I remember when....

Let's all say thank you to Jen and Mama Kat for hosting these wonderful events known as ATWT and Writer's Workshop.

Mama Kat's prompt I chose was "I remember when..." so without further delay,

I remember when I was jet-setting about the world, dining in the finest restaraunts and flying in private planes.



I remember going scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef.



I remember kayaking down the Amazon river and getting captured by a native tribe but was able to live after charming the chieftain and becoming an honorary member of the tribe.



I remember flying off to Jupiter in the spacecraft I built in my own garage to save a damsel in distress.



I remember when I fought off hordes of mutant, carnivorous creatures in an abandoned shack in the woods with only my wits and one small knife.



I remember when I could wake up from those dreams without the sleep lines on my face lasting for 6 hours!

That thing that happened on the playground....you know, that THING!?

Mama Kat is prompting again..and this week I wasn't strong enough to say No. So I chose the prompt, Tell us about that time at the playground when that thing happened. Ha! I knew exactly what I was gonna write about.


This day will live forever in my mind. It's the day of...of...well, read for yourself.

A long, long time ago in the far off kingdom of Smalltownkansasville, there was a young lady named Shawn. (Yeah, she has a boy's name, gonna make sumpin of it?)


Anyhoo, she gathered with her friends on the grounds of the old schoolhouse. It was a favorite gathering spot for them all.

In particular, one of her favorite friends was this boy. A boy her age. A boy in her grade. A boy that was cute and sweet and made her heart go pitter-pat whenever he looked her way.


They sat together on the grassy lawn under the canopies of giant old oak trees. The other friends began to gather around as they noticed the pre-teen flirting going on. The innocent young love must have been casting out ever-expanding pheromone circles because before long everyone had gathered around the young pair.

It all started with a few looks, a few grins, a playful shove here and there among the onlookers. It quickly escalated to "Just kiss her already!" Their statements burned in the ears of young Shawn and she thought to herself, "Will he? Will I?"

They glanced at each other and at the same moment leaned in quickly for the first 'real' kiss of their young lives.

Unfortunately, they both leaned in just a little too quickly and while their lips did meet, their momentum kept them going so their teeth also bonked together hard enough that each had a bit of a fat lip afterwards.

So there it is. The story of my first kiss. On a playground. Ending in a fat lip.
He DID take me to the movies later and we worked on the whole kissing thing and got much better at it...but that first kiss? It will be with me forever.




P.S. I'm such a traffic ho, I'm totally adding this to The Mom Jen's Thousand Word Thursday.

I am NOT who you think I am...

The prompt: What is a common misconception about you?

Mama Kat has a new assignment that is going to blow my cover. But, dedicated challenge writer than I am, I've decided to come clean.

I know that you all have known me as Shawn. The clumsy, silly, disorganized nurse that lives in a small town in Kansas....but am I really?

For years now, I've been living with this charade and I'm actually glad to step out of the shadow of my secret identity. It's a weight I've been dragging around for too long.

In the interest of national security though, I must not completely divulge my 'Super Hero' look, but I am one of these people. Which one do you think?


could be, could be...


put your eyeballs back in already for cryin' out loud...


Hey! It IS in the realm of possibility...


All right, who just snorted? I know I heard a snort. Sheesh.

The Big Fat Lie

I love Mama Kat's Writing Assignments and then blending it with Thousand Word Thursdays. It really gets me thinking. The week the prompt that got my brain to percolating was:

#4. You can go back to your childhood for one day. What day and age do you choose?

I instantly jumped back to a fall day in 1976. I was 12 years old. We had moved from Oklahoma City to a tiny little town here in Kansas. I believe it had about 200 people. I became the paper girl that fall and had over 80 papers to deliver.


This little town had a beautiful old schoolhouse that had been closed a couple of years before. All the small towns were closing down and consolidating districts. Our bus driver, Mr. Jennings, was caretaker for this building and lived just next door.

One day, the 'gang', pretty much all the kids that lived in town, were playing over by the schoolhouse when we noticed that the back door was open that led into the gymnasium. We peeked in and were just so tempted to play in it. I wandered off a bit from the rest of the group when I found myself face to face with a man I hadn't ever seen before. He told me that he was staying over at the Jennings's house and it was fine if we wanted to go in and play for awhile.

I happily scampered back to the gang and let everyone know the good news! Off we went. We played basketball and dodge ball. We checked out the kitchen, which still had pots and pans in it! The classrooms still had desks and chalk and erasers. It was like a dream come true. This was the best way to play school ever! In a full stocked actual school house.

A couple of hours into this perfect play day, Mr. Jennings stopped by and was not very happy at all! He made all of us leave the school house, scolded us big time for making a mess and wanted to know WHO had said they could play in there. The kids parted as if they were the Red Sea and I was left facing Mr. Jennings.


I quickly told him about the man that had given us permission and he wanted to know more. What did he look like? Where exactly was he? Where had he gone? My brain just froze, I didn't know what he looked like, he was just a shadowy kinda guy. I was marched over to my house and my parents were then updated on the situation.

I was a good kid. I took care of my little sisters. I did what I was told. I was well-mannered. I told them about this man I had seen and talked to. I told them that he was a black man and I didn't know where he had gone after he talked to me. He had been standing in the shadows of the trees and so I really hadn't seen him that well, plus he had a hat on.

My dad drove around the small town looking for anyone out of place. No one had seen anyone unusual and certainly not a black man. (For a small town of 200 white people, he would have been noticed.) They came back to me and I could see confusion, uncertainty and skepticism in their eyes. They were beginning to doubt my story. They talked to me.

Mom: "Shawn, tell us again EXACTLY who you saw and what he said."

Mom: "He was standing where?"

Mom: "And you didn't get a good look at him because he was in the shadows and had a hat on hmm?"

Finally, I broke and all my words came out in a tearful rush.

Me: "I'msorryIjustwantedtoplayanditjustcameout."

Mom: "So, no black man?"

Me: "No. Idon'tknowwhyIsaidthatI'msosorryI'msosorry."


I was so ashamed of myself. It was the first time I had told a lie of this magnitude. The entire town knew I told a lie. My parents were embarrassed as well. To this day, I can't believe that I made up some mystery man and then turned him into a black man to take the fall.

If I could go back in time, I'd go back and NOT tell this lie.

(Later on, I'll have tell you about how I got really good at sneaking out and lying as a teenager though! hehe)

Mama Kat's at it again!

The prompt that I chose for this weeks writing challenge is:

List ten things you can do in three minutes. I'm assuming I have three minutes for each thing to be done and not 10 things within three minutes. That list would be quite different, maybe, maybe not. Oh, who knows.

1. Start an I.V.
   
2. Lose my keys, sunglasses and purse. (actually, I can do this one in less than a minute!)
   
3. Scan the entire 600 channels on TV.
   
4. Go from vertical and talking to horizontal and snoring.
   
5. I can mood swing from happy to being on the verge of crying to feeling okay again.
   
6. Down a frosty mug of red beer.
   
7. Walk to work. (this is actually a curse I think...too easy to call me in to work when I'm just across the street)
   
8. Change trains of thought a dozen times.
   
9. Whip out my laptop, hook up the power and the mouse and get logged on to Blogger.
   
10. Convince my husband that it really IS his turn to cook dinner!

Okie dokie. That does it for this week!

P.S. Soo sad about Natasha Richardson. She always seemed really cool and she was married to Liam Neeson with 2 boys...my prayers are with that family.