Choice Morsels

The Mama Kat prompt topic for today is:  "A trend you're not much a fan of." This topic leads me directly to thinking of the television industry and several trends I'm definitely NOT fond of: All the vampire stuff: Blood, lust, killing and immortality as the living dead? I don't see anything virtuous in watching it and it doesn't hold any appeal. Worse, the influence of vampire shows and movies has created a sub-culture of people trying to actually live like vampires, which I consider completely unhealthy. Shows about fighting demons, such as Supernatural and Sleepy Hallow are misleading :   They certainly misrepresent demons, angels and even the end times. Sleepy Hallow on Fox has fictionalized several concepts from Revelation, such as the "Two Witnesses," and, since they say they're quoting something from the Bible, I think people could be mislead into thinking this is correct information. In Sleepy Hallow, their "t...

Welcome Back! Today's Mama Kat Prompt Is: "Share any blogging tips you picked up in 2012." First, you might like to know what sort of blogging experience I have.  Well, I've had 2 blogs, this one being my second. The first one was a Bravenet journal, which I had for many years, but when I decided I needed a blog service with broader capacities, I  moved here. That was a year ago. I've also operated several websites with a couple different services, which has made me well versed in many of the technical aspects of setting up an on-line presence, and I have a degree in advertising/marketing. So, here's some basic tips from my realm of experience : #1)  Decide what your purpose is. Do you want to share a cause, discuss politics, journal a life's journey through something, like weight loss or illness; share a devotional, share a hobby, share photos, connect with family or just yell about your bad day at ...

Conveniently, one of this weeks Mama Kat Prompts is to share photos of "What Fall is Looking Like In Your Neck of the Woods!" Plus there's another prompt to share "A Favorite Thanksgiving Tradition."   So today you're getting a 2 for 1 : fall garden photos AND a tradition story! (Since I'll be taking Thanksgiving off from blogging!) First, a brief favorite tradition story: We lived way out in heavily wooded Hoosier countryside with a creek running through our extensive bit of property and visiting that creek was a favorite past-time for my 2 younger sisters and I. There was always something to find or explore there. One year, while down at that creek, my middle sister, Janie, found this neat piece of "driftwood." It was a weathered piece of tree trunk about 28 inches long and 7 inches wide or so. It was wide in the middle and narrowed to a point-ish shape at either end. It was flat enough to rest easily on a surface as well as artfu...

I'm a little behind the blogging power-curve today---I decided it was a good day to mow the back yard and "vacuum" up all those leaves and pine needles. I did that first.   Anyway---today's Mama Kat prompt challenge is: "Share an embarrassing moment." Of course, those are always plentiful.   (Just a photo I found online.) In my case, I'm just lucky it was so early in the morning, no one caught me. It was the early 90's and I had decided to do another 2 years of college for my B.A. I was married then and recently moved to Northwest Florida. I'd already done as many classes as I could do at the local campus extensions and had reached that point where the rest of my required classes were only going to be available on the main campus in Pensacola, which was an hour away.  Another military wife I'd met in a local class was in the same boat, so we decided to car-pool together twice a week for Tuesday and Thursday classes. That...

  The blog prompt for today is:   "Share a moment when you felt surprised." This prompt brought 2 moments of happy surprise to mind. The first was when I in the Air Force and turning 20. I threw a birthday party for myself and invited several of the other girls who lived in the dorm with me to come. I make decorated cookies and just expected them to share the moment with me. Then later, while was still in the Air Force and turning 24, I had birthday party thrown for me! At that time I had a bunch of Air Force friends, who were waiting as a group for me at the chow hall with a cake and everything! I was totally surprised! It was great!   My second most memorable surprise involved a piece of jewelry my husband bought me. He's not a confident gift buyer. He usually has to have a list from me of gift options in order to accomplish that task. For him to just decide on his own initiative that something is the perfect gift for me is incre...

