Winter Sunshine

Winter Sunshine
Winter Sunshine in the Desert

Monday, April 23, 2012

On the Road Again

Finally time for the spring flags Seems as though I just got home from Texas, but when I looked at the calendar it has been over two weeks since I returned.  Geez.  Don’t blink, or life will speed right over you, minus the speed bumps to slow you down!

I love these tiny daffodils The MoHo is in Brookings, where the snow never flies and chains are never required,  and we try to get over there for a road trip at least once every month.  A week or two on the road is always a great reprieve from everyday life, even if that everyday life is really quite wonderful.

For our last few trips we have traveled a good distance, often heading south into California to find warm sunshine and blue skies in the winter.  This time we decided that it would be great to just hang out in our own beautiful state of Oregon and explore the hidden nooks and crannies in the Willamette Valley and surroundings that we have missed while running off to the coast and then heading south.

the greenhouse is ready and waiting for a new crop Mo found an Oregon website of all the covered bridges in the state, something Oregon is famous for, so we have the google map with 71 bridges pinpointed to guide us.  Will we see them all?  Of course not.  Who knows how many we will actually see, but it gives us a little bit of something to make us move from one place to another at least.  We have no plans, no reservations, no particular destination.  We are going to wander for two weeks and see what appears.  Oregon is just so beautiful this time of year, especially on the west side.  The flowers are blooming, the orchards are blossoming, the grass is green and often the skies are blue. 

morning light coming through all the flowering trees ready to open Here at home, on the east side of the Cascades just south of Crater Lake, spring is just barely coming out.  All it takes are a few more warm days and I should have at  least the beginnings of flowers and blossoms on our own trees.  With a little luck, we won’t miss the tulips coming into bloom that I planted last fall.

coloring eggs with silk ties I returned from Texas barely in time to take a breath and prepare for Easter.  With my oldest daughter in Texas, my middle daughter plying the country with her truck, and my son way back in Missouri, once again I was blessed by the fact that my youngest lives in Klamath, close enough to bring the family for a wonderful day of spring time celebrations.  This year they came the night before so they could be here for the early morning festivities.  With the kids now 19 and 13 the Easter Bunny doesn’t have to stay up late to hide eggs any more, but we still love that big Sunday morning breakfast and waking up together for coffee and family time.

killer baby back ribs in the big green egg by Kevin the bbq king006 Kevin, my SIL, brought his Big Green Egg  BBQ and smoker out for the day and made some of his famous baby back ribs while Melody followed some great instructions for coloring eggs with silk ties.  They were gorgeous!  We are all planning to collect more ties for next Easter. 

The rest of the day we made an Easter cake for entertainment.  With some internet searches, the kids decided on the “bunny butt in the stump” chocolate cake.  I had to buy fondant for the bunny and the decorations.  That was a shocker!  Fondant comes in a tub for about 20 bucks, and then I had to buy the different fancy colorings to go with it.  It feels a bit like play-doh and tastes a bit like old gum.  Ah well, the cake and frosting were fabulous and the decorating was so much fun.  Who cares if you don’t eat the fancy green leaves and cute flowers.  My 13 year old grandson was pretty good at flower making, and while I expected my artistic granddaughter to do well with this, the grandsons enthusiasm was a surprise.  We had a great day together.

013002 Monday morning I was back to work, again racking up two weeks straight of soil survey work to give me the freedom of another two weeks off so we can amble off in the MoHo.  I spent the rainy weekend in between finally finishing the quilt table runner for my friend Maryruth and finishing up the baby blanket I started over a month ago when Mo’s new grand niece was born.  Sure glad I got it done before she was too big to care!.  An easy pattern with inexpensive yarn that is washable made it a simple gift.  It was cuddly! 

Blogging of course slipped way back to the bottom of the list.  Reading blogs slipped as well.  In fact, I realized that I was letting the blog world take up much more of my time than I wanted.  I made the difficult decision to stop following many blogs so that I wouldn’t feel as though I was always behind.  I have heard other bloggers mention this problem lately.  Some have discussed it much more eloquently than I can. The whole thing has just expanded exponentially.  I went back to my original reason for blogging, keeping track of my life for myself, my own personal diary, and letting those who care about me know what I have been up to.

