Retreading for Retirement

Blog a Day Challenge: March Report

Here are my statistics for March:

Number of posts written: 31

Shortest post: 220

Longest post: 2,150

Total words written: 23,345

Average post length: 753

Distribution of posts across my three blogs:

The total of posts here may not equal the number of posts written last month because I occasionally publish the same post on more than one blog. However, I have included each post only once in my total word count.

Last month’s featured post:

On Rereading “Anne of Green Gables”

This post generated a lot (well, a lot for me) of “favorites” and retweets on Twitter. At first I thought that might have happened because the use of the Classics Club hashtag targeted the post to a specific audience. But I published another review with the same hashtag within just a few days of this one, and the second one did not receive the same reaction.

So I’m guessing that the personal orientation of this post caused the increased reaction. The other Classics Club post was a straight book review, but this one emphasized my personal reaction to how reading the book now, as an older adult, affected me differently than had reading it as a child.

What I Learned in March

In February I focused on post length. In March I decided not to worry about length. Instead, I concentrated on writing however many words were necessary to cover each post’s topic. Here are the results of that change of focus:

My total words written increased by 2,890.
My average post length increased by 93.
My number of posts of 1,000 or more words increased from 6 to 9.

The lesson I take from these statistics is that I should worry about each individual post and let the word count fall wherever it may.

The second lesson, which I take from the relative popularity of the post about rereading Anne of Green Gables, is that I should strive to incorporate more personal storytelling into my writing. I knew that, of course, at least in theory. That is why I chose story as my word for this year. But the interest in this post reinforced the lesson for me.

I continue to read more blog posts than I did before starting this blog post a day challenge. From now on I’ll make a more conscious effort to look at which ones most engage me and to learn how and why they do.

Portland, OR: Powell’s Books & Saturday Market

My husband F., our daughter K., and I took a weekend road trip to Portland, OR, where K. and I attended a blogging conference while F. got to explore and take lots of photos.

We arrived early enough on Friday afternoon to visit Powell’s Books. Our hotel was within walking distance of Powell’s flagship store:

1005 W. Burnside St.
Portland, OR 9729
503–228–4651

I don’t remember when I first heard of Powell’s Books, but it was long before the Pacific Northwest was on our personal radar. It’s well known among book lovers.

This place is HUGE: It occupies an entire city block and stocks more than one million new and used books displayed in nine color-coded rooms divided into 3,500 different sections. The store also features a gallery that hosts a new art exhibit every month as well as many author events. Authors who have appeared here in the past include Roddy Doyle, Joyce Carol Oates, Michael Chabon, and Annie Leibovitz. But wait, there’s more: The Rare Book Room offers autographed first editions and other collectible volumes. And, in order to offer used books, Powell’s purchases used books from the public.

I dare you to visit Powell’s without coming home with at least one of these:

Before leaving for home on Sunday, after the conference, we took a quick trip through the Portland Saturday Market , which now, luckily, is also open on Sundays.

The Portland Saturday Market (PSM) was founded in 1974 by two Portland-area artists as an open-air market selling handmade food and craft items. In 1976 the market moved from a parking lot to a location under the Burnside Bridge. In 1977 the market began opening on Sundays as well as Saturdays. Redevelopment of Portland’s historic Old Town district began in 2006, and the market moved to its current location in Waterfront Park in 2009.

Under Oregon law, PSM is “a mutual benefit corporation, a special class of institutions that do not make a profit, but exist for the economic benefit of their members, making PSM a non-profit organization that is not tax-exempt.” Today it has more than 350 members, generates about $8 million in gross sales annually, and is one of the largest tourist attractions in Portland. Seven full-time and 10 part-time staff members administer the market and its programs.

Everything at PSM is handcrafted by the vendor who is selling it. Vendors are small business owners from Oregon and Washington. The market is open every weekend from March through Christmas Eve, and is open the entire week before Christmas for last-minute shopping. Admission for shoppers is free.

My husband and I visited PSM about 15 years ago when we were in Portland to embark on a boat cruise of the Columbia River. We were amazed at how much bigger the market is now. There are so many great products to see: jewelry, clothing, pottery, art, photography, candles, leather goods. Because PSM is a juried market, all products are of high quality.

Even if you don’t buy anything, PSM is worth a visit for the street fair atmosphere, the original products, and the food. My daughter and I both exercised great restraint: We each came away with only one set of earrings and matching necklace.

Three Things Thursday

Once again it’s time for the blog challenge Three Things Thursday, the purpose of which is to “share three things from the previous week that made you smile or laugh or appreciate the awesome of your life.”

I love doing this challenge every week because it allows me to write about things that I otherwise wouldn’t talk about and might not have even noticed if I weren’t always on the lookout for items for this weekly entry.

1. It’s not just the crooks who try this.

Someone posted this on Facebook: Driver gets caught with ‘Most Interesting Man’ in the carpool lane. Definitely click on the link and take a look at the photo. And at the bottom of the article is a link to a related story about a fellow who, when running late for work one day, used a stuffed doll in hopes of avoiding getting nipped for illegal use of the HOV (high-occupancy vehicle, here in WA defined as more than two people) lane. That photo is pretty amusing also.

