Leaving: A writing prompt from The Write Practice

If only my cats would use the toilet while I’m gone! | Panther, a toilet-using cat, photographed in San Francisco on 22 August 2005. He is ten years old and has been using the toilet since the age of six months. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This morning I decided to write a brief “Leaving” essay in response to a writing prompt from The Write Practice:

My ex-mother-in-law would leave town for the weekend, stumbling out of her house with an armload of disorganization, oblivious to the pile of stinking, half-washed dishes sitting in cold, slimy dishwater in her kitchen. She would walk away from the overflowing garbage as though she expected cleaning elves to take care of it while she was away.

She used to ask me to water her plants while she was gone, and I always wondered if she expected me to morph into a cleaning elf in her absence. Um, yeah. I didn’t. I just avoided the kitchen, filling a pitcher with water from the bathtub, and watered her flowers as fast as I could so I could escape the stench as quickly as possible.

Bread is my DOC (Drug of choice)

You just can’t find a decent loaf of bread in most American bakeries. | Pain au levain, a French bread (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I like bread. I always have. If you mention my bread lust around my mother, she’ll nod her head and say, “Yes, she always did like her bread.”

When I was a kid, my parents did most of our grocery shopping at Aldi, where the bread was mass-produced and over processed. We usually ate white bread because it was the cheapest, but once in a while, my dad would bring home several loves of oat bran bread when it was on sale and stash it in the deep freezer.

The oat bran bread was my favorite. It never lasted long, because I would sneak into the kitchen several times a day and snag a handful of slices that I would take outside with me and chew on while I wandered around the woods on our property. For some reason, I liked to pull the oat bran bread apart and roll it into little balls before I ate it.

Yeah, I know. I’m kind of a weirdo.

Can you use positive reinforcement on yourself?

I don’t know if this image has anything to do with my blog post. But I thought it looked cool, so I’m sharing. Thanks, Zemanta. | Cyberpunk Motivation (Photo credit: Kordite)

Many years ago, when I took Psychology 101 as an undergrad, I learned a very important lesson about motivation that has always stuck with me: positive reinforcement is always far more effective than negative reinforcement. Here’s an example of that concept in practice:

I have an ancient laptop that I let my kids use for watching YouTube videos and playing online video games. My 7-year-old would spend the entire day with his eyes glued to the computer screen if I would let him. In fact, his computer usage was becoming a major problem. It got to the point where I felt like I was constantly yelling at him to get off the computer and do his chores, do his homework, go outside and play, etc. It was a never-ending battle to try to pry him away from that computer and get him to do anything else.

Money saving tips for the starving writer

This is my first attempt to make homemade pickles reusing the juice from my favorite store-bought brand.

I am thinking about running a series of blog posts on money saving tips for the starving writer. The free sample lady at my local Wal-Mart grocery is always full of tips. I love this lady. She doesn’t stand around with a blank look on her face or scowl at the people who are eating her samples even when they obviously have no intention of purchasing the product. No, this woman will chat with you whether you’re going to buy her products or not. She also likes to look in your shopping cart to see if she has any coupons for what you are buying. She has saved me money on a few occasions.

Welcome Autumn: How to make blackberry dumplings

To welcome autumn today, my sons and I are planning our own little at-home harvest festival, complete with a variety of cool-weather foods. We started the day off with a pan of my favorite blackberry dumplings.

My parents can’t seem to agree on where this recipe came from. My mom swears she got it from my dad’s grandma, Wilma Webster. My dad insists he never ate blackberry dumplings as a kid, so the recipe had to have come from my mom’s family. Either way, this has been a favorite recipe in my family throughout my entire life.

When I was a kid, my parents would bundle us up in long sleeves and long pants on some of the hottest days of summer. They dragged us out into the woods and shoved us into endless blackberry brambles where we would pick (and eat) until our plastic ice cream buckets were full and our hands were soaked with blackberry juice.

Is it okay to wear a t-shirt that’s been laying around in a dusty box for 15 years?

The back of one of my Air Force t-shirts features my Training Instructors (TI’s), Tech Sergeants Hardy and Cute. TSgt Cute has to be *the* scariest woman I have ever met in my entire life. What I wouldn’t give to know that woman’s story!

In my quest to rid my house of stuff I don’t need, I’ve make several interesting discoveries and recovered many items I forgot I had. One of these items is a squadron t-shirt from my Air Force basic training days. When I found it, I laughed, threw it in the laundry, and then started wearing it non-stop. That’s not weird, is it?

When I separated from the Air Force, my ex destroyed most of my uniforms, my combat boots, and anything else I owned that might remind me I was ever my own person. Somehow, I managed to stash a couple of these shirts in a place where he wouldn’t find them.

Where have I been all this time? –And- My thoughts on STUFF

My dad looks a little sleepy in this picture, but I look good, and he’s not online to see it and complain about it, so here ya go. I got my Master of Arts in English with a concentration in creative writing from Mount Mary College on May 18th, 2013.

Hello there. I’ve been MIA from my blog for some time now. I hope you all didn’t miss me too much. This may turn into a long, rambling post with little to no point. I hope you don’t mind.

So, where have I been? First of all, I made it to graduation and crossed the stage on May 18^th. I may now officially refer to myself as Mandy Webster, MS, MA. Wow, look at all those letters behind my name! I also got an A on my creative writing thesis (go me!) Graduation and all that goes with it is part of the reason why I’ve been largely absent from the blogosphere.

I was also wrapping up all seven of the courses I taught this semester (or quarter depending on which school I was teaching at.) Needless to say, after teaching seven courses and writing a thesis in one semester, my house was a bit of a wreck. Since graduation, I’ve been on a cleaning streak that has completely distracted me from all things academic.

My house won’t let me write

Who can get any writing done in a house with closets that look like this? And why do I still have a high chair and Pack n Play when my baby is 6 years old?

Last night, I stayed up until midnight grading papers so I could have today free to go to the library and write.

As I showered this morning, I considered how crazy it is that I can’t get any writing done at home. My house is just one big distraction begging me to do anything but write. I’m not quite a true hoarder, but I must admit that I have let things get a bit out of hand.

I just bought a new dinette set and couch with part of my tax refund money. The old furniture left last weekend, and I was left with a huge empty space in my dining room and living room while waiting three days for the new stuff to arrive. After the first day, I was ready to cancel my order.

That huge, empty space in my house, completely uncluttered—well, let’s just say that empty space looked a little like freedom to me.