I am still dreaming of developing my BookLady YouTube channel, though I haven't added to it in months. What am I waiting for?
Last year I had a goal of creating 100 videos but I created only about fifty... and currently there are only 47 videos on the channel. I may have deleted a few. So I didn't achieve my goal and that is always a downer.
I was hampered by lack of a good video editor. When I ordered my new computer a few months ago, I had a video editor installed before Dell shipped it to me. My new video editor is lightweight - I've got Adobe Premiere Elements 13 - there are other much better (and much more expensive) video editors such as Adobe Premiere Pro CC - but what I've got is a good place to start and will be more stable and trustworthy than some of the free video software programs I endured last year.
Today I looked at my BookLady YouTube channel and found that some of the videos with the most views are my book reviews! I didn't make many of them last year because I thought they would bore people, but apparently the opposite is true. Fewer people looked at my walking and biking videos. Live and learn! I will make more book review videos in the future since they are so popular.
Here's some startling bad news. Geologists say soil samples show the Cascadia region, the Pacific Northwest, gets regular massive earthquakes and tsunamis every 243 years. And the last one was on January 26, 1700. This means we're 72 years overdue.
Oregon coast. Photo from Pixabay.
This was revealed last month, July 2015, in a lengthy but well-written article published in the New Yorker magazine: The Really Big One.
Why didn't we know this already?
The West Coast of the USA hasn't been settled by Americans of European descent all that long. When the last cataclysm occurred in the Pacific Northwest, only Native Americans were there. Their stories about this event have been collected, including a story about an entire tribe living on Vancouver Island, BC, disappearing into a wave.
It isn't just Canada involved, however. The problem of colliding tectonic plates runs from Mendocino, California, up the coast into Canada. If tension needs to be released, the entire coastline could be jolted, then flooded and destroyed.
I love the coast, the beaches, the surf - just as much as anyone. I've spent a lot of time there. But with this information, I'm thinking that inland destinations are better.
It is sad that we might stay away from the ocean due to an event that might not even take place in our lifetimes, but we've seen the devastation that took place in Thailand and Japan. The threat of oceanic inundation is real, and if it happens, inescapable.
If you're living on the coast and are jolted awake by a large earthquake, you will have ten to thirty minutes to get to higher ground. Ten minutes isn't long, so consider sleeping fully clothed. If you have to run, then run for your life. Stopping for any reason will decrease your chance of survival.
I've been a Bigfoot blogger for ten years now. Go ahead and laugh if you want to. It is weird how these things happen.
There's always been curiosity about the big elusive creature. Does anyone forget the first time they saw the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot video?
When my 2 youngest children were about ages 6 through 10 we took a lot of "home school field trips" and several times were in Trinity County, CA - to visit Weaverville, the Joss House, the museum there, and the area around Clair Engle Lake, aka. Trinity Lake. As we approached Trinity Center, CA - there was a Bigfoot statue, and I was immediately drawn to it. "This is what I've been looking for," my heart told me. "They're here."
Ever since I first heard about the town of Happy Camp, I wanted to be there. Happy Camp, CA is a very remote small town in the center of the Klamath National Forest in Northern California. On January 11, 2000 I moved into a cabin-like house there, surrounded by the forest. The house was just outside of the town, in a semi-secluded area. There were other houses nearby.
The town of Happy Camp is full of Bigfoot statues now, but when I moved there, the only Bigfoot statue was the one in front of the post office.
There were also "Bigfoot footprints" painted on the sidewalk in front of the liquor store, and many of the businesses in the town were named after Bigfoot. There was the Bigfoot Trailer Park, Bigfoot Towing, and the Bigfoot Car Wash. That was in 2000 - several years before JavaBob opened his restaurant, JavaBob's Bigfoot Deli. Now that is closed but there's a place called the Bigfoot Store that has a deli in it, across the street from where JavaBob's restaurant was.
Brandon Tennant of Idaho, and JavaBob Schmalzback in JavaBob's Bigfoot Deli late in 2005, in Happy Camp, CA. At the time we met Brandon Tennant, he was doing research while organizing a Bigfoot conference held in Pocatello, Idaho in 2006.
I was always curious about Bigfoot, and wondered why so few of the Happy Camp local old-timers had anything to say about it. They acted like it was a joke, but they loved the annual Bigfoot Jamboree, a three day annual festival over Labor Day weekend.
By 2005 JavaBob was president of the Chamber of Commerce and I worked in a small office across the street from his deli. The chamber needed a focus for marketing Happy Camp and chose to market it as an artist's retreat town. I told JavaBob that we already had a theme in the town - and it was (and still is) Bigfoot.
