PROMPTuesday #2 - Step Out of Your Crate

San Diego Momma's PROMPTuesday #2:

In the spirit of TED, an annual conference that challenges the world’s most influential thinkers to give the talk of their lives in just 18 minutes, write an inspirational “speech” in 150 words. Speak to any audience you want: an unborn child, college grads, the elderly, the dying, your younger self, whoever. You can make this silly, serious, sad, angry, scary. Anything goes.

When you bring a new puppy into your home, experts recommend that you crate train, both for your own sanity and for the puppy’s sense of security and well-being. The puppy has a small, safe space that it can consider home, and it can retreat to it when all the new sights and smells and experiences being absorbed by its little brain become too much. Gradually, you introduce the puppy to different rooms of your home as it begins to feel more comfortable. It’s amazing to watch. Each new room is a thrill and a surprise for the teeny little creature. You can see as it’s stimulated by new experiences, how it changes and learns to become a part of your household, part of your own microcosmic community and a good puppy citizen.

I think it is safe to say, that we have all explored virtually every nook and cranny of our own homes (with perhaps the exception of the spider-infested crawlspace underneath). But really, that depends on what you consider home. Is your house your home? Your state? Your nation? Your planet?

How much of your HOME have you really explored?

I keep seeing alarming (to me) statistics about how only between 10 and 20 percent of Americans will ever own a passport in their lifetime. The statistics are even more shocking when you find out 80% of us (probably the same 80%)spend our entire lives within 20 miles of where we were born. I looked up some numbers. The land surface of the planet is a bit over 57 million square miles. Of that, North America takes up just over 9 million, about 16%. The entire US? 3.7 million (6%). Bringing those numbers back into our own sanctuaries, 6% of the average new home built in the US today can be represented by about a 10 by 12 foot bedroom.

So I ask again, how much of your home have you really explored?

It’s time to step out of your crate.

PROMPTuesday #1 - Making Writing Fun Again

My charming, delightful, creative friend San Diego Momma has begun providing writing prompts in her Blog every Tuesday. The goal is just to get juices flowing and make writing fun again. It's working for me. I'm having a blast and I know you will too.

Here's what she threw out at us for her very first PROMPTuesday prompt:

Write a nonsense poem. Make up words. Create silly sentences. Whatever. Just make it all a bunch of make believe and not making sense-it-ness.

I gave it a try, and my own efforts yielded a limerick. Must be the Irish in me.


I am old and my bones are all rickety.
I move slow and my joints go “crick-crickety”.
But when in my car,
I drive fast and far,
And hope the police don’t feel tickety.