Confessions of a Southern California Wuss

Okay, I'm a wuss. It's just too cold here today. As often as I try to convince myself I lived the majority of my life in Oregon and so should be used to cold weather, I'm still a Southern California wuss. I like that word for some reason, and I like the dictionary.com definition, especially the possible origin of the word--a combination of wimp and puss.

  –noun Slang. a weakling; wimp. Origin: 1980–85; perh. b.
wimp and puss 1 Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Maybe temperatures in the low 30's wouldn't feel so darned cold if it wasn't for the wind, which blew about 30-40 mph most of the day. The little snow flurries convinced me that winter is definitely here in SE Kansas.

I spent a lot of time in some pretty cold weather in Oregon, including a January snowstorm that was followed by freezing rain that made a thick, hard, slippery coating of ice on top of the snow. In order to get the mail, I had to bundle up in warm clothes and boots, then take a walking stick to stab down into the snow in order to make it out to the mailbox without sliding all the way. My son and I had great fun on a couple of plastic sleds, starting at the back door and sliding around all over the yard, including over the top of the 24-inch high raised garden beds. The power went out for several days, so we cooked dinners in the Weber kettle out on the covered patio. But, those freezing times didn't last very long, and mostly winters in Portland were just very wet.

This is quite a new experience--living in a small, rather poorly insulated motor home in SE Kansas the end of November. But, I've discovered a few tricks to keep it fairly warm in here and save money on propane at the same time. Since we have FHU sites (full hookups), electricity is included. So, why spend a lot of money on propane when I can use that electricity to heat the place? A little electric heater works just fine. I bought a couple of those foil-backed windshield covers people normally use to keep their cars cooler in the summer. Cut to size, they make great covers for my windows, keeping the cold air out a little better during the night. My two roof vents are closed and covered with foam pillows made especially for that use. And, I put foam weatherstripping around the door. In a pinch I can always turn on the propane furnace for a few minutes to take off the chill. However, this isn't anything like living in a house and being able to just turn on the furnace. Of course, it doesn't cost as much, either. Pros and cons of anything, I guess.

A couple more weeks and I'm off for warmer weather, most likely Blythe, California in the Mojave Desert. This time of year it's beautiful there, right on the Colorado River across from Quartzsite, Arizona. Maybe I should take advantage of this cold weather now so I'll appreciate the desert more. Then again, I've camped in a tent in the desert in January and woke to heavy snow on the roof. So, you never can tell. I guess the best thing is to just take whatever comes, appreciate it for what it is, but find somewhere warmer as soon as possible.

Earth Mother in an RV

I decided this afternoon that since Halloween and Thanksgiving are now officially over, it was probably time to do something with the two little pumpkins that have graced my outside table with their orangey autumn presence since I got here in October. They've been outside the whole time, and since the weather has been mostly temperate during the days and frigid at night, they still look pretty good. The earth mother in me refused to just throw them in the trash; somehow that didn't seem right. There aren't any cows nearby to eat them. Hmm...guess I could cook them. I used to cook pumpkins all the time. But, that was before microwave ovens. The whole process was messy. Cut them up in cubes, boil on the stove, let cool, then scrape the insides out. Oh, and be sure to save and roast the seeds. I never thought of just baking the things, so it's probably a good thing pumpkin-cooking time only came once a year.

Because of a dealer-error, my little RV has only a microwave oven. When I want to bake something, I use my Kenmore toaster/convection oven on the counter. Well, it's not really on the counter since there really isn't a counter. Actually, I removed the lid from the three-burner propane cooktop and balanced the toaster oven over the back two burners. I'd never use them anyway. That leaves the large front burner accessible. Perfect. But, no way was I going to bake pumpkins in the toaster oven. Nope, it would be the microwave or the trash.

