%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |   Here you will find my daily journal of small stones and inspiration! |
|
I hope you will take the time to enjoy my blog! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Prompt: What can someone do to get on your nerves right away? As soon as I read this prompt I knew exactly what I was going to write about. It happened just the other day at work, for like the hundredth time, and there is nothing I can do about it. I work a retail sales job as the manager of a jewelry department, I manage and I also cover the department as a salesperson. This is what happened... A woman, in her thirties I would guess, came up to the diamond counter of the department and asked to see a ring. So far, there is no problem, then SNAP. She snapped her gum. I am trying to tell her about the properties of the ring and the diamond and all I am hearing, at regular intervals is her gum. Snap SNAP snap! I want to reach across the counter and take the gum from her mouth, it is that irritating! Looking back on it, it probably should not have bothered me as much as it did but that SNAP! I can't show I am annoyed, I have to just listen to SNAP SNAP SNAP! Please, if you chew gum, don't snap it....NO ONE wants to hear it! |
| A week ago I began an experiment in response to a blog prompt; here are the results - as unscientific as they are... Joy  you may be interested...I decided that for a week I was going to record what my first thoughts were upon waking up in the morning, these are the ideas/thoughts that I recorded for the last week.. Day 1 - nothing- There is nothing worse than anticipating great rational thought and then realizing that you have none to offer Day 2 - I woke up singing "Shake it Off" no lie, I seriously was singing this as I shut off the alarm clock. I also found myself feeling guilty about taking many Sundays off in February. I will be off for the Super Bowl, the Fifteenth to celebrate my birthday (a day late) and for the Daytona 500. I then decided that I won't worry about it and I will make up for it in March by working 3 of 5 Sundays. Day 3 - I was startled awake from a dream, I suppose. But I had this awful feeling someone had broken into the house, of course my husband did not stir and the dog was still asleep... Day 4- again nothing, not a crumb of a thought Day 5 - made a mental list of Christmas Cookies to make, then I really woke up and realized it is January, I am still going to make the cookies  } Day 6 - nothing Today- again nothing. Conclusions If I am only using 10% of my brain normally while sleeping I may have increased that by 3/7... so I am now using my brain 10.47% by writing these thought down. If I can increase these thoughts to 7 out of 7 days that might be a 100% increase to 20%. I might be able to cure diseases...or at least find my car keys...   |
| Blog City Prompt Prompt: They say we only use 10% of our brain. If you could unlock the other 90%, what would you do with it? I was not going to respond to this prompt however, I read Joy 's entry and felt motivated. Here is my response to her blog and my expansion of my thoughts on the subject...Thank you for sharing the article. I found it quite interesting especially; "The myth's durability, Gordon says, stems from people's conceptions about their own brains: they see their own shortcomings as evidence of the existence of untapped gray matter. This is a false assumption. What is correct, however, is that at certain moments in anyone's life, such as when we are simply at rest and thinking, we may be using only 10 percent of our brains." What if we could tap into that 90% we don't use during rest? Imagine using that part of your brain while you are sleeping and waking up with fresh new ideas. My experiment- I will leave a notebook at my bedside, when I wake up I will write down my first thoughts...see if I can tap into that potential.... Okay, I was not going to write anything about this prompt but I became inspired. Part of the inspiration came from Joy's wonderful blog entry and part of it came from the article see included in her blog...in essence the article disproved the notion of only using 10% of your brain. According to the article we use much more than that, but while at rest we use the 10%. What if we could train ourselves to tap into even, 20% of our thinking process while at rest? We would be utilizing twice as much brain power than we normally would under the circumstances. I am going to attempt the experiment I listed above and in one month from today 2/21 I will report my findings in my blog... |
