Indiana Spring

We took a drive out in the country the other day. I never tire of the changing seasons of Indiana. In the midst of several posts on books, I thought I'd share with you a couple things I snapped. I need to get out more and take more pictures!


An Amish buggy. It's really jarring in a time warp kind of way to sees these buggies parked a Wal-Mart. Maybe if I'd grown up here it would be different.



A newly planted cornfield. It reminds me of perfect rows of embroidery.

April in Indiana

I keep thinking of the song, "April in Paris" but I have a feeling they weren't thinking about snow.

I also am reminded of a line from The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (one of my favorite books to read at the beach, btw. Love the irony) where Ma says, "April showers bring May flowers but what will an April blizzard bring?" Not exactly a blizzard here (but true once again for the poor folks in the Dakotas) but some sloppy snow.

Here's what an April snowstorm in Indiana looks like. Apparently there's more to come tonight. Yuck! It's making our trip to SoCal in a few weeks look better and better!





My poor bulbs! I wonder if they'll recover.

Wordless Wednesday

Lovin' me some fall color! I wonder if I appreciate it more because it's so short lived? But the vivid colors do grab your attention!

More Fall Pics

Can you believe we're supposed to get snow tonight through Tuesday? It'll be up to the lower 50s by later this week so it won't stick, but still the very idea of it... Last year it was positively warm at Halloween. I wonder if this means it's going to be a long, cold winter. I hope not!

So here are a few more fall pics before I replace them with winter ones.



This is a field of pumpkins off the highway. They look like giant flowers from this distance.



This is on my drive to work. I call it the dead zone because if I'm on the phone, it goes dead through here. Still, it's really pretty.

These next two are from a storm I watched brewing on the drive home. It was pretty entertaining. The one thing Indiana and Arizona have in common is really cool storms and flat enough land that you can watch the storms from a long way off.





The bad thing about posting pics on a blog is that I have to reduce the size and quality so they fit and so they don't take forever to load. Which means they just don't look nearly as good as they do on my computer nice and big. Ah well.

Enjoy your fall!

We're not in Arizona anymore, Charlie!

We had our first brush with a tornado Wednesday night. Two of them touched down 25 miles southeast of here. We had severe winds and rain, and the tornado alarms went off. From a little after 9 to almost midnight we had 50-60 mph winds, gusting up to 80 or 90 mph with heavy rain and a lot of lightning.

Michelle put up her own map and pics of the destruction. I agree with her assessment of how close it came to our houses based on the damage.



When the tornado sirens went off I was on the computer and the kids had just gone to bed. Now, remember, my only experience with tornadoes comes from watching Twister. I haven't even seen Wizard of Oz. Yeah, yeah, I know. So I go to the weather sites and see the tornado warning and the weather service advisory for
high winds, large hail, flooding.

Then the power went out. I managed to bang my knee pretty good on a chair in the dark. Rain was coming in the windows where I have the AC units. So I had to cover things up with towels. Then I remembered I should probably light some candles. Though the lightning was coming so fast and furious I felt like I was at a disco. Finally got the candle lighter to light. Then got the kids settled in the bathroom with pillows and blankets. I left them a candle on the sink and found the flashlight.



My main concern was that with all the trees around us we were going to end up with branches through the windows and the only place without windows was the bathroom and hallway. I closed all the bedroom doors, dumped my purse and computer bag in the bathtub with a couple bottles of water and dragged the dog and his cage into the hallway with me. He was panting, and continued to do so for the next three hours. I thought he was going to hyperventilate. About midnight the wind and lightning stopped so we all crawled into my bed. It was hot and sticky without the AC and way too quiet.

The main problem was the lack of information. With no TV or Internet, I had no idea what was going on outside. The next day I bought a radio with a weather station.

We were without power for 8 hours (better than the nearly 24 Michelle suffered). Schools were closed, thus the second day of school never happened. I also was without cell service for some time last night. Roads were shut down all around as the crews tried to cut up and remove trees that had fallen across the road.

My first thought this morning after a generally sleepless night was, where am I going to get coffee? Considering power was out in a 50-mile swath, that was going to be no easy feat. Luckily the power came back on just as I got up so I could pretend to be somewhat human.

I've had some other adventures in the past ten days that I haven't blogged about, but I'll get caught up soon.