I cut open the little creatures and scraped out their guts and seeds, then cut them into fairly large pieces. Stuck them, by turns, on a microwaveable-plate, covered them with plastic wrap, and proceeded to nuke them until their insides turned soft. Cooled them off on a tray, then scraped out the insides. So easy! No watery mess to contend with; just nice, soft pumpkin guts, perfect for pies, soup, bread, cookies. . . .mouth watering yet?

A few days ago I wrote about needing to garden. When my son asked me what I wanted for my birthday and Christmas this year, I went to the Amazon.com website and made a wish list which included three container gardening books. Wonder if you can grow a garden on top of an RV? Pumpkins might be a bit much, though.

A Good Reason to Stay Home from the Store

Shooting in Toy's-R-Us in Palm Desert, California

This headline caught my eye mainly because my brother lives in Palm Desert. Unfortunately, that might say something about how commonplace shootings and killings in large cities have become; I noticed it only because it hit home personally. Although the shooting might have had nothing to do with a fight over merchandise, the fact that two people were killed in a large children's toy store would be reason enough for some justifiable outrage. I have a very hard time understanding how a person's life could be considered less important than a personal turf war, a popular must-have plastic toy or a piece of electronic junk. Do we have absolutely no sense left? Are we that brainwashed? I think we've become so inured with reports of the "collateral damage" in Iraq that murders just get swept aside with a shrug and a "that's too bad."

Despite my best intentions, I did go to Wal-Mart this morning, really the only store in town, but only because I very ambitiously wrote my Christmas letter and wanted to find some Christmas-looking paper to print it on. No luck, however. I bought a few toys for the 10-year-old boy on the Salvation Army gift tag I got from the tree, then rapidly fled the store. Instead of fancy printing paper, I printed the letters on plain white paper and decorated them with inexpensive Christmas stickers I bought at one of the dollar stores. And they turned out just fine.

I spent a quiet afternoon addressing envelopes for the first Christmas cards I've sent in two years, then took them to the Post Office. I've been realizing that this nomadic life style sometimes plays havoc with keeping in touch with old friends, especially the ones who don't use email. Perhaps a New Year's Resolution should be to write more letters and send more cards. It's worth thinking about.

P.S. A friend just sent me this one.

Wal-Mart worker dies after shoppers knock him down

What is WRONG here?

Thanksgiving Day Walk

 

Verdigris River

Around three o'clock this afternoon, after a delicious Thanksgiving dinner at the Armory with at least 150 other Amazon workampers and former workampers, I felt a little sleepy. When my son the produce specialist phoned, he assured me the sleepiness wasn't only the result of the tryptophan in turkey, but was also caused by the much larger amount of food we usually eat on Thanksgiving. It makes sense, but my head was still drooping, so I decided to take my second walk of the day--and I don't even have a dog!

The area around Walter Johnson Park in Coffeyville is a perfect place to walk. It has very little traffic, it's quiet, and there's a lot to see. Although I usually stroll around the perimeter of the park, including on the levee next to the river, today I decided to explore the baseball field first. Taking a seat at the top of the bleachers, in the tenth row, I imagined baseball players running out of the stands of oak and pecan trees, kind of like the players appearing from the cornfield in "Field of Dreams," one of my favorite movies. Maybe Walter Johnson himself would pitch. Although the end of November in Kansas is no longer baseball season, the grassy outfield is a brilliant, lush green. It wasn't hard to hear the cheering fans, smell the hotdogs cooking, and see how the game was going on the large scoreboard above the outfield fence. But, the game was over - time to continue my walk.

I crossed the street to walk next to a field filled with huge rolls of hay. In Oregon, they're usually wrapped in white plastic and look exactly like gigantic marshmallows. I've always wanted to find a couple of large graham cracker-colored squares of something along with some dark chocolate-brown oozy stuff. Wouldn't it be fun to drive down a country highway and see a big, delicious-looking s'more out there in a field?


A flock of geese cruised by overhead, honking to let me know they were there. Pecan and oak leaves fluttered across my feet with the slight breeze. The sky was gray, not a brilliant blue as yesterday. It's supposed to rain a little tonight.

