Come and get your free write on in just 5 minutes! <–Click to Tweet this
Where a beautiful crowd spends five minutes all writing on the same topic and then sharing ’em over here.
How to Join:
Want to know how Five Minute Friday got started and how to participate? All the details are here.
Featured Five Minute Friday:
And every week I’ll pick a post that caught my eye and share it down there in my side bar – see where it says “Featured Five Minute Friday”? Yea -that could be you! Hop on over and visit some folk who make fireworks in just five minutes. They inspire me.
What They’re Saying:
I also have some Five Minute Friday stories from participants I love to share each week – I can never get over the community that has grown up over a five minute writing exercise.
This one’s from Michelle who met Carrie via Five Minute Friday and who both happened to marry Guatemalan guys and now know each other in real life in Guatemala!
“Last year one of the Five Minute Friday topics was: Waiting. I wrote this post about how in Spanish the verb to wait has three different meanings and then linked it up to your page. A few days later, I got a blog comment and then an email from a fellow Five Minute Fridays blogger, named Carrie.
The amazing, crazy and wonderful thing is that I live in Guatemala and at the time was dating (and am now married to a Guatemalan) and Carrie was engaged and moving back to Guatemala in a month to marry her Guatemalan fiance.
We connected right away. The 4 of us have hung out since and Carrie and I remain good friends. It is such a gift for both of us, being far away from our circle of friends and communities, navigating cross-cultural marriage and being able to figure it out together in Guatemala.”
You all are the special sauce. Got a FMF story you want to share with us? Email me.
Now, set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.
1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..
Oh and Ahem, if you would take pity and turn off comment verification, it would make leaving some love on your post that much easier for folks!
OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on:::
Quiet…
GO
It’s been a week since I blogged. After writing for 31 days straight I felt a bit hoarse. I lost my voice. Or at least I needed a breather. Perhaps a break from my own voice. I needed to listen again.
Our house is not a quiet place.
Nor is my job or the Internet or any time spent on Twitter.
But listening doesn’t always require quiet levels. Sometimes it requires quiet space. My head needed space that wasn’t filled with ideas for blog posts. My head needed to spend more time thinking about macaroni and cheese, or friends who had trees plow through their houses, or how to get the dog to stop. jumping. up. on. me. already.
Space and quiet might look like a chaotic living room with small boys running around in their underoos while a baby practices her Tae Kwon Do kicks. But sometimes that kind of quiet is the best kind. The crazy kind. The life giving, blog post inspiring kind.
Even the dog.
Even the hamster.
They have all been part of my loud quiet this week and I am profoundly grateful.
STOP
OK, show us what you got! {Subscribers, you can just click here to come over and play along}
Oh my gosh! You have one of those dogs, too??? Really drives me nuts…along with everything else she does that she knows she’s not supposed to do! God has given her to us so I can learn patience…at least that’s what I’m telling myself!
OHMAHSTARS that picture of your Zoe! How can you stand it?! She has your smile, mama!
Thank you Lisa-Jo! Now I don’t feel so guilty about not having written anything since the 31 Day challenge ended. I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one who needed a mental time-out!
I am so glad I’m not the only 31 dayer who’s well had run dry! I had some posts up this week that I had been wanting to write but it didn’t really fit into my series but besides that I have not had a coherent thought! ha! Please eat a big spoonful of mac and cheese for me…we had red beans and rice tonight and it was soul food for this tummy :)
Hah, awesome imagery – and reminder that we sometimes need to pursue being in the noise differently as our way of experiencing the quiet we need. Thanks for inviting so many to join the experience one word can offer. :)
I love the quiet you describe here…lovely and the most beautiful kind~ blessings to you~
I blogged on my iphone under the duvet this morning – enjoying the quiet!
