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Wynded Words

~ Home of author Sarah Wynde

Category Archives: Boring

Mid-November update

20 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by wyndes in Boring, NaNo, Personal, Self-publishing, WIP, Writing

≈ 8 Comments

My dad called me this morning to point out that I haven’t posted to my blog in a while. (Hi, Dad!) It’s only literally been a week since my last post, but maybe it was a long week.

In my life, the week included a lot of writing, some good time with a writing friend in Merritt Island, and an unfortunate gluten-reaction. I’m assuming now that it was a gluten-reaction, because yesterday I was pretty sure I would never feel healthy again and today I feel pretty okay. The fast recovery, for me, is one of the hallmarks of a gluten response. There’s no long, lingering malaise, just a reasonably swift move from “I’m clearly seriously ill” to “hmm, I think I’m okay.”

I’m glad I got back to “I think I’m okay” today, because I decided last night that I might have to reschedule Thanksgiving, which I could obviously do — none of my guests would be heartbroken to eat their turkey on Saturday or Sunday instead of Thursday and no one is traveling long distances to join us — but still, there’s something nicer about celebrating holidays on the day when everyone else is celebrating, too.

The combination of being sick and hitting the murky middle of Cici was not particularly good (nor tremendously bad) for my writing goals. Cici is currently floundering around in a spaceship, contemplating her life and ethical choices. I suspect that if I ever decide to let some beta readers have at her, the honest responses will range from “it drags a bit in the middle” to “it gets really boring at about 35K words.” Fortunately, it’s NaNo and I don’t need to care about that — all I need to do is keep pouring words out onto the page and hit that end-of-the-month writing goal.

After that, I can think about what comes next for Cici, whether she gets shared with a few friends or revised mercilessly or stuck in a random folder on my computer, to languish unseen. Or, possibly, sent off as-is (more or less) to drift unnoticed on the sea of casually self-published books available on Amazon. She’s not in a genre likely to sell much, so it doesn’t make any practical sense to spend months polishing. Plus, I’ve got other impractical promises to keep regarding my time, notably for poor Fen who has been waiting years for her turn on the screen. But Cici has some very entertaining moments, at least to me. It’s been lovely to be flat-out amusing myself with my words and not worrying about anything else.

Another snippet:

She screwed up her face, wrinkling her nose. Her mouth felt weird. Her lips, in particular. She tapped them with her fingers.

Yep, weird.

She tapped her cheek. Also weird.

“Was that drink poisonous?” she asked.

Huh, those words had popped right out, too.

“The algaro? No.” Seven returned to his chair and frowned at her. The other two were doing something with the trough and the dogs were doing something, too — eating, probably. Cici hoped they weren’t eating the people. But she couldn’t hear any screaming, so they were probably fine. Her eyes didn’t want to focus and it was taking all her concentration to keep Sevyn in sight.

“Feels like poison,” she said. She didn’t feel particularly emotional about it. She would have thought that being poisoned would be upsetting, but she didn’t feel upset. She felt quite tranquil, really. But maybe that was a side effect of the poison.

“It is not poison.”

“Alcohol is poison, though.” Cici tapped her other cheek. Did they feel different, her two cheeks? Was one more numb than the other? She tried the first one again. No, they were about the same. Both feeling very weird.

“Algaro is fermented blood. The level of alcohol in it is very minor.”

Cici stopped tapping her cheeks and replayed his words in her head. Fermented blood. Fermented…

“Ew!” She jumped to her feet in protest and nearly fell over. Her feet were numb, too. “Fermented blood? Why would you feed me that? That’s disgusting!”

“It is an honor offered only to Players.” Sevyn put his hand out as if to steady her, but Cici batted it away.

Blood-drinkers.

They were blood-drinkers.

There ought to be a name for that. A disgusting name. A name that implied horrible things.
A name that revealed them for the monsters that they were.

“Mosquitoes,” she spat out. “You people are mosquitoes.”


