Book Opinion: Caroline Little House, Revisited by Sarah Miller

My 1970’s era copy of Little House on the Prairie, a hardcover version bought for my daughter, and the new version, Caroline, bought recently.

As a long time Laura Ingalls Wilder fan, imagine my delight at discovering Caroline Little House, Revisted, a reimagining of Laura’s book Little House on the Prairie, told from the perspective of Caroline Ingalls, mother of the Ingalls brood. I was not disappointed.

This retelling of the tale delves into Caroline’s emotions, snippets of her history that Laura’s books didn’t address, her fears, her relationship with her husband, her love for her children, and the intestinal fortitude required of the pioneer generation. It includes stories that my fellow prairie-ties will recognize. The leaving of home and family, crossing the frozen Lake Pepin, fording a flooded river in the wagon, arriving in Independence, wolves, prairie fires, Indians, and best of all, MR. EDWARDS. It also clears up a few things, including the fact that the Osage war dance described by Laura didn’t happen. The Ingalls’ were likely frightened by the mourning songs sung by the Osage women after the Osage leaders met with federal Indian agents and agreed to peaceably sell their lands and relocate to Oklahoma. We also learn that the Ingalls family were not removed from their land by the government. Rather, Gustav Gustafson who bought the house in the Big Woods, reneged on the deal, the property reverted to the Ingalls and since they did not yet own their Kansas claim, they had to go back.

The emotions in Laura’s books were the emotions of a child, in this book, we get insight on what the pioneering experience must’ve been like to the women who gave up their entire lives to go west. The fear of giving birth alone, surviving sickness without family, worry for the children, long stretches of time alone on the claim with children while the husband went to town or went out hunting.

This book probably has a very specific audience, people like me who grew up on Laura’s books or the television show. Honestly though, anyone with interest in history or the pioneer era would enjoy this book. By the way, if you’ve never read Laura’s books, and your knowledge of the Little House universe is limited to the Micheal Landon show, I beg you to read the books, and read them to your kids. You’ll never look at that tv show the same way.

Have a great weekend everybody. Spend some of it with a good book, and spread kindness. ❤️

The Ghost Plane of Copparo

• Written by: Mark Christopher

  Edited by: Holly Christopher

  Photography: Holly Christopher

  Editor’s note: Last summer, my husband and I accompanied our children on a musical tour of Europe. We were traveling with American Music Abroad, an organization that takes high school and college kids on European tours where they perform concerts at various locations and tour when they aren’t performing. The events in this post are one hundred percent true and have bothered my logical, science minded, rational explanation for events husband ever since it happened, hence the researching and writing.  Draw your own conclusions.

  

  Shops and apartments in Copparo, Italy

  We arrived in the small Italian town of Copparo and our tour buses stopped at the old town square. There was a pretty park in the center of the square with trees and a fountain. The park was surrounded on three sides by old buildings. The buildings on the left side consisted of a small bar on one corner with an old school building rounding out that side of the park.

  

  The school is the yellow and white building on the left. The municipal building can be seen at the end.

  On the back side of the square was the long municipal building. On the right side of the square were several tall buildings with local stores, a pharmacy and even a little gelato shop.

  

  The gelato shop was behind the trees and fountain.

  We were traveling with a bus tour of high school and college musicians and their directors. This was their first performance on their 3-week tour of Europe. As the musicians practiced their music and got ready for the concert, my wife and I decided to take a stroll around the square. It was evening but still very light out because it was July. Somewhere between 8 or 9pm as we began our stroll. We walked to the left and passed by the small bar with its patrons talking and looking curiously at the four busloads of musicians as they scurried about preparing for the performance.

  

  Getting warmed up for the concert.

  A few elderly locals were walking around the square and a few older Italian men were riding their bicycles around in circles, or finding a spot to listen to the music when it started.

  

  Sorry it’s blurry.

  Our stroll led us up in front of the tall school building on the left side of the square.

  

  My wife and I talked about how the town seemed to be frozen in time. We walked and talked taking a few pictures here and there. Soon we got to the end of the left side of the square ready to turn right along the back side of the square. That is when my wife looked at me and said “It feels like the war is still going on. Everything looks and feels as if soldiers from WWII could come walking out at any

  minute.”