Continuing my walk, I headed to the levee next to the Verdigris River, a usually fairly placid body of water. But, last summer that river overflowed its banks after a month of steady rain, flooding most of the eastern part of Coffeyville. As if that wasn't enough, "a malfunction allowed the oil to spill from the Coffeyville Resources refinery on Sunday, while the plant was shutting down in advance of the flood heading toward it on the Verdigris River." There was so much destruction and horrible watery goo that the refinery bought most of the destroyed homes and tore them down. What's left is block after block of empty fields, most of them still with concrete foundations from those houses.

The levee extends along the river for several miles and provides a wonderful view of the river, the park, and some of the nearby businesses in Coffeyville. It's pretty unbelievable how the river got as high as it did.

While walking, I thought some Thanksgiving Day thoughts. I'm thankful for the privilege of being here with so many friendly people in a beautiful place, somewhere I've never been before. I'm grateful that I'm healthy and able to travel from place to place like this. I'm thankful for my family around the country: in Oregon, Ohio, California, and Washington. I'm so very glad my mother and aunt are still living, active, and in good health. I'm grateful for my almost-three-year-old-granddaughter in Washington whom I've never seen, at least not yet. I still have hope for a thaw between my daughters and me. I'm thankful that my ex-husband has found a new wife and extended family with whom he's very happy. And I'm thankful for my wonderful friend Lou, without whom I'd never have discovered my love of the desert nor realized how much it's possible to care for someone.

I hope all of you have had a great Thanksgiving Day with lots of delicious food, friendship, and fun. I hope your favorite football team won. And I hope the rest of the holidays are just as fine for you.

Some of the Pieces , April 2000

Three of us from the Umpqua Unitarian Universalist Church in Roseburg, Oregon made this “Puzzling Pieces” quilt for the wall behind the pulpit. We used 99 different fabrics and introduced the quilt April 30, 2000 in a service entitled “Building Community Piece by Piece: Our Celebration Quilt.” We used various community and jigsaw puzzle quotes as well as “stories from Aunt Jane,” from the book, A Quilter’s Wisdom—Conversations with Aunt Jane by Eliza Calvert Hall.
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Once upon a time, there was a woman who loved to make beautiful fabric wall hangings. And she was paid well for making them. So, she wasn’t really surprised when a friend asked her to make one for her home and wanted to see some patterns. So, the woman gathered up most of her patterns and loaned them to her friend.

About two weeks later, a very excited friend showed a picture to the woman. “Look at this pattern!” she exclaimed. “Can’t you see it as representing our congregation? I’d love to make it for our church!” Of course, the quilter agreed because she was also fascinated with the idea and the pattern. They both pictured a beautiful quilt hanging at the front of their church - a work of love for everyone.

So, that’s how this project began. I was the quilter and Judy my friend. Knowing Peggy was an excellent quilter, we asked her to join us. And, of course, the church is all of us.

You probably remember the small sample we hung on the wall in the coffee area a few months ago. We also asked you to contribute small amounts of fabric that you liked or that you felt represented you in some way. And many of you did. After getting your contributions, Peggy and I raided our own huge stashes for pieces to complete the quilt. One thing about us quilters - we visit fabric stores and take checkbooks wherever we go so we only had to buy about 8 fabrics for this project, mostly the shiny ones. Judy did her part by making more than 100 photocopies of each pattern piece.

We then laid out 99 different fabrics in rows upstairs in our loft, the largest undisturbed floor area we could find. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds because wanted to make sure we used fabrics that might represent various people here and that the pieces also looked good together. After spending about two hours rearranging them, we finally decided it looked just right. I’m sure some of you remember seeing all of those hunks of fabric on our floor and wondering what in the world we were doing with them.

About 2 weeks later, I spent several days scrunching around down on the floor, marking each pattern piece with which fabric to use. Then I soaked in the hot tub every night to get the kinks out of my back.