Back when we lived in the St. Louis, MO, area, we sometimes visited a house on a lake in a neighboring rural county. On a lonely stretch of road well loved by speeders, we began to see a sheriff’s department car parked on the curve with a deputy sitting behind the wheel. About the third time we saw it, we realized that the deputy was always sitting in exactly the same position. We finally pulled in next to him one day and discovered that he was, in fact, inflatable. Not long after that, the local paper ran a short piece about the newest addition to the sheriff’s department, and after that we didn’t see him again.

The county had purchased the inflatable deputy because budget cuts had left them short-handed. Apparently someone thought that people would speed past so fast that they’d never notice the ruse. I’ve always wondered who had the job of inflating and dressing the deputy in an actual uniform jacket and hat every time he showed up for work.

2. Going to Portland!

My husband, daughter, and I are driving down to Portland, OR (about 140 miles south of us) this weekend. Daughter and I will attend WordPress’s Press Publish! blogging conference while hubby gets to visit the Museum of Science and Industry.

And we’re all looking forward to a trip to Powell’s City of Books before leaving to drive back home.

3. Which way will you go today?

diverging trails at The Nature Center — right or left?

How To Force A Redirect To The Classic WordPress.com Editor Interface

I’ve been able to use bookmarked pages for the old editor so far, but this looks like a permanent solution

Diary of Dennis

The Solution To Use The Classic Editor

If you are blogger at wordpress.com, this post here will help you to solve a big problem. As you have noticed, the decision makers at WordPress want to force you to use the recent new editor interface that is purely designed for mobile devices and for users who only create short-form content. This is of course a pain if you are desktop user and if you like to create long-form content as well. In this post you will learn how to get back to the classic editor permanently.

In the new editor form, we had a link back to the classic editor but that link is now gone too. WordPress does not have the intention to give us the link back as you can read here in the forums. If you go through this huge forum thread, you will find out…

View original post 731 more words

Tacoma’s Daffodil Princesses

Yellow dresses, smiles to sweep Pantages for Daffodil Festival coronation

One of the most unusual events that our new home town of Tacoma, WA, features is the annual spring Daffodil Festival. Twenty-four high schools in Pierce County each choose a Daffodil Princess, and one of the princesses will be crowned Daffodil Queen. You can read about this year’s princesses in this article.

Photo of Daffodil Princesses — Photo from The News Tribune

The Daffodil Festival started in 1934 to celebrate the agricultural industry in the area around the city of Puyallup (pronounced pew-AL-up; named after a local Native American tribe), a bit south of Tacoma. Daffodils arrived in the Puyallup Valley in around 1925 to replace the area’s previous large crop, hops. Now about 200 varieties of daffodil thrive in the area’s rich soil.

After the first parade in 1934, the festival became a celebration of community spirit and grew to encompass four cities—Tacoma, Puyallup, Sumner, and Orting—in Pierce County. There has been a parade every year since 1934 except for the war years of 1943–1945. The annual parade features high school bands, floats, businesses, and local organizations.

There are specific eligibility requirements for selection of Daffodil Princesses:

A candidate must be a senior – in regular high school attendance.
A candidate must have at least a 3.2 Grade Point Average, cumulative for her high school career. (calculated through June of their junior year)
Never have been married or may not marry during the current Festival year, ending September 30th.
Never have given birth, nor shall become pregnant during the current Festival year, ending September 30th.
Never have been found guilty of committing a felony.
A candidate must attend at least one class at the school that they are representing.

At the coronation program to be held on Saturday, March 28. 2015, all the Daffodil Princesses will be judged on academic standing, personality and attitude, speaking ability, appearance, sociability, and impromptu speaking ability. One of the young women will then be chosen to reign as Daffodil Queen until the end of the season on September 30. Many Festival activities are held throughout the season.

Three Things Thursday

It’s Oddball Week in Tacoma

I had a couple of photos of unusual things to group together, but I needed a third. So I put out the word to my husband and my daughter. They came up with such good oddball things that this post features their work, two by my husband (#1 and #3) and one by my daughter (#2). My thanks to them.

And now I’m motivated to look around me for more examples of oddball things so that I can use this category for Three Things Thursday again some time.

1. Bicycle Art

The view of the water along Ruston Way here in Tacoma is beautiful. But to keep us from taking ourselves too seriously, there’s this piece of artwork:

The picture above supplies the context for why this looks so odd. Here’s a close-up that makes me wonder who got out there to put it up and how they did it:

2. Revolver Door Handles

My daughter found these door handles in a saloon in eastern Washington (OK, it’s not Tacoma, but it’s in our home state):

3. Motorized Unicycle

One day while out riding his Elliptigo, which is itself an oddball thing, my husband spotted someone riding what appears to be a motorized unicycle:

I found something similar here.

Have you ever seen anything like this?

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

These are real Irish shamrocks!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone who’s Irish, and to everyone who wishes they were.