  

  The building written about below. The municipal building is a lot or two to the right.

  We were both looking towards the left at an old building that reminded us of places we’d seen in war movies, when up in the sky to our right we saw a low-flying plane coming towards us. It was flying pretty low, about a hundred or so feet above the municipal building flying at an angle across the end of the square.

  

  The municipal building complete with picturesque clock tower. The plane made its appearance to the left of the tower.

  It looked like a WWII plane but there was no sound. By no sound, I mean completely and totally silent. There wasn’t even the accompanying whoosh you’d hear with a glider or the snap associated with a kite. It soared directly over our heads and continued to the left of us cutting across the end of the square at an angle and disappeared out of site as it went behind the old school.

  We were in shock. My wife was just talking about how it felt like WWII still and a WWII plane flew right over our heads. We both said “Wow! That was amazing!” We continued our stroll and talked about the plane as we walked. We both said it looked like a smaller version of one of those large WWII bombers that Harry Connick Jr. had flown in a war movie we’d seen years ago. It was dark green, it had windows for the pilots as well as a gunner type window and all of the windows were black. We could not see any pilots inside the plane even though it was flying so low. It also had a zero on the back mid body section of the plane.

  

  Above the awning of the gelato shop.

  Soon our stroll took us over to the gelato shop where we got a couple still waters and some gelato. We sat down outside the shop and talked about it some more. We discussed how strange the experience was and that it was very odd that a WWII Japanese Zero would be flying around Italy. We thought that maybe there was some type of war reenactment going on nearby. We joked about jumping through time for a moment. We finished our gelato and went back to the front of

  the square to claim a couple of seats to watch the kid’s performance.

  

  View of the square, fountain, and concert site from the back side of the square, right in front of the municipal building. You can see the kids in their red shirts to the left of the fountain.

  About a month later after we were back home. I couldn’t stop thinking about that night in Copparo. I decided to do some research to see if there had been a reenactment nearby on the day we were there, that could’ve explained the experience. I looked and looked, and found that no reenactments had been going on. Then I decided to see if there had been any air shows in the area. The answer was no. In fact, I found out that WWII reenactment is rarely if ever done in Europe and especially in Italy. Italy was in a bad position with regard to the war. It supported Germany for most of it and when it was clear that the Germans were losing, they flipped to the Allied side. So for most of the war they had been fighting Allied troops, and then for the last several months of the war they were being invaded from the north by the Germans  and from the south by the Allies. When the war was over, Italy did not really want to remember the war, not to mention they didn’t want to do reenactments.

  With that avenue of research hitting a dead end. I started to research whether or not there were ever any WWII Japanese Zeros sent to fight in Italy. That was a pretty easy one, there were not. So, why did my wife and I see what appeared to be a WWII Japanese Zero flying over Copparo, Italy? There had to be some type of logical answer, didn’t there? I then started researching whether or not any type of notable event had taken place in or around Copparo during WWII. I could not find any battles or events that occurred there or were documented. Copparo was a rural town that was not critical to Italy, Germany or the Allies.

  I did find many stories about the “Pippo” night fighters that flew over northern Italy. A solitary plane nicknamed a “Pippo” by the locals would fly over the countryside and bomb anything that emitted light. The “Pippo” struck terror in the residents of northern Italy as they would hear the single engine plane flying over their homes and they would pray that it would not find them. Based on the accounts I read, the “Pippo” would have a loud engine sound, so it wasn’t anything to do with one of those, because the plane we saw made no sound. I kept researching and digging, which led me to an extremely startling discovery.

