Book Review: The Snow Child

The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey

I had gotten good feedback on this novel from social media, so I decided to check it out!

Jack and Mabel are a couple nearing their fifties when they decide to leave their home in the Eastern U.S. and take a homestead in wilderness Alaska in 1920.  They were never able to have children, and they believe this might be the fresh start that they need.  But the work is brutal, and life there is isolating, and their marriage is crumbling under the strain. 

When the first snow arrives, they decide to take a few minutes for fun, and they build a snowman.  Jack carves a beautiful child’s face in the snow, and Mabel dresses the snow child with a red scarf and gloves for a child they never had.  In the morning, the snow child is gone, and so are the scarf and gloves.  But soon, they see fleeting glimpses of a real child, a toehead blonde running through the forest with her red fox friend.  And she is wearing a red scarf and gloves.  Is this their snowman come to life?

Over time, they gain her trust, and come to see Faina as their daughter, however eccentric she is.  She refuses to settle down and live with them, instead preferring to continuing living in the woods, trapping and gathering berries.  But she visits often, accepts their kindness, and returns love to them when they need it the most.  Her existence is an enigma, as it seems impossible that this young girl could survive the harsh wilderness of Alaska.  That is, if she really is a girl.

Of course, it isn’t just a story of a strange child wandering the woods, but instead it is a story of grief, and healing from loss, of hope, of tenacity, of friendship, and of what is important in life.  Life is hard, and there are no guarantees, and we must make of it what we will, just as Jack and Mabel are trying to do. 

Eowyn Ivey’s novel draws upon a Russian folktale, and it blurs the lines of realism.  The reader is left to their own devices to figure out what is real, what is fantasy, and what may be the madness caused by cabin fever.  At times beautiful and joyful, at times heartbreaking and raw, she draws the reader expertly into the story, and leaves you curious until the very end.

5 stars.   

Retirement Diaries 2024: Packing Up…

Last Friday, Mom and I headed over to a garden nursery for a planting event!  You could choose to plant a container garden or a hanging basket.  Then you pick your plants, plant them in the dirt and you are done!  The nursery takes care of your baby until Mother’s Day weekend, when you go pick up your plant and see how much it has grown!  The cold weather in Minnesota makes greenhouses a necessity.  In Washington your little container gardens would already be out soaking up the sunshine and the rain! It was a fun drive over; we saw farmed elk and bison on the way, and a wild Bald Eagle. 

Early Sunday morning, it started to snow.  And it pretty much continued non-stop until Tuesday evening.  It came down relatively slowly, but I would guess overall there was 8-10 inches.  Today the skies are back to being blue and sunny! 

Sunday Morning

 

Monday Evening

Sunday morning was also the Agate Swap!  Mom hadn’t been to one before, so we braved the snow and checked it out.  It is basically a rock show, with lots of vendors selling their wares.  You can bring in agates to trade or sell, but mostly the Lake Superior Agates I have found are small and not very impressive, so no trading for me.  I did buy a few agates and an antique agate marble that caught my eye.  I’m slowly filling up my house with rocks! 

I’m glad the weather system has now passed through, because I’ve been packing up the car to get on the road!  It’s spring, and I’m ready for a trip!  It was strange yesterday hauling things out to the car in my snow boots.  It will be too cold to camp on the way out to Washington, where I will spend a few weeks with friends, catching up with everybody and seeing the sights.  Hopefully I will be able to camp on the way back though, so I’m putting all my gear in the car just in case.  I haven’t been to Washington in almost seven months, so I’m beyond excited!

I’m sure the kitties will miss me, but Yellow is doing well with his new food and daily fluids, so I don’t have to worry about him as much as I was.  Cora is doing great!

On the way back, I haven’t decided my route yet.  I suppose it will probably depend on the weather.  Stay north and go back through Montana, or cut down through Oregon again and maybe do some of Highway 20?  There are so many choices – and so much to see!   

Salem Weekend: Oregon State Insane Asylum

Saturday, August 31, 2019, Salem, Oregon

In 2019, I took a Labor Day long-weekend trip to Salem, Oregon.  Some of the trip was for chores (getting new tires!), but I also had time for some sightseeing.

The Oregon State Insane Asylum, now known as Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon, has a long and fascinating history. 