Wordless Wednesday

Summer Storm Over Indiana

Route 66 in Reverse

Hey, I made it to Indiana safely with kids, animals, and stuff mostly intact. Three 17-hour days in a moving truck with Michelle, a 75-pound black Lab, and a 16-year-old cat. No Internet service yet. I'm at the library using theirs. So, this is a short post.

I found it interesting that we basically did Route 66 backwards. Or at least backwards according to the song. I have pictures to post later when I figure out where my camera dock is.

I'll post more when I can.

The Big Announcement

I’ve never been much of one for following the crowd. In fact, I rather like swimming upstream. So since a lot of people move to Arizona from the Midwest, I decided to move from Arizona to the Midwest. Besides, last year at the ACFW conference in Dallas, Dave Long of Bethany House Publishers called me a cream puff for never having lived anywhere it snowed. Well, I couldn’t take a challenge like that laying down. So, we’re off to Indiana. Take that, Dave.


(Okay, yeah, I know there's not snow there right now, but I didn't take any more pictures last time I was there when everything was green. The first one is a deer track in the snow.)

Things I’ll miss about Arizona:

The water out of the tap is hot. Probably 95 or so. The pipes get really hot in the summer. And the toilet water is hot. You can lift the lid and have condensation. Kind of like giving your rear end a facial.

Not many mountains in Indiana

Amazing and dramatic views.

Dust devils the size of small tornadoes

Warm (okay, blow-dryer hot) afternoon winds.

Warm nights

Monsoon season with amazing thunderstorms.

Colorful Mediterranean plants


Things I’m looking forward to:

Seasons. I’ve heard rumors there are four but I’ve only seen two.

Snow. Not sure how I’ll survive. But I’ve never seen a real snowflake. That should be fun.

Greenery.

And plants like peonies and lilacs and bulbs. Stuff that doesn’t grow anywhere I lived.

Things that are the same:

Lots of two lane roads through corn fields.

Trains blocking those two lane roads

Bright, starry skies.

Here's where you come in.

The name of this blog is Sonoran Saga. Um, guess that's not going to work anymore. So I'm up for suggestions. I also need to change the little description box up at the top. Right now, the only thing I've come up with is Jen at Work and putting 'Caution:...." in the little description box. But I need more stuff to choose from. So, give me your ideas and if I pick yours you can come over to my house and help me pack. Wait, that doesn't sound like much of an incentive. Um, okay, how about this? I'm getting rid of a bunch of books, so I'll give some of those away.

Long Time No Post

Sorry I've been letting my blog get dusty. I was trying to get my entry done for the Genesis contest of ACFW.

Also, our dog, Charlie, had surgery on his ear and has a conehead now. I should post some pictures of him.

And I got my Mac almost fully restored. I was so happy to get my pictures back, especially the ones from our trip to Chicago and Indiana.

I particularly liked this picture I took of leaves frozen in Michelle's pond.

Finally, when I converted my blog to the new Blogger version, it lost one of my RSS feeds. The one with the most subscribers. So, if you were one of them, you'll need to resubscribe to the other feed.

I'll try to be a better blogger, but no promises.

Day Eight and Nine

UPDATE: This was supposed to post Sunday. However, my Mac died. I think it's the hard drive. I ran some diagnostic tests and tried to repair it myself today to no avail. Luckily it's still under warranty and I have automatic backups. Unluckily, I'm without my pacifier and going through withdrawals. I'm having to try to access everything from the PC at home, which is where this post is coming from. I'll let you know more after I talk to Apple tomorrow.

***

Since I was done with writing for a while, I spent Friday updating my blog. Blogger forced me to a new template so I had some difficulty figuring out how to get it back to the customization I had done before. Then I added a few things. So that took a big chunk of time.

Then I decided to get a MySpace page. With Michelle walking me through it I was able to get it up pretty quickly.

On Saturday, we had been invited to a theatre fundraiser by Michelle’s friend, Kim. Kim sells clothes, jewelry, and makeup and has a great eye for putting outfits together. Since the event was formal, she dressed and bedecked Michelle and I with jewelry. She even lent Mich her mink coat.

On the way to the theatre we drove by a field filled with deer. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t seen deer since I was at Yosemite. Well, there was a dead one on the road to Kokomo that someone had hit, but that doesn’t really count.

The evening began with silent auction. Michelle had put together a basket of books donated by ACFW authors. It ended up brining in $105. Then we had a really nice dinner and watched a shortened version of Guys and Dolls.