  I finally found a story about a WWII aircraft and the town of Copparo, Italy in the same article. The story stated that on April 21, 1945 a Royal Air Force Douglas A-20K Boston Mark V plane went down after being hit by a German anti-aircraft battery southwest of Copparo. Interesting I thought so, I looked for a picture of the type of aircraft that went down. Here it is…
• 

  I just about passed out! That was the exact plane that my wife and I saw fly right over our heads while standing in the corner of the square in Copparo in July. There  was even a zero, but it turned out to be the RAF symbol. The more I read about the incident, the stranger it became. When the plane went down with four crew members aboard on April 21, 1945, it was not found. It wasn’t until 2006 that an archaeologist interviewing an eye witness to the crash in 1945, first determined the crash site using metal detectors. In July 2011 the final location of the downed plane was finally discovered during an excavation of the site. They were able to confirm the type of plane, find the bones of 4 people and small personal items such as a ring and a watch. After some intense investigation they were able to determine the exact plane and identify the four airmen. The airmen were finally laid to rest at a commonwealth war cemetery in Padua, Italy in July 2013, 68 years after their deaths.

  What did we see that evening in Copparo, Italy. A ghost plane? A crack in time? An event that replays itself over and over again? Four airmen trying to no longer be lost and forgotten, wanting to go home?  I have no idea. My logical mind can’t explain this one. So, I leave it up to you to decide. To read more about “The finding of the Douglas A-20K Boston Mark V sn BZ590” please follow this link…

  http://www.goticatoscana.eu/EN/Events/bostonA20–BZ590/bostonA20–BZ590_EN.html
• P.S. Please excuse the poor paragraph formatting. WordPress seems to be having some issues today. First, the entire post disappeared, now, it’s formatted correctly on the page I’ve written it on, but it doesn’t show up right on the site. It happens. Have a great day and be nice to somebody. 🙂

Radiator Springs Is The Best Thing Maybe Ever

My daughter and I went to California over spring break.  It was just the two of us and we had a great time.  The first part of the week we stayed in Venice Beach, then we moved out to Anaheim and went to Disneyland and California Adventure.  It was our first time at C. A. so we were very excited.  It was great, it was fine, it’s not as good as Disneyland, but it’s fun. It became amazing at dusk when we found ourselves in Radiator Springs.

Lydia insisted that we get over there by dusk because she said they did “a thing.” She knew what was about to happen and she wanted to surprise me.  By this time, I was hot and tired and had blisters the size of grapes in three different spots on my feet, so honestly, I was done; and then it happened.

Remember at the beginning of one of the Cars movies when dusk hit Radiator Springs and the lights came on?  They started at the head of the main drag, and one by one, the kitschy neon lights came on until the entire street was lit up?  Well, the “thing” they did, was play Sh-boom over the sound system, and re-enact the light up of the businesses on the main street.  I almost died.  Like seriously, almost keeled over and died. It was the single most 1950’s thing I have ever witnessed in a life that missed the 1950’s by quite a few years.

After this happened, I got a serious second wind, was able to ignore the excruciating pain in my feet, and carry on with the rest of the night.

When my son was five years old, he contracted a very serious case of double pneumonia with pleurisy. He missed a solid month of kindergarten, had to take four different, very seriously strong antibiotics and after it was over, his doctor told me I was lucky he got sick in this day and age, or he might not have made it.  While he lay on the couch day after day, week after week, he watched Cars over and over and over. It was the only thing that made him happy. My goal in life is now to go back to California Adventure with him just so he can see Radiator Springs. It will mean the world to him.

If you have a kid who loves Cars, I highly recommend a trip to Radiator Springs.  It’s done with typical Disney Magic and attention to detail. Plus? Their end of the day water show spectacular thingy is genuinely spectacular.

Have a great weekend.  Remember, Memorial Day is not about grilling out and the beach. It’s a time to remember all the brave men and women who’ve sacrificed their lives for our freedom and so our kids can sleep safely in their beds each night.

Be kind to someone, our world needs it now more than ever. 🙂

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My Childhood is Being Torn Down Bit by Bit and I’m Not Mad About Some of it.

This year is a tough one for the places I went to school.  The high school that I loved with all my heart and graduated from is being torn down because the district is combining my school with the other high school in the district to create one mega school.  My elementary school which I loved is being torn down, and right next to it, the school I went to for junior high is being torn down.  These two are being replaced by a park.  It is the junior high building that I’m going to write about here.

It was in this building that I learned the most about life.  I moved into this building in the fourth grade, and it’s where I began to learn that standing out in any way could be bad. A couple of my friends and I wrote a play and with our teacher’s permission, performed it for the class.  Mistake.

