Tag: Personal

Admiring the Ads

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 6 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt was SLICK and I’m finally formulating a response to the prompt. Although there are many different ways to illustrate SLICK, it wasn’t until I was reading the telephone book this evening that an idea gelled.

No, I’m not so bored that I’ve taken to reading the phone book. We were looking for the name of a Garden Center that we visited about ten years ago, but it seems to have closed down. Then my gaze strayed to the next page and I noticed an advertisement for a business called “Ace of Carts.” As you can imagine, they sell golf carts and other small utility vehicles.

This piqued my curiosity so I did a little more finger-walking through the Yellow Pages and spotted some other business names using puns and/or alliterative ads. Depending on your sense of humor, you may call them SLICK, CUTE, or just TACKY.

Here are a few I found in the phone book:
“Reigning Cats and Dogs” pet grooming salon
“Waggin’ Wheels” mobile pet grooming
“Step Ahead Shoes”
“Crackmaster” glass repair specialists

And here are a few I’ve dreamed up, in case anyone’s interested in starting a new business:
“The Problem Shrinker” Counseling service
“I. Watchwell” Security devices
“Tall Street” Men’s business attire
“Pickled Pig Leather Goods”
“Julius Sneezer Allergy specialist” …or…
“Julius Tweezer” Unwanted hair removed quickly and painlessly.
“Over the Hill” Used Book Nook
“Nosh & Nibble Catering”

Have you seen any funny/slick/tacky business names or ads lately?

“Older Than Dirt”

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 16 Comments

I was talking with a friend yesterday and she asked me if I felt a year older now. No, not a whole year older. However, I just came across a file while scrolling through my DropBox and as I reread it, I realized that I, too, am “older than dirt.”
Renee Boomer shared these thoughts about eight years ago. They’re surely worth posting again. I hope they give you youngsters under fifty a smile today, too.

Man reflectingMy husband always tells the grandchildren that he is ‘older than dirt’. They find that quite funny. When I was approaching my sixtieth birthday they looked at me and said, “Gamma, now you will be ‘older than dirt’ just like Papa.”
Ha-ha. They will have their turn.

Old-Time Memories

When my Dad was cleaning out my grandmother’s house he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea.
She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to ‘sprinkle’ clothes with because we didn’t have steam irons. Man, I am old!

How many of these do you remember?
– Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
– Ignition switches on the dashboard.
– Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
– Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
– Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
— Ice boxes and home delivery of ice.
— Galvanized steel bath tubs.
Toy doll in tub

Here’s an official Older Than Dirt Quiz :
Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about.
Then see your rating at the bottom. 🙂

Candy cigarettes
Coffee shops with table-side juke boxes
Home milk delivery in glass bottles
Telephone party lines
Newsreels before the movie
TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. There were only 3 channels — if you were fortunate!
Peashooters
Howdy Doody
45 RPM records
Hi-fi’s
Metal ice trays with lever
Blue flashbulb
Cork popguns
Studebakers
Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-3 = You’re still young
If you remembered 3-6 = You are getting older
If you remembered 7-10 = Don’t tell your age
If you remembered 11-15 = You’re older than dirt!

I might be “older than dirt” but those memories are some of the best parts of my life!

Have Some of My Cake

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 12 Comments

Good morning to all my readers and followers.

Bright sunshine forecasting a beautiful day and I’m celebrating my birthday by having a coffee, doing the laundry, and generally staying home and avoiding all human contact. 🙂

Not quite true, as I’m cooking supper at the seniors’ residence this afternoon; also, my dear husband gave me a card and a kiss before he left to pick up a few groceries. Thankfully,  I can visit online as well, so won’t you all join me this morning for a cup of coffee, a piece of cake, and a few relevant verses.

CoffeeCake.Farooq Sharif

Here are a few haiku I wrote yesterday, combining thoughts of warmer days to come with our current situation:

morning joggers
run rings around
my safe space

a bumblebee
not knowing the law
comes way too close

if only mosquitoes would get the point of social distancing

The Fish or the Flop?

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt for today is FLOUNDER

Which brings to mind that old question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Was the fish named because of its flopping, or was the flopping named after the flounder that flopped around when caught?