You’re type of quiet sounds wonderful. I can just see your precious girl practicing her kicks. It’s funny how different the definition of quiet is for each one of us. As I have read other posts I have found that for some, it literally means quiet and for others it means getting loader to drown out the hetic feeling of the day, which they brings about the quiet. I’m glad were not all the same, it makes the world a beautiful place. :)
Blessings~
Shari
I haven’t mastered this sort of quiet in the chaos, but I’d like to learn how:) I have one of those crazy, jumping dogs too. After eight years, I gave up. Woman vs Dog with Napolean complex is a battle I just can’t fight;)
I love this! Especially the last line: “They have all been part of my loud quiet this week and I am profoundly grateful.” Sometimes, when I think about gratitude and being grateful, I am surprised at the things that first come to mind. It isn’t always the big things, but the smaller, less obvious things…like the loud quiet, crescent moon of an early morning, good mashed potatoes…:-)
Thank you for this beautiful post.
Sometimes, this not writing is what we need. You’ve been a busy lady these last few months, working on your book, your 31 days series, etc. I am so glad you have had some time to rest to listen, and to enjoy quiet! Beautiful!
XXOO
Love this! Exactly what I needed to start my Friday.
This is my second week to do this and I’m still excited about it!
It makes it even more fun that I only publish posts about math – so I have to use your prompt and apply it to math!
I found another niche site in the linky (Dance Fit Divas) that uses your prompts and mixes them with her subject.
Thank you so much for putting this together. What a cool idea!
It’s nice to unplug from the outside and plug into the inside of home every once in a while! I’m glad you took the time to do that.
“Loud quiet” … LOL! The story of my life. :)
Oh how I could relate to you years ago – my quiet now is very quiet – so I really enjoy when the grandkids come over and stir up my quiet little life.
On the dog – when he jumps up knee him in the chest, not hard of course but this forces him down and say ‘down’ (and/or) use the hand motion down (open palm moving down) as you are kneeing him in the chest and teach your kiddos to do the same (depending on the size of your pup of course). It really works wonders.
mmm…I know that kind of quiet as only a fellow momma could. I have such a love-hate relationship with loud-quiet. I waffle between accepting it for what it is, to not enforcing it- to just letting the quiet be in me and stifling to them, to feeling the need to enforce it to hear myself think. sigh. That I guess is motherhood. Love playing along today and I thought I might end up with a similar interpretation when I saw the topic but was surprised what came out of it- a kind of noticing of the in between moments that sew us together. It was lovely- thank you and happy weekend! xoxo
There are so many different kinds of quiet – I love that! I decided to be brave and join in today – happy to be here! Thanks so much for hosting this! :)
I love it, Lisa-Jo!! So true.
oh, I was soo frustrated that my blog lay quiet all week, it makes me feel better to see I’m not the only one. I’m beginning to think it will be after Christmas when I get back on the bandwagon… thankful for the 5 minutes you give us on Friday, it helps me post occasionally! :)
Hi Lisa-Jo
I want to send you lots of love, hugs and kisses across the oceans to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this girlie chat place (I am a South African). I am proud to tell you that at last
I have overcome my shaky self-esteem (another way of admitting that I am full of nonsense) and linked up with the Five Minute Friday community. Best of all, I am still alive and had a ball of a time. Thanks soooo much!!
Lots of love
Mia
Always love how you enjoy your three blessings, Lisa-Jo :)
Right now I am listening to cartoons blaring, the girls playing make believe house, the dogs barking, hubby watching tv in the other room, my son playing xbox. Oh what a noisy raucus!! But, tomorrow, it will be quiet again. The grandkids will go home, my son will have went back for the week and it is now just hubby and I alone. Oh how I love the quiet when they are gone, but as the week goes on I start to hate that same quiet. I long for girls playing, cartoons blaring. etc. So I have a love/hate relationship with the word “Quiet”.
:) I read this but didn’t comment. It was interesting, I went from post to post, and for many of us we had the same theme. The quiet or lack of quiet in our homes. Some talked about inner quiet in the midst of chaos. But almost everyone talked about the noise being a blessing, and the quiet being a discipline. LOVE IT! Great prompt!
I totally get your post. Thanks for leading off the reflection of quiet this week!
love the pumpkin pictures!