The Great Thing About Not Posting Much

The great thing about not posting much at all this whole year is that now, when I most need blog topics, there are so many things I didn't post about! And I can post about them now!

So, for example, this was a stellar year for lupine blooms in the Bald Hills. The Bald Hills are gorgeous open mountain sides in the southernish part of Redwood National and State Parks. Some springs, they are dotted by lupines. This year, they were carpeted in them:

 That bit of red is me, for scale. So dense. So lovely. (The flowers, not me.)

 Our little imp almost blends in.

The Braces

Day 2 of NaBloPoMo features a photo I wanted to post about a month ago, when Darcy first got her braces on! Our girl has been so tough through the whole process. Her orthodontist commented on it after he installed (?) her braces and she has adapted to the metal in her mouth amazingly well.

Apparently, the only person traumatized by her braces is me. Having never had orthodontics, I don't understand them and they look like they should hurt. Michael and Darcy hardly give them a second thought these days except for brushing time. 

According to Michael, the reason I couldn't post this earlier is that iPhone 6 broke his iPhone 4S. Ever since the new release, his photo stream hasn't been working properly, so photos aren't getting transferred from his phone to our computer. It's annoying, but a very first world problem. We had to do this the old new-fashioned way: Michael emailed me the photo from his phone. Or is that the new old-fashioned way?

Either way, it's NaBloPoMo, so rejoice!

I'm A Bad Blogger

Apparently, trying to write two blogs daily is too much. I totally cheated and pre-blogged for Growing Tables so I didn't have to write over the weekend. But having done that, I justified not touching a computer for 48 hours.

We spent a good weekend running errands, walking on the beach, and seeing our friend's musical performed on the big, Crescent City stage. Now we're winding down the weekend and mentally preparing to move from our temporary lodgings to our house in a couple weeks. 

Many apologies for the missing blog posts and pictures that might have gone with them. I'll make it up somehow.

A Cheat

I am amazingly uninspired to blog today. We had a good day. We scootered around a closed camp ground -- one of the many exciting things Del Norte has to offer on beautiful fall days. We saw stumps covered in puffballs, climbing banana slugs, and many other wondrous things. Unfortunately, all of the images of wonder are still hanging out on Michael's phone.

So for your enjoyment, I present the other blog I'm writing for daily this month. Because I am a masochist.

Our Girl!

It's a rainy day out there this morning and I thought I'd get my blogging done for the day before even getting out of bed. I have no idea how I'm going to entertain the girl today and I'm sad because my rain coat is out in the car, which is not helpful.

A few weeks ago was California Indian Day. Darcy had it off from school, but the day before, they had a great day learning about Yurok and Tolowa traditions. The newspaper gave it some nice coverage, including a great picture of Darcy on the front page. It was how a few people learned we were back in town! 

As I said last night, Michael's getting closer and closer with himself and access to cameras and such. Maybe tomorrow, definitely early Monday! So you won't have to make do with links to interesting things for much longer.

Oh, Why Not?

So I was not planning to do NaBloPoMo this year. I was toying with the possibility of trying to write a novel or even doing the academic version of writing every day for a month, which apparently now exists. But both of those things seem to require more preparation and thought than I've given them, while blogging can be done a bit more on the fly.

This is my lame entry for the first day, just so there's something here.

Michael is currently driving across this beautiful country so he, too, can rejoin the ranks of the westerners. I will have more time AND access to photographs when he gets here, so I'll try to post lots of pictures of our ever-growing girl.

In the meantime, here's some of what I've been doing recently:

We had a great four days of Food Day celebrations last week, ending with this day of DIY Food Workshops, which were a big hit. You can read about the bigger plans and see the great coverage our local newspaper gave us here and here. The first article started on the front page and the second was the front page, above the fold of the B section. It was a whirlwind to put this together in the first seven and a half weeks on the job, but we did it and did it successfully!

So. About That Blogging Daily Business...

