Weekly Wordzzle Challenge, Week 112

This is week 112 of the Weekly (previously known as the Saturday) Wordzzle Challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. Struggled again this week. Argent, thanks for sticking with wordzzles. I think of you as The Lone Wordzzler and look forward every week to your excellent stories.

This

week's 10-word challenge are: carpenter ants, freak, good as new, jelly beans, olive oil, scamper, champion, goose egg, pizza, ceiling fan and

For the mini: gravity, variable, swinging on a star, gardening, trombone

My 10-word:

Henry Champion was having what might be called a really bad day. He sat in the crumbling ruin of a house, nibbling the remains of a pizza whose preparer was obviously deeply committed to the excessive use of olive oil and the conservation of cheese and mushrooms and anything that might have made it taste good. In addition, he was nursing the large goose egg on his head which he had gotten bumping into a low-hanging ceiling fan (which, mercifully, had not been running). He would never buy a house over the internet again. "Good as new" apparently did not mean to others what it meant to him. He watched a colony of carpenter ants merrily scampering (or at least the ant equivalent of scampering) across the floor in disturbingly massive numbers. The one thing that was keeping him from freaking out completely was that his beloved wife - he called her Jelly Bean because she was so sweet - was unaware of what he had done. He had wanted to surprise her with the home of her dreams, not this wreck. It had looked so beautiful in the pictures.

The mini:

Allison Variable loved gardening but now that the boy next door was taking music lessons, her life was in shambles. Well, have you ever HEARD Swinging on a Star played by an 8 year-old? On a trombone of all things? It is not a happy experience. She didn't begrudge the child the fun of learning but it really was ruining her life. And what made it worse was that her husband totally failed to understand the gravity of the problem. He had, in fact, laughed out loud when she told him about it. He would not be laughing when he got no dinner and spent the night on the sofa. A few nights of that and she was sure he would think of some way to solve her problem without hurting the kid's feelings. Meanwhile, she could just feel the weeds laughing at her and egging the boy on.

And the mega:

I'm a freak for pizza and jelly beans. Of course I try to eat healthy... you know, I cook with olive oil and eat vegetables. I've even taken to gardening, though my success rate is variable and some years I do better than others. Last year I had to battle carpenter ants and Japanese beetles. It was a nightmare, but the bugs aren't so bad and my crop has been great. Growing my own string beans and tomatoes... and even cucumbers is a lot of fun. I love watching the cucumbers grow... and there's something about fresh vegetables that's almost as good as pizza. This year I expanded my horizons and planted flowers too... something called a trombone lily... or was it trumpet... Anyway, I went to the doctor last week and he gave me a good report... said my ticker was "as good as new," which made me very happy indeed. Parts of me have succumbed to the cruelties of age and gravity, but on the whole I still scamper around like a youngster. Scamper was a word my husband George loved. I miss him so. Sixty years, we were married... met when we were so young... neither of us had a dime to our names. We called our selves "the Goose Eggs," but we found ways to have fun without money. In early days he worked for the hardware store and did odd jobs installing ceiling fans and other things, but he was a really fine carpenter and eventually his beautiful creations were much in demand and they made a good living. Champion's Fine Furniture, we called it.... and then I got interested in antiques and we combined both shops into Swinging On a Star because it was "our song."

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Words for next week's 10-word challenge are: chapter, vigorous, whipped cream, charter member, cut a rug, fling, sparingly, gravity, pregnant pause, universal

For the mini: glamorous, gin and tonic, fill in the blanks, water-logged, masterpiece

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!!!!!