Anyhow, I got serious about wanting to find the truth about Bigfoot. I wanted to know why this town claimed a theme of Bigfoot but then denied any knowledge of Bigfoot sightings in the area. So I bought the domain name for my blog, Bigfoot Sightings, and started doing research.
I've never seen one, but many credible people have, and I know they're real. I collected no less than five Bigfoot sighting reports about sightings that happened within a mile of the cabin I lived in, there in Happy Camp.
When I moved to Idaho in 2013 I wanted to be able to continue Bigfoot research in the forests around where I live, in Northern Idaho. I live in Post Falls, which is on a prairie. No Bigfoot here! And I have no car anymore... so I can't do field research. But I do intend to continue working on my blog, which has been silent for many months now. I spent this morning "cleaning it up" - ie: making format improvements - and reading the amazing comments people leave there about their Bigfoot sightings.
I do believe I'll be blogging more there, soon. It is time for me to compile the rest of what I know about Bigfoot sightings in the Klamath River Valley.
...
I said yesterday that I might write more about Keith today, but I'm just not ready. Maybe soon, but not today.
I am challenging myself to a daily blogging goal – to add to this blog daily for as long as I can keep it up. Just small notes will do, or political rants, or notes from my morning Bible study. Anything will do. Photographs welcome.
So, that said, let's start with photos!
I took this photo with my new Dell Venue 8 tablet, and it is very grainy sorry to say... my camera takes much better photographs.
This prayer plant lives in the corner of my living room here in Idaho. It was a gift given to me on the day of my baptism: July 4, 2014... a gift from a dear Christian friend who has helped me quite a lot since I moved to Idaho in July 2013. I see her almost every week at the women's Bible study we have here in my living room, currently, every Wednesday.
This photo of my orange spice tea was taken with my camera/camcorder, which is a Sanyo Xacti. You can see how much better this photo is. This is also the camera I've been using to make videos.
I heard from my former boyfriend, Keith, yesterday. I was glad he called because I hadn't heard from him in three months... and that was unusual as he usually called every month. He said he gave his phone away to a woman who needed it more than he did. (!) That is just like him, so I wasn't surprised. He is a homeless Christian drifter. Well, if I tell you this story it will be a long post. I might write about him next time.
My daily blogging goal is inspired by Barbara Radisavljevic's daily blog about Paso Robles.
1. In March 2013 Bob's instability and indecisiveness helped me reach a breaking point for my residency in Happy Camp and for the relationship. I became 100% determined to move and leave him, to the point that my emotions died. I truly felt emotionally flat and desperate to change my situation there.
2. I decided to move to Idaho, and proceeded to downsize. Bob wanted to go with me. I threw away bag after bag of needless things, gave things away, gave most of my books to the library book sale, gave writing books to the Chamber of Commerce, sold what was left of my furniture including my grandmother's bedroom set which I really didn't want to sell... but I realized the need to sell my furniture so I could move more easily. [It turned out to be a good idea.]
3. The day before my move to Idaho, Bob annoyed me for the last time by threatening to burn down the house with me in it, and I told him I never wanted to see him again. He finally (!) agreed to remove all his possessions from the U-Haul truck we were loading, and the house, and he vanished into my memory. I missed him for a while, but no longer do. I'm happy he's no longer part of my life. He is a narcissist and I needed peace of mind . . . and indeed, I do have peace of mind now.
4. I gave my car to Bob before he vanished. I gave my van to my son... neither were working well enough that I wanted responsibility for them anymore. I decided that I wanted to be car-less so I'd be forced to get more exercise - walking and cycling.
5. I drove myself to Idaho, but not before I nearly died from heat exhaustion while cleaning out the house I vacated.
6. I found a nice apartment in Post Falls, Idaho only hours before I would have been forced to live in a homeless shelter.
7. Two weeks later I walked into a church for the first time in many years, and gave my life and heart to Jesus.
8. I attended a lot of church services and Bible studies, and made new friends. All my closest friends here in Idaho are Christians.
10. I was baptized on July 4, 2014. Freedom in Christ.
11. I trained myself to ride a bicycle and took a 37-mile bike journey on October 4, 2014. I rode on the North Idaho Centennial Trail from the Washington state line to the end of the trail on the eastern edge of Lake Coeur d'Alene.
12. Now I'm in the process of moving again, to another apartment in Post Falls. I'm leaving a ground floor apartment to live in a third floor apartment. . . and I'm very happy about that.
