Three Things Challenge #650

Welcome to The Three Things Challenge.
Below are three things that may, or may not, be related. Simply read the prompt and see where your creativity takes you.
You can use one, two or all three words in your post, there are no restrictions regarding length, style, or genre apart from keeping it family friendly.
You can use 3TC, #threethingschallenge or TTC as a tag and my logo if you wish.
Invite us along by creating a pingback to this post, then leave your link in the comments so that other people can read your writings and I’ll see it to respond to you directly. You might like to check out some of the other contributions while you’re there.

I schedule the challenge to go out around 6.30 am UK time, but pingbacks have to be approved manually so might not show immediately. This could be because I’m late accessing my blog or due to time differences, but I will get there, I promise!
I look forward to reading your responses, and as always thank you all for your continued support.

Your three things today are:
FAST
PAST
LAST

I had a dream…………………

No, this is nothing to do with Abba, but it was such a weird and vivid dream, I thought I’d write a piece of fiction about it.

She had always loved this dress. It was pale lilac with chiffon layers, trimmed with lace and imprinted with roses. It had a square neckline, fitted bodice and the hem came just below her knees.
It suited her slim elegant figure and was perfect for her friend’s wedding.
She admitted she was a little disappointed not to be asked to be Matron or Maid of Honour but that duty had gone to her friend’s sister, a frumpish thirty five year old who would not upstage the bride.
The three other bridesmaids were all several sizes bigger than her friend so she wondered, somewhat unkindly, if that was the reason she had not been asked. They had been friends since High School, and always compared notes on the latest diet and fashion trends as well as boys. She herself had never married, but this was her friend’s third fiance, and the only one to make it to the altar. The fact that she had dated him before her was incidental.
Patting her hair into place, she exited her apartment and locked the door.
She was making her own way to the church and knew she’d make a grand entrance, almost as much as the bride.
She smiled to herself. Who else was likely to turn up on a motor bike with side car?

Note:
My dream was of the dress and the motorbike. Why I should dream about them is anyone’s guess, though OB had a motorbike and sidecar (his birthday today) and I used to wear a similar dress to church on Sundays when I was about 10.

Song Lyric Sunday: American Music

Jim’s SLS challenge this week:

This week is a holiday weekend for us folk over here in America and there will be fireworks and I heard that the gas stations are running low of gas, because a lot of people are filling up their tanks preparing for a getaway. Our theme this week is American music, which is any song played by an American group, so even though ‘American Woman’ sounds like a song you might select, the Guess Who are a Canadian band, so try to find something else and there should be a lot of choices.

I’ve gone with The Boss. I was never a fan, but always loved this as it got my feet tapping every time. I also thought he was a sexy looking guy at the time.

According to WIKI

“Dancing in the Dark” is a song written and performed by American rock singer Bruce Springsteen. Adding uptempo synthesizer riffs to his sound for the first time, the song spent four weeks at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold over one million singles in the U.S. It was the first single released from his 1984 album, Born in the U.S.A., and became his biggest hit, helping the album become the best-selling album of his career.

“Dancing in the Dark” was also successful worldwide, becoming Australia’s highest-selling single of 1984 (despite peaking at number five on the Kent Music Report), peaking at number one in Belgium and the Netherlands, and charting within the top 10 in seven other countries.

The song is listed among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
Directed by Brian De Palma, the video was shot at the Saint Paul Civic Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on June 28 and 29, 1984. The first night was a pure video shoot, the second was on the opening date of the Born in the U.S.A. Tour. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed the song twice during that show to allow De Palma to get all the footage he needed. The video is a straight performance video, with Springsteen not playing a guitar, allowing him to invite a young woman from the audience, performed by Courteney Cox, to dance along with him on the stage at the end. Although De Palma had told him that it was she whom he was supposed to select, Springsteen thought she was just a pre-selected fan attending and did not know until afterward that she was a professional actress, brought in from New York City, who had already played in As the World Turns. Despite this Cox has stated that she was one of many that Springsteen could have selected and that she was secretly hoping to not be picked. The video initially included a storyline in which Cox and several of her friends were getting ready to go to the concert with one of them getting picked. Vignettes were shot for this although they remained unused.
In September 1985, the video won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Stage Performance and was nominated for Best Overall Performance . Actor Alfonso Ribeiro later claimed to have drawn inspiration from Cox’s dancing in the video in developing “The Carlton” for his character in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=129kuDCQtHs

Lyrics courtesy azlyrics.com

“Dancing In The Dark”