Yep, I make myself laugh. 🙂

Cabot Beach Provincial Park

08 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by wyndes in Boring, Campground, Food, Randomness

≈ 9 Comments

a beach path at sunrise

The walk to the beach at Cabot Beach Provincial Park, PEI.

I’ve had three days of enormous efficiency and I’m exhausted. Although I think the exhaustion is because for the very first time, I’ve got awful neighbors. Oh, wait, I just remembered some bad neighbors in New York a couple of years ago. But those neighbors were bad because I had to eavesdrop on their complaining; these neighbors are bad because I had to eavesdrop on their late-night fun.

And by late night, I mean that sometime close to 3AM, security showed up and yelled at them, saying that he could hear them all the way down by the security gate, half a mile away. Given that my van is parked about three feet away from their RV… yeah, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.

I did entertain myself thinking of polite revenge fantasies. My favorite was to set off my smoke alarm at 7AM. I could even do it legitimately — it goes off pretty much every time I use the stove, so I wouldn’t have to burn anything. And I could be very slow to make it stop. And then maybe I could cook something else half an hour later and do it again. I did wind up washing all the dishes at 1:30 AM, because hey, I was awake, why not be productive? so it would have been easy to cook something first thing in the morning. Didn’t do it, however, because I am not really a revenge person. However, if they keep me up all night again — and their music is already playing — all bets are off.

So yesterday’s efficiency was all van related: oil changed, tires rotated, brake fluid topped up. I was finished at the service place around 3, so I looked around for a nearby campground and decided Cabot Beach Provincial Park sounded worth a try. Its selling point was that there was a seafood market/restaurant within easy walking distance.

It’s an interesting place — big green empty fields, sprinkled with pine trees. Apparently there are 163 sites. I’m guessing in summer, it’s bouncing with people. At the moment, there are a half dozen of us in one row near some cliffs overlooking the water and probably another twenty or thirty campers in the section that has full hook-ups. But we’re lined up like parking lots, no separation between sites at all, and that is very much not my favorite type of campground. And the mosquitoes are fierce enough that I’m avoiding the outside and that’s also not my favorite. Not the campground’s fault, of course, but not conducive to feelings of delighted enchantment.

Zelda and I have had several nice walks, though. It’s a reasonably short hike to a nice beach, and there’s also a great walk through fields of wildflowers along the cliffs by the ocean. The walk to the fish market is less appealing — it’s along a road and through a parking lot. And sadly, the market’s on winter hours (4PM – 9PM), so it was closed when we went there at lunch time.

dog in field, ocean in distance

Walking the dog through a field with an ocean view.

I thought about going back when it opened in the afternoon, but after a long beach walk in the morning, Z seemed to be limping before we reached the market. Not a ton, just sometimes skipping a step or two. I don’t want to make her do a third long walk in one day, so I’d have to pack up the van and drive to go to the market. And before I do that, I’d have to clean up from today’s cooking projects.

And today was a day of many cooking projects. This morning I made oatmeal for breakfast, and ate it topped it with yogurt and honey. And then I baked some granola. And then I made some quinoa. And then I decided that there was no possible way I’d be able to eat all the potatoes I had before they went bad, so I should probably vacuum seal and sous vide cook them. Seven packages of potatoes later, I realized I should do the same thing with the corn and the beans. So basically I’ve been cooking vegetables all day long. I’ve realized that I can’t make the squash soup I wanted to make — there’s absolutely no room in my fridge to store home-made soup. But I definitely have enough vegetables prepped for a whole lot of meals.

Tonight’s quinoa bowl was not as interesting as whatever fresh seafood I might have gotten, but it was tomatoes, fresh corn, spicy garlic wax beans, avocado, cilantro, turkey, a Greek yogurt-lime-garlic dressing, plus mixed greens and quinoa, and it was quite delicious. I ate it outside until I’d decided I’d donated enough blood to the mosquitoes and then I came inside, looked at all the clean-up I should do, and decided writing a blog post would feel productive without requiring me to keep standing over the kitchen sink.

