Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

Stuff

Calling All Mixed Martial Arts Fighters

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They’ll train us!!!??? This awesome sign appeared yesterday at a major intersection just outside of town. I saw the guy placing it there. I’d say mid-twenties, shortish, dark hair, possibly hispanic. I wasn’t paying too much attention to him. Then today when we drove by and actually read the sign, I wished I had.

Call for Mixed Martial Arts Fighters

Why do they want mixed martial arts fighters? What kind of training do they provide? How big of a piece of their action would I get if I signed up? I am over 21 and I do have a yellow belt in Kenpo Karate. I think I will call and see what their deal is, in honor of POTUS Day tomorrow.

WITH Siren

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My parents and sister came to visit us for Christmas and it was so fun to have them here. It’s the first time we’ve ever had family up for the holiday and we wanted to make it special so we each chose a gift for each of our visitors. This year for the first time I asked the kids to use their own allowance money to pay for half of the gifts. It made the gifts more meaningful and it caused them to think more seriously about what to give.

Both kids got Auntie Meg jewelry because she is fashionable like that. Magoo got Papa a laser pointer and Grammy some chapstick.

After hours of looking, Laylee was browsing the little red boxed gift items on the end cap at Target when she came upon the Perfect Present for Grammy. She held the box up triumphantly.

Me: It’s a mini megaphone.
Laylee [grinning and nodding]: WITH siren!

I had to let her buy it, because who won’t remember the year that Grammy received a mini megaphone WITH siren for Christmas?

The gift was especially poignant considering Grammy suffered from migraines off and on for the first few days they were at our house. Yes, a siren will come in very handy for Grammy.

We Know You’re Curious

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The women’s restrooms at the Columbia Tower Club in Seattle are pretty wild, each stall containing a large window that looks down on the city below. I guess this has caused problems with the male visitors. Now I want to know what their restrooms look like. Do they even have restrooms? Maybe what the management mistook for curiosity or interest was just the look of a man truly desperate to use the facilities.

restroom-sign

Lost in Fiction

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Someone asked me recently if I’d gotten lost on Facebook because this blog has been a ghost town the past few months. Twitter and Facebook have changed things for me to some extent.

In some ways I think they bring me closer to the people I care about. In others I think they put a wrench in meaningful communication. I’ll see a tweet about today being the best day ever, accompanied by a picture, only to find out weeks later the blurb on Twitter was meant as a wedding announcement.

I’ll go a week without checking in on Facebook and find I don’t know what’s happening in my friends’ lives. Someone will say, “Oh, you know what’s going on, I put it on Facebook,” and I’ll think, “I’ve seen you three times in the past two weeks and you didn’t even tell me you’d changed jobs because you’d put it in a status update.” Weird.

In the past when I had an interesting little nugget to share, I’d sit down to write the one sentence and it would turn into a 400-word blog post. Now it remains an interesting little nugget, just a few characters long. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. It’s concise.

But no, I haven’t gotten lost on Facebook or Twitter. I’ve gotten lost in fiction. I’m working on a novel that I’m really excited about and I find that I pour all of my writing energy out into imaginary characters whom I love watching come to life on my computer screen.

I’ll keep you posted and I’ll keep blogging. I miss it.

For the past few months when I’ve gotten a bad case of writer’s block on the novel, I’ve just stopped writing and blogging altogether except for my posts over at Parenting.com. Then the longer I go without writing, the more I start to believe it’s because I’ve lost the ability to write at all. Like a castaway living in silence on an island with a volleyball named Wilson, I lose my words.

So my plan is to blog when the fiction world grows too thick to slog through. Whenever I’m not here, you’ll know I’m a step closer to delivering my project. Mom, I’m talking to you. You’re still reading, right?

And yes, this post will appear in my feed on Facebook.

Mockingjay – A Review – SPOILER ALERT

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I devoured the first two books in the Hunger Games series in one sitting and have been counting down the days to the release of Mockingjay this week. I was one of the first to purchase it Tuesday morning and I carried it around with me all day like a security blanket. Then I read it. All night I read it. And it was over.

