Napping

Sundays are wonderful days to take a nap.

And today, a nap was especially needed as my body adjusts to

Usually it takes about a week for my body to adjust to the time change.

Someone told me today that the changing of the time is really not good for our bodies.

It makes sense to me.

But, after about a week, I'll adjust, and my rhythms will be put right again.

That doesn't mean I won't look forward to my next Sunday afternoon nap.

Another reason I like naps are the dreams.  I always tend to have vivid, weird dreams when I nap.

And I can usually remember them, too.

Well, off to bed, to see if I can get to sleep since I did nap today.

Oh, I know sleep will take over eventually.

How Is Your Book Coming Along?

I often run into people throughout the week who ask me this question.

How is your book coming?

That is because I made a rather public display when I left my job as a reporter at our local newspaper by writing in my farewell column that I was leaving my job to work on writing a book.

So I spent the next year researching and working on writing the first of three historical fiction books about the Silver Valley.

I gathered some people together and met with them on a monthly basis, and I would read to them what I had written.

I also had a friend who let me use her "Sparrow's Nest" house up Burke Canyon outside of Wallace, Idaho as my writing space.

I got a lot done that year.

I worked on and off on my book.  One summer I even spent a weekend in author Frank Peretti's loft above his garage to continue working on my book.  That was the summer of 2008.

Then things stopped.  I started writing, directing and acting in productions at our local community theater.  My attention was diverted to other creative projects.

But I wanted 2014 to be different, and I wanted to be reunited with the characters from my book, and the story, and start working on it again.

And this is happening with the help of my three Aprils.

Yes, I have three wonderful friends named April, and I spent some time with each of them today.

Most of my day today was spent at April #1's house with some of my wonderful high school friends.  We have started a monthly group called "Creative Masterminds".  We have assignments each month and write and explore ourselves and our creativity and share these with one another.  We spent five hours today enjoying each other's company, enjoying the wonderful food everyone brought, and sharing very personal things to a group of women who we have known the majority of our lives, and who are safe and are willing to take time to come and listen and share with one another.  This group has also kindled my passion for writing again through self-reflection writings, and writing these daily blog posts.  And I know the time spent with these women with help encourage me to get back to writing my book once again.

Last night, I ran into April #2.  She asked me if I would stop by her house this afternoon to let her dog out, because she was going to Spokane with a friend, and would be gone most of the day.  Later her and her dog showed up at my house with a nice bouquet of flowers to say thank you.  April #2 was part of my "Canyon Creek Creatives" group when we met up Burke Canyon, and she would encourage me in the writing of my book.  We would often meet for breakfast or lunch, and she would share with me her book ideas, and her sketches.  April #2 is a dreamer.  She is a one of a kind friend, and reconnecting with her today felt very serendipitous. 

This evening I spent over an hour talking on the phone with April #3.  We briefly saw one another last weekend when I traveled but didn't have a chance to really visit with one another.  So we made a "date" to talk to one another on the phone tonight.  It was great catching up.  April #3 started writing a book around the time I started writing mine.  But she has actually submitted material to publishers.  Again, talking to her sparks my creativity and desire to get back to working on my book.  And it made me realize we need to spend more time talking about our various projects on a more regular basis.  We have already started looking for a date in the not to distant future to spend a weekend together.

Today reminds me of a song I used to sing in youth group at church when I was young...
It only takes a spark, to get a fire going, and soon all those around, can warm up in its' glowing...

That is what happened to me today.  Spending time with my "Aprils" and my other friends created a glow from all the sparks I encountered.  And instead of moving on with other projects, other busyness, other things, I need to fan this creative flame, and center my energy on writing my book.

Thank you to my three wonderful Aprils (plus all the other women that were with us at April #1's house today!!)

T.V.

The first T.V. I remembered in our home was a small black and white one.

Then we went to color.

Most of the T.V. watching I remember growing up was in color.

Many of my fondest memories have to do with television shows I watched growing up.

Here are some of my memories:

1.  Saturday Night Live--I remember watching the original season that began in the fall of 1975.  I was 12 years old, and a 7th grader at Kellogg Junior High School.  It is amazing that next year, in 2015, that SNL will have been on for 40 years.

2.  Sesame Street began in 1969, and I remember watching it almost from the beginning, with Bert and Ernie, Oscar the Grouch and Mr. Hooper.  I loved watching Sesame Street, and loved watching it again once I had children.

3.  Happy Days was a fun show that took you back to the "50's"......and made The Fonz a household name.

4.  M*A*S*H* was such a great show.  I had no idea what the Korean Conflict was all about, but it didn't matter, because the characters in this show and the writing were so well done.  It started in 1972, and I still remember watching the final episode in the "Smoker" (or T.V. Room) at the Tri-Delt house at the University of Idaho, with many of us unable to hold the tears back.

5.  With the passing of "The Professor" recently, I remember Gilligan's Island and all the funny things that happened to them on that desert isle.

6.  The Brady Bunch....the blended family that lived in the modern suburban home with their housekeeper Alice.  I loved that show.