Tomorrow, I’m moving on. I generally like to stay a minimum of three nights at campgrounds, but when I got here and saw the rows of campers, I decided two nights sounded fine. And that does feel like it was the right decision. Good walks do not make up for bad neighbors. But I’m not sure where I’m headed tomorrow, whether it’s back to Campbell’s Cove, which I liked so much, or whether I’m leaving the island. Decisions, decisions. One way or another, though, I’ll need to have the van cleaned up. I guess I should have done that instead of writing this post!

Progress report

09 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by wyndes in Boring, Grace, Zelda

≈ 6 Comments

Tried to write a post last week, and you know, I just didn’t have anything much to say. It is an incredibly beautiful summer in Pennsylvania — blue skies, warmth, green grass, lightning bugs, blueberries. I’m so glad to be here. It’s amazing to me how much it pleases me to know that I will not be driving more than ten minutes for any day of the next two weeks.

I’m spending much of my time staring at a computer screen, writing a sentence here and there on Grace and then deleting it. I consider it absolutely ridiculous how much I’m agonizing over this — seriously, I know I’m not writing the Great American Novel, it’s a happy romance, all that needs to happen here is for my delightful heroine to fall into my charming hero’s arms with a nice fade to black. But knowing that apparently doesn’t make it any easier for me to actually write it.

I’m still persisting, though. I’ve considered re-reading the whole thing to see if it makes any sense, but I’m not going to — I’m going to give it to three first-draft readers as soon as I actually finish a first draft and not even look at it again until they’ve finished reading it and sent me back comments. And if they never finish reading it, I will know that it just doesn’t work and I’ll let it go. And get a job as a waitress, maybe, because if I’m not going to be a writer, I seriously need to do something with my life.

The other thing I’m doing with my time is fighting with Zelda. I used to say that Zelda would do anything if I could make her understand what I wanted, but this is no longer true: she understands that I want her to take her pill and she is sad that she can’t oblige me, but she also thinks I’m trying to feed her poison and she is not going to cooperate. I would love to get someone to take a video of me trying to get the antibiotic into her, but it would be a long video.

I can try to hide it in any food and she will turn her nose up at it. Nothing works for more than two pills. She’s now refusing to eat steak, prosciutto, hot dogs, chicken, canned fish, as well as canned dog food, if she thinks there’s any chance it might contain a pill. I literally put chocolate on a pill — a tiny amount, I know chocolate is deadly for dogs in any quantity — and she ate it once, but then not a second time. That’s how desperate I’ve become.

Fortunately for my sanity, the Best Brother Ever is feeding her slices of Whole Foods roast beef when I bring her in the house. She’ll eat that when he feeds her. I’ve thought about trying to get him to give her pills, but I suspect she would willingly starve to death in that case and I’d rather know that she’s getting at least a few calories.

Some days I don’t bother trying to make it easy, I just try to force it in her mouth. This morning, I got it in her mouth, held her mouth closed, stroked her neck while whispering sweet nothings to her, and counted to 60. At the end of my count, I let her go and she spit the pill out at me. Not the first time.

I have to remind myself on a daily basis that ehrlichiosis can be fatal — if she dies of it, I’ll hate myself if I haven’t actually kept her on the antibiotic for the whole three weeks. But I am counting the days until we’re done.

I wish I was also counting the days until Grace was done. But every day I wake up thinking, “this is it, I’ll finish today” and every day, I go to sleep thinking, “maybe tomorrow.” But it’s still early, so I’m still on the “this is it, I’ll finish today” mantra for today. It’s more likely if I start staring at that file, though, so I think I’ll get back to that. 🙂

Aux Arc

26 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by wyndes in Boring, Campground, Randomness

≈ 4 Comments

I wonder how I’m going to remember places. And then I wonder whether it really matters. I’d like to live so mindfully that my present is always more of my focus than my past, that instead of trying to remember where I was at X date of years gone by, I’m always appreciating where I am.

That said, Aux Arc is the sound of trains rumbling by and Canadian geese murmuring.

