BET YOU CAN’T do this writing prompt. Take the 10 random words below and, in the comments, crush writer’s block by creating a cohesive, creative short story tying all of them together! And remember: after (if) you finish, highlight your words and click the bold button to make them stand out and help you determine if you forgot any words. (If you’ve missed previous writing prompts, we BET YOU CAN’T do those, either.)
- Thud
- Pop
- Pendulum
- Linoleum
- Fond
- Hysteric
- Smidgen
- Giggle
- Intonation
- Retrospect
NOTE: Don’t copy and paste from MS Word. Use a program like notepad that removes formatting or just type in the comment field itself. Also, finish your submission, THEN bold the words. Thanks. (And don’t forget to tweet this and share it with your friends.)
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Resources you should check out:
Thesis: Best Damn Theme on the Web
Collective Ink Well: Personalize Your Thesis Theme
Third Tribe Marketing: Marketing done the right way
Story Structure Demystified: Best damn writing book out there
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{ 92 comments… read them below or add one }
If I had a smidgen of remorse I wouldn’t be hysterically giggling as I wipe your blood from the linoleum.
Perhaps when the cops arrive I could muster up a retrospective look of concern and a labored intonation to tearful words to hide my lack of fondness toward you.
I’ll bend over and back like a pendulum with tears popping from my eyes, then fall to the floor in a grief-stricken thud, all the while hiding my crooked smile.
Sinister Shane Sans Semblance of Shame (kwite kreative, kid!)
@Ma: Shame? Although unfamiliar with that word, I’ll have to use it next.
Those words just lure one to the dark side of human interactions, don’t they? Great stuff, Shane!
I better get busy myself.
@Sylvia: thanks. I have fun with these words.
I really liked this one! Funny
@Epae: Now THAT was funny!
Nice Shane; Did you ever notice that blood on linoleum is as much fun as a Slip-n-slide?
@Shane … Ha! I purposely don’t read other writers’ comments until after I post my submission. I love the different travels everyone takes with the words … what a joy!
@Sheri: It is awesome isn’t it! ps. I voted for you yesterday at Leah’s website. Damn fine submission there, too.
@Shane-such a lovely, nasty & evil write
As the pendulum swings and knocks over things,
I’m hearing a thud caused by falling down crud.
As things hit the linoleum and there is a pop…
I pray there’s nothing I’m fond of and wish it would stop.
I in retrospect wonder if I’m bothered by thunder
and I don’t go hysteric, ‘less I sleep with a cleric.
But I giggle to think that it might cause a stink. (and
I’d hear intonation of nuns with frustration!)
Well, it’s lunchtime I hear; so forgive me, my dear
while I grab just a smidgen of barbequed pigeon.
@Ma: Your rhymes light up this place. I enjoy them so.
You are a treat to read. So much talent.
Margaret; You make words take on a life of their own. You must have dug deep into your arsenal of words to get “crud” . It’s a real descriptive word. good work
Thank you, Shane, Sylvia and A….
I’d rather be me and leave you a rhyme,
than to be a snail and leave you some slime
or be a mechanic with lots of grime
I could just keep going, but don’t have the time!!
@Margaret-yeah, those clerics sure can make you hysterical
Loved it-as usual!
I grip the bottle of champagne with one hand, wrapping my fingers around the neck of the bottle while I wrestle with the cork.
It explodes with a pop, showering a delicate pink foam over the glass-topped table.
You laugh hysterically, a maniacal giggle that rings false with its abundance.
The intonation of your voice makes me nauseous, spewing your lies over our attempted celebration.
You take one sip of your drink and set it down, reassuring me that while it tastes quite good it will give you a nasty headache if you drink too much of it.
A smidgen of drool escapes your lips, glistening over your spray-tanned skin.
I raise my arm and swing it in one smooth arc, like a pendulum slicing through the air.
The glass shatters with a crash, scattering shards over the blue linoleum.
In retrospect, I was never fond of you. I absorbed your lies with the thud of a heavy bass note.
My heart sings a melancholy tune, repeating the same furious words over the awkward silence.
You don’t deserve him.
Wow, Sarah! That is great reading!
@Sarah: DAMN! That was intense! Fantastic write.
Sarah; My fovorite, “I absorbed your lies with the thud of a heavy bass note.”
