It was a cold rainy evening. She had forgotten her umbrella that was tucked in the trunk of her car as she ran for the door of her office building. She only needed to pick up a few papers and would work on the materials at home. It was no great task to just grab them and go. The cleaning crew would be there so she would not be alone. She felt secure in this building as she had worked there for many years now. As she approached the elevator there was a well dressed man standing there. He was totally dry. There was no signs of an umbrella. She thought how odd this was, then brushed the thought aside.
As they boarded the elevator, he held the door for her to allow her to enter first. She entered, pushed her floor’s button then stepped back. He proceeded to push his button without turning toward her and faced toward the front. The doors had closed, yet nothing was moving. She could feel a slight sense of panic rushing in that she was trying to brush aside. Something did not feel right.
She stepped forward and pushed the button for her floor again. Still nothing. She pressed the emergency button. There were no sounds. No alarms. The stranger was awkwardly very silent and motionless. She could feel her heart pounding faster. Her breathing was becoming a bit more rapid and she was beginning to feel a bit faint.
Her mind began to race with thoughts of panic. If he killed her no one would know till morning. What had she been thinking to get on the elevator with a stranger. Why hadn’t she taken the stairs like she always did. Now her life might be in danger. In the hands of a total stranger who with one blow could wipe out her entire existence.
She thought of how she could defend herself. She had left her purse in the car. She could not even be identified. Thoughts of the last time she had told her family that she loved them flashed before her eyes.
As she opened her eyes, she could feel the sweat pouring across her brow. It was not just rain. She had worked herself into a tizzy. It was only a dream.
Relieved to find herself in her own bed, her own blankets and pillows surrounding her. She had never left the comfort of her own apartment. What could this dream have meant?
Simply walking into a room and taking a few pretzels from a bowl to eat. Adding mascara to my eyes. That is all that it took.
Inhaler, allergy meds, they did not help. A small amount of relief but not totally. I did not want to do the epi pen.
When do you decide enough is enough and give in and see a doctor?
Left eye swollen to the point where it was almost shut. Itching across the abdomen. This all started on Saturday.
By Monday, with no signs of improvement, the doctor was called.
Feeling like I was being dragged behind the truck, I went in to the doctor’s office to get a shot. Now I had pain in two places. His suggestion was to place a hot pack on my eye to reduce the swelling so I could at least see out of it. I had been doing ice packs prior as a home remedy.
I came home, took a new Dish towel that I had just washed and dried and attempted to sew up all the sides, leaving a small opening on one end. I turned it right side out and proceeded to fill it with long grain rice. I then sewed up the opening and placed it in the microwave for four minutes.
From there I headed to bed. My hubby was amazed that this little project worked.
It is wonderful. It was something that I had at home. I did not have to stop anywhere to make a purchase. It was quick and easy to make on my sewing machine and I had instant relief.
The trick is to not over fill the bag or it will burst. Do not heat over four minutes in the microwave or you will burn yourself.
Sixteen days on the road is a long trip. Since I had planned for this to be a cross country trip in a way, to last at least 30 days that would put us at our road marker of the midpoint.
My grander scheme was to do this for a year. I am not certain if I have the steam to do that. Time will tell. Can I make it interesting and vibrant enough to keep readers attention and drive to want to come back each day to see where it has gone or will they fade from boredom?
My first stop is a blog site that is new to me and I have enjoyed the wonderful photography:
Next stop is a shout out to someone who wrote a poem to his wife as a gift for their anniversary:
http://ivonprefontaine.com/2013/05/22/marriage/ I felt compelled to mention that as the Daily Prompt today was about “Jealousy” and there is obviously nothing like that going on in their strong relationship.
Tell us about the last time you were really, truly jealous of someone. Did you act on it? Did it hurt your relationship?
Photographers, show us something GREEN.
Jealousy is something that stems from insecurity in a relationship.
If a person is secure in the relationship and there has been no reasons to distrust the partner, there is no room for jealousy.
GREEN-EYED MONSTER:. by *capogasmic on deviantART
xxcapoxx.deviantart.com
Great way to take a wonderful relationship and ruin it.
It causes pain, suffering and feelings that really only cause problems.