Peggy, Judy, and I then began the exacting work of cutting out pieces of fabric for each block. The best part of this was we spent a lot of time talking and got to know each other much better. I spent a few weeks sewing the blocks together and completing the top. We hung it up at the church one Saturday afternoon several weeks ago and just marveled at how wonderful it looked, even partially finished. The look on Judy’s face when she saw it hanging for the first time was priceless and I hope we’ll see that same look on some of your faces this morning as well. Peggy finished the quilt by sewing on the black border and the back, and Judy arranged the method to hang it.

All along, we agreed that we wanted to do a service, both to unveil the quilt and also to talk about the community it represents. Like the Grateful Dead song we played at the beginning of this service, the quilt idea was a “ripple in still water” that spread out to embrace the community of all of us.

Notice the jigsaw puzzle pattern of the quilt. Do you see how each block fits into those around it? I found a quote that describes perfectly why we selected this pattern. In the words of Rabbi Shapiro:

Consider a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece has its place and no other piece can fit that place. Yet no one piece makes sense on its own. Each piece needs the whole for its integrity and coherence. And the whole needs each piece to fulfill its purpose and bring meaning and order to the puzzle.

“What is true for a puzzle is true for Reality, with one exception: There is no hand putting us in our place. We must do that for ourselves. We must discover our place and take it. And when we do this, we discover the integrity and meaning of the whole.
The binding thread of this quilt is the love that intertwines itself through the making of the quilt, through people's relations with each other. Sometimes that thread gets broken or cut. Sometimes it is very strong, like quilting thread, sometimes very thin, like silk thread. But, it is still there to some degree. And, it holds everything together.
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After the closing circle, members of the congregation gathered up front to touch the quilt and pick out blocks they felt represented themselves in some way. As one person commented, “I think part of me is in every block.”
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Why Coffeyville, Kansas in the Winter?

If you've ever bought anything online from Amazon.com, one of their largest fulfillment centers in the world is located here in Coffeyville, Kansas. I answered an ad in Workamper News for people to come here to work their holiday rush. We'd get a free RV site and hookups as well as be paid an excellent salary. I figured, "why not?" I'd never driven further east than New Mexico and was looking for a little different adventure after three months at the end of a 22-mile stretch of dirt and rock road in the middle of the mountains.

Coffee Creek Road

When I left San Diego the first part of October, regular unleaded gasoline was about $3.65 a gallon, sometimes more. I was supposed to begin work on October 16, so I allowed plenty of time to get there. Halfway to Kansas, I received an email letting me know that because of the horrible economic situation in the country, my start date would be pushed back to Nov. 2. However, I'd still get my site and hookups until then.


I'll write more about the trip and Coffeyville at a later time. For now, though, I'd like to take you on a short tour and tell you a little about the life of a "picker." I wrote this a week ago, BEFORE I'd had enough because my feet and knees hurt too badly to continue.
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Good morning, at least I think it’s morning – things have a tendency to run together lately. Today is the end of my second week working here and I wasn't sure I'd get through last night. It was the first time several of us were assigned the entire place, not just our training area. Yes, that's because we'd been doing well, our "numbers" were on target. However . . . . This picture shows just a tiny, tiny part of one of the fulfillment centers, not necessarily Coffeyville but probably similar. Last night I think I covered just a small part of it—but my little pedometer read 7.8 miles this morning. The picking procedure is, simplified: 1) find the area, a challenge in itself 2) find the bin 3) scan the bin number 4) if needed, open the box (or boxes) 5) scan the barcode on the item/items 6) drop it/them in the tote 7) when the tote is full (or too heavy), put it on a conveyor belt. 8) repeat over and over and over . . .for ten hours, upstairs, downstairs, in my lady’s chamber. By the middle of last night, every part of my body hurt so badly I almost cried but had to keep going for more and more and more hours, until 3:30 a.m. Drag myself out of bed around noon to prepare to do it again tonight. The only thing I think about is the money and that it’s only until Christmas. Then I never have to do it again, ever! First paycheck this morning. Talking with other workampers here, most of them have been counting the days for a long time. We work and sleep, that’s about it. Watching people at breaks or lunch, the first thing most of us do is pull out the Ibuprofen or Aleve or Advil bottles. On Dec. 24, I'm getting the heck out of Dodge and heading someplace warmer to SIT and watch the sky, the river, and so forth.