That’s what I call going out side the box for a good descrition. Nice
@Sarah-loved this -especially the line My heart sings a melancholy tune as well as the line @A pointed out-great stuff!
@Sarah “Spewing your lies over our attempted celebration” … my fav. Fabulous!
Intonation added to the anticipation and suspense when listening to Pop Pop’s stories of when he was a kid in the old days. He’d tell of becoming fortunate enough to have linoleum on the floor in one room of the three roomed house he and his three siblings were raised in, and how they would just place another layer of linoleum on top of that when it wore out, and another layer, and another, until walking on it would just create a soft sounding thud.
Pop Pop was never hysteric when telling of the hard time growing up. As a matter of fact, he said he’d always be fond of those days too. Quite often, his stories made us giggle, knowing that there was just a smidgen of embellishment placed in particularly funny events.
In retrospect, Pop Pop’s stories were all lessons for life and now that the pendulum of time has taken him away from us, we cherish and heed those lessons forever.
Simply lovely.
Wonderfully nostalgic vignette, A…really well crafted.
@A: That’s good stuff there. Carry on.
Thanks guys;
thanks guys
@A-aww, I love Pop Pop-thanks for a great tale
@A Your story reminded me of my own grandfather. Thanks for such a touching tale.
Okay, after an absence I’m back:
The date landed with a thud and a pop
The pendulum fell on the linoleum
I’m not fond of my hysteric attitude
A smidgen of calm, a bit of a giggle
My class announcement was more of an intonation, in retrospect.
@Anne: Hey there. Glad to see you back in the groove. ‘A smidgen of calm, a bit of a giggle” Loved that! Write on.
@Anne-welcome back and thanks for the patented Anne “short & sweet”
Anne; Short a good. Even short one can have intonation.
In retrospect, my hysterics profited little as I landed with a thud across the linoleum floor because of the pop of the pendulum, which had fallen from its post with eerie intonations. I let out a scream and cried out in anguish and then clasped my hands over my mouth, as if I had suddenly become the terrible afterthought of an unknown Poe-ish horror. A smidgen of giggles were rationed around the room crowded with black. I glanced fondly back at the large, dark casket. I should have known I’d never be rid of Uncle Earl; he always said I wouldn’t. He used to detach and hide the pendulum in his dementia. I suppose the pendulum was too heavy for him to carry now. Still, he had proven something to me now: sick in life, sick in death.
In retrospect, perhaps far more hysterics were in order after all.
@Epae: That was Twisted Awesomesauce! Love what you did here. Too funny.
@Epae-eww, loved it, loved it!
Epae; A novel in one paragraph. Nice going
Thanks, guys
I lie there on the linoleum as the pendulum swings left to right, left to right. I giggle as the intonation of the chanting reaches a lower pitch. There was a loud pop and a strange smell to follow. The smell is like an old memory which I seem to grow more fond of the longer I lay there. She wiggled, chanted and shook bones at me. The bones had been dipped in a concoction, they burned as they hit the skin of my left arm. I watched as she took a smidgen of this and a pinch of that. The crone poured a liquid into a copper goblet. I was pulled up to a sitting position. She is going to make me drink this? She sniffed at the brew but before she was able to pass the goblet to me her eyes rolled into the back of her head and then thud; she was out cold on the floor next to me. I wanted a simple potion, that was all. I am starting to feel funny and I am breaking out in a rash on my left arm. So itchy!
A month later I am no longer able to roam during the daylight. I am cursed, deformed, possessed? What ever it is I am an abomination. The crone’s eyes stare at me from below. They protrude out of my arm as do the beginning of a chin and nose.
In retrospect I should have went elsewhere but no, I had to be cheap and go to The Hysteric Gypsy.
@Patsi: Welcome to the CCC. And what a fine 1st submission that was. Well done indeed. Everyone welcome patsi to the addiction. I’ll add your name to the CCC Community Links page now.
Thank you for the welcome. There are so many fantastic writers here. Found this site through Leah. This is so fun!
@Patsi: One more submission from you and the addiction will be complete.
Well let’s not stop now. I needed another addiction, gave up too many, time to replace!
@Patsi-Welcome to CCC!
With a happy thud from our heart, we welcome you to CCC. Pop the champagne,the pendulum of creativity swings another one our way.
