A Day Late + A Dollar Short – SIX WORDS TO DESCRIBE MY BLOG

I think I’m setting a record for myself by making this three weeks in a row that I’ve failed to post Six Word Memoir Monday on the appropriate day of the week!  Good God!! Me, Miss Organization!  The definition of the saying, “A day late and a dollar short”  is late and ill-prepared.  Mmmm I’ve got to clean up this act next week.

So last week, I suggested a Six Word Memoir on advice.  I thought it would be easy but my brain has only been functioning in real estate mode now for the last couple of weeks.  NOT that, that isn’t good because it is, work is work after all.

Here’s what I received in the way of reader contributions:

1. “Don’t just eat vanilla, try pistachio” – Laura

2. “Remember, there are always other options” – Me

3. “Smiles are free….Give away plenty” – Laura

4. “Every action = reaction, good or bad” – Me

And from the contributors to Smith Magazine‘s Six Word Memoir Project, we have the following gems:

1.”You made your bed….Remake it” – LotLessMonster

2. “Trials and tribulations, harbingers of revelations” – Daisylublue

3. “Choose the path of least regret” – anb7

4. “It’s never too late for Paris” – 0opsalittle

Next week how about Thanksgiving in 6 courses – Uh no I mean Six Words!

Read Full Post »

Six Word Memoir Monday – LATE AGAIN!

Here’s my excuse this week, I’ve been  working really hard, getting an apartment ready for the market.  I’m  excited about this opportunity, I believe it’s going to sell quickly and at a good price.  It’s only been a week since I met with the owner and together we’ve removed several pieces of furniture, books, personal photos and lots of things – the stuff we all have!  The furniture has been moved to storage along with many boxes of books and things.  Then I staged the apartment, the windows were washed, some of the rugs removed – we’re all set for the photographer tomorrow. 

I had a feeling I might not make the Monday deadline so I’m staying up tonight to get yesterday and today’s blog up.

Last week I suggested we follow the lead of Smith Magazine who issues a challenge each week;  It was Sell Yourself In Six Words.  Thanks to Susan who was the only reader who sent in a Six Word Memoir about herself in ad form.  Now that means I have to come up with a few!!

1. SALE; Classic Woman, Kind Loving Heart – Susan

2. Not Too Much Wear And Tear – me

3. Condition Good – Some Wrinkling At Corners – me

4. Choose Wisely – We Don’t Give Refunds – me

And here are some of the very clever entries from Smith Magazine:

1. Tends To Swim Against The Tide – Midnight

2. Ex-Stripper Turned Writer – More Exposed Now -Christine MacDonald

3. Minimalist Who Is Anything But Simple – Susan_Breeden

4 Chameleon Likes Punk Shows, Fancy Restaurants – Chewy D2

HELP – 5 Cents!

How about this for next week?  The Best Advice In Six Words

Happy Sixing – Hope to hear from you!

 

Read Full Post »

Six Words, One Life, What’s Yours?

Well it’s technically not Monday anymore but I’m still up so it’s still Monday and just enough time to post this weeks Six Words.  Last week I suggested that we might just write about ourselves.  My friend, Susan was particularly prolific this week, sending my several entries.  Great!!

1.  Still trying to figure it out – Susan

2.  Looking for a man with heart – Susan             

Man With A Heart

                        

3.  So much to do, so little time – Susan

4. The holiday rush is nearly here – Susan

5. Different times mean starting new traditions – Susan

6.  Towpath PTO Spooky House Horror Show  – Sandy

7. Who’s that person in the mirror? – Me

Last week on the Smith Magazine site, the challenge was attitude and perspective influence your outlook.  Here are few of their picks;

1. “The key is laughing at yourself” – Christine MacDonald

2.  “that’s the thing about hitting bottom…” –Amanda.Sunshine

3. “They said: ‘It’s impossible.’ It wasn’t.” –Matthew Lingren

4. “Broken pieces make up beautiful mosaics.” –DeTiix

Here’s an idea for next Monday – How about Selling Yourself In Six Words?

Sale: Vintage model, needs body work – Me

Read Full Post »

Halloween Horrors In Six Words – Just SIX

Sorry this is SOoooo late but Monday just sort of slipped by.  However since the theme was Halloween Horror stories – that is very short stories,  Six Words, No More, No Less  and we still have a day or two before the spookiest day of the year, I think you all will forgive me for missing Monday!