7.  Who can turn the world on with her smile?.....Mary Tyler Moore, of course.  I think it was on either Friday or Saturday night, because I watched it almost every week.  And I enjoyed the spin-offs as well, "Rhoda" and "Phyllis".

8.  The Carol Burnett Show....probably one of the reasons I enjoy acting on stage to this day.  So funny...so clever.  I loved that is was live, and that sometimes things just got so funny they couldn't stop laughing.  And who can ever forget..."Went With The Wind"?

9.  Welcome Back, Kotter....Gabe Kaplan played such a great teacher in the inner city of New York with the Sweathogs, and our first real look at John Travolta, as Vinnie Barbarino.

10.  All in the Family.....This was quite a cutting edge show, and I lived with Archie Bunker....my dad was Archie Bunker.  Dad sat in a white tshirt, had a beer, and had his own chair.  Dad called my boyfriend in high school "Meathead".  What a great show....as well as the spin offs, "The Jeffersons" and "Maude".

11.  Columbo....one of my favorite detective shows.  I still remember him finding a small feather on the floor, and it helped him solve the crime!!

12.  Good Night John Boy....Good Night Sue Ellen....Oh I loved "The Waltons".  It was a show that made you feel good.

13.  Dallas....the burning questions my senior year in high school was...."Who shot J.R.?"

14.  Bewitched....who didn't want to crinkle their nose and have wonderful things happen?  Or bring your arms together and bob your head, and be like Jeannie in "I Dream of Jeannie"?

15.  I remember coming home from Sunnyside School in first or second grade, and getting home in time to watch "Dark Shadow".  No wonder I had nightmares and was scared of the dark as a child.  I still remember the floating hand.

16.  The Love Boat......such a fun show that brought famous televisions stars together in funny situations.   Later, we got to visit "Fantasy Island" in much the same way.

17.  The Bob Newhart Show.....like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I watched this sitcom every week.  Great characters!

18.  "Charlie's Angels".  What junior high girl didn't want to be an "Angel"?  You of course, always had to pick one.  I never wanted to be Farah....I like Jacqueline Smith the best.

19.  "Laverne and Shirley"....again a show that took us back to the 50's.  Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams were perfect in those roles.

20.  "The Odd Couple".  Again, another show I watched weekly.  One of the highlights of the summer of 1974 when Expo was in Spokane, was seeing the play "The Odd Couple" with Jack Klugman and Tony Randal playing the roles of Oscar and Felix.  We saw the performance in the newly built "Opera House", which is now knows at the IMB Performing Arts Center.

21.  Starsky and Hutch.....So cute...but I think I liked Paul Michael Glaser the most!!

22.  The Muppet Show....a variety show with Muppets.  How could you go wrong?  A very clever show and well written.  A highlight of my junior high and high schools years.

23.   The Partridge Family....who wouldn't want to go on the road with your singing family in a multi-colored bus...especially if David Cassidy was coming along?  I own many Partridge Family albums, and various other Partridge Family memorabilia.  And I can probably sing you almost every song of there by heart.

24.  The Six Million Dollar Man...followed by The Bionic Woman.  Who didn't want to be The Bionic Woman, Jamie Somers?

25.  Baretta.  I wanted to marry Robert Blake and help him solve crimes with his fun Cockatoo, Fred.

Bring back any memories??

Cancer

Tonight Paul and I went to see the play "W;t" at the Lake City Playhouse in Coeur d'Alene with our friends Linda and Wyatt. 

W;t is a one act play written by Margaret Edson, and it won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  The action of the play takes place during the final hours of Dr. Vivian Bearing, a university professor of English, dying of ovarian cancer. She recalls the initial diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic ovarian cancer from her oncologist, Dr. Harvey Kelekian. Dr. Kelekian then proposes an experimental chemotherapeutic treatment regimen consisting of eight rounds at full dosage. Vivian agrees to the treatment.

It is rare I get the chance to see a drama on stage, and like when I can take advantage of this type of play.  Tonight did not disappoint.  It was well written, and the actress who played the part of Dr. Bearing was excellent.  If at some point in a production tears run down my face, I know I have been touches by what is happening on stage.

As I was watching the action on the stage, I was also transported back to 1996, the year my father was diagnosed with cancer. Dad was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of May of that year, and they told him he had about a month to live.  A month later he died.

I was living in Meridian at the time, so I drove up to Kellogg with the three girls, who were 5, 22 months and 8 months at the time.  We took over the top floor at Mom and Dad's house.  My last two weeks with my dad were spent going up the river to a favorite bar, watching his friends come and visit, Mary McKenzie making delicious spaghetti and garlic bread with real cloves of garlic on the bread, and watching Dad change as soon as they started giving him morphine. 

And besides Dad being in his last days, Paul's grandpa, Paul Taylor, who also lived in Kellogg, was also in his final days.  It was a hard time so say the least.  After we laid Grandpa Taylor to rest in the middle of May, the girls and I drove back to Meridian.  And I waited to get the call to tell me that my dad had died.

Even though I was expecting the call, when my sister called with news, it was still very hard.  But with the cancer taking over his body, it was a blessing that Dad gave in that night that he died, as he let the angels carry him home.

