Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Flash Fiction - Investigation

Flash Fiction: A piece of fiction that is extremely brief, typically only a few hundred words or fewer
The Challenge: Write a piece in 100 words or less using the prompt…
The Prompt: All that was left was a recording of them arguing. On loop.



The car door slammed. Darla looked over her shoulder and groaned as the chief spoke. "What do we have?"
She sighed. "Not much, Chief. Everything is toast except this drive." She twirled the charred thumb drive between her fingers.
"What's on it?" His eyebrows lifted in expectation, or was it apprehension?
She snorted and rose to her feet. "All that was left was a recording of them arguing. On loop."
"Arguing? About what?"
She grinned. "Planting bombs. Plenty of unsolved mysteries resolved in one tiny thumb drive."

His jaw dropped. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. You look a bit worried, Chief.."

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Flash Fiction - The Follower

Flash Fiction: A piece of fiction that is extremely brief, typically only a few hundred words or fewer
The Challenge: Write a piece in 100 words or less using the prompt…
The Prompt: She had followed the woman for days

Daisha’s eyes widened as she stepped from the trees. As far as she could see, tall grasses waved as if tickled by the breeze. She blinked, confused. She had followed the woman for days and now, in the space of mere moments the hag disappeared.
“Where is she?” She whispered, knowing only the leaves could hear her.
A dissonant cackle rose from the base of a gnarled tree.
Daisha whipped around.
“Following me, are ye, lass? Tis a stroke of bad luck ye wish?”
Daisha stumbled backward. “Nay. I but wanted to know more.”
“More?”
“Aye. More of the story.”

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Medical Mumbo Jumbo

We went to the Nephrologist’s office. The good news is that Jaydon has GROWN!!! He’s at 111 lbs and is 5 ft 4 1/4 inches tall! His kidney function went from 19% to 22% all because he grew so much! He’s ON THE GROWTH CHART! He’s totally stoked that he can use the Adult sized blood pressure cuff now.

The bad news is that his creatnine levels are still above 3. Normal for him is down around 2, maybe a 2.5… We need to push liquids - a lot. He doesn’t have any dietary restrictions. He just needs to EAT. Pack in the calories - as many as possible in a day.

He and his brother have been working hard all summer, doing odd jobs, earning money. And then we lost both our dogs. They left their tracks on our hearts as they crossed the Rainbow Bridge. It’s been hard - especially for Jaydon because NeeCee was his companion, his service dog, his best friend.

I wasn’t entirely sold on getting a new puppy. There’s the training, the time, the frustration. The whole package. And then I looked at my son and saw the beginnings of withdrawal again. I caved…. The boys decided to pool their money and asked me to help find a puppy. They were very specific. They wanted something trainable, loveable, cute, and fun. Something they could train to hunt (we don’t hunt with dogs). Something they could have fun with.

I showed them videos of agility trials and long jumping dogs. They were immediately sold & started making plans. They browsed the ads on KSl (the paper out of Salt Lake City). They found an adorable 7-week old Llewellin Setter. He’s like an English Setter or Irish Setter but more of a heritage breed. Very trainable. Totally loveable. Just plain cute! He has been a blessing - for all of us. There has been a wonderful shift in the mentality in the entire house. So much laughter and love!


We also made the decision to adopt my dream dog. Arwen is a 7year old Sable colored German Shepherd Dog. She is amazing! She has helped with a lot. Teaching us and the new puppy things. Helping keep us all active. Bringing even more love and laughter. The kids' favorite thing about her - besides the fact that she's a "cop dog" is the fact that she LOVES to play fetch.


All in all Jaydon has been doing good. And then, his foot started to hurt. My mind immediately jumped to the worst case scenario - he broke it or it’s due to the growth hormones and he’ll have to stop, there’s something else horribly wrong with his kidney causing pain and swelling... You know it’s bad when he almost begs to go to the doctor. We went to our local PA. Dr Joe did several tests and I started to question the hurt because he wasn’t acting like anything hurt, just a minor twinge here and there. Dr Joe had Jaydon stand facing away from him with his shoes off. He looked at me and looked at Jaydon’s feet. Even I could see the issue.

Jaydon’s arches have fallen. He’s walking on the inside of his foot. What shouldn’t be weight bearing is. Thankfully, we caught it fairly quickly. Thankfully, it’s one of those fixable things. Because he’s been on a year-long forced growth spurt, his joints and arches haven’t been able to keep up how we want them to. He is on his way to a few stores to see if we can find a semi-rigid arch support insert for his shoes. He has a set of exercises that he needs to do daily. We’ll go back in roughly 3 months to see how he’s doing with the inserts. If this doesn’t work, they’ll talk about surgery to correct it. Yay! Another surgery! I’m sure you can all feel the sarcasm dripping from that statement.

We’ll keep carrying on, thankful for minor miracles and silver linings.

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Flash Fiction - Breaking Down the Door

Flash Fiction: A piece of fiction that is extremely brief, typically only a few hundred words or fewer
The Challenge: Write a piece in 100 words or less using the prompt…
The Prompt: I finally kicked down the noisy neighbors’ door

“Tell us again, Ethyl. What happened?”
She shifted, dust curled about her feet. “Well, it was a night like this one. The clouds blocked the light from the moon.” She paused to take another bite. “A ruckus came from next door. All sorts of banging and clanging and cussing.”
“And then what happened Auntie Ethyl?”
“I hopped the fence to see if I could help at all.”
“And then?”
“And it got even worse. I thought for sure someone would die.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, I finally kicked down the noisy neighbors’ barn door. They got a new bull.”

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Writing Wednesday - Aberration?

Flash Fiction: A piece of fiction that is extremely brief, typically only a few hundred words or fewer
The Challenge: Write a piece in 100 words or less using the prompt…
The Prompt: He wasn’t an aberration, but he was certainly abnormal

His muscles bulged and rippled as he flexed. His grin widened as her shocked face came into view.
“Gordon! What…” The question froze on her lips.
He waggled his eyebrows. “I think we should go inside the FunHouse.”
She groaned.
“Maybe one of these mirrors will rub off and I’ll actually come out looking this good.”
“Fine.”
An hour later she turned to ask a question, instead the words seemed to be caught in her throat.
“What?”
She pointed to the bathroom.
He ran inside and stopped short. He wasn’t an aberration, but he was certainly abnormal. “What just happened?”