Tag: Blog

New website!

~ ~M ~ 16 Comments

I’ve got some exciting news to share with all of you, so hold onto your seats!  Okay, I realize it may not be all that exciting, but it really is to me.  While I was away, I decided it was time to make some changes to my blog.  Many of you may have already noticed, but I decided to take all of my poems off of this site.  When I initially started this blog three years ago, I had never intended to use it to write poetry.  In fact, back then I didn’t write poetry at all.  Because of this, I have never felt like this blog has worked with my new style of writing.  So with much thought, hesitation, and uncertainty, I have finally decided to take the plunge and create a whole new site just for my poems.  I will still be writing here every now and then, but I will mainly be posting on my new website.  If you’d like to follow me over there, here’s the link.

Her Writing Haven

I can’t wait to reconnect with all of you!  Hope you’ve been having a great summer.  ~M xo

The Silent Scream

~ ~M ~ 22 Comments

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The forest was thick with the smell of pine and screech owls glided overhead. Patches of thick heavy fog hung low to the ground and left her feeling vulnerable. She was careful not to walk too fast, as she couldn’t quite see where she was going or what she was stepping upon. The ground was soft and squishy and with each step she took, her boots sunk deeper into the boggy terrain. She wrapped her parka tighter around her chilled body and hoped that it wouldn’t be too long before she found her way back to the cabin.

The day had been unusually warm for this time of year and so she had decided to go for a nice long walk in the woods. She didn’t really think about where she was planning on going and ended up letting her imagination flood her mind and in the process ended up leaving her good judgement behind. Eventually, she realized that she had lost her sense of direction and had been wandering around the forest for several hours. She tried desperately to find her way back, but was quite sure that she was just walking around in circles.

The trees were so tall in this part of the forest, that she could barely see the sky through the canopy of endless evergreen pine needles. She did the only thing that she could think to do and just kept walking. She walked deeper into the forest and noticed that the terrain was quickly changing. The day was fading fast and the forest had become eerily quiet. Every twig she stepped upon, echoed in the cool night air and dark shadows formed all around her, causing the forest to turn into a frightful and foreboding place.

She pressed on though and searched for an open place where she could at least sit down and rest and hopefully be lucky enough to capture a glimpse of the North Star to help her find her way. As she continued on, the ground only became more difficult to navigate and soon she was so deep into the marshland, that she could barely lift her feet at all. She wanted to turn back, but she couldn’t remember from which way she had come.

The screech owls were back again, their frightful cries caused her to shiver and tremble in fear. Suddenly she heard a twig snap from behind her and she whirled herself around as fast as she could. To her surprise and great relief, it was only a raccoon and so she continued to trudge through the soggy soil as best she could.

A little while later, she heard another twig snap and figured that her little friend must be back, but as she turned around, she discovered a man instead. He was nearly twice her size and his cold hard stare caused her to stumble backwards. His eyes were black as coal and he wore a long dark trench coat that was covered in mud and torn in several places. In one lengthy step he closed the gap between them.

She tried to scream, but no sound came. She felt her body begin to plummet into a black hole of oblivion. The last thing she saw before she broke free of his evil gaze, was the edge of a silver blade, saturated in a thick red substance, which was trickling down upon the watery ground below. The droplets pulsed through the murky waters and formed beautiful patterns that glistened in the moonlight.

Startled awake by this haunting dream, she woke up in a cold sweat and wondered where she was. She sat upright, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness and breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that everything had all just been a crazy dream. She laid back down and tried to fall back to sleep, unaware of the screech owl perched on a low hanging branch just outside her window and the large muddy footprints on the floor just outside of her bedroom.

Written by, Michelle Cook

Originally posted: November 6, 2015

Photo credit: pixabay.com

Him vs. Her – The little things

~ ~M ~ 18 Comments

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Do you ever find yourself getting frustrated by the annoying little things that your spouse does? And do you allow those things to become bigger issues than they really should be?

I can think of a zillion times when my husband and I have fought over the most pointless things. For example, I used to get mad at him for leaving his dirty clothes all over the bedroom floor. It wouldn’t have bothered me so much, but when there’s a dirty clothes hamper two feet away, it just seems lazy and almost disrespectful to assume that your wife will pick them up and put them in the hamper for you.