Grants Pass House 002April morning (18)   Of course, I have made some real friends through this blogging thing, and of course there are some old friends I continue to follow, but I am giving myself permission to opt out, to quit worrying if I am blogging enough, or am interesting enough, or paying enough attention. I refuse to compete for comments or readership.  It is just too yukky.  If you are still here reading, thanks.  In the mean time, I’ll do like several other bloggers have done recently and be really happy that I can look back and see what I was doing this time of year back in 2010 or 2008 or whenever.  I can’t count the times that Mo says to me, “When did we do….?” and I will answer, “Let me go check the blog”.

Today and tomorrow we will load up the Tracker one last time before bringing the MoHo back home.  The kayaks are coming down and going on top, the bikes are going on the rack in back, we are packing shorts and raincoats, and everything in between.  Wednesday morning we will head for Brookings.  I haven’t a clue where we will go next except it will be somewhere right here in Oregon.

21 comments:

  1. You are correct in remebering that a blog is a diary that we share with who we choose to allow to read it and our personal refrences. It can become overdemanding trying to keep up with everyone else so you have to learn to pare back and use it to fill in not take over time.

    Kathy and I were doing Cake Decorating for a number of years as a hobby and found many Fondants that were definitely not meant to be eaten because of their taste, but finally found one that we used for years that tasted like Cotton Candy. Customers would rave about it and Kids would be eating the Fondant Characters before the candles were blown out.

    Be Safe and Enjoy!

    It's about time.

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  2. Just remember...all who wander are not lost. Enjoy the lighthouses. We love finding them too on our travels.

    What a wonderful Easter you had with family. I love the cake and table runner.

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  3. I second that (cutting back on blogging and blogs)! I haven't blogged since we have been in Sacramento, since my primary intended "audience" almost ALL live here (family and close, pre-fulltiming friends). Since they all know what we are up to, no need to write about it.

    I also have pared my Gooigle Reader blog subscriptions WAY down. There are so many RV'ing blogs - so many GOOD ones, I might add - that I was spending too much time on the computer (and indoors). Now it is spring, time to be out and about, so I have cut back to very, very few - especially the daily blogs (which I read less than once a week these days). I keep an eye on you, though! Our blogs brought us together, and I'm glad of it. :)

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  4. We blogged infrequently while in our winter spot for 5 months so we understand cutting back, do it when you feel lime it. Now that we are on the move we blog almost daily.

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  5. Its up and down for me. I keep track of good friends on their blogs regularly and a few others but there are times when I let it slide because living in the moment is good too. I think we all have to find that balance for ourselves and like you I think we all need to remember why we blog and keep it all in perspective. Thanks for the reminder. :)

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  6. Priorities...sometimes we get them mixed up!! I often am on the computer when I should be out experiencing life. You are absolutely correct in the main reason most of us blog. In fact Russ and I have had our blog put into books and I will do a blog about that when we get back lol!! Have fun in Oregon. I hear it's a wonderful state :))

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  7. I am still here! I myself, just this week in fact, have also eliminated several blogs I felt I was gaining nothing from to equal the time spent with them. I also have always been the same with my feelings of not competing for comments, readers or fans! My life is full enough without that to be of any importance to me in the real world!

    Congratulations on giving yourself permission to make the decision! Time is valuable and should be spent wisely!

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  8. WOW, you guys sure are creative. I love the silk tie dyed eggs and the cake is real cute, too. Seems like when I am at my daughter and SIL's house, we do a lot of food stuff, too. Computers/blogs can be addictive, I've cut back also.

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  9. Your place is beautiful. And your RVing plan seems perfect for you. Who knows, over time, you might well see all those bridges.

    Just know I'll miss you when you aren't blogging. Who knows when I'll get to Oregon so I'd love to see it through your eyes. But then I have way too much time to read blogs just now. And not much to blog about.

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  10. I enjoy reading your blog - and miss you when you're "gone." Like many bloggers, family and friends come first for me. I'm happy if others enjoy my words and pictures, and possibly even learn a thing or two.

    I don't like to spend much time indoors reading blogs ad infinitum and follow only a few. It's fun to see where others go and see and do. I hope you have a great time in the next two wks seeing covered bridges, etc.!

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  11. congrats on making that decision...blogging is just that..a personal diary!..glad you came back to update!..enjoy the spring weather..hope you see the tulips bloom!!

