Want to Join a New Blog Challenge?
I just survived the A to Z Challenge, and here’s my official badge to prove it. ![survivor_[2013]](https://janiceheck.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/survivor_2013.jpg)
So today, I’m reading around on my WordPress Reader and Sock Zone pops up with this new challenge she found on the Internet.
Story of My Life: Blog Every Day In May Challenge
I met Sock Zone at letter Z of the A to Z, then went back and read more of her earlier posts. Wish I had met her earlier. Now she’s signed up for this Story of My Life Challenge: Blog Every Day in May (short posts, 250 words, using 31 brief prompts). I thought she was a little nuts. But then I thought, why not?
So here I am. Jumping in with two feet, two days after the start. Don’t worry. I’ll catch up. The posts are short.
![BlogEverday[1]](https://janiceheck.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/blogeverday1.png)
***Prompt 1. Wednesday. The story of your life in 250 words or less.
I’m a small town girl, born on a farm in Southern New Jersey. I grew up with five older sisters, two older brothers, and one younger brother. The household, which included a dozen cats at any given time, with perhaps a dog or two and even a duck, was obviously noisy. But big families can be fun, a lot of work for Mom and Daddy, but fun.
Photo: My big sisters and me. I am the littlest one.
Being “number eight,” I followed in the footsteps of everyone else and wore all their hand-me-downs. It didn’t matter. Nobody really cared about that back then. Well mostly they didn’t. A few lah-de-dahs in my class teased me about my clothes, but I pretended not to care. But, I did, a lot.
I excelled at school, was the first in my family to go to college, and became a special education teacher so I could look out for all those kids who were teased and mistreated on the playground. After a number of years teaching, I got a master’s degree in administration and got a job as a principal in an elementary school in Alaska. How I got there is another story.
After ten years in Alaska, I moved on to Hong Kong International School for seven years as an early childhood administrator–720 children ages four to eight. I loved that job and the travel that went with it, but my husband got quite ill (cancer) and passed away (now thirteen years ago). I needed to take a break from everything, so I retired and moved back to New Jersey to be near my family.
Eight years ago, I married a guy I dated fifty years ago. (He finally got it right!) And now it is My Turn to Write, which is the name of my blog.
Story of My Life: Blog Every Day in May Prompts
Here are the rest of the May questions in case you want to tag along. Let me know in my comment section if you do, and I will try to read your posts.
Day 1, Wednesday: The story of your life in 250 words or less (or one paragraph… no one will be counting your words… probably)
Day 2, Thursday: Educate us on something you know alot about or are good at. Take any approach you’d like (serious and educational or funny and sarcastic)
Day 3, Friday: Things that make you uncomfortable
Day 4, Saturday: Favorite quote (from a person, from a book, etc) and why you love it
Day 5, Sunday: Publicly profess your love and devotion for one of your blogger friends. What makes them great? Why do you love them? If you don’t have blogger friends, talk about a real-life friend or even a family member
Day 6, Monday: If you couldn’t answer with your job, how would you answer the question, ‘what do you do’?
Day 7, Tuesday: The thing(s) you’re most afraid of
Day 8, Wednesday: A piece of advice you have for others. Anything at all.
Day 9, Thursday: A moment in your day (this can be just a photo or both a photo and words)
Day 10, Friday: Most embarrassing moment (s). Spill.
Day 11, Saturday: Sell yourself in 10 words or less
Day 12, Sunday: What do you miss? (a person, a thing, a place, a time of your life…)
Day 13, Monday: Issue a public apology. This can be as funny or as serious or as creative as you want it to be.
Day 14, Tuesday: Ten things that make you really happy
Day 15, Wednesday: A Day in the life (include photos from throughout your typical day – this could be “a photo an hour” if you’d like)
Day 16, Thursday: Something difficult about your “lot in life” and how you’re working to overcome it
Day 17, Friday: A favorite photo of yourself and why
Day 18, Saturday: Tell a story from your childhood. Dig deep and try to be descriptive about what you remember and how you felt.