Fortunately, I don’t get mad about the clothes anymore. I do however still get upset when he leaves his size 14 shoes in the middle of the bedroom at night. I mean… who wouldn’t trip over those bad boys in the middle of the night on their way to the bathroom? It’s like he’s setting a trap for me to fall and break my neck! I wonder… is he secretly trying to do away with me? I’d like to think not, but seriously… little things like this can be the cause of some hefty arguments, and a whole lot of late night swearing.

I also think that at the root of every small disagreement, there usually lies a much bigger problem that has yet to be brought up. All it takes is that one little annoying thing that he or she does, to eventually fuel the fire. Oh I hate it when that happens! And when it finally does, one of us is usually regretting the little mishap that started the explosive reaction in the first place.

Our biggest petty disagreement in recent years has been the thermostat. I like the house to be warm and hubby likes it cool. I grew up in sunny California and so I don’t think my body has ever really acclimated to the weather here in Wisconsin. I know this is such a trivial thing to fight over, but I have gone to bed mad at him on more than one occasion, because he didn’t want me to change the temperature on the thermostat. What gets me the most, is when he denies he has changed the temperature, even when I know he has! Why lie about something so insignificant?  Oh he can be so sneaky sometimes!

We have now made an agreement, that I am the “official” keeper of the thermostat. Since I’m home more often than he is, we agreed that I should be the one regulating the temperature in the house. I actually think it was my final threat of going to a hotel to sleep for the night, which finally convinced him to let me have my way. I was very serious at the time and since I’m so stubborn, he knows that when I threaten to do something like this, I may just do it! Thankfully he puts up with my obnoxious behavior and has a very forgiving heart. 🙂

Now that we’ve been married, forever… we often find ourselves looking back at a lot of those trivial moments and we can actually laugh about most of them now. Of course back in the early days of our marriage, we really had a hard time letting go of such unimportant things and our marriage really suffered because of it. We’ve definitely learned how to compromise more, and although I still have my hormonally challenging moments like any woman, his response to my moods has changed for the better.

My husband no longer reacts to my stupid remarks the way he used to, he lets me have time to vent my frustrations and he doesn’t try to remedy the situation. Instead, he just simply listens and tells me he’s sorry. I am amazed by how he has learned to stay calm and not overreact to the stress that I’m feeling. By him being the more level headed person, it calms me down and then I find myself able to let go of the issue and move on more easily.

I feel blessed that after all these years of marriage, I really can’t find too many things that frustrate or annoy me about my husband. Yes, he’s the typical guy with enough burps and farts to clear an entire room, but at the same time… he’s also the one God chose for me to spend the rest of my life with, and honestly… right now, I couldn’t be happier.

Is there anything in your relationship that causes you to feel frustrated or annoyed? And if so, have you found a solution that works for you?

Cartoon found at: nickandzuzu.com

 

Dear friends, I really need your help!

~ ~M ~ 6 Comments

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I just want to say a huge thank you to all of my WordPress friends, old and new. In the last month, I have gained 500 new followers and it has been really fun engaging with all of you. I have noticed that many of my new followers have started reading my Genesis series.

For those of you that missed the last update, I was originally going to begin removing my old posts from the series so that I could begin the editing process for my book. Many of you probably don’t know it, but I am hoping to eventually publish these short stories as an anthology of biblical perspectives from my personal point of view.

On my blog, you will find just a portion of what I have actually written for this series.  I now realize, that all of you may be able to help me through this editing process, simply by giving me feedback on these old posts of mine before I actually send everything in to be officially edited.  I may actually be posting some of my newer stories as well.

With that said, I will be going back through and editing the Genesis series to the best of my ability and then begin re-posting these stories, in order to get some feedback from all of you. I would really appreciate your comments, both good and bad. I need you to be completely honest with me, so that I can go forward and make this series the best that it can be.

Please keep in mind though, that this series is going to be published as historical fiction, since I am writing these stories from my own perspective. I don’t want any of you to think for a moment that I am trying to rewrite the Bible and change the original words, because this is not my intent at all. I am simply retelling the story of Genesis, as if I am there witnessing it first hand for myself. I am trying my best to stick to the facts of the original stories; yet from time to time, I have added my own thoughts and perspectives, because the Bible doesn’t always give us the full picture of what is going on. So when you’re reading along, please keep all of this in mind.

I’d like to thank all of you in advance for any help that you are willing to offer.  If you have any suggestions that you want to share with me privately, please feel free to send me an email at: jeansforjesus@gmail.com.

Thanks so much! ~Michelle  😉

Photo found at:  mezzotessitura.deviantart.com