#WednesdayThoughts
21
08, 2024
19
08, 2024
The Slippery Slope of Perfectionism
As I rewrote the beginning sentence of my WIP (work in progress) for the jillionth time, I realized that I was striving for the perfect opening hook instead of moving on with the story.
The need for perfection can stymie all of us.
The dictionary defines PERFECTION two ways:
- a quality, trait, or feature of the highest degree of excellence
- the highest degree of proficiency, skill, or excellence, as in some art
Creating something perfect is not a bad goal—until that need leads to perfectionism where you regard anything short of perfect as unacceptable.
According to Psychologytoday.com, perfectionists regard life as an endless report card on accomplishments or looks, which is a fast track to unhappiness, depression, and eating disorders.
Perfectionists focus on avoiding failure and miss all the joy of learning from mistakes.
Sadly, it’s easy to slip into the perfection trap. Fear of a lengthy revision letter brought out my desire to produce a perfect opening. All I ended up doing was road-blocking myself.
This Hemingway quote is a great reminder for writers when the slippery slope of perfectionism threatens.
Image by Michael Schwarzenberger Pixabay.com 453796
Writer or not, maybe the quote can help when the slippery slope of perfectionism threatens.
16
08, 2024
Summer Project and Beyond
A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara
Every summer I decide to work in the flower beds in the front yard. Of course, it is a million degrees, but I get them cleared and then school starts and the weeds overtake everything again.
This summer I was inspired by our neighbors raised beds in her front yard.
We have three raised beds in our front yard that previously had vegetables growing in them. Now they are full of grass and weeds.
This was my summer project.
I started on the right but discovered a whole planet of fire ants.
I moved on to the middle bed.
After clearing them, I got plants and seeds from a friend who has all native plants in her yard. I transplanted obedient plants and frog fruit. I also planted sunflowers and zinnias.
This past weekend, I checked on the last bed and the ants had moved on so I weeded it and planted marigolds, more sunflowers and black-eyed susans.
Since I am not working in the classroom this year, I am able to check on the flower beds every day. I water them and pull the grass that still thinks it belongs in these beds.
I’m hoping with more consistent care the beds will produce a variety of flowers that I can cut and bring inside.
Yet another reason to celebrate retirement!
12
08, 2024
Spell Checkers and Grammar Checkers – Beware!
If you use a computer or a cell phone, you likely have a spell checker and/or grammar checker running when you type. It can be helpful and save embarrassing mistakes.
Or not.
Thanks to something called the Cupertino Effect where a spell checker erroneously replaces mistakes with correctly spelled words that are not correct in the sentence.
The name comes from the unhyphenated English word “cooperation” often being changed to “Cupertino” by older spell checkers.
This poem composed in 1992 by Dr. Jerrold H. Zar demonstrates the issue with autocorrect. Read these first three stanzas aloud and you’ll see the full impact of Cupertinos.
CANDIDATE FOR A PULLET SURPRISE
I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it’s weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.
A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.
Although all the spelling is correct, the words are faulty. Mark Eckman offers insight into “The Spell Checker Poem’s” here along with a read of the full poem.
The poem is a cautionary tale for all of us who place too much trust in our computer’s spell checker. An equal warning is true of computer Grammar checkers and Editors.
Writers, particularly, must be watchful. Publisher house style guides do not necessarily follow standard writing styles so auto-corrected grammar can create issues.
The Oxford comma is a fitting example. Some publishers prefer to use it. Others don’t. Grammar checkers will always tag if it’s missing in a series.
Unless, of course, you set preferences in the program.
Grammar editors also don’t allow for a writer’s voice. My grammar checker flags my sentences all the time.
Example: “At the same time, she was different, changed.”
Grammar Program Correction: “At the same time, she was different, [and] changed.”
Correct but not my writer’s voice.
Example: “He wasn’t arguing relationships.”
Grammar Program Correction: “He wasn’t arguing [about] relationships.”
Again, correct grammatically but not what the speaker said.
My favorite example is the cell phone autocorrect which always changes its to it’s.
Or we’ll to well.
With AI controlling spell checkers and grammar programs more and more, corrections need a much closer human eye to keep the meaning clear.
Grammar-editor programs and spell checkers are only as good as the user.
Do you have any examples with your spell checker or grammar editor software? Share in the comments.
7
08, 2024
5
08, 2024
Hoarding Stuff vs Sentimental Clutter
Merriam-Webster defines hoarding as the compulsion to continually accumulate a variety of items that are often considered useless or worthless by others accompanied by an inability to discard the items without great distress.
A second definition is a temporary board fence put about a building being erected or repaired. As a wordsmith, I thought was interesting. But I digress.
Sometimes it’s not a compulsion to accumulate, but simply the fact you’ve lived a long time that you have so much stuff.
We’ve downsized multiple times and decluttered regularly. Still, there are personal things I just can’t bring myself to discard.
Like the antiques, my husband and I acquired over the years. Though, with each downsize/declutter pieces and collections have been passed on or sold.
That’s as it should be.
Our children’s generation and their children’s generation aren’t “into” antiques like we were. (Probably because they grew up with the old stuff.)
Their lives, their choices.
But if looking at the contents of our China cabinets or setting a hot cup of tea on a Victorian marble-top table makes us happy, we’ll hang onto the old stuff.
Things that cause the most trouble when decluttering are the things with sentimental attachments. Things like a metal stand hubby made in his metal shop class or the little bowl I made in my wood shop class.
Back when we were in school, Texas girls and boys were required to take home economics and shop classes as electives.