Creepy Castle

Photo copied from http://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net

1.  DARK!!! ….. can’t see a thi…. Eeeeeeeekkkkk! – Laura

2. Happy me, happy family, happy life – Lynne

3.  Squeaking door…creaking floor… Shrieking me! – Laura

4. “Who’s there”? “Nobody” said the ghost! – Me

5.  Hallow’s Eve, ghosts, goblins go begging – Me

6.  WHOoooo!! “Just me”, I whimpered quietly.

And from the online community at SMITH magazine where the challenge went out to write a horror story in six words the following are the TOP SIX entries:

6. “All alone she heard her name” —@JDGDredd1050 (via Twitter)

5. “Thought it was a costume party.” —letitshine

4. “Candy gone. Tricksters coming. Lights out.” —Amy B. (via Facebook)

3. “Wore complicated costume. Impossible to pee.” —ChewyD2

2. “Sixteen candles on an unmarked grave.” —steelponypoet

And the top entry from SixContest #38 is…

1. “No signal. Landline dead. Phone rings….” —tcube

Nest week (and I’m following the SMITH magazine schedule) – let’s try SUM YOURSELF UP IN SIX WORDS.  I don’t know whether this will be easy or hard but it ought to be interesting!!

Pretending to be me isn’t easy – Me

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Six Word Memoir Monday – One Life, Six Words, What’s Yours?

I am loving the replies and responses I’m getting from a couple of faithful followers!  This is such a good brain game – although I believe Smith Magazine does not consider this project a game!  Their (Smith Magazine) website is an encyclopedia of Six Word Memoirs.  They have categories, contests, archives and more.  After I publish our reader’s memoirs, I thought I would post a few from their Best Six Word Memoirs of the Week.

Falling Leaves

1. Falling leaves make for slippery roads – Susan

2. Ghost!? Kidding!….Ummm What was thaaat? – Laura

3.  Guests brought pot, hostess couldn’t stir – Me

4. Enough with the campaign adverts already! – Susan

5. I am addicted to my I-Pad – Lynne

6. Trying to empty freezer for cookies – Susan

7. Beginning to look lots like Halloween – Susan

8.  High last night, hung over today – Me

 

And so from the experts (their contributors) at Smith Magazine, here are some of the memoirs deemed best of the week:

1. Let toddler take you for a walk

2. Give all grudges a proper burial

3. Seeing familiar milestones in changing landscapes

4. Inhaling this moment : My favorite drug!

5. Practice being bored, it builds character

Aren’t those great?  I strongly suggest visiting the web site, people from all over the world sign in and send in Memoirs!  

Our challenge for next week is HALLOWEN HORROR STORIES IN SIX WORDS!  But of course if you’d rather send in a random thought or act or anything else, you know it’s fine with me and will be published the following week!

Oh Horrors!

Read Full Post »

MONDAY is a Six Letter Word

It’s All MIne

OMG – Two weeks in a row and I’ve missed my Monday deadline.  My sincere apologies to all especially last week’s contributors!

As we continue this journey following in Ernest Hemingway’s footsteps (and that’s pretty impressive) I just want to inform anyone who has happened upon this blog today that I try to post Six Word Memoirs each Monday.  It all started with Hemingway’s six word novel or at least story;  His six words are perfectly chosen and loaded with inference and innuendo:

“Baby Shoes For Sale, Never Worn”

Smith College started a project which grew to receive national attention.  The Smith project has been written about in the New York Times, AARP’s monthly magazine and in the New Yorker.  And now Pbenjay’s Blog is humbly attempting to join in the fun and creative thinking experience.  Each week, I invite my readers to contribute a Six Word Memoir of their own.  Sometimes we have a theme, most times we don’t.  I hope you’ll think about joining in the fun!

Forgive Me, I Did Not See – Lynne

The Grave Called Too Soon…Farewell – Laura

Darling I Cannot Love But One – Laura

Oops! I Took The Last One – Laura

He Sleeps, The Remote Is Mine – Pbenjay

Damn My Tweet Was Edited Out – Pbenjay

Divorce Wars =  Kids Are Collateral Damage –  Pbenjay

 

Read Full Post »

SIX WORD MEMOIR MONDAY – Uh Oh Sorry – I’m A Day Late

How to apologize in six words, no more no less !   Well since my Monday consisted of switching summer bathing suits for fall sweaters in drawers and closets and packing up a LOT of food to take back to NYC and a quick last minute trip to Costco and Starbucks and some traffic once we hit the approach to the tunnel and two carts of stuff to pack up and unload and more than an hour to put it all away and then unpack and file all the bills and paperwork I brought back, I just about made it out the door to catch the bus to get to my Mah Jongg game downtown.    NOW that’s a run-on sentence and how can I get that into six words?  OK here goes:

Monday lost. No Time To Write                 or

Slow Start, Fast Forward, Day Gone

Last week I received some interesting Six Word Memoirs and here they are;

And Here Comes The Rain Again – Juanita

He’s Gone With The Summer – Sigh – Laura

She Knelt To Harvest Summer’s Labors – Laura

Where shall we go with this next Monday?  What floats your boat?  What are you thinking, feeling, loving, wanting, needing, missing?  Is there some current event provoking your thoughts?  Let’s distill this overload of over-information into just six words, no more, no less.  I’m looking forward to seeing what we get!