Today's blog prompt is: Write a post inspired by the word: "leaves"  Pretty maple in Terre Haute, IN I grew up in the rolling hill country of southern Indiana, surrounded by deep woods. We had quite a variety: beech, hickory, sassafras, ironwood, ash, tulip, red maple, silver maple, dogwood, red bud, red oak, white oak, pin oak, swamp oak and sycamores that all turned rich colors of yellow, orange or russet come fall. Autumn was a gorgeous time, but it isn't just beautiful color I remember. Thinking of leaves also reminds me of the hours of fun my sisters and I had playing with them! Of course, jumping in a leaf pile is customary. We had an abundance of oaks near the house that dropped ponderous  quantities of large leaves, so it was easy to rake up a big, fluffy pile for jumping.  Another thing we'd do is create "playhouses" with leaves. We'd rake them into rows forming walls, rooms and doorways, then we'd play dolls in our "l...

The Mama Kat Writing Prompt challenge for today is:  "Add an image to your own 6 word memoir on any topic." So here's mine.  It's on the topic of creativity.   Too many ideas. Not enough time.      

Welcome to blogging prompt day ! Last week I told a story about being "scolded" by a customer wheile working at a flower shop. That elicited numerous comments of similar consumer abuse experiences. Even my mother recalled being harangued over the phone years ago as a young woman working in a store by a lady dissatisfied with the lack of timely delivery of whatever she ordered.. Mother said she said something like, "Now you get on a bicycle right now and get that over here," during her tirade. I didn't ask the era, but guess 1940's sometime. Unfortunately, some things never change.   This weeks prompt is: "Listen to the sounds in your house for 5 or 10 minutes. Write about what you hear."   What sounds do I hear in my house? I took a walk around to listen. In this room, where my computer is, the ceiling fan, which is a cheap small size fan we installed, has never run quietly. It's has a noticeable creaking sort of hum that's leas...

Today's prompt topic is: "Write about a time you were scolded…as an adult ." A dozen horrible memories from my flower shop days of "scoldings" immediately popped into my head. There was a doozy in particular I'm going to share. First, I have to explain a couple things for you to get the proper picture of the rules floral designers live by. The flower shop I worked in was a Teleflora member. That means if someone anywhere orders a Teleflora arrangement, whether online or from a book in a store, I, as the floral designer, had to make exactly that arrangement, as closely as my supplies and flowers would allow. A member flower shop can be heavily fined for not keeping this rule.  Many times the receiver of said Teleflora design wouldn't like it---because people tend to pick pictures based on their own tastes, not those of their friend or relative. It was shop policy, though, to replace any arrangement with something the customer preferred of equal v...

It's been raining intermittently today as the tail of Isaac's outer-most eastern band passed over us today. Luckily, no thunder this a.m. so I could get to water aerobics at the Y. Thundered later a bit, but sun is out now. It's one of those liquid sunshine kind of days. I'm also pleased to report, since last night, someone has purchased one of the ties I just posted in my Zazzle store! Cool beans!   Today's Mama Kat Prompt is: What do you remember most about your childhood bedroom? That's a good question and it has a pretty funny answer. First you have to picture that my 2 younger sisters and I shared one large. That by itself is memorable. It must have been at least 20' x 20' in size and the 3 of us each had a corner of it to call our own. I slept in a double bed, while my 2 sisters slept in the bunk-bed our Dad had built. He had carpentry skills and it was a huge, sturdy thing, larger then any store-bought bunk. Here's the funny pa...

Last week one of the Mama Kat Prompts was to describe "a meal you dreaded as a kid growing up" ---but I couldn't do that one, because there was nothing put on our table growing up that I ever dreaded. The prompt this week is the opposite:  Describe a favorite meal when growing up. Since we lived too far out in the country for natural gas lines,  our gas stove and water heater ran on propane. Two 5 foot size silver tanks stood outside adjacent to the back porch under the kitchen window. To save gas usage, if our Mother was cooking something in the oven for supper, then she'd try and cook as much as the meal as possible in the oven at the same time. So my two favorite oven meals were chicken and meatloaf. The chicken menu involved: a fryer hand-cut up by Mother, then rolled in flour, baked in pieces in a 13x10 pan and baked potatoes. Very often a baked dessert was included, such as either bread pudding or pudding cake. Plus there ...