I'm back to the Newbery Challenge! Almost twenty years ago I decided to read all the Newbery books, and now I'm inspired to get going on that again. So far I've read 42 out of 89 books, so I'm not even half-way there, and that's just the Newbery Medal WINNERS. I haven't counted the honor books and how many of them I've read. One of these days, I will. When I feel like I have more time on my hands, I guess.
I was inspired to read more of the Newbery books because I'm updating my Newbery pages online, starting with my page for the 1920's. My next job will be to do the page for the 60's, starting today. The reason why is that the 60's page is getting a lot more traffic than the other pages, so the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
I also started a blog for recording my impressions of the books I'm reading. I'll also be reviewing indie and small press books for teens and children. Yay!! I have a thing for children's literature!
I'm starting with the first Newbery book: The Story of Mankind ... it is a history book! In subsequent years fiction took over as the most common type of book honored by the Newbery Medal, but occasionally there are non-fiction books chosen as honor books. Some of them are excellent, too!
I've read enough books from the Newbery list to know that some of them are great and some, you just wonder why they were ever published, let alone chosen for this honor. As a writer of children's and teen's literature I believe luck and "who you know" count for something. And I read the good, the bad, and the ugly because it is all instructional for my career.
What's got me excited is that I have found communities of people doing the Newbery Challenge... one great group is at Goodreads, and I found out about 2 children's librarians (guys) that are doing a Newbery challenge with videos. I will also be doing videos!
I've had a busy week... lots of work, and the community activities. My work is website development. Right now I've got lots of sites to work on. I don't do rush orders but rotate my web maintenance duties... with an intention of doing updates on every site every month. To do that, I need to work on three sites each day.
Really, it isn't hard... but it is constant.
Every weekend I have community activities. On Saturdays I go to the community drum circle at the local dreamcatcher. Our dreamcatcher is thirty feet across... very impressive. We sit under it to drum.
My life has been extremely stressful this month. I've noticed that too much stress takes the joy out of living. It caught up with me at the drum circle on Saturday. For a change, I didn't want to stay. Usually I want to stay beyond the time when everyone else wants to leave. This time I wanted to leave first. I was thinking, "Gaaa... where has my enthusiasm gone?"
Today at the writer's club meeting I did better. I managed to forget my troubles and write two short stories. One was about aliens - one of my favorite flash fiction topics.
The other story was shorter - about a woman falsely accused of drug smuggling, inspired by my current obsession with watching old episodes of "Locked Up Abroad" (a National Geographic Channel show.)
This evening after the meeting I worked on three more sites. One of them was a forum. I upgraded to the most recent version of phpBB, installed a new theme, which is white (I love)... also checked stats and was thrilled with lots of search engine traffic, installed advertising, and made a new header graphic for the site. I also interfaced it with my new Prayer Power website.
Earlier today I was meditating about my work, and got an inspiration that one of my websites would become an important site, somehow. Honestly, at this time I can't see it. I can only go ahead and develop it and see what happens. I'm looking for all sorts of ways to create new income streams... I so want to close some of my other sites. I'm looking for change.
I'm going to use this space to sound off today. Yes, I feel a rant coming on.
First, I want to emphasize that my world is a reflection of what I am.
That guy across the room who I invited into my life space is a part of me.
So if I complain about him, I'm complaining about me.
If I criticize him, I'm criticizing a part of myself because obviously, I wanted him here for some reason. He completed me and I just had to have him.
Why do we do these things to ourselves?
We're here to learn.
It isn't always easy, nor should it be.
We learn more from what pains us than from fun and games.
So, take your pick.
I obviously chose to learn from various types of suffering... but today I'm calling one particular suffering out... and that is abandonment.
Yes, abandonment.
I've been abandoned repeatedly during this lifetime, and it has happened again.
There have been times I was abandoned due to no fault of my own except my own unenlightened non-seeing of reality. There have been other times I was abandoned because I had a meltdown.
Gosh, how imperfect can I get?
But eventually you have to see that the meltdowns, the bad, the negatives, the mistakes you make, the errors, the pathetic imperfections - they are all part of the learning process.
From this you / I / we become the people we were intended to be.
These errors are the food of wisdom.
* * *
I have two predictions today.
(1) During 2013 we will totally recover from our fear of 2012, and
(2) During 2013 we will collectively work much more enthusiastically on creating a better future for the creatures of this planet.
- there are other much better (and much more expensive) video editors such as Adobe Premiere Pro CC
- but what I've got is a good place to start and will be more stable and trustworthy than some of the free video software programs I endured last year.
... it is a history book! In subsequent years fiction took over as the most common type of book honored by the Newbery Medal, but occasionally there are non-fiction books chosen as honor books. Some of them are excellent, too!
