Saturday 26 February 2011

Birgitta has just curated her first Etsy treasury!



This is Birgitta's first treasury:




Best wishes,
Anna


First Commenter:
Donnie
of
New Blessing Everyday





Mrs. Jenny Matlock's Saturday Centus Week 43

Jenny Matlock

Saturday Centus week 43

Please scroll down past my text to read Mrs. Jenny Matlock's instructions.

This is my SC-text for this week:

------
'I'm sorry,' said the bank manager refusing to give her a loan.
She went outside to the ATM-machine.
'Only have until the end of the month to get everything out before the auction,' she thought. Putting her ATM-card in the slot, she pressed her code and waited. The ATM machine began dispensing twenties. She let them fall into her shopping bag until it was filled. A thin paper receipt popped out.
'Can't keep this,' she said while handing the bag and receipt to the teller.
Seeing her again before she left he said: 'Wait a minute. Let's talk more about that loan.'

------
Wordcount: 100
------
Best wishes,
Anna
P.S.
Scoll all the way down past everything. I have decided to rewrite this text. I think it could be clearer if I reword it slightly. Please take a look and compare!

First Commenter:

Donnie
of
New Blessing Everyday


------

Welcome to week forty-three of Saturday Centus.

I see you cringing.

Please. Don't be afraid.

I'm going to be nice this week. No wicked prompts based on weird canine romance or strange song lyrics.

Just a plain, old, regular boring SC based on a prompt.

I pinky swear...this is not a trick.

This weeks prompt is:

The ATM machine began dispensing twenties...

You can use this prompt and UP TO 100 additional words to write a story of your choosing in any style of writing you prefer. Just keep your story PG and try to visit as many of the other links as you can!

Please display link button or just a hyper-link back to Saturday Centus. Be careful to link your SC URL to the Linky and not just link to your main blog.

Please e-mail me directly with ???'s or ask your question in a comment and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

OK. You can exhale now. No tricks at all this week. Just a sweet little treat of a prompt for you to play with.

Feel free to link up anytime between now and next Saturday!


------

Here is my re-write:

'I'm sorry,' said the bank manager, refusing her a loan.

She went outside to the ATM-machine.
'Only have until the end of the month,' she thought. Putting her ATM-card in the slot, she pressed her code and waited. The ATM machine began dispensing twenties. She let them fall into her shopping bag until it was completely filled. A thin paper receipt popped out.

'There's something's wrong. This isn't from my account,' she said while handing over the bag and receipt to the teller.

Seeing her again before she left, the loan officer said: 'Wait a minute. Let's talk more about that loan.'


Wordcount: 100
------
Jenny Matlock


Charlotte's Tea - Monday's Child #34


Illustration by Jessie Wilcox Smith - 1914

Charlotte's Tea

It was a beautiful, sunny, summer's day,
When Charlotte and her Monkey, went out to play.

Charlotte laid a table with cloth and tea cups,
When suddenly her Monkey, got the hiccups!

'That's allright, Monkey', said Charlotte, 'Drink your tea.'
'Thank you', said the Monkey, 'You're so good to me.'

------

This is my first post for Monday's Child.
Best wishes,
Anna

First Commenter:
Tarang of
Tarang




To visit other poems for Monday's Child #34, please go to this site or click on the image below:






Friday 25 February 2011

F is for Fairy/Faerie, T is for Tooth-Faerie - Mrs Denise Nesbitt's ABC-Wednesday - F, and Mrs. Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday- Round 2 - T


I wasn't sure that I would have time to post anything for Mrs Nesbitt's ABC-Wednesday Round 8 - F. It is already Friday, February 25th, and I will be among the very last to post. So F is for Fairy or Faerie, depending upon what side of the Atlantic you are.
I am also linking up with Mrs. Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday, Round 2 -T. T is for Tooth and Tooth-fairy or Tooth-Faerie! Sorry Jenny! Please forgive me! I am so pressed for time this week and the next!


Photo & Copyright: Christina Wigren

The day before yesterday, the second of Elisabet's front baby teeth fell out. Actually, she had been wiggling it for several days until she more or less pulled it out herself.


My camera-memory-card is full. I have not been able to take new photos for two or three days now. (There are so many things going on right now that I may not be able to post anything at all next week.)


Photo & Copyright: Christina Wigren

So I am illustrating this post with the help of images from Wikipedia and my own photos from the loss of Elisabet's first front baby tooth.