Here you find the joy of good writing, good reading, and good buddies who share lost dreams like a child gliding across the linoleum to Olympic gold. You might have already seen that we are very fond of our community known as CCC. We offer the hysteric, the ridiculous, the sublime, and the scary as we weave through the tricky 10.
Without a smidgen of remorse, we are all addicted to this place and giggle at the lost souls who do not know us. But the intonation of our mystic place continues to grow in volume. In retrospect, we did not know where we would go, but we sure are glad you joined us.
Welcome to CCC.
@Cathy: Patented Cathy Miller right there!
Welcome, Patsi!
I want to hear more about The Hysteric Gypsy… is that her chin and nose there? -!
Epae,
Its a good bet. Never wrote about the rest of the story but I plan on it. Thanks for the welcome.
Welcome, Patsi….fun write…I suggest long sleeved shirts.
Patsi; enjoyed it. The same thing happened to me when I got my first tatoo
Welcome Patsi!
What a cool little tale you tell! Great start on your CCC journey.
Patsi, .. hoping to hear more about the Hysteric Gypsy. Great read and welcome from a newbie.
Okay-the addiction is too much today–the latest submission in:
Death & the Detective
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Maggie gasped awake in sudden awareness. What was that? She struggled for clarity through the depth of darkness surrounding her.
It sounded like a thud, like something dropped. But what? More than a little afraid to pop out of bed to investigate, Maggie waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
The rhythmic ticking of her wall clock produced an ominous sound as its pendulum swung slowly back and forth.
Carefully placing one foot on the chilled linoleum floor, Maggie reached for her robe. She wasn’t fond of the idea of looking out, but knew she had to if she wanted any more sleep that night.
Maggie chided herself for being such a hysteric. She lived in a gated community and the balcony was on the second floor of her tri-level. It was probably just a dream – a very real-feeling dream.
And then she heard it. Okay, maybe a smidgen of hysteria was in order. It had the eerie sound of a madman’s giggle, followed by a strange intonation she could not define.
Scrambling away from the sliding glass door, Maggie’s body shook from the helpless feeling of one so alone. She jumped in fear at the sound of a car engine igniting and the slap of headlights across the darkened room.
She sat frozen in the middle of her bed, her breath rasping in search of air. Was he gone? Was the madman gone? Much later, she would wonder in retrospect how she had known he was mad.
I could feel that chilled linoleum, Cathy. Nice going
@A-warm thanks!
@Cathy: Excellent! What a submission.
good write, Cathy….makes me want to know more about the madman. If it’s Don Draper I wouldn’t mind one bit!!!
@Margaret-actually this villain 1st appeared in #56 -then #58, #59, 61, (indirectly), #63, #65, #67, #69 and #71-he’s been busy.
The trouble is I usually can only get to CCC on weekends when there’s no one around except Shane & me—bruuhaahaa
P.S. I had to look up Don Draper-I’m not much of a TV series watcher.
Creeeepy!!! I too live alone but I keep a loaded revolver handy. Just in case.
Glad I didn’t read this at night …it’s a chiller! Loved it!
@Sylvia & @Sheri-thanks-the bedroom I described was based on my tri-level I had in San Diego. Until recently moving in with my 87-year-old mother after Dad died, I lived alone most of my adult life so the feelings were very real.
In retrospect I realized that I should have known this too wasn’t going to end well.
Anyone with just a smidgen of common sense would have figured out pretty quickly that this guy was a complete mess, the spoiled, unfortunate product of an overbearing, hysterical woman inclined to speak with the intonation of royalty addressing her peasants, and a father whose frequent and inappropriate outbursts of the giggles gave me much cause to doubt his overall mental stability.
Despite all this, for a while I had been rather fond of the poor guy, now slumped halfway across the coffee table. I had tolerated his moody ups and downs which came around with the regularity of a pendulum in motion, and I kept hoping that somehow this time it would all work out.
Yeah, but it didn’t. He was a disappointment like all the others before him; perhaps the perfect man really didn’t exist, and I was wasting my best years searching for the impossible.
Gently I nudged him off the sofa until he fell to the floor with a thud. Being mindful of the white carpet I dragged his heavy, limp body into the kitchen where a smooth linoleum floor would make things much easier.
I popped the tab on a can of Coke and got to work.
@Sylvia: Holy Bleep! I thought the guy was a drunk. Then you go and off him at the end. What a twist of events. You go girl!
Mom always said “better alone than badly accompanied”, Sylvia…that’s one way to get rid of them! good write!