| DAY 793: Monday, January 19, 2015 "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." Generally attributed to Mark Twain. Do you think it is possible we will ever be able to do anything about the weather? Whether or not you enjoy the weather, there really is not a great deal you can do about it, except move to a different climate...or is there? Someday, someone may be able to control the weather, either in a small localized area or globally. I hope I do not see that day come. People should learn to leave some things to nature. To everything there is a season.... It seems to me that there are a great number of people who enjoy playing God, and these people, for the most part have ill-intents. I think something as grand as global weather should be left to God, or nature, if you prefer. There is a reason there are different climates and we should not go messing around with it. Yes, there are natural disasters that occur due to weather, killing a great number of people, but we have no idea what changing the weather might do. I just think that some things should be left alone! *climbs off of soapbox* |
| There are a ton of blogger book clubs and book review blogs out there in the blogosphere, so it makes sense that there should be a social media site just for book lovers. How many of you use Goodreads to find different books to read by reading the reviews posted there. If you don't how do you pick what books you want to read? I am on Goodreads but I do not use the site to choose books to read. I like to keep track of the books I have read on the site as part of their Reading Challenge. Last year, I challenged myself to read 36 books but I managed only 20. I constantly read but some of the books I chose were over 700+ pages so I did not read as many as I thought I would. This year I plan on reading 24 books which of course, averages to 2 books a month, a do-able goal no matter what length books I choose. Now, when I plan on reading so many books over the course of a year how do I go about choosing those books? Most of the books I buy are from Library Used Book Sales. I love going to these, especially on the final day when they usually have 'bag of books' sales. I usually take $10 and the bags are about $3 a bag. I have been known to walk away with 70+ books for $10. I sometimes will find tables of books by my favorite authors and I scarf those up right away. Then I will go back through the tables and find authors I have never read. The last time I found about a dozen books by Clive Cussler. I read one of the jackets and thought I might be interested so I grabbed all of them. I figured the worse that would happen would be I would read one, not like it and then donate the books back the library. I read the first one and I LOVED IT! I am on the second and I am enjoying it as well. What is funny at these sales is I mostly, don't read the jackets, I pretty much just read the title and throw it in the bag. I did this with Newt Gingrich's novel, Grant Comes East. It is the sequel to Gettysburg. I consider myself a Civil War Buff so I thought I would pick up the second book, since I know the Battle of Gettysburg backwards and forwards. However, there is something to be said about reading the jacket. I dove right into the book, on the first page is the sentence 'They were the veterans of the Army of the Tennessee, the victors of the great campaign that had climaxed ten days ago at Vicksburg, a victory that had come simultaneously with that was now seen as the darkest day of the war, the day Lee defeated the Army of the Potomac at Union Mills" Wait, what? Union Mills? Lee defeated who? I grabbed the jacket, which I take off because I hate struggling with them when I read. Gingrich's Gettysburg novel is written with the Confederates winning at Gettysburg...Hmmm. I enjoyed Grant Comes East, and now I am on a search for Gettysburg....LOL |
| Well today was less than fun. Last night I had a bit of a toothache so I got some topical stuff and took Tylenol and hoped for the best. I went to bed and the pain was intolerable. I was popping Tylenol every two hours just trying to sleep. This morning, I called the dentist after I started putting two and two together. The reason I was sick last weekend, the reason my tooth hurt, the reason I had an earache were all the same. I have an abscessed tooth. It is going to get pulled on Friday. It is hard to believe that a tooth can make you physically sick.   |
