A Full-time Life

A LITTLE BIT OF FEBRUARY SUNSHINE

 
Bill brought this bouquet of sunshine with him when he came home from his short but tedious daily job Friday.  I love these early daffodils with their promise of Spring!    

And I have to say that early spring flowers are a joy that we miss when we spend the winter in warm climates. 

It was gray and rainy on Friday and Saturday so that the flowers were the only bright spot we could see. 

 Today we had blue skies and cool sunshine, so the promise of spring is slowly materializing.  (Although any Oregonian or former Oregonian knows not to expect a steady path of sunshine this early in the season.)

Happy February.

MELLOW YELLOW MONDAY because lots of people love cheerful yellow, especially this time of year! 

BOSQUE SHADOWS

 
Shadows of snow geese -- Bosque Del Apache New Mexico, Autumn 

 

 

 CLICK HERE FOR SHADOW SHOT SUNDAY at Hey Harriet for more shadowy pictures.  I still can't find too many shadows here in western Oregon, so I am posting from our files of past trips. 

SUNRISE, SUNSET

 

 
FERN RIDGE SHORES  -- earlier this season

AND FOR MORE SKY PICTURES CLICK RIGHT HERE AND GO TO MR LINKY SKYWATCH FRIDAY

WILDLIFE WATCHING

We enjoy watching the silver-gray squirrels who live here at Fern Ridge Shores.  

When we owned our stick house in Springfield, we had only the brownish-red variety.  They were amusing to watch, but they sure made it difficult to keep our bird feeders full.  If the sunflower feeder was empty, I swear those little guys would come and knock on our glass patio door.  This made us laugh, but I often thought about how unfunny it would have been if I'd seen any other member of the rodent family at our door.

There's a squirrel nest in one of the trees near our spot here at the Shores, so we have a great spot to watch the local wildlife.  Our next-door neighbor (who has the tree in her yard) is not quite as enamoured with them.   

What do you think?  Watchable wildlife or rat with a fat tail?

(Both of these pictures are from Google Images.  Can't seem to locate the pictures I know I've taken of our gray squirrels; when I do, I'll replace that one.   No digital camera back in the day when we watched the brownish ones steal our bird-seed.)

A HUNT FOR RED - JANUARY

 

We've had some nice mid-winter days here at the Shores, but reds are still pretty scarce.

This post is the result of a recent morning's  photo safari around our immediate neighborhood.   

Most of the reds I found were very much on the subtle side of the spectrum.   

But there are signs of Spring to come.

At this time of year, we take any bright color we can find and we are grateful that it isn't covered with snow and ice.

 

HAPPY RUBY TUESDAY FROM FERN RIDGE SHORES. 

Thank you to Mary at Ruby Tuesday meme for hosting this meme -- click on the link to look at more cheerful reds.  

 

SHADOWS OF GEORGIA

 
 I first looked at this meme: SHADOW SHOT SUNDAY recently -- on a gray day when there were no shadows anywhere here in Oregon.  So I really haven't gone shadow hunting yet, except through our photo files.   This is the best shadow picture I found.    It's from our Spring 2008 road trip, right after we left Florida.

This beautiful tree-lined avenue leads to Wormsloe Plantation, a State Historical site on the Isle of Hope, near beautiful Savannah Georgia.  Here's what we said about it right after we were there: WORMSLOE PLANTATION

And click on the blue link on top to see more shadowy pictures from everywhere.  Also here for Straight Out of the Camera Sunday.  I took this picture with my point and shoot Olympus with Bill telling me where to stand for the best angle.  We were happy with how it came out. 

THREE SISTERS

  
This is the view that greeted us when we opened our curtains one morning last week.  Our view on the (no)Lake here changes every day this time of year, so we never know exactly what we'll see.  This view was the biggest surprise we've had yet! 

We don't often see these Central Oregon peaks from here, even in the middle of the summer.  Although it wasn't as blue as it has been on a few other days lately, the spectacular view made it a perfect morning for sky watching.    The Three Sisters peaks are near the town of Sisters, Oregon (on the way to Bend, the largest City in central Oregon).  It is about 60 miles east, as the crow flies, from where we are.  

