So my friend Mark Bialczak tagged me in a challenge which I’d been ignoring until last night. The reason I was ignoring it was not because I didn’t want to participate , but rather because (reading thru the rules) I realized it was a challenge you had to finish immediately once started, and I knew I had to choose a time when I could do that…so.  I was good and didn’t cheat (per the rules) even though it was verrryyy difficult not to do so (sort of like not peeking at Christmas presents when they’re right there for the peeking) and waited until I had the time to actually do the challenge to finish reading through to the end.  By the way, thanks Mark for that little ethics test…thought I was done with that sort of thing when I failed finished Weight Watchers and somehow managed to get through the aforementioned Christmas season with the tape still intact on the presents…

Anywho… Mark had the word Anarchy prior to passing on the torch to me and two other bloggers.

The Rules:

– Open an MS Word document.

– Set a stop watch or your mobile to 5 minutes or 10 minutes whichever challenge you think you can beat.

– You topic is at the foot of this post BUT DO NOT SCROLL DOWN TO SEE IT UNTIL YOU ARE READY WITH A TIMER.

– Fill the word doc with as many words as you want.

– Once you began writing do not stop even to turn.

– Do not cheat by going back and correcting spellings and grammar with spell check in MS WORD (it is only meant for you to reflect on your own control of sensible thought flow and for you to reflect on your ability to write the right spelling and stick to grammar rules)

– You may or may not pay attention to punctuation and CAPITALS.

– However if you do, it would be best. At the end of your post write down ‘No. of words =_____’ so that we have an idea of how much you can write within the time frame.

– Do not forget to copy paste the entire passage on your blog post with a new Topic for your nominees and copy paste these rules with your nominations (at least 3 bloggers).

I chose TEN minutes. And the word I had to work with was: Hyperventilate.  However, I didn’t take ten minutes – my train of thought stopped short of the station by a couple of minutes.  Not sure if that’s breaking the rules or not, but it couldn’t be helped. My thought process just…ended where it ended.

Hyperventilate

Sitting here, munching on cheese and crackers and watching Penny Dreadful, it comes to me that I haven’t been truly alone (without a live-in significant other or husband) since I was 19 years old. Good grief.

At times since my marriage ended this past year, when I’ve thought about my situation, I’ve begun to hyperventilate…thinking about what the future holds and what path I should take… this one or that one.

Then I calm down, because really, this is an exciting time – a jumping off point for the rest of my life.

And, I remind myself, first off, I’m not completely alone. I have my kids and they mean the world to me. And yeah, sometimes they cause me to hyperventilate too – BUT they are the best things to ever happen to me. Hands down.

So now here I am pondering the word hyperventilate and what it means, as I’m eating my cheese and crackers, and wondering (not irrelevantly) just when is Mr. Chandler going to turn into a werewolf again because it was pretty cool the last time.  So we’ve got the word hyper, which means over-excited or keyed up, and ventilate which means to receive fresh air.

While the unknown is scary, I’m still really excited about this new life and all the fresh air that I’ll be getting – the new things I’ll be doing, the old issues I won’t ever have to endure again, things like that.

I just have to remember to breathe!  And save my tendency to hyperventilate for the likes of Mr. Chandler.

Number of Words: 263

So now I challenge my friends:

https://lolsyslibrary.wordpress.com/

https://gigisrantsandraves.wordpress.com/

http://pauljwillett.com/

And if you accept, your word is: Golden