In fifth grade, I had Mr. Hudie (pronounced Huoodeye) and I lost so many of my teeth in his class that he finally just started motioning me out of the room when I would raise my hand at inappropriate times.  He also turned bright red and spit when he’d get mad and yell, and boy was he a yeller.  It was funny and terrifying all at once.

It was also in fifth grade where I began to learn that sticking up for a friend could cause you a lot of trouble with other kids.  It’s where I began to think about myself before thinking of others. It’s where I began to learn that people you’d been friends with all your life couldn’t necessarily be trusted.

Seventh grade was a big deal because we moved to the top floor. In seventh grade I learned that the tall boys always wanted to date the short girls and since girls grew up first, my 5’6″ (at the time) self started looking at older boys.  Mistake.

I also learned in this grade that sometimes teachers liked mean kids better than nice kids and they were perfectly capable and willing, to egg on the mean kids.  I also learned that making really good grades could get you picked on, but if you let the straight A’s go, the crappy mean kids would leave you alone, at least about that.  It’s also where I learned that sometimes when people thought they were insulting you by calling you Farrah when you got your blonde hair cut into feathers, that they were actually comparing you to one of the most beautiful women of all time (remember that red bathing suit poster anyone?) and instead of cringing because of it, I should’ve tossed said blonde hair and laughed at them. Ahhh hindsight.  Seventh grade also taught me that genuinely short men, under say 5’6″, hate and despise tall women and will make fun of them and give them shitty nicknames. To that guy I say, dude, you looked like a chubby leprechaun and I hope you’re still short and I hope you got genuinely obese. And bald.

Eighth grade introduced me to lecherous teachers. A nasty, child molesting asshole, who a few years later lost his next job and maybe his teaching license for his disgusting ways. It’s where I learned that there was a big difference between a teenage boy telling you that you looked nice in a pretty dress and a 40 year old teacher pulling you out of music class to tell you that you look nice. It’s where I learned that if you forgot a book in your locker, you should always take your mom into the empty school with you to look for it; because when you go in alone, you might discover that you didn’t forget your book, your pervert science teacher picked up your book when you went to the bathroom in his class and he was standing at the top of the stairs with it in his hand waiting for you. It’s also where I learned that you can back perverts off with a loud voice, a threat of violence, and a hasty retreat sans book. It was on my desk the next day when I went into his room. He never spoke to me again, gave me an effortless A in the class and disappeared to a new school over the summer. It’s when I learned to tell my mother EVERYTHING.

I learned about voting in that school because when I was little my parents voted in the basement.  In genuine voting booths with American flags across the opening for privacy. It’s where I won a talent show with my fantastic patriotic tumbling routine when I was little and where I won a couple of Halloween costume contests. It’s where I learned about jealousy, both mine and that directed at me. It’s where I learned that I really loved performing and began to want to be an actress. It’s where I got my first on-stage laughs because I refused to kiss my co-star so we rewrote the script and put in some physical comedy (falling off the back of the couch together and kicking our legs around like we were making out, and going in a closet together, with me coming out with his coal black wig on top of my very blonde head to imply more making out; it was supposed to be his black mustache, but he forgot it) that made the high school principle come up to us after the play and tell us we should consider acting as a profession. It’s where the seeds of the cruelty and bullying that would cause me to change schools, lose my friends and the only life I’d known were sown.

I’m sad about my elementary school and my high school being torn down, but I’m not sad about this school being torn down. I have some good memories there, but the majority of them are unpleasant, heartbreaking, sad, scary, infuriating, and unfair. The things I learned in that place made me cautious, suspicious, and untrusting. In a way though, I guess I wouldn’t trade it, because it made me tough. It gave me an edge that I otherwise would not have. It made me a better person and a ferocious mother. It taught me about human nature and character or lack thereof. It gave me one of the best bullshit detectors known to man, and it’s protected me because I will take no crap. From anyone.

So you beautiful old building full of ghosts, adios. After you’re gone, I’m going to come walk through the park that will replace you and I’ll gather up the little ghostly wisps of myself that are trapped there. I’ll incorporate them back into that little girl still hiding inside of me, and she and I will flip you the bird when we leave. Because that’s who you made us.