Day 19, Sunday: Five of your favorite blogs and what you love about them
Day 20, Monday: Get real. Share something you’re struggling with right now.
Day 21, Tuesday: A list of links to your favorite posts in your archives
Day 22, Wednesday: Rant about something. Get up on your soapbox and tell us how you really feel. (a pet peeve, a current event, a controversial topic, something your husband or roommate or neighbor or boss does that really ticks you off)
Day 23, Thursday: Things you’ve learned that school won’t teach you
Day 24, Friday: Your top 3 worst traits
Day 25, Saturday: Something someone told you about yourself that you’ll never forget (good or bad)
Day 26, Sunday: Something you read online. Leave a link and discuss, if you’d like.
Day 27, Monday: A letter to your readers
Day 28, Tuesday: Only pictures
Day 29, Wednesday: Five songs or pieces of music that speak to you or bring back memories. Use Grooveshark or YouTube to include them in the post
Day 30, Thursday: React to this term: Letting Go
Day 31, Friday: A vivid memory
Meow for now. =<^;^>=
Janice Hall Heck 
I’ll be following you, Janice, on this challenge and reading your posts. I read through the 31 questions. After just finishing the A-Z challenge, and being new to bloggong, I am not ready to take this one on personally. I am still hoping to get my recap of the A-Z challenge in on time. I look forward to reading your post. I enjoyed learning a little more about you in this post. I grew up on a rural area as well and had to wear my older sister’s hand-me-downs.
Thanks. I read your bio and it sounds like we have some interests in common. Missions and writing, for two. Keep on blogging, it does get easier. Well, maybe I shouldn’t say that because I still have some wrinkles I need to work out and I have been blogging just over a year.
I guess the wearing hand-me-downs is partly what made us who we are. I certainly don’t think I would be better off if I had better clothes. My life has been good, fantastic even. And I’d rather be a caring person than a materialistic person.
I agree. I wouldn’t change one thing about where or how I grew up. It has given me reason to have a level of appreciation that some will never know.
Looking forward to getting to know you on this new challenge. I thought about not doing this, but I’m finding that blogging is a great destressor for me.
Cynthia (The Sock Zone)
blueflute.wordpress.com
You’re right about blogging being a de-stressor. A few times it adds stress, but writing in general is good for us. And these short posts I can manage. My goal after A to Z is to write shorter posts, so this will get me going and hold me accountable to length.
Pingback: Every Day in May Post 2: I Am Good At . . . | JaniceHeck
Pingback: May 3- A Few Uncomfortable Things | JaniceHeck
Pingback: Fear? Blog Every Day in May, May 7 | JaniceHeck
Pingback: Advice from The Hiking Trail (Blog Every Day in May Challenge) | JaniceHeck
So thankful for the A to Z Challenge Road Trip list, which led me here to your blog. I have a lot of catching up to do on your A to Z posts, because I got caught up in your Blog Every Day in May posts! I committed to blogging every day for a year on January 1, and I’ve done a fair job of coming up with stuff to write about, but do enjoy the variety of challenges and prompts out there. I think I’m too late to jump in and catch up with the May challenge, but I’m going to bookmark the questions for August. I’ll be moving then, and it’ll be nice to have posts pre-written and scheduled to publish automatically while I’m between homes!
Nice to meet you dreaminofobx (I like OBX , too.) I am doing the A to Z Challenge Road Trip to…maybe we’ll cross paths again. Bloging every day for the year seems like a MAJOR challenge. I’ still doing the month at a time, although I am getting faster at it. Next year, maybe 365!
There are some days when I question the sanity of choosing to blog every day, but for the most part I’ve enjoyed the first four and a half months of my challenge. I needed to get back into writing, and the public commitment has been a good motivator on the days when I just didn’t wanna write. Of course, I did leave myself a bit of an out with the fact that I also wanted to use my blog to sharpen my photography skills…once in a while I can get away with just posting photographs in response to a photo challenge. 🙂
Pingback: Space | Things I See and Know