End of an Era

Bless me Blogger for I have sinned.  It's been three weeks since my last post.  I've been thinking about ending this blog for a while as I've been focused more on Reg's memoir and as you bloggers all know, it always ends up taking more time than you think it will.  The 30th of April made it two years of posting and when I was looking at the photos I'd taken the day before, everything just came together.  The quote came to mind as soon as I saw the picture. Stephen King has been one of my guilty pleasures since I was a teen.  

I didn't feel guilty at first because I hadn't yet heard derogatory comments about him not being a "real" writer. I've grown up enough to not feel guilty now either..  No, I don't like his scary stuff and some of it is just more gross than scary but he is a talented story teller.  The good guys and gals are people you'd like to meet, or be.  The villains are often sympathetic, and sometimes like people you thought you knew. The stories are well crafted and often brilliant - Rita Hayworth and the Shankshaw Redemption for example.  I highly recommend Misery, several books in The Dark Tower series, Gerald's Game, Hearts in Atlantis, The Talisman and The Stand (the latter two which I've read a least 3 times) and I love many of his novellas that are collected in books with four in each one.  But I digress.

I posted today to let you know that although I haven't been writing for public consumption, I have still been taking photos, with a strong desire to share them.  I'm going back to my original blog, From the Valley and Beyond, which highlights things to do and places to go in Kelowna, peppered with some of our favourite vacations.  I want to share some of the places we've been outside of the gorgeous Okanagan Valley, so others have an idea of the highlights and lowlights experienced by someone else.

I'm starting with one post a week for now, though I have quite a back up of ideas in "draft" so that could change soon.  Please come visit and sit a spell.  Though we've come to a clearing, it looks like we're not at the end of the path just yet.

Simply Put

“Go now. Our journey is done. And may we meet again, in the clearing, at the end of the path.” 

- Stephen King

Gratitude and Attitude

As I type this post, CBC Radio's Alya Ramadan is telling me the weather is a mixed bag in the BC Interior today.  Spring is as unpredictable as ever.  Temperatures rose to the 20's on Wednesday and Thursday last week, but dropped to single digits on the weekend.  Winter driving conditions returned to mountain highways as The Coquihalla and Roger's Pass received heavy snowfall last night.  I look to the west and I can see a ribbon of blue sky above the mountains but a curtain of ominous grey threatens from above.  It's five degrees and they're calling for rain later today.

I don't know about you, but the weather has a much stronger effect on my mood and motivation than I would like.  Looking west again, that ribbon of blue is now a narrow wisp and the grey haze has almost taken over. Oops....there it goes.  It looks like it's snowing up there now.  My first thought is that I fear I'm not going to get much done today and my second thought is the post on Kristen's Facebook page this morning.  A quote from the wise Captain Jack Sparrow "Your problem is not the problem.  The problem is your attitude about the problem..." As problems go, it's pretty small but still a challenge.

Sometimes an attitude of gratitude is just what you need to change your perspective and get the creative juices going.  Today I'm grateful for the good things and the challenges.

I'm grateful for sunshine on Sunday and iPhoto editing.

I'm grateful for procrastination and serendipity that allowed me to get a few nice shots at a cherry orchard on Lakeshore Road.

I'm grateful that Max didn't go crazy in the car when he saw the deer in the orchard allowing me to take quite a few shots, and I'm even happy with some of them.

I'm grateful that Max seems to be maturing.  His recall is almost perfect, he doesn't jump up quite as much and I can leave him out of the kennel when I go out without him eating the house.

I'm grateful for so many beautiful cherry blossoms.  I saw a few bees as well so hopefully it will be a prolific year for cherries.

I'm grateful for people in my life who are there when I need them, even if they don't realize it.

The Loveliest of Trees

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

A. E. Housman (1859 – 1936)