Bed number 16 is quite comfy and has a beautiful view in the morning:

It has its own bridge that leads from where we can park to the house:

And it has more beautiful views from the dining table. The first day, Darcy and I watched an osprey flying around while we ate lunch:

This view includes my car (on the left) and the bridge (on the right). And of course, the stream. I think we figured out what the stream is, but I've forgotten again. 

What our house does not have, most unfortunately, is internet service. It's supposed to and it has a wireless modem that flashes its seductive lights at us around the clock, but there is a password required for access and nobody seems to be able to tell us what that is.

Although it's hard to be completely sad that I have to come to the lovely Patisserie Fauchere for internet, there have to be some limits on how many of their pastries I consume for the sake of using their free wi-fi. This morning, I tried to be restrained and had one of their homemade English muffins. A revelation of crispness! But I can't pretend that I can still blog every day when I am constantly seeking internet connections. The patisserie isn't open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, for instance.

I'll blog when I can and enjoy the views of bed number 16 while we search for bed number 17, which will hopefully be our own!

Almost Forgot!

Yikes! Here I was, about to turn off the light and go to sleep when I realized I hadn't blogged yet today. Can I blame not enough sleep last night? Or Michael being off hiking in the Trinity Alps? Or the fact that we have a dog visiting for a few days?

All of those things are happening. Darcy and I went to the Arcata Saturday market this morning and hit a few highlights of Humboldt for one of the last times. She got a hair cut in preparation for class picture day this coming week. Michael headed out this morning for three days of hiking, while Lola moved into our house for four nights. It's all good.

Here's a picture of Darcy from late spring/early summer in Ashland, OR. She had just figured out how to hang by her knees a little before this trip, so she wanted to show it off a lot. Her hair seemed so long then, but now she has enough for pig-tails and other "fancy" hair styles. Once again, today, I had to struggle to answer questions about how I wanted her hair cut. One of the benefits of being back in the Northeast will be not having to answer them any more. Duane will just decide. Right, Duane? I'm counting on you, not just for Darcy, but for me. I don't want to decide any more.

The Hidden Blog

I might be cheating slightly today. It's not much of a cheat because I have written a long, complicated, well-illustrated blog post. Just not here.

Some very few of you know that I used to have an active food blog. It's been about two years since I wrote anything at all on my food blog, but yesterday, I was inspired to do so. A friend of mine here in Crescent City is participating (and helped plan) Ferment Del Norte's Local Food Challenge. For most of October, he is trying to eat only foods that are grown in our region. This is a challenge that requires a lot of forbidden foods, since there are so many foods that simply do not grow here. 

The one ingredient that is not produced and sold here that I could not give up is salt.

We were discussing this yesterday morning and I asked why you couldn't just make your own. We do live right next to a rather large bath tub filled with salt water, after all. So I promised him I would make him some salt. If you want to read the story of how three random gallons of the Pacific Ocean became beautiful bowls of salt, you can check out part one and part two on my food blog, Isolated Foodie. I have never cross-posted from one blog to the other before, and even my own mother claims that she didn't know I had a food blog, because I did it for me, not for an audience. Although I did start using my first name on the blog, I use pseudonyms for the places we've lived and the two blogs are on different accounts. In other words, if you'd like to comment over there, please don't say, "Hey, Angela GLORE, I didn't know you could make salt in CRESCENT CITY. Glad I read about it on GLORES AROUND THE PARKS." Otherwise, enjoy!

Life. It's Busy.

I know that we're not the only people who are busy, so it might not be the best excuse for not blogging in over two months, but a) it's the only excuse I've got and b) we are busier than we usually are.

One thing that's keeping us busier than usual is the addition of Willy Wonka to our lives. Michael rehearses four nights a week. Up until a couple of weeks ago, rehearsals were a manageable 7 to 9pm. But then they started stretching until 10 and this week, with the first performances coming up on Thursday, they'll be starting at 6:30 and going at least until 10, probably later. All in all, it's a good thing to be busy with, but it puts a rush on our evenings. Darcy occasionally goes to see part of the rehearsal. You can see her creeping up closer and closer to the stage on the right. She started out sitting on the bottom step and miraculously ended up sitting on the stage She is fascinated. Hopefully, she is fascinated enough to sit through the whole musical on Friday night!


