Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 53

This is week 53 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. I had a really hard time with the mini this week. I really pretty much hated this week's words, but I guess since I came up with them myself, I'm not in a position to complain. I'm not satisfied really with anything I've done, but such is life. Hope you all had better luck than I did as we start the 2nd year of Saturday Wordzzle challenges. Thanks to Dr. John and the dragons for the lovely award last week. It was much appreciated.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: chopping block, reading list, bangles, oracle, plan, fandango, spelling bee, calendar, utilitarian, flower pot Mini Challenge: Siberia, citrus fruit, roofer, shamrock, twinkle twinkle little star

Here's my ten-word offering for this week:

Some might not think that seeing a fortune-teller was a particularly utilitarian way to prepare for a spelling bee, but to Samantha Sanders it seemed a perfectly logical plan of action. Samantha loved visiting Fandango Florenza in her colorful apartment with all its beads and bangles, the wonderful smells, the flower pots in all the windows and the large crystal ball which she used do give her readings. Today, she hoped that Madame Florenza would reassure her that she had a chance of winning the upcoming National Spelling Bee, that her neck would not be early on the chopping block – or on it at all, hopefully. Now the fortune teller was speaking. “I see something,” she intoned. “It is becoming clearer… I believe it’s a calendar... yes… that’s what it is… it’s the month of April… and now the words reading list have appeared…. The oracle says you must study every book in the reading list for April… and May and that if you do, you will do very well in your competition… perhaps… the voices are not totally clear on this… perhaps you may even win.” Samantha’s heart leapt with joy. Madame Fandango had not been wrong yet. She knew now she was going to win… and do a lot of reading as well over the next two months. Life was good. Luckily she had already left when Madame Florenza’s phone rang. “Yes, Mrs. Sanders,” she responded to the voice on the other end of the call. “I told her April and May, just as you asked.”

And here's my mini challenge:

Igor Borovosky, despite growing up in Siberia, had always had a deep fascination with thing Irish, so when he first moved to the United States he made up his mind that before he reached the age of 35 he would open his own pub and call it the Shamrock Inn. He would serve beer and ale like a true Irish pub but also those fru-fru drinks that were popular with genteel ladies. He would even invent his own drink which he would name the twinkle twinkle little star. It would use lots of citrus fruit and tooth picks with stars on the end and be served in a large frosted glasse. In order to accomplish this dream he worked long hours as a roofer, saving and saving, At the age of 34 and three quarters he had saved enough money and opened his pub. It was everything he had dreamed of and within six months he met Megan Mullaly a beautiful red-haired Irish lass with whom he fell madly in love. Six months after that they married and lived happily ever after for 50 sweet, poetic years.

And for the mega challenge:

Floretta Fandango – or Flower Pot as her father called her - was grateful for Miss Shamrock, the new English teacher whose passion for her students was unmistakable even to the most resentful of them. Besides the weekly spelling bee designed both to expand their vocabularies and to increase their comfort with competition, she presented them with a daunting reading list, announcing that it was her plan for every student in her class to graduate quickly from the childish “twinkle, twinkle little star” kind of literature they had been reading to an assortment of creative and utilitarian materials that would put them all on the road to both college educations and careers. She had worked out a three year calendar of study that eliminated – put on the chopping block was how she put it - all of what she called “foolish bangles and busy work”. It was also her plan to guide her students towards reading about those things which interested them: for Fred, who wanted to be a farmer, she found materials on maintaining healthy citrus fruit orchards, for Martha, books on geography, starting with a book about Siberia. She even found Lenny a summer job working for a local roofer. This would keep him out of trouble and help him safe up for his college education. And she used her determination and connections to get Martha, the class genius, an internship with the Oracle Corporation, thus ensuring both her education and her future. Miss Shamrock was a once in a life time educator who changed the lives of all her students through the magic of her determination and her passionate love of both knowledge and her students. Her own life had been so changed once and she had determined then and there to pass that gift on. In her long life she would be the inspiration for dozens of creative geniuses and would turn around many young lives. Floretta didn’t know this yet, but her life was about to be changed forever in ways that would enrich and benefit not just her own life but that of generations to come. Amazing what one good teacher can do.

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Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: sugar bowl, cotton, wizard, fund-raising, Ben Hur, salmonella, luke warm, telescope, bank, walk-a-thon

Mini Challenge: challenge, sparkling cider, melancholy, snail mail, master carpenter

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!