My New Blog

I've had problems with my blog for some time and I finally decided it has become too frustrating to try to fix it. 

I started this blog in 2009 and although I'm sad to let it go, I'm also excited to begin a new blog. 

I've met many interesting, inspiring, kind and wonderful friends through this blog. I'm very grateful for this, for your friendship. 

My new blog is called Desert Canyon Stories & Pictures

And you can find it here: 

desertcanyonstories.blogspot.com

 

Coyote Calling & More

 

The coyote was standing by the water in my backyard, calling, calling, beginning to sound desperate even.

Then finally, this guy came along, much larger, so I imagine it was her mate, the one she had been calling for. At the same time he arrived, along came Joyce's dog, Judah, wondering what the racket was all about. 

The coyotes ran off together and Judah, who is a large dog, Faith's age, so nine years old, did not pursue. Smart dog, he didn't stand a chance. 

But I thought it was nice of him to come over and make the intruders leave. After I got my pictures. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I still haven't worked much on solving the problem with my new blog. I'm in the middle of a bunch of doctors' visits. 

Actually, perhaps you would like to know that on November 1, Kenny drove me to Bakersfield to see my cancer surgeon. She said I was doing great, I don't need any follow up scans or tests, just continue with the tamoxifen. 

The breast cancer awareness month of October came and went and I forgot my annual preaching about the value of early detection so I will do it now. 

An annual mammogram has saved me from advanced stage breast cancer, not once, but twice now. It may be safe to say that annual mammograms may have saved my life.  

For this, I'm immensely grateful.

If you are eligible to have an annual mammogram, please do. 

Thanks for visiting. I'm sorry you still can't leave a comment. 

If you want to email, this is my address:

sweed40ij@gmail.com

Status of New Blog

 

I should be embarrassed about the information that follows, but instead, I'm sitting here giggling. It's all so incredibly weird and it makes me look like some old fool that has wandered into blogger land by mistake. 

As you know, this blog that has worked so well for me since 2009, has now become a problem that I don't know how to solve.  It has been honored with almost a million views, has interested over 400 people enough to want to follow it, and it has provided me with the greatest joy every time I publish a new post. 

The bad news, the news that has me giggling is that the new blog I mentioned and hoped to publish soon, is now also giving me problems. 

I know my brain may not work as well as it did before last fall's surgery, but still, I function just fine, except for this one thing. 

Blogging. 

So, instead of getting stressed about a date for my new blog, I will work on it at my own pace. It may take a month, it may be next year, but in the meantime, I will share my stories, taking photos, and posting to this blog. 

Since you can't leave comments, I will just assume that you have enjoyed my posts. And if you really want to leave a comment, my email address is in the upper right corner of this blog. 

www.sweed40ij@gmail.com

And please don't feel you need to comment via email, just a note every now and then would be much appreciated. 

 

Happiness & Me

 

 

I've been a bit concerned:

When you ask me how I am, I'm thinking physically, cancer, type 1 diabetes, breathing issues, old age, medications and all that. So I may answer that I'm not feeling well.

However, none of that has anything to do with my happiness.  You are such good friends and some of you have let me know you are concerned. I appreciate your caring so very much, but I don't want you to worry.

It took a while, of course, but sometime, somewhere in my life, I just decided I wanted to live a happy life and that I was so done with being and feeling miserable, worrying, and all that stuff.

I learned to let go. 

Let go of worries, fears, and all the rest that held me back.

Then I moved to the canyon and it all fell into place. 

I've lived here now for 17 years, most of the time alone, with one or more dogs. 

Granted the past year hasn't been easy, but then it hasn't been very difficult either. 

And look at my welcoming committee above. Often when I turn from the main road onto Joyce's and my road, her animals are in that pasture and come and greet me. 

I'm living a happy life here in the canyon.

With my best friend, Faith. 

Since this blog is messed up and comments don't work, please email your comment to: sweed40ij@gmail.com

I'm working on a new blog, but taking my time. 

New Blog In The Works ~ May Take Some Time

 

Every September/October my part of the canyon turns yellow as the rabbit brush bushes bloom. For me, this is the happy sign that our hot summer is over. 

As you no doubt have noticed, my blog is no longer working. When even my friend Sandra, her of the Madsnapper blog, and with far better tech skills than mine, couldn't help me fix it, I decided it had done it's job and maybe it was tired, so I decided it was time for something new. 

I'm working on a new blog, but it may take some time. 

But once it's done, I hope you will come and visit. 

As for the rest of my life, it's going reasonably well. But my health, such a major part of my life, is suffering from the double whammy of how to manage Type 1 diabetes and breast cancer. 

