Memorial Day Sharing

Melanie asks some topical questions for today’s SYW…

1. In your opinion, does patriotism require the belief that one’s country is the greatest on earth?

Absolutely not. That’s jingoism. Patriotism is supporting your country to help all of its citizens live good lives with quality education, healthcare, and employment opportunities. It also means helping to protect your country’s natural resources and wildlife. You can love something without denigrating everything else. You can also love something despite its flaws, while hoping they will be repaired.

2. Why is patriotism considered by some to be the highest of virtues? What is so important about love of country? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about humankind, or the planet as a whole, rather than a single country?

I don’t know why some people think that. I’m not gonna get into the weeds with a big lecture on what other people should do. Personally, my values are to first support my family and myself, pay my bills, take care of my pets, and just generally not be a jerk or a burden to others.

3. What is the relationship between decisions and consequences?

It depends on the context. Bad decisions often have bad consequences, but good decisions don’t always show good results, at least not immediately. For example, I could spend the weekend overeating and see an immediate gain of three pounds on my scale, plus feel bloated and gross on Tuesday. Bad decision = bad result. But I might spend the weekend eating only nutritious foods and taking walks, yet three days later nothing changes because good results take so long to show up. Bleh!

4. What is social justice?

Well, my knee-jerk response was to say that this is a term used on social media to mock people who earnestly stand up for things such as gay rights by calling out those who violate the earnest peeps’ principles. But apparently there is an actual definition, or a few variations thereof, which is the movement toward a society where the distribution of resources is more equitable and all people have the the right to live in physical and psychological safety. Sounds nice, in theory…

5. What’s one body part you wouldn’t mind losing? (told you.  Silly).

I don’t need my uterus any longer, lol…

6. What is something that made you smile during the past week?

Pictures of my adorable granddaughter! 💖

~*~

Images from Bitmoji.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

FUNQ’s 😍

Melanie suggested some fun questions for me! Thanks, M!

1. What’s your favorite holiday/celebration?

I enjoy any low key holiday when I can wear a cute kitty tee shirt and possible sparkly hat plus either go out to dinner or have a themed potluck. Not a fan of big complicated holidays that involve a lot of work.

2. Do you enjoy snow, if you have it in your area?

We do not get snow near the beach in Orange County, California (that I know of), but I enjoy looking at pics of winter scenes elsewhere. I wouldn’t mind visiting some snow again someday. Oh hi! Brrrr! Bye!

3. What do you think of the current news (generally, not today specifically)?

4. Dog or cat or guinea pig/ferret/fish/bird?

Love kitties! Doggies are nice too. If I were wealthy, I’d want a gorgeous aquarium full of beautiful fishies. Pets are a lot of work though, even cats, when they’re inside as they should be. 🐱

5. Do you like bacon?

I confess I do, but only super duper crispy bacon, almost burnt. Most places don’t make it crispy enough for me. I don’t make it at home because I don’t like my place to smell of meat. I’m fine never having it.

6. If you’re more vegan or vegetarian (someone please explain the difference.  Briefly.  I get confused! 😛 ) what’s your favorite veggie?

Vegans don’t eat or use any products from animals; vegetarians just don’t eat meat. I don’t eat much meat these days, but I’m not vegetarian. I might go a few weeks with no meat, but then I’ll have an Egg McMuffin. My favorite veggies are mushrooms, beets (roasted), zucchini, and spinach!

7. Sunshine or rain/snow?

I like sunny days, but rain is good for us, so I don’t mind it. Mostly I enjoy overcast days without blindingly bright light.

8. Frozen treat on a hot day?

I love an iced mocha Frappuccino from Starbucks with whipped cream. Yummy! Frozen lemonade is fab too, but it has to be at the fair. My friend told me a few years ago you can buy them at the grocery store and they don’t cost $6.00 per little cup, but I want to overpay AT THE FAIR! 🤣

9. Do you have a favorite type of tree?

Yes, a weeping willow. We had one in our backyard in New Jersey and it was awesome.

10. What generational nomenclature do you use?  (explanation:  which generation’s lingo do you most identify with?  Or are you a linguist who embraces ALL the words from every generation? )

I love words, but I was a teenager in the 1970s, so I probably use lingo from that era the most, including a lot of swearing (I try not to here). It’s all good, and I like to keep up even if I don’t use whatever is current.

Great questions! 😻

~*~

Image from Bitmoji.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Earth 🌎 Day

Today I went to get the mail and saw our mama duck again with her ducklings. They were very close to the busy road and I was scared, but they stayed in the grass and then waddled back to the moat. Wished I had my camera. Instead, I’ll post a few pics from when I was out and about in other times, celebrating our wonderful Earth. It’s a celebration of all of us too…

~*~

Images mine.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

PFF37: Valentines No More

Welcome to Paula’s Friday Flashback! This is a challenge begun by Fandango and it’s fun to see what we posted back when (as well as the comments). The post below is a reblog of a post I made exactly 9 years ago on February 14, 2011… and the poem itself appeared in my college chapbook in 1989.

valentines

i brought you poisoned candy, ha!
but you spit them out, one by one–
crushed chocolate on our Persian rug.
next year? i’m thinking, i’m thinking…

mine is wrapped so neatly:
ribbons curled like big fat tongues;
i rip them out, one by one.
just what i’ve always wanted:

a solid gold tarantula.
i toss it out the window, BOOM:
you almost got me that time, dear.
try your luck again next year.

at least i still have the foil balloons.
i love you, i love you, i do.