Another new addition to our lives is Girl Scouting. I have become a Girl Scout leader so that Darcy can be a Daisy Scout. Her troop is eight girls strong and they are cookie-selling entrepreneurs these days. More on this another time.


Even with these extras, we are still finding time to enjoy our corner of the world whenever we can. Today found us sliding/monster-jumping/running down an inland sand dune after walking through ankle-deep mud and streams. On the way back, we just walked straight through a temporary (?) arm of a lake to avoid the worst of the mud. It was shallow enough to be sun-warmed and even tempted Darcy off Michael's shoulders and into the water. Michael and Darcy also spent part of a day going to see a couple of recent shipwrecks, documented in this vivid photo:

I can still remember buying that rain jacket. Even though we've been here almost two and a half years now, Darcy is still wearing a raincoat we bought for her before we left the Cima desert. It wasn't super-cheap, but it's lined, and therefore somewhat warmer than the average raincoast, and after debating about it, we decided to spend the money to get her the right gear for our soon-to-be home. It's still going strong and it looks so great in this picture, that whatever we spent on it back then, we've gotten our money's worth.

The End Of Another NaBloPoMo

Ah, sweet, sweet November 30th. Last year, you may recall that I had a clever way to end NaBloPoMo. This year, I'm not sure that I can be that clever again. And I still have no photos, so I'm breaking the promise to include at least one more before the end of this whole month of blogging.

The best inspiration I can find for tonight comes in two parts from my friend Karla. She revealed today that instead of doing NaBloPoMo, she participated in the much more serious NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month, the goal of which is to pen 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. She hit 50,700 this afternoon, so she won! Many congrats to Karla. I considered doing it last year and maybe this will give me the courage to try next year.

The nice thing about NaBloPoMo is that after the last post on November 30th, it's over. It's a complete cycle. I think there's slightly less of that with NaNoWriMo because it's unlikely that participants have penned a fully realized novel, so there's still work to be done, even if you're allowed to set it aside for months at a time instead of mere hours.

Karla posted a link today as well. It was to an NPR story about tiny paper sculptures that have appeared around Edinburgh over the past year. They are truly exquisitely made and as mysterious as they are lovely. NPR provides a link to a more comprehensive version of the story, with many, many more photos of all ten of the sculptures. There's a point to pointing you towards these stories beyond the fact that the artistry and sentiments embodied by these paper sculptures are worth looking at on their own.

When the last sculpture was left, anonymously as they all had been, there was also a longer note. It was written cryptically, but the first stanza (?) read:

"It's important that a story is not too long...does not become tedious....
"You need to know when to end a story," she thought.

Some of you might think it would be great if I kept blogging Every Day, but it would get tedious. Our lives are interesting, but not that interesting!

Apparently, I Need To Get Cranky More Often

That's the lesson I'm taking from my previous post. I threatened crankiness and I got comments! Keep 'em coming, because otherwise I'm left to seek out pageview stats for positive reinforcement -- in other words, more comments = more frequent posts after NaBloPoMo is done. There aren't enough comments in the world that will make November posts more frequent than they already are. Just so you know.

I actually had to go look at the date stamp on my last post because I had a sudden panic that I'd skipped a day. This is a way of saying that today has been a Very Long Day. Tomorrow is our girl's birthday. She will be five. She has told this to everyone she has seen today. Some of them have heard it multiple times. There might be a little excitement over this event.

 The Before Picture

Just about exactly five years ago right now (adjusting for the time difference) we were packing up our stuff at the birthing center after my midwife decided that we needed to move to the hospital. My job was to stay in labor indoors until Michael and my M-I-L Betty had moved everything to the car and gotten it warmed up. It was Anchorage in mid-November and it was below zero heading to 30 below for Darcy's birth.