 

SKYWATCH FRIDAY :  CLICK FOR PICTURES OF SKIES FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD.

JANUARY MORNING 7 a.m. to 10 a.m.

FROM our yard (and out of the window) at Fern Ridge Shores this week.  The weather has been good to us.

  

   

 

   

 
 

WATERY WEDNESDAY  (sort of) (CLICK FOR MORE WATERY PICTURES, some more watery than others)

 

ON DUTY

 
This gentleman is  a royal guard at Windsor Castle.  His bright uniform jacket stands out against the lovely old stone building.   We were lucky to get this picture without crowds of other tourists around.  We were somehow surprised at how young all of the royal guards were.

  

(Both of these pictures are from our 2008 trip.)

Here is a less-subtle red icon from London. We lived without a car for the three months we were in London, so we used these double-deckers often.  Our favorite seat was the top front one. 

 

CLICK HERE FOR RUBY TUESDAY.  Click on where it says "Mr Linky" and then on any of the links there to see more red pictures from all over.  Thanks to Mary at Work of the Poet for sponsoring this meme.  

RE-VISITING SELMA FOR MLK DAY

NOTE:  THIS IS AN UPDATE ADDED OCTOBER 12, 2010:  PLEASE READ THE LAST TWO COMMENTS TO THIS POST.  They provide some welcome update information!!

This post is about an overnight trip we made to Selma Alabama when we were staying on the Gulf Coast there.  This was in 2005, so it is possible that some things have changed since then, but the history certainly has not.  I wanted to re-post it to honor Martin Luther King's birthday, celebrated today.

 We went to Selma because we wanted to see this place where so much civil rights history took place.   It was amazing to see "in person" ("in-place"?) the Edmund Pettis Bridge and the Little Brown Church, where the 40-mile March to Montgomery began.  Of course we had watched these events unfold as on the nightly news, but it really doesn't come close to standing on the spot where history happened.   

Below is one link for a quick overview of what happened on the three Selma to Montgomery marches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/selma_to_montgomery_marches

The Bridge's location is obvious -- because you have to drive across it to get into town.  Whenever we go to any city or town, we go first to the visitor center for literature and directions.  But when we went to one in Selma we were given information only on the "white history" of the area (about the Civil War, cotton, agriculture etc.)  and met with a kind of polite evasion when we asked about the Little Brown Church and the MLK monument.  Apparently, the visitor center felt like the "Black History" was separate and apart.  Unbelievably sad in this day and age.       

So we walked around town and located the Church and the Monument on our own.  And, we found that there is a very interesting Voting Rights Museum quite near to the Bridge.  (No mention of this had been made at the visitor center.)

I wanted to hope that this attitude might have changed some since we were there, but fear it has not.  This morning, when I went to Google to check my memory, especially about the Museum (because we didn't take pictures in it) I found that the official Selma web page gives the museum -- and  indeed the whole Civil Rights/Voting rights issue  -- only the briefest of mentions.  The Museum has no official web-site.   

Anyway, once we located the Museum and went inside, we talked to Joann Bland, the museum founder. (I'm sure that she meets pretty much everybody who comes  -- and in any case there were hardly any other visitors at the time).  As a child, she was at Bloody Sunday, where her companion was wounded, and then she later marched to Montgomery. 

The museum's displays include a good overview film and still photos taken during the marches.  These pictures were actually taken by FBI agents who were keeping an eye on the participants -- the Museum obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act.  The room that I remember most clearly is the one full of shoe-casts of many of the participants in the March to Montgomery (from kids to grandparents).  There was something so poignant about seeing those feet and thinking about the miles they walked to support this cause, under circumstances I can barely imagine even after watching the news and seeing again the film and pictures.  These were just regular people willing to take a huge risk to get to do something we have always taken for granted.  While they certainly had a charismatic leader, nothing would have happened without these ordinary people.

This visit was so worth the time and effort .  Selma's definitely not a top tourist destination, but I feel like it should be.    Our country's history was changed here.  Anyone who has the chance should go.

