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!!

 

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 7^th 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……………..

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 8^th 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??

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???

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.