About Me

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West Virginia
When I started my retirement travels in 2009, I wanted a way to share it with family and friends as it was happening. Hence, "My Travel Journal". However I realized I wouldn't always be on a trip and wondered what to do with the blog in between times. My daughter pointed out, wisely, that travels can also include trips to the kitchen to try a new recipe, trips to visit family, trips to my neighborhood Starbucks, or a fun day trip with a friend. You're welcome to join me on any of these journeys! I've set up individual pages for each of my major trips (see tabs above).

Also, I have an Etsy shop where my current needlework resides. The last pieces I posted here were in 2013! So if you'd like to see what I have accomplished recently, go to (and I apologize for having to copy and paste):

www.etsy.com/shop/thedollhouseneedle

I recently added an "Italian Word a Day" thingie which shows up at the bottom of every page. You see the word and can click to hear it pronounced. I've been enjoying it and I think my accent is improving as time goes by.

May 14, 2013

The only drawback to starting a blog...

is feeling guiltier and guiltier as time passes with no new posts.  Not that anyone is breathlessly awaiting new posts, but a blog isn't a blog unless it's active which means the blogger needs to be active and I just haven't been doing too much lately.

And, I started this post a week ago, only to have my laptop get a virus and go to the doctor and my netbook refusing to upload pictures to my blog.

But even though this is a post sort of about nothing, I will persevere.  I seem to continue taking photos when I'm out and about and decided I'd just go ahead and post the nicest ones.  Plus I made up a new recipe last night (read a week ago now) and will post that too.  At least this won't be a real "wordy" post cause I don't have a lot of stuff to describe, explain, rave about, etc.  I'll just add little comments to the pictures.


The picture on the left was taken on 3/22 at 1:15 p.m.  The picture on the right was taken on 3/22 at 1:40 p.m.  The weather this winter/spring has been all over the map.  This particular day, it started and stopped snowing about 5 times.  The snowing picture doesn't make it clear but it snowed heavily when it snowed.

The picture above is one I took while standing in my kitchen looking through the pass through into the dining area and on out my two dining room windows.  I love this view!


 These four pictures are from a letterboxing adventure that Johnny and I enjoyed while he was here for spring break (early April).  The weather wasn't very cooperative for the whole week he was here but we had this one pretty (albeit, chilly) day and decided to take advantage of it. 

We found clues to lead us to two letterboxes - one in Kenova (the top 2 pictures) and one out at Beech Fork Lake (the bottom 2 pics).  Both were fun - the Kenova one we almost didn't find because it was in a snuff box and we figured someone had just tossed it there.  But Johnny decided we'd better open it and make sure and there it was!  That's the Ohio River we're walking alongside.

The Beech Fork lake letterbox was hidden up on the top of this hill.  In the pictures it doesn't look all that high I guess, but I sure got winded and tired legs while climbing up it.  Made me decide I'd better get busy and do more walking if I'm going to tackle any more trips traipsing around Europe!  Anyway, it was quite an enjoyable day.  And the whole week was enjoyable really even though we sure didn't seem to do too much.  I told Johnny I was going to be embarrassed if people asked "oh, what all did you do?" and I'd have to say "ummmm...."  But we did some of our favorite "eatings" - spaghetti and meatballs, meatball subs, Hillbilly hotdogs (where Johnny actually tried a little sauce and slaw on his!), pancakes at Tudor's, etc.  And, incredibly enough, he had never seen any Wallace and Grommit movies so we watched the ones that were available on Netflix and he really got a kick out of them.  I also introduced him to the only electronic game I've ever become addicted to - "The Simpson Tapped Out" and that was pretty much an instant hit with him.  We played that and had great discussions about it and, of course, also played Crazy Eights.  So all in all, quite a pleasant visit.  And I probably mentioned on a previous post that Heather and Sophia brought him all the way to Huntington so I had the really wonderful bonus of having them here Friday even through Sunday late morning.

I wimped out on driving Johnny all the way back (since I had just driven over and back for my birthday party three weeks earlier) but did agree to drive further to meet her than I normally do.  We decided to meet in Cumberland and had a nice lunch there and a little walk around their historic downtown which was a very pleasant surprise for me.  I may just have to go back and explore when I have more time for it.  These two pictures are a couple of the buildings there.


And then these next photos are just from a couple of gorgeous days in early May when I took a couple of nice walks.  The sky was truly this shade of blue, leaves were green, flowers were blooming - Huntington is really at its best in spring, I think.

The first two were taken on what I call "Church Avenue" - where all the beautiful old churches are located.



And then these show the Cabell County Courthouse - you can just barely see the dome on the left but I took it anyway cause I loved all the green leafy trees against the blue sky.


 Just look at that sky!!!

These sort of unappetizing pictures are from my experiment with white beans and pasta.  I think I've probably done it before but if so, it didn't turn out as good as this time.  I really enjoyed this one and even wrote down a little of what I was doing as I put it together so I would remember it.  I've posted a recipe in my recipe collection.  The picture of the finished dish almost didn't get taken cause I had eaten most of it before I suddenly thought "darn it - I wanted to take a picture of it!

 


2 comments:

Christopher said...

Nice to catch up after a break in the blog - the spring pictures are quite nice, particularly showing the courthouse with full trees.

(And how nice - as I go to post this reply, I see the Blogger software no longer uses, for the "validate you're a real person" step, those dreadful images of numbers that were so fuzzy and hard to read!)

Sandra said...

Lovely photos Mary Lynne. And the dish looks yummy too. Sandie
http://SnippetsOnTheMove.blogspot.com

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