Tag: memory lane

A Fun Filled Year of Blogging

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Today marks one year since Heather launched Seriously Geeky Sundays. Has it been a year already? It feels like it was yesterday that I stumbled upon Pinterest in a desperate search for blog prompts that were actually enjoyable for me.

Before I start rambling and take the thunder away from today’s questions, I’ll just dive right in.

But first, wishing everyone a happy Easter! Maybe one day soon things will start getting back to normal. 

4th April – Happy First Birthday SGS!

One year ago Seriously Geeky Sundays was launched and this week we’re celebrating our first birthday by looking back over the last year of prompts.

What was your favourite theme?

Conventions – It was so much fun to sit down and write about my unique perspective on working at conferences. I enjoyed reading everyone’s perspectives as attendees! 

Cosplay – Talking about one of my favorite pastimes was a blast (albeit, I’ve been lazy with cosplaying incognito over the past year for obvious reasons), and again, it was so much fun reading everyone’s posts and looking at their cosplay pictures. 

What theme did you like the least?

There aren’t any I disliked. Heather put a lot of thought and energy into creating six exciting prompts each week–can we give her a giant THANK YOU for doing this? I know how hard it is to come up with things to write about, and she’s been doing it every single week for the past year! 

Thank you, Heather, for bringing strangers together through fandoms and blogs. It has helped me get through 2020. 

Thank you for 52 weeks of prompts, Heather!
What question made you think the most?

Many of them forced me to consider things I haven’t thought about, and for that I am glad. It is good to experience something different or something that puts you out of your comfort zone every so often. I’ve enjoyed answering questions I wouldn’t normally stumble upon.

After skimming through past SGS posts, I decided on What is your favourite wedding scene? from What’s Your Cup of Coffee? for two reasons: 1. I don’t particularly like the romance genre, so it was extra challenging to come up with an answer about scenes I tend to skip (ha ha!). 2. I ended up writing a piece of fan-fiction that enabled me to come up with a wedding scene I actually liked. 

Ed and Jack
Ed and Jack <3
Which theme reminded you of something you’d forgotten?

Welcome to Grasshopper’s Realm – The World Wide Web of Us. I managed to find one of my ancient angelfire sites from the early 2000s and take a dive down memory falls. I spent a good amount of time sifting through long forgotten drawings and journal entries from yesteryear. 

Banner depicting a website from the early 1990s
1996 here I come!
What do you enjoy most about Seriously Geeky Sundays?

I’m so glad I found it last year. As Winst0lf said in his post, the pandemic put a huge damper on inspiration, and I could barely get a sentence out, let alone a full blog post. I couldn’t believe my luck after scrolling through endless cycles of the same Live Laugh Love journal prompts on pinterest and spotting Heather’s SGS.

SGS forces me to keep my creative mind flowing because the prompts are things I’m interested in and aren’t your run of the mill, generic questions. I’ve enjoyed meeting new people through it and cannot wait to see what the second year of SGS brings.

What themes or subjects would you like to see come up this year?
  • Conventions Part II – Another round of questions based on conventions
  •  Geeking by in a COVID-19 World – How has everyone coped during the insanity that was 2020? What geeky things got you through it all?
  • ,Guest Prompts – A series of prompts created by guests (sort of like Around the World in 8 Sundays, but guests). 
  • What geeky things will you do once things get back to normal? 
  • Cosplay Part II – Another round of cosplay questions
  •  What-if scenarios involving characters and fandoms

A Thanksgiving to Remember

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As Thanksgiving approaches (with lightning speed, I might add), I’ve been walking down memory lane and revisiting past holidays. As the years go by, fewer and fewer stick out in my mind (what can I say? It’s a side effect of getting older 😉 ), but there will always be a select few that I’ll always remember and treasure forever.

One of the few I can still picture in vivid detail was my first Thanksgiving away from home.

It was 1999, and I was fresh out of Basic Training. That September, I was sent to Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi for tech school. I volunteered for the drill team right out of the gate. I loved the marches, formations, my teammates, and the comradery; hell, I loved everything about Keesler. To this day, I look fondly on the time I spent there.

Let’s fast forward to November of that same year because this will end up being a novel if I don’t!

The powers that be did what they could to let us go home for the holiday, but this isn’t an ideal world, and this is the one part that is fuzzy. I don’t remember why some of us couldn’t go home for Thanksgiving, so I’ll leave it at that.

We were hanging out around one of the smoke pits near the dormitories (just picture a wooden gazebo) and lamenting over the fact that we had to stay and were going to miss out on some good food. I mean, the chow hall was awesome, but there is nothing like a home-cooked Thanksgiving turkey.

The drill team leader, a short airman with black hair cut just below her ears stood up, her manner stoic as she lifted her head. The movement was so commanding, that it silenced the entire gazebo.

“We will make our own Thanksgiving,” she declared.

 And that was all it took.

The smoke pit turned into an excited Thanksgiving Command Center as we planned the meal. It would be held in the fishbowl (a community center for us airmen in training, complete with a kitchen). We had everything worked out to a capital T, right down to who’d ask the chaplain for permission to use the kitchen. 

I’ll never forget playing Risk, laughing and joking the day away as the cozy aroma of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie filled the air. I’ll never forget drinking cider as I looked down at my plastic little men (contemplating their next move as I eyed the plastic men of my friends), the cheerful chatter, the fervent excitement when the food was ready, or the way everyone pitched in to clean up.

It was our first Thanksgiving away from home, but we made it our own, and I will always treasure the memory of us coming together that wonderful Thursday afternoon.

It was a testament to the America I love, the America where people from all walks of life come together in love and kindness. This is the America we must fight for, now, more than ever.

Happy Thanksgiving, and remember:
Kindness matters.

❤ mlc