Happy New Year!

My New Years Card to Everyone!


Got this from Celti.

~My Death Prediction~
Let it be told...
While you're walking down a busy street, a suicidal maniac jumps from an apartment window thirty stories above you. Unfortunately for both of you, the maniac lands directly on you. You're crushed to death, and the suicidal maniac walks away unscathed.

Wow, death by lethal squashing.
Very interesting!

Get your prediction.

Here's how the year 2005 is going to go out...
Let it be told...
While on a group tour of a candy factory, you fall over a guardrail and land on a taffy pulling machine. Your head, torso, and legs are ripped into three separate sections.

Yeah, that pretty much describes the whole year.
Like a year of being pulled limb from limb in a taffy pulling machine.
How appropriate!

Here's an example of the story writing on the forum

Round 17 was... a three way tie

So for Round 18 the words were:
(RD)
Executive
Perpetuity

(SG)
migraine (because i have one)
confection (because candy is goooood.)

(TW)
wounded
virus


Here's my submission and the way it went up.

TW1 (my initials and this was my first story for this round. This is also how you vote, if you had voted for this story, your vote would have been for TW1)

Elizabeth awoke in the morning.

The sun had just begun to peek through her bedroom curtains.
The house was still except for the perpetuity of the grandfather clock ticking it's incessant countdown until the moment when she would belong to Captain Drake.

Her eyes fluttered open and she glanced around her quarters. Obviously no expense had been spared in preparing for her arrival from America. The room was ornate, but very executive and it made her homesick for her own warm room back in the colonies.

She couldn't wait to have this whole wedding over with and get back to her home.

Her father had worked the land around their plantation with his own bare hands and had turned it into one of the largest cotton mills in the south. Last winter he had caught a virus and, although her mother had begged him to slow down and give himself time to recuperate, he had continued to work the land until the day before he died. He was a man of conviction and honor. He didn't think it right for a man to lay in bed all day and let others carry his burden.

Her mother had been devastated by the loss of her husband.

Then to add to her misery, her only son, Howard had been wounded in a duel for the affections of one of the Harrison girls. Stupid really... Elizabeth's mother couldn't stand the Harrison's and would never allowed her brother to marry the little trollop anyway.

So that is what had led to the hasty trip across dark waters and her impending marriage to Captain Drake.

Her mother knew it would take a man of financial means to keep the family in the lifestyle her husband had intended... and if it meant that Elizabeth would have to give up her infatuation with Ethan Myers, the handsome but poor son of the local blacksmith, then so be it! It was every girls duty to marry whomever her parents thought was fitting... love wasn't part of the equation.

Elizabeth pushed the heavy damask comforter off of her and walked towards the window. Although the morning sun had not completely risen she heard the hustle and bustle of workers on the front lawn.

She looked down as the cooks brought her wedding cake.
A confection of too-sweet white icing covered with red roses.
It seemed like such a fraud... so beautiful and so inappropriate.
It should have been black and adorned with no roses... only the thorny stems.
That is how she felt in her heart.

She thought of Ethan... of the day she had said goodbye to him on the pier.
He had a forlorn look in his eyes that said more than any words could have conveyed.

She had locked herself in her cabin and cried brokenheartedly for the first three hours they were at sea. It did no good... the dye was cast... her fate was sealed.

Elizabeth walked across the room and pulled on her dressing gown.
She sat at the vanity and began slowly brushing the night's tangles from her long auburn hair.

She could smell the sweet breads and coffee that Clarissa, her personal maid, and Captain Drake's cook were preparing for her, but the thought of food just turned her already queazy stomach.

She closed her eyes and counted out slowly each of the one hundred strokes as she brushed her thick hair.

She could feel a migraine beginnning to throb behind her strained eyes.
Wonderful, she thought... another blessing on her dreaded wedding day...

She turned in her seat as her bedroom door was thrown open and a big cart of breakfast fare was wheeled into her room.

That's about it.
We request that you highlight the assigned words because we don't want to miss them when tallying up the totals. Otherwise you can write to your heart's content.
Stories can be short or long, clean or dirty, and believe me we get some nice dirty stories. hee!
Register on the forum.
We suggest writing your story in word then transferring it so you don't have to worry about have your connection crap out on you as you hit submit.

At the assigned time the forum will close for voting.
Sometimes if enough folks are still writing we'll do an extension. Did I say sometimes? Most of the time, that's what I should have said.

Depending on the number of stories submitted you'll get to vote for your favorites.
Normally we try for three.
So by a certain date, usually a weekend to read the stories, you'll be allowed to vote for your three favorite stories, in no particular order.

At that point the round is closed and the winner is announced, based on total points for the number of words used in the story and number of votes received.

The winner then gets to choose the words for the next round.

And just for fun, and because it was such an excellent story...
Here is the story that won for Round 18:

Posted by her lovely wickedness...
The Wicked Wench!

