Day 16 of the A to Z Challenge Blog for the Letter P

Good morning. How is your weekend shaping up? We’re expecting 25 C here today, and maybe it won’t rain the entire day. Unfortunately, we’ll be down to single digits again Sunday and Monday. That’s the way it is these days. I plan to worship every nice day we get this summer, no matter how hot is it. I vow not to complain about the heat–the humidity, maybe–but not the heat! I’ve had it with the cold. But enough of that. Smile! This too shall pass.

Today’s letter is P. Now the letter P starts many great words and some not so great ones like politics, president, or as I like to say, he who should never be named since it feeds his ego, and Prime Minister, as in Carney, the best man for the job right now, althought I don’t envy him. It also starts procrastination, the ability to put things off by filling the gap with things you would rather be doing. As well, it stands for proofreading.

Proofreading is right up there with editing. I not only edit my own work, and I’m really hard on myself, I also edit for a few select others. There are times when I’m working on plot edits when I have to wonder if gremlins got to the story before I did. How could I even consider that? And as for proofreading, I swear ten people can read the same page ten times and miss the one typo. it’s like finding the N in a page full of M’s. Why? Because the brain is programmed–there’s another P word–to assign meaning to what it sees and see what it thinks is there and not what is. Like that meme on overthinking from yesterday. You probably read it even though there wasn’t much there to guide you.

P also stands for my new favorite word. Procaffeinating defines me well. I can’t really get going without my morning boost of caffeine. I usually start with tea and then move on to coffee with breakfast. Somtimes, I’ll add another cup midmorning or a cola on warm days, but unless it’s decaffeinated, never after lunch. Caffeine seems to have a more powerful effect on me after noon than after six in the morning.

I also learned another new word recently. It doesn’t start with P, but it meand perfect butts. It came out of a discussion over Easter dinner when the grandkids were discussing their workout routines, and talking about working their glutes. I never knew that people purposely wanted big butts, not just big ones, but perfect, well-shaped ones. Callipygian! Who knew? And here I’vespent my whole life in pursuit of the flat, nondescript bottom. What a waste!

The next P word I want to discuss is prayer. I’ve always believed in the power of prayer, but these days, I think the Almighty seems to have his hands full. As the meme points out, these days it’s hard to tell the crap from what’s of value. I wonder if God counts on St. Peter to help him divide the good prayers from the bad ones? The prayers that shoukld be answered, and those He might want to pass on–consider the source. There are definitely some people praying for the wrong things, like war. As Pope Leo and all the other people with an ounce of common sense agree, let’s pray for peace and understanding.

My career as an author began with poetry, and I enjoy this tongue in cheek look at getting old.

Another P word I love is partnership. My husband and I have been partners for two thirds of my life. Nothing beats a good partnership!

Let’s talk about the final P word for today Power. there are many differnt kinds of power that have nothing to do with money and politics. Here are a few examples.