Be kind to someone today.  It’s a gesture that many are denied.

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Book Opinion:Faithful by Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite authors. She’s the one who brought us Practical Magic, which delights my soul in both book and movie form. Her latest, Faithful, is equally satisfying.

High school students Shelby Richmond and her best friend Helene were in a terrible car accident.  Shelby was driving and almost died, Helene was injured so badly she remains in that twilight area between life and death where so many find themselves. Confined permanently to her bed and machines, Helene becomes something of a celebrity in their town because she was the beautiful, popular girl who is now in a coma and the tragedy of it all attracts exactly the kind of attention that tragedy always attracts in our society.  Shelby meanwhile is paralyzed by guilt and depression and suffers through her own physical injuries, followed by emotional breakdown, mental hospital confinement, rescue by her mother and self-imposed isolation at home.

The book takes us through the story of Shelby’s return to life. It is a long, convoluted path that involves boys from high school, love, dogs (the best people and saviors of many), work, education, heart-break and happiness, mysterious postcards designed to keep her from the edge and the guardian angel who sends them to her.

This is a great book for anyone who has experienced overwhelming tragedy and/or mental illness of any kind. Shelby is a survivor even though she doesn’t really know it. She shows the reader that you can come back from just about anything and create a life that while different from what you expect, can be better than what you dreamed it would ever be again. It is possible to come to terms with your life.

As usual with Alice Hoffman, the writing is clean and flows well. She writes at a high, lyrical level and it’s dense with feeling and subtlety, but she does it with such skill that it’s a very easy read. I was on a five-hour flight from Seattle to Fairbanks AK and read the entire thing on the plane.

If you’re looking for a good book to keep you company on these chilly winter days, this one might be a good choice.

Have a wonderful week, read a good book, and be kind to people. We need that now more than ever. Be the change you want to see in the world, and make it positive. 😊

PINK!!

When I was just shy of three years old, my parents bought a Victorian house in a small town. My mom decorated my room because I was just a tiny peanut, and she made it a girly paradise. One wall had wallpaper that consisted of various shades of narrow pink stripes on a white background, and the other three walls were papered with various shades of pink cabbage roses on a white background. There were pink drapes on the windows and a white eyelet bedspread. For my younger readers, a bedspread is NOT anything like the duvets etc. that you all are used to. They were the exact size of the top of the bed with a seam or a ruffle running around the edges of the mattress, finished off by a skirt that fell from the seam to the floor. It was beautiful and very, very, girly. That  house and that room instilled in me a love of old houses, toned down Victorian style, houseplants and of course, pink.

I like to lean back against things with my camera and take upside down pictures. I have no idea why I enjoy this particular activity, but I do, don’t judge. This house is in New Orleans and it is clearly pink.

Ironically, my current home doesn’t have much pink in it, but I love pink flowers and shirts.  Everyone looks good in pink, just like I’ve yet to see anyone look bad in lavender.  Doesn’t matter what color your skin is or your tone is, pink makes you look healthy, and despite the rumor, redheads look great in it too.  You just have to find the right tone.  Anyway, here are some pictures of pink things.  It’s gray and blah and I figured everyone needs to look at some pretty colors.

Here’s some pretty rock candy on a stick at the French Market in New Orleans. The speckled jawbreakers are pretty too.

Tea Roses blooming at the Chicago Botanical Garden last summer.

Some other kind of pretty pink rose blooming at the Chicago Botanical Garden last summer.

Peonies putting on a show in Chicago.

I think these were some kind of peony as well, but these were growing in George Washington’s flower garden at Mt. Vernon.  Obviously I manipulated this image. I don’t usually do that, but I recently got some software that lets me do this stuff and it’s kind of fun. They really were pink, I didn’t do that.

My daughter’s prom dress and finger nails.

A mountain top in Alaska last week.

Sunset at Blind Pass between Sanibel and Captiva Islands Florida

I hope you enjoyed a little pop of pretty color on this winter afternoon! Have a great Saturday, stay safe and be nice! 😊❤

NORTH to Alaska!!