Unfortunately, the pills I take to prevent a return of the cancer cause insulin resistance. 

To make matters worse, my diabetes NP works from home and only does phone visits. This is great when all is going well, but when you feel, as I do now, that an in-person visit is needed and she tells you she will not come to the office, it's time to find someone new. 

So for the first time since I got my Adult Onset Type 1 Diabetes almost 34 years ago, I'm doing very badly. 

But a change is gonna come, as that wonderful old song tells us about a problem so much larger than my diabetes issues. 

My email: sweed40ij@gmail.com 

If you feel like it, please drop me a note, I would love to hear from you.

Testing

 

Autumn in the canyon is a favorite time for me. Here Joyce's fields have turned yellow with rabbit brush bushes in bloom. 

The mornings are cooler and Faith and I enjoy our nature walks.

As far as my blogging goes, I'm still having problems with the formatting of my blog, well, I haven't, until yesterday, tried to resolve the various issues I'm encountering. 

I get help from Sandra, but it can get time consuming and I really should be able to figure it out myself. 

It's after all just formatting, everything else is OK, I think. 

I'm posting this as a test to see if the comment section will appear as I instructed it to do. 

I hope I can get this to work, I have written some stories that I would like to post, and I have lots of photos. Including a series of shots when a helicopter came to pick up a power pole and set it down on a remote hill on Joyce's property. 

Happy Sunday, everyone. 

Taking A Break

 

The mountains are calling me, I must go.

~ John Muir

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I need to take a break from blogging so that I can try to fix whatever it is that's gone awry with the formatting of my blog.

In years past, this would probably have been a fairly easy thing for me to do, but these days I'm not at all sure I can even figure out what's wrong. Much less fix it. 

I'm not complaining, I just need to take a break. 

Orchids

 

There's a quality of elegance and mystery about orchids. 

Some people become obsessed with these beautiful flowers. 

I read The Orchid Thief, by Susan Orlean, which is about people in Florida who become totally obsessed with orchids. I found it fascinating. 

For me, an orchid represents the thought that we can overcome adversity and emerge stronger. They are so fragile looking, yet  very resilient. They grow and thrive in the shade, they mostly grow on trees, one orchid species grows in the water, and yet another can be found growing on rocks.  

Last year, I bought some orchids in the grocery store, where they have many. 

They were very special and I enjoyed having their beauty in my home. None of them bloom any longer, so I've cut back their stems and water them once a week. New leaves have come to life on some of them. 

I plan to buy a couple of orchids soon, but not until I've read more about them and perhaps watch YouTube videos to learn more about how to care for them.

If you know how to care for an orchid, it may bloom again. And if I could make that happen, it would be magical. 

Dear Refrigerator Please Stay Strong

 

The other morning at Joyce's house, her kitchen counters were full of food packages of all kinds and she was busy stuffing them into her refrigerator. 

It was pretty obvious her fridge was reaching its max capacity. 

As it turned out her tenant had bought a lot of extra food for herself and her daughter to have during and after our recent tropical storm. 

Then her refrigerator broke!

Since Joyce's fridge was getting stuffed, I got some of the food too. A lot actually.

My fridge is at least 20 years old. It's a Kenmore, a brand that I've found to be very reliable, but still, old is old. 

It has a huge bottom freezer drawer, which was rather empty, so I stuffed most of the food in there.

I ate all the yogurts, of course I did, I live on yogurt. And I even tried some pork sausages that were in an opened packet. They were really, really good, but I don't think I would buy some, as I still don't like to eat a lot of meat. But maybe I will, they were that good, from Walmart, where my neighbor works.

I hope she will get her refrigerator situation resolved, so I can return the frozen items to her. 

In the meantime, please, dear old fridge, stay strong, don't collapse under the weight and responsibility of keeping and preserving so much food. 

I know you're not used to it...

But you can do it!

 

Sunday Morning Reflections

Gratitude ~ I have so much to be grateful for. My cancer year is over; even though I tire easily, my health is good now; I'm working on being able to tolerate my medicine and feel sort of proud to have persevered.

My neighbors are wonderful. Yesterday, Joyce graded my roads. I went to see her just to say hello, and before I knew it, she attached the grader to the rhino and took off. 

She did such a good job and looked like she had a lot of fun. 

And I went on Amazon and entered - Bed & Body Works and ordered their Signature Collection Cucumber Melon Gift Set.

I hope Joyce will enjoy it. 

I'm grateful for my friends of so many years, around the world and here in the canyon. 

And all of you, my friends on the blogs. 

And I'm forever grateful for Faith, all 67 pounds of her. Yes, she went to the vet and got weighed. 

