What if your dog ate all the food you prepared for Thanksgiving dinner?

 

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/31179

I hope everyone has had a happy Thanksgiving and a successful Black Friday shopping spree.  It’s amazing to me that I have family dinners all year round with family, yet the dinners during the holidays just feel different.  It feels magical.  It feels comfortable.  I know what we will eat on thanksgiving.  I know what family stories will be brought up as we eat dinner.  I know the minute I walk in I will be hugged and the house will smell of cinnamon.  This year we did something different, we had fried turkey.  It was the best turkey dinner I have ever had at Thanksgiving.  However, it got me thinking about how we crave the traditions of our holidays.  What would we do if we could no longer have any of the traditional holiday foods?  What if your dog ate all of Thanksgiving dinner?  What would you eat instead?

The Case Of The Missing Blogger

You might have wondered where I have been.  I wish it was an exciting story like I won the lottery or was off raising tigers.  As some of you know I had an injury that affected my ability to type.  I was supposed to rest my neck and arm until I finished physical therapy, but I kept reinjuring it.  It’s hard not using your hands/neck when you’re in the masters program for a teaching credential.   Who knew there would be so much paper work?  Lucky for me I could still click with the mouse and read other people’s blog.  I got addicted to face book games and reading other people’s posts.  I became what my family calls a lurker.

I finally discovered a solution to my problem, when I was watching TV.  That’s right I learned something from TV even more amazing in a commercial.  It was a commercial for Dagon Naturally speaking, software that allows you to speak instead of type to produce written documents.  I had used it years ago, but it took hours of training the software before you could start writing.  I gave it a shot.  It worked on the first try.   Now I’m pain free and sleeping well for the first time in months.  More importantly, I have a way to blog!

I recommend the software for anyone with hand injuries or who just wants a break from typing.  It’s given me my voice back.  I’m able to keep writing my novel, blog and more importantly reconnect with friends.

A special thanks to all my blogging friends.  Even though I stopped writing, I still kept up with your blogs and messages.  Reading your blogs gave me something to look forward to everyday.  I have had nothing but support and love from my fellow bloggers and for that I will always be grateful.  As a blogger, I wonder if my blog is helping anyone on posts that no one really responds to.  I now know that even if people aren’t responding (as I wasn’t) it doesn’t mean that you aren’t making a difference

Freaky Friday: Ghost Hunting From The Comfort Of Your Living Room

As we get closer to Halloween, the urge for a good ghost story grows.  What better way to fulfill that need than to watch Ghost Hunters.    Ghost hunter is creepy because the show not only tries to find the paranormal but to also debunk paranormal stories.  Because of their intention to debunk paranormal activities if that is what their investigation shows, it makes what they find more credible.  After watching their show, I can’t help but want to try it out.   For people interested in trying ghost hunting this show can help show you ways to investigate a site.  For people too scared to go on a ghost hunt, this show gives you an opportunity to be a part of it from the safety of your own living room.

I found a video on you tube that shows a few pieces of evidence collected from Ghost Hunters.

Wacky Wednesday: What if…

One of the topics I talk about on Wacky Wednesdays are what if games.  What if games are a boon to many writers.  Writers use the game to form story ideas, such as what if we lived in a world with dragons.  The game can also be used for other aspects such as character development or possible plot twists.  Unfortally this wonderful game can be a bane to the friends and family of the writer who are dragged into playing.

 I thought I would start with a what if question that helps me learn more about the person answering it.  What if you could only use one condiment for the rest of your life?  What would you pick?  Anyone from my family could tell you what I would pick, mustard.  I had a little bit of meat, bread or fries with my mustard.  Heck, I loved hot mustard so much I could it eat it plain, the hotter the better.

Freaky Friday: The Lighter Side Of Horror

Sometimes you can get a little too into the darkness of vampires, monsters, werewolves and their ilk.  Sometimes you need to have someone rip of the monster’s mask and remind us that it is just a book and that book is filed in the “fiction” section.  If you find yourself in need of lightening the gloom, here is a clip that may cheer you up.

Murder, Mayhem and Madness Monday: Celebrity Nightmares Decoded

Dreams are a frequent topic in psychology.  It’s half science, half mystery.

Science can measure dream length, what part of the brain is active during dreams and what causes a person to stay in REM sleep longer.   Research supports that dreams are one way we process our memories of the day.

The mystery is the symbols in our dreams that give us hints to what our subconscious is thinking.  Not to mention the fact that many of us have similar dreams.  For example many people experience dreams about falling, flying, and being naked in front of people.

Celebrity Nightmares Decoded

How do we decide what the symbols mean in our dream?  The TV show: Celebrity Nightmares Decoded tries to explain the symbols of dreams.  The host, Lauren Lawrence.  hears nightmares from celebrities  and tries to decode the symbols and the age they had the dream to figure out what their mind was trying to tell them.

Now I have to admit I was reluctant to watch.  Don’t get me wrong, I love dreams and I think that it is a way your brain tries to tell you something that you haven’t put together yet consciously.   However, the idea of using a book of universal symbols to make sense of a dream just didn’t feel right.   I can see how many symbols would be true but what about taking into account that everyone has a different value or view of the universal symbols.