I’m not a big fan of the term bucket list, because it reminds me about kicking the bucket.  I DO however like the term wish list.  There are many things on my wish list, and I just got to experience one of them, the Aurora Borealis.  I have the best husband in the world, and for our recent landmark anniversary, he used up all of his hard-earned airline and hotel points, along with a couple hundred dollars and took me to Alaska to see the Northern Lights for our anniversary.  I’m going to break the trip up into several posts because I don’t like to make them too long. I am including pictures, but I’m not an expert at taking Aurora photos, so they aren’t up to my usual quality.  I’m leaving them smaller because they look better small.

The Northern Lights are of course linked to a number of legends for the people native to the areas where they appear.  In Alaska, they’ve been viewed as everything from what is basically a celestial River Styx to an omen of war to animal spirits. I’ve even been told that in some areas the Eskimos sing to the lights.  The scientific explanation is that charged particles from the sun strike atoms and molecules in Earth’s atmosphere, excite those atoms, and cause them to light up. The best time to go is March due to a better likelihood of clear skies, slightly higher temperatures and still long nights, that didn’t coincide with our anniversary though, so January it was.

We rented a small off grid cabin to use as shelter while viewing the lights.  The temperature while we were there ranged from -11 to -27 fahrenheit. It was very cold and it was possible to stay outside comfortably for very short periods of time, so we needed a place to warm up. We’d read that the lights came out mostly between midnight and three in the morning, but once we got there and talked to real people, we found that they come out when it’s dark.  In Alaska in the winter that could be four in the afternoon or nine in the morning.

About 8:30 p.m., I noticed a glow on the horizon. Based on my day-to-day life experience, I assumed it was the glow from a town so I went back inside; then I remembered we were in the middle of nowhere Alaska and there WAS no town in that direction so I ran back out and there they were! Just above the horizon now, was a streak of soft green light. It was in the shape of a low rainbow and my husband thought it was a cloud bank, then it started to move. It drooped down and looked like it was melting, then it swirled and twisted, and flowed. It would fade then charge back up again. It looked like it was coming out of a single spot, like smoke from a cigarette, then it blew up all over the sky. It rolled and turned over on itself. It stayed with us for FOUR HOURS. Finally, we thought it had gone away, then suddenly, there it was again, directly over the cabin in all it’s twisty, turn-y glory, then it snapped off like someone turned off the switch.

I’ve been processing what I saw and trying to find a way to talk about it and I’m afraid that anything I say will be insufficient. Practically, it looked like glowing fog. The moon was very bright, so it wasn’t as brightly colored as it sometimes is, but that didn’t matter. It was otherworldly. Alien. Heavenly. It left us speechless. It filled us UP with words. It excited us and relaxed us. It changed something in the way we think. It changed something about the way we feel. It was basically a religious experience. It was profound. I understand why the Eskimos sing to it. I will go back someday and I will have a song prepared.

Children of the Corn

Indiana is corn central.  My little seven acre spread grows wildflowers, weeds, wildlife, trees, more weeds, grass, the flowers I try to put in to make the place look more manicured, lightening bugs, and a lot more weeds.  We have two garden areas we are starting to work on, but it’s not easy.  We don’t have farm equipment, we have garden equipment, and it makes the work harder and longer.  Farm equipment is very expensive, so for now, garden equipment it is.

All around us though, are farms.  Corn and soy beans are the two main crops, but this year we’ve noticed more wheat fields popping up.  Corn and soy bean prices are flat, so I suppose the farmers are branching out.  Immediately adjacent to our property on one side is a corn field.  It has to be GMO corn, because the corn fields of my childhood couldn’t hold a candle to these guys.  The stalks are about ten feet high, there’s barely any room between them and they are so glossy and green they look like plastic.

Last night my daughter and I walked over to the next door field and took some pictures.  I didn’t have either of my good cameras, so these are cell phone photos.  Some of them are pretty good quality, some of them not as much.  I hope you enjoy them.  🙂

Giant clump of Queen Anne’s lace, weeds, and sticks at the end of a work area.

Sunbeams shining through waning weeds.

Corn, behind the weeds that are actually the main crop of the country.

Queen Anne’s Lace, or pretty weeds.

I grew up in the boonies, don’t remember corn roots looking quite this way.