Wench 1

I awoke from a smoky, charred and tortured nightmare full of chaos and deception. The sounds and smells of sex, lies and roaring flames lingered vaguely in my mind as my eyes adjusted to the early morning darkness in the curtained motel room.

I turned on my side and squinted at the clock, causing my migraine to pulse more loudly. Under the thick bandages, the searing pains in my chest screamed like a scalded bitch. According to the x-rays, the bowie knife that my husband had attempted to murder me with had missed my heart narrowly, but had maliciously mauled my breasts.

The emergency room at Mountain Memorial had been very understanding of my reasons for not involving the police. Apparently that area was popularly known to have a safe house for battered women and the locals were accustomed to ‘no questions asked’ situations. Also, I had miraculously managed to salvage my purse, a sweatshirt and some jeans before the cabin roof caved in- so at least I had some clean clothes and access to cash and my ID which I needed when I rented the cheap piece of shit parked outside my room. (I cursed Randy venomously for causing my BMW to blow up at the cabin).

I had lost a lot of blood from the knife wound, but the sorry sack of shit had failed to cause any major internal damage. Funny how my husband was a failure at just about everything -relationships, honesty, satisfying me in bed… but he was amazing with money. Investments were his forte. I knew this well seeing as I was an executive over his estate. Big mistake on his part.. But I’m sure he’s kicking himself for it now.

That son-of-a-bitch was going to fucking pay for a hell of a lot more than just my new set of tits, I’d make sure of that. It truly would have been in his best interest to check my fucking pulse before he torched the Goddamn place. As I lay there, wounded and bleeding in seeming perpetuity, I was watching him the entire time through glazed over eyes. He was doctoring the scene of the murder to make it tell a different story indeed.

Randy bagged up the decapitated head of my former lover, Graylon. He scattered (what I discovered later to be his own teeth) around the lifeless body. He then hurriedly disappeared into the cabin to retrieve Graylon’s wallet and swap it with his own. My seemingly clever husband finally exited in a blaze of fucked up glory, presuming me dead. Silly bastard.


According to the Mountain View Chronicle that I now held in my hands, Randall Ian Pruitt, 39, had been pronounced dead in the fire, identified by unmistakable dental work. The local police stated in the blurb in the paper that ‘Mr. Pruitt was survived by a wife who was known to be on vacation out of town at the time of the incident and had yet to be notified of the situation.’ A silly thought ran through my head upon reading this- it was the first time I'd noticed my husband's initials were 'RIP'.

So, my husband of fifteen loveless years was so desperate to prevent me from obtaining anything if and when I filed for divorce, that the bastard decided to kill ‘both’ of us. It wouldn’t cost him anything at all to buy a new identity and hit the border when the smoke cleared.. With me out of the way, his precious investments would remain safe.

However, he had NOT counted on me surviving the fire once his ‘death’ had been announced.. we were BOTH supposed to be proclaimed dead and I had defied his evil little ploy. Now I was in the position to get everything that Randy had worked his miserable life for. Did he really and truly believe that he was going to live fucking happily ever after under some new identity? Did he think a plastic surgeon and some dentures could save him now?

I should have seen what the asshole was planning from the beginning. His affair with my best friend, Tanya had not been the first. In fact, several of my former friends had been unwittingly sucked into my husband’s manipulative web of deceit and I was determined to change my fate. I had nothing to lose at all.. Any love that Randy and I had shared had died the moment we signed our insurance policies.

Currently, my husband was nothing more to me than a nasty virus gnawing away at my chance for happiness. I needed this reprieve in the lumpy motel bed to concentrate on how I was going to vaccinate myself against him.

I dropped the newspaper next to the bed and attempted to stretch out my sore limbs the best I could. Wherever Randy was, he had surely had a chance to see the paper by now. He would be a sweaty and paranoid mess until he was able to locate me. It would not be long before he had some greasy henchman scouting me out to finish the job he couldn’t. I needed my plan straight, and soon.

A faint odor of smoke was present as I ran my fingers through my normally lustrous hair. Gingerly, I made my way to the tiny bathroom where I proceeded to draw a steamy hot bath in hopes I would be able to clear my head to devise my next move. As I sank my aching body into the water, I could not help but smile devilishly. I really did have the upper hand now.. I certainly had my stupid husband by his useless balls this time.

My revenge was going to taste sweeter than the most enticing confection.


So you see, it's just a chance to take some given words and weave them into a story. A chance to stretch your creative wings and, hopefully, a lot of folks to make jokes with and hang out with when you get bored. That's the real fun of the forum. Just hanging out with friends.

There is also a never-ending story in there.
The idea... add two sentences to the the story whenever you pop in.
So far it is a dark tale of people being chased through the woods, disappearing pets and a half dressed woman who appears and disappears at will, leaving everyone to wonder if she is really a woman or just an apparition in the haunted community we set up around the story writing forum.

