Great First Night in House in storm

    You don't expect that your first night in the house you just got the deed for would maybe, no longer be there. I was a little worried about
that. Our first night in the house was in a great storm!
    Why, oh why, must we have this hurricane-tornadolike weather? The lights were blinking as the husband was using the electric pump to blow up our mattress -- yes, we were "camping out" in the house -- and I worried the lights flickering meant we were stressing out the circuits.
    We went out the front door and he said "Auntie Em!" It looked like a tornado might be close by, the branches of our small trees out front were literally being 'wrenched' back and forth. I felt sorry for the trees. I would feel even sorrier if something fell on the house we just bought.
    But the lights and everything electric had gone out now. This, our first night in the house! There was hardly anything in the house as we still had flooring to be put in and we were there, specifically, to take adavanage of the great electricity from the heat pump that was cooling ALL the rooms, something our rented house did not have. And all of a sudden, poof, it was gone, no electric, no escape from the high 90s outside. Or was it maybe a tiny bit lower?
     It probably was not that low outside, temperaturewise, as this was a weird storm. Dark and gloomy clouds, very high winds and no rain, to speak of. The  newspaper gave it a Spanish name, techerecho, or something like that! It is mostly a wind storm, and at the end of our block it caused a mature maple to almost split in two, and bring down a wire to the home in back of it (luckily, not ours). Even if we do have insurance, I would like the house to stay in one piece!
    By this time it was getting "really dark" in and out of the house,so Fran ran across to the neighbors and asked for a flashlight. The wind was still whipping things around and I wasn't brave enought to go out there with him. He brought back some of those white 'storm' candles and a lighter, dumped our almonds into some aluminum foil, and created a holder for the candles by lighting them and dripping the melted wax into the bottom of the tin. Then he set them in it and there they stood! Not bad for a former boy scout!
    You never think about hurricanelike weather this far inland in June. We did get the air mattress inflated before the lights went out, and opened our "one" window with a screen so we could get some breeze from outside. But at 11 pm or so a neighbor must  have been bored in the dark and started playing the drums, in a neighborhood with no electricity at all! It was difficult to get to sleep.
    I hear people in the bigger cities like Roanoke still may not have their power  -- ours came back on in the middle of the night. I went to bed early but the drummer and cars driving by and hitting the house with headlights were no help!
    Our second night was better. I guess it would have to be.

Optimism with new house of one's own

     When you get, obtain, purchase (whatever you call it) a house of one's own it is a big deal. You can put holes in the wall wherever you want. You can keep the lights on all night (though you wouldn't since "you" are paying all the bills now!), you can landscape and decorate however you want. You have a "place to stay". 
     We have lived for years in substandard student housing. It was very "close" to where we work, but it was in the midst of student partying and we older folks didn't quite fit in. Will we fit in in this new neighborhood of families and such? Sure hope so. We want to fit in somewhere and get to know our neighbors -- I think we will have things in common. Having a place of one's own is a responsibility, but also fun. It is something to feel upbeat about!

Pursuing Writing Seems healthy, can be frustrating

     It seems the writing life (and by that, I mean striving to be a writer and learn more about it) agrees with me. I will be moving soon and I have a plethora of notebooks, hopefully with intelligent, helping writing material in them or ideas for writing articles and books. My oldest son has reminded me he will one day toss my magazines I save. But will he save my very own notebooks, especially the ones with some humor? Humor is good for your health and sometimes the writing life too.
    So I "helped" my writing life by going to a writer's club meeting at a fancy new library to learn about the publishing business. It is interesting that our speaker,  Kathleen Delaney, had lived out in CA. and written about the wine industry there. Wines -- made from grapes grown in a certain soil, picked at a certain time, fermenting for a certain length of time. It's very much an outdoor occupation, an interesting kind of work. And they say some wine is good for you, although, as a breast cancer survivor I'm not "supposed" to drink alcohol -- don't know if it's the sugar content (did you know cancer "loves" sugar) or the alchohol. Sugar all around is not too healthy an option, although a Dr. Wright says xylitol may actually prevent tooth decay (and is used in some gums).
    Anyway, guest speaker Delaney has some unique cozy mysteries out -- one is out by Poisoned Pen Press: And Murder for Dessert. She pointed out that she took adult extension courses to learn how to deal with things like structure, form and creating relationships in her writing. I think a lot of people just interested in memoirs could do something like that.
    Our meeting was at the "Tah Mahal"  of libraries  -- the new "Southside Library" in Roanoke, VA -- wow, with its big Marquee out front, like a half mile from this "edifice," and tribute to reading. There was a huge parking lot with a spacious downstairs. And besides book shelves there was an auditorium where they were showing a movie, and snack bar nearby (what? in a library, what is this, Barnes and Noble). And upstairs a private reading room with a fireplace (what is this, somebody's house) and with a big paperback book section too. The reference rep sais it only cost  around $15 million. Your tax dollars at work. And man, did they work! I need to come back sometime, for dinner and a movie! Ah, and also books, maybe books on writing.

Working the computer can be stressful

     I thought for a while I didn't have my  "antivirus" gizmo working. I am not the most computer savvy and  and was worried I could get a virus and ruin the computer and what was saved to it. Then, I bought a version and it didn't do squat. So I went to "find" it on the computer, opened it, put in what I thought was the "license" info and it seemed to activate. Then I restated the computer and it said it had no antivirus protection! In state of stress I contacted the company and in the meantime it seemed to straighten itself out now "I think" it's working! Phew.

Did some walking yesterday

     Here I am, lollygagging when I should be working on my writing. I tried to follow a member blogger's advice on how to do a caption and I guess things have changed and you can't do that anymore. I want to put a caption below this picture of the mountains and yet, there is no "draft" function that allows me to insert a caption. Anyway, these are mountains in Virginia and I walked, for health and to help my Master Naturalist organization, at a place in the Jefferson National Forest called Glen Alton. It is a farm in the middle of nowhere in the woods! Very scenic, with some interesting paths and wetlands too.

Virginia mountains

"FOOD Inc", "Planeat", Being vegetarian

    It  has been a busy semester. I have had an extra class and we have looked at the theme of food. How interesting could "that" be, you might ask?
   Food today in the US, perhaps in other Western countries as well, is mostly mass produced, on a scale, I and my class learned, that is really not so healthy. We read part of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and  saw part of the movie Food, Inc. Both about mass production of food in America. So, putting food on an assembly line is not so bad, right? Well, the assembly line doesn't help, but before the food hits the assembly line, the way it is produced is, well, not so healthy. We feed cows and chickens grain that is mostly likely genetically modified, and put antibiotics and growth hormone in there so the beef and chicken grow big and fast. In Food, Inc. a woman farmer showed how the chickens were "so heavy"  for their frames that they could only walk a few steps and then sat down. And they were always inside and didn't see the sun or grass. Is this natural? (Should we care?)
    If we don't care about the animals we should care about the end product -- food that is very manipulated, at least where meat is concerned. Vegetables conventionally mass produced have a lot of immune system compromising pesticides on them. Organic vegetables are better. Organically raised meat "can" be better (depending on what USDA laws are followed). But my students saw our mass produced food is not all that healthy.
  And a fellow teacher showed the film Planeat  and it provided info on studies following vegetarian protein (nuts, beans, lentils), unlike animal protein, will not increase heart disease or cancerous tumors. Vegetarianism can prevent tumor growth! Wow, what an idea, enough to make me a full fledged vegan! 
    But I do like meat. I don't need steak but I need to eat some meat. But I am going to try for some vegan days (no milk either) each week. That will be a challenge. Hey, if studies show vegetable protein is healthier, then why not?