Like all good things that come to an end, it left me feeling a bit deflated. Now what? I often feel that way when I finish a good book, movie, or TV series. The characters have become my friends and I just don’t want to say goodbye. My sadness at the end of Mockingjay was a little different though.

The three book jackets tell a vivid story. Book one shows the Mockingjay small, almost timid, with its head down, clutching the arrow as though picking it up for the first time. Book two shows the bird as robust, surrounded by the color of flame, ready to take on the world. The cover of book three is pale blue and shows the Mockingjay with its wings spread out, surrounded by light. The book jacket radiates hope and rebirth. Then you open the first page.

Keep reading at your own risk. Highly opinionated commentary and spoilers abound. …

Read More »

Mission Accomplished

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This makes me want to add a new category to my blog for premature signage:

hunger

If they’ve ended hunger, then why are my kids still begging for lunch and should I still donate to the food bank this year?

Wii Netflix Party – A Review and Giveaway

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***The winners have been chosen by Random.org. They are Poppa2b, Carolee and Julia. ***

wii-netflixSo now Nintendo has asked me to be a Brand Ambassador. I’m not totally sure what it means but I do keep getting free stuff, which is nice and they have not yet set fire to my house so I think both of those things must be part of the agreement. As far as I can tell, we come in peace and bearing gifts.

Last weekend, they sponsored a little get-together at my house with some friends. We had a game and movie night with food and games provided by Nintendo. They also sent along a sweet little flip video camera to capture the fun and we did have a great time.

However, I’ll warn you that as I tried to edit this little baby together, I discovered that there’s not much in the world quite as boring as watching video of other people playing video games and watching movies. There is a really cute shot of Wanda in the middle of it all which I think makes it worth watching.

We downloaded Haunted Mansion Party with the free points cards they sent us, kind of a board game with interactive Wii-play arcade-type games along the way, and ended up playing some old favorites, Big Brain Academy and Dr. Mario as well.

Then keeping with the Dr. theme, we streamed Dr. Horrible with our Netflix disc. I think everyone enjoyed themselves. We’d do it again for sure.

Nintendo provided some Nintendo Points Cards to give out to our friends and since I consider you all friends, I’m extending the party and I’ll send cards to a few of you if you’d like. Just leave a comment listing your favorite game for the Wii and I’ll draw 3 winners to receive a couple thousand Nintendo Points each so you can download fun software for your Wii or DS.

The timing was a little funny to be throwing a party celebrating streaming Netflix because we’ve had some issues with it lately. We’d been really enjoying it until a couple of weeks ago. There are a lot of great movies and TV series available and it’s nice to have them on demand.

But two weeks ago, we left Magoo inside playing Lego Batman while Dan put together the play set in the back yard and he got into some trouble with the Netflix. He knows he’s not allowed to use it without me or Dan there but like most 5 year-olds, he thinks he’s smarter than us and he “totally knows what movies are for kids.”

Long story short, he ended up watching some really offensive content. It was animated so he thought it was okay but it was WAY R-rated and honestly I don’t know any adults who would not have been offended by it. It was awful. Luckily Netflix keeps track of what’s been watched so we could go back and see what he’d seen and address it, but it was a wakeup call.

Nintendo products tend to be so family-friendly, a big part of the reason I chose the Wii and the DS over other gaming systems when I had money to spend. However, the Netflix disc does open up a whole new can of worms. We now have the whole Wii on lockdown so I have to enter a passcode for the kids to use any game or the Netflix disc. I’ve also set our Netflix rating max to PG in case I leave it unlocked someday.
passcode
So, be wise. Use it for the good but protect your family from the bad.

Leave a comment if you’re interested in the giveaway!

Click to Read My Product Review Policy

Baffled by Facebook

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I cannot figure out how to make a button to get readers of this blog to “Like” it on Facebook. If you “like” it with or without the quotes in real life, will you please go and “Like” it with quotes over on Facebook?

Thanks.

And if you know how to help me make a fancy button for people to click on and you feel fairly sure that doing so won’t steal the identities or souls of those who click on it, please let me know how.

Click here if you “Like” or like this website and then click on the “Like” button at the top of the page.