How many years does January take?
This seems to be the longest month in history!
And not because of JJiJ. That was the fun part.
And, sorry, this one-liner is staying with the longest-month theme!
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Courageous by Willow Rose
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a satisfying ending to a semi-completed boxed set. I found the whole story a bit confusing until I let go of my preconceived notions of what the afterlife should be and accepted this as the author’s young adult fantasy.
The whole story is fun and a little different. Give it a try if you need an escape from the confusion of the real world.
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 28th, 2025ย is โconfusion.โ Use it any way youโd like. Have fun!
The Afterlife Series Box Set by Willow Rose
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have finally finished reading not only this but the fourth book. This book was supposed to be the complete series. And probably when I got it, it was all the author had ready. But the ending was a cliffhanger. Had that been all, I would have been very disappointed.
Still, the three-book set was fun. One has to put aside theology and think of this as fantasy; the characters’ abilities were so fun. I loved the main character, Meghan, and how she cared for others.
On the other hand, the antagonist is too much.
Oh, the people you meet along the way. Einstein, can you believe it? No? Well, it’s fantasy, okay?
This is definitely a young adult series. There is far too much romance. Ugh! But hey, it’s a story, and it was a fun read.
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Your prompt for JusJoJan January 27th, 2025ย is โglamorous.โ Use it any way youโd like. Enjoy!
So, to add the Jot to the above review, it was one of the abilities that appear in in fantasies is the gift of glamour. Bingo! It is used in this book set.
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 26th, 2025ย is โjubilee.โ Use it any way youโd like. Enjoy
What is the difference between jubilee and jamboree?
Per the online Thesaurus:
Jubilee is a synonym for jamboree in festival topic. In some cases you can use “Jubilee” instead a noun “Jamboree”, when it comes to topics like noisy celebration.
Sorry, I got nothing. But did I earn the jotting gold star?
Thinking in this post all day should have given me more inspiration than my original idea. But here it is.
It amazes me what one bit of yarn knits or crochets into a garment. One string kept in line can make something soft and warm.
One string attacked by a cat makes a puzzle. So best keep cats and yarn in line.
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 24th, 2025ย is โhobbies.โ Use it any way youโd like. Enjoy!
My other hobbies are musical in nature. Having gotten back to piano this past summer, starting at one song or five minutes, only as long as it was fun. Now I can go as long as an hour but seem to average half an hour to 5 minutes.
After summer and fall, working on classical, suddenly winter brought some fun carols. I loved some of the more modern rhythms. So when I had to put them away, I made a bit of a resolution or goal to learn more modern beats. I want to be able to improvise and even compose my own music. So I started working through a few books like
Much of it is elementary. I assume I am of intermediate level. But my rhythm is horrid. Especially modern beats, blues, or jazz.
I pulled out another book and started at the beginning with the song, Just the Way You Are, from this book:
It seems easy enough, but it sounded nothing like the beloved Billy Joel’s golden hit when I started. But gradually, the beat is growing in my soul.
I was trying other instruments to get back into music. Recorder, soprano, alto, and tenor. Ukulele. And finally, a violin. When my thumb, elbow, and shoulder started hurting, these also had to go by the wayside. I miss them, but the piano doesn’t hurt my arms or hands. My back, yes. But I am working on posture and yoga to help with that. Hence the shorter sessions.
I love being 75. Retired. Older than my piano teacher was when I was 12, older than my mother, who never got to play for fun. I’m trying to play for them now. And my inner sprites and muses.
Thank you all for participating. When I did the random word generator, I rejected many, like ‘fork’ and ‘then,’ but finally, a word that could move my muse. Or so I thought back then.
When you are a reader, and your parents only made it to eighth and tenth grade, you soon learn their answer is to go to the dictionary. And rather than break up the story with the tome of words, you pronounce it out yourself. So, I learned words wrong. Often, I put emphasis on the wrong syl-LA-bol. One of the reasons I adore audiobooks is that someone reads words correctly, even foreign words. Even Kindle Text-to-Speech gets things wrong. Like the soft G in ‘finger.’ What?
Yeah, that blog part jumped out at seeing the word. Then, the crazy streaming thoughts drifted away.
Rhythm has always been the hardest part of music. Nope, not a dancer here. Since I went back to the piano, I think it was this last summer that my sight-reading has improved, and many of the songs I revived are reasonable. As of this New Year’s, I made up my mind to make the goal of being able to improvise and compose music this year. I have always admired the people who could just sit down and riff out music. But I tend toward reading and playing every single notated note.
Today, one of the books I’m learning from was about teaching how to do blues and jazzy bass lines. See, most of the classical stuff I play is 4/4 time, emphasizing the first and third beats. I’m learning the second and fourth beats and stagger out beats for syncopation. I remember my piano teacher, Mrs. Skinner, teaching me Alley Cat and Baby Elephant Walk. To my young, early teen self, she looked ancient. And she told me to do this little wiggle to get the beat right. As I tried these beats today, I saw and felt her emphasizing that wiggle. I’m smiling right now at the memory. I can’t wait to make her proud.
It’s Linda’s birthday! Happy Birthday! These are just a couple of her fun prompts.
#JusJoItJan and One-Liner Wednesday
I found this on Facebook. It still has some wisdom buried there.
Creatures of the Abyss by Murray Leinster
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
It looks like my friend Ralph recommended this to me in 2013. Sorry for taking so long, but I will finish it today, as I am in the last chapter. Yay!
This was probably one of the most yawn-worthy books I have read in a long time, yet it didn’t help me go to sleep. I kept hoping the story would get more exciting, but it didn’t.
Still, it could just be me. Check out the blurbs and comments. Many were quite positive. Well, at least I gave it a chance. It wasn’t horrid.
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 21st, 2025,ย is โcontent.โ Use it any way youโd like. Enjoy!
While a lot is going on in the world right now, I am just content reading books and watching Jack Black movies (Gulliver’s Travel and The Big Year) and then Friends. My health is worth the energy it takes to stay light. It is the wrong time of year to let things get to you. Winter, dark days. Colder than most, with a lack of snow here. Snow at least makes everything look clean and is rarely as cold as the no-snow days.
Noa’s Ark by C. Gockel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the continuation of a fun Sci-fi series. In the first, the main characters are planet-bound for the most part. In this book, we are space traveling. It is very much a space opera. I could almost see this as a television or movie series.
Emily Woo Zeller (Narrator) changes voices seamlessly. She is amazing. Never once did I wonder who was talking or from whose point of view we were looking.
I can’t wait to listen to the next book.
If you like sci-fi, especially space travel, please seek out the Archangel Project.
Hi! Itโs time for our twentieth prompt for Just Jot it January 2025. Today, we have a prompt gifted to us by the incomparable Kim. Thank you, Kim! Please be sure to visit Kimโs blog to read her posts and say hello. And follow her while youโre there if youโre not already.
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 20th, 2025ย is โantipodean.โ Use it any way youโd like. Have fun!
If a review of sci-fi that speaks of planets couldn’t use the word “antipodean,” what could. But the main characters never got to the other side of the planet. Oh, but look! I used it anyway! ๐คช
Darswords 
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