Monday Jan 23rd

'Monday, Monday... " - just remembering an old song by the Mama's and The Papa's,a 1970's California group. Gosh, where did all those years go?

Visited my youngest son today, we'd hoped to sit outside and enjoy some sun, but the cool weather persists, and as he is still fighting a cold,we stayed inside and had lunch and a lovely visit. He'd watched the Seahawks beat the Jaguars on saturday (as had we)so was jazzed about that (maybe our Hawks will go the distance this year!), we discussed books we are reading (he, the life of Alexander the Great & me, Greg Iles 'Sleep No More', a much lighter read) exchanging comments and critiques, talked about his "girl" (I love how his eyes lite up when he speaks of her), and caught up on family gossip. It was good to see him, good to spend some time together. The time flew by.

The drive from our little town, set out here in the low desert hills amidst the oil wells, to the coast is very picturesque, especially in the spring (this was taken last May)when all is so green and EVERYTHING is flowering. The picture of the mtns/yellow flowers was taken about half way there, the other picture as we were within 15 minutes of the freeway heading north to Pismo Beach or south to Santa Barbara.

January 22, 2006
Its actually been a mite chilly in these parts of late! Woke up to frost on the pumpkin, well would you believe palm tree? friday morning! Luckily by noon it warms up to a more comfortable 50+ degrees. I keep telling myself to enjoy this while it lasts...to remember July, August and September! Think my body temp goes up just recalling those hot summer days! When we first arrived in this area we were greeted by all these silent soldiers, busy working nonstop, bringing up the black gold we are now going to war over.

Our garage had never looked so huge! Rod is wondering where all his stuff went! It was a sad, oh so sad day, leaving the "home" we had known for 30 odd years. The home we had raised our family in, the home we had remodeled year after year after year to accommodate our growing family (2 boys who grew to 6'5" by their junior year!). I know I shall never feel the same way about a house again, so many memories. I hope the new owners, whoever they may be (we are still in the process of selling) find much happiness here. I really miss my ponds, especially since moving to desert climes! A lot of love and elbow grease on HOT summer days went into those ponds, but it was so worth it!

January 8, 2006

My friend Shannon is off to Africa and because of her blogsite I decided first to sign on, just to be able to respond to her postings then took it a step further and set up my own blog. Seems like an ideal place to post news and pictures without having to send numerous attachments to numerous emails! So I hope some of you will enjoy what you see (and read) here.
My husband and I moved to sunny, southern Cal back in April from Wa State. What a lifestyle change it has been, in many ways! But by and large we do enjoy the area, the Central Valley has much to offer and it is “central” indeed to both the coastal and desert regions of California so there is much to explore.

Winter here is mild, I miss the northwest snows, but not the cold that is necessary to have snow! But we will return to our WA mountain cabin for getaways as often as we can, and I have to admit this year-round sunshine is not hard to adjust to!
The upper picture was taken near Ridgecrest, in the Mojave desert area, a close up of a Joshua Tree. The second picture was taken shortly after our arrival to Taft, the shoe imprints in the ashphalt that we noticed as we crossed the street were our first "clues" that this area was to get very HOT come summer! And we were soon treated to average temps in the low 100's from July through September.

Many more pictures to come, from what we have seen and experienced to date, and what we have yet to see. Check back now and then!