The Architecture

The hospital was built in 1883 as a Kirkbride Institution, and housed both men and women, and for part of its history, children.  Kirkbride plan hospitals were known for their cutting-edge (at the time) ideas for treating the mentally ill, based on the belief that natural light and fresh air were critical for one’s well-being.  Most Kirkbride facilities also gave jobs to patients who were physically and mentally able to work. 

There were several different architectural designs, but the most common was the “bat-wing” style, where wings of the building stretched out from a large main portion of the building.  There were 73 Kirkbride hospitals built; 33 Kirkbride institutions are still in existence in some form and on the National Register of Historic Places today.  Oregon State Hospital has one of the only remaining original Kirkbride buildings.  The building now houses the Museum of Mental Health, which is operated by a non-profit not associated with the hospital.   

However, the grounds still house a psychiatric facility, which is not open to the public. 

The Hospital

The hospital first began treating patients in Portland in 1862; the facility moved to Salem with the Kirkbride building construction in 1883, and is still operating today.  The facility treated both men and women, and for a period of time also treated children.  While the hospital did have some success in treating patients and returning them to their families, it was not without its controversies.  As with all of the state mental institutions, it had periods where it was horribly overcrowded, with over 3,600 patients at one point.   

The hospital practiced eugenics between 1923 and 1983, sterilizing over 2600 patients during the program’s history.  Lobotomies were also performed there until 1981.  In 1942, an accidental mass poisoning incident led to the deaths of 47 patients.  Sodium flouride, a cockroach poison, was accidentally substituted for powdered milk in the scrambled eggs.  It was tragic, and also sad that the kitchen had cockroaches in the first place, but probably not surprising.  

When the hospital was at its peak, there were tunnels built underneath the buildings that allowed staff and supplies to move between buildings without going outside.  This system of tunnels also allowed staff to move patients without having them be seen outside.  Some of the tunnels even had a small narrow gauge railroad to move supplies!  Most of these tunnels are no longer in use today, or are used as storage.  I guess that gives you an idea of how big the property is.  I only saw the main building, but there are dozens of buildings on the site, and it is much smaller now than it was in its heyday. 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

It will probably surprise you to hear, but the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was filmed here in 1975.  The cast was permitted to watch patients in their daily routine and even observe electroshock therapy treatments as a part of their rehearsals and to get into character.  The movie depicts some actual hospital patients and staff, who were used as characters and extras during the film.  Dr. Dean Brooks, the hospital’s superintendent at the time, plays a role as Dr. Spivey, the main character’s doctor.  When Dr. Brooks complained that the screenplay was unrealistic, he was told to rewrite his dialogue to make it medically accurate.  The film won several Academy Awards for its depiction of the mental health system and life in an asylum. 

The Museum of Mental Health

Today, the main Kirkbride building at Oregon State Hospital has been opened as a museum.  The museum examines the history of the asylum system, and details what life was like in the hospital.  There are exhibits with medical equipment, ones that show a patient room setup, and others that explain leisure activities that were offered at the hospital.  There is even an exhibit about the filming of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  The museum is one of the only areas of the grounds where the public is allowed today, and it was a very interesting visit!  

The Dead

In 2004, Peter Courtney, an Oregon State Senator, toured the hospital and learned that over 5,000 sets of cremains were being stored in canisters in the basement of the original building.  These were the cremated remains of patients who were never claimed by their families.  The canisters were in poor condition, corroding due to the moisture in the basement (a common issue in the Pacific Northwest). 

The Oregonian newspaper did an investigatory article, and the hospital received a lot of criticism about their treatment of these poor souls.  As a result, the state allowed the hospitals to release the names of the patients, in hopes that some of the families might finally retrieve them.  Those who remained unclaimed were interred in a wall on the grounds, and a nearby building was redesigned as a memorial to those who died here.  The canisters they were originally stored in are displayed.  In my photograph, I tried to make them something beautiful!

 

Overall, it was an interesting and enlightening tour.  It raises a lot of questions about how we have treated the mentally ill in the past, and how we treat them today.  Although the asylum system certainly had its faults and there were bad apples among the staff, as well as mistakes made with treatment protocols, are we really doing any better now?  We have moved from the asylum system to a system where many of our most mentally ill citizens are either in prisons or homeless.  Can we really say we are doing better?

Book Review: One Summer in Savannah

One Summer in Savannah, by Terah Shelton Harris

I was poking around on the library’s Libby app, and found this book, which was being promoted by the library (I’m not sure what program it was, and couldn’t find it again).  At any rate, I downloaded it and started listening.