Lose the Green Eyed Monster or lose the relationship.
Hopefully life is better for you without the “Green Eyed Monster”.
Here are what other Word Press Bloggers had to say:
You were not thinking when you spoke today.
The thought process caused you to go astray.
Your point was taken, yet you continued to say,
Hurtful words in a cold and meanless way.
You were not thinking of how others would feel.
You were Hell bent to get across your appeal.
To have said what you meant in a kinder fashion and deal,
Might have taken thought and a bit of being real.
To touch a heart, to be warm and show compassion and caring,
Might be a new perspective, bold and perhaps daring.
Using tact is sometimes gold, and so worth sharing.
It does not leave scars, and does not need repairing.
The damage is done, we can’t turn back time.
Perhaps you will learn from my little rhyme.
If you hurt someone, perhaps each time you should pay a dime.
I would be on a beach in Costa Rica eating a lime.
Before the words leave your mouth, please think twice,
Perhaps what comes out might actually be nice.
By causing others pain there is nothing to gain but lice.
The point is not taken, not even by mice.
Perhaps someday, you might find yourself all alone.
Your words will have caused others to become stone.
They will not hear or care if you want to moan.
You will be alone upon your throne.
Heed my words as I do love you so.
In lifes journey we still have far to go.
If it is to be with me you need this to know.
To be kind is the seed that you must sew.
This is only written with love in mind.
Hopefully you will understand this in time.
It was not meant to be cruel or just make a rhyme.
It was to point out that love is important to share and find.
Look to God for help in all matters so dear.
He is right there standing by just waiting to hear.
Ask him for guidance to help you with what you fear.
Perhaps if you do the attitude will clear.
I will list the Daily Prompt Writers who responded today then we can explore them.
We can see what they have set for their goals for their sites (if they had any).
We can explore how they have changed or if they have.
To get the word out there about the businesses that we have.
To have a spot to talk about all of the favorite recipes that I love to create or that I find
To start a cookbook
To have a spot where I could write and do it on a regular basis as a hobby of sort that was something that I could do anytime of day or night without making noise.
My other hobbies come with a bit of noise. A few also come with smells that my hubby can’t tolerate. It is difficult to crochet late at night due to a light factor.
I can just come in my office and type with my quiet keyboard and it does not bother him at all unless it is a YouTube day. Then I just turn off my speakers.
To have a spot to create fun creations of recycling items and making them into totally new ones. Taking something that would have seen the landfill and making it something that is totally different and quite useful in the home. Making the item so that it is beautiful and does not necessarily look like the original.
To have a spot that is quite entertaining and funny. To share funny moments that I have found either in emails or on the internet (Facebook).
Have I achieved them?
I feel they are there, yet I need to still tweak them and since I am still learning about linking and various other portions of Word Press, I do not get the traffic flow to them that I would like yet. I consider them still a work in progress.
Have they changed at all? Oh yes, my blog sites are always being changed and upgraded as I find new ways to do things. I am still in a learning process so I am certain there will be more changes to come in this coming year.
I have to admit that the Daily Prompt and the A-Z Challenges are two ways that I have been able to blog daily and to learn the changes that are needed to perfect and make my site the way I would like it to look.
Here are what other Daily Prompt writers had to say on the subject this early morning:
Look up nostalgia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
The term nostalgia describes a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.[1] The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of νόστος (nóstos), meaning “homecoming”, a Homeric word, and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning “pain, ache”, and was coined by a 17th-century medical student to describe the anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home. Described as a medical condition—a form of melancholy—in the Early Modern period, it became an important trope in Romanticism.[1]
Nostalgia, in its most common form, was responsible for the old front desk of The Beverly Hills Hotel (from 1942 to 1979) being made into a bar.
In common, less clinical usage, nostalgia can refer to a general interest in the past, their personalities, and events, especially the “good old days” from one’s earlier life. Boym[2] argues that nostalgia is more prevalent during times of great upheaval.
The scientific literature on nostalgia is quite thin, but a few studies have attempted to pin down the its essence and causes. Smell and touch are strong evokers of nostalgia due to the processing of these stimuli first passing through the amygdala, the emotional seat of the brain. These recollections of our past are usually important events, people we care about, and places where we have spent time. Music and weather can also be a strong trigger of nostalgia.
