BARN CHARM TUESDAY

This is Barn Charm Tuesday and this week I entered this photo. Does it look to you like the big barn is a house? As I drove by I wondered if someone made their home out of the large barn. Several other smaller ones around it and sheds. Sorry it's a little fuzzy as the sun was shining right at me. I can't imagine the cost of heating a barn that size here in Michigan in the wintertime!! (Click for better views.) 

The second barn this week is a barn I pass on the way out of town. It looks like it is pretty old and ready to be torn down. Doesn't look used anymore but still retains some of it's color. 

                                    

We might be in for some more of the white stuff around here.. not sure if it will hit where we are as bad as Indiana or Ohio though. I wonder how these birds can stay on the ice like that it makes me cold just watching them. They sure started honking as soon as I stopped to take their picture. They have been around all winter this year.

DON"T FORGET TO PUT YOUR CLOCKS AHEAD ONE HOUR ON SUNDAY!!

WATERY WEDNESDAY

Wednesday is a Watery day and so I am posting my entry for this week. I took this last year at Lake Mi. This is the Badger that makes a round trip run from Ludington to Wisconsin once a day during the summers. The sun was shining on the side of it and you can just barely see the people standing on the upper deck as it comes into port. 

Locals use this boat to get back and forth to work and tourists use it for day trips to Wisconsin.  You can see that underneath holds LARGE semi's as well as regular cars .

It was fun watching it come in and it blows it's horn on departing and arriving so the whole town knows when it comes in. 

To enter a photo for Watery Wednesday CLICK HERE.

                                

BARN CHARM TUESDAY

BARN CHARM TUESDAY

While traveling a two lane road to Manistee last year I took this photo of an old run down barn that was on it's way out. I noticed another smaller one in just about  as bad a shape. I loved the shape of the smaller one. The large one had a tin roof. The roof will outlast the building despite the bad winters they have there. 

On the way back home I spotted this one..

It was used as advertising and for their farm. Place was pretty busy. I never stopped but here is the LINK so you can see what they sell. I must check it out if I get back in that area. 

For here.. we are looking at another storm to come through..this time maybe 4-6 inches of new white stuff. Me.. I will wait and see they keep changing the forecast several times a day.

REMINISCING....

 I came across a

box I had stored all my many journals in recently. I have mentioned here before

that I have kept them since 1976. I found that one book was missing and was

heart broken, it led me into a panic trying to find it. A whole day later 

I remembered that that particular one had vanished in a move from Ca.

to Michigan. Number Two chapter started in 1979!!

In opening the second chapter,

I notice that my handwriting was pretty good. Better than it is now. I type so

much now that my actual handwriting has really suffered a lot.I was taking tests at college and going on interviews and at a loss for what direction to take. Wondering if I should make a move back to Michigan. "Looking for work is harder than working" I wrote, so true even more today.

There really are 28 chapters..28 is not yet finished) probably never will be as

I have taken to putting everything on computer now. The way of the handwritten journal is fading for me at least. I blog and keep track of things that way, and only write in the journals really significant things that happen in my life. 

In one chapter I wrote...

"Little did I know that because I WASN’T working, I would be able to make

a trip to Santa Barbara where SUE lived. Friends from  my hometown came by on

their vacation and offered me a ride there with them. I literally had

minutes to throw a suitcase together and be on my way. I had no idea

what would happen, but I knew it would be an adventure! I always

am up for one of those because you haven’t planned and don’t know

how they will go."

 I spent 12 days in Santa Barbara according to this chapter.

“It was never my intention to stay more than a week. So much had happened

and so much was packed into those days that they really just flew by.”

The memories of those warm summer days and

the sneezing from the kitten that SUE had then, will always be with

me. Cool foggy mornings near the Pacific were so strange compared

to the valley where I had been staying. The larger city and the

whole culture shock of a seaside town was so different than

anything I had ever experienced.

Ours is not to question why things happen the way they do. I was there for a

reason that I just did not know about. If you believe in fate at all,

it sure came to pass in those 12 days. On my way home on the bus I had

plenty of time to think about how my life was going to go on from there.

Job opportunities were there in Santa Barbara, but back then hard to find

something in such a short timespan. Less than a month later I was

winging my way back to Michigan for a visit, and developed Bronchitis

two days after getting there.. a few days later it went to full blown

pneumonia. Why the heck did I leave Ca. so fast kept

running through my mind?  
More later....

ALL GOOD THINGS....

All good things must eventually come to an end or so they say..our week long visit in St. Croix ends and we return home to cold stateside.  I dread the shovel we might have to use or the heavy coats we have to haul out to wear. Maybe it's time to think about being a snow bird. "SNOWBIRD" meaning..

A snowbird is someone from the U.S. Northeast, U.S. Midwest, Pacific Northwest, or Canada who spends a large portion of winter in warmer locales such as California, Arizona,Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, or elsewhere along the Sun Belt region of the southern and southwest United States, Mexico, and areas of the Caribbean. Well we can dream anyway..most cannot afford to have two residences to care for. If I were a snowbird where would I go for winter?? Hmmm any suggestions welcome here.            

                                          

I lived in California for 20 years, and where I was there was little change in season. It was either green and lush or dry and brown. Rain and fog or hot and hotter. No trees changing colors or sight of snowflakes unless you went TO them. You could drive to the ocean,or the mountains in winter. Nice..but pretty expensive to live there. When I returned to Michigan I found that my blood must have thinned a lot because I was freezing and others were laughing at me wearing a sweatshirt in 70 degree weather. Took at least 4 or 5 years to get used to the cold temperatures. My first winter was TERRIBLE. I just could not get warm no matter what I did. Christmas was wonderful...all white and peaceful looking..until I had to snow blow the driveway. Ahhhh I realized why I had moved to warmer territory after all. 

Well I would have to think hard on where I would want to live, is there anywhere that has a happy medium? The climate being what it is and so many  global warming changes, we all may be in a more warm zone sooner than we think. 

HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND!!