WYSIWYG

   
Back in the dark ages, Bob Cratchit here and I shared an office cubicle.  Eventually, the desktop computer came along and we all had to learn a new way of doing business.  I worked in an educational office so we were "given" the opportunity to take classes to learn about all the new technology (meanwhile doing all our work the old-fashioned way). 

It was great to have the computers and the opportunity to learn something new, but some classes went into depth most of us really didn't need. 

I don't really understand how my car works (or my can opener for that matter) so why should I care about the computer hardware?  Or software really as long as it does what I want it to.  I'm just a user, that's all!

But the one acronym that stayed with me from back then is the title of this post -- because it can be applicable to so much of life in general.  Most often, what you see is what you get.

But sometimes not.  And I am thinking of this because I just realized that my blogposts look different on different computer monitors.  (I thought the recent post on canal boats was perfect until I viewed it on my laptop.  Oops)

As in life, so it is with posting -- what you see may be what you get, but sometimes you have to look at things from more than one angle to get the whole picture.

JANUARY DAY

One January day at Fern Ridge Shores (here in Oregon's rainy Willamette Valley), the sun peeked through and the skies were blue.

 

But that was earlier this month and it was only for that one day!

CLICK HERE FOR SKYWATCH FRIDAY

CANAL BOATS, LONDON

Still sorting pictures for that digital frame and this group really fits the  WATERY WEDNESDAY theme.

These canal boats are from our three-month trip to London in 2007 (a trip we took to celebrate our Golden Anniversary Year).  We took a canal cruise on this boat, the Helix. 

The rest of the pictures are a few of the other canal boats we saw on that cruise or when we were walking in the parks around the canals.  We love to imagine what it would be like to live on one of these boats.

 

      

Just like in any neighborhood, some of the homes are better kept up than others:

  It is no surprise that so many of our pictures of London have the River Thames or ponds or canals in them.  We always seem to seek out watery places wherever we go.

Click the Blue Link on the top to see more Watery pictures from bloggers from all over the world.

Click this blue link to see what we wrote about Regent's Canal while we were there. 

COLOR SPOTS

 

  
 Our scenery right now is still pretty much all sepia and gray, so it's time again for a look back at some color.   

 

All these sunny yellow color spots are really just flowers growing wild -- otherwise known as weeds! 

The cactus picture was taken at Falcon Lake State Park in Texas, the middle two on the bike paths here in Oregon (in another more colorful season)  and the agave plant in Tucson, Arizona.

"Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories." (From the movie An Affair to Remember) and quoted on  THIS BLOG, one of my favorites: 

I feel warmer now! 

 

 

 

 

MELLOW YELLOW MONDAY

 

 

 

 

SKYWATCH FRIDAY FLASHBACK

Click SKYWATCH FRIDAY for more beautiful skies -- from all seasons and from all over the world.  

We got a digital picture frame for Christmas and I've been sorting through pictures to choose favorites for it.   I do realize that it isn't a permanent album and that we could just grab the first hundred pictures we came across and change it later.  Our gray days are just putting me in the mood to make heavy weather out of whatever little task I set myself.  The sorting and disposing of photos is something that really needed to be done again anyway though.  I'm glad to have the incentive to get it done. 

I've chosen these three to remind us of our trips to beautiful Colorado, where the skies really are always blue (although cold right now).  These were taken in other seasons/other years!

TODAY'S WEATHER!

Here's what came up on our I-Google morning weather report this morning:  

VENETA OREGON   56

LONGMONT COLORADO 40

FORT MYERS FLORIDA 50

SAN ANTONIO TEXAS 50

JUST SAYIN', that's all! 

Of course there was also this:  (in three places)
and this:  (in guess which one).

Happy Wednesday from Veneta in the wet but not so cold Willamette Valley  (where it has rained so much lately that the Lake is rising again!)

  
 * Longmont and San Antonio are where our other kids live (the ones who aren't in this area).

CHINESE GARDEN

Today I have pictures featuring off-shades of red.  VISIT RUBY TUESDAY  to see more photographs featuring real reds!