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  12. I especially liked your thoughts on blogging & do understand & agree with what you are saying. This whole blog thing, whether reading or writing them can kind of take over one's life. It is something I understand well. Good for you in choosing your priorities. Might seem a little odd coming from a daily blogger, but I do envy your decisions.....

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  13. I would love to explore Oregon one day. Lucky you!

    While we were in the Keys (and busy) I fell behind on blog reading. I actually read a lot of blogs on my Droid, but don't like to comment there, so while I read them most every day, I don't always take the time to comment.

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  14. Right there with you on this. I've been blogging pretty regularly in April because we've been out traveling. I do it so I can go back and relive memories when we're not traveling. I was able to keep up with 'some' blog reading on the trip to the Smokies, but only because I could relax in a comfy chair outside when we returned to the campground. Still, I'm paring down on others that I have been following simply because living and experiencing our own life is more important than living vicariously through others ... esp. when the topics start making it obvious that the author is blogging for the sake of blogging and doesn't have much of interest to share.

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  15. Like reading books and photography, blogging is simply a fun hobby for me. It's a daily mental challenge which I enjoy.

    When it stops being fun, I'll stop blogging.

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  16. I started blogging so our family could follow along and know we were safe. As I continued, I found that it was a diary for me. I could go back and reread places we had been and things we'd done because my memory is toast these days :) I only blog when I get the urge. It doesn't take too much of my time but reading all the blogs I follow certainly does! Maybe it is time to do more living.

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  17. I don't blog just to be saying something. I do it to track those things that I want to remember or that I really want to share. I'm definitely not a daily blogger and that's a good thing because a writer I am not. Cutting back is a good thing if you aren't living life.

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  18. Odd that this is the first time reading your blog, and you're from my favorite state! I'd be out living the good life if I lived in Oregon, too! Well, that is if my back would allow it. I had a book made of my 2010 trip blog. I sure wish I had known about blogs when my husband was alive and we traveled, together. I kept diaries, of course but it isn't the same.

    I'm a night owl so the TV runs in the background as I read. What I didn't expect was to get caught up and emotionally involved with so many people--especially people who are going through trying times. Letting them know that I care is important to me because I do care--they've become friends in some unexpected and curious way. I don't feel as alone, and I hope commenting on their blogs lets them know they are not alone.

    I blog only when I have something to say--well some might say blogging about my pal, Jack, is questionable, but it makes me remember times he made me laugh. Often times I want to write about how I miss my husband, how life has changed, complain how I didn't get to live our dream, and how I am sad that I couldn't travel west this year. It's more for myself, but I always have to be aware that a few others are reading, and I don't want them to think I'm whining. I do have a private diary for my sad moments, for my ranting moments--and, I'm glad no one reads that stuff.

    Well, actually, I answered Al's question, here, so I'll copy it and comment on his blog.

    Nice to meet you. :-)

    A person like Al from the Bayfield Bunch always has something to write about--I think because he and Kelly are so in tune with life and what's going on around them--they don't live in boring suburbia. I found your blog when he mentioned you. Now, I wonder if he'll see the answer to his question that made me come over to your blog. I can see how it gets out of hand and in the way of life, but we all go through periods where there's very little life going on except what we read and see through others. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

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  19. Al from Bayfield sent me here. Yes, blogging can get quite onerous. I'm one of those who cut way back on reading and writing. Have you ever heard of Blog2Print? We have used them some -- they will make a book for you out of your blogs over a period of time. They'll print it in hard cover (way too expensive), soft cover (still expensive) or send you a PDF file you can print yourself if you want to. That becomes expensive if you print it yourself, but however you do it, you have a print out of your past blogs, which will take up way too much space on your bookshelves, but you can drag 'em down and show your great grandkids, who probably won't give a flip, but you will enjoy looking back.

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  20. I love blogging as a record of my travels, campsites and antics of my dogs. I also love it because the people who comment give me good advice and answer questions.

    It can easily take over your life. When I take a day or two off, invariably someone writes "Where were you? Worried about you . . . " It's nice people care, but now I feel guilty if I don't blog every day!

    Overall, it's a good thing. I'm not complaining. Balance is the key . . . tough for some of us to do.

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  21. I personally am cutting back to blogging about twice a week...Spending too much time on my butt in front of a screen is not how I want to grow old...Not to mention it gets harder to rise out of that chair the more time I spend in it...

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