The term was coined in 1688 by Johannes Hofer (1669–1752) in his Basel dissertation. Hofer introduced nostalgia or mal du pays ”homesickness” for the condition also known as mal du Suisse“Swiss illness” or Schweizerheimweh ”Swiss homesickness,” because of its frequent occurrence in Swiss mercenaries who in the plains of lowlands of France or Italy were pining for their native mountain landscapes. Symptoms were also thought to include fainting, high fever, indigestion, stomach pain, and death.
English homesickness is a loan translation of nostalgia. Sir Banks Joseph used the word in his journal during the first voyage of Captain Cook. On 3 September 1770 he stated that the sailors “were now pretty far gone with the longing for home which the Physicians have gone so far as to esteem a disease under the name of Nostalgia,” but his journal was not published in his lifetime (see Beaglehole, J. C. (ed.). The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks 1768-1771, Public Library of New South Wales/Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1962, vol. ii, p. 145). Cases resulting in death were known and soldiers were sometimes successfully treated by being discharged and sent home. Receiving a diagnosis was, however, generally regarded as an insult. In 1787 Robert Hamilton (1749–1830) described a case of a soldier suffering from nostalgia, who received sensitive and successful treatment:
“In the year 1782, while I lay in barracks at Tin mouth in the north of England, a recruit who had lately joined the regiment,…was returned in sick list, with a message from his captain, requesting I would take him into the hospital. He had only been a few months a soldier; was young, handsome, and well-made for the service; but a melancholy hung over his countenance, and wanness preyed on his cheeks. He complained of a universal weakness, but no fixed pain; a noise in his ears, and giddiness of his head….As there were little obvious symptoms of fever, I did not well know what to make of the case…Some weeks passed with little alteration…excepting that he was evidently become more meager. He scarcely took any nourishment…became indolent…He was put on a course of strengthening medicines; wine was allowed him. All proved ineffectual. He had now been in the hospital three months, and was quite emaciated, and like one in the last stage of consumption… On making my morning visit, and inquiring, as usual, of his rest at the nurse, she happened to mention the strong notions he had got in his head, she said, of home, and of his friends. What he was able to speak was constantly on this topic. This I had never heard of before…He had talked in the same style, it seems, less or more, ever since he came into the hospital. I went immediately up to him, and introduced the subject; and from the alacrity with which he resumed it.. I found it a theme which much affected him. He asked me, with earnestness, if I would let him go home. I pointed out to him how unfit he was, from his weakness to undertake such a journey [he was a Welchman] till once he was better; but promised him, assuredly, without farther hesitation, that as soon as he was able he should have six weeks to go home. He revived at the very thought of it… His appetite soon mended; and I saw in less than a week, evident signs of recovery.”
In the eighteenth century, scientists were looking for a locus of nostalgia, a nostalgic bone. By the 1850s nostalgia was losing its status as a particular disease and coming to be seen rather as a symptom or stage of a pathological process. It was considered as a form of melancholia and a predisposing condition among suicides. Nostalgia was, however, still diagnosed among soldiers as late as the American Civil War.[3] By the 1870s interest in nostalgia as a medical category had all but vanished. Nostalgia was still being recognized in both the First and Second World Wars, especially by the American armed forces. Great lengths were taken to study and understand the condition to stem the tide of troops leaving the front in droves (see the BBC documentary Century of the Self).
One notable recent medical study has looked at the physiological affects thinking about past ‘good’ memories can have. They found that thinking about the past ‘fondly’ actually increased perceptions of warmth, meaning being nostalgic can make you actually feel warmer [4]
Nostalgia is triggered by something reminding an individual of an event or item from their past. The resulting emotion can vary from happiness to sorrow. The term of “feeling nostalgic” is more commonly used to describe pleasurable emotions associated with and/or a longing to go back to a particular period of time, although the former may also be true.
One recent study critiques the idea of nostalgia, which in some forms can become a defense mechanism by which people avoid the historical facts. [5] This study looked at the different portrayals of apartheid in South Africa and argued that nostalgia appears as two ways,[2] ’restorative nostalgia’ a wish to return to that past, and ‘reflective nostalgia’ which is more critically aware.
Swiss nostalgia was linked to the singing of Kuhreihen, which were forbidden to Swiss mercenaries because they led to nostalgia to the point of desertion, illness or death. The 1767 Dictionnaire de Musique by Jean-Jacques Rousseauclaims that Swiss mercenaries were threatened with severe punishment to prevent them from singing their Swiss songs. It became somewhat of a topos in Romantic literature, and figures in the poem Der Schweizer by Achim von Arnim(1805) and in Clemens Brentano‘s Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1809) as well as in the opera Le Chalet by Adolphe Charles Adam (1834) which was performed for Queen Victoria under the title The Swiss Cottage. The Romantic connection of nostalgia, the Kuhreihen and the Swiss Alps was a significant factor in the enthusiasm for Switzerland, the development of early tourism in Switzerland and Alpinism that took hold of the European cultural elite in the 19th century. German Romanticism coined an opposite to Heimweh, Fernweh ”far-sickness,” “longing to be far away,” like wanderlust expressing the Romantic desire to travel and explore.
Well guess that did not help much now did it.
So a gift that is brownish, redish, orange in color that might cause symptoms thought to include fainting, high fever, indigestion, stomach pain, and death.
Well even though I pulled that from Wikipedia, does not mean that is what Michelle had in mind lol.
Let’s try again, shall we…Producing or expressing a mixture of pain and pleasure: a movie with a bittersweet ending. Something reminding an individual of an event or item from their past.
Perhaps this is how the game of gossip got it’s beginning.
A nice but painful gift that makes me homesick and reminds me of my past. That would have to be an old fashioned radio.
I had one for years growing up since I did not have a television.
I can remember listening to the shadow knows and Dr. Who on the radio broadcast late at night when I could not sleep.
I could not take it with me when I had to move and it was always something I missed.
I did not miss the memories of that time in my life. Just the radio.
What type of gift would be a bittersweet nostalgia for you?
Here are what other Daily Prompt Writers had to say:
Is the ubiquitous internet — that constant need to ogle our phones at the first free moment — affecting our ability to focus? Do you find yourself compelled to change your Facebook status, or check your blog stats, or forward that new lolcat when you should be writing that proposal, building that deck, or designing that new site? Do you give your spouse laser eyes when you’ve served dinner and they’re texting a friend or taking a call while dinner gets cold? Is that constant alluring stream of self-validating Twitter @replies, Facebook Likes, and Instagram hearts affecting our ability to relate to human beings in the flesh?
Answer the poll below, then expand on your thoughts and feelings about whether or not the internet is ruining our focus and our ability to relate to other humans in an original blog post on your site. Be sure to tag your entry with DPchallenge.
I have to admit that as little as I know about my phone, I am addicted to Words With Friends as it does help to keep me calm throughout the day. I find a challenge in trying to use all of my letters in one pass or at least most of them till I get to the end and then I just hope to use them. I do put my phone down when I have company. I will tell phone callers (that are not customers), that I have company and will call them back and will wait to answer text messages as long as they are not customers.
I have different ringtones to signify whether it is gmail notifications or if it is a facebook or email. I also have a separate ringtone to let me know a text has come in so that I am not constantly checking my phone.
Since Words With Friends has a mind of it’s own and some days I can’t play for close to ten hours at a stretch, I will go a long time without being on my phone.
If my phone is on the charger I might not even get a call much less a text message for days till my cat drops the phone.
We do use the phone for our square https://squareup.com/ for business transactions. This I love. It has made life much easier.
What are your feelings on this subject has it taken away from social skills?
Please take my poll below and let me know
Thank you as always for reading and for your feedback,
In memory of those we have lost I am not doing a blog for a road trip today but am leaving this thought with you for the people who have come forward as volunteers and have contributed in helping to find each and every one of the missing, wounded and may our prayers be with every family involved. The losses are incredible and our hearts ache.
I am an Artist and Writer who also raises Angora Goats, a few horses, some cows, and assorted other animals. I usually shear the goats myself, spin my yarn and crochet, felt or knit my pretties. I also am a Survivor of depression and suicidal thoughts. I evolve.
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