| The Twelfth Day of Christmas. In most calendar systems, there are twelve months in a year. Twelve inches make up one foot in U.S. measurements. Both the Western and Chinese zodiac systems have twelve signs. For the ancient Greeks, their principal pantheon of gods were the Twelve Olympians. The Norse god Odin and the biblical Jacob both had twelve sons. King Arthur had twelve knights at his round table and allegedly defeated twelve rebel princes and won twelve great battles against the Saxons. Felony trials in all but four states (and in federal and D.C. courts) are heard by twelve jurors. Twelve people have walked on the Moon. There are twelve face cards in a deck of playing cards. In 10-pin bowling, a perfect game is a score of 300, achieved by bowling 12 consecutive strikes. In both soccer and American football, the number twelve is often reserved for fans rather than players. Texas A&M, Bayern Munich, Hammarby, Feyenoord, the Seattle Seahawks, Portsmouth, and Cork City all prohibit their players from wearing the number twelve. It has traditionally been reserved for the "12th Man," a helpful substitute or replacement for one of the eleven players on the field. The term was made famous during the 1922 Dixie Classic where Texas A&M coach Dana Bible was worried about injury taking one of his players out of the game, so he pulled E. King Gill (a promising but ultimately cut tryout for the varsity team) out of the stands and asked him to suit up in case they needed him, thus making Gill "the 12th man" on the team. The jersey has been worn and retired by the following professional athletes, though: Wade Boggs (MLB, Rays), Roberto Alomar (MLB, Blue Jays), Jim Kelly (NFL, Bills), Joe Namath (NFL, Jets), Terry Bradshaw (NFL, Steelers), and John Stockton (NBA, Jazz). To finish out the challenge, respect the number twelve by combining anything you've already done for this challenge for twelve new WdC members. They can be all the same or different or any combination (e.g., you can do 12 more newsfeed posts, or 6 newsfeed/4 cNotes/2 reviews or any other combination you want that adds up to twelve.) You might be interested to know that the Buffalo Bills had another #12 on the team, quarterback Joe Ferguson. He lead the team before Jim Kelly and the Bills "retired" his number for him as Jim Kelly was wearing it. When Ferguson retired from pro-football-after playing for several other teams- the Buffalo Bills allowed him on the team long enough to retire as a Bill. For a moment, the Buffalo Bills had two quarterbacks with the number 12 at the same time! Now onto the last and I think best assignment. I kind of copped out on this one and sent 4 mass cnotes with the following message: WELCOME TO WRITING.COM I hope you find this a fun and happy place One where your new friends become family! ~PandaPaws  However, I think I did very well with the thought behind the message. I went to the list of authors and sorted it by newest accounts first, I then choose the first twelve listings and sent them a welcome cnote. In the spirit of giving I think on this one I did pretty dog-gone good! Thank you for giving me the opportunity to give and thanks for introducing me to the "Blog Harbor" community! |
| The Eleventh Day of Christmas. Eleven is the smallest two-digit prime number. Group 11 on the periodic table of elements consists of the three coinage metals: gold, silver, and copper (plus roentgenium). Apollo 11 was the first manned spacecraft to land on the Moon. After the disgrace of Judas, the remaining apostles of Jesus were sometimes called The Eleven, even after Matthias was added and brought the number back up to twelve. "The Rite of Spring" by Stravinsky has eleven consecutive repetitions of the same chord. Eleven players comprise a fully-fielded team in soccer, cricket, field hockey, and American football. While a 21-gun salute is the most commonly recognized military heavy arms/gun salute, the number of rounds fired actually varies by circumstance. 11-gun salutes are typically for one-star (brigadier) generals of the U.S. Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, or one-star (rear lower half) admirals of the Navy and Coast Guard. The stylized maple leaf of the Canadian flag has eleven points. Armistice Day (now known as Veterans Day in the U.S. and Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations and in other parts of Europe is celebrated on November 11th each year, in recognition of the end of World War I, which officially ended at 11am on November 11, 1918... the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of that year. For the glory of the number eleven, send notebook posts (or comments to notebook posts) to eleven different WdC members. I am almost (note that was ALMOST) sorry to see this activity draw to a close. I never realized how small my circle of friends on this site was until I began this activity and Jeff  made me use a different writer for each activity. It started out okay because it was only one or two people but when you start adding them together ; that is one large group! If my math is right, which would be rather rare, we had to interact with 78 different people, That doesn't count interaction with the people who ran the raffles, cnote shops etc! Great job Jeff! You have made us become more involved with the WdC community and I am pretty sure that was your purpose!Now, unto today's activity; We had to post or comment on posts for eleven different WdC members! Here is a list of my posts or the posts I commented on- "Note: Three Word Thursday --> Give us three words t..." "Note: I've added a new entry to my book, [Link To I..." "Note: I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, looking..." "Note: I've added a new entry to my book, [Link To I..." "Note: *Confettir* }Happy Shiny New Year everyone! *..." "Note: I hope you had a wonderful holidays and I wish you..." "Note: Just dropping by to say "hi" and wish you ..." "Note: I love watching video's that leave you amazed...." "Note: Oh, I am so happy to be back!!!!!!!!!!! *^*Delight..." "Note: Oh, I am so happy to be back!!!!!!!!!!! *^*Delight..." "Note: Thank you so very much for putting together the 20..." "Note: [Link To Item #2005983] Is FINALLY done be..." While reading through the community newsfeed I found an auction in need of packages and I donated to it! Again, nice job Jeff |
| The Tenth Day of Christmas. The word decimate literally means to reduce by one-tenth. A tithe is literally a one-tenth part of something. There are Ten Commandments in Judeo-Christian religion. A decathlon is an athletic event consisting of ten track and field events (typically one person competing in a sprint (100m), long jump, shot put, high jump, medium range (400m) run, sprint with hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, and longer distance (1500m) run). Ten is the minimum number of players (including the batter) that a regulation baseball game can have on the field at any given time. For regulation basketball, the rim of the baskets are ten feet off the ground and there are ten players on the court at any given time (five from each team). In car racing, driving a car to the limit of its potential is calling driving it at "ten-tenths." An tenfold increase or decrease is typically considered to be an order of magnitude. There are ten official inkblots for a Rorschach Test. There are ten dots in a tetractys, ten provinces in Canada, and "Number 10" is the colloquial name for 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the United Kingdom's First Lord of the Treasury (i.e. the Prime Minister). As a tribute to the austerity of the number ten, fan ten different authors or items that you haven't already. (Refresher: to "like" an item or author, click the "+" at the top right between the email and print icons. The "+" will turn into a finger with a string on it to indicate you've made it a favorite... and clicking it again will turn the icon into a horn which indicates you're a fan. You can check to see which items you've already fanned - and who is a fan of you! - by clicking on the Fans tab in your portfolio.) I already have a long list of favorite authors in my "favorite authors" folder. Some of them I had as favorites and I 'fanned' them today...but I can't include them in my list because I have already used them in previous days! The following is my list of "ten" that I fanned, which I CAN include in my list: "Invalid Item"  by A Guest Visitor - I won a gift certificate for this shop and I have shopped it several times- Great signatures and images!"Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor - Hanna is absolutely wonderful- she makes the images for my contest and raffle"Three Word Mayhem!" by Jay's debut novel is out now!  - Awesome, fun, easy activity- just a fun thing to do!"Activities @ Writing.Com" by Writing.Com Support  - A Great way to find raffles and activities to spend your excess gift points- LOL"Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor - I missed a few months of reviewing but I think I will make it through the new year!"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" by Jeff - no explanation needed -Is there?"Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor - I am the waitress there- I better be a fan!"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" by Fivesixer  - I want to try this again- next month is the unofficial month- less stress"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" by Lyn's a Witchy Woman  - If I am fanning the other blogs I better fan the city, too!"Blogging Circle of Friends Prompt Forum" by Lyn's a Witchy Woman - A fun group to be a part of as well!Can't wait to see what days 11 and 12 will bring.... |
| The Ninth Day of Christmas. In Chinese mythology, the number nine is strongly associated with dragons, which can take nine forms, have nine defining attributes, and have nine children. They have 117 scales 81 yin and 36 yang... both numbers of which are multiples of nine and have the same digital root of nine. European culture has The Nine Worthies, historical or semi-legendary figures from the Middle Ages who each personify particular ideals of chivalry. In the supermarket, five digit produce codes that begin with a nine are organic. There are nine Muses in Greek mythology (Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpischore, Thalia, and Urania). Dante's Divine Comedy features nine circles of Hell. In