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I could afford to quit for a couple of reasons. First, I had applied for early Social Security and began to receive it in the form of widow's benefits. Second, gas prices have been steadily dropping like boulders. Yesterday, in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, I paid $1.48 per gallon. I'm sticking around the campground until December 12 because the $8.00 per day fee for a full-hookup site can't be beat. Most important, I've made some wonderful friends and become part of a small, temporary community here.

In some ways I envy the people who have been able to stick it out because the money is great. However, I still don't have any health insurance and don't want to risk any serious problems with my knees or feet.

So,. all of you who have been working so hard on those concrete floors, you're doing great. Only a few more weeks left.

Eat Your Veggies

I've been reading a new book by one of my favorite authors, Barbara Kingsolver, entitled Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. She and her family moved from their Arizona home to a rural farmhouse in southern Appalachia and vowed that," for one year, they'd only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it," in order to see if they could stop relying on what she calls "industrial food." The idea struck chords deep down inside me.

One of the things that would convince me to quit this nomadic life would be the lack of a vegetable garden. Sure, I tried while working in Kanab, Utah last summer. I bought all kinds of pots, filled them with good soil, and planted a variety of veggies: Sweet 100 tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, jalapeno peppers, and even a few flowers, anticipating some homemade salsa and Japanese cucumber salad by season's end. The results were less than gratifying. For one thing, it was way too hot in Kanab during the summer. It was almost impossible to keep the plants well-watered and fed, especially in plastic pots.

I miss my gardens. We once lived on an acre of land in southern Oregon, down the road from a highly aromatic turkey ranch. I bought a rototiller, dug up half the yard, and planted EVERYTHING. We also raised some chickens and rabbits, with the chickens being allowed to range, as chickens like to do. We not only ate and gave away eggs with yokes that stood straight up at attention, but everything GREW like crazy! Lots of tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, beans...you name it, we ate it. I canned, froze, and dried what we didn't devour fresh, and we ate like royalty the rest of the year. Once my daughters decided the "cute little bunnies" also tasted okay, they gave up naming all of them, except the pets, and we had meat from the chickens and rabbits as well. It was a good life.

We also planted gardens in Portland on a much smaller plot of land. I built some raised beds and we trucked in some expensive soil. And, those gardens produced like crazy! Before my husband and I got divorced and sold the house, we'd planted raspberries as well as a variety of dwarf fruit trees: cherries, plums, apples, pears, and apricots. And that, for the most part, was also a good life.

And then the divorce and my move back to southern California, to the land of wonderful weather and apartments packed row upon row with no place to grow anything except a pot or two of flowers outside the door. And I decided to take to the road.

This summer I worked at a shareholder-owned lodge in the Trinity Alps of Northern California. The chef loved heirloom tomatoes, so we served--and ate---lots of them. They had a flavor like no other tomato I'd ever tasted, even the ones I'd grown, the "engineered" ones. But, I don't want to spend a fortune for them, especially if they have to be trucked hundreds or thousands of miles. I want to grow my own.Last night I spent a few hours online requesting seed catalogs from various heirloom seed companies. I've been eating way too much processed food from unknown sources lately. Although I'm not sure yet how I'll grow a garden, by the time planting season comes around, I intend to have one of some kind. Just need to figure out the best way to do it.



Here are a few sources of heirloom seeds in case you're interested.

