30 Day Writing Challenge {Day 1 /Social Media}

November is National Novel Writing Month and every November I promise myself that I'm going to hunker down and write my novel. I haven't, but what I found was a 30 day writing challenge for the month to spark some creativity. I found this pin on Pinterest, and have been following it, mostly. I've also used this one too. 

As you can see, I'm publishing these out of order, the only reason is that I'm just writing the prompts and they are piling up before I can get them onto the blog. Day 1 was "The Problem with Social Media". I write these on my phone and leave them pretty much unedited. If you want to join in the challenge, check out the pin and jump in!

At first glance the obvious problem with social media would be the time it can consume, the envy that it can bring, the bullying that inevitably follows, and the overall idiocy that continues. Right now social media is a mirror image of what's happening in our lives. The election, black lives vs blue lives, trashy Halloween costumes, celebrity scandals and gossip. People are bullied. Families are divided over Hillary vs Trump and everyone is offended. I could write for hours on all the problems and issues that plague social media. Instead, Here is what I know is great about social media. I'm connected with friends and relatives that I normally wouldn't be. Some live near, some live far, but thanks to Facebook and Instagram they are a click away. I like that my husband and I speak meme, fluently. We can send each other memes all day long and talk and laugh about them later. I love those direct messages from him. I love that social media allows me to connect with people I would never meet otherwise. Two of my dearest friends are products of the blogging world. We've only met up three or four times in real life. We text every day. Without social media, I wouldn't have them in my life and that would be a crime. I love that people all over the world can have a heart felt connection over a cat video or a sheriff dancing in a high school gym. Real connections. Sharing comments.  Being kind or showing support. It's fun to read positive reactions instead of the negative ones usually highlighted on social media. I love so many things about social media, about my iPhone, about Internet connections. For all the awful and negative aspects of this new age of communication, there are so many positive ones. It's true that my children will never know about a life without Facebook or Instagram. A life where real, tangible mail ruled. A world where you couldn't just download the best selling book or movie the night it was released. Standing in line on press day, waiting for the five o'clock news, having to wait for a rerun of a favorite show, are just tales of lore. Stories of yesteryear. Still there is something to be said about watching a table of ladies, grandmas and great grandmas to be specific, taking pictures of each other, then taking selfies. Maybe they all have Facebook accounts to keep up with the kids. Maybe they have Instagram accounts for all the filters. Maybe one of those cool grannies even has a Snapchat and added the deer filter. I have no idea, but from where I sat last Saturday in a restaurant, those ladies were happy as can be. Armed with iPhones and great filters. Giggling and laughing at what technology is doing for them. Oh to be that cool one day.

30 Day Writing Challenge {Day 2: Earliest Memories}

November is National Novel Writing Month and every November I promise myself that I'm going to hunker down and write my novel. I haven't, but what I found was a 30 day writing challenge for the month to spark some creativity. I found this pin on Pinterest, and have been following it, mostly. I've also used this one too. 

Day 2 was "Your Earliest Memory" and I had a few to share. This was fun to write, even if it was just on my phone while my girls were at dance. If you want to join in the challenge, check out the pin and jump in!

I can remember going to preschool, Bo Peep and Ms. Jean was my teacher. I always wanted to get the "good egg" award. It was given to the most well behaved children at the end of the day. It was a card stock egg, on a string. It was coveted by all the children. I remember the beautiful schoolhouse that was once an actual house on a street in town, and it had neighbors. I remember celebrating my fifth birthday with the most beautiful cupcakes from Pollyanna bakery. White cupcakes with white butter cream air brushed to look like grass, with jelly beans and candy eggs on top. The privilege of being a spring baby. I remember the playground. Filled with play houses with real food boxes, recycled for play before people did such things. A large fort with real logs. Play cars that I literally fought over. Because the red one was always mine. I remember the most delicious sugar cookies, their tops packed with “nonpareils”, every color of the rainbow. I nibbled that cookie all the way down to my fingertips but refused to eat more, because my hands were dirty from playing outside. My request to wash them denied, my need for clean, germ free hands, intense. But I remember the cookie, still thirty four years later. The buttery film it left in my mouth, the crunch of the non perils, the heartbreak of losing the last third of it to dirty hands.

I remember my first quesadilla. Jack cheese on corn tortillas. More please. I always wanted more of whatever My grandma Chila was cooking. We sat on the porch of her house, watching the cars go by, the afternoon sun fading, a glorious day for Salinas. A rare fog free day. We waited there for my mom to pick me up after work. Maybe I was four, maybe I was five. I remember my Grandpa's red and white can of Budweiser, the sharp tang of the Monterey Jack cheese, the soft shell of the corn tortilla. I can still see the angle of the sun on the porch, and know all these years later that I was barefoot and in shorts. I can still feel the sun on my back from the beautiful Salinas day.

I can remember the first time I wrote my name, in a picture book. Over sized capital “E” and “A”, as though I had a preference for vowels. I had been writing my bike in the driveway and stopped to look at the book. The sun was bright and I had to squint to see my name on the page. The first time I remember reading was with Mrs. Perkinson my kindergarten teacher. I read her flash cards of colors, orange and red, purple and blue, then of words like house and cat. I can still remember the paste in the jars, the stamps on the back of my hand when we were good, the lunch that my grandma would pack… One half ham sandwich on white, one half banana, red juice in a plastic barrel that she had bought at Monte Mart, because I didn’t like milk.

For the month of November I'll be posting the things that I write in this challenge. It just takes me a few days to get them from my phone and edited. I hope you liked reading as much as I liked writing.