I had recently gotten my diploma for my PhD completed several months earlier, and on the way out to the car, Betty asked Michael, "When we get to the hospital, will they call her doctor?" He stared at her blankly. He asked her why on earth they would do that. People were tired. There was some misunderstanding. It was cold. And I had been having regular contractions for about 15 hours at this point. Michael got very frustrated trying to figure out why his mother thought the hospital knew or cared that I had just finished my doctorate and why they would be that formal anyway. And Betty, although she has never said so in the many recollections of this story, probably thought her son was being kinda bone-headed for not realizing that she was inquired about an OB. As it happens, my midwives all had full privileges at the hospital, so there was no doctor involved. It's one of their favorite stories about the day before Darcy was born.


Mine might be that my midwife spent quite a lot of time teaching Betty the joys of sodoku after learning that she had never tried them. After checking in with me at our temporary housing, she went home to feed her family breakfast and returned with several books of sodoku. I wasn't all that important after that.


Check in tomorrow for The After Picture.

A New Look In Honor Of NaBloPoMo!

Yes, in honor of the glories of NaBloMoPo, I decided to give our blog an update. It was feeling a little stale. I hope you like it! Feel free to tell me whether you like it or not by clicking on the comments at the bottom of the post. I'm starting to get cranky when a post has had 75 pageviews (like my embar...um, flattering of Michael did) and no comments! I allow anonymous comments! There's no excuse!

Just so you get a nice picture as well as the nice new blog look, here's a picture of Darcy that was taken as part of a photo shoot by one of our great local newspaper photographers. A local non-profit was building a set of generic photos of local kids, teens, residents, etc., to use in their publications instead of truly generic photos. Darcy was in need of a haircut. Or at least a combing. We are terrible parents.

GO!

Well, it's that time of year again! The time when I drive myself crazy by coming up with a blog post Every Single Day In November. The time when you flock to my blog by the tens to check for the newest post. The time when I catch up with all kinds of stuff I should have posted months ago. Yes, it's NaBloPoMo: National Blog Posting Month! I will provide a link in the next few days, but it's quite a confusing time for NaBloPoMo as they've just officially switched from an independent site to BlogHer.

But enough of that. I signed up for the torture all by myself, so I'll live through it. I did last year, anyway. Here's a cute picture of Darcy-as-fairy for Halloween. She is fueling up on quesadilla and cucumbers before hitting the candy and the trick or treating:

Stay tuned for more scenes for our life in and around the National Parks all month long!

Coming Soon To These Pages: Emotional De-Cluttering

If I announce it, I will do it. Right? Isn't that the theory behind setting a date for a major life change, like stopping smoking? [I don't smoke and haven't ever smoked -- it's just an example.]

So I am announcing my grand, illustrated plans to get rid of some stuff that I have strong emotional attachments to. I feel like I've been working on getting rid of stuff for a long time. We have too much of it. We don't need it. I don't want to keep hauling it around, figuring out where to store it, and making sure it doesn't get "ruined". I'm culling books yet again. I'm going to start going through boxes from the garage one at a time and making real decisions about why I have all that stuff and what I'm going to do with it.

And I'm starting with some big-deal (to me) things: my ridiculously-large collection of reusable shopping bags and a few key pieces of clothing that I just have not been able to bring myself to part with. My solution? You, my dear readers (read: friends and family who put up with my ramblings in order to get your fix of cute Darcy pictures), will be treated to photos of my bags and clothes, with brief histories of why I'm having so much trouble parting with them. I will then get rid of them, leaving a permanent(ish) legacy of words and images. I'm only sorry that I didn't think of this in time to post pictures of my three Ashokan staff sweatshirts from the late 80s and early 90s. I got rid of those a couple months ago, so you'll have to picture them in your minds: three forest green sweatshirts with the bottom, wrist, and neck "cuffs" cut off. White letters and logos for the Ashokan Field Campus, and the years of my repeated service.

I know...you're sorry I didn't think of this in time for them, too. Admit it.

Closing Ceremonies

Ah, NaBloPoMo, it's been lovely. My family and friends thank you (from the bottom of their hearts?) for inspiring a month of posts after a summer of drought. I thank you for making me figure out that I don't have to get fancy with pictures -- nobody seems to care if I just resize them and post as is. (And maybe if I'm lucky, I'll win one of the prizes and then I'll thank you for that!)