More root fingers.

Corn tunnel.

I have no idea what this is, but it was really tall and kind of pretty.

Don’t really need to worry about he who walks behind the rows, cause he can’t get through them…

Another angle on the corn tunnel.

Baby corn starting, or is this where politicians come from?

Just pretty.

Country roads.

Almost full moon over the corn.

Soy beans across the road.

Ahhhhhh…

soooo TALL!!!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my untouched cell phone pix.  I’ll have to take the camera out next time!

Have a great day, and please, be kind to someone.  Please.  🙂

Abandoned Apple Farm Part Two

Since I posted my first entry featuring pictures from Fagley’s Apple Farm a while back, I’ve received a number of requests for more pictures from that day.  Since I’m still recovering from a particularly nasty case of bronchitis, I have some extra time and thought today would be a good day to make this post.

Just the front window.

Grape Arbor out front.

More orphaned books.  I don’t remember them having so many books, but I was pretty little when Mom took us there.

The place was just full of stuff that they just walked out and left behind.

I just like this.  I do remember their products being sold from these baskets.

This photo was taken from the side of the store and shows the old house that goes with the property.  It also looks completely abandoned and allowed to begin to decay. The windows seem to be gone.  It’s open to the weather.

This bottle was sitting on the mantle in the store.  Sorry it’s a little blurry.  I like it anyway.

I have no idea what these are from, but I thought they looked cool.

This is what I like to call a Walking Dead photo.

Fall colors

Immediately behind where I am standing to take this photo, is the highway.  It wasn’t this close in the past.  Where the sign is, giant mounds of glowing orange pumpkins used to lay in autumnal glory.  Also, to the right of the corner of the building, were giant mounds of pumpkins, and there were long tables filled with gourds under the arbor. It was beautiful.

This is another Walking Dead scene.  I can just picture zombie arms coming through those slats.  It was a seriously gloomy fall day until right before I left, and my imagination was running wild.

I hope you enjoy these photos.  When I left here, I went over to Eastfork Lake and took some pictures over there.  You can find what I’ve posted so far in First Photo Post: Old Bethel Methodist Church.  Click on photography in the word cloud on the page and scroll down til you find it.  Also, follow me on Facebook.  Just search for Message Discipline is Required.

Have a great day! Hold fast, SPRING is coming.  Be kind to one another.  🙂

 

The Solo Conundrum

 

View from The Cliff, in my favorite California beach community, Laguna Beach. Would it be weird to go there alone?

My husband has to go to L.A. for a week in April to something called a Controls Summit. Controls buy our food and heat our house, but zzzzzzz… I don’t even know what that is, other than its math-y and full of controls guys talking about controls things. Anyway, I’m not invited, so who cares, I AM invited to go along and keep him company when he’s not in meetings that could’ve been emails etc. By keeping him company, I mean being there when he gets back at night because he’ll be busy all day long. That means I’ll be on my own, all day, every day for five days.

These Mission Bells remind me of the Eagles…

Couple things for you to understand.

1. I love LA. I’m the only person in my family to do so, but my mother looked at Los Angeles like it was the promised land and that got pretty deeply instilled in me at an early age.
2. My oldest child is 19 years old. I haven’t been alone in almost 20 years.
3. I haven’t been alone in 20 years. Especially in a city the size of Los Angeles. Can I go to Disneyland by myself? Would I cry from loneliness? Would the Haunted Mansion and The Pirates of the Carribean be the same without my kids? Would wandering through the shops in Laguna Beach be fun without my husband? Because when I say I’ll be alone, I’ll be ALONE. I DO have a friend in California, but she lives near San Franscico and she works, so…

Last time we were there, she was not a legal adult, and he was not big and almost an adult.

Will my adult daughter and giant, almost adult, son survive here at home alone? That’s stupid because my son is like buh-bye, have fun, leave me pizza money. I know my friend down the street will drive the boy back and forth to school, so I’m good on that front.

I’m nervous about it, but I think I need to do it. I regularly complain about the lack of adventure in my life, and this would surely be an adventure.

This photo actually makes me start singing Hotel California in my head.

I’ll keep you posted.

Have a great day everybody. 😊