what all the fuss was about. So I did just that over the last little bit.  The novel that started it all accompanied me on my travels and I had at it. I haven't finished it but I shall do so and report upon my findings, just like I did with The Hobbit.



  Before I go, though, I gotta give a wizardly high five to Dumbledore for his words about music.


" Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. " A magic beyond all we do here."



Okay, the riddles are a  callin'.


My say uncle riddle was a bass drum. I'm gonna guess that yours was either a point and shoot camera or a smart phone acting as a camera. I had one for this entry but it seems to have disappeared from my on the road files at the moment. In the interests of getting the blog out I will send it in next time.


Finally, Carolyn, thankyou for the reading material that you sent along at the week's start. I'm gonna get at it shortly. It looks like it could be pretty cool.


Don


All images sourced from Google Images.

Fig. 1 - hoosickhistory.com
Fig. 2 - commons.wikimedia.org

Daydreaming

Hip-hop had the most accidents?! Interesting. And Golden Oldies and folk song listeners having the least amount of tickets is not surprising - it is more laid back, relaxing music. I've tried to drive to Vanessa Mae - a violinist who took classics and rewrote them - it is better for waking up! not for driving! That is a ticket just waiting to happen!

For some reason I’m having trouble getting started this week, Don. I keep finding my mind way out in left field somewhere watching the dandelions. Maybe it is because we spent such a busy summer, lots of company, lots of “stuff” to accomplish and I didn’t get my usual slow down drift with the summer breeze time. I didn’t get to take my ‘dream’ time, or I was doing it wrong – I was trying to solve problems and I was usually in public areas surrounded by lots of other people moving around at a frenetic pace. In other words, I was distracted from my distraction!

I read somewhere recently that we daydream about 1/3 of our waking time, and we do it in snippets – “If I could I would…”, “I’ll tell her a thing or two…”, “I wish I’d said…” – that last at most 2- 3 minutes. But we do them constantly throughout the day. The question becomes – was the “daydream” effective?

Don, did you know there is effective and ineffective daydreaming? This concept totally blew me away! According to Joh Methoen, ineffective daydreaming is focusing on evils in the world (you can’t solve them), problems in your own life (you’re too close to them), or just about any kind of “trouble.” (Sounds like the daydreams I had most of the summer – no wonder I feel creatively tapped out!)

Effective daydreaming should make you smile. Not a vindictive smile, just a pleasant “I haven’t seen you in a long time. How are you?” kind of smile. And it is better to do it in a secure safe place. The best time? Just before lunch, during a dull conversation. Methoen also suggests that the best topics can range anywhere from how to be a better person to good things happening to loved ones / friends (how you would celebrate their good news) to the absurd like what kind of fast food would an alien eat or what do you think flowers think of humans?

These are just gigglers – but what they do is totally divert the brain from its tirade; it becomes a way to get over too much stress.  It is that breathe that causes us to rethink our perspective.

I watch children play when I get a chance, and I notice that many times their games are daydreams. I remember my own kids turning a slide into a space ship and the saw horses into real horses with names. I think I most admire my grandson. People laugh because he has such a vivid imagination, and almost anything he has in his hands at the moment he pops into “Jakey-land” becomes a prop. It reminds me of Calvin and Hobbs only a lot more pleasant.

I wish I could go where grandson goes sometimes, but recent surveys are beginning to show that older folks don’t daydream as much as “younger generations”. The reasons are jumbled around with daydreaming has to do with anticipating the future and older folks don’t have as many “bright perspective changing” daydreams.  I’m on the fence with this idea. I think it is more likely that people over 60 do more ineffective daydreaming; we forget how to use our minds to create a breathing space to just a few minutes to give ourselves a break. Maybe we've just forgotten how to smile.

Riddle Cave time!
You're right! an e-reader. Actually, my Kindle. Just a kindle - not the kindle fire. My husband loves his ipad! Good luck on your replacement!
I haven't been able to crack your last riddle  - Uncle! she cried!
but here is mine.

Snap for immortality

Sports or portraits

Nothing when the battery goes dead

Download feels eternal

Just a reminder! Science Fiction Fantasy Transport emagazine is still on $.99 until next week!
AND!!
New writing contest at sowrite.us.com - check it out and participate!

 

Have a great daydream this week folks!

Carolyn

 

Methoen, J. (6/2013). How to daydream. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/22

All images retrieved from google images.com

Fig 1 – Dandelion: Getting Life in Balance retrieved from ruthelsesser.wordpress.com

Fig 2– Imperfection: daydreaming retrieved from imperfection-is-happiness.blogspot.com

 

Fig 3– Poetry Jam: Daydream Believers retrieved from poetryjaam.blogspot.com