Just Jot it January - Day 31 - Write

Woo hoo.  I made it!

Today is the final day of the Just Jot it January challenge organised by Linda here.  Big thanks to Linda for keeping us all on track.

Today's prompt is also from her - Write.

That's quite an apt quote from Linda as she is a writer.  She has published books, as have many of the people that link to her site and have taken part in the challenge.

In that respect I don't consider myself a writer.  I haven't had anything published and am not likely to.  But I do enjoy writing my blog content.

It's been useful having the daily prompts to start from as my imagination doesn't always run away with me.  Words do though which is why I called my blog Wendy's Waffle.  

In an earlier post I mentioned starting A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.  He is a very accomplished writer but gosh can he waffle.  The book isn't grabbing me so far - I've managed to get to page 36 out of 637.  My original aim was to read a chapter a night until I discovered that the book doesn't have chapters, it has sections.  The first section is 48 pages long so I'm nearly at the end of it.  The next section has 58 pages.  The longest section has 94 pages but fortunately there are breaks in each section so I can find a convenient point to stop.

I'm always impressed with books that don't just tell a story but have depth to them where clearly the author has taken time to weave in information beyond the basic narrative.  

I do know that I am never going to be amongst that elite.

Just Jot it January 2023 - Day 30 - Canine

Here we are at the penultimate day of this challenge which Linda does a great job of hosting.  Find all the info here.

Today's prompt is Canine provided by Dawn who blogs here.

I've had a couple of canines in my life.  Growing up we had a mongrel called Sandy.  Guess what colour he was?

Then at 19 with a broken engagement behind me my parents encouraged me to get a dog.  Smudge, not his pedigree name, was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and of course very cute.

When I met my hubby it was a case of love me love my dog.  Fortunately he did. Well he was fond of the dog but he's not overly keen on pets having grown up in a household with no pets at all.

Of course Smudge passed away many years ago and we've not had a dog since.  We did have 2 cats when the children were growing up, but since they've passed away our house has been pet free.

I did contemplate getting more cats but as my son has a retired racing greyhound that comes with them when they visit, and that's usually for a few days at a time, it wouldn't be a sensible idea. 

As for another dog, hubby is not keen on that idea so I doubt that will ever happen.  I do sometimes say that if hubby goes first I might get a dog for company but hopefully that won't happen anytime soon and by the time it does I'll be too old to be wanting to take on a dog.

Right well this is a bit of a waffling post.  Had to do at least one that lived up to my blog title.

30 down, 1 to go.

I've got this.

Just jot it January - Day 29 - Exercise

For all the info on the challenge go here.

Well today's prompt was my idea but I'm not really sure what made me choose exercise considering I do very little of it.  I do try and get out walking as often as I can, even if it's just down to the library or the supermarket and back or a lap of the lake but that's about it.

You won't find me in any strange yoga positions or stretching in a pilates class and definitely not huffing and puffing trying to do aerobics of any sort.

What you will find me doing is exercising my brain.  Both my Mum and an Aunt had Alzheimer's so, as you can imagine, I'm trying to keep my brain fully functioning for as long as possible.

I think blogging definitely helps with that but I also love doing things like Wordle (and Quordle, Octordle and Sedecordle) and I like this site which has lots of Japanese style puzzles.  

Another thing we love to do as a family is the pub quiz in the Saturday newspaper.  We usually get the paper and then send a picture round to our kids and partners.  It can get a bit competitive though.  E.g. yesterday one person said Blink 185 when the actual answer was Blink 182.  Nil points.

I was also cross that the answer for "In the UK, what is the term for a flat with floors on two levels" was Duplex. In the UK?  Whatever happened to maisonette?  

Unfortunately no one felt like giving me a point for that either.

Do you have a favourite type of exercise?  Or are you like me, a bit of a couch potato?  

Just Jot it January - Day 28 - #SoCS - Throw in the Towel

2 for the price of 1 again today.  A #SoCS post that will count as a Jot.

For all the information on how this works go here.

The prompt for the post is "throw in the towel"

Well it's day 28 of the Just Jot it January challenge and I've posted something everyday so far (although one post was past midnight here but still on the right day in the US so I'm counting that as a win) oops digressing as usual.

Anyway I'm not throwing in the towel now with only 3 days to go and one of those is my own prompt.

Actually I hate throwing in the towel on anything.  Readers this month will have seen how tenacious I was at getting a difficult jigsaw puzzle completed.  Although I did think I might give up on it in the first couple of sessions when I seemed to make hardly any progress.

I'm like that with books too.  I hate not finishing a book although there have been rare occasions when I have done - sometimes when I realise I've already read the book!

I've just started reading "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving.  Needed a book with a J either in the title or the author's name and that book has been lying around in my TBR pile for ages.  I try and use books in my TBR pile for reading challenges when I can but this might be more than I can handle.  I'm not sure I'll have it finished by next weekend - it's long.  Anyone read any Irving books?  Let's just say it feels like you're reading a combination of books in one volume.  He is very verbose - definitely must work on the premise why use a word when a sentence would be better or come to that why stick to a sentence when a paragraph could be used.  And why not go off on a complete tangent while we're at it!

Oops just broken a SoCS rule - I went back and switched an exclamation mark for a full stop.  I use too many exclamation marks.

Hmm I've lost my train of thought so maybe now would be a good time to throw in the towel on this post.