Blog Dare ~ Road Trips

I realized, somewhat belatedly, that starting a new blog challenge during my work week(end), may not have been the best idea I've ever had.  I wasn't able to post yesterday for the March 5th prompt, which was "What I  never leave behind on a road trip" so I want to do that one today.

The actual prompt for today is about Pinterest, but I have to be honest, I never really got caught in the craze.  I made an account and pinned a few things to see what all the fuss was about, but it just never caught on with me.

So, a day late, here is my post about road trips.

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Road trips, of every imaginable variety, have always been part of my life.  My great-aunt that I lived with until I was 12 was forever going on trips, rides, vacations, etc.  My parents loved the mountains and we were always taking rides and vacations every year (and we always traveled by car).

As an adult myself, I've made going for road trips a part of my life, as well as my daughter's.  I wanted to share the beauty of the world with her, and I did.

One thing that has been ever-present on my road trips was a cooler.  Always packed with drinks for the trip, but often it was also packed with sandwiches and snacks.  Many impromptu picnics have happened next to a lazy stream, a roaring waterfall, or a look-out on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

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One of my favorite memories of my little family from when my daughter was about 7 or 8 was a summer day in my old pick-up truck, just the 3 of us out exploring the world with our trusty cooler packed in the floorboard of the space-cab.  It was loaded down with soft drinks, juice, ham sandwiches, fruit, and a box of Little Debbie cakes.  We headed for the mountains and ended up on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  After about half an hour, I saw a breath-taking view and a pull-off.

We sat on the tailgate of the truck and enjoyed the view while Mini-Me looked through the viewer set up to take quarters.  I pulled the blanket and cooler out of the truck and we had a picnic, in the bed of the truck, with one of the most spectacular views in the world.  Had I not packed that cooler to take with us, we never would have had that memory.

One final thing that has always been a major part of our road trips was music.  A good radio station with a strong signal, (cassette tapes back in the day), CD's, a good playlist, whatever floats your boat, but music is crucial on a road trip.  I've cruised many a road to the beat of Green Day, Third Eye Blind, Alanis Morsette and many more favorites.  The three of us singing at the tops of our lungs as we boogied our way through our rides made the day that much more enjoyable!

What do you consider a must-have for a road trip?  Leave me a comment, or go link up with Blog Dare!

Working it out

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I've been a busy bee today with Wow being down.

I created a Blog Frog Community page, a Facebook Fan Page, set up an RSS feed, made buttons and did some moving around.  I'm really starting to like the way my blog looks.

I know all the awesome bloggers out there say that you shouldn't have a dark colored blog, but I like it, it suits me and my personality, and I think that's all that really matters!

I also had a busy day yesterday.  No, the taxes haven't come in yet (I wish!), but I did go to the Orientation class I've been talking about with the local Humane Society.

Last night's orientation was basically a "pick your part" kind of deal.  They had different groups for people that wanted to go to nursing homes and take puppies in to visit the residents, people to work the clinic, people to work in the kitty room and the puppy room (and more I can't remember) and then they had the dog walkers.

Dog walking is the group Man-Hide and I signed up for.  Why?  Well, it's actually more involved than you would think.

We will be attending a 4 week class in April to learn about dog training, coached by a very experienced professional behavioral trainer.  We will be working with adult dogs, which just don't get as much attention, or as many prospective adopters, as puppies and kittens.

Adult dogs that do get adopted, are often returned for behavioral issues because most of them have never known much companionship or been exposed to much beyond the end of a chain.

As Dog Walkers, we will be not only walking the dogs, but working with them on their behavior, such as not jumping on people, calmly exiting the kennel, sitting and staying, and taking the time to just sit and relax with them and allow them to relax.

Originally, I was thinking I might like to work with the puppies (and I'm thinking about giving an extra day to the clinic since I want to be a vet tech anyway), but now that I have signed on for the Dog Walkers, I'm really glad I did.  That's what Man-Hide seemed to be the most interested in and to start with, I wanted it to be a "together" kind of deal anyway.

I feel like working with the adult dogs, we are truly giving something to them.  Allowing them to see that there are good people out there that care about what happens to them.

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I did get to have one of my warm and fuzzy moments last night.  When we first got there, there was an American Pit Bull mix in one of the kennels.  He was beautiful, but you could tell looking at him that he was stressed out and unhappy.  We spent a few minutes there with him before orientation started.

We went out at the end of orientation to the kennel area where he was to get a demonstration from the lady in charge of the Dog Walking volunteers on some of the basic behavior stuff, just enough to get us started until our 4 week class in April (we'll start volunteering in March) and I saw a big sign on his kennel that said "ADOPTED" in big red letters.  I was so happy for him!  Bull dogs in general have such a bad wrap and they often don't get adopted from shelters.  Many of them live out the remainder of their lives there until they become sick or so stressed out that their behavior no longer qualifies them for adoption, so I was thrilled to see this beautiful guy get a home and I even got to watch him walk out with his new owner to go to his furever home.

The hard part was that while we were waiting, we also saw owners come in to surrender their dogs.  That's going to be the part that makes my heart break, but at least I know that we will be there to give them some love while they wait for their furever home.

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A quick update on Mom.  They got the liver biopsy results back and the spots on her liver are benign.  Looks like the cancer is confined to her colon and whatever is going on with her blood.  She has hopes of getting to come home Friday sometime, and I truly hope she does.  She has been missed.  She will still need to get an appointment to have the cancer removed from her colon and she will have to undergo chemo after that, but at least there is progress.

Love, light and happiness...until next time.

Why Blogger, Why Now?

Today is Tuesday, and in the land of World of Warcraft, that translates to "Patch Day".  Some Tuesdays, all the servers are down.  Today is one such day.

What's a girl to do on Patch Day?  Mess with her blog, of course.

So, I go in to my Wordpress blog and start trying to accomplish some of the things I haven't gotten around to while Mom's been in the hospital and I notice that I don't have all the options I remember having on my old Wordpress blog.  This confuses me, so I do what any girl would do and I start Google-ing.  Apparently, the free blogs have a good many limits on what you can do or add to your blog unless you know a lot of html code, which I don't.  So, here I am on Blogger after a morning of frustration.

I almost went to Blogger when I first came back to blogging, but decided to go ahead to Wordpress because of the options I thought I would have there.  Now, I wish I had.

I suppose it's as long as it wide right now since I haven't been able to do much blogging since Mom when in the hospital.  Better to get it done now than to wait until I built a following again.

So, this is just a little explanation post.  Stay tuned for my ACTUAL Valentine's Day post!

Love, light and happiness...until next time!