Photo source: Wikipedia

Best wishes,
Anna

First Commenter:
Donnie of
New Blessing Everyday


To visit other posts about the letter F, please visit this site or click on the image for ABC-Wednesday, Round 8 - F below:

To visit other posts about the letter T, please visit Mrs. Jenny Matlock's site Off My Tangent or click on the image below for Alphabe-Thursday, Round 2 -T:

Jenny Matlock


Saturday 19 February 2011

Maisy-Jane, Mrs. Jenny Matlock's Saturday Centus - Week 42

Jenny Matlock

Welcome to week forty-two of Saturday Centus.

Please scroll down past my text to read Mrs. Matlock's instructions!
Here is my SC-text for week 42:
------
Johnny Thompson, with his finely tuned guitar, waited for his name to be called. A middle-aged woman took his application pointing to a chair.
'We represent writers and performers. So you want to be a singer-songwriter? Play one of your songs.'
'Now?' His throat felt parched.
'Yes. Now.'
Johnny strummed some chords:

Maisy-Jane, my daisy-chain, I love ya', yes I do!
Maisy-Jane, my daisy-chain, Without ya', I'm so blue!
Maisy-Jane, my daisy-chain, I'd catch a granade for ya' too!

'Stop there,' said the agent flatly, 'Thank you, Mr Thompson,'
pointing toward the exist.
Johnny took his guitar and left.

------
Wordcount: 98

Best wishes,
Anna

First Commenter:
Cherie



of Bakow Babble



------
Mrs. Jenny Matlock's instructions:
I've had a minor obsession this week with a Bruno Mars song. I've tried to make Mr. Jenny dance with me to it (not successfully), I've sang it over and over to the point that my daughter told me if I sang it one more time she was going to scream (she didn't) and I know every single lyric by heart! If you don't know this song scroll wayyy down to the bottom of my blog, pick song 116, hit the play button and get your groove on for inspiration!

And after you've listened to the song a few times you'll be all ready to write a rockin' Saturday Centus around this word prompt:

I'd catch a grenade for ya...

So after you're finished chair dancin' you can continue writing UP TO 100 words (not including the six word prompt) in any style of writing you prefer...fiction, sci-fi, romantic, western...

Just keep it PG and try to visit as many of the other links as you can!

Please display link button or just a hyper-link back to Saturday Centus. Be careful to link your SC URL to the Linky and not just link to your main blog.

Please e-mail me directly with ???'s or ask your question in a comment and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

My playlist is always sitting down there on pause, so any time you want to try to make someone dance with you to this song feel free to hit play! Link anytime between now and next Saturday morning.

------
To visit other SC-posts for week 42, please click here or on the image below:

Jenny Matlock


Friday 18 February 2011

S is for Swedish Summer in Books - Mrs. Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday - S


Photo Copyright Christina Wigren 2010
S is for Swedish Summer

The obvious choice for me for S-week would seem to be Sweden, but it is such an enormous subject! I just have to narrow it down to the Swedish Summer* as depicted in literary texts.

I've been reading mystery/crime/detective stories. The latest one is the Swedish journalist turned mystery-writer, Mari Jungstedt's, I denna ljuva sommartid (2007) [Approximately: In Sweet Summer Time] in which a summer vacation-camper is murdered on his early morning jogging round, near a beach and thrown into the Baltic Sea. Another summer murder is commited in an earlier novel, Den inre kretsen [approximately: The Inner Circle], where a twenty-one year old female student of archeology becomes the first victim of a serial killer who is obsessed by the rites of the Norse gods - human sacrifice.

Mari Jungstedt is not the only Swedish mystery-writer who lets her characters meet a violent end in the short and sweet Swedish Summer. Anna Jansson is another Swedish queen of mysteries who lets bad things happen in the loveliest summer season in her novel Silverkronan (2003) [Approximately: The Silver Crown], set in the height of the summer medieval festival on the same Baltic island, Gotland, as Junstedt's murders.

The Internationally very well known Swedish author, Henning Mankell, also makes very, very bad things happen in a beautiful wooded area in Southern Sweden on the longest day of the year, the summer solstice in his crime novel, Steget efter (1997) [One Step Behind, English translation 2002].

Could it be that this is a way to publish all of those wonderful descriptions of wild flowers and the quality of light when then sun hardly sets that every writer and wannabe-writer jots down on their summer holiday/vacation?? There are often some good pieces of nature-prose stuck in between cold bodies being discovered behind bushes or found by little children playing on a beach or people out walking their dog. (These dog-walkers in mystery-stories deserve a post of their own!)

There are many, many more example of summer-literary-murders. (I'm not sure if this corresponds to real murders.) I've mention a few contemporary mystery novels, but I am sure that there are more to be found if you go back in time. Maybe what these authors secretly wish they could do is to write real poems about nature the way, for example, Harry Martinson did in this poem about a night in June. Read first the original text, if you can (it rhymes, the English version does not). My translation follows the original poem:

Juninatten

Nu går solen knappast ner,
bländar bara av sitt sken.
Skymningsbård blir gryningstimme
varken tidig eller sen.