It is not pleasant to see cancer take over someone's life.  So many of my friends have either dealt with their parents having cancer, their parent dying from cancer, or their parent is battling cancer right now.  We are changed by this ravenous force that takes over the ones we love.

Often our loved ones live through being touched by cancer.  Mom is an example.  My mom had breast cancer in 2000, and has been cancer free ever since.  But that doesn't lessen the impact on her life, and the life of our family.  Our wounds were still a bit raw after losing Dad in 1996, then all of a sudden Mom has cancer four years later.  But we all survived.

The thing that moved me the most in this play tonight was when this woman's former professor came and visited her in the hospital, and held her, and read a child's book to her, and showed her comfort.  Because this brilliant professor had no one in her life that ever visited her in the hospital.  Her parents were both dead, she had no siblings, and no friends came to visit.  She was alone.

And if Dad's death showed me one thing, it was the importance of having the people you love around you at your time of death.  Dad had his family. His friends came regularly to visit.  People brought food.  They sent cards.  That is important.  As we near the end, it is not a time to push people away, but to embrace them, and let them comfort us, and bring to us all their love.

A Native Idahoan

My Idaho roots go way back.

My grandparents on my mother's side were born in Idaho.

My dad was born in Idaho.

I was born in Idaho.

Noah Kellogg discovered the Bunker Hill Mining Company in the 1885.  My dad was born in the shadow of the Bunker Hill Mining Company in 1930....only 45 years after Noah made the discovery.  Kellogg/Wardner/Wallace/Osburn etc.,....this was a young area.

My mom was born in Idaho. 

I was born in Idaho in 1963.

I love my Idaho heritage.  I love that Idaho is one of the "youngest" states in the country, and that the Silver Valley, where I live, was one of the last areas of Idaho to be "discovered".

I'm glad I am a native Idahoan.

Computer Coding

I was having the KHS ninth graders do some computer coding in class last week, and it got me to thinking about my experience with computers.

(By the way, if you are interested in playing with Computer Coding, go to www.scratch.mit.edu)

My first exposure to computers was in high school.  The really smart guys who took Mr. Austin got to play around on the computers, which consisted of a TV monitor and a cassette tape.

During my senior year in high school, my mom started the gifted and talented program in the Kellogg School District.  The summer after my senior year, she brought home a TV Monitor, a book and a cassette tape.  She had a computer system, such as it was, that she wanted me to play around on to see how it worked.

I remember programming the computer to make a line, and maybe making the line hit something (think pong).  It was quite a tedious process.

As I started college at the University of Idaho, one of the graduation requirements I had to fulfill was take a computer course.  Nothing like taking a Basic computer programming class that had no application whatsoever to my life.  (By my senior year, they actually had PC labs that taught things like Word Processing and Spreadsheet).

My senior year of college, one girl in my sorority had a personal computer that she used in the house.

Also my senior year, Paul, his sister Laurie and I had a class called Professional Presentation Techniques.  We had to pick a company and do several presentations based on this company.  We chose Hewlett-Packard, and one of the presentations was on a new computer they had designed that was so light, you could carry it in your briefcase.  This was in 1985.  HP designed one of the first laptop computers.

When I started my first job as the Director of Admissions at Dawson Community College in 1985, the computer system we were using was not programmed to do some of the things we wanted it to do for admissions.  So I had to learn how to program the computer system to perform some of the tasks in the Admission's Office.  There was a lot of trial and error, but we eventually got it to do some things, especially when it came to mailings.

I purchased my first computer in 1986.  It was a IMB PS-20.  It looked something like this:

(I actually still have this computer.  I just haven't been able to part with it.)

Into the 90's, our computers started having a dial up modem where we could connect to something news called the Internet.  What a change that was in our lives. 

They we went "wireless".  We didn't have to plug in our computers anymore.

And now I have a small Smart Phone that fits in my pocket, and I can check my email, Facebook and Twitter, all with the touch of a button.  And take a photo while doing it!!

Technology had taken us a long ways since my college days.  I enjoy the advances in technology, and wonder when it is going to end, or what the next big change will be.

What Is Wrong With Me?

February has been an interesting month.

There were some very strange things that happened, that makes myself ask the question, "What is wrong with me?"

Some of the incidents have had to do with forgetting things...major things.

I mean, one time, yes, I can handle that.  Two times even....but in a 2-3 week period, I forgot some major things.

And I made a big mistake at work that I think is going to turn out okay, but it was totally out of character for me to do something like this.

It is kind of scary.  I kind of joke about the fact that maybe this is what happens when you turn 50.

But I don't think that is it.

I find myself writing down things....double checking....making sure I haven't forgotten anything.

My stomach has been churning.  I don't like my stomach to churn.  It is not a fun feeling.

I have lost sleep over some of this.  I have dreamed about it.

I need to let it go.  I need to realize sometimes we make mistakes.  I need to carry on, and realize that screw ups are inevitable in life, and how we handle them is what counts.

Okay.  Breathe in.....breathe out.   Breathe in....breathe out.

Change.  Adapt.  Write more lists.  Check the calendar.  Double check the calendar.  These aren't that hard to do, if that is what I need. 

But when people count on you to do certain things...you don't want to forget.