Canadian geese and goslings

For some reason, when I arrived here last Friday, I paid for a full week’s stay. I didn’t know how I was going to feel about the campground, but I’d had a chance to drive through before picking a site, so I knew that at least I had a water view. And maybe I knew that I was getting sick. I definitely knew I was tired.

campsite at Aux Arc

As it turned out, my campsite was a peaceful place in which to be miserable. Not good for the writing, unfortunately. All my good intentions of progress on Grace turned into staring at the blank screen for a while and then going back to sleep. I wrote a few hundred words here and there, but mostly they went nowhere.

But I’d like to not remember this place as a place where I was miserable. It deserves better. It’s green and quiet and still and even though trains rumble by and barges drift down the river, I could easily imagine myself staying here happily for another week or even longer. It’s not wilderness, but it’s spacious nature. (Also a serious bargain — with an America the Beautiful pass, campsites are half price, so I’m paying $9/night for electricity, water, and a water view.)

But my time is up tomorrow, my tanks are full, my fridge is empty, and I have weekend plans. And then next week, it’s back to Florida. R texted me yesterday to let me know that he’d passed his thesis exam: it wasn’t a surprise, but I found myself unexpectedly teary with pride. I want to go back in time and tell the self that was agonizing over whether to try yet another new school to relax and just do it. And then in three weeks, I will get to watch him graduate from college: I suspect I should bring tissues.

Just a cold, really

23 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by wyndes in Boring, Personal, Vanlife

≈ 4 Comments

On Saturday, I texted my friend L and said, “This illness has moved incredibly quickly from ‘maybe I’m sick,’ to ‘Death is inevitable and I can only hope it comes quickly.'”

Yesterday, R called. I said, “Hello,” and he said, “Oh, you don’t sound good.” I said, “Yeah, I thought about calling you earlier, but all I really have to say is ‘whine, whine, whine.’ And now I’m done. How are you?”

So yeah. Whine, whine, whine. Being sick in a van sucks and I would truly like… oh, a real bed, a hot bath, some good drugs — Dayquil would be nice — and another box or two of tissues. And some chicken soup. And Zelda would very much like someone to take her for a walk.

It is oddly peaceful, though. In a house, when I’m sick, I’m always in search of something to help me feel better. The hot bath or a more comfortable pillow, a distraction or a drink. I turn on the television, turn it off again. Pick up a book, put it down again. Walk to the kitchen, go back to the bedroom. Try out the couch for a while, then move to the recliner. It’s a fretful search for comfort. In the van, there’s nothing I can do, except stare out the window and wait to feel better.

So that’s what I’m doing. Waiting to feel better. Fingers crossed that it’s sooner rather than later.

Brrr…

10 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by wyndes in Boring, Campground, Food, Soup, Vanlife

≈ 2 Comments

Zelda and I had the shortest morning walk we’ve had on this trip (except maybe for times when I’ve been sick), because it was seriously cold. The degrees didn’t look bad — 46, I think — but the wind had a chill to it that cut straight through my coat and my scarf. And it was a moving day, so I had to disconnect the water. The hose was stiff and unyielding, and the metal of the connector was so cold that it felt like it was burning my hand when I was unscrewing it. It was nowhere close to freezing, but felt like a definite warning/reminder that my van life is not compatible with a northern winter.

I’ve sort of been figuring that out anyway. It’s been a while since I whined about dirt here, but it’s still my least favorite part of van life. And the combination of cold weather, limited water, and abysmal campground showers means that I’ve spent a lot of time recently feeling Not Clean. I used to fantasize about baths, but now the combination of a hot shower and clean sheets has almost as much appeal. I’m again thinking seriously about joining Planet Fitness and planning my travels around their locations, at least once a week or so. Real showers, plenty of hot water, and (at least sometimes) the ability to overnight park in their lot is probably worth $22/month. Plus exercise! That would be nice, too.

Meanwhile, though, I’m in Nebraska, at Blue Valley Camping Area. It’s basically a parking lot with electric hookups. When I drove in, along a curving dirt road, I thought I might be the only person here, but actually there are three other campers in a fifteen or sixteen site lot. The campground is truly a parking lot — one site lined up next to the next, minimal space between them — but there appears to be a pretty nice park around it. I’ve been sitting in the van, watching the leaves fall from the trees, and considering exploring, but… well, brr… I know it’s cold out there and I’m finding the cold very un-motivating.

