Monday, May 30, 2016

Testing time to Blog list

Using this post to see if posting directly from blogger will have it show up immediately on the blog list.  If so then it is the OLW to Blogger that is the problem.   I CANNOT write my posts in blogger it is too stupid

Sunday, March 27, 2011

OH for heaven's sake

Normal temps here at this time of year
are in the low 60's.
We've been having upper 60's and into 70's.
REALLY REALLY NICE.

But here's what we got this morning..............
THIRTY THREE Degrees
(yes that’s right 33)
and
remember that beautifully blooming
spring Magnolia tree
Carrie was standing by last Saturday????


Usually Cheery daffodils hanging their heads



TOTALLY time to get
out of here
and get kayaks
out of their shack
and onto the water!!


 

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Spring Equinox & The Late Birthday

I did “Book Festival Lite” this year
in order to spend Saturday and Sunday
celebrating the
Spring Equinox
and
Carrie’s February 7th birthday
more than a month late.  J
It’s sad for parents when the kids grow up
and aren’t able to be home for their birthdays
but we just have a party the next time
she is here and
that’s just what we did.

Mother Nature showed herself in fine form
for SPRING EQUINOX


I am very glad to see the waxing of the days.
Every day now will be longer than the one before.
More time outside!

In our family, you are
King or Queen for the Day
when we celebrate your birthday.
So dinner was Carrie’s request.
Red Bean Toss.  A family favorite
(sorry it’s on the wrong side of the table
AND we didn’t take a close up.  It’s delicious)

 


And then
THE CAKE
Anyone following this blog for very long
has seen this cake in MANY incarnations
Yummy rich moist chocolate cake
with mmmm good
Butter cream icing
and LOTS of it.

The Cake Baker and his "assistant".

Licking the bowl in an her cooking Apron I made in 1982
Hand embroidered name and all.

 


She hadn’t quite grown into it at age 2.
 DIG those glasses Man!!.
This time the cake was a dual celebration.
Green for the Equinox and
Decorated for the birthday.
31 Best Year Yet
 But not SO many candles
And of course there were presents. 
Thankfully
she’s still just like a kid
in loving that even if it looks like
one gift
what fun to find
several others wrapped inside

But the author of the card
wasn’t paying attention
when she wrote it and it turned out
upside down
which caused
quite a bit of laughter and teasing.
Oh well……
the older we get………..
 

Cake started the party.
After which we watched a PBS special that none
of us had seen when it was shown on TV in January.
A friend had seen it and sent me the DVD
It’s entitled “Chautauqua: An American Narrative”

Chautauqua was a part of my summer
and our summers for many years. 
I was able to spend the entire “season” there
for several years just before I caught the RV bug.
It is such a special place and
SO
hard to describe but 
this Special did about as good a job as can be done I think.

Surprise!!
Guess who was on the screen close up
not once but THREE times
watching the most fantastic young pianist
Alexander Gavrylyuk.
 http://www.alexandergavrylyuk.com/

IF
he’s ever anywhere
within miles of you
DON”T
pass up the chance to see this virtuoso.
 And if you get a chance to see this special,
look for me. 
J

Then it was time for games. 
Birthday girl brought out 3
and chose to play canasta
She and her father had Chocolate Stout
He beat us SOLIDLY the last time
But we got revenge and skunked the old man. 
She the first game and I the second
I know, you shouldn't beat the Birthday Girl
but all's fair in love and CANASTA.
J
Time for bed but more food and fun tomorrow……………..

Friday, March 18, 2011

Books, BOOKS and MoRE bOOks

Just came back to Earth from Heaven

One of my FAVORITE events of the year
took place Wednesday through Sunday
The Virginia Festival of the Book
 

Each year hundreds of writers come to town
To talk about their books in presentations and panels
There are multiple events in multiple locations each hour
From 9AM to 8PM for 5 days.

The city, the county, local businesses and the
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
sponsor these
And for the most part they are free
(which is becoming harder and harder to do as you can imagine)

Unfortunately I was
SO INVOLVED
That I took very few pictures.

I attended an event entitled
Virginia Stories: History and Geography”
About The Canal on the James (river that is) and The Great Dismal Swamp and The Great Valley Road of Virginia.

A multimedia presentation and talk by astronomer Stephen Martin about his book
Cosmic Conversations
This was a  discussion panel at the main library
all 3 authors did good presentations and readings
Their books sounded very interesting.



The woman on the right discovered
A picture she’d never seen before
when going through her father’s things after his death.
It was her mother at age 13 dressed in traditional Iranian Wedding Dress
standing next to an older man she was obviously not so
happily going to marry. 
The author was totally unaware that her mother
had a previous life and marriage in Iran
including another daughter.
The book  The Good Daughter is the story of the author’s grandmother and mother
and the life her mother ran away from.

I would love to read it but can't add one more thing to
the weight in the RV.  Hope I can find it somewhere somehow to read.

The woman in the middle grew up in a strict Amish family
and was forced, as is their custom, to leave school in the 8th grade.
She struggled and struggled with that limitation in her life and
eventually left everything she knew to pursue her education.
My Life With The Amish would also be an interesting and informative read.

The male author wrote about his experience as a secular humanist
dealing with his 3 year old son coming home from pre-school
and asking if he knew who God was and what he did
His book was entitled
Between a Church and A Hard Place: One Faith Free Dad's Struggle to Understand what it means to be Religious (or not)
Another I hope to find on the road.