J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, there are nine ringwraiths (men corrupted by rings of power). It's the highest single-digit number. It's the number of innings in a regulation, non-tied baseball game. Nine-ball is the variant of billiards played by most professional billiards players in the United States. The number nine was worn by the following athletes: Ted Williams (MLB, Red Sox), Roger Maris (MLB, Yankees), Reggie Jackson (MLB, Athletics), Bob Pettit (NBA, Hawks), and no fewer than ten NHL Hall of Famers. The NFL has yet to retire the number nine for any team. There are nine justices on the United States Supreme Court. To celebrate the number nine, send nine different WdC members cNotes. Bonus points if you send them nine separate cNotes and personalize each one rather than mass-mailing/copying one cNote to nine people. Wait...aren't there nine planets? oh, that is old school, it is a Pluto thing. Never mind, that is the Sudafed talking. I tried really hard this Christmas season to not get sick. Then, three days ago I got the sniffles, today I have the worst headache, chills, sniffles, and a wonderful cough that sounds like a least one of my lungs is coming up! So much for not catching a cold and staying healthy! Okay, onto today's assignment. I am glad that this was today's. I am really glad I got the chance to spread kindness instead of germs! I sent cnotes from the following shops;
The most difficult part of this was finding nine people I had not already sent things to in this activity. I am running out of friends, lol! I did find nine people and here is the list- turtlemoon-dohi  , Lyn's a Witchy Woman , pinkbarbie , Charlie ~ , Katzendragonz  , warriormom , Stormy Lady  , writingbyjazzy , and Brooklyn  . I really am hoping that by blogging everyday, I will continue to write everyday! Speaking of that here are my resolutions for 2015: -first, I am going to research my novel -second , I will outline said novel third, I will begin my novel |
| The Eighth Day of Christmas. Our solar system has eight planets (sorry again Pluto!). Arachnids have eight legs and octopuses have eight arms. In computer science, a byte is composed of eight bits. In the past, common film and video formats have included 8MM, Standard-8, Super-8, Video8, Hi8, and Digital8. In United States liquid measurement, there are eight fluid ounces in a cup and eight pints in a gallon. There are eight furlongs in a mile, Hanukkah in the Jewish religion has eight nights, and the demigods in Chinese mythology are often called The Eight Immortals. There are 88 keys on a standard piano. In chess, the board is a 64-square lattice (8x8), and the Eight Queens Puzzle is a challenge to arrange eight queens on the board so that none can capture any of the others. The number eight was worn by sports legends Cal Ripken, Jr. (MLB, Orioles), Yogi Berra (MLB, Yankees), Steve Young (NFL, 49ers), and Troy Aikman (NFL, Cowboys). For the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the official opening of the games was 8:08:08pm local time on 08/08/08. Because the number eight is so influential, purchase some raffle tickets for eight WdC members. Bonus points if you buy each of those eight members exactly eight tickets and/or purchase them from eight separate raffles. I had to go cheap with this one... I posted "Invalid Post" and then "Invalid Post" cause I am tired...LOL I hope you enjoy your tickets.... I need to win one of these raffles myself or this activity is going to cause me to go broke! |
| The Seventh Day of Christmas. When rolling two dice, there number seven is the statistically most likely result (1-in-6 chance). There are seven Millennium Prize Problems (mathematical conundrums that each carry a $1 million prize for whoever can solve them; six currently remain unsolved). Each airplane in Boeing's line of passenger jets is named with a three-digit number that begins and ends with a seven (737, 747, 777, etc.). There are seven deadly sins (gluttony, greed, sloth, pride, envy, wrath, lust) and Catholicism has seven heavenly virtues as counterpoints (temperance, charity, diligence, humility, kindness, patience, chastity). The Earth has seven continents, and there are Seven Wonders of the ancient world. The number seven was worn by and subsequently retired in honor of sports legends Mickey Mantle (MLB, Yankees), John Elway (NFL, Broncos), and Phil Esposito (NHL, Bruins). There are seven days in a week, seven days of the feast of Passover, seven days of Creation in the Book of Genesis in the Bible, seven levels of heaven and hell in the Islamic faith, and seven gods of good fortune in Japanese mythology. The "Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two" is a popular psychological paper, often cited for it's postulation that the number of things a human can hold in working memory is seven plus or minus two (also called