[me, 1989, published in CSUN thing]

/end reblog

~*~

Image from Pexels.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

BIG PROMO SMILE 😍

My political love story Switching Positions is available on Kindle books, yayyy! Just in time for Valentine’s Day! ❤️🍫💋

Hurry and grab your copy today, my friends. These babies are selling fast! 😘

That’s it; that’s my smile. 😍

Once again, the link to purchase my new book (or borrow it on Kindle Unlimited) is… Switching Positions.

~*~

Written for Trent’s Weekly Smile.

Image credit to Paula Light.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

New Year’s Questions

I’ve been double-tagged! 🥳 Yep, both Sadje and Rory tagged me to answer the NYQ’s that are going around Blogville. Thanks for thinking of me! 🥰 I’m happy to answer the questions, but I’m not going to tag anyone else.

1. If you could celebrate the New Year anywhere, where would it be?

I celebrated the New Year by going for an early walk in Huntington Beach Central Park. It was beautiful.

2. What is your favorite snack food for New Year?

I began the New Year right by not having snacks.

3. Have you ever kept a New Year’s resolution? If so, what was it?

l kept today’s ~ exercised, ate right, worked, wrote, cleaned, did laundry, etc. Tomorrow should be another good day too.

4. What do you want to do with your blog next year?

I’m happy with my blog the way it is.

5. Do you prefer a big party or a small gathering to celebrate? 

I like staying home with my kitty on New Year’s Eve. Too many drunks on the roads. As far as New Year’s Day, I celebrated by getting stuff done on my to-do list, lol.

~*~

My favorite New Year’s Memory…

Staying up all night to chat with a new man I connected with on a dating site. That was fun. I miss chatting with people who live far away and don’t expect to meet anytime soon or even ever, but love to talk just because. No agenda other than to exchange written words. Those are my kind of peeps.

We did meet though, months later, after chatting daily. It was a bit disappointing.

~*~

Images from Bitmoji me.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Laura’s Music Challenge 38

Laura ends the year on a musical note by bringing back her song challenge and asking us to post 5 videos about beginnings, endings and/or looking forward.

Happy New Year! 🥳🥳🥳

~*~

Image from Bitmoji.

©️2019 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Looking Forward

I have been enjoying other bloggers’ recaps of the year past and usually I do something similar. This year however I’m skipping that type of detailed post. One reason is that I’m just too lazy to copypasta links to my top ten posts in a new post. Another is that I just don’t care which posts received the most views ~ and if I don’t care, why would you?

Lots of times a post I love (usually a poem) gets fewer views and comments than some picture of an old flower or whatever, so I find the stats pretty meaningless. I guess if I were monetizing the blog, I would obsess over such things, but I’m not and don’t. Also, it matters which day of the week and time of the day a post goes live, but I’m too busy to check that further. Plus, it’s boring.

The most important part of recapping the year in my opinion anyway is to thank everyone who has read my blog, whether regularly or sporadically, and interacted with my writing. So, would like to extend a hearty thank you to all my readers! ❤️ I appreciate all of you! 😍

Looking forward, my intent is to keep on blogging as usual but perhaps a bit lighter on quantity, since I’ve been refocusing on my unfinished writing projects. I began a new humorous story recently and it’s now taken priority over every other piece of fiction ~ I hope to have it available for sale on Kindle in the next few weeks. After that, I want to get serious about cleaning up my writing to-do list, like I said I would last year. 🙄

I spent a fair bit of time dealing with audio books last summer and was disappointed in the small amount of sales. I thought the talkers would do promo. I also assumed the site itself would market me. All wrong. Oh well. Since that was no fun at all, but writing is, I’ll stick with the written word.

I also need to read more books. With my move and other busy-ness, I’ve been in a reading lull. Writers need to read! Not just blogs and news, but real books. I can always feel my creativity and imagination begin to bubble and boil when I dive into the worlds that other writers have created. It’s a crucial component of the craft.

Dream big, my friends! 💖✨🥳

~*~

Image from Bitmoji.

©️2019 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

The Chocolate Lady’s Eight Candle Book Tag ~ Day 8

To celebrate Chanukah this year and my friend the Chocolate Lady, I accepted her challenge to participate in the Eight Candle Book Tag. This was a fun game. Thanks for coming up with it, Davida!😀

I’m pretty sure I said “wow!” or something to that effect when I finished Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie. This book was a revelation. First, it’s simply a great romance novel full of interesting, complex characters, lots of wit and humor, loads of sexy times, a quirky setting, and an actual plot. Second, the sex isn’t as unrealistic as it’s often portrayed in the “bodice rippers” set in the 1800s or whenever. Third, WTT is a contemporary romance, written in a breezy style, which made me think about my own writing.

What I thought was, hmm, ya know, if this kind of writing gets published, then maybe I too could write a romance novel!

And indeed I can write one. Did write one. More than one actually. Getting published, however, is another matter entirely…

Happy Chanukah!

~*~

Images from The Chocolate Lady’s blog

©️2019 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

The Chocolate Lady’s Eight Candle Book Tag ~ Day 7

To celebrate Chanukah this year and my friend the Chocolate Lady, I am accepting her challenge to participate in the Eight Candle Book Tag. This is a fun game and very easy to play ~ just visit her link for the options. I am of course doing the most complicated version. 😀

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb was a light in the darkness for me. I bought this book by mistake, grabbing it on impulse as I checked out, thinking it was the story of the ballerina movie that starred Natalie Portman, which I had just seen with my daughter. No, Taleb’s Black Swan is about trying to assign predictive values to future events by analyzing the past along with other factors. It’s a combo of history, math, science, statistics, and human psychology. Utterly fascinating.

Happy Chanukah!

~*~

Images from The Chocolate Lady’s blog

©️2019 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.