Frogs & Fairies

“Now I know I said I’d go find her but, there’s a limit to how much a guy is prepared to go to; even if it does involve the love of my life.

I mean, how am I supposed to get her back anyway? She’s not going to look once, let alone twice, at a dumb servant when she’s being wined & dined by that moron. Yes, I can see the attraction what with the title an’ all, but, he’s still a plank.

Martin! Are you listening to me? Oh, wow you’ve gone a really funny colour. Christ, you ate one of those apples didn’t you? I told you not to eat or drink anything in this damn place. Majick Forest is a favourite haunt of that evil bitch, she planted those trees all over in the hope my little beauty would eat one some day.

Well, I don’t have time to wait, you’ll just have to sleep it off. I’ll leave a note for the others to pick you up on the way back. If they get back that is! God knows when it will be though; I told them they were flogging a dead horse as far as that woman was concerned. Believe me, I know a troll when I see one. And that was definitely a troll, even if she did look like the best thing since sliced bread. She reminded me of Aunt Martha, not quite right in the head.

God I wish this was a fairy tale! The good guy always gets the girl in a fairy tale; maybe I’ll get lucky & find a pot of gold before I find her. Or a frog… yeah frogs are good, if only you didn’t have to kiss them. Mind you, a good fairy would be better. I wouldn’t mind kissing a good fairy… after all “all’s fair in love & war” & I wouldn’t really mean it would I? It would only be a means to an end... wouldn’t it?”

“Ouch! That hurt,” James looked round blearily wondering what had happened… Glaring at him from the other side of the bed sat Jane, her fist raised for another onslaught.

“Whaaat happened? Why’d you hit me?” he wailed.

“Who the hell is Beauty? and what has your aunt Martha got to do with it? I knew I should have gone with you last time you visited her.”

For years now I've tried to stop smoking but, after trying all the usual methods & getting nowhere I finaly found something different that worked, I've now been smoke free since Feb 2009. Check out the link below, she tells the story better than I can.

Wisconsin Vaporizers Blog: Negative Reactions Mystify Electronic Cigarette Owners

Night Terrors

I was catapulted from sleep. For a moment, I couldn't understand what was happening to me. The thud I felt as I jerked into consciousness was something I've never experienced before. I tried to concentrate on the rail which ran round the ceiling. It was silver in color and its smooth curves disappeared into the dark recesses of the room. What it was doing there I didn't know or care, for the moment it was my life line. I counted the little upright poles screwed into the ceiling at intervals that held the rail in place. Memory flooded back and I realised the feeling was sheer terror. For those of you who have never experienced night terror be very grateful, for those who have, I sympathise.

As reality kicked in I lay there letting the knowledge wash over me. The only thing that kept me from screaming was to chant repeatedly 'you have breast cancer and you have to deal with it' 'falling apart will not help' I spent the rest of that night alternately dosing and repeating those phrases to myself. It was August 23rd the second night following surgery for breast cancer and one of the longest nights I've ever spent.

I never found a lump or got a call back from a routine mammogram. I just woke up one morning in July with a painful right breast. I mentioned it to my husband saying something like,

'I must have slept awkwardly last night my right boob really hurts this morning.'

Two days later the 12th of July I had an appointment with the practice nurse at my GP's surgery for my B12 shot, by then all I had was a dull ache and my nipple looked a little squashed. During a conversation about my general health, I mentioned the boob.

'Let's check it out' she said, 'just to be on the safe side.'

I don't remember what I was thinking as I stripped off my t-shirt and lay down on the examination couch but I'm sure I wasn't worried. She pressed and prodded for a while then said 'I think I'll just get the doctor to take a look. And so began a journey no woman wants to take, the past had been consumed, the future was incomprehensible, and the present was nothing but a series of tiny footsteps drawing me inexorably closer to a place I didn't want to be.

To be continued...

Check out these links they are very very important:

http://www.fightingforherceptin.org.uk/ Please go & sign the petition.

And this guy is doing great thing on the campaign front http://her2.modblog.com/

THE WAITING GAME

Survivors pain is never seen
while we play our waiting game.
It’s locked inside denied a voice
as it twists and turns and maims.

Two steps forward one step back
is how we play our waiting game.
Longing to walk in peace and love
with the fear and anger tamed.

The scars run deep the healings hard
when we play our waiting game.
We fight our battle from darkness to light
till the way ahead is plain.

We don’t need to forgive them
while we play our waiting game.
We just need some loving care
as we travel through our pain.

The wheels of time grind slowly
while we play our waiting game.
As fear dies, we learn to live our life
and gently find ourselves again.

Carol Wills Copyright © 1992

Posted in Loving Memory of my dear friend
Barbara Gooch who died August 8th 2005

Negative V Positive

You’ll have to excuse me but, I’ve been thinking about these two words for the past few weeks and the more I think the more confused I get.

Negative & positive can be no & yes, bad & good, wrong & right, refusal & acceptance. And if what you have just read, seems off or doesn’t sound quite right somehow, read it again and ask yourself what is wrong with the sentence. Yep, it sounds back to front. You want to read ‘yes & no, good & bad’ etc, don’t you?