For my farewell post of the month I'm leaving you with some pictures of our glorious Sunday. It was sunny. Not exactly warm, but not cold. We caught the low tide and walked over to the lighthouse and found that it was actually open! So we took the tour (and rekindled my desire to be a lighthouse keeper, which I think I might have mentioned in Sunday's post). They don't let you take pictures in the house (a pity, 'cause it's very cute and snug and cozy), but here's a taste of the Del Norte coast on a sunny winter's day:

Darcy marched herself right across the causeway and then up to the top of the island.

Darcy measuring bull kelp.

Now, as Darcy says to seagulls whenever she meets them...

Shoo! Shoo! There will be no post here tomorrow! Shoo!

Aaarrghh! Does November Never End???

Ok. It's not that I don't like digging through our photo archives for cute pictures of Darcy that you've never seen before. I do. I promise that I really love doing that for you. And I know that really, I've just barely made up for a summer of seriously limited blogging. But won't this month ever end?

I finish my part of putting Darcy to bed and I think it's time to relax, but no! I have to blog! I have to find some pictures or think of a story to tell you or beg forgiveness for a lame post.

I'm ready for NaBloPoMo to be over!!

Luckily, it will be over in just a few more days. Enjoy the daily posts while you still got 'em!

Is This Cheating?

I don't really have energy to come up with a blog post tonight. I forgot to do this earlier and now I'm a little more than half asleep. Not good.

Darcy ended up choosing to be a very brightly colored rainbow from head to toe for her preschool pictures today, but decided against the fairy wings at the last minute. It will be interesting to see how they turn out. I'm sure one will show up here.

And that's really all I've got. I'll try to do something fun and exciting and illustrated tomorrow.

Day One: Where Did It Go??

As previously mentioned, I have decided to participate in National Blog Posting Month, requiring me to blog every day during the month of November. It has not been an auspicious start being that it's almost nine o'clock and I just now remembered that I need to blog today!

I spent more time than I like to admit trying desperately to make travel plans to Washington that make any sense at all. I gave up. They will not make sense. I will drive to Medford at 3 in the morning on the way there. I will change hotels on the last day of the training so that I don't have to take the Metro to the airport at 5 in the morning on the way back. Now I just have to hope for a cancellation at the training hotel so I can actually have somewhere to sleep that doesn't require a commute.

On the other hand, I also got to talk to my community about a project Michael and I have been a part of for a few months. Preschool and childcare options around here are limited in both quantity and quality. Darcy loves her preschool now, but there are parts of it that don't work for us. We've been working with a group of parents to start a new preschool (that should open in early 2011) and two of us described at a public meeting how this came to be -- in other words, how this community of parents became organized to actually solve a problem we see in our daily lives. It was part of an evening of celebrating "early wins" in something called the Building Healthy Communities initiative. The future Little School of the Redwoods is considered a win!!

And that's my blog post for today. Most of the other 29 -- with any luck -- will include what you really come here for: pictures of Darcy Jo.

Hold On To Your Hats!

The deluge will soon begin. I have (perhaps foolishly) signed up for NaBloPoMo, otherwise known as National Blog Posting Month. It started as a tie-in to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I was briefly considering participating in NaNoWriMo, but decided that November was busy enough without contemplating writing 50,000 words of fiction! And since I learned last night that I'm headed to Washington for the second half of this week, I'm glad I made that decision.

I figured I could handle NaBlogPoMo a little easier than the novel, so you can look forward to new blog posts EVERY DAY in November. I'll do a little catching up of our lives in the beautiful redwoods.

We spent part of today in the redwoods, as it happens. I'll save some details for November (see how I'm already thinking ahead?), but the park opened its first new trail in a decade this morning with a dedication ceremony near the plaque commemoring Lady Bird Johnson's dedication of Redwood National Park and a ribbon cutting at the trail head. We didn't join the inaugural hike because Michael was a shuttle driver, taking folks back to their cars if they weren't hiking either.

Wish me luck and check back every day in November for exciting new blog posts!