Faith: Mommy, please don't discuss my weight on the blog!

Neighbors & Firemen Make A Wonderful Day

Firemen from our town came out yesterday morning to help put our road back together.

As you can see in the above picture, there's not much left of the road. Last  I saw, there was some heavy scooping equipment down in the creek bed moving dirt and debris.

And there certainly was a lot of debris down there.

I woke up to a foggy morning and took some pictures, of which I found this one to be special.

I spent the day with my neighbor, Joyce, who spent some of her time baking carrot cakes for the firemen. We drove down to the road and gave them the cakes, which they appreciated a lot, it was clear to see. 

Since they've already brought in their heavy equipment, I feel confident that the road will soon be fully repaired. 

As for me, well, the gate you see is my gate. My road that went from my house to the gate, is pretty much intact closer to the house, but downhill, by the gate, it looks like this. Just one huge mud puddle. 

Joyce told me that Mark, who helps me with my outdoor work, is good with roads. I was happy to hear that and, once the mud has dried up, I hope he can bring my road back. 

This was an all together lovely day!

I'm grateful for wonderful neighbors and firemen.

Tropical Storm Hilary Hits The Canyon

 

She brought more rain with her than I've ever seen in my life. It began with a lot of rain on Saturday, before the "real" storm hit on Sunday. 

I got very tired from listening to so much rain. 

The power stayed on for a surprisingly long time, until it finally gave up yesterday. But it came back this morning, so it wasn't bad. 

In the middle of the tropical storm, we got an earthquake alarm. Lots of loud beeps on the phone, then: Duck, Cover and Hold On! 

Something no one in Southern California needed to hear just then. It turns out there was a 5.1 quake in Ojai, a town closer to the coast than to us here.  

My neighbor Joyce's and my road, which leads to the main road in the canyon and goes over a creek has been severely damaged and is impassable. 

The creek flooded, the culvert is damaged and the road also. We are looking into some disaster relief from the county or FEMA or wherever we can find some. It will cost a lot to get this fixed. 

And, of course, it needs to be fixed right away. 

In our broader community, the 60th Anniversary of the Mountain Festival was taking place this weekend, with thousands of people coming from all over to our town. They had to cancel the rodeo on Saturday night, and all events on Sunday. A lot of effort goes into this annual event and I feel bad that the storm happened the weekend of the festival. 

Neighbors in the canyon were evacuated or they were not. I've heard both. 

There was a mud flow on highway 58 near here, with a truck and a car stuck in the mud. 

The official rain amount was 4.58"; Jeanne's count for the part of the canyon where she lives was 7" and that was before the rain stopped. 

So we got a really ginormous amount of rain. 

Our normal rain amount for August is 0.08", how many drops of rain would that be, I couldn't help but wonder. Not very many...

The paper said that the water infrastructure worked well, the power outages, including ours, were taken care of promptly, and everything worked well. 

And I'm glad I bought food and water before this event. I didn't really believe I would be stuck here, but I've always felt that it never hurts to be prepared. 

Faith is also happy to have had ALL her canned dog food arrive in time at the post office. Being stuck here without good dog food, she said, is not an option.

Sunday Morning Reflections

 

Reflections of the setting sun on the hill outside my bedroom window.

I have been reading Mary Oliver's poems recently and I'm glad to have discovered this American poet I didn't know about earlier.  

Nature walks sustained her. Her nature poems sustain me and remind me it's time to get up and take my morning walk with Faith. 

The Summer Day may be one of her most read poems, with one of the best endings ever: 

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life."

~ Mary Oliver

Chores

I never had any problems with doing household chores, except vacuuming. I used the one above when I had Samson, my Samoyed, it was perfect for picking up his piles of fur. Then I bought an upright one, which is not all that great.  

Errol and I never had a discussion or a disagreement about who was doing what. Things just got done. (I must confess to sometimes reading advice columns where married folks  squabble about who's supposed to do what.) 

Now that I'm 83 and live alone, I find I must approach household chores in a new way in order to get them done. 

Mark, who helps me with outside chores, will wash and polish my floors, which makes a big difference. 

The rest I do myself and I have my good days and days where I look around and see that I must have forgotten to dust for a very long time.

To get things done, I have a system where I do a little, then sit and rest for a while. Then go back, do a little more, then repeat until the chore is done. 

I'm not surprised to learn that others use the same method to clean their homes. When I read an article about this way of approaching chores, I learned that it has a name: Pacing.

So, now I know. I'm pacing through my chores and somehow or other, most of them get done. 

I'm just a little bit proud of this...

A Treasure Trove of Photos

My photos, from January 1 until yesterday, have sat on my phone while I've been unable to upload them to my computer. 