That’s because we are constantly told to think positive thoughts, act in a positive manner, be positive about something or another. We are told, not to think negative thoughts because it’s bad for us. Not to be negative about situations and not to act in a negative way. And quite right too it is usually better to be positive.

So, you’d think the fact they are words meaning the exact opposite of each other would be clear cut wouldn’t you? Well, it’s not, not by any means. I think negative and positive can be very misleading in some circumstances.

If something is considered negative, we usually look at it as being bad; after all, we’ve been conditioned to think this way. A negative result can be bad when a scientist is testing a theory hoping to find a cure for some disease or other. And a negative result is not good if one trying to get pregnant. Then of course, there are also negative reactions, to ideas, people and things. We understand these definitions of negative as being correct.

However, when nothing is found to indicate the presence of disease, or a specific condition it can actually be a positive result in medical terms so, why is it called negative? A negative pregnancy test can also be a positive result of one is hoping not to be pregnant.

Negative can also mean failure to respond or the absence of a reaction. So, if one fails to respond when being goaded to fight, it could be considered positive. When one does not react to temptation, that’s positive.

Ah, but what about positive? Well, affirmation or acceptances from our peer’s backs up the positive feeling we have on things we do and say throughout our lives. We tend to get nice warm fuzzy feelings when we are positive we know the answer to the question. Or are positive we made the right decision.

So, you can’t really make a positive into a negative then can you? Well, yes you can, remember the medical results? A positive there, is usually a negative for the patient. And the positive pregnancy test, that’s actually a negative result for the one who doesn’t want to be pregnant. What about the acceptance of defeat, which can be very negative. Or when one is positive, they will fail to resist temptation?

It’s all too ambiguous for my liking!

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Cybersquatting

I often wander around the 'web' just to see what's going on. Anyway, last week, in response to a post on my favorite writing site I went and checked out this site www.sfwa.org/beware. It is basically a scam buster site with some general advice.

However, I spent some time wandering around the site & they have some fun stuff too, just couldn't resist this page Writing how to, it's a real hoot.

I also read this article on something called Cybersquatting by Nancy Mehl very scary.

Anyway it got me to thinking, there must be loads of writers out there who would like to promote their work but don't have the resources or funds. So I wrote to the author Nancy Mehl at MyShelf.Com with an idea on combating the problem. Then I thought (God I'm doing a lot of thinking these days) why not offer the idea on good old Purple Hat so, I've reproduced the e-mail below in case any women reading this might like to take advantage of it.

To all the men out there. Sorry Guys but my site is about women's word so, unless you change gender!!

E-MAIL SENT TO NANCY MEHL AT MYSHELF.COM

Hi, my name is Carol Wills and having read your article on cybersquatting I am appalled at this insidious practice. This is particularly distressing for new writers as, many do not have the resources to put up and maintain a website in the early days.

I would like to try and redress the balance a little by offering a home to any women writer published or unpublished who registers their domain name and needs a site to direct the domain name to, without the bother or expense of paying for hosting.

All they need to do is contact me with a bio and any info they want to display. I can put up a page for them on my site where the domain name can be redirected. This will of course be totally free of any charges by me. I know just a page or two is not much but every little helps, anything I can do to help 'Starve Out Cyber Rats' is a plus in my book.

Reminding yourself of the renewal date for you domain name can be a problem so, if they tell me the date they registered I will put the domain name renewal date on the authors page as a reminder for them. I will also remind them by e-mail when they need to renew the domain name. BTW while not huge my site is growing and currently attracts a couple of thousand visits a month.

I already have some bio pages on my favorite authors. I am in the process of combining the authors on Womens Words into a directory for the convenience of my visitors. There will be an authors link on the navigation bar on the home page of my site to the main authors directory for visitors to Womens Words as well as the authors own domain link redirect to their page. If the author wishes to contribute to Womens Words she is free to do so, again at no cost. This means there will also be links from the Story or Article to the authors page on Womens Words.

When the author feels able to go it alone with a full website via whichever means they like. I will willingly direct anyone through a link on the page they have on my site to their new site for as long as they wish. I have unlimited bandwidth with my host so, cost is never going to be an issues for me in the foreseeable future. I'd just like to help in some small way.

Just one more thing, I do have an affiliation with Amazon and if the author has books for sale with them I would wish to keep my affiliation commission if the book is advertise on my site. (Books with any publishers I do not have an affiliation with will also, always be linked to from the authors page on Women's Words) The affiliation commission I earn is very small but does help to defray some of my hosting costs. I also have Google ads on the site for the same reason.

If you feel this service would be useful please don't hesitate to put people in touch with me through this link Contact us and ask them to put AUTHOR DOMAIN LINKS at the top of their message. I can also be contacted at my blogPurple Hat.

Sorry this is such a long message but I have tried to anticipate most of the questions people might have however, I'm happy to answer any questions you or the author might have on the above contact info.