Sara Lancaster is a young woman who moved away from her home in Savannah, Georgia at the age of 18.  She wasn’t trying to escape an overbearing father, she wasn’t eager to travel the world.  She wasn’t even going to an out of state college.  Instead she was fleeing the circumstances of her life.  Sara was the victim of a rape by a fellow student at the age of 17, and she was now pregnant with his child.  Although he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime, she felt she needed to flee to prevent him (and his family) from having any custody or visitation rights to her child.

Now, eight years later, her father is ill and could die.  Sara and her daughter Alana, return to Savannah to see her father and spend time with him for whatever time he has left.  Over the next few weeks, she encounters her rapist’s twin brother, who figures out who Alana is.  Sara decides to allow him to have time with Alana, but only if he promises to keep her a secret from the rest of his family.

Overall, I enjoyed the book.  The story flowed and it kept me engaged from the beginning to the end.  However, there were some details that I found quite unbelievable in the story line. 

Here are the spoilers!  Sara’s father is educated and wise; a bookstore owner (that part I loved!).  However, he speaks only in poetry, leaving his friends and family to try to decipher his meaning.  There is no medical reason for this – he hasn’t had a stroke that has changed the synapses in his brain – he just likes poetry.  Somehow the other characters just seemed to get it, but I ended up having to gloss over his character to not get bogged down with whether their interpretations made sense.  The poetry thing seemed arbitrary and inconvenient, and would drive me nuts! 

The story is a love story; which ordinarily I’m a fan of love stories, but… Sara finds herself falling in love with Jacob, who is no less than her rapist’s IDENTICAL twin brother.  She is traumatized by the rape, but somehow finds a way to fall in love with this man’s identical twin.  I’m going to call that unlikely… 

Of course, there’s a happy ending, with a little bit of a cliffhanger, so I was left wondering about a few details at the end of the book.  Even with those weaknesses, it was a good book.  It spoke of facing your past, moving past your traumas, and the importance of familial bonds. 

One more thing – I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator (Zuzu Robinson) was awful.  She spoke with a cadence that was way too slow, with a strange sing-song rhythm and too-long pauses at odd times.  I sped the narration up to 1.5x to make it less annoying, but if you want to read it, I would recommend reading it instead of listening. 

3 stars. 

Retirement Diaries: It’s Spring!

It’s spring!  We made it to spring! 

After a relatively mild winter, now that it is spring, the snow is forecast.  It will probably only be a couple inches on Thursday and Friday, so I suppose I can deal with it.  It was only 14 degrees outside when I got up today, so hopefully it warms up soon!  At least it is sunny though; Cora and Yellow enjoy sleeping in the sun on the teacup chair. 

Everything around here is still pretty dormant though, since it has been so dry.  No snow, and no rain makes for brown grass and no sign of spring flowers yet.  I’m looking forward to seeing some color! 

In other news, I’m heading out to Washington soon to see my friends.  It’s been over six months since I have been out there – far too long!  I’m starting to get excited! Socializing!  Great conversations!  Beachcombing and looking for agates!  Going to all my favorite restaurants, breweries and cideries!  Sightseeing!  I’ll be driving over, so pray that this weekend’s little snow event stays just that.  Little.

I hope you are all well, and enjoying the first day of spring! 

Book Review: Still Life with Bread Crumbs

Still Life with Bread Crumbs, by Anna Quindlen

Rebecca Winter is a photographer who has fallen on hard times.  She is divorced, with a mother in a dementia care home, and her business income has dropped off.  She needs money.  Rebecca decides to rent out her ritzy Manhattan apartment and rent a small cabin in a tiny town in upstate New York, sight unseen. 

Of course, she’s a city dweller, and moving to a small rural community is quite a culture shock for her.  She’s licking her wounds, and she retreats into herself and into her small, dark, cold, cabin.  She can’t do it for long though, as she has a raccoon in the attic, she needs to figure out where to buy food, and she needs to stock up on wood for the winter.  Little by little, she meets some friends, and begins to establish her roots in her new community. 

Quindlen expertly tells the story of Rebecca’s rebirth, as she takes small jobs to support herself and sells her photographs at the local cafe.  She spends her free time hiking in the woods, and comes upon small tributes left by someone.  A child’s doll, a high school trophy, a photograph of a mother and daughter.  Rebecca doesn’t understand what they mean, but she begins taking photographs of the memorials in the woods, putting together her next exhibit.