I get up in the evening
And I ain’t got nothing to say
I come home in the morning
I go to bed feeling the same way
I ain’t nothing but tired
Man I’m just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help

You can’t start a fire
You can’t start a fire without a spark
This gun’s for hire
Even if we’re just dancing in the dark

Messages keep getting clearer
Radio’s on and I’m moving ’round my place
I check my look in the mirror
Wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face
Man I ain’t getting nowhere
I’m just living in a dump like this
There’s something happening somewhere
Baby I just know there is

Can’t start a fire
You can’t start a fire without a spark
This gun’s for hire
Even if we’re just dancing in the dark

You sit around getting older
There’s a joke, here somewhere and it’s on me
I shake this world off my shoulders
Come on baby the laugh’s on me

Stay on the streets of this town
And they’ll be carving you up alright
They say you gotta stay hungry
Hey baby I’m just about starving tonight
I’m dying for some action
I’m sick of sitting ’round here trying to write this book
I need a love reaction
Come on now baby gimme just one look

Can’t start a fire sitting ’round crying over a broken heart
This gun’s for hire
Even if we’re just dancing in the dark
You can’t start a fire worrying about your little world falling apart
This gun’s for hire
Even if we’re just dancing in the dark
Even if we’re just dancing in the dark
Even if we’re just dancing in the dark
Even if we’re just dancing in the dark
Hey baby

The Sunday Whirl: Wordle 508

Brenda Warren is our host for the Sunday Whirl Wordle. You can join in with Mr Linky hereferocious, border, effervescent, child, form, sky, finery, card, rising, surprise, poor, fire.

The sky was like a ferocious demon, it’s dark and sinister form coming as no surprise after rising temperatures and poor air quality bordering on suffocation.
As the storm hit, the heavy risk of fire materialised and took hold like an effervescent child in a candy store, rampant and out of control. The Greek God Prometheus was in his element, dealing his cards of destruction and displaying his chaotic finery by thwarting the efforts of the emergency services.

Today is Sunday 4th July.

For my American readers, Happy Independence Day, to an American friend Happy Birthday, and to Other Brother, also a happy (79th) birthday.
We have a house guest, and her name is Kela.
She is almost 12 years old and totally gorgeous. We collected her stuff in the car this morning, then Hubby walked her round. She came inside, sniffed and checked out the lounge (OK, bed), the bedroom (OK second bed) the kitchen (OK doggy cupboard), the hall (OK water and food bowl, hmph……. latter empty) then walked out again. I took her for a short walk round the block where she sniffed for England, but no wee. Apparently she is not ‘regular’ so unlike Maggie, we can’t expect a specific number of poos every day.
No wees on our walk, but she went out into the garden, had a good sniff and squatted her bot.
While we were repairing the end fence, which is unclear as to if it’s ours or the lady at the bottom (I’d rather have fairies), she was content to lie by the front door and had a snooze.
She’s also had a sleep in the lounge (and snores!) and has now gone back outside by the door. We have the net curtain up so it can remain open and she has no problems walking through it so is happy to take herself outside for a wee.

Our neighbour is in hospital for at least a week so I have sent her a text to say all is well and Kela seems OK.  We don’t know how long she will be staying with us, but we are flexible for as long as needs be, though I think her owner will want her back asap when she feels up to it, and we will then help out with walks etc.
Here she is…………

Three Things Challenge #649

Welcome to The Three Things Challenge.
Below are three things that may, or may not, be related. Simply read the prompt and see where your creativity takes you.
You can use one, two or all three words in your post, there are no restrictions regarding length, style, or genre apart from keeping it family friendly.
You can use 3TC, #threethingschallenge or TTC as a tag and my logo if you wish.
Invite us along by creating a pingback to this post, then leave your link in the comments so that other people can read your writings and I’ll see it to respond to you directly. You might like to check out some of the other contributions while you’re there.

I schedule the challenge to go out around 6.30 am UK time, but pingbacks have to be approved manually so might not show immediately. This could be because I’m late accessing my blog or due to time differences, but I will get there, I promise!
I look forward to reading your responses, and as always thank you all for your continued support.