Plus, it was one of those long days, in the way that travel days can be. I didn’t make it very far, but I wanted to find a Target, because Target reliably has gluten-free shampoo and I a) left my shampoo behind somewhere, probably Albuquerque and b) had to buy non gluten-free shampoo the last time I bought shampoo, which is generally not the best option for me. So! Target. As best I could tell, the closet Target to my Kansas location was about two hours away, in Kearney, Nebraska. Nebraska hadn’t been on my travel plans, but why not, right?

Then I needed gas. Then the dogs needed to be walked. Then I needed some minimal groceries — fresh salad greens and fruit, basically. Then I needed to find a place to camp. And suddenly, the day is essentially over and I’ve really only traveled a couple hundred miles away from my starting place. It doesn’t feel like an impressive set of achievements.

On the other hand, I’ve got an acorn squash in the instant pot, which I’m planning to turn into soup before the end of the day. I ate scrambled eggs with sautéed mushrooms, green onions, sweet potato and avocado for breakfast. I’ve washed all the dishes, the van is mostly clean, I tweaked a few lines from a previous chapter of Grace this morning, I wrote morning words, and here I am, writing a blog post.

camper van under a tree

My campsite

And while I dread the moment the dogs need to go out again — it’s cold and dark out there! — my campsite is really quite pretty. It’ll be a nice place to try to write tomorrow.

PS Made the soup, ate the soup, shared the soup with the dogs. And somehow it pleased me greatly that Zelda chose to first lick up all the squash soup before eating the bites of chicken I’d dropped in her bowl. It’s always nice when the audience is appreciative! I liked it, too — for future reference for myself, I used turmeric, ginger, cinnamon and paprika, plus onion, acorn squash, and an apple; chicken broth and the water from pre-cooking the squash; finishing it off with sour cream, honey, and a sprinkle of salt.

Serenity’s First Year in Numbers

21 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by wyndes in Boring, Randomness, Serenity, Travel

≈ 5 Comments

In 18 states and two territories (one American and one British), I stayed in 73 different places:

    25 state parks
    13 driveways
    12 Thousand Trails campgrounds
    4 independent campgrounds
    4 Passport America campgrounds
    2 KOA campgrounds
    2 Army Corps of Engineers campgrounds
    2 parking lots
    2 hotels
    2 houses
    1 Lower Colorado River Authority Park
    1 USDA Forest Service campground
    1 county park
    1 Harvest Hosts site
    … and one sailboat

I definitely got my money’s worth from my Thousand Trails membership. I think my total spent is currently about $550 for about 80 days, so roughly $7/night. But I’m not going to be renewing it when it expires next year: those campgrounds seem like good places for families with small kids and people who are looking for stable bases for extended periods, but that’s not how I want to travel or live.

My KOA membership was not worth the money. Again, great for families with kids and I definitely enjoyed my really nice showers at the KOA in Bellefonte, PA, but I don’t need the amenities they offer and even with the reduced membership rate, they were some of the most expensive places I stayed.

My one night at a Harvest Host site was lovely and I remember it fondly. But I don’t tend to want to drop in to places for a single night. If that changes in the future, I might think about trying out Harvest Hosts again, but for the moment, I’ll let that membership lapse.

Passport America costs around $45/year and I bought a three-year membership, so I’ve got plenty of time for it to pay off. In fact, the park at which I’m currently staying is both a state park and a Passport America park, and I saved $14 on an upcoming night’s stay because of my PA membership, so yay. But I’ve got a pretty long way to go before that membership pays for itself and two of the parks on the PA list were among my least favorite of the places I’ve stayed so I don’t seek out the PA parks. I should check out more of them, though, because it’s a nice discount when the park is okay.

Generally speaking, the only worthwhile memberships for me were the state parks. I’ve got a Texas State Park pass and a Georgia State Park pass and they were very much worth the money, might even be more so, since I’ve got months left on both. Live and learn, right?

