Yikes! This is a tough one for someone who owns a lot of shoes. I think I can give Imelda Marcos a run for the money! I don’t have a shoe tick but I used to collect shoes and loved looking at them staring back at me safely nesting in their cubbyholes! Recently I did get rid of several pairs simply because I am decluttering and working towards a simpler lifestyle, one that doesn’t involve too many material things and a muddled mind!
However, there is a favorite pair and it doesn’t carry a designer label but it is an old pair of walking shoes that has seen better days but I refuse to give it up because the comfort factor is there even if looks like it has seen the expiry date many times over. It’s the one I reach for when I head out the door to go for a walk and sometimes it is caked with mud but none of that matters. It is like a friend or is that a battery which keeps on giving! So why do I need all those other pairs of shoes? There are no answers just that women are complicated creatures with a mind of our own and it’s just because!
Daily writing prompt
Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.
This one makes me emotional. As gifts go this gift didn’t cost any money but it went straight to the heart and has stayed there through the years.
I remember my five-year-old son was late coming home from kindergarten. It was a short walk from there to the house but he was about an hour late and needless to say I was climbing walls! I was ready to give him a piece of my mind when he rang the doorbell. A sigh of relief rushed through me but there was anger still there or fear or both. I opened the door ready to let him know that it wasn’t ok when he looked at me with those big innocent eyes of his and handed me something he was holding in his hands. It was a small bouquet of wild flowers and they were crushed and there was no life left to be seen in them! “For you mommy,” he said. “I picked them on the way back from school.” He took the wind right out of my sails and I was left speechless which doesn’t happen often. I hugged him tightly and the smile he wore said it all. He was in love with his mommy and I was the most important person in his life at that point in time. I took those flowers carefully and put them in a small glass of water with tears in my eyes as he watched me with love in his.
It was the start of many more gifts to come. The next one came when he went on a school excursion to a zoo. I had given him some money to get an ice but instead he bought me a necklace. It was the ugliest necklace I had ever seen. Some wooden pieces were strung together and in the midst was a wooden turtle! He made me wear it for days on end and I DID. Even though I had received much more expensive gifts from others, that simple ugly piece still has a warm place in my heart and takes the place of best gift of all time, right up there with those crushed flowers.
The gifts have stopped coming , he is a young man now but once in a while he still surprises me. Sometimes it isn’t about how much money is spent on a gift to make it special, all it takes is thought and caring to show someone how much they mean to you. And those gifts did exactly that.
I have one simple approach, put a certain amount in savings each month first then I pay the rest of the stuff.
Most of my budgeting is done from a journal meaning no fancy computer spreadsheets like my ex used to do. He could show you down to the penny where the money went and he loved looking at the colorful graphs which showed the ups and downs for the month. He was or rather is a physicist so everything is science-based and often a headache to the less complicated mind! I have a simpler approach. Pay what is due and don’t overspend. Make no debts is my other rule. Living debt-free is liberating so I stick to that whenever possible.
So far it is working out pretty well and since I live in a village where clothes don’t rule the person, I don’t fork out money like I used to. Just a few simple pieces, stylish but more appropriate for the life I lead currently and it works out perfectly fine for me. Having control of my own budget is a great feeling versus letting someone else control it for you and that is one of the perks of not being married!
I don’t know and I haven’t given much thought to it. I care about what happens to my country, I take pride when it strives and there are achievements made but I also sit up and take notice when someone or a group of individuals try to bring it down.
I have a deep abiding love for my country and a sense of attachment to it so you can call that being patriotic I suppose. Unlike the friend who passed away, he took it one step further. He was a “hero” in every sense of the word and a true patriot to boot. His mission was to protect and serve the country he loved at any cost even if it meant laying his life down for it. I am in no way close to that.
So I think I am patriotic in one sense and in another perhaps not so much.
Daily writing prompt
Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?
I must say I am getting to the point that I wake up each morning wondering what the “daily writing prompt” is going to be today. It never fails to amaze me the questions you guys come up with! However, it gets my mind thinking after breakfast and it is a good start to the day.
That said, I can say with all honesty that I have never intentionally or unintentionally broken the law. I am a Ms. Goody Two Shoes type and following the rule of law is written into my DNA. However when I was 17, I met a guy and he invited me to this party. I didn’t know what kind of party it was at the time but I found out soon enough. They were passing “brownies” around. I took one thinking it was just a brownie! I had never done cigarettes, drugs or alcohol for that matter before then so I had no clue. Within minutes, I was out of my mind! I was hallucinating and got really scared. I could hear them debating if they should take me to the hospital and a few minutes later they turned the shower on me! Luckily I got home safe that night, mad as hell but none the worse for wear.
It was a scary experience but it taught me to stay away from ALL that is not good for me. Some say, I have a stick up my you know what but that’s okay I don’t mind. To answer your question I don’t think that I broke any law but according to my parents I DID!
