Girl Jockey

TODAY'S MEMORY JOGGER:  "What did you want to be when you grew up?  Why?"

THIS!!

Because I loved horses (don't all young girls?)....

But then I grew too tall so I decided to be a writer.

But writing didn't pay so I eventually became a computer programmer/systems analyst.

I made a lot of money, but writing computer programs almost completely destroyed my creativity.

I've spent the last two years trying to get it back.

I'm almost there.

Maybe I'll dig up that half-finished novel and ... well ...

... finish it?!



FOR NEXT WEEK:  "What is your secret or recipe for good health?"

 

Memories of Me Monday Part Three

Ok, to recap, here's the Memory Jogger from The Jar: "If you could visit any country overseas, where would you go, and why?"

As I've mentioned, I'm limiting myself (for awhile at least, probably a year) to writing about memories of my childhood only. I remember having only the vaguest interest in visiting a country overseas; I probably didn't know much about any of them yet. I think I may have wanted to go to Ireland because I had some notion that everyone there owned horses, and I had the usual schoolgirl crush on those handsome animals. Other than that, I don't remember any desire to leave the country. I think I may have been too scared. My older brother, Mike, travelled to Japan with his Boy Scout troop when he was twelve. I remember being totally in awe of him, that he was brave enough to go to such an exotic place without our parents! And, if I remember correctly, the boys were parcelled out among host Japanese families so he stayed in the home of complete strangers!

No way would I have had the nerve to do something like that.

However, I did have an ongoing fantasy of being shipwrecked on a deserted island.

Really!

It was most likely fueled by the books I read, like "Robinson Crusoe," "The Swiss Family Robinson," "Baby Island," and one of my all-time favorite books, "Island of the Blue Dolphins." All of these books were about people stranded on deserted islands. The last two books were my favorites because the main characters were young girls who used their wits and cunning to survive and thrive. Just the kind of girl I wanted to be, and wasn't.

At that time my family was living in Redondo Beach, California. The summer I was 11 my mom took us five kids, plus several friends and including my best friend, Judy, to the beach almost every weekday while my dad worked. We all got as brown as Indians, rubbed our stomachs raw riding the waves on our canvas surfmats, burned our bare feet on the hot sand, ate tuna sandwiches made with Miracle Whip and my Mom's homemade wheat bread, grapes, red plums, and cookies, and went home every afternoon with sand in our suits, ears, and hair. It was heaven!

Judy and I spent those summer days pretending we were sisters shipwrecked on a deserted island. We stood knee-deep in the waves for hours and made up stories about our adventures. We began writing the stories in notebooks that we bought at the Five and Dime. My stories evolved into my first novel. It was called "Two Girls on an Island," and I illustrated it myself. I can't remember for sure if Judy wrote a novel, too (did you, Judy?), but she probably did.

Writing at our kitchen table, about 1970

That summer marks the beginning my writing life. Over the next 5 or 6 years I filled several notebooks with stories, journal entries, and poems, and I wrote another novel called "Cabin 13." Then when I was 18 and packing to move out of my parent's house, I casually tossed them all in the trash. My mom, who was watching me pack, looked at me with surprise and said, "You may regret that someday."

I was sure then that I wouldn't; that was childish stuff and I was done with it.

She was right.

Although I've filled many a notebook and journal since then, and I expect I'll fill many more, but I'd give a lot to have those first efforts back again.

More Shameless Plugz for my Boyz

Can't help it, it's what Moms do!

Michael's "50 Amazing Movie Facts" article written for Hollywire has received so many responses (150,000+ page views and growing) that it is now the NUMBER ONE feature article on the website. Go to the website and you'll see it right at the top of the page, "above the fold," as it's called in newspaper jargon, meaning the most important articles which are always placed on the front page, above the fold of the paper.

I may not have fulfilled my dream (yet) of becoming a famous writer, but it looks like Michael will! Oh, and he does this while living and working as a teacher in mainland, communist CHINA!

And Rodrigo? Well, that boy (ok, young MAN) just LOVES being married, and it absolutely warms my heart. Dianna is an angel. Rodrigo (and I!!!) waited a long time for Dianna to come along, and I'm so pleased she is now part of our family. When I talk to Rodrigo on the phone he sounds truly happy, and can you imagine how happy that makes his Mom?

I know I promised to post more photos from Dianna and Rodrigo's wedding -- the really good, professional ones, of Rodrigo and Dianna's wedding -- taken by Jeff Fassett. There are just sooooo many awesome photos! So here is the link: Dianna and Rodrigo. If you've got lots of time you may be able to get through them all! Jeff and his assistant took tons of photos. The best part? If you are planning a wedding in southern Cali I would highly recommend Jeff and his staff. He is fantastic; he listened to everyone and took all the photos that each one of us (and there were a lot of us) thought were most important. And now, long after the wedding is over, he's still answering all my emails, you can't beat that!

I'm tickled that Dianna and Rodrigo have asked me to create their wedding album. I can't wait to work with Jeff's exquisite photos. If all I did was put each photo on a blank page, the album would be gorgeous! In the meantime.....here's a photo of the sweet little house Dianna and Rodrigo have moved into:

Yeah, Life is good when the Kids are doing well.

