Category: A to Z Blogging Challenge

Blogging From A to Z Challenge 2018

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Blogging From A to Z Challenge is right around the corner! If you aren’t familiar with the challenge, you can click on the link and find out all the details. The short version is that you “every” day in April with each day’s topic being related to a letter of the alphabet. It begins with A on April 1st and so on. If you haven’t tried this challenge, you really should  consider it! It’s one of my favorites.

This will be my fourth year participating and I can’t wait! Unlike NaNoWriMo, which I have spotty luck in completing, I have been success in posting 26 times in the month of April, successfully completing the entire alphabet. Some bloggers choose a theme for the entire month and others just freestyle. My first time doing it, I was convinced that a dedicated theme would be too difficult. Perhaps it’s just me, but let me tell you- boundaries are a GREAT thing- and in the last two years I chose a theme. I found it much easier and more enjoyable to stick with one train of thought. In past years my themes were songs and quotes.

This year I’m doing a photograph theme. Hopefully I’ll be able to find photos that I’ve taken that have something to do with every letter of the alphabet! Wish me luck!!

 

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Z (at last!) is for Zelda

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I have always found Zelda Fitzgerald to be an interesting person. She had a larger than life personality and lived her life to the fullest. She wrote and painted and was best known as writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife. She also has some unique quotes:

  • “She quietly expected great things to happen to her, and no doubt that’s one of the reasons why they did.”
  • “I am really only myself when I’m somebody else whom I have endowed with these wonderful qualities from my imagination.”
  • “I don’t want to live. I want to love first, and live incidentally.”
  • “Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”

Seven days later and I have finally completed the A to Z Challenge. No one is more surprised than me that I could get knocked off my feet  for nearly two weeks (and counting) The good news is that although I might still be under the weather, my mind is finally coming back to life and writing ideas are popping into my head.

Thank for the get well wishes. I hope to be back soon!

-Kat

Y is for You

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  • “Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.” -Earl Nightingale
  • “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” –George Bernard Shaw
  • “Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” -Mary Kay Ash
  • “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.” –Dr. Seuss

I had hoped to write more with this post but I was prematurely optimistic in my recovery yesterday and my limited burst of energy yesterday pooped out on me.

Hooping for a better tomorrow!

-Kat

#AtoZChallenge W is for Wicked (the Musical)

“Are people born wicked?

Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?”

–Wicked, the Musical

This is the 2nd time Wicked finds its way into the A to Z Challenge. Last year, it appeared with D is for “Defying Gravity”.  Wicked is the book by Gregory Maguire and musical based on the book, telling the story of Elphaba and Galinda, the witches from the Wizard of Oz.

I love the friendship between Elphaba and Galinda. They are polar opposites, from different worlds, vastly unique personalities- both quite strong yet vulnerable women. The story touches on many different lessons but I am always drawn back to friendship component. Watching Elphie and Galinda’s friendship grow as they discover all they have in common while learning to appreciate their differences reminds us that this is the foundation on which friendships are made.

“For Good” is about Elphaba and Galinda’s farewell as they each go their separate ways- one presumably good and one presumably wicked. It was written by Stephen Schwartz in 2003.

“I’ve heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true
But I know I’m who I am today
Because I knew you…”

“So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You’ll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine

By being my friend…

-“For Good”

While looking for a good recording of the song- “For Good”- from Wicked, I found Out of Oz: Wicked Studio Sessions, a cool series where Wicked performers both past and present using reimagined songs.

I’ll leave you with some of my favorite Elphaba quotes from the musical-

  • “I don’t cause commotions, I am one.”
  • “I’m the other sister, Elphaba. I’m beautifully tragic.”
  • “Well, we all can’t come and go by bubble.”
  • “Who steals a dead woman’s shoes? Must have been raised in a barn!”

This song is doing double duty for 51 Weeks: 51 Songs from the Past:Week 17 and A to Z Challenge.

 

#AtoZChallenge U is for Unconditional

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“Whatever they grow up to be, they are still our children, and the one most important of all the things we can give to them is unconditional love. Not a love that depends on anything at all except that they are our children.” -Rosaleen Dickson

There they were- my three when they were brand new. And below, there they are now- all grown up. I want the same things for them now as I did when they were born- that they are happy, healthy, and loved.

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Take care-

-Kat

You can read the rest of my A to Z posts- HERE.