If there ever was a biography about me, that would be the title. It speaks to who I am and where I stand today. I am a petite person but as I wrote in one of my posts, I am a survivor and it took strength to stand back up and to face the world and life again.
I lost my mom to murder. The loss filled me with rage and yes hate and brought my life to a standstill. I wanted revenge at any cost. I learned that I could give up or I could learn to fight an unjust system through my writings. I did that and even though it changed nothing meaning the outcome of the verdict, I learned that there is power within and the will to survive anything. A few years later, I lost my younger brother. He is a cold case. The handsome young man was found floating in a pool of water and was too far gone for evidence of any kind. His killer or killers were never brought to justice. It took me years to let go of guilt because I was faraway at the time and couldn’t help him. I watched my long-term marriage go up in flames because of infidelity and it brought me down to my knees. Standing back up from this blow seemed like it would never happen but it did. Accompanying someone dear to me to his deathbed was the next journey I would have to take and I told myself I couldn’t do it or what was asked of me but I did and I am still standing.
I took to writing about injustice and that became my rallying cry or rather my way of dealing with the pain that was within. I have written about injustices of every kind both here and abroad and especially of the killings of black men by law enforcement. I have written about racism and racist practices and I have stood up with courage to speak out when I see injustice forgetting that this tiny frame is just that, tiny, but I have a megaphone and that I have a tool to get the word out. Strength is my powerhouse and the will to survive is built into the core of who I am as a person.
Daily writing prompt
If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?
What were my parents doing at my age? I don’t know!
I left home a long time ago. Both parents are no longer here. Dad died of a heart attack even though he lived a healthy life but that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Mom as I have mentioned before died an untimely death at the hands of an immigrant who came in as a cleaning woman and who later took her life for some money and a few pieces of jewelery.
If they had been alive, I think they would have still continued a similar lifestyle. I come from a very religious family meaning Sundays at church and the rest of the time keeping close to the Bible and its teachings. I was glad to get away when I left to continue my studies because claustrophobia had started to set in but they taught me some good lessons that have stood the test of time and for that I will always be thankful.
Perhaps if life had been kind, they would be leading a quiet life carrying on their mission of spreading God’s word. Since it was not, I know they are at peace wherever they are.
Candidates for president of the United States must meet certain basic requirements according to usa.gov and these are:
Be a natural born citizen of the United States.
Be at least 35 years old.
Have been a resident of the United States for 14 years.
However, anyone who incites violence and stokes “armed and angry followers to “fight like hell” and to “fight” to overturn the election results should be barred and disqualified from ever holding public office again. “There must be consequences for insurrection and stoking political violence” and “no one is above the law” not even former presidents” or the current one for that matter.
I think a “stoking insurrection and violence” clause should be added and made into law to stop what is currently happening because “power” in the wrong hands can be detrimental not only to the country in question but the world at large as well. While we’re at it, how about changing that age thing as well. Age is not just a number and a president who is not all there because of cognitive decline which does happen with advanced age should not be holding launch codes to nuclear weapons amongst other things! In the meantime he is running amok with the Executive pen since the other option is not viable but it is all a matter of time.
As a young girl with my head in the clouds, I used to dream about this house with a white picket fence around it. It wasn’t anything special but that fence made it extra special. Go figure!
Fast forward to the here and now and it is the home I currently live in. It was the house we (my husband and I) bought when we were looking for a place of our own. I recall he did not want it as it wasn’t big enough but I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. It did not have a white picket fence but a wooden one and it was good enough for me. Today, it does have one, a white fence out front and a green one surrounding the house.
It is too big for one person and some of the rooms are unused but there is something comforting about it. It just feels like home and that makes it my dream home. The furnishing within is of the eclectic kind, lots of antiques mixed in with modern pieces and somehow it all blends together into a cohesive mix. Again, it exudes charm, warmth and a sense of cosiness. The nicest thing about it is that “nature” in all its rambling beauty is just minutes away!
I guess if I woke up one morning and I find out that I’ve won the lottery, now, that would be great news! Not a chance of that happening but if it did, I think I would go silent probably out of shock! Financial independence gives a false sense of security I think because there are other things needed to round off that security issue but “money” does help as we all know and no matter how much we have, we always want more, human nature I supp0se. So go silent first and then jump for joy!
If that is not in the cards, a call or text from publisher saying that the book is FINALLY ready to be published will probably do it. If I got that message, I would be over the moon. It has been a long long wait and patience is wearing thin but all good things take time as they say and I am trying to bite the bullet and not OVERTHINK as I usually do!
Will it happen? I’m not holding my breath but it would be a great surprise and one to my liking. Universe do your thing and the people responsible for getting the book out, you need to get moving!
Daily writing prompt
You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?
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