The novel is a love story of life, a tale of learning to heal and reinvent yourself, and a story that life is what you make it.  There will always be joys and heartaches.  Fame and fortune are fleeting, but the fundamentals of friendship, family, and a life well lived are what will remain.

4 stars.

 

Book Review: The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer

The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red, by Joyce Reardon (Note: Joyce Reardon is a pseudonym for Ridley Pearson) 

Ellen Rimbauer was the daughter of a wealthy family who grew up in the early 1900s in Seattle, Washington.  She is engaged to a wealthy oil speculator, John Rimbauer, and he builds her a spectacular home on overlooking Seattle as a wedding present.  Her honeymoon is a one year adventure around the world, traveling from Seattle to the South Pacific, Africa, and back across the United States.  She is young and impressionable, and learning about her husband and their new life together.  

His extra-marital sexual dalliances give her an STD, and she befriends an African healer named Sukeena who nurses her back to health, and comes home with her to serve as her lifelong housemaid.  Unfortunately, Ellen learns that her new mansion in Seattle is not as it seems.  It is built on an Indian burial ground and the bodies of the dead were burned and discarded after they were discovered during construction.  The house is cursed. 

When this book was originally written, Ridley Pearson wrote it to seem like it was a real diary, selecting the pseudonym to trick readers into thinking Joyce Reardon was an actual college professor who had done the editing on this recently discovered diary.  The Blair Witch Project had recently been released, with the pretend documentary style.  I thought this book was made into a made for TV movie called Rose Red, by Stephen King.  In fact, after I did some more a bit more digging, I learned that the screenplay was actually done first, and King had Pearson write the novel as a companion book to hype up the movie.  What an interesting reverse PR campaign! 

Anyway, back to the novel.  I was expecting a ghost story, and in fact that was why it was chosen for our book club’s April selection.  However, there weren’t many actual ghosts in the book.  Evil, sinister occurrences, lots of debauchery and sex, and some very bad men, but not so many ghosts.  It is a bit reminiscent of the Sarah Winchester story, as Ellen becomes convinced that she will be immortal if only she continues building onto the house. 

The novel is a cautionary tale of men in power, and the control they have over the women in their lives.  Ellen becomes more and more disillusioned with her husband, seeing the way he behaves and treats others.  He is essentially a creepy pervert, and she only really just wants to be left alone.  The novel is heartbreaking as you see Ellen’s downward spiral, as she is a victim of her husband as much as her demonic house. 

I am curious to watch the movie, as it isn’t often that you see a novel that is based on the movie, instead of the other way around.  I will only watch it if I can find it for free though, as I’m not convinced it would be worth paying for.  The novel was interesting, and it was certainly a creative premise, but it wasn’t at all what I expected. 

2 stars.

A Quick Visit to Washington, D.C.

Tuesday, August 6, 2019 to Sunday, August 11, 2019
Washington, D.C.

Back in 2019, when I was working for the water and sewer district, I had a chance to go to Washington, D.C. for a conference.  The conference was scheduled for Wednesday through Friday, but I was able to  pay for a couple of days on my own and fly home Sunday instead.  I always love when that is an option!

I was in conference sessions for full days when I was there, so I really only had the evening hours to explore during the week.  But I made the most of my time! The conference hotel (the Hyatt Regency Capitol) was right downtown near the Capitol, so I was able to get to several nearby places by walking!  When my flight arrived, I took the subway to Union Station, which was about a half mile from the hotel, and then I walked from there.  The first evening that I was there, I had dinner at the hotel, and enjoyed a glass of wine.

Union Station

 

Me

Wednesday at the conference I met a friend, a lady who was there from Kansas City.  We decided to get dinner afterwards and do a little wandering.  We found The Ministry Wine Bar down the street and had a delicious tasting of sparkling wines, along with my wonderful beet salad.  It was so good!  After dinner we walked over to the Capitol building and checked out the outside of the building, as well as the Supreme Court Building.  No matter how you feel about politics in our country, it is humbling to see where the work of our government occurs, and the site where men and women come together to interpret our laws and our Constitution.

