Wordy Wednesday: Her fairy tale!

Today's Wordy Wednesday phrase prompt: "Her fairy tale" is courtesy of B-A-R (Blog-A-Rhythm) member, writer, and blogger, Nibha Gupta.

On her blog, 'Expressions!' (https://nibhz.wordpress.com/), Nibha describes herself as "Poetess" - love that word and thought I coined it! ;) - declaring "Poems are something that come naturally!), Storyteller (I thank my Imagination for my stories), Artist, Photography Enthusiast (I love clicking photos!)." Quite an artist she is, don't you think?

Nibha continues, "'Expressions' is a place where, Feelings are let go and words are unleashed; a place where I Express myself and all my imagination come alive! Come fly with me with wings of words in my world of imagination. I write to Express! Feelings are best described through art, the art that I choose is the art of words!" (Sounds so poetic!)

Nibha's blog boasts a mélange of writings including poetry, letters, stories, book reviews, and the like. She writes deeply with feeling - no wonder her blog title! - and enunciates every word, giving texture to her writing style and mood.

I think you will be happy exploring and getting lost in her writings. Do stay there awhile if you can!

Since I identify with expressing - my blog post does have "Xpress" (short for "express") in the title after all - and I notice she seems to like exclamation marks as well, I will aim to write from that place as best I can. Let's see how I do, shall we? ;)

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If you've seen Walt Disney's animated movie 'Frozen' it is a "kick-ass" - my words - female empowerment story, primarily for young girls. Me being young at heart though, I love watching children's movies and do so occasionally (and yes, even despite that I do not have children). This is one such movie I SO love and admire, and highly recommend too!

The movie 'Frozen' was actually inspired by 'The Snow Queen,' Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale. 'Frozen' is non-traditional in nature, a fairytale-of-a-story that makes the heroine the hero!

The storyline is as follows: "When their kingdom becomes trapped in perpetual winter, fearless Anna joins forces with mountaineer Kristoff and his reindeer sidekick to find Anna's sister, Snow Queen Elsa, and break her icy spell. Although their epic journey leads them to encounters with mystical trolls, a comedic snowman, harsh conditions, and magic at every turn, Anna and Kristoff bravely push onward in a race to save their kingdom from winter's cold grip." (https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=l8acVcarO8bF8Afan4GYDw&gws_rd=ssl#q=frozen+storyline)

Here is Wikipedia's version and a bit of history plus all the awards the movie garnered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_%282013_film%29 ... how is that for female empowerment?! ;)

Okay, I can't help getting excited. I am female after all. What can I say? However, this is NOT my story to tell, this was Her fairy tale! ;)


P.S.I had to chuckle as I had to delete a few characters from my labels. I deleted 'hero' and the rest fit! ;)

I was considering writing fiction or poetry, but I felt a strong impulse to share the above. Hope you don't mind!

The last Wordy Wednesday story, I 'got' the first three words and the story developed. This time, I 'got' that the phrase was to be the last three words. ;) Now tell me, honestly, how did I do overall?

If you haven't seen the movie yet, go and watch it, at least once. I have seen it twice and will again for the third time this weekend (outside with a bunch of families/kids and possibly some adult friends as well)!

Gratitude List #12: A Feast of Food, Friends, and FUN 2!

Today's gratitude list is on the themes of summer fun - food, friends, and fun including music and drinks (black cherry theme), in relative order of this past week (but not in order of importance!):

* Meeting up with a BAR (Blog-A-Rhythm) blog member, Sanch Vee and her sister in Vancouver, BC after work
* Having 'a drink' (Black Cherry cocktail mix) and dinner at a pub patio (Steamworks) in the cool air on a hot day
* Sharing an interesting dessert amongst us with three flavours of custard/mousse-like dessert
* A holiday mid-week - Canada Day
* A paid holiday (at least for me)
* Fireworks to music (on Canada Day)

* Free concerts outdoors, two nights in a row
* Dancing to live music outdoors
* Bumping into someone I know, a former choir member
* Having 'a drink' - I rarely do (honest!) - and feeling groovy (a little tipsy perhaps as I drank too fast with an empty stomach, not realizing till later that they did allow food in the beer garden
* Creativity - ideas for a scrapbook page
* Another sunny hot weekend to air-dry my laundry*

* A coupon for a free tea beverage
* Fresh brewed iced tea
* David's Tea, a colourful and wonderful shop for tea-drinkers/lovers
* Fresh summer fruit: cherries and apricots
* Ice cream - black cherry! - to keep me cool, albeit temporarily! ;)

*Should I stop saying this as I think it will be a summer-long theme?!

