Getting Started

I'm starting this blog because at almost 38, I wanted some place to write down things that happened to me, my family, the world around me. Ok, maybe not "write" because frankly I hate my handwriting. But certainly a place to catalog, to remember and to commit to something somewhat permanent, all the things I think of - this is a place where I can note down every crazy, obscure, bizarre, random thought that swims through this train-wreck that passes for my brain..... (Such as if Lemon Thyme smells like Lemon, what does German Thyme smell like?) All without flooding all of my friend's walls on Facebook. If I have recently flooded your Facebook wall, I do apologize... sincerely. I am sorry I didn't figure out that a blog was a better forum for that sooner!

I love Facebook. I have loved it from the first moment that my friend Sondra "forced" me to become a member so I could see pictures of her from when she lived on Kwaj. That's Sondra and her kids (Kai and Mackenzie).

However, as anyone who uses Facebook can attest, it can sometimes become an excellent place to lose information, because there's simply SO much being added all the time..... it becomes flooded with posts, the more friends & "fans of" pages that you have, the more stuff accumulates on your wall, until you simply can't follow it all.

Since I (of course) think the song's about me - it's MY world after all right? - I realized that I would be better served (and hopefully so would my friends on FB) by breaking down and creating a blog. I mean, how hard could it be?

I realized that I probably should have started this with our trip to Ft. Bragg.Where I got to hike with Tai-Tai (or was it Tye-Tye?) along the bluffs. And while I receive absolutely NO perk by promoting them, we rented a "cabin" at Lodgings & Llamas. And it was BY FAR the single most enjoyable trip to Ft. Bragg that we've EVER had. http://www.lodgingandllamas.com/


Since our trip, one of my other friends (Gale - pictured here) has also booked a weekend getaway for her family. I hope she enjoys it just as much as we did!!

Renting a cabin was SO much better than camping - which until this year, was what we'd always done. Usually MacKerricher Park was our destination. I enjoy camping.... as long as there's flushing toilets and HOT water for showers. MacKerricher has both, plus AWESOME tide pools and great hiking. It's close to Ft. Bragg so there are all kinds of other cool things to do while you're there.

Or maybe I should have started it with what would end up being a totally new chapter in my life - remodeling Dad's place. About a year ago we started doing work on his place. Initially the plan was to fix it up and sell it and move him down to where we were. After all both Dale & I had jobs we enjoyed and it seemed smarter to move him to where we were. However, as we all know, the economy didn't exactly favor home sellers in 2009. Buyers, well that's another story entirely.....
At any rate, as the months passed (all the while we were doing improvements at Dad's) we realized that we simply couldn't sell Dad's place the way the market was - at least not without taking a significant loss to the real value. So we made a tough decision. I would move up here with LD and Dale would continue to work. I quit my "job that paid" and we packed up nearly everything we owned and moved it all to what most of our friends considered the middle of nowhere. The plan was that Dale would continue to work until we could sell this place. However, in just 3 months we both realized that just wasn't working for our family. So Dale moved up to join us in January.

As the weather gets nicer I'll post more pictures of our "work in progress" that we call home. We have SO many projects on our list of to do's for this modest half acre of property in the middle of this little town. We're on a commercial lot so if the economy recovers we can even open a business, though with a population of around 300 people, we'd have to do something that is dependent on tourist traffic.....

For now though, it's still winter here, and the bulk of the projects we need to do are outside.... like raising a shed that's slipping toward the neighbor's yard.... oh yes, that will be ever so much fun!

For now, I am remembering what it looks like during the summer.....