I can’t believe I haven’t stayed in a single national park — what kind of camper am I??? — but they’re typically more restrictive about dogs than state parks, and I’ve really quite enjoyed discovering the state parks. Still, that might be a goal for Year Two. 🙂

I budgeted $900/month for campground charges, figuring an average of $30/night. If I stayed at KOAs and independent campgrounds or even some of the more expensive state parks, I’d be breaking that budget on a regular basis. As it is, however, my blend of campgrounds and driveways kept me under budget every month. The closest I came was $826 in April, from paying for my two week stay at Cedar Key in May.

I budgeted $400/month for gas and fuel (propane, too) and I came in under budget on that, as well. My grocery budget, though… yeah, not so good. Eating the way I eat — heavy on vegetables and protein, almost non-existent on breads, pasta, grains — is not cheap. Now that I can’t buy in bulk and store leftovers in my freezer, I’m spending more on food than I want to.

The dogs were also way over budget. No surprise, there, but ouch. Having two aging dogs is not the kind of thing where you want to look at the dollars. Even hiding some of their food costs in my grocery budget, I spent over $300/month on the dogs. I’d budgeted $90. Yep, the dogs cost $10/day.

Health insurance and care, internet, auto and RV insurance, the storage unit, taxes… none of those were surprising numbers to me, although they do add up. Life in the van is definitely less expensive than it was in my house, but I really had hoped I’d have a book or two released by now, though, so that’s not so good.

But there, another goal for Year Two — publish books! And visit national parks. And continue spending ridiculous amounts of money on the dogs, because really, the only way that number goes down is bad, so the positive side of breaking my budget on pet care is definitely that I have two dogs that I adore still and that’s good news.

Speaking of which, I am out of dog food, so need to make a run to a grocery store, unfortunately half an hour away. Time to get going!

Hometown minutiae

13 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by wyndes in Boring, Personal, Randomness, Yoga

≈ 4 Comments

I had weird dreams last night: the kind that are not so disconnected from the real world as to be impossible (no flying, no spaceships, no monsters) but that are mystifyingly implausible. In one of them, I was taking on the responsibility of raising the infant of a friend’s son. I woke up from that one trying to figure out how I was going to change diapers in Serenity — the actual logistics of storing diapers and wipes and clean cloths and that kind of thing, and was both relieved and a tiny bit disappointed when I woke all the way up. I’m obviously not going to be raising any children while living in a van, and I can’t imagine how I would end up being the person responsible for that specific imagined kid, but I do like babies. The other dreams are all a lot less vivid now — can’t remember a single detail — but all had that same sense of taking on impractical responsibilities that don’t belong to me. At the time, they were mysterious, but looked at in the cold light of day, it’s more obvious to me where my brain was wandering.

This morning I went to yoga with my dad. If I had dreamed that ten years ago, it would have been mystifyingly implausible. If I had dreamed it two years ago, it would have been surreally unlikely. As it was, it was very fun. I haven’t been able to do real yoga at all while living in Serenity. I have about twenty different video classes saved on an iPad, but it’s too small inside to even do a good stretch, and outside… well, there’s uneven ground, dirt, heat, bugs, observers — a bunch of things that have disinclined me to make that choice. Going to a class reminded me of how much I love it, though, and how great it feels. The instructor suggested putting my mat on a picnic table and doing it there and I really ought to try that. Observers to be ignored, of course.

Right now I’m parked in my dad’s driveway, one of my favorite camping spots, looking forward to a quiet day today and a busy day tomorrow. The last few days have been busy-busy, with lots of stuff that realistically I could have done any time but somehow I saved until I was back in central Florida. Example: after more than eight months, I finally went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and bought small bins that fit inside the medicine chest. When I opened up the medicine chest this morning, nothing fell out on me. It was so exciting! Why I didn’t do this somewhere along the way, I can’t say. Some tasks still feel like things you should do at home and central Florida still feels like home. I wonder how long that feeling will last?