Rose flight at the Ministry Wine Bar

Beet Salad at Ministry Wine Bar

A fire station near the Capitol

The Capitol in the evening

Fountain at the Capitol

The Supreme Court Building

Thursday after my conference, I walked over to the National Portrait Gallery to see some of the artwork.  It is open until 7 pm, so I had some time.  They have many portraits of former Presidents, including my man Abraham Lincoln!  They also have portraits of fictional characters, like Barbie!  It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours that evening, and it was less than a mile walk from my hotel.

Abraham Lincoln at the National Portrait Gallery

Barbie at the National Portrait Gallery

A diorama at the National Portrait Gallery

I have no idea what this tin foil creation is!

Friday was the last day of my conference, and that evening, I met up with Alexis, a girlfriend that I went to high school and did 4-H with.  She had another friend visiting too, so it was a party!  We met at the Hill Country BBQ market, a delicious BBQ restaurant about 3/4s of a mile from my hotel.  It was a fun evening and a nice walk to and from the restaurant.

Sliders at Hill Country BBQ

Saturday I went to the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument.  This home has an incredible history, but notably, was owned by the National Women’s Party beginning in 1929.  The Party was integral in the fight for women’s suffrage, and the Equal Rights Amendment.  I toured the home; so I will share more about it in a separate post.

The Capitol during the day

That afternoon, I met up again with Alexis and her friend for lunch at the Old Ebbitt Grill.  Old Ebbitt began in 1856 as a saloon and boarding house, and become one of the iconic political hotspots in Washington, D.C.  It has moved several times, but has been at its current location since the 1920s.  If you hang out there, you are likely to see some politicians!  Of course, we were there on a Saturday, and there were no politicians to be found, as far as I knew.  We did have a fabulous lunch, and I had the shrimp and grits off their brunch menu with a glass of white wine.  So delicious!

Old Ebbitt Grill

 

Shrimp and Grits – Old Ebbitt Grill

After lunch, we walked over the W Hotel and went up to their rooftop bar.  It is nice to have a local friend to show you around!  The hotel is kitty corner from the White House and has incredible views!  The cocktails there are quite spendy, so it isn’t something I could afford to do all the time, but it was fun to check out how the other half lives, and look out over the White House!

The White House from the W Hotel

 

Me at the White House

From there Alexis, her friend and I parted ways, and I went to go check out the Smithsonian’s National Gallery of Art.  It was fun to spend a few hours checking out the exhibits.  Of course, there is so much to see there that a repeat visit will definitely be in order!  That evening I had dinner at the hotel bar, and had a delicious chicken Chop salad, and spent the evening relaxing before my flight the next morning.

National Gallery of Art

National Gallery of Art

My Chop salad at the Hyatt Regency

Sunday I flew home and it was once again back to the daily grind of work.  I had such a fun trip to Washington, D.C.  The conference was interesting, and I learned a lot, and I was able to fit in a lot of sightseeing into my free time!  I hope I’ll be able to get back there again soon.

 

 

Book Review: Life on the Mississippi

Life on the Mississippi, by Rinker Buck

I read Rinker Buck’s The Oregon Trail several years ago, so I was intrigued when I saw this audiobook in the Libby app.  Even better, it was available now!  So I got to listening.

Buck sets out to recreate an authentic flatboat journey down the Mississippi River, similar to what the pioneers did in the 1800s.  He finds a boat builder who can build a flatboat per his specifications, and kits it out for a several month journey down the river.  He finds an eclectic group of people to help him on the journey, and sets off, not really knowing how to pilot a flatboat or what the journey will be like.  Of course, he has all the Corps of Engineers maps, showing locks and bridges and what not, but knowing what you have to do is often far different than really doing it.  Despite advice from old-timers that such a journey will result in almost certain death at the hands of innumerable hazards (barges, whirlpools, deadheads in the water), he heads out anyway.  

What follows is a fascinating travelogue and social commentary.  Buck begins on the Monongahela River near Pittsburgh, connects with the Ohio and eventually lands in the Mississippi River.  The title of the book is a bit misleading, as the bulk of the story takes place on the Ohio.  He begins by taking it easy, learning how to pilot the flatboat, which he has named Patience, and how to dock it in the evenings wherever they stop for the night.  He works out the kinks with the engine mount, and learns how to work together with his crew.  His crew does change over the course of the trip, as people come aboard and depart based on their schedules, their interests, chance and their ability to not annoy Buck. 