Granted, I've had a foggy brain for some of this time, but I suspect laziness may have had more to do with me never even trying to fix this. 

Now that I want to blog again, I will of course need my photos. So I asked Google (we're becoming quite friendly, Google and I, after not getting along for many years). And I learned that I needed to press something, probably the photo pinwheel. I've forgotten what I pressed.

Anyhow, magically, eight months of pictures began to show up on my computer. 

Here is one from each month, January to present:

January 

February

March

Taking a picture of the great shawl that Jeanne crocheted for me to wear after my surgery.

April

My great-niece, Jasmine, at the ruins in Sand Canyon. 

May

Joyce's donkey and its mini me. 

June

Red Rock State Park

July

My shed, after Mark put up siding and painted it. The colors match those of my house. The half French door was a left over from Errol's business. There's nothing behind it but dirt, but at least it's a door. I think that part of the shed was a chicken coop.

August

Of course I had to include Faith, so focused on me here.

You Touched My Heart My Dear Blogger Friends

 

You know, there are moments in your life when you need a hug from your friends and yesterday was such a day for me. What happened is this: 

Since early this year, I've become good friends with another Swedish woman here in our town. Her name is Helena, she's about 30 years younger than I, has a big heart and I feel that she really cares about me and will do anything she can to help me, should I need it. 

She has two big dogs, American Staffordshire terriers that are just adorable. She also makes dogfood that I buy from her every now and then. Faith loves this food so much.  

Anyhow, I learned on Saturday that she's in the process of moving to Palmdale a town about 55 miles from here. An easier drive down the mountain and in the opposite direction from Bakersfield. 

I've so enjoyed getting together for "fika" which is Swedish for having coffee together, speaking Swedish, following the World Cup in soccer, where Sweden is doing well, and so on. So, as I drove home, I felt really, really sad. I even teared up. 

Then after lunch, I opened my computer to see if anyone noticed that I had posted something on my blog. 

And there you were, my dear friends, welcoming me back, leaving your kind comments, letting me know you've thought of me and wondered how I'm doing. 

Thank you. You reminded me that we don't need to sit opposite each other in order to be loving and caring friends. 

Your comments assured me that returning to blogging will be good for my soul, my heart, may even improve my writing skills, and will definitely make me be a part again of this community, where we care deeply about each other, even though we've never met, never hugged, and never sat down opposite each other with a cup of coffee and a good conversation. 

This is pretty wonderful and really amazing, isn't it? 

Back To Blogging

 

Good morning, it's been a while. I hope you all are doing well this hot summer.  

I'm feeling much better and would love to get back to blogging. 

In January I encountered a problem with uploading photos from my phone to my Chromebook, where I blog. I've made no effort to find out what's wrong or how to fix it. 

I blame this on the aftereffects of cancer, surgery, and the medicines I'm taking. I will try to resolve it now. 

I've also felt unable to write. It's something my friend Annette in Copenhagen disputes, as we write emails back and forth all the time. But I feel our emails are different from writing on my blog. Not sure why.

Annette and I both love the English language though. 

Faith is doing well and wants to voice her canine opinions here every now and then. She says she loves English too and is very proud of how many English words she understands. 

Sunday Morning Reflections

 

Make yourself familiar with the angels, and behold them frequently in spirit; for without being seen, they are present with you. 

St. Francis de Sales

Thinking of my friends Elisa and Dee with much love.

Sunday Morning Reflections

 Photo by Vince or Jane

As I write this post, I'm reflecting on why I'm not blogging on a regular basis right now. 

A lot of it has to do with the fact that I can't get photos from my phone camera to my Chromebook. 

This happened at the first of the year and I have no idea why. I also haven't taken an interest in finding out why and how I can get it fixed. 

Posting photos that I just took to my blog was such a big part of my blogging experience and of course I know I should have fixed it, but things happen, things get delayed and so on. 

And maybe a lot of my energy went to healing and feeling better. Not something you think about when it happens, but looking back I think that also was a big part of it. 

Now I hope to slowly come back to blogging. 

I would also like to have another blog, even though I've been warned it may be too much. 

Right now I see another blog as a place where I can post stories, memories, essays, just anything I may want to write about. 

We'll see...

Someone Has A Birthday!

 

Happy 9th Birthday Faith

My best friend, you are

Kind 

Sweet

Loving

Protective

and

Smart

And I love you the mostest and bestest

in the whole wide world!

Mommy

Now let's go and have some ice cream!

Earth Day

"All my life through,

the new sights of

Nature made me

     rejoice like a child."

~ Marie Curie

    Happy Earth Day!