Miller's Law). Isaac Newton identified the seven colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet), and the Series 7 Exam is the test taken by U.S. stockbrokers in order to get a license to trade. To respect the power of the number seven, visit "The Shameless "Plug" Page" , "Activities @ Writing.Com" , and/or "Writing Contests @ Writing.Com" and promote the items, activities, or contests of seven WdC members. Bonus points if those things are from Blog Harbor members! THIS WAS THE HARDEST DAY BY FAR! I tried several different activities and contests and they were already on the list....Godd for you guys, bad for me! I posted "Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor on the Shameless Plug Page. I posted "Poetic Exploration Discussion Forum" by ShelleyA~13 years at WDC and "The Steampunk Authors' Guild " by Beck Firing back up!  on Activities @ Writing.com. On the Contest page I posted "The PET NEWS CONTEST" by 🐦GeminiGem🌷  ( I know it is closed til Spring but I wanted it on there). I hope these count, but on the Marketplace page I posted "Lostghost's cNote Shop" by LostGhost: Seeking & Learning , "Fairy cNotes" by very thankful and "The Amazing One-Stop C-Note Shop" by Nixie  . |
| The Sixth Day of Christmas. Six is the smallest positive number that is neither prime nor square, and the only number that's both the sum and product of three consecutive numbers (1+2+3=6, 1x2x3=6). A sextant got its name because its shape forms one-sixth of a whole circle. A standard guitar has six strings and most standard woodwinds have six basic holes or keys. The cells of a beehive are six-sided, and the sixfold symmetry of snowflakes is due to their hexagonal crystal structure of ice. In Ayurvedic traditional Indian medicine, there are six tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent). The standard term for a United States Senator is six years, and the number of feet below ground a coffin is typically buried. Extrasensory Perception (ESP) is said to be the "sixth" sense, and the movie game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is based on the six degrees of separation theory that asserts any two people on Earth can be connected by six mutual acquaintances or less. To celebrate the awesomeness that is the number six, complete six surveys, quizzes, and/or polls from six different WdC members. Well now, I do believe this has been my favorite day so far, except for the day we reviewed, and the day we sent merit badges, the day we commented on the forums, oh yeah and the days we nominated Quill awards and the day we commented on the blogs... yup this is one of my favorite days! Today we were to complete six surveys, polls or quizzes. Here is my list;
I also was going to take two of the Christmas quizzes but alas. I had already completed them as well! |
| Day 772: Monday, December 29, 2014 My grandmother always served black-eyed peas and greens on New Year's Day because they were supposed to bring good luck and prosperity in the New Year. Another New Year's Day food is pork and sauerkraut because it encourages you to move forward in the New Year. Prompt: Do you have a special or traditional food that you eat on New Year's Day? or Do you have a recipe for one the traditional foods that you would like to share? My Mom, who has been gone since December 2010, used to always have New Years Day meals at our house. It was the only holiday where my brothers' wouldn't go to the in-laws. She would make a dish for each person. My one brother would get jell-o ribbon salad, my other brother would get yams and I would get homemade blue cheese dressing. If you like the taste of blue cheese you will love this recipe. It is thick like a dip so it goes really well with chicken wings. I hope you enjoy... Blue Cheese Dressing • 1 cup Mayo • 1 cup Sour Cream • 1 ½ tsp Lemon Juice • 1/8 tsp Garlic Salt • 1/8 tsp Celery Salt • 8 oz Blue Cheese ( the bluer the better) Blend all except cheese. Crumble cheese and add. Refrigerate 24 hours. |
| The Fifth Day of Christmas. Five is the only prime number that ends in five (since all others numbers that end in five are a multiple of it). For many typefaces, the number five typically has an ascender or descender (a part of the character that rises above or falls below the line where other characters stop). For the Dungeons & Dragons fans out there, your polyhedral dice (excepting the 10-sided) comprise the five Platonic Solids (tetrahedron, hexahedron or cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron). Category 5 and F-5 are the most destructive class of hurricanes and tornadoes, respectively. In Judaism, the Torah contains five books. In Christianity, the Psalms are divided into five books, and there are the Five Wounds of Jesus Christ. There are Five Pillars in Islam, and Muslims pray five times a day. In Eastern cultures, there is often a fifth