Reflections on the 2015 A to Z Blogging Challenge (4th to 8th May)

Reflections on the 2015 A to Z Blogging Challenge

Anna Nordeman

For those who missed my post for 'S' is for Solros-Sunflower, here is one of my sunflower pictures of my daughter, Elisabet, for Tina Downey, that I could not find in time for the 'A Sunflower for Tina'-post: 

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Whew! 

The April Challenge was almost too much for me. Sometimes, I regretted signing on. Not because of all of you wonderful people participating, no, because of me. I just did not have enough time to do it as well as all of the things that I should and must do. I needed and need to get my off-line-life in better order. 

Being the promise-keeper that I am, I did actually complete the challenge, but it cost me time that I should have used to do other things. So, as I mentioned on my IWSG-post for May, I will restrict my postings to my monthly rants for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. I like writing about one thing, once a month. I am sorry to say that that will be all the blogging I will be able to muster for the foreseeable future.

Having said all of this, I don't want anyone to interpret my comment as a criticism of the A to Z Challenge. It's wonderful! I don't want you to change it. I just cannot keep up with it; at least not right now. I have an ex-husband who will sue me for sole child-custody at the drop of a hat. He has tried to do so twice.  And happily for me, he has failed twice. (The latest time that I was in court about this was on 31st March -- the day before the April Challenge!) I let my son move to live with his father last fall, but I am still my son's guardian. My daughter still lives with me thanks to a very good lawyer and a fair judge.

I don't like being divorced. I goes against my grain. I still believe in love, marriage and fidelity. But after 19 years with a tyrant, I just could not take any more. I felt like a prisoner in my own home. No matter what I tried, nothing worked. 

So the last four years I have been picking up the pieces of my former life. I know now that I need to focus on fewer tasks and do them better. My children still need me. They are growing up all too quickly.

I don't know about next year's A to Z. I don't want to make promises I may not be able to keep.

But I have no complaints about the A to Z Challenge-team. I am happy for the friends and  acquaintances that I have made through this challenge. I'll try to keep in touch.

Best wishes,

Anna

First Commenter:

Taanya Walton
of
Allotments4you

Blogging from A to Z in April - The Letter S - Wednesday 22nd April 2015

Wednesday 22nd April 2015 - The Letter S

 

S is for SOLROS, which is 'SUNFLOWER' in Swedish, one of Tina Downey's favourite flowers. I want to honour Tina's memory with a sunflower for the letter S. 

 

I took theses pictures before 20th August 2009, when my daughter Elisabet was five years old. I wanted to post them for the memorial post for Tina Downey on 8th September 2014. I thought this one lone sunflower was symbolic of Tina's strong will to live and reach out to others. But I couldn't find it until now after going through several memory cards and about 6000 photos.

The photo quality of the last picture is really bad - it is not even in focus. But it shows the unkempt part of our garden behind the garage, just sand, gravel, two broken bicycles and an abandoned baby carriage. No one planted this sunflower. There must have been seeds that were just dumped there. And only one plant survived.

I wish Tina could have seen these pictures. I wonder what she would have thought? She was a great one for taking photos. She might have liked them.

I wish I could have met Tina in person. We never did. We just chatted through our blogs and the blog hops that we did together. Thank you Tina for inspiring me.


And thank you all for taking the time to visit with me here.


Best wishes,
Anna

First Commenter:
Tanya Walton
of
Allotments4You

Blogging from A to Z in April - The Letter D - Saturday 4th April 2015

 


 Saturday 4th April 2015 - The Letter D.

D is for 'Dra-på-lakan' which is Swedish for 'Fitted sheets'.

I know, I put the Swedish word first this time.  I had a hard time choosing an English word for 'D'. I mean, besides the word 'dog' there are a lot of sad words that begin with the letter 'D', such as 'destruction', 'disaster', 'dead', 'dismal' and 'dumb', etc. I think you know what I mean.

This way, I get to honour the memory of Tina Downey in a very concrete way. In one of her posts of 'Postcards from Sweden', she writes how difficult it was to make a bed when she was growing up in Sweden. There was no such thing as a fitted sheet. You tucked a flat sheet onto a thin mattress-pad as a bottom-sheet and hoped that it would stay put. It never did. Read about it here in her post for the letter 'H' about the Swedish word 'hoppa', which means 'hop' in English.

I wrote to Tina and told her that Sweden was progressing: there are now fitted sheets in different sizes for anyone and everyone to purchase and enjoy. And the Swedish word for 'fitted sheets' is 'dra-på-lakan', literally 'pull-on sheets'.

Thanks for visiting!

Best wishes,
Anna

First Commenter:
Carrie Butler

A Sunflower for Tina Downey

A Sunflower for Tina Downey

Tina Downey passed away on Saturday night 23rd August.  Here is an Etsy Treasury full of Sunflowers.

It has taken some time to collect my thoughts about Tina. This was not an easy blog post for me to do.

Tina was a special blogging friend to me. We had our secret language, Swedish, that we had fun with together, in spite of the fact that Tina did not always have Swedish letters on her computer keyboard. It made spelling a challenge.

I can speak and write Swedish every day here in Sweden. No big deal. But to do it with someone like Tina Downey, who had preserved it like a precious treasure from childhood, while being surrounded by a sea of English, was a humbling experience. She had what I might want to call "linguistic courage".

I'll miss her slant on language, on life and I'll miss her kindness and her unique sense of humour.

I am still looking for a photo that I took a few years ago of a lone sunflower that grew up out of a pile of leaves and dirt behind our garage. I'll post it if I find it, because it would be an appropriate symbol of Tina's tenacity and spirit.

Kind regards,
Anna

P.S.

Tina's commented on my blog post for IWSG om March 5th. I cherish it as her last message to me. And as always so kind and thoughful. She wrote about her asthma. Take a look at the comments here.

First Commenter:

Alex J. Cavanaugh