Old School Blogging – July Edition

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Jackie

Yay! Another Old School Blogging meme! These really are a lot of fun and so very easy to do…. are you joining in on the fun? You should.

This month Elaine from The Miss Elaine-ous Life and Allison from Writing, Wishing, her co-host for July, are challenging everyone with lists of 5. Easy peasy… lists have to the easiest thing to do, right?

List of Fives Meme

Five Things I Have a Passion For

1. Chocolate – do I really need to say more?

2. Cooking/baking – this is one of the things that relaxes me. I don’t know what it is about cooking and baking that does it but it does and if I could I’d own a bakery or small cafe.

3. My family – all of my family is important to me. My parent, my husband, and of course my kids.

4. Reading – this has to be one of my absolute favorite past times and can read for hours on end.

5. Social media – I love what social media has done for me, how it’s changed the way I think about the internet, and how it’s brought new friends into my life.

Five Things I Would Like to do Before I Die

1. See all of my kids happily married & a house full of kids.

2. Travel

3. Bake for a living

4. Take a week long vacation somewhere gorgeous with only my husband

5. Own my dream home – this one is the long shot for sure!

Five Things I Say A Lot

1. No

2. What in the world are you doing?

3. What did I just say?

4. What do you want for dinner? – the question that never gets answered but they’ll complain if it’s something that they don’t like.

5. What?

Five Books and/or Magazines I Have Read Lately

1. Birthright – Nora Roberts

2. Beautiful Creatures –

3. The War Brides Club – Soraya Lane

4. Eating Well

5. How to talk to girls at parties – Neil Gaimen

Five Favorite Movies (maybe you’ve seen them Five times…)

1. Wedding Singer

2. 16 Candles

3. Breakfast Club

4. Lord of the Rings

5. Breakfast at Tiffany’s/Roman Holiday

Five Places I Would Love to Travel

1. Scotland

2. Italy

3. Greece

4. Grand Teton National Park

5. Yosemite National Park

Five People I Invite to do this Meme

1. Jill

2. Liz

3. Jessica

4. Lizz

5. Wendy

And just for good measure….

6. Kristi

7. Emmy

Okay, so maybe I didn’t follow the rules very well but I didn’t want to leave people out and I couldn’t stop at just 5 so 7 seemed like a good compromise.

Aside from that I was wrong.. it wasn’t all that easy because thinking about 5 things that you want to do before you die is hard. It’s something that I really haven’t given much thought to either.

Okay, enjoy your Friday and the weekend!

Another meme…. Letters to my Kids

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Jackie

I had this great idea out of the blue yesterday and before I went ahead and implemented it I posed the question to Facebook. Yes… Facebook. You would have done the same thing too, right? I needed to make sure that it wasn’t off the wall or something like that and what I found out was that it’s a pretty good idea.

Another meme. I know.. it’s just what the blog world needs… another meme. But I wanted to write a series of posts called Letters to my Kids and I thought that maybe some of my friends would like to join in on the fun.

The majority of us have kids, want kids, have nieces nephews, or are even grandparents and we all have things that we want to say to our kids or wish that we could. Often the trouble is that we don’t know how to say it best or maybe our kids are to young to understand what we’re saying. I know that this is the case with me.

Teens are hard to talk to and toddlers are even more so. Honestly, neither one of them really listen or often care what we’re saying to them half the time and as writers there is so much more that we could say in a letter. There is so much good, some bad, many hopes, dreams, and expressions of love…anger…and so much more.

I would love it if you shared your letters every other Friday with me in this new meme. I think that it’ll be a lot of fun and there is much to be learned along the way about ourselves, our kids, and life in general.

I’ll post the button and the code over there on the right in the side bar and have the linky open at 6am when the first post goes live next week. I can’t wait to read your letters!

You’re joining me… aren’t you?

High School Jealousy

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Jackie

She went to school everyday but before she left she was up early to get ready. There was hair to curl & spray, make up to be put on, and the perfect outfit to be selected. Why? Because it was high school and no matter who you were you were judged.

Judged on the way you looked, the clothes you wore, the friends you hung out with, the activities you were involved in at school as well outside of school, the way you walk, talked, and carried yourself. There was nothing that was untouchable when it came to being judged in high school

How could she not be jealous of some of the other girls? How could she not want the long pretty straight hair, perfect skin, name brand clothes, been friends with the same people since the 1st grade, be as smart, or as athletic.

She wanted it. She wanted more. She wanted to be just like them.

But she had the friends, the right friends. The friends who were in the “popular” crowd. She was invited to the same parties as all the others, went to all the football games with the “in” crowd, and all the dances but she still felt like there was something missing.

What she didn’t know ore realize was that she was pretty too, had nice clothes, a car, the right friends, good grades, and more. What she didn’t see was that she had nothing to be jealous about.

What she didn’t see was that some of the others were jealous of her. And in her mind thoughts like that were ludicrous. Why would they be jealous of her? Why, when they already had everything and then some.

Many years passed and life carried on for everyone. Friendships faded and she soon realized many of them weren’t true friends. She learned that she really had no reason to be jealous. She learned to be happy with what she had and that what she had was enough.

And through modern technology she was able to reconnect with some of those friends. She was able to realize that their lives aren’t much different from hers now and that they’re really all the same.

What she realized was there is no reason to be jealous. Just be yourself and you’ll be happy.