Pictures from the Chinese Garden in downtown Portland, Oregon taken last Summer.  This lovely garden spot is right in the center of downtown.  People who work or live in the City must  appreciate having this place nearby for a break from the stress and hustle and bustle.  

We enjoy visiting big cities and certainly weren't under any stress, but we loved the Garden's quiet beauty and were glad we toured it.

 

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY CHALLENGE

THIS IS A RE-RUN of a post I did last year about libraries.  I'm reposting it for SUNDAY FAVORITES and because I have decided to join the SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY CHALLENGE.  The idea is to challenge yourself to read a certain number of books from your local library.   I learned about the challenge from these book blogs:   JOYFULLY RETIRED  and AT HOME WITH BOOKS.

We both love to read and I get good ideas for my reading list from these great book blogs and others. 

I'm sure I can read at least 25 Library Books this year. (Hopefully they will be from at least two different public libraries -- one on each Coast.)   There's a list on the sidebar.   I'm not sure how that will work (if it starts to be too bulky, I'll come back here and change this post).  But it seems like a good way to keep track of what I've read -- something I have always wanted to do.  Keeping up the list will be my personal challenge.  Of course, this list will only be those borrowed from Public Libraries, not ones I am given, already own, borrow, pick up from assorted RV Park bookshelves, or (rarely) buy. But it's a start.

HERE IS THE ORIGINAL POST from OCTOBER 2008:

 

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We’ve always loved using public libraries but thought we’d have to give them up when we sold our Springfield home to travel full time.   But we’ve been pleasantly surprised to get a visitors card in several of the places where we’ve stayed a few months.  You’d kind of think that people who could pull up their house and leave at any time would be poor risks for borrowing books, but instead we have found that Winter visitors are welcome to take out a card. There's a small fee ($8 to $10 so far) and all they ask is an RV Park address and our cell phone number.

It’s great to save money by not having to buy books for a few months.  But besides that, I like the ambience of a library.  I like to look at books and imagine having time to read them all.   

When we visited my sister and brother-in-law in Seattle recently, we toured  the amazing Seattle Central Library which opened in 2004.  The architect was Rem Koolhaas.  The print guide to the library is called "Cool House", so now we won't forget the name of that architect. 

I wondered if a building this massive and modern would even feel like a library.  It really does because there are lots of small and friendly spaces within the big one.    Although the map room alone (for example) is as big as some of the small libraries we’ve used, the whole building has been designed for readers.  There’s a café inside, a large but cozy reading area called the living room, and tables and chairs in every section. 

We learned that Koolhaus chose the art work and furniture as part of the design.  The different levels are built as ramps, similar to a parking garage, with the shelves arranged crosswise and leveled.  The Dewey Decimal System numbers are incorporated into large blocks on the floor, so it is easy to find the section you want.  My sister found a book of Kentucky history that mentioned one of our great-uncles.  (He fought a duel over politics – but apparently both parties were poor shots and nobody was hurt!)

The whole library is e-wired and there are tons of computers everywhere for public use. 

This is a view from a top floor window.  You can see the Amtrak Station Tower. 

The library was only a small part of our most excellent personally led tour of the wonders of downtown Seattle.  Our guides had to go back to work on Monday.  It was raining and we had some time before our train so we hung out there for a while reading magazines, drinking lattes and exploring the stacks.   If I lived in Seattle I’d be there a couple of times a week.  Maybe more often during the rainy season!

But while we’ve stayed on the lake this summer, Cyndi and Jeff have let us piggyback onto their family card at the Fern Ridge Library here in Veneta (pictured at left).    It’s considerably smaller, but there are, after all, considerably fewer people here than in Seattle.   We have borrowed great books and the staff is so friendly.  No lattes though!    

This library also gets a lot of use – when I stopped by one afternoon, the school bus let about ten high school kids out right in front of the building.  Before I left, they were on the computers doing their homework or quietly searching the stacks.  I love that libraries are a welcoming place for every age. 

No matter what size it is, a library is a great community resource and I am always happy when we get to use one again.