Weekly Wordzzle Challenge # 227

Well, it's Friday yet again. Time goes by faster and faster the older I get.  Probably I will wait until Saturday to post my exercises (seems to be a pattern now), but wanted to make Mr. Linky and next week's words available just in case someone else has been inspired to play.

6:05 Saturday:  Late as usual, but finally done.


Words for last week's 10-word challenge were: whisper, rest, carrot cake, pregnant, robot, pressure, play, sloth, category, needy   And for the mini: challenge, cramped, particles, spice, pastoral


My mega:

Amanda was not entirely enjoying the challenge of being pregnant. The doctors had put her on bed rest and she felt cramped and restless and needy lying next to her husband in bed. For his part, Robot (his name was Robert, but his patient attendance to her demands had earmed him the new nickname Robot) was being remarkably patient and attentive. They were fortunate that even with the pressures of his pastoral duties, he had a lot of flexibility in his schedule as well as a church full of devoted and well meaning congregants eager to play nurse to the coming child's mother. They had a kitchen full of carrot cakes, spice cakes, home made pickles and a sampling of goods from every possible category of craving satisfiers. As she poked him gently and whispered his name, he rolled over, half asleep and said groggily? "Ice cream? Pickles?" "Neither, beloved," she beamed happily, "Your son wants to play with you. I don't think we need to worry about him being slothful. He is a very energetic kicker with not a particle of compassion for his poor Mom's tummy or need for sleep." Feeling her husband's strong, gentle hand on her belly and watching the delight in his face, as he felt his child kicking in her womb, Amanda thought herself possibly the luckiest woman on earth. "I love you Pastor Robot," she smiled. "What a father you will be! You have calmed our little kicker right down with your touch and his mother too."  "I love you too," he replied, watching her eyes flicker towards sleep. In the womb, the child, wrapped in their love of each other and himself, floated in happy anticipation of his arrival into the world.


The mini: 

Leonard Patterson, really regretted having taken his girl friend's challenge to spend a week in this stupid, cramped cabin with no electric or heat or... other important things. She had said that the experience would spice his life up and had described the god-forsaken hell he was currently entombed in as "a beautiful pastoral setting."  The worst part of it all was the out house which smelled awful and left his butt covered with particles of dirt and who knew what else. The up side of the adventure was that he had plenty of time to think of a way to take revenge on that blighted woman. If she had wanted to break up with him, he thought, she could have just said so.


And my 10-word: 

Putting the finishing touches on her famous Christmas carrot cake, Jenny dreaded facing the pressure from her family about why she was not yet pregnant. They meant well, she knew, but it was time to put the whispered speculations to rest. It was not sloth in effort or a lack of desire to be parents. It seemed that she and Josh were in that category of people who could not get pregnant. Even as she thought about it, a range of emotions played through her. Anger.... it was nobody's business. They were not robots who should be commanded to reproduce to please others - followed by feelings of needy jealousy. Why should Carla have twins and while she was barren?  And at the last - shame for those thoughts and grief for the loss of what she couldn't have.  It did not turn out as she had expected, though. The family had received the news philosophically and her sister had pulled her aside and telling her not to give up hope and sharing the secret of her own struggle with the same problem - and how she had come to be the proud mother of twin boys. It was the best Christmas gift Jenny could have hoped for... well except for the baby girl she held in her arms two Christmases later.

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Words for next week's 10-word challenge:  caution, spinach, heat, pregnant, carved wooden box, blaggard, garbage, bellow, effort, sapling 

And for the mini: charcoal, turtle, impulse, shaft, exaggeration

Thanks you for playing.  Newcomers can check here for some guidelines to make the game more fun. There are no rules, just some general guidelines and tricks.