Nichols Garden Nursery
Seed Savers Exchange
Merchants and Purveyors of Heirloom Seeds
Seeds of Change

Be Careful What You Wish For

Far away in the tropical waters of the Caribbean, two prawns were swimming around in the sea. One was called Justin and the other was called Christian. Life was good, except that the prawns were constantly being chased and threatened by sharks. Finally one day, Justin said to Christian, "I'm tired of being a prawn. I wish I was a shark, then I wouldn't have to worry about being eaten." Just then a mysterious cod appeared and said, "Your wish is granted," and lo and behold, Justin turned into a shark. Horrified, Christian swam off, afraid of being eaten up by his old friend. Time went by and Justin found himself bored and lonely as a shark. All his old pals were afraid of him and swam away whenever he came near. Then one day he was out swimming and saw the mysterious cod. "I want to be a prawn again," said Justin. "Please change me back!" And lo and behold, the cod changed him back to a prawn. With tears of joy in his little eyes, Justin swam to Christian's house and knocked on the door, "It's me, Justin, your old friend! Come out and see me!" he shouted. "No," said Christian. "I'll not be tricked. You're a shark and you will eat me'" Justin cried back, ' "No, I'm not. That was the old me. I've changed. I've found Cod. I'm a prawn again, Christian!"

I don't remember who sent this to me, but I love it and could probably come up with all kinds of wonderful meanings and thoughts about it. However, it's still early and the brain cogs haven't meshed fully into gear yet. For now, I'll just say that its been very cold here in Coffeyville, Kansas lately and I keep wishing to be magically transported back to this beach in Oceanside, California where I lived in January.

Yesterday I attended the winter vocal concert at the Coffeyville Community College and listened to a variety of songs done by some very talented students. Although there were few of them, their enthusiasm and sense of fun warmed up a cold day. On my quick drive back to the park, I remembered all the traffic in Southern California and decided to be content here for another couple of weeks. There's still time enough to savor this place with all its differences from California.

Enjoy your day, whatever it might bring.

Chris

All the Pieces Come Together Sometimes

Have you ever felt that your life was composed of many, many different little parts, some of those pieces meshing and coordinating with others, but most of them seemingly unconnected with anything else? I always wondered why I had so many interests and talents but couldn't seem to hang onto a job for more than a couple of years. No, I've never been fired or let go; I quit because I got too bored after learning the ropes and becoming good at the work. I've always wondered how some people could hang in there for twenty or thirty years, then retire with a good pension while I had absolutely no interest or desire to do that.

I skipped from place to place to place, picking up so many little experiences that my "official" resume could be four pages long. I interspersed those jobs with returns to various colleges to get three degrees: a Bachelors in Business Administration, an Associates in Computers, and a Masters in Ministry. As an early baby boomer woman, raised on the cusp between the 1950s and the 1970s, I had that option; up to several years ago, I never had to support myself as two husbands, one after the other, did that for me. While never rich or well-off, we got along pretty well.

But, things change, as they usually have a tendency to do, and for various reasons, most of them caused by me, I found myself without husband, without job, without health insurance, without any kind of pension or retirement benefit, and still too young and healthy to collect anything from the government. So, it looked like the hopping around needed to stop for a while.

But, still I resisted, and have survived for the past few years on a divorce settlement just large enough to pay the bills but nothing else. At age 60, I began noticing it was getting harder and harder to get jobs. I won't go so far as to call it ageism. No, I think prospective employers looked at my dense resume and wondered why I hadn't stuck with anything very long. I wondered that myself--until recently, when the parts started meshing together.