The reader is provided with lots of descriptions on the scenery of the river.  What it once would have looked like, and what it looks like today after an untold number of manufacturing plants have gone defunct and lie abandoned.  He details the work done to shore up the banks, and to build and maintain locks, in order to make the river a highway for the ships and barges taking their goods up and down the river. 

I appreciated his extensive research and description of the history of settlement in this part of the country.  How flatboats were integral to opening up this area to white settlement, how the pioneers made their journeys down the river 200 years ago, and how the Native Americans were pushed out as a result of this settlement.  He describes the Trail of Tears, where Native Americans were relocated to subpar lands further west, despite having a history of living in peace with white settlers.  The desirable lands were needed for white pioneers, and so they were taken.  He also describes how the flatboat era made the rich fertile lands of these river valleys accessible, and how this created demand for slaves to work the land for their plantation owners. 

He describes his crew mates and the people he meets along the way.  This is my least favorite part of the book.  Buck is obviously very liberal politically, which is fine, but not relevant to the story.  He basically insults every well-meaning and kind person he comes into contact with.  His crew mates’ personality flaws are dissected and put under the microscope, and every citizen in the southern half of the country is painted with Buck’s broad brush as being a backwoods, conservative redneck.  This is despite the fact that he enjoys and appreciates his interactions with most of these people, whom he describes as being kind, helpful, and generous with their time and money. 

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but wish he hadn’t insulted so many of his volunteers, or the people he met along the way.

3 stars. 

Retirement Diaries 2024: Almost Spring

We have almost made it to spring!  The weather was fabulously warm for a few days last week, with the temperature Sunday almost reaching 60!  I planned to work on chinking both weekend days and make some progress on getting this log home in peak insulated shape.  Saturday was a great day for it, and I made some good progress on the back side of the house.  Sadly, it was pretty windy Sunday and the wind interfered with chinking.  Best laid plans…  This weekend I know what I’m doing Sunday!

The robins are back!  And I have heard the Sandhill Cranes are already in Southern Minnesota, so they should be here soon!  I took Cora to the vet for her checkup and rabies vaccine yesterday and saw a pheasant by the side of the road!  Cora is doing well; she had some bloodwork done to check for common issues in older cats, and catch it early if anything is going on.  She’s happy and isn’t showing any symptoms that there are any issues though!  I should have results early next week.

Yellow has gained some weight and the subcutaneous fluids are a big help.  He’s so funny.  He’s always so skittish if he’s on the floor and anyone tries to walk up to him.  However, he will happily lay on the floor right behind my office chair with wheels when I’m working on the computer.  Don’t worry, I’m careful when he’s there!

The chickens are certainly noticing the warmer weather and the longer days, and laying more eggs again for spring.  I am going to need to find some recipes again that use lots of eggs!  I also waterglassed my first batch of eggs this weekend.  If you don’t know, waterglassing is a traditional method of preserving raw eggs; you place them in a container with filtered water and pickling lime, and the solution preserves the eggs up to 18 months!  They won’t taste pickled; they are supposed to taste just like fresh eggs when you wash off the pickling lime solution.  The catch is that you have to use farm fresh eggs; store bought eggs have been washed and had the protective “bloom” removed.  I have been saving the cleanest eggs for my next batch to waterglass, and I’m curious to see how they turn out.

Tuesday night was a delicious lobster and shrimp dinner at home!  I haven’t had whole lobster since I celebrated my birthday in 2018.  This one was frozen, so it wasn’t quite as good, but it was a treat!  We ground up the lobster shells and fed them to the chickens; the girls enjoyed the extra calcium!

This week was very social!  I had book club on Wednesday and Trivia night on Thursday.  We got second to last at trivia night, but we had fun, and I was happy with our performance.  One of the categories was cartoon turtles, and it is clear that I’m lacking in cartoon turtle knowledge.  We managed to pull off 6 out of 10 turtles with a team effort though!

Other than that, I’ve been spending a lot of time reading, and writing.  I took an online writer’s workshop last week, and it re-inspired me to keep writing a book.  I dusted off the document that I started on several years ago, and have been refreshing my memory on what I wrote back then.  I’m excited to get back to it!

Hopefully, with the coming of spring, I’ll get back on the road and do some more traveling.  Yellow is doing pretty good, so I should be able to leave him for short periods.  The calendar is starting to fill up with some trip options.  Yay!