Greetings. I was hoping to finish mowing the front this morning---but, it was already raining and thundering. It's a steady, pattering rain. Not a down-pour. So much for that idea. Instead, I spent a little time fine-tuning some new electronic skins I loaded into my Zazzle store for readers, phones & MP3's. It was the first time I'd ever used the "bulk creator" and even then, I just did a limited selection. But it was easy enough to use---just needed extra fine-tuning afterwards. If you drop by and "Like" my store , you'll get email updates of anything I add new! They have featured discounts constantly, too! So on to the Mama Kat Prompt of the Day: MY TOP 5 CHOCOLATE CANDY FAV'S #1)  Hershey's Special Dark Kisses         These are my go-to favorites because they're only 20 calories per Kiss, so I'll eat two for a treat after lunch or dinner. I keep them in the freezer.  (I'm not at all tempted to eat the w...

Today's prompt: To Share a Scary Moment.       I'm going to use an often re-told scary moment story that happened when I was about fifteen. My sisters, Jane and Pat were with me and the "scary" event happened one late fall weekend.       To get a picture of our woodsy enviroment we grew up where the scary moment happened, I've attached a few pictures. The heavily forested property my family owned looked something like the photo below. It consisted of a valley with a high ridge behind it that a stony creek ran through. The house was located on 5  acres cleared land on the upper corner of the level portion of the property. Really the land approaching our house was relatively level, but just past our house, the road would dip steeply down, then run across the valley and up the other side. A view to give the general idea of how our property looked.      That forest...

The Mama Kat Prompt this week is was to "dig up a blog post from last July to share."  This one comes from my old Bravenet blog, since Choice Morsels isn't that old. So here it is. One of July 2011's Posts, featuring a mini opinion quiz: A few trivia fun triva questions for you to answer: 1) Do you wear nailpolish on your toes? If so, what's your favorite toe polish color? 2) What's the most boring stuff in the news coverage you wish they'd just quit talking about all the time? 3) What's your favorite color to wear? 4) If money were no object and you could go anywhere for a get-away, where would you like to go? My answers :  *I have this lime green polish I just LOVE on my toes. *I wish to stop hearing about the British royals because I simply don't care. *My favorite color to wear is a purple/lime outfit. *I'd love to go back to the Shades of Green in Orlando and just spend a 5 days there, relaxing. On Other Fronts: *...

Today's Prompt is:   "Share something you learned embarrassingly late in life." Napoleon's first bowling outing in "Bill & Ted's Most Excellent Adventure" Alas, I didn't learn to bowl until I was 34.     Not that it's embarrassing---perhaps just  unique.        My parents did a little league bowling together before us kids came along---I know this because I remember seeing the old bowling bags stashed out in our Dad's workshop.      Bowling as a family just didn't end up being something we did. Probably because of the costs. Plus we lived way way out in the country, there wasn't even a convenient bowling alley around.       My first attempt at bowling didn't happen until I was in the Air Force. My supervisor was putting together a hospital bowling league  and was trying to encourage my involvement, so offered to teach me how to bowl. T...

The Mama Kat prompt challenge this past week was to write "5 things people don't know about me, 5 things I'm knowledgeable about, 5 things I know nothing about and 5 things I believe": 5 Things People Probably Don't Know About Me: 1)  That I have a terrible hatred for talking on the phone. 2)  That I generally dislike being hugged by huggers. 3)  That I'm impatient when information is being told me as a long, long story. 4)  That I hate Facebook. 5)  That I prefer to stay home in my house. 5 Things I'm Knowledgeable About: 1)  The Bible 2)  Sewing 3)  Graphic Design 4)  What flowers & veggies do best my hot deep south. 5)  Cooking 5 Things I know NOTHING About: 1)  Soccer 2)  Reading Blueprints 3)  Flying aircraft 4)  Karate 5)  Chemistry (I'll never be MacGyver!) 5 Things I believe: 1)  That Jesus lived, died and was resurrected to life & everything as...