As an RV nomad, living "on the road," I've been able to combine my skills in sewing and quilting with my training as a chaplain and minister; my years of experience cooking and running a household with my interest and training in computers. Put it all together and it spells a well-rounded (in more ways than one, I'm afraid) individual who can work as a waitress, a housekeeper, a public relations coordinator, a front-desk clerk, a facilities manager, a mystery shopper, a pianist, an informal chaplain and minister, and a quilter and seamstress. I no longer have to sit behind a desk eight hours a day doing the same boring work. It requires a little bit of hustle, a willingness to talk to everyone, a sense of adventure, and an ability to see possibilities in every situation and conversation. Best of all, I'm now able to travel from place to place, staying for a season or several months, getting my RV site and hookups provided as well as a salary, seeing parts of this country I've never seen before, meeting so many wonderful people it's almost impossible to keep track of everyone sometimes.

It's called workamping and it has finally helped me get my life in some kind of order. Yes, I still skip around from job to job, place to place. But, now it's expected and welcomed.


And so the pieces have come together, finally, just like all the little individual pieces of this king-sized quilt I recently made for the San Diego Astronomy Association's annual fund-raising auction in February.

Some of My Favorite Places

One of the wonderful things about being a nomad is the chance to not only see beautiful places like these, but to be able to spend lots of time in them.


Wildflowers in Anza Borrego Desert, California,
after a winter of record rainfall.

Mud Caves in Canyon Sin Nombre, Anza Borrego
Desert (picture from Lou Jackson)

Sunrise with contrails at Mountain Palm Springs,
Anza Borrego Desert

Sunset with ocotillo, Mountain Palm Springs,
Anza Borrego Desert

Calf Creek Falls, Southern Utah

Little Matterhorn from Josephine Creek Lodge,
Trinity Alps, Northern California

Josephine Lake in the Trinity Alps, Northern California

By Way of Introduction. . .

Wow! My first blog. Sometimes I'm just a little slow to try new things.'

How about some kind of an introduction? One of my favorite quotes, given to me by a very good friend, is "Leap and the net will appear." I leaped and the net did, in fact, appear, but in a way I could never have foreseen.

Two years ago I got very tired of paying what I thought was an exorbitant amount to rent an apartment in San Diego, California. Rents weren't going to come down soon, so I took that leap, bought a small 23-foot motor home and Blue Ox towbar, traded in my Nissan Sentra on a Ford Ranger Pickup with shell, sold and/or gave away almost everything I had, and became a nomad. Sometimes I look back and wonder what in the world possessed me! Was I crazy? Was I getting a little senile in my 60's? I, who have changed a tire once in my life, whose idea of mechanics is cutting out a sewing pattern, was now the owner of not one, but two vehicles. Those vehicles, between them, have a total of twelve wheels and tires, if you count the spares. Those vehicles both need to be fed, changed, watered, registered, licensed, washed, mended, and driven. Even better, together they need to carry everything I own. Yep, looking back I was probably, definitely, most likely crazy, loco, senile--name your favorite word.

Yet, why do I feel so free? Here I am, an almost 62-year-old divorced woman, mother of three, grandmother of one, living a life on the road with no job, no significant other, no mechanical expertise, lots of bills...you name it. I can hear the voices in my head: "In my day, women just didn't do things like that." Or, "You just need another man to take care of you." Or, "Don't you get scared traveling all by yourself?"

Okay, I struggled for quite a while in learning this new life but now, almost two years later, wonder why I didn't do it long ago. For many years I wanted to simplify my life. And now I have--and it's given me a freedom I could never have imagined.

I loved being married, raising three kids, gardening, taking care of houses, cooking, sewing, and "settling down" for fairly long periods of time. But now the marriage is over, the kids are grown, and indeed, I have finally grown. I now work when and where I like for as long as I like. I now have an additional source of steady income, besides a limited divorce settlement: Uncle Sam has finally stepped in with widow's benefits from my first husband that I never knew were available. And I feel rich--able to pay off bills, give gifts, buy health insurance, and not have to worry so much about money (or lack of).

Stay tuned for a little look back over the past two years, at some of the highlights of this journey. And, I'll also include some recent stuff and maybe just some thoughts once in a while. This blogging is new to me, so please be patient--and come back.