Because it was such a late evening, we were hungry again on the drive home, so I requested a stop at White Castle. I’ve had frozen White Castle burgers from Costco but never the real thing. In fact, until I saw Wayne’s World, I never knew it was an actual place. So we go tromping inside in our formal dresses and Mich’s mink to eat at White Castle. Kim shared her White Castle experiences from college. We went back to Kim’s house to return the clothes and jewelry then drove another back to Mich’s house where we arrived at 2:30 AM. It was a great night.

Our flight leaves tomorrow at 8 AM so we have to be up EARLY! It’s been a great trip and we can’t wait to come back and visit again. The only thing the kids missed was actually seeing the snow falling.

Day Three and Four

Since Michelle doesn’t have enough money to buy me off and there’s nothing that I want to blackmail her for, the story of our trip to Chicago will end with the beginning.

Let me just say this. I like to plan. If I’m going some place new I like maps and schedules and all the information I can get. I actually had all that stuff for Chicago, but I left it at the house because I trusted Michelle. That was my first mistake. Kidding! But really, I was just having a good time and not really paying attention where we needed to be and when. I figured Mich would keep track of all of that. However, Mich only got three hours of sleep the night before.

We got off the train at 9 PM. There are two cars in the parking lot, neither of which were Michelle’s. We got off at the wrong stop. One stop PAST our stop. And no trains going back that direction.

So it’s dark. And there’s nothing around but a small gas station. Luckily, it has a mini-mart inside where we got something to drink and a place to wait outside.

We could walk 4 miles in the dark on a two-lane road to the station where our car was at, with three tired kids. Or call a cab. Or call Phil but he’d take at least an hour to get to us.

Luckily, Mich has a friend who lives about 20 minutes from the station. She came and took us to the station. Mich was able to talk to the lady at the mini-mart and get directions. She also told us that people get off at this stop by mistake all the time. So Mich’s friend came and got us, took us to our car and then we had another hour drive home. But we talked writing and stuff, like we have been all weekend while the kids slept.

So, back to the beginning. I forgot to mention that yesterday, even though it was upper 40s, Mich and I sat outside on her porch and wrote. With my heavy coat, my warm laptop, and a blanket on my legs, I was pretty cozy. Of course our being outside was necessitated by Calvin’s attempt to walk on their not-totally-frozen-solid pond.

Today we went to Chicago (okay, it’s yesterday now). I’ve never been. Then again, I’ve never been anywhere. We took the train in, which was also a new experience, and hit the Starbucks in the train station. Mich and I were critiquing some Misfit stuff on the train.

When then took the bus (going the wrong way at first) to Navy Pier where we spent the day at the Children’s Museum.












We also walked the length of the pier and visited the stained glass museum. Apparently at the turn of the century (19th to 20th) Chicago was quite the place for art glass. We saw some beautiful examples.

It was pretty comfortable temp wise. It was drizzling in the morning, but soon turned sunny with a light breeze. I wasn’t cold once.

Mich and I are also teaching our children our rule breaking tendency. They were doing an elevated net/rope course when two of them turned and started coming back. We waved at them to continue on when we heard a chorus of “we’re not allowed!” Huh? We’d sent them through the exit.

Later on the way home we were trying to find the train station. We found the El stations and the bus stops, but we couldn’t find the entrance to the train station. Turns out we walked past it three times, once going a couple of blocks out of our way. I think we were talking. Then we proceeded down the stairs, en masse, on the wrong side. Irritating hurried commuters, I’m sure.

Actually, everyone we met was really nice to us. We were hurrying to make our train, after another stop at the bathroom and Starbucks, only to find every car was full we were going to have to sit apart. Several people changed seats so we were each able to sit with our kids. We found out that even though we got on the train at 7:10 PM, this was actually the 6:08 train. It finally left at 7:30. Because it was running so late, we got to ride for free. Let’s just say I was glad to have my venti chai latte. Especially given what came later.

More tomorrow after we’ve recovered.

Day Two

When we got in the car yesterday Sissy asked, “What station is this? What kind of music is this?” Yes, Mich is making me listen to country music. I don’t think my kids have ever heard it.

The kids got to play in what was left of the snow today. They had fun tossing it at each other. Calvin tried his hand at reverse snow-shoveling. He was tossing it from the yard onto the porch. He also thought shoes were optional.

We went walking in the woods. The Pendergrasses have 15 acres. Calvin came home with the bone of some animal. He was quite thrilled.

Mich and I also spent time brainstorming and editing our stories for the Relief/FiF contest. I think we’ve made some progress.

More tomorrow . . .