Insjön håller kvällens ljus
glidande på vattenspegeln
eller vacklande på vågor
som långt innan de ha mörknat
spegla morgonsolens lågor.

Juni natt blir aldrig av,
liknar mest en daggig dag.
Slöjlikt lyfter sig dess skymning
och bärs bort på ljusa hav.

------

"Night in June"
by Harry Martinson
translated by Christina Wigren

In June, the sun just barely sets,
only slightly dimming its glow,
Twilight-line turns quickly into dawn,
being neither early or late.

The pond holds the evening light,
letting it glide upon a watery mirror,
or riding on a rimple,
that lasts long before they darken,
and reflects the flames of the morning sun.

Night in June never really falls,
resembles more a misty morn.
In veils it lifts away the twilight,
upon shimmering seas.
------
Best wishes,
Anna


First Commenter:
Donnie
of
New Blessing Everyday



To visit more posts about the letter S, please go to Mrs. Jenny Matlock's site Off My Tangent here or click on the image below:


Jenny Matlock


*My apologises to all of you folks living in Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland as well as the other islands in the North Atlantic, Finland, the Baltic states and the other northern parts of the former Soviet Union; as you people all know what a long dark winter is. A northern summer is to be found in other places than Sweden!


Monday 14 February 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!



Get yourself a sweetheart!



And give her some hearts...





These are very late Valentine-heart stretch-bracelets.



But hearts never go out of style.

Best wishes,
Anna

First Commenter:
Donnie
of
New Blessing Everyday


I'm linking up with The Work of the Poet for Ruby Tuesday.
To visit other posts with the colour red in them, please click here.





Sunday 13 February 2011

Pink Jewellery for Pink Saturday



Here are Mother's little helpers, Erik and Elisabet, who are inspecting one of mother's beaded necklaces for Beverley's Pink Saturday.







This time there are pink heart earrings and not just a pink necklace:






These new pink earrings are now listed in my Etsy shop AnnasAdornments. Please click on the widget below:



There is also a new pink beaded stretch-cuff:





All my stretch jewellery is in my Etsy shop 'parltradet', please click here.



Best wishes,
Anna


First Commenter:
Ann




of

Ann's Snap, Edit & Scrap



To visit other pink posts, please go to 'How Sweet The Sound' for this week's edition of Beverly's Pink Saturday.



Saturday 12 February 2011

Mrs. Jenny Matlock's Saturday Centus Week 41

Jenny Matlock

Welcome to week forty-one of Saturday Centus.

After my SC-Text you will find Mrs. Jenny Matlock's instructions. Here's my SC-Text:
------

It's your Super-Hero Sweetheart,
And not just a pretty face,
Though maybe not that smart,
Or of the human race.
There's no one who will love you,
Like this super-hero canine.
Let me be the only one for you,
Let me be your Valentine!

------
Wordcount according to WordCalc: 44

Best wishes,
Anna


First Commenter:
Lynn,
Nonna Beach
of
Tasty Tales



Jenny Matlock
------
Here are Mrs. Jenny matlock's instructions:

I've been nice for two weeks now giving you fun little easy, peasy guest prompts.

But since it's close to Valentines Day I want to do something extra special to show you how much I love you all.

I'm not 100% certain, but I think a lot of you probably have dreamt, albeit briefly, of being a Hallmark Superstar. It's OK to admit it. You're among friends here. How can you not want to attain the absolute pinnacle of writing success...cheesy sentiments for greeting cards!

With that in mind I scoured the web searching for the perfect romantic picture for you to create a mushy Hallmark-ish masterpiece around.

It was not an easy task but I finally came across the perfect image...and here it is:



I know. I know. It's touching, isn't it?

Take a few deep breaths to calm your emotions.

Ready to continue now?

OK. So for this weeks Saturday Centus your challenge is to use UP TO 50 words to write a Hallmark card around this image for VALENTINES DAY!

Isn't that a cool challenge?

You're welcome!

I knew the second I laid eyes on this romantic little picture you would all be overwhelmed.

So...to recap...

50 words or less based on the picture written in the style of a Valentines Day greeting card!

You have the entire week to link your work to the meme and you can link more than one story if you like. Please try mightily to visit all the other weeks.

Please display link button or just a hyper-link back to Saturday Centus. Be careful to link your SC URL to the Linky and not just link to your main blog.

Please e-mail me directly with ???'s or ask your question in a comment and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

Link anytime between now and next Saturday morning.

And Happy Valentines Day Centusians! I heart you all!


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