Even if your master plan was college, before you graduated, you had to take both classes.
Both pieces have traveled with us through all our moves to ten different states, some states more than once.
His stand sometimes held a circular piece of plywood to be a little side table. For the last thirty-plus years, it’s held our gazing ball in the garden. My dish has always held safety pins and loose buttons. That’s where it is today.
Does that make us hoarders or collectors of sentimental clutter?
Neither, I say. Both objects bring back thoughts of how we met in high school.
The boxes of baby clothes, military uniforms, high school letter sweaters, my grandmother’s handsewn dresses, and his mother’s handsewn quilts stored in the barn — well, those might count as sentimental hoarding.
But again, I can’t get rid of them, because each article recalls fond memories of times past.
And that’s the real reason I keep things, I mean hoard things, the memories. Don’t we all?
2
08, 2024
Boomerang Earring
A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara
I read somewhere that wearing large dangly earrings makes you look 10 lbs. lighter. I have since expanded my collection of large dangly earrings.
The problem is that those that simply hang from a curved wire sometimes fall out. This has happened several times leaving me with random single earrings.
I have a lot of eighth-note dangly earrings that I wear often. I wore them to the children’s symphony last year and discovered one was missing when I got home.
I was very sad.
Then a few weeks later, the missing earring appeared behind the door of our living room.
I was thrilled.
Just recently, the eighth note earring went missing again. I was very sad again. I left the lone earring on the dining table. While vacuuming. the kitchen this week, I discovered……. the missing earring!!!!
I could not believe it! I just knew the earring was gone forever.
I have started putting a small plastic back on the end of the wire to keep the earrings from falling off.
I don’t want to test Judythe Morgan‘s “The Pattern of 3” blog theory and count on finding the lost earring a third time!
29
07, 2024
The Pattern of 3
What is it with the number three?
Why do patterns of three appear in so many ways?
Is it mystical, magical, or coincidental?
According to numerology, the number 3 is a whirlwind of expressiveness, joy, and boundless, childlike imagination.
My grandmother, who was not into numerology, firmly believed in patterns of threes. If there were two accidents, she went on alert waiting for the third. Good things can happen in 3s too according to her.
In a recent blog, James Scott Bell discussed how celebrity deaths seem to come in threes. He cited Shannon Doherty, Richard Simmons, and Shelley Duvall who died within days of each other this year. Ed McMahon (Johnny Carson’s sidekick) died, a couple of days later, Farrah Fawcett (Charlie’s Angels star) then Michael Jackson “moonwalked beyond the veil” in 2009.
Psychologists attribute these connections to “confirmation bias.” When we look for something, we “find” it in questionable details.
My grandmother’s superstition came mostly from her mystical Irish heritage, but when you look, you do find patterns of threes everywhere.
Mind, body, spirit
Born, live, die
Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
Three Wise Men
Ready, set, go
ID, Ego, Superego
Three wishes
Three strikes and you’re out.
Liquid, ice, vapor
3 months in a climate season
What about stories and movies:
3’s Company (TV Show)
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Three Blind Mice
Three Little Pigs (or Kittens)
Three Bears
Three Stooges
Three Billy Goats Gruff
Three Coins in the Fountain (Movie)
Or these well-known three-part quotes:
“Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Olympic motto)
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
“wine, women and song”
“truth, justice, and the American way”
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people”
Because Aristotle observed patterns of three, he developed his three-act structure – Beginning, middle, end – for story plotting. Writers use it today. As a reader you may or may not be aware of the structure unless that structure is missing then the story won’t flow.
Writers use the Rule of Three. That’s why sentences like the one in the opening of this blog— Is it mystical, magical, or coincidental? (adjective triplets in phrases) are found.
The smallest number of elements needed to create a pattern is three. Those patterns in turn inform, inspire, or amuse. Watch for patterns of 3. You’ll find one I’m sure.
26
07, 2024
Serendipity
A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara
Our son-in-law is a pilot which is cool. It means we can fly standby at a reduced rate anywhere in the world. It also means he is away from home for several days at a time.
His son Alex’s birthday party was on Saturday. Beekeeper Brian and I drove up to help celebrate and had planned to come right back. Then Caleb had to work, and Catherine was performing in a Basically Beethoven concert so they asked if I could stay and watch the boys.
Of course, I agreed. The plan was for me to catch a flight home on Sunday night or Monday morning, depending on which flight had seats.
We discovered early Sunday afternoon that the evening flight was full, and I was number 5 on the standby list. We checked the Monday morning flight. I would be number 4 on the list. As much as I love our grandkids, I didn’t want to spend all week waiting for an available flight.
Catherine, who has learned out of necessity how to shift plans, suggested we take the boys to a zoo about halfway between their house and ours. Beekeeper Brian could pick me up there and take me the rest of the way home. Great plan!
He was telling Rachel about the plan, and she decided she wanted to see her nephews and go to the zoo also. So, she drove up to meet us at the zoo. Even better, it kept Brian from having to make the partial trip so soon after the birthday celebration.
The weather forecast for that Monday was for rain. We explored indoor options but when we woke up there was no rain, so we loaded up and went to the zoo. Rainy weather would just add to the adventure.
We saw fish, a stingray, an alligator, and an elephant among other things.
After about an 
hour, it began to rain. We quickly made our way back to the car and went to have lunch. Catherine had brought dry clothes for the boys, so they slept comfortably on the way back to their house. Rachel drove me back to the house where Beekeeper Brian was glad to see me.
Sometimes when plans change, it turns into an adventure. I’d call that serendipity.
24
07, 2024
