Author: Christine Goodnough

I'm a wife, mom & grandma, homemaker, avid reader, blogger, and nature lover enjoying country living. I write short stories, poems, and share life experiences, adding a dash of humor whenever I can.

Blending

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 5 Comments

Hello everyone. The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is TRAFFIC. Please pardon the little traffic jam if two posts popped into you In-Box; it appears the issue’s sorted now.

Last week I read a post over at POCKET , one of these articles that pop up as suggested reading when I open my browser. This was about spending the first hour of your day reading inspiring or useful books/articles, and meditating, sorting the day’s tasks. Stay OFFLINE, he says; NO checking Facebook, e-mails or phone messages.

This writer claims that if you give attention to “short stuff” like checking e-mail or the traffic on your blog, it sets the tone for your whole day. Hopping. Unfocused. Not able to prioritize and concentrate on the day’s work that needs your attention.

I do believe the author had a good point. Woe is me! So not a highly effective person. My first stop is to feed our demanding cats, then make a cup of coffee. While I’m drinking it I check my In-box and respond to incoming short stuff with my own bursts of blab. I don’t do Facebook, though; I do RDP and try to write something half-way inspiring for you all to read. Does that count for meditating?

This writer’s a time-management consultant, as I recall. What about a mother whose first few hours are spent attending to the family? Likely she gets up earlier and has a few quiet moments to sketch out her To-Do list before interacting with her family, but her first hour is often spent on small things like breakfast cereal choices rather than reading and meditating.

And there are retired people like myself who seldom have anything particular on the “Must-do-today” list. Rather, I seem to spend a lot of time hunting for and/or picking up small things. 😉 I guess each person has to set their own priorities and choose a plan for the day that works best for them.

I was blending all these thoughts this morning as I watched the coffee swirling around in my mug, and came up with this little verse, which you may call “stream-of consciousness.” Meditating: check. 🙂

BLENDING

Coffee in my cup
swirling round, blending,
cream and sugar with
plans for this day
swirling round, sorting
the tasks, the hours.
Decisions to make
establishing priorities –
coffee being first –
swirling around, blending
with a prayer that time
will stretch to cover –
and the energy pool
be deep enough to rinse –
today’s most important.

Defalcation

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 5 Comments

Hello dear readers. I’ve recently come across another new word, DEFALCATION, and I’m going to share it with you.

Money.CharlesThompson
Charles Thompson  —  Pixabay

This is what public officials, treasurers, and mutual fund managers sometimes fall into, or are accused of. The primary meaning is to misappropriate or divert funds, especially public money, to embezzle. According to Merriam-Webster, another meaning is to fail to meet a promise or an expectation.

I’ve demonstrated its use in these two senryu:

defalcation
that trickle to the slush fund
taxpayers’ tears

defalcation
those expense account holes
auditors look through

 

Go For It!

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 10 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is GO.

“To be or not to be?” might be the pertinent question of life, but it’s one we’ve never debated at our house. “To go or not to go?” frequently comes up.

For example, today my husband wants to go to the city, but the thermometer reads -33 C. “To stay home where it’s warm or to go out in the extreme cold and risk freezing my nose?” That is the question — and the answer isn’t hard to guess. 🙂

Interestingly, the post that appeared in my In-Box right after this one was the poem “FLY”, by Bill at The Write Idea. In a flash my mind jumped to phrase, “Go fly a kite.” Common when I was young, it’s probably considered antique by now.

GO is a basic word, yet my dictionary has over a whole page of variations in meaning as well as idioms formed with GO. Makes me think of a mother duck with her bunch of offspring trailing after.

Ducks.IanWilson
Photo credit:  Ian Wilson — Pixabay

Get the go-ahead
Go back on…
From the word go
From the get-go
Go great guns
Go out with
Going together
Go off in a huff
Go for it!

Nice chatting with you. Now I’d best get going…

The Bedazzled Shopper

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 5 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is EVANESCENT

The primary meaning of this word, according to the Oxford Dictionary:
soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence; quickly fading or disappearing.

Which makes me think of last Christmas. Do you remember it? So this quickly composed verse shall be my response to the prompt.

The Bedazzled Shopper

Whither fled the season
of good cheer, holly and ivy,
red bows and candle glows
and don’t be a Scrooge,
spend, spend, spend!

How did the tinselled trees,
twinkling lights and
red bows vanish evanescently
in December’s puff and stuff?
A distant memory now

as to my wondering eyes appear
all these chicks, fluffy cute,
and pastel plastic eggs
pulled from their nest in
stockrooms, with the signs
Sale! Sale! Sale!

What Goes Around…

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The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is BOOMERANG

Friendship’s like a boomerang
when you give a friendly smile
you’ll find it coming back to you
as you trudge some weary mile.

–Author unknown to me
Verse from an old Friendship Book

The word BOOMERANG comes from an Australian aboriginal language; its appearance in the English language was in the 1820s. However, the concept of things coming back to you is ancient.

In Galatians 6:7 the Apostle Paul writes, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that also shall he reap.” Whether you’ve done good or bad; the Lord rewards you for your actions.

Even farther back, Solomon wrote “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” Eccl 11:1 This being written in the more positive sense.

Hinduism and Buddhism teach a system of karma, whereby the good you do sets in motion a chain of actions that rewards or punishes you by your lot in the next life. In general, “Good or bad luck, viewed as resulting from one’s actions,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

In our day we’ve boiled it down to “What goes around, comes around.” We could even mention Bobby Burns’ “The best laid plans of mice and man go oft astray.”

Boomerang, in my mind, carries a more negative sense. Like getting hit in the back of the head by the boomerang you threw at someone else. Or like the fellow who planned to rob a store by crawling through the heating duct late one Saturday night. Plans went awry when he got stuck and there he stayed until the store opened Monday morning and police were called to investigate.