@Sylvia-outstanding! You really hooked me.
All right Sylvia, you’ve got to tell us what she did with this guy. More importantly, what made him slump across the coffee table
Thanks, you guys, for all the compliments.
Not sure yet how she did it, but here’s hoping that the next set of words will reveal more.
Really having a lot of fun with this. A thousand time better than TV.
Ginny sat perfectly straight and still, her little hands neatly folded in her lap. Eyes never leaving the hypnotic pendulum of the antique grandfather clock in the corner, she seemed oblivious to her surroundings. Only if you looked closely could you see a smidgen of emotion with the slightest tremble of her lower lip.
Celia stole a glance at her daughter, and in retrospect realized that this was no place to bring a seven year old. But Ginny had thrown a tantrum, insisted she was a big girl, and demanded to see her beloved Pop Pop one more time.
Getting ready this evening, Ginny had played the part of child mature beyond her years: choosing what to wear herself (a navy dress, appliquéd with pink flowers and matching ribbon for her long blonde hair), telling funny stories from her day at school that made them both erupt into nervous giggles, and even consoling Celia as they walked hand in hand to the front door of the funeral home. But the strange smells, hysterical crying, piped-in somber hymns and intonations melted her bravado.
“Oh you poor dear,” a stooped, white-haired and heavily wrinkled woman said, patting Ginny on the head with her bony fingers. “He was so fond and proud of you. Do you know you look just like your mama?”
Celia crossed the linoleum-floored room in three steps and swooped Ginny into her arms.
“It’s time to go honey,” Celia said. “Are you sure you don’t want to say goodbye now?”
“No,” Ginny said, her eyes downcast and shaking her head slowly from side-to-side. “No, I don’t think so.”
Celia turned slightly and nodded once. Holding Ginny’s head against her chest, she covered Ginny’s exposed ear with her hand as tightly as she could as the coffin lid thudded shut.
@Sheri: That’s touching and sweet. Well done.
@Sheri-powerful stuff-tugged at the ol’ heartstrings-well done.
Sheri; Wonderful write. I went to the funeral of a friend today and I must say you hit the description, sound and all, right on the head.
Yes, I’ve been to more funerals than I care to, and the atmosphere at every one was just like that. Excellent writing!
Thank you … I was working on another scene before Ginny demanded my attention so I’m glad you liked it.
Hello one and all! I have been very absent for a while and trying to figure out how to catch up, this week I decided to quit playing catch up on Avenged in Blood and just start a new chapter. So here is the latest, I am not even sure what part it is anymore, just a new direction. I will be playin with the shorts and catching those up soon, there are way too many good words there to just forget about them!
Avenged in Blood Part ???
There was a dull thud as his head rebounded from the wall. I drew back for another punch. He shied from it but I countered and hit him solidly in the jaw. Something popped in my hand. There was a stab of pain, but it was his blood that dripped onto the linoleum.
I flexed my hand relieved to not feel anything broken. A quick knee to the midsection doubled the man over and I threw him to the floor, following with a vicious kick to the ribs. In retrospect it may have been a bit much but no one threatens my sister and her boys, even if the threat was hollow and unbased.
It had been over a year now since my best friend, brother in law and partner had been killed by that worthless scum Raymond Cabrese. After the melancholy wore off and I was ready to enter civilian life, I went into business for myself.
Legitimately, I was a private detective, licensed by the state and in good graces with several of my old cop buddies. The memory had grown almost fond of the massacre of Raymond Cabrese’s empire. It made me giggle sometimes, to think of the horror that I had been the architect of.
There was just a smidgen of hysterics whenever I thought about that night. For a long while I thought my sanity was on a pendulum and I am lucky to have come out on the right side of it.
A private detective it may say on my business card, but in the dark lonely recesses of the night I was out there, fighting the crimes that the police could not. I lived under the label of vigilante, soldier of fortune, mercenary. I hoped to add super hero to the list sometime soon.
Another punch to the man on the ground brought me back to the now. “Who sent you?” I snarled at him. The intonation of rage was lost on him, his simpering was that loud. Another punch. “Who?!?” I screamed.
He rolled over almost to his back and raised his middle finger in my direction. The world turned red. Rage drained my logic circuits. I grabbed the offensive finger with my left hand and pulled it backward, as I drew my Ruger .45 with my right. The finger snapped at the same time the safety snapped off of the pistol.