Read Full Post »

SIX WORD MEMOIR MONDAY-Can You Tell A Story In JUST Six Words?

I love this challenge, well obviously since I try to incorporate it into my blog on a somewhat regular, no make that on-again-off-again basis!  I first learned about this in an old AARP article which featured  the Six Word Memoir Project.  That particular example seemed to be about near dying, really very interesting, I will post those examples sometime because they were very well written.

Once again my readers have come through with some of their own Six Word Memoirs and I’m pleased to post them.  They seem to echo the end of summer and the advent of Fall and that’s where we’re at here in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.  

1. Close the windows, heat is on.      Susan

2. On the ferry going home ~ Sad      Gail

3. Leaves falling along with the temperatures     Susan

4. Seasonal sinuses, cough, sneeze, hack, wheeze  Me

5. Flu Shot signs appearing once again  Susan

6.  Summer struggling to stay alive – 80 degrees!  Me

7. Weather schizophrenic , wardrobe dilemma, boots? sandals?   Me

I don’t have a firm idea about next week’s Memoirs.  Leaving it open to your creative minds, thinking about your life, your loves, your passions, your ideals, your job, your family, your kids – WHATEVER!!!  Just send it along and you will see it posted the following week. 

Read Full Post »

Monday Morning Blues – Six-Word Memoir Monday

Bringing back an old friend today.  Been so long since we did Six-Word Memoir Monday, I thought, ‘well why not try again?’

For those of you who have forgotten or are new to my blog, let me give you  a little background on this project.  My Six-Word Memoir Monday is my way of unofficially participating in the Smith Magazine project.  I am going to post an article from their web site which describes the idea and origin of the project:  “…We quickly popped in a new idea we had been kicking around: giving Hemingway‘s legendary six-word novel (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn”) a personal twist. We combined the classic storytelling challenge with our passion for nonfiction confessionals and dubbed it “Six-Word Memoirs.” Then we called up some guys we met at a tech conference about this new thing called Twitter and asked if they wanted to partner up to send one daily short life story to anyone who followed our @smithmag feed.   Four years and more than 200,000 Six-Word Memoirs later, we continue to be blown away by what people are capable of saying in just six words, the ways that others have adapted the form, and — not to get all Chicken Soup-y here — the unexpected little gems and gifts that launching this project has brought into our lives.   In classrooms from kindergarten to graduate school, educators have found the Six-Word Memoir an inspiring writing lesson. From a third-grade classroom in New Jersey, we heard “Life is better in soft pajamas” and one student’s precocious Zen observation: “Tried surfing on a calm day.” In Charleston, South Carolina, a creative writing teacher named Junius Wright makes a series of Six-Word Memoir videos with his students each year.”

There is a lot more about this project that you can read about on their website; Just google SMITH magazine.  Articles extolling the fun, creativity and virtue of this ongoing project have appeared in the New York Times and New Yorker magazine. The idea and concept has grown and expanded into many forms such as the third-grade teacher in New Jersey and in college classes across the country.

That’s the gist of it, let’s give it a go!  Remember it’s Six Words, No More, No Less!

“Missed the meeting, late to office”

“Rain Saturday, Sun Monday, Not Fair”

“My get-up-and-go, went”

“Lazy Sunday morning slid to Monday”

“Monday is a four-letter word”

Well there you have some examples of just what I’m talking about – and this time I made MONDAY the theme.  I would  love to see some entries from my readers.  So easy, just put your thoughts, inspirations, cares, sorrows, loves into six words.  Distilling our story into just six words, no more, no less.  The subject matter is up to you – my theme was Monday, what’s yours?

Read Full Post »

Say Goodbye To Mental Health For Now

I‘m sorry I have to announce that Mental Health Monday has been suspended (temporarily I hope).  Dr. Barry Lubetkin has told me he has to take a break from his weekly Mental Health tip.  He has a very busy practice and is also in the process of writing a new book.  I hope he will return to us in the Fall.

In the meantime, while I figure out what I’m going to do with Mondays, for today I thought a Six Word Memoir would be appropriate in light of the fact that we will no longer benefit from Dr. Lubetkin’s wise advice.

Six words, no more, no less

It was great while it lasted!

Reread the text to heal thyself

Mental Health Monday Goes On Vacation

 

 

Read Full Post »