What are you grateful for at this time? Today/yesterday/this past week?

Canada Day Holiday: July 1st

A flag with a First Nations motif (photo I took)

And here is the traditional version of the Canadian flag (in the middle) between the Vancouver flag to the left and the BC (British Columbian) flag to the right of it (below):

Flags of Vancouver, Canada, and BC (Wikipedia photo)

I'm grateful to be living in a free land/country without war, without having to worry about living in a refugee camp, starving and destitute on the streets (though there are people here who are) and the like.

Waving my paper Canadian flag, wearing my Canadian flag pin and red and white coloured clothing, I attended a Canada Day parade in North Vancouver, British Columbia before heading back home, grabbing a bit to eat and what-not before heading for a Canada Day festival of music, food carts, vendors, and the like. Later on, watching the fireworks to music which I prefer, i.e., without music it seems rather dull and boring in comparison.

Watching a Canadian National (CN) train - I love trains - go by.

Photo of CN train I took

See my two previous short posts of prior Canada Days: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4481012230858682867&bpli=1#editor/target=post;postID=6182933957545827564;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=31;src=link AND also http://xpressyouressence.blogspot.ca/2012/07/photo-courtesy-of-brian-gratwicke-happy.html

What do you appreciate most about being Canadian if you are one?

Wordy Wednesday: Potential!

Since I usually pre-feature the blogger before the story, I will thus toot my own horn a bit, if you don't mind. And if you do, just scroll down to below the line. I won't be at all offended. I promise!

Today's word prompt (by me) is "Potential". I know why I chose this word. It's simple really.

Potential was my favourite word in my 20's when I started reading self-growth, self-development, or "self-improvement" books. or books on what I term potentiality.

And, well, you can do so many things with the word potential can't you? After all, it is about the potential of the word isn't it? ;)

My initial blog post had potential at least of a different kind. Not long ago, my bio read along the line as follows:

Elly is the founder and artistic director/facilitator of Children's Co-Creative Choir. She sang harmony as a child with her sisters, harmony as an adult in church and community choirs, currently with Burstin' with Broadway. She is a certified Expressive Arts Therapist having trained and/or worked with various modalities such as sound, movement, visual art, clowning, psychodrama, mask-making, clay, poetry, and fairytales. Elly's educational background also includes AD(H)D, counselling, bereavement, and children's programs. With her thirst for knowledge and inquisitive mind, she has also participated in numerous workshops ranging from art-making to singing. She has participated in two intensive bootcamp retreats being tested physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Ok, with all that potential in (the back of your) mind, let's move on shall we?

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Stacked marbles (picture from Pixabay)

"See this marble?," asked Sally? Her brother David looked up from where he sat beside her in the living room.

"This," remarked Sally emphatically, "is Earth!" as she outstretched her hand having picked a marble from a stack of them.

"No it's not!" exclaimed five-year old David.

"Oh yes, it is! Look! Look carefully! See all the blue. Those are the oceans. And see the green. That is the land."

"No!" yelled her brother this time, shaking his head vigorously.

"You just have to use your imagination!" Sally responded in a bit of a huff. "This marble has lots of potential!"

P.S. I am relatively new to fiction and if you were paying attention to my previous Wordy Wednesday posts, this is my first fiction with conversation in it. So I challenged myself in using speaking as potential in developing the story.

Though a short story, I would love your feedback. Do you prefer this style or my previous non-speaking Wordy Wednesdays? (Just do a search on the side bar.)