Inquiring from wise old Mr Webster, I learned that there was a FLOUNDER – the fish – before there was a floundering of anything else. However, the verb FLOUNDER is believed to have been a twist of the much older word, FOUNDER, or possibly a blend between FOUNDER and BLUNDER.

Your Daily Word prompt is SWAMPED
The Word of the Day challenge is NOTHING
These prompt words bring to mind one trial in my life, so I’ll share something about that.

FLOUNDER is a good word for me: I often feel like I’m floundering. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve all these “someday” sewing and writing projects that need finishing. My “Bucket List,” if you will. Most of the time I can keep my heard above water, but some days I feel SWAMPED by the need to deal with said mess. All these notebooks full of scribbled poem bits, now tossed in a tub awaiting future attention — to say NOTHING of the tubs awaiting attention in my sewing room.

It’s all about perspective, right? “Just pick one thing and get started,” several friends have told me. So, do I have a full-blown case of OCD or ADD that keeps me from sticking with a task, or is it all just a lack of self-discipline? Scatterbrained, the old folks used to say.

Have you noticed that some thinking can put you on a real teeter-totter? When I’m feeling down about this mess, the philosopher in me rises up and asks accusingly, “Which came first, the mind-set or the mess? What major changes need to happen in your personality in order to avoid this situation?”

Oh, help! I think I’ll go read a good book.

Then along comes another Monday. I’m so thankful for Mondays; for me each one is a new start, a chance to get my head above the waves again and start paddling.

cropped-cake-3163117_1280.jpgTogether with the grandchildren, I worked on some sewing projects last Friday and today I plan to continue that good work. And once I get my sewing space all cleaned up, I’ll throw one mega-celebration. Chocolate cake and ice cream and… 😉

Ah! Incentive, that’s the key. Or does the answer lie in just accepting the mess as is? What do you think?

Memories Within

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is LOOKING WITHIN

Today I plan to do some looking within my cupboards to make up a good shopping list. Shopping is one thing that seems to have changed a lot in this current crisis and I’ve always been rather haphazard about it before, forgetting the list at home, forgetting some important item. Now I need to sharpen up, when both our shopping time and store supplies are limited.

I’ve also been looking within my sewing closet; yesterday I took advantage of the grandchildren being home from school and took a box of sewed blocks (for two baby blanket tops) over to their house. I had the granddaughters help me lay out these squares out on the floor and decide their order.

Any project is a whole lot better when you have cheerful helping hands—especially when they belong to flexible children who don’t mind crawling around on the floor to set out the blocks and shift them around to a suitable pattern. And we get the added bonus of making sweet memories together. 🙂

Here’s a poem that speaks of another kind of looking within; no matter where we are and what our stresses, we can all take a moment to enjoy a stroll through the corridors where we store our pleasant memories.

Floral + Poem.Prawny
                  Image by Prawny  —  Pixabay

Take My Hand, Precious Lord

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 3 Comments

This morning’s Ragtag Daily Prompt was HOLD MY HAND, a line that brings to mine one of my favorite—and one of the most beautiful—Gospel songs:

Take My Hand, Precious Lord, Lead Me Home

When my way grows drear, precious Lord linger near
When my life is almost gone
Hear my cry, hear my call
Hold my hand lest I fall
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me Home

Chorus:
Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me Home

When the shadows appear and the night draws near
And the day is past and gone
At the river I stand,
Guide my feet, hold my hand
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me Home

Chorus…

CLICK HERE if you wish to hear this song

The writer of this beautiful hymn was Thomas Andrew Dorsey, in Georgia in 1899 and died Jan. 1993. From 1932 Dorsey was choral director of the Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago. He founded the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses in Chicago in 1933, serving as its president for 40 years.

There’s a very touching story behind this song. He and his wife were married seven years and she was expecting their first child. He was called to sing in Gospel meetings in St Louis, MO, and she encouraged him to go. During one meeting he was handed a telegram that she had gone into labor and died in childbirth. Their son lived only a few hours. Visiting with a friend a few days later, seeking consolation for his deep grief, he sat down at a piano and composed this song.