NaHaiWriMo 2021 Day 18

Today’s prompt was pride.

  Ego
not asking for help
strong people do it themselves
try not to complain
a big branch breaks under the
weight of all the ice and snow

So this happens every year, and today I just went with it. My poem flowed out into 5 lines instead of 3 making it a tanka. Also, I know you’re all tired of hearing about ice and snow but it was too poetic to not publish.

If you have liked any of my poetry this month, or if you are liking my art, or the photos that I post on Instagram, please consider donating to my Ko-fi account.

It is hard to be a blogger, SAHM, or an artist without the help of your community. And I am all 3! So I started a Ko-fi account. It’s pronounced “coffee” but with a English accent as it is a UK based company.

Basically you can donate to my art without having to make an account or do anything more strenuous than what you would do on Amazon. You find my page and “buy me a coffee” which is you giving me a $3 donation so that I can afford to make my art without having to resort to making telemarketer calls to your phone. Or so that I don’t have to guilt people into buying a store credit card at the mall, or work fast food.

You can find the link to my Ko-fi account on my About Me page. Right now I have a small goal. After this goal gets met I’ll be setting another goal to help me buy a camera.

This is how artists today find their patrons and supporters. If you can’t leave me a donation, then give me a share so that others can discover my work, here and on Instagram (link on my About Me and This Blog page). I am currently using Instagram as a portfolio, but Ko-fi can work as a portfolio and a shop. My big goal is to get a shop open on Ko-fi by the end of this year.

NaHaiWriMo 2021 Day 10

Today’s prompt is “when the levee breaks”.

all of my feelings
trying to keep them in the banks
rushing waters

all of my feelings
trying to keep them in the banks
rushing waters

Nat’l Haiku Writing Mn 2021 Day 9

Today’s poem for National Haiku Writing Month.

checking my compass

to go with the wind or against

butterfly’s flight

checking my compass
to go with the wind or against
butterfly's flight

I managed to make a haiga today!! It took some time using the blocks of WordPress but I did it.

Nat’l Haiku Writing Month Day 8 ’21

Today’s prompt is: tangerine

tangerine 
when saying orange just won't do
new selling points

This is technically a senryu, but it’s all that came to mind. If I had literally all day to think I could come up with something else, but I had about 10 minutes before my son needed help with his homework. So here is my finished homework- why don’t you drop me a grade in a comment below?

Stock photo of a mom that had time to comb her hair.

Going Through Haiku

smokey moon
burning through the last week
of the longest year

12-28-20

I don’t know about you, but December seemed like the longest month of 2020 to me. I swear that last week lasted two weeks. Some of it was good, some of it was bad.

So I was going through my haiku trying to figure out what to post today and since it’s the last week of January I thought that I would go ahead and post this. I hope by this time next year I can write joyous poetry about how much better everything is.

I will be doing National Haiku Writing Month, but I may not post every day. I do know that I will make 28 separate posts for each poem, so some days I may post 3 times. I will probably schedule them to post throughout the day on days like that. I will do that so that I can get your reaction to each individual poem. Last year I did 4 poems per post and got few comments.

I want your comments more than your likes, so please leave me your thoughts. But If you can’t leave me a like here on WordPress, please leave me a like on Facebook or Twitter, wherever you follow me from.

Tanka Tuesday | Bright

    Bright
orange and hot pink
evening sun so intense
I close the blinds
but then we miss the sunset
having to embrace intensity
  12-16-20

I think this poem explains where most of us are at. If we want to enjoy what is left of life, we are going to have to brave some intense things.

2020 Wrap Up for my Blog

First of all thank you!

Photo by Giftpundits.com on Pexels.com

Thank you for following me and reading my blog. I know that some of you had extra time this year but it still means a lot, that out of all the blogs you could have read, out of all of the places you could have visited, you left me Likes and comments on my poetry blog.

feeling all the love
favorite food and chocolates
happy momma fox  
   2-14-20

For those of you who like wrap up posts, like me, here are some of my stats from 2020. It is my biggest year ever!! Probably because so many of you were quarantined/locked down so many times that you had to find new material to read! I still thank you for clicking on my posts because you could have picked many other blogs to read.

Most Liked Post - Poems
 Painting
Inside the MRI

Most Liked Post - Haiku
A 2020 Haiku
Cactus Haiku
Dry River Haiku

Most Viewed Posts
The definition of success by R W E.
Haiku don't have titles.
Tornado Haiku

Top Referrer 
Facebook 

One of the reasons that I am not going to leave Facebook is because it is my top referrer, by a lot. I have changed my main posting day from Mondays to Tuesdays and I thought because I could not post links to a couple of places that I used to link to, that I would lose followers. But I did not. I have actually kept gaining followers. Yes, some are bots, but I am gaining more than I am losing and that’s always good.

At the end of 2018 something happened and I got monthly views of over 1,000 in November and December. I didn’t get a record number of likes, but I did get a crazy number of views 9,569. Most of the views were to the post The definition of success by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The other most viewed posts, that understandably have a ton of views, are posts that explain the rules to writing haiku poems. I don’t know why the definition of success quote gets so many views, I guess people must google that a lot toward the end of the year when they are thinking about their goals. It has to be people who are not WordPress users themselves because these posts have a small number of likes but continue to be my most viewed.

I had many weeks where I did not blog this year. I even thought about giving up social media this year. But then I got more interactive followers on Instagram and I got a huge amount of interactive followers on Twitter. And I started getting more Likes here on my blog. Last month I got over 1,000 visitors again.

In 2020 I had 9,103 unique visitors and 11,763 views. I know it’s small compared to other blogs, but for doing everything for literally 0 dollars and using stock photos, I think that’s pretty darn good! I have 1,073 followers to the blog. I know that I have a few Twitter followers and Instagram followers who regularly visit my blog who don’t subscribe, but I think my numbers are really good for 1K followers.

I am really happy about it and I have decided that I will continue blogging. I may not share a haiku every week in the coming years, but I will share one poem per week. For a small blog I think it’s a good goal. I am also focusing on my artwork and that is at least three hour process, plus I have other responsibilities.

So this is my 2020 wrap up. Thank you for reading!! Please encourage your friends to read blogs, it is a unique writing form and it isn’t going anywhere!

So Many Metaphors

leaves change color

so many metaphors

God’s grace in fall

Copyright 10-28-2018

So many metaphors pop out at us during the fall. Yet I have trouble writing.

A haiku about names

I know the names of
hundreds of flowers
but not his classmates

This school year is the hardest and possibly worst that I have had to endure as a parent. We aren’t allowed to be inside the school because they want to stop the spread of Covid-19 but they aren’t making the kids wear masks. They want to cancel assemblies and other things, but they aren’t taking anyone’s temperature. It’s so frustrating.

Haiku at a Distance

green leafy vine
grows up away from the trail
social distancing
3-26-20

Raccoon Haiku

the nurse’s love
I can see it despite the mask
cuddly raccoon
4-27-20

Tweet

So I know some of us are tired of talking about all of this, but writing is how I process things. It’s also good for memories, when you look back you will remember how you felt about something if you have written poetry about it, or a blog post, or painted a picture.

Photo by anne sch on Pexels.com

Cactus Haiku

being surprised when
the dead cactus pokes you
lost relationships
3-4-20

Tweet

being surprised when
the dead cactus pokes you
lost relationships

Do you ever run across someone’s page on social media, and you have to stop and see how they are getting along without you? Do you ever check the photos of a friend to see if they are still doing the dumb stuff that caused you to part ways with them? Do you ever go to do an activity and have a pang of sadness when you remember how you used to do it with a friend? Me neither.