I also bought a new garlic press. When I still had a house, I had three garlic presses, and I decided I didn’t need them when I was getting rid of things. It’s the one kitchen item that I have regularly looked for, not found, and — with regret — remembered that I thought I didn’t need. I thought I might have kept one in the storage unit, so I looked when I was cleaning it out on Saturday, but nope, I truly did get rid of all three of them. I’m going to have to make something with garlic really soon to try the new one out. Maybe salad dressing for dinner tonight.

I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be in central Florida. I’d hoped I’d be able to head north next Monday, but Serenity still needs some warranty work done. The sink in the bathroom is broken (again — 3rd time) and the heated tank system is falling off. So I’m busy making fun local plans for next week — Pokemon hunting with a friend one night, visiting another friend at her childhood home for a couple days, lunch with a third friend — but also trying to decide what makes sense for the three weeks between the time the van might feasibly be repaired and when I need to be back in Florida.

Three weeks feels like forever — that would have been a great stretch of vacation for me ten years ago, certainly sufficient to have any kind of adventure, up to and including driving to the Grand Canyon and back again! — and not nearly long enough. What I really wish is that I could find a place that I love to settle down and finish Grace. But I suspect I could easily spend three weeks just trying to find such a place. If it weren’t so hot here, I’d just stay in Florida. And maybe I’ll do that anyway, but I’m having to run the AC for the dogs most of the time, which is not my favorite thing. Decisions, decisions!

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Mount Dora

05 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by wyndes in Boring, Personal, Randomness

≈ 11 Comments

sunrise at Mount Trimble Park

The word breathtaking is a cliche, but the sunrise was so lovely this morning that I only realized I was holding my breath when I started to run out of air. I suspect it wasn’t me finally breathing that made the heron fly away — at the same time Zelda pulled the leash out of my hand and rustled through the leaves — but I was sad to see it go. Then it settled on an overhead branch and annoyed a squirrel, making me laugh. A day that starts with incredible beauty and laughter probably has no place to go but down, but I’m going to be more optimistic than that.

This is my birthday week — I turn 50 on Friday! — so I’m being really nice to myself. Or trying, anyway. I decided to give myself a present every day. Socks on Sunday. On Monday, I got my “Nevertheless She Persisted” t-shirt from Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, which I decided counted. Yesterday, I set out to buy hair ties — yes, I’m not being elaborate in my gifts to myself — but my dad bought me a gluten-free butter pecan cupcake, so that was my present instead. Today, I don’t know. I’m really hoping to get some writing done, but… well, I guess that’s how I’m not being nice to myself. I’ve been really beating myself up about not getting more done over the past few days, like that’s ever done me any good at all. But I am going to endeavor to find some way of being nice to myself today. Maybe it’ll be the hair ties.

I did manage to add an email subscription field to the blog. Right there, over on the left hand side, above the mailing list subscription, you can enter your email address if you’d like to get email notifications of new posts. Personally, I would hate that. An RSS reader, like feedly, lets you subscribe to lots of blogs and read them at your convenience instead of having notifications pile up in your inbox. But I’ve been informed by relatives and people who try to follow posts on Facebook that I could make it easier for them to find new posts if they could subscribe, so subscribe away. I do warn you, though: I am not going to feel guilty for cluttering up your email by writing multiple posts in a week if I have lots of things I want to write about. On your own heads be it!

In other boring business things, I’m going to start adding Amazon affiliate links to the bottom of my posts. If you start your shopping at Amazon by clicking on an affiliate link, I’ll get a percentage of whatever you buy for the next few hours. The items don’t have to be related to anything on my site or my posts. So if you read a post of mine and think, hmm, maybe I should buy some hair ties, and go to Amazon and while you’re shopping there, stumble across a really good deal on a $600 vacuum cleaner and buy that, Amazon might give me $6. That would be nice for me and more to the point, it would make my blog a much better tax deduction. Yes, I did my taxes yesterday. No, I probably shouldn’t have done my taxes during a week when I was trying to be kind to myself. So it goes.