For Example

• What about phobias?   A baby bunny could be cute and represent innocence to some. What about the child  who developed a fear of them after watching the killer rabbit from Monty Python?
• What about the fact that time changes our view of symbols?
• What about our ever changing society and technology?  People didn’t dream about computers a century ago.
• What about the differences we have due to culture, religion or family

After all my doubts, I was pleasantly surprised with the show.  Lauren Lawrence seem to use dream symbols, psychology and some psychic powers or intuition to decode the dreams.  I was really surprised at how well she read the dreams.

The show also included some universal symbols in our dreams and their general meaning.

Examples

Dreaming of being naked in public

Most people think it’s due to being embarrassed like walking into class naked.

Lauren Lawrence contradicts that view.  She pointed out that most people dream that no one sees them when they are naked.  Her view is that people want others to notice them.

What to look for:  Whereever you are during the dream is where you feel invisible and unnoticed by other.

Clowns

Clowns can make us feel happy or scared.

Lauren Lawrence believes that in dreams clowns represent powerlessness and not being taken seriously by others.

What to look for: Whereever you are during the dream is where you feel powerless

Further Information

Lauren Lawrence writes an article on decoding nightmares that people email her.  The best part is that you can email your nightmares to her and she’ll decode them.  Find more information at the bottom of her article.

A Special Thank You To All My Blogging Buddies

Living in a large city, most of our interactions have become ritualized.  I did an experiment suggested by one of my professors.  Over a few weeks I alternated my response to “hi, how are you?”  With some people, I said “fine” and with others I said, “I just had the worst weekend ever”.  Both sets of people responded exactly the same way, they said the equivalent of, “oh good” and walked on.  So it was a pleasurable surprise to find that all of my blogging buddies, actually listened to what I had said and had positive wishes and suggestions for a quick recovery.  I haven’t experienced such a sense of community since leaving my small central New York town.  Thanks to all of you for welcoming me to into this community.  If you ever need a friend or are in need or a fellow blogger, I highly recommend everyone on my circle of friends.

I found a touching performance that shows the benefits of love and community.

Sorry to have missed you

My deepest apologies for not posting or responding since Tuesday.  I’m sure many of you know that I am accident prone.  I was finally getting over an injury to my right arm so I was finally able to do more but then I was walking my dog and as I bent down, she spotted a puppy she just had to meet and lunged in that direction.  My back and shoulder have been in non-working condition ever since.  I’ll be up to typing again next week.  My mom is typing this post for me.

Murder, Mayhem and Madness Monday: The First Person Charged With A DUI

This week marks the 114^th  anniversary  of the first drunk driving arrest.  The man arrested was a 25-year-old man named George Smith who worked as a cab driver in London.  On September 10, 1897 he crashed his cab while severally intoxicated.  He didn’t just hit a parked car or a tree, instead he drove right into a side of a building.   I guess if you are going down in the history books for being the first to be arrested for a crime you better do it right.  Smith took responsibility for his actions and pled guilty.  He was fined only 25 shillings.

While I love learning about crime “firsts” I’m not sure the Smith’s family wanted to be associated with such an anniversary.   Crimes that are solved are a matter of public record, but should they be or does it cause too much pain for the relatives of the guilty?

Tag i’m It! My Top Ten List.

I have been tagged by one my favorite blogging friends, Angela Orlowski-Peart , to play a blogging game.  In this game I write a post about 10 intresting things about myself and then tag four other bloggers to do the same.  I was lucky enough to find five fabulous bloggers to play the game with me: @LolaSharp @FESewell @IsisRushdan @Tiger_Gray @Robin_Weeks  All the bloggers are part of the  Writer’s Platform-Building Campaign.

Megan’s top ten list

 10

When I was four my mother took me on the Matterhorn roller coaster at Disneyland.  I didn’t know at the time that my mother had a fear of heights.  It didn’t take long for her to start screaming.  When the ride went outside the mountain or around corners she would scream, “we’re going to die.  Look how far we are up.  Oh god I can feel it, we’re tipping.”  It may not surprise you but it wasn’t until my teens that I was really able to enjoy roller coasters again.

9

I go to Disneyland once a year.

8

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  I loved watching spooky movies and wearing whatever costume my mother made that year. However, I didn’t like candy.  I can still remember how happy my brother and mother were when I came home with my pillow sack full of candy.

7

I have bought the book Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: Collected from American Folklore by Alvin Schwartz three times as a kid.  I loved the spooky stories in it but there was one story about a killer hiding in the attic.  My room had the access panel for our attic and I would become convinced that the sounds I heard from there were a killer just waiting for me to go to sleep.  After a few days of not sleeping, my mom would figure out what the problem was and make me get rid of the book.

6

Every watch I have owned dies within a few days or at most three weeks.

5

I have been telling and writing stories since I could talk.  When I would catch my mother not listening, I would start telling her wilder and wilder story twists.  You know, “And then they took my classmate out into the woods and shot him.” Or “The squirreled came down from the chandelier and demanded nuts.”

4 

I’m currently in the same teaching credential program that my grandfather attended.

3

As a child, I refused to eat square pizza because it I swore it tasted different than the round pizza.  I don’t think so anymore but my family still teases me about being a picker eater so I still insist it taste different.

2

When I was a kid I caught a rapid badger in my cousin’s basement.  I don’t know why but they wouldn’t let me keep it as a pet or hug it.

1

I love to bake cupcakes.  My two favorite cupcakes are Oreo and pound cake.