He screamed at the broken finger for only a second before the smoke from my barrel became the loudest thing in the room. The neat hole in his forehead belied the gore that was sprayed across the floor behind him.
I let go of his finger and scrambled backwards, slipping the safety back on my gun. I had killed him in rage. This was the first person I had killed in over a year. I did it without thinking. I did it so hastily. I thought I had put all of that behind me but I was wrong. I had to leave before I was caught.
I needed to go home and see my therapist. My new therapist was a man by the name of Jack Daniel. And he had a prescription for award winning bourbon. I got to my feet and ran out of the house and to my car, heading for the solace only a night in a bottle could provide. I was halfway home before I realized I didn’t even know that poor sucker’s name.
@Justin-Wow-way to come back in total style-I love your stories!
@Justin: I missed this one. Super read. Very entertaining. Carry on indeed.
There was a pop and a thud when the strange object appeared out of the clear blue sky and fell on the ground at Hanna’s feet.
In retrospect, she would giggle, and remember the event with more fondness than fear. But at the time, she was nearly hysterical with incredulity. Who wouldn’t be when an object, shining like scuffed linoleum, opens before them and out walks a talking crab with a pincer the perfect size to pinch quite painfully one’s biggest toe?
“Take me to your leader.” The crab’s intonation boomed with the same deep timbre as the crunch of a cockroach beneath size 10s. This brief reflection lent Hanna a smidgen of courage and not a small dose of hilarity.
“Laugh not, Earthling,” the crab demanded, swinging his great pincer before her nose like the pendulum of a hedgehog’s clock, “I am the Celebrated Crustacean Crowned Czar and I come to present our demands for your surrender.”
Hanna wrinkled her nose, pondering. “I think, Celebrated Crustacean Crowned Czar, I shall not,” she said.
The Crowned Czar snapped valiantly at the great twig with which Hanna then assaulted him, but his bravery was his undoing. When his pincer closed upon the fearsome shoot, Hanna lifted it so that he dangled unfathomable centimeters above the ground. Before the Crowned Czar could devise a strategy for escape, Hanna had placed below him the skirt of her pinafore and, shaking him loose, she gathered inexorably around him the edges of the gingham prison.
The Crowned Czar closed his eyes in despair and seasickness as the girl took off at a run, laughing and shouting, “Mom! Look what I found! Can I keep him?”
@Leah: That was wonderful. Such a cool concept. I could see this as a pixar flick. Well done.
Ha ha! Loved it, Leah.
@Leah=when words create vivid pictures in the mind, that shows true talent-you have it in spades.
As a child, I was very fond of my grandfather. I remember sitting next to his favorite chair while he checked the intonation of his guitar.
He would bend his ear down close to the strings and pluck each one while turning the buttons.
I could never understand how he could tell what sound he was listening for, especially when the pendulum clock on the wall made so much noise.
When satisfied with the sound of the guitar strings, he would begin to play my favorite songs.
We would sing together, ” Round and round the cobbler’s bench the monkey chased the weasel, the monkey thought ’twas all in fun, and then grandpa would pluck the guitar string as we yelled, “Pop! goes the weasel!”
It made me giggle and laugh hysterically every time, and I would beg him to play some more.
So there we would spend part of the day singing and laughing, just grandpa and I.
In retrospect, those were some of the best moments in my life.
Then one day the music stopped. I was in the living room watching television with the rest of my family, when all of a sudden we heard a loud thud.
When we all ran to where the noise came from, we found my dear grandpa lying on the linoleum floor in the bathroom. A heart attack took him from us.
I remember standing at the door gripping my grandmothers’ shirt as they wheeled him out of the house.
When they lifted him into the back of the coroners van, I could see a smidgen of his bald head exposed.
That’s when I began to cry, knowing that my dear grandpa would never again sit in his favorite chair or sing the songs I loved so much.
Now years later, at a family gathering, My son Chris sits in a chair surrounded by his younger siblings and cousins.
From the kitchen I can hear the squeals of laughter as Chris plucks his guitar and they yell, “Pop! goes the weasel.”
That’s when I realize grandpa really never left. I can see him everywhere. Especially when music is played and children laugh. In those moments he’s always here.
As a child, I was very fond of my grandfather. I remember sitting next to his favorite chair while he checked the intonation of his guitar.