Your three things today are:
HOLD
FOLD
SOLD

Sunday Writing Prompt, July 4/21 – Treasured Trash

Sara is our host for the Sunday Writing Prompt.
Her challenge this week:

What constitutes “trash”? Dirty diapers…yes. Rotten food…should probably be composted, but yes, something to discard. What about that barely beaten sofa you upgraded? Or the vanity that still holds a breath of life, but needs a little TLC. Grandma’s attic…everything needs to go! Garage sales and thrift shops are all about turning one’s trash into another’s treasure. Even a spouse, who their significant other decided to “discard”, but became the most valuable person in YOUR life! It really comes down to perspective…

I encourage you to write about “trash” that became treasure. Base it on personal experience, or compose something entirely fictional. All is welcome

Today’s Sunday Writing Prompt is: One Person’s Trash

This has to be the unwritten law for all car boot sales. Hubby and I got a lot of stuff for our first house from those, including a drop leaf dining room table for £3 (knocked down from £4) and an ali baba laundry basket for £1.50.
Our first Christmas together we were skint and did our shopping at a Car Boot. Everyone got something, and we spent about a tenner I think. It was one of our best Christmases and we had a lot of fun finding ‘just the thing’ for everyone.
Hubby is a skip diver though. He can’t resist having a nose and seeing if there’s anything he can use. A local firm was having a revamp and dumped a lot of electrical stuff, including two daisy wheel printers. We loaded them in the car, he refurbished and serviced them, and we got £20 each for them.
On the other side as sellers, we needed to raise some money to revamp our own kitchen and replace the front fence when we were selling the cottage. We turfed out the sheds and all the cupboards and had a load of stuff that was no longer of any use to us, but might appeal to someone. We attended three booties, and raised over £600 which was more than enough to cover what we needed. We even sold our old metal front gate for a fiver!

12 Bloggerz! July 2021

Rory is our host for the 12  Bloggerz questions. Click here to find out more and join in

12 Questions
01
On a scale of 1 – 10 – where 1 is low and 10 is high how happy are you with everything in your life at this moment? A good 8, bordering 9. Only fly in the ointment is health issues, but they are bearable.
02
Why do you do what you do the way that you do it? Interpret as you so wish. Probably because it seems the most logical.
03
How do you embrace difference? Usually open minded and as it comes.
04
What is one of the most significant ways that your readership influences you, your blog and your writing? Has to be response to posts and comments.
05
How would you feel if everything you didn’t believe in today turned out to be true – which of your new disbeliefs now truths would affect you the most profoundly? I don’t have an answer for this one Rory. But also answer this question from the opposite spectrum as in – How would you feel if everything you believed in today turned out to be false – would this affect you and if so which falsehood that you hold now true would affect you the most profoundly? I would be gutted.
06
How often do you cross your fingers or say touch wood or good luck to people or do you not believe in that sort of thing? I touch my head (as in touch wood) usually in jest, but that’s about it, so not often.
07
Do you think that our childhoods impact our lives as adults – what are your views? I had a happy childhood and wanted to bring some of those happy memories into the lives of my own children. Sadly I didn’t have any, but did my best with the kids that were in my care for however long.
08
There is no truth to horoscopes – yes or no and why to either? There might be, then again there might not, but for those impassioned either way, it’s personal choice.
09
Does it really matter if we are environmentally-conscious – l mean is it that important – if not why not and if yes, why?? We don’t appreciate what we have until it’s gone, and there are those who abuse what we have for their own gains. IMO our planet has been stripped of its natural resources, and now she’s fighting back.
10
Do you find it easy or hard to relax and what relaxes you the most? These days it’s difficult to switch off and relax, especially at night when I’m trying to sleep. Music relaxes me the most.
11
How well or badly do you respond to being ‘shocked’ or ‘surprised’? I usually cover it well.
12
How do you feel about the term “I am a lucky/unlucky person” as in – do you think that there is some truth to it or is it all nonsense? I know I’m a lucky woman having a spouse who is my world. Some people may not see things the way we do, or understand why we are the way we are. We have a good life, and whatever it throws at us, we face it together, so I guess we made our own ‘luck’.

 

Saturday Six Word Story Prompt (6WSP) #80 – July 3, 2021

Shweta is our host for the Six Word Story Prompt. You can find out more and join in here

Prompt for Week #80 (Jul 3, 2021 – Jul 9, 2021)

BegShe wouldn’t beg him to stay.

Opposing Forces – Saturday Mix, 3 July 2021

Sarah is our host for the Saturday Mix and says.

This week we are dipping our toes into the pool of OPPOSITES. Our challenge is all about “opposing forces” and the use of antithesis in our writing. You will need to use the two opposing words in your response – which can be poetry or prose.

Our words this week are:

– native and foreign

– mountain and valley

Set in a valley overlooked by their Sacred Mountain, theirs was a small village bathed in tradition and legend.
She was a native of this country, standing proud and tall, unlike the head of the local council introducing policies that were foreign to her. She had no wish to participate in ‘progress’ when she could see it was just another name for Man’s greed.