I attended poetry readings
in bookstores.


 


Overflowing crowds sitting on stairs

Presentations in City Council chambers


And in Outdoor gear stores. 
This is Blue Ridge Mountain Sports
 
The young woman in orange wrote
Becoming Odyssa: Epic Adventures on the Appalachian Trail.
She has now hiked it 3 times since her first hike at age 21 when she had never been backpacking ONE TIME
and DID NO training
for this 2100 mile hike. 
Her last Hike done in 57 days
broke the women’s time record for hiking the trail
and this summer
she plans to try to break the men’s record
which will require that she hike FORTY FIVE miles a day.  
GOOD GRIEF!!

 I attended GREAT talks on Environmental books from authors
who looked much happier when they were talking than here while
they were waiting 

 

The ENTIRE town turns into a bibliophile’s dream

There are Forums on publishing, sci fi, how to write a mystery.
Gatherings of mystery writers
children’s book writers

Book events for children

It is SIMPLY AMAZING
Check it out at www.vabook.org

I won’t drag it out by detailing any more events. 
Suffice it to say
That this year I
limited
myself to
ELEVEN
Of the HUNDREDS of events
Going on Wednesday through Saturday.

And that took
serious self control
BUT
I’ve actually been able to learn from
My past mistakes over the 17 years
that the festival and I have
been meeting like this
and I know
that I won’t make it past
Thursday if I don’t control myself!!

I pretty much did nothing else
at least Wednesday through Friday

I know, I know,
I should have been
Getting ready to get
ON THE ROAD AGAIN

But I couldn’t help myself
It was here, I was here and I had to do it!

Just couldn’t leave that cookie on the plate.
But then
Life IS all about

Livin’ it
and
Lovin’ it

I had a
GREAT TIME
Doing
JUST THAT.


BUT………………
 that wasn’t the only thing happening this week-end…….
(check back tomorrow for the big Equinox/Birthday week-end post)

Do you have an special annual event that you just hate to miss??

Thursday, March 17, 2011

FINALLY

I know that those of you who have been
following along with this SAGA
will be happy to hear that
after nearly 4 months of

continuous searching

for tires that were both
within 100 miles of Winnona’s current location
 and
made within the past 6 months,

SUCCESS!!!


Winnona has NEW SHOES!!

For SURE I have never had
this much trouble
spending
 this much money.

Here’s the problem.  
Tires made in 33/03

Notice cracks



That makes them going on 8 years old.
More Side wall cracks
and cracks in the tread
NO THANKS!
now you can see why I was
INSISTANT 
on tires.

Here’s where we finally found the tires
3 MONTHS after we’d initially checked with them .
David called originally, I called this time.
 
Clearly they like me better!!!!!!!!!

First tire off
 

First tire  back on
 

Putting these tires on
looks like a backbreaking job to me
Checking out the spare which showed,
of course,
NO wear at all
since it has been in the dark for 7+ years
And never been mounted.
 
Thanks to Steve and J.R. who got them
All mounted and balanced
And got our girl on her way.
This is a class operation and
this review gives them 10 stars!

 

So that’s the end of this SAGA 
It took three months to find them
and less than 3 hours to install them
On to the awning and slide toppers.

AIN’T WE GOT FUN???

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Stop the MADNESS

Woke up at 6:00 this morning and it was
DARK OUTSIDE.
For a lot of people, me included, getting up in
the dark is a difficult thing. 

Just Yesterday
it was light at this same time
and I was cheerfully up and getting
about my day,
following the Earth’s NATURAL
and gradual rhythms.

But TODAY
All I wanted to do
was
roll over and
go back to sleep.
IT’S DARK OUTSIDE FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE.

I had been following the sun’s lead
and rising just a tad earlier each day.
NICE and EASY

And now
KABOOM
Back into the
Morning DARK.

TWICE a year
THIS
 makes my blood
boil. 

WHY
Do we play this clock
switching game
 which takes most people at least
a week or two to adjust to.
Light is such a powerful cue to our brains
and the body's internal circadian rhythms,
which affect sleep, eating and even hormones

So far
I haven’t been able to find anyone who can give me
one
good CURRENT reason
for why we continue to do this.

Among the reasons I have heard
is that it saves energy
BUT
Indiana just recently
Switched from non observance
To observance in the spring of 2006.

UC Santa Barbara Professors did
a study to test energy savings
Before and after.
The Result
It COSTS Indiana households
And additional $8.6 M in electricity bills
To move off of standard time.
  
In addition,
it cost$$
businesses, governments, schools et al
to change all their
electronic everythings.  
They have to pay the workers time and a half
to come in during the
wee hours of the morning
on a week-end
to either do it
or check to see that
everything it has been done to
is working correctly.

Even my senators and congressman
were unable to answer the question.
Of WHY do we keep this up.
Of course that doesn’t exactly surprise me.

So if you actually know one
Good reason,
shout it out.

Why ARE we all just accepting this nonsense
and not insisting on its end?
Doesn’t it irritate anyone but me?

How do you like “falling” back and then “springing” forward?
Dizzy yet???

How many clocks or pieces of equipment do you have to change?

Yes I’m grumbling. 
I don’t care which one we stick with. 
I just want this  jumping around twice every year
to
STOP.