I’m actually not at all down about turning 50, although this post does sort of sound like I am. My brother (aka Best Brother Ever) has given me a fantastic birthday present, which I will collect in May; R is visiting me this weekend so I get to spend time with him; and honestly, everyone should turn 50 feeling so good about how they’re spending their life. I think I’m just frustrated today that I have too many things I want to do and not enough time to do them. And I’ve wasted too much time on things that don’t really matter, like, why, oh, why, are the two Subscribe buttons different sizes and how can I make them be the same size? Answer: no idea, no idea, and I could have spent three hours writing a book instead of trying to figure it out.

I think I will go bake some more granola, walk the dogs again, admire the incredible beauty of the park I’m in (Trimble Park, Mount Dora), and then try to settle in to writing some good words on Grace. Because at the end of the day, those things will make it a very good day.

If you’d like to support my blog, start your Amazon shopping here!

Lake Conroe, Willis, Texas

12 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by wyndes in Boring, Campground, Travel

≈ 4 Comments

Lake Conroe

iPhoto wanted to enhance this photo by making the sky blue: it wasn’t. Just shades of gray.

If I had six kids, some tents, bikes, a boat, some fishing gear, coolers of food and a barbecue grill, I would really like this campground. Actually, maybe even just the boat would do it: I bet it would be fun to motor around the lake for a while, despite the rain and chilly air. (I wanted to say that it was cold — it was in the 40s this morning — but for people still having real winter, 47 probably does not feel cold. It did to me.)

That said, I strongly suspect that five years from now, if someone were to ask me whether I’d stayed here, I will not be able to pull up a single memory of the place. There are basketball courts with basketballs, tennis courts, shuffleboard courts, ping-pong tables, a fitness room, a swimming pool… but walking the dog feels like walking through, at best, a tiny home community. At worst, a reasonably nice trailer park. People are friendly, as they always seem to be at Thousand Trails campgrounds, but admiring the scenery while I walk the dog is mostly a matter of considering what lawn ornaments I like best; pink flamingos, garden gnomes, or other. One house had the exact same rabbit my mom used to have as a planter on the kitchen counter, so it’s pretty much won the contest for now, but I’ve got another day here, so I might find still find some competition. Hmm, that makes me want to go back out with the camera and take some photos of lawn ornaments to put at the top of this post. But it’s cold and wet and I have a dog sleeping at my feet, so that’s not going to happen.

I would love to understand why it’s so easy for me to walk miles on a beach where the scenery is technically pretty much all the same — endless ocean, endless sand, occasional birds — and so hard to do the same in a neighborhood. I was hitting a daily 10K steps in Galveston, and walked at least 2 miles before breakfast every morning, but this morning I walked less than a mile and it felt like plenty. I don’t want to break my streak, so I’m going to be aiming for another 2.5 miles today but it feels like a chore instead of pleasure. The rain, of course, doesn’t help — beach rain is exhilarating but neighborhood rain is just tedious.

I’m hitting the point where I have to start planning my trip home to Florida. It’s strange that it feels so much like a “have to,” though. I’m going home for two main reasons: to be with family on my 50th birthday and to go to Universal with my niece and brother. I’m also looking forward to having dinner with my writing group and seeing my friend C. So this is not a “have to” sort of event. Good things will be happening in Florida in April. Good things will be happening in May, too, and also June, and also July, so I think that my “have to” feeling is mostly that my time no longer feels so flexible. And I’m going to have to make some decisions: a few long driving days interspersed with no movement days or many short driving days. What I really want to do is spend a few weeks wandering around Oklahoma and then the same in Arkansas, but I’m not going to have the time for that. No regrets, though — my extra beach days in Galveston were absolutely worth it to me. The weather was typical of this Texas adventure — rain, rain, more rain — but I would live in that campground if I could.

I just looked at the clock and argh, how have I wasted so much time this morning? Ans: daylight savings time, of course. Time to get to work…

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Just catching the sunrise
A little patch of flowers in the wasteland.
Spring is on its way. Yay!
The second rainbow on the right is a little hard to see in the photo so look close.
Pre-Epcot breakfast, made by Frisbee. Total SuperHost. All the stars!

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