So come and join us!
We're at over 50 members now and growing.
Not everyone writes of course, but everyone is allowed to play and vote on the stories.
And you do not have to become a registered member to play the writing game. It's open to non-members too.

It's a nice place to spend a snowy afternoon.

Fizzle and Pop

The Story Telling Rules

Here's how it works. I'll post a list of **five** random words and if you would like to participate you post a story using as many of the five words as you can. The rules are as follows:

---

*1) The first 24 hours after I post the words are for people to create their stories. After that point I'll post that it's time to vote. 24 hours will be allowed for voting and then I'll post the final results.
(This is now revised to a longer writing time frame)

2) You are allowed, at this time, to post more than one story.

3) You must identify your story at the beginning with your initials followed by the number of the story it is (ex. CB1, DK2, HB1). These codes will be used to identify the stories for voting.

4) The story must make some kind of sense. If it makes no sense you lose 3 points. No sandbagging.

*5) You will get 2 points for the story if you use all 5 words.

6) You also get 1 point per vote you get from other commenters.

*7) You are allowed to vote for up to 4 stories per game.

8) You can't vote for your own story no matter how brilliant it is.

9) You CAN vote for more than one story by the same author.

Have fun showing off your creative muscles!

Addendum 1: Rules marked with an * tend to change with each game. If they are different than this base set of rules, they will be posted before the new word list.


These are the basics.

This round there are 6 words to use and you have until Jan 16th to post your story.
Then we'll vote and the author with the most votes gets to pick the words for the next round.

Happy writing!

A visit from Jingle Beard

In our house, when I was growing up, we were visited by Santa Claus, but for the good dogs and cats, who at least tried to be more nice than naughty, there was a visit from Jingle Beard. My dad told the story of how Jingle Beard was Santa's favorite dog, and how, on Christmas Eve, when Santa was out delivering presents to good children, Jingle Beard would deliver presents of bones and cat trees to all of the good, faithful pets.

This year Jingle Beard brought Maxie a new bed, a raincoat and a parka (ice storms are a'coming), lots of toys and tasty puppy treats. Izzy and Spooky got less. Apparently they have been getting in the garbage lately and so have found their own treats. But still, they did get their share of kitty treats and toys.

Need I say it has been a wonderful holiday for everyone here?
Even the smallest of us have been on the recieving end of a delightful holiday.

Now I'm off to light the yule log.
Honeyed ham and all of the traditional sides await dad's arrival home.

I consider all of our blogging friends a blessing and you are all in our hearts tonight. Thank you for making this year wonderful, both here and in the real world.


A Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Merry Christmas

From all of us to all of you!
Have a wonderful Holiday.

Remembering...

Dirge Without Music
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,--but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, --
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave,
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Today dad went to the cemetary, he wanted to have some time alone.
I did not want to be alone.
I am not resigned.

I feel my family this year.
I am as resolute as ever I have been.
All things must be borne.

What we're doing now

In the true spirit of the season we are doing what we do every year.

At school.
The students at the High School collected 3800 canned goods to give to N. Fulton Charities. Enough to fill an entire bus! Great job guys. We are all proud of you!

They also did a drive for the Women's Homeless Shelter.
A cause near and dear to my heart.
You guys are awesome!

At work.
We are doing collections for various local charities.
Always.

At home.
Toys for Tots always gets their donations before we start buying for one another.
It's a good reminder that the true spirit of the season is in what you can do for others. It makes this season feel just a little more special when you realize you have done your part to bring joy to others. We are all happier today for what we are blessed to have. We try to never forget just how lucky we are.

Once again I am reminded...

Behold, we live through all things,--famine, thirst, Bereavement, pain; all grief and misery, All woe and sorrow; life inflicts its worst On soul and body,--but we cannot die, Though we be sick, and tired, and faint, and worn,-- Lo, all things can be borne!
Elizabeth Akers Allen ("Florence Percy")

Troy and I went Christmas shopping tonight.
We got gifts for co-workers and friends.
The smell of holiday candles filled the van as I dragged him from place to place with me. The sounds of Christmas music playing on the radio and the houses and buildings lit up for the season gave me a feeling I haven't had in years. I reached out and laid my hand on his as we drove through the cool damp night, insulated together in our own little world.

I once again realized just how much I love this man and the family we have raised together. What would my life be without him? A dark place I think. Definitely not a place I would survive in long without his strength and humor.

I love you baby.
You are my heart.


PS.Good News. g33kgirl is designing a new template for me.
Awesome Christmas present. Thanks ladies.

A Visit From the Wireless Fairy

Last night the wireless fairy came and brought me a wireless adapter.
I found it sitting on my desk this morning.

Finally we are ready to begin.
Changes and fun are afoot.

Why Men Have Two Hands