element (Cantonese has the usual air, earth, fire, and water... plus ether; other East Asian traditions, there are the usual air, earth, first, and water... plus metal). Modern musical notation is made on a musical staff with five horizontal lines, and a perfect fifth is the most constant harmony. The five rings of the Olympic logo represent the number of inhabited continents represented by the Olympians (North and South America count as one). The New York Yankees retired the number five from their jersey options in honor of Joe DiMaggio. In radio communication, "five by five" us a term used to indicate perfect signal strength and clarity. To give the number five its props, post five meaningful and/or thoughtful blog comments on other Blog Harbor members' blogs. Bonus points if you comment on blog posts connected to this activity! Well, I commented, I don't know how meaningful the comments were but I commented! I hope that by continuing to blog each day will help me continue to blog all year. I started out really well last year but I tapered off about half way through. Time will tell, My comments were on the following blogs.... "Review Reflections" "On the Second Day of Christmas... Merit Badges!" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "The Fifth Day of Christmas" I was going to comment on each of the days of Christmas but Prosperous Snow celebrating  was the only one for days 4 and 5....LOL |
| The Fourth Day of Christmas. Four is the only number that has the same number of letters in the English language as its value. There are four great elements in Buddhism (air, earth, fire, and water). Passover in Judaism prominently features the number four, with its Four Cups of Wine, Four Questions, Four Sons, and Four Expressions of Redemption. In Christianity, there are four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) as well as four horseman of the apocalypse in the book of revelation. The eight planets of our solar system (sorry, Pluto!) are equally divided into four terrestrial (rocky) planets and four giant gas planets. A mammal's heart has four chambers, and all insects with wings (other than flies) have four of them. There are four basic states of matter in chemistry (solid, liquid, gas, plasma), and a full set of human teeth consists of four canines, four incisors, and four wisdom teeth. In order to give the number four its due credit, post four helpful or supportive forum posts (or replies to posts). This was interesting because I really didn't know where to post. Thank goodness you gave suggestions. Then I ended up posting on Jeff 's post in a forum without realizing it to begin with. Three of my posts were to others on suggested forums..."Re: Newbie." "Re: I Need Help With My Writing! " and "Re: Easier email folder organization" I actually not only replied to a newbie Danza but I ended up reviewing her short story as well. The way I saw it was not only could I suggest a forum for her to post in but I could help by reviewing as well. I did warn her that poetry is more my style and not short stories.The last forum post was not so much helpful but encouraging. I posted "10 tickets for me please" to The Lucky Leprechaun Raffle. I figured that would be helpful and supportive at the same time. I am really enjoying this challenge because it is encouraging me to spread the wealth around the site. Giving merit badges and reviewing, nominating and supporting; these are all things that make writing.com the wonderful family it is! |
| The Third Day of Christmas. Three is the minimum number of non-collinear points you need to determine a plane or a circle. According to the Pythagoreans, three is the first "male" number (whatever that means *Confused*). Three is the number of spatial dimensions that a human can visibly perceive. Many religions (Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Wicca, etc.) believe in concepts surrounding a trinity or trio, and a hat-trick in sports is a term for when someone succeeds three times in three consecutive attempts. There's a common superstition that it's unlucky to take a third light (including being the third person to light a cigarette from the same lighter). Dale Earnhardt Sr. drove the #3 car for most of his career. He died in a car crash during the 2001 Daytona 500, which plays into the belief in some cultures that three is a bad luck number. It's often been said that the third time's a charm when it comes to succeeding at something when at first you don't succeed. Out of respect for the power of the number three, head on over to "The Quill Awards: Nomination Form" and nominate three of your favorite items, activities, or people from the past year. I really enjoyed the information about the number three. I found the reference to Dale Earnhardt especially poignant... I love NASCAR and will never forget the tragedy of that day. It never occurred