San Diego - Part Two

That’s me in my cold-weather headgear. Hah, Mike says I look like a Russian. I’ve got some pretty strange outfits for cold days and, believe me, fashion is a distant second to warmth out on the ocean! Some days I end up with 5 or 6 layers of clothes on!

I was asleep when we crossed from Mexican waters into the U.S. or I’d have immediately fired up my cell phone to check for service! We reached Shelter Island Harbor in San Diego early in the morning. Then it was immediately to the showers, woohoo! And, yep, we’ve got cell phone service!

Other very necessary chores followed – laundry and trash removal among the most important. Mike had a long list of boat maintenance tasks and I had a lot of work to do on my laptop. For my digital scrapbooking business I needed to upload my December freebies (check ‘em out if you haven’t already: http://www.webajeb.com/, then click on the Freebies link at the top), post to both my blogs (this personal one, and also http://www.blogwebajeb.blogspot.com/), as well as go through numerous emails in both my business email account and my personal yahoo account. Whew!

By the time I got myself over to the Kona Kai hotel to sit in their lobby and use their free wi-fi connection it was already after noon. Before I got busy with internet stuff I called my mom’s house but no one answered so I figured she and my sisters were off on the annual day-after-Thanksgiving “Mother/Daughter Christmas Shopping Kick-Off.” I was missing it! Well, but I could talk to them anyway! I got hold of my sister, Karen, on her cell phone and, sure enough, they were all at the Simi Valley Mall: my Mom, my sisters Karen, Lisa, Denise, and Kristen, Karen’s friend, Jen, Lisa’s daughter, Heather, and Denise’s daughter, Jenny. They were having a great time. I’d love to have been with them.

Well, since I wasn’t there to take photos I’ll just have to post the only photo I have with me from a previous shopping trip. Here’s Kristen, her friend, Stacy, Mom, Lisa and Denise. This is from a few years back, I don’t even know how many….! (Stacy’s black eye is a whole ‘nother story!) However, if you visit my sister, Kristen's Blog, she just might write about it....or not -- depending on if she sees this posting! Here is the url: http://ascernia.blogspot.com/.

I also got to have a long chat with my son, Rodrigo, later in the day. He is due to get married next summer so he brought me up to date on the latest wedding plans. He and his fiancée, Dianna, have a lot going on these days with the upcoming wedding, full-time jobs & night school, not to mention applying to graduate school programs. Thank goodness I don’t have to maintain a schedule like that!

Our day in San Diego flew by with all we needed to get done. We fell into bed that night and slept like logs in spite of a couple of dock lights that were shining directly into our windows. This morning we got up early and hit the showers (ahhhh!), did a couple more quick things to the boat (like pump the holding tank – yummy) and then headed back out to sea. On our way out the channel we passed several buoys, all occupied. These goof-balls were definitely enjoying their snooze in the sun.

We originally thought we’d head out to Catalina and then to Ventura or Oxnard, but when we did the calcs for distance and travel time we realized we’d reach Avalon in the dead of night. Not a fun time (or safe) to try to anchor in an unfamiliar harbor. We studied the charts again and decided, instead of spending a day on Catalina, to instead spend that day with family, so we will be forging straight through the night and most of tomorrow to reach Oxnard by dark tomorrow evening. I told my Mom we probably wouldn’t be there until Tuesday so I hope she and my Dad won’t mind us showing up a bit early!

Of course, our new schedule means night-watches tonight. You can bet I’ll be wearing one of my cute cold-weather outfits when it’s my turn. Mike always takes the bulk of the night-watches but I try to do my share. I am better about them now than when we first started this trip, but I still don’t like them much. It’s just creepy out on deck all alone in the dark! Luckily, we have a full moon tonight so that will help a lot.

And it’s almost time for my shift so I’ll put away my laptop now and get settled for the long night ahead.

Take care everyone!

Three Updates Posted Today

Hi friends and family! We are back in Turtle Bay; I have just posted three "posts" so be sure and scroll down to read them all. We have been so busy; but not much chance to get on the internet. We think we'll be back in San Diego by the end of November, at which time I'll be calling my MOM & DAD! I'm pretty homesick today; but should be over it soon. It is POURING here today, including thunder & lightning and the lady who served us our lunch said they haven't had thunder in 10 years so it is a pretty exciting event around here. We are now on our way home, but it will take us another month to get there, and meanwhile we will be "port-hopping" so that we don't have to spend many all-nighters at sea; certainly never more than ONE night at sea at a time! Since the weather is so bad we will probably now just go back to our boat (after buying a few groceries) and hole up for the day, watching movies, reading, cooking a meal, and getting a good night's sleep. Poor Mike did the entire night-watch himself last night because I have not been feeling up to par so he is exhausted. So, gotta run, and get him into his sleeping bag. Wish I had more time, but will write more and post again as soon as I can. We're thinking of you all, and miss you, and thank you for all the emails, posting comments, and other messages you've been sending. Love every one of 'em!
Our best to all! Mike & Deb

Departