Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge#87 Class and Firm

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Ronovan’s prompt words this week, class and firm seem to be very appropriate judging by my new part-time role working in a primary school.

It’s been quite a week. We’ve had rain, fog, cold days, mishaps, sharing issues, arguments, little fights and then…. one day this week the fire alarm went off during the lunch break and the little ‘uns were very upset. They thought their school was about to burn down, and they wanted their mummies! So I did my best to reassure them that this was not the case and it was just the kitchens getting too hot!! Poor wee mites, when you’re little every drama ends up being a major crisis of disproportionate proportions.

It didn’t help that just before the fire alarm went off one of the little girls hurt her lip, adding even more drama to an already raging inferno!

So the Monkeying Around haiku below is with them in mind…. sometimes, I’d advocate a fair old dousing of over imaginativeitis – only in extreme cases you understand!  But if all else fails a big hug from mum is always a good idea:

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MONKEYING AROUND

Raging school drama,

Classes monkeying around,

Firm, but fair dousing!

 

Oh and today I came across one of many little cherubs. This one with curly blond hair and the brightest blue eyes,  but even little cherubs can be challenging! This little fellow only responds to the words kind hands when he’s been a bit naughty – kind hands involves putting your little hands up in the air and proposing kindness to your  fingertips… miraculously it seemed to work, perhaps he is a bit theatrically inclined. I hope when I ask him to do it again his hands oblige!

I mentioned it to my youngest daughter and she laughed and admitted that she was really naughty in reception!!! In fact she was so naughty that she used to have to stay in sometimes as they wouldn’t let her out to play! And I thought she was an angel, us mothers, huh!!! She sounds like a cherub too….

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BE KIND

A little cherub,

Not naughty just challenging,

Firm words then kind hands.

 

Do pop over to Ronovan Writes, to join in with the haiku weekly challenge fun:

https://ronovanwrites.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/ronovanwrites-weekly-haiku-poetry-prompt-challenge-87-classfirm/

 

Hope you liked my haiku.

Have a lovely weekend, have fun, but remember no monkeying around!

Bye for now,

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Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

 

 

Inspiring Aspiring Young Authors

I am very busy at the moment editing my book getting it ready for self publishing so with that in mind I will be doing some reblogs of posts that I have enjoyed. Today, its been a tough decision which to pick as there have been so many that I have enjoyed but after much thought I’d like to share with you author Ali Stegert’s inspiring post about young authors. Christopher Paolini started writing Eragon (2002) when he was 15…….. So age is no obstacle, young, old, we’re all in this together! Enjoy.. 🙂

If a Place Called Writing Town Existed…#writerslife #writer #amwriting

Lucy at Blonde Write More tells us all about the amusing life of an author. Are you stuck in Procrastination Boulevard, or perhaps you spend too much time in Social Media Square. Wherever it is you hang out you are bound to recognise some of these writerly hot spots! Our end goal is always Literary Heights…. its a bit of a skyscraper journey but hopefully we’ll get there..

Jane Dougherty Poetry: Hourglass Challenge

I couldn’t resist doing some Hourglass poetry too, via Jane Dougherty’s Poetry Challenge:  https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/poetry-challenge-20-hourglass-poetry/

More about the form: ten lines with a syllable count of 5.4.3.2.1.2.3.4.5, on Jane’s blog. Basically you end up with nine lines.

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True happiness lives

Simplicity

Lies in the

little

breaths

of life

Death clings on

Memories lived

Simple Moments Shared.

 

Hope you liked my hourglass poetry, it’s a bit of a paradoxical one about happiness too. Hope it doesn’t give you the heeby-geebies.

 

Bye for now,

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Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

 

Quote Challenge: Day 2 Albert Camus

Day Two of Heena’s Quote Challenge  continues with my focus on the nature of happiness.

This was to be my Day 3 Challenge but unfortunately WP is playing up on me and has lost my Day 2 Challenge post – hence bringing this forward a day…. quite fitting as I am now not too chuffed…… and searching vainly for my original Day 2 post!

Today I am considering the illusive, and paradoxical nature of happiness.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better pushing right back.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“There is not love of life without despair about life.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

― Albert Camus

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There is something quite fascinating about the above photo that I found on Pixabay. It would make a wonderful prompt for a story. It makes you ponder why the girl is in such a sorrowful pose, with her head hanging, and a cigarette poised in the air. The shadows and lit pathway ahead suggest possibilities, the foreground is all bright, and yellow like her jeans. Perhaps she has had terrible news. Life is not all happy days, there are good and bad moments, and true happiness can sometimes allude us. Recently I heard a very sad story from my mother about the grandmother of a young man who died of a heart attack at age eighteen, such a shock to his family, and friends. This goes against all our expectations – how can a seemingly fit young man die before his grandmother? How does one cope with such grief? The very thought of it makes me shudder. How can we accept such loss, and what does it say about the meaning of life?

Life is too short. For some it is bitterly short.  So perhaps we shouldn’t search for happiness as if it is a goal to  be achieved. Instead, just be. Happiness is not a quality that you can capture, it is a state of being that you experience first hand without hardly noticing. So rather than searching down endless pathways looking for the things that make us happy perhaps it’s better to live in the moment, treasure those seconds, minutes, and hours of pleasure spent in the company of much loved family and friends, store them up and keep them for a rainy day when you might just need them.

RULES OF THIS CHALLENGE:

  1. Post three consecutive days
  2. You can pick one or three quotes per day
  3. Challenge three different bloggers per day

MY THREE NOMINEES FOR TODAY ARE:

Ameena @ https://randomsbyarandom.wordpress.com/

Charley @ https://booksandbakes1.wordpress.com/

Kayleigh @ https://kayleighm8.wordpress.com/

 

Here is the link to Heena’s Challenge. Do visit her lovely blog:

http://heenarathorep.com/2016/02/27/quotes-challenge-2/

If only we could all find that special moment of happiness and hold it in our hearts forever… negating all the other crappy things that happen..

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Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

 

Quote Challenge: Day 3, Nikos Zazantzakis

Welcome to the third day of Heena’s 3 Day Quote  Challenge:

My focus today is on happiness in its simplest form.

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“I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

Yes this charming quote says it all, happiness doesn’t have to be anything fancy and elaborate in fact often it is the simplest things that give us the most pleasure. We’ve all had those little moments of happiness that leave us breathless in their simplicity, they’re the ones that remain the longest in our memories, such sweet moments to treasure.

Here’s the Goodreads synopsis – Zorba The Greek. 

The classic novel, international sensation, and inspiration for the film starring Anthony Quinn explores the struggle between the aesthetic and the rational, the inner life and the life of the mind.

The classic novel Zorba the Greek is the story of two men, their incredible friendship, and the importance of living life to the fullest. Zorba, a Greek working man, is a larger-than-life character, energetic and unpredictable. He accompanies the unnamed narrator to Crete to work in the narrator’s lignite mine, and the pair develops a singular relationship. The two men couldn’t be further apart: The narrator is cerebral, modest, and reserved; Zorba is unfettered, spirited, and beyond the reins of civility. Over the course of their journey, he becomes the narrator’s greatest friend and inspiration and helps him to appreciate the joy of living.

Zorba has been acclaimed as one of the most remarkable figures in literature; he is a character in the great tradition of Sinbad the Sailor, Falstaff, and Sancho Panza. He responds to all that life offers him with passion, whether he’s supervising laborers at a mine, confronting mad monks in a mountain monastery, embellishing the tales of his past adventures, or making love. Zorba the Greek explores the beauty and pain of existence, inviting readers to reevaluate the most important aspects of their lives and live to the fullest.

RULES OF THIS CHALLENGE:

  1. Post three consecutive days
  2. You can pick one or three quotes per day
  3. Challenge three different bloggers per day

MY THREE NOMINEES FOR TODAY ARE:

Jade @ Scatterbooker: https://scatterbooker.wordpress.com/

Val @ http://findyourmiddleground.com/

Geoff@ http://geofflepard.com/

 

Don’t forget to stop by Heena’s lovely blog too, here’s the link:

http://heenarathorep.com/2016/02/27/quotes-challenge-2/

Love Nikos Kazantzakis’s quote – hope you did too.

Bye for now, time for some happy thoughts in a simple meadow of daisies…

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Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

 

 

Quotes Challenge # 1, Stephen Chbosky

The lovely Heena tagged me to do the Three Days Three Quotes Challenge. Thank you Heena for inviting me!

For this challenge I thought I’d focus on quotes about happiness, so here’s my Day 1 quote:

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“There’s nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.”

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.”

“It was the kind of kiss that made me know that I was never so happy in my whole life.”

― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Laughter’s the best indication of happiness ever invented! We can’t hope to laugh unless we are happy, and laughter has the most infectious quality to it.Happiness can’t exist without sadness, we wouldn’t know what happiness was unless we’d experienced its opposite. And of course there’s nothing like a kiss to make us happy.

If you haven’t read  The Perks of Being A Wallflower then I’d recommend that you do. I read it ages ago in 2013 – perhaps I need to read it again – and I rated it 4 stars. Unfortunately I didn’t review, as I read it before I started writing reviews.

Here’s the Goodreads Synopsis:

Charlie is a freshman.

And while he’s not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it.

Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But he can’t stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

This particular blog post follows on from a post I did about the things that make me happy, just in case you’ve missed it – here’s the link: https://kyrosmagica.wordpress.com/2016/03/06/sundayblogshare-happy-mothers-day-vibes/

RULES OF THIS CHALLENGE:

  1. Post three consecutive days
  2. You can pick one or three quotes per day
  3. Challenge three different bloggers per day

MY THREE NOMINEES FOR TODAY ARE:

  1. Debby’s blog  at http://dgkayewriter.com/
  2. Judy’s blog at http://edwinasepisodes.com/
  3. Svengliati Cara blog at https://tramontoalba.wordpress.com/

 

Thank you so much to Heena for inviting me to take part in the challenge.

Here’s the link to her lovely blog: http://heenarathorep.com/2016/02/24/quotes-challenge-1/

Bye for now,

Hope you have a blissful Monday ! Filled with sun rays of laughter, happiness, and lots of kisses!

 

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Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

#SundayBlogShare: Happy Mother’s Day Vibes

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Hi Everyone.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY. HOPE YOU HAVE AN AWESOME DAY.

This mother’s been playing around with a new theme. I’d love to hear what you think of it. Do let me know if you like it.

I took the header photo at Cromer this New Year and somehow the image ended up looking more like a painting than a photograph so I thought I’d feature it on my blog. The jumping image above is from Pixabay, and seems a fitting image for my  Sunday message today: Those happiness vibes are on their way, jump for joy, Summer’s coming!

The lovely Suzie from Suzie Speaks https://suzie81speaks.com/ has a wonderful Sunday Hastag: #SundayBlogShare, on her twitter account @SundayBlogShare.

I will be following this #SundayBlogShare with a three day three quote challenge from Heena http://heenarathorep.com/ which will also be on the theme of happiness.. more about that soon.

My #SundayBlogShare is all about the many aspects of life that make me happy.

In no particular order:

  1. Sunshine. Yes those rays awaken me out of my winter grumpiness. I just love you Mr. Sunshine. I’m not a winter person so when Spring arrives I sigh in relief, at last the Summer’s coming…
  2. Beaches and the sea. I’ve always had a fondness for swimming, and beaches. This stems from childhood – I’d always be swimming, splashing around in an outdoor tropical pool, or a beach somewhere. I grew up in Hong Kong. My dad ‘s not your typical run of the mill Scot, he hates the cold weather so he did the unthinkable,  he escaped abroad, and married my mother, a Malaysian lady many years his junior. Rascal! He’s always been a wanderer, in fact if he had been born today perhaps he’d have had his own travel blog! That’s a thought. A lot of my friends thought I had such a lucky time of it going to visit my dad in far off places, but I missed him when he was away. To name a few of the exotic destinations he’s worked in:  The Middle East, Far East, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Caribbean, Africa, Senegal, Hong Kong… you get the idea.. Quite the adventurer..
  3. Eating. Yes I love my grub, be it savoury or sweet, spicy, asian, or good old-fashioned shepherd’s pie.. I love it all. I might have a skinny body but my little rounded tummy proves it.
  4. Family. Are so important to me my daughters are such a light in my life. I am so proud of them both, they’ve grown up to be such wonderful young women. I’ve been with my hubby since I was a teenager, can you believe that? Young love, it is the strongest, most passionate kind!  The extended family are my rock too. I feel very blessed and fortunate to have such a lovely, close-knit family. We might not be perfect but we are always there for each other.
  5. Mum. Being a mum is great and having a great mum is awesome. We mothers deserve a huge pat on the back.
  6. Friends. Where would we be without our pals? Pretty lonely and miserable I’d say. My network of buddies include those I’ve known for too many years that I’d to care to admit to, friends I’ve met in Cambridge, and pals I’ve met through social media. You’re all fabulous.. Love you all.
  7. Edinburgh. I love visiting Edinburgh – my old home town, that definitely makes me happy. My mum, dad, brother, and in-laws are still there, as are my old school pals! So it’s always nice to go back and see everyone. I particularly love to go up during the Edinburgh Book Festival, and The International Festival, which are both in August.
  8. Books. I adore reading, how those printed words transport you to a very special place, stirring up your emotions, making you laugh, cry or shout in protest. There’s nothing that makes me happier than reading a particularly sad book!
  9. Writing. Of course this would have to appear on my happiness list. The writing part gives me great joy as I create, but I have to say the editing is an altogether different experience, it is a troublesome kettle of unwieldy fish!
  10. Theatre. Film. Dance. I love going to the theatre, and to dance shows.  So whenever I can, I take the opportunity to go. Both of my daughters are  keen too, my youngest is a dancer and my eldest has always been fond of drama. Each August I always make a bee-line for the Edinburgh International Festival. I’d love to go to the cinema more often – this is on my to do list – when I pop along I enjoy it so much.
  11. Art. Photography. I love art, and photography. I’m not an artist, but I appreciate the value and beauty of artistic endeavours so much. I have developed quite an interest in photography which I hope to explore more in the future.
  12. Cats. I love cats, but sadly I don’t own one, my husband is allegedly allergic… it’s a shame really. I could just see myself as one of those writers with my cute muse the cat.. I can see all my imaginery instagram photos… perhaps I could borrow one? Any offers? A black cat would be good, or a cool ginger one with bags of character…
  13. Travelling. I love to travel to widen my horizons, though recently this has been difficult due to lack of funds.. !! Ah, having an eldest daughter at University has really cut into the household budget in a very nasty way.
  14. Baking. I’m not really a savoury cook, unless it’s curries, or stir fries, those I can happily do. My hubby is better at roasts, meat and fish dishes. I tend to be more of a sweet cook. I love my puddings, cakes and biscuits…
  15. Being a bit silly. I think I missed the ‘How To Be A Grown Up Workshop,’ so I’m still prone to being somewhat teenage-like at times. Personally I think that’s an asset if you want to be a children’s author. So no problems there.
  16. Alternative Therapies. I have a fondness for aromatherapy oils, reflexology, and all those weird and wonderful therapies out there. I am also curious about the Zodiac, and the Chinese Zodiac too….
  17. Crystals. I love crystals. The colours, different shapes and properties of crystals fascinate me.
  18. Blogging. Goodness me I can’t believe I nearly forget to mention that! That would be remiss of me. Yes, I love blogging. It’s such a wonderful way to make friends with like-minded people from all over the world to share  thoughts, feelings and observations. It’s the best.
  19. Haiku. I’ve discovered that I love writing Haiku… If it wasn’t for my blog I’d never of thought of writing haiku. I’m so glad I did.
  20. Jewellery. Another love of mine… how could I have left it to last? My favourites are earrings and bracelets. They can be costume jewellery, or more expensive, it doesn’t matter as long as they catch my eye! I hope I might be getting some little pieces for Mother’s Day.
  21. Chilling. Relaxing and doing things my own sweet way makes me happy. I’m not one to rush through life, though I do hop about a bit.. My Chinese Zodiac sign is the rabbit!

This post has been waiting patiently for me to write in response to an earlier ditty that I did about the things that annoy me: https://atomic-temporary-67364188.wpcomstaging.com/2016/02/10/one-liner-wednesday-you-piece-of-chicken/

Oops I have to confess that my moans outweigh my happy vibes! That doesn’t sound good…..Life is all about balance, so there you have it the Yin and the Yang of my happy dragon is somewhat overpowered by my stroppy, ferocious, dragon!

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Perhaps you’d like to join in and do a Yin and a Yang post too about what makes you happy and what makes you sad and/or stroppy!

Have a very Happy Sunday everyone, and a Happy Mother’s Day too! I’m going out later for a coffee/lunch with my daughter… what are you all doing?

Bye for now,

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Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

Why Only Eleven?

Thank you so much to Annika for nominating me for The Liebster Award. I am now award free but I’m reblogging Annika’s post to spread the word about so many lovely blogs out there. Do follow Annika she really is a gem.

Annika Perry's avatarAnnika Perry

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Last week I was kindly nominated by Janice at Ontheland – Caring About Our World; Reflecting About Life for the Liebster Award. If you haven’t visited her blog before, you have missed a treat.  Janice is a gifted poet and her poetry and accompanying photographs are always thoughtful and delightful. Also she’s passionate about the environment and blogs about this and believes that we all can make a difference to the world we live in.

The Liebster Award seems to be centred on the number 11 and I’m happy to answer 11 questions posed by Janice, as well as thinking of 11 random facts about myself. Finally I have written 11 questions for my 11 nominees.

The award is aimed at blogs  with a certain number of followers – in this case followers of nominees should be between 200-3000.

Without further ado. Let’s begin:

Janice’s Questions:

  1. Why do you blog?

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Perfect Breakfast Smoothie | Fitspirational Friday

My daughter loves smoothies and this recipe from Hannah Jayne sounds wonderful so thought I better reblog it quick..