Study Abroad: Dublin

This was a recent prompt from WordPress, Study Abroad:

If you were asked to spend a year living in a different location, where would you choose and why?

Since I haven’t done much international traveling, the first thought that came to mind when I read this prompt was Dublin. A year ago we took only our second trip out of the Unites States, to Ireland, and simply loved it. It was one of those whirlwind tours that took us to a different place every day or two. The purpose of such trips is to allow you to get your money’s worth by squeezing as many places as possible into a short time. But you don’t get to spend much time in any one place.

And so I’d like to go back to Dublin and soak in the local ambiance. The Dublin Writers Museum reminded me of just how rich Irish literary history is. But the real draw for me is that I still have as one item on my bucket list to read through James Joyce’s Ulysses, a copy of which I bought on last year’s trip. What better place to do that than in Dublin? And then I’d be able to participate in Bloomsday activities, following the path Leopold Bloom took while wandering around the city and thinking his thoughts. What could possibly be better than that (besides a few pints of Guinness and plates of Irish stew in a few local pubs)?

It might take me most of the year to get through Ulysses, but I hope I’d also have time to take a few side trips. I’d like to hop over to London for a while and check out the Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey and attend a play in the reconstructed Globe Theatre. And one other item high on my bucket list is to see Stonehenge. And of course there are all kinds of other literary places to visit, both in London (Baker Street, anyone?) and throughout England (Agatha Raisin’s Cotswolds, Thomas Hardy country, Jane Austen’s milieu, and those Wuthering Heights).

Now I’m sad that this is a purely hypothetical exercise. Dublin would be a great place to study abroad, both in its own right and as a jumping-off point for other adventures.

Three Things Thursday

I usually find a theme for these Thursday posts, but nothing presented itself this week. So here are three random but awesome things about my life.

1. My Book Club

Back in St. Louis I participated in two book clubs for several years. When we moved to Tacoma, one of the first things I looked for (after the library, of course) was a book club. I asked at my local branch of the Tacoma Public Library and was shocked to find that the entire system had only one, which met at the downtown headquarters on a weekday night. Shortly thereafter I also applied for a Pierce County Library card and made the same inquiry. I attended one afternoon meeting at one of the branches and found that it wasn’t for me.

Finally, I found in the local newspaper an announcement about book clubs at King’s Books, a local independent store that sells new and used books. King’s offers a wide range of book clubs (as well as other book- and author-related events). I chose the Classics Book Club because I’ve reached a point in my life when I think I need to start filling in the gaps of my life-time reading.

Cover: Winesburg, Ohio — Winesburg, Ohio (1947 Modern Library edition)

I’ve been with this book club about a year now. I’ve enjoyed it and learned a lot. We’re small but strong. Last night six of us had an entertaining and informative discussion about Winesburg, Ohio (1919) by Sherwood Anderson.

We also got the list of upcoming books put together by our leader. Our definition of classic is something published 50 or more years ago. Over the next 12 months we’ll be reading these 13 works:

The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley (1919)
Cover Her Face by P.D. James (1962)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847)
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1961)
The Mountains of California by John Muir (1894)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney (1955)
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin (1969)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote (1958)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams (1955)
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman (1934)
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1963)
The Group by Mary McCarthy (1963)

2. Spring

The unseasonably warm weather we had a few weeks back has hurried spring along. The pink earliest blooming trees are beginning to lose their blooms, yellow daffodils are prolific (although they, too, are past their peak), and now these trees are in bloom:

Don’t you wish you were here on the street where I live?

3. Eagles Soaring

On a walk around the neighborhood this morning we saw two bald eagles soaring overhead. It’s hard to miss their white heads.

Tacoma Nature Center

Today was such a beautiful day in the neighborhood that we went for a walk with our daughter this afternoon at the Tacoma Nature Center. The Nature Center is a 71-acre nature preserve that includes Snake Lake and the surrounding wetlands and forest.

Snake Lake is a 17-acre lake and wetland area that is home to wood ducks, mallard ducks, and Canada geese. The entire Nature Center is home to more than 20 species of mammals and about 100 species of birds.

The Nature Center offers more than two miles of walking trails, which we took advantage of this afternoon. According to Run Keeper, we walked a little more than 1.6 miles today.

When we first arrived, we heard frogs croaking (probably Pacific tree frogs), but we never saw them. We also saw a pair of Canada geese swimming on the lake. We also saw the colorful male wood duck and several turtles on logs, but they were too far away to be photographed with a camera phone. But I did get a picture of this pair of mallard ducks:

As we were crossing one of the bridges over the lake, a couple of teenaged nature guides were showing a group of young children a clump of salamander eggs (the roundish blob in the center of the photo) just beneath the surface of the water:

Magnificent Mount Rainier was visible on this clear, sunny day:

My husband and daughter took me to an anthill that they discovered last summer:

There were some ants moving about, but on the walk back we saw several smaller but busier anthills. In this photo, the part that looks like dark mud is actually swarming ants:

And here’s a close-up of them:

Here are a couple of other forest sights:

When we got back to the parking lot, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to photograph this lovely purple hyacinth:

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