He would bend his ear down close to the strings and pluck each one while turning the buttons.
I could never understand how he could tell what sound he was listening for, especially when the pendulum clock on the wall made so much noise.
When satisfied with the sound of the guitar strings, he would begin to play my favorite songs.
We would sing together ” Round and round the cobbler’s bench the monkey chased the weasel,
the monkey thought ’twas all in fun,
and then grandpa would pluck the guitar string as we yelled, “Pop! goes the weasel!”
It made me giggle and laugh hysterically every time, and I would beg him to play some more.
So there I would spend part of the day singing and laughing, just grandpa and I.
In retrospect, those were some of the best moments in my life.
I will never forget the day the music stopped. I was in the living room watching television with the rest of my family, when all of a sudden we heard a loud thud.
When we all ran to where the noise came from, we found my dear grandpa lying on the linoleum floor in the bathroom. A heart attack took him from us.
I remember standing at the door gripping my grandmothers shirt as they wheeled him out of the house.
When they lifted him into the back of the coroners van, I could see a smidgen of his bald head exposed.
That’s when I began to cry, knowing that my dear grandpa would never again sit in his favorite chair or sing the songs I loved so much.
Now years later, at a family gathering, My son Chris sits in a chair surrounded by his younger siblings and cousins.
From the kitchen I can hear the squeals of laughter as Chris plucks his guitar and they yell, “Pop! goes the weasel.”
That’s when I realize grandpa never really left, especially when music is played and children laugh. In those moments he’s always here.
Here we go, in order again. Now I am caught up to where I stopped contributing last week.
There was a thud, and then a pop, as the pendulum fell off the top of the piano on to the linoleum.
Mom had always been very fond of the old pendulum and piano, which gave the small cheap apartment an air of elegance.
Before she could become hysteric, I stifled a smidgen of a giggle and made an intonation, that in retrospect I should have not tried.
My lack of singing ability only made Mom mourn the loss of her reminder of her musical talents that much more.
Moral:
Sometimes it is better to leave things as they are, for you can almost always make things worse somehow.
@Steve: TOO FUNNY, MAN! I’m loving your morals. This is becoming your trademark.
Listening to the giggles directly above him, Walter smiled fondly. In retrospect, perhaps allowing Danielle to have her first sleepover wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Suddenly, he heard a hysterical shriek from the kitchen, followed by a thud.
Walter raced up the stairs, only to find a gaggle of girls spread out over the linoleum, laughing. Strings of confetti swung from the fan like a bright pendulum, and a pizza box was overturned on the table.
“Now, look,” he said, his intonation barely containing his amusement. “I’m not some old-time pop who doesn’t get the program, but you girls need to be careful up here.”
“Okay, Daddy,” Dani said, a smidgen of a smile betraying her own seriousness.
@Sara: You captured young, adolescence perfectly here.
Thanks Shane! I loved the idea of this scene.
MOLLY, AGE 8
Hysteric Giggle Pop Retrospect Fond Thud Smidgen Pendulum Linoleum Intonation
Use the words above in sentences to show that you understand the vocabulary for the week. Remember to use proper punctuation!
1. The hysteric tummy my Mom had last month made her very crabby.
2. She hardly ever giggles anymore.
3. Especially when I pop balloons in front of my little brother. This makes her mad! this is porper punctuation because she’s really mad then.
4. In retrospect, is the only way to use the word retrospect porperly that I know about.
5. My little brother, who does not like popped balloons for some crazy reason, is fond of smelling bad, or else he has no nose maybe.
6. People say cats are very light and they land on their feet, but mine always goes thud when I shove him off the bed in the morning. To me this does not seem very light at all.
7) I would like a smidgen of ice cream before dinner. But, Mom says no, this is because she is very crabby, I think.
8. The pendulum on the clock at Grandmom’s house makes me dizzy. Only when I stare at it.
9. When I am dizzy I might throu up on the linoleum. This is a bad idea. And might make Grandmom crabby. Also.
10. With good punctuation, I would like to say that I do not know what intonation is. Because I did not understand all the worksheets this week. but I understand the exclamation points!
@Kelly: That’s really neat what you did here. So true to form that I’m not sure if an actual 8 year old wrote it. Well done.
Shane—When you’ve had one (an 8-y-o), the memories flood back pretty easily. Ay-yi!