to me that the number three was considered bad luck (I know that many drivers believe that the color green is unlucky). The 3 Car was unlucky to many competitors during Dale's reign. I never thought about the fact that if you added the digits of 2001 together you would end up with the number three. Just something to think about... Now onto my nominations... In keeping with the tradition of anonymous nominations I will not tell you which items I nominated...just please believe me when I say I did! The first was for Best Group- it is for a group in which I belong and am a leader in. The group believes in helping others through reviews. That is all I am going to say. The second was for Best New Contest that was run this year. It had several teams competing against each other and through this activity I met new friends and accomplished a great deal! The third was for an established contest... I can't give many details about the contest because it will give my nominee away... let us just leave it as a great contest honoring great people! Oh, and by the way, I have an idea of why the number three is considered the first 'male' number. I hope this is 13+ and not higher but I have a feeling that the statement is referring to the male genitalia. There are three 'things' ...down there. |
| The number two is the only even prime number. Two appears frequently in religious contexts, with Noah being instructed to put two of every animal in his Ark, the Ten Commandments being inscribed on two stone tabflets, and two challahs (loafs of sacred bread) are placed on the table for each Shabbat meal in Judaism. It's considered a lucky number in Chinese culture, and Finnish residents typically light two candles for their Independence Day. Two is the lowest numbered television channel in the United States, Canada, Argentina, and Mexico, and... of course, Dr. Evil's right-hand man in the Austin Powers movie franchise is aptly named "Number Two." In recognition of the number two, send out two unexpected merit badges and/or awardicons and then write a blog entry about your experience sending a surprise gift to someone. NOTE: If you can't afford to spend 20,000 GPs on two gifts, please let me know and we'll work something out. I sent out two merit badge to friends on the Writing.com site. Within minutes of sending the one (I am not going to boast and say who I sent them to) I received the following thank you... What a wonderful and unexpected surprise! Thank you so much! I sent one friend the 110% Overachiever Badge because of all the wonderful work he does on the site. Whether running his own auction or raffle or promoting someone else's he is always lending a helping hand. The other friend got an 'Angel' merit badge because for the 12 days before Christmas she was my Secret Santa. She sent all kinds of gifts including a new signature for Christmas for me. The best gift I received from her was a review of a poem I had written. The poem was not one of my best and she called me out on it - constructively mind you. She told me how she had read my work before and that this piece just didn't measure up! She was absolutely right and I need to go back and edit and rewrite this piece. I enjoy giving badges to people because they deserve them! Thank you Blog Harbor for giving me an excuse! |
On the first day of Christmas, Talent Pond gave to me the assignment of reviewing a fellow WDC author. I enjoy reviewing, especially reviewing poems. I enjoy poems because I consider it my specialty. Whether they are or not is not the subject of the discussion here. I choose to review fellow Ponder - The Run-on King PDG Member 's blog "Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor . (see Review of "WDC adventures"  )I do not write in my blog as often as I wish, Usually, because it is not the first thing I think of but mostly because I don't think that many people would be that interested in it. I am very glad that I like to read blogs though. I am certainly glad I read The Run-On King's. I feel that when I read his blog I discover I little bit of him in each piece. He writes what he know and what he feels. His entries are off the cuff and special and I hope all the Ponders take a chance to check out his blog! |
| Now that we've had the winter solstice, how does the official beginning of winter make you feel? Honestly, the winter solstice renews my strength and gives me hope. The days are now growing longer and lighter. We may (will) have the worst of the winter weather ahead of us but we know that Spring is approaching. By the end of January we will have the 'January thaw' , February will hearken warmer days with longer stretches of warmth. There will still be snow flurries and storms(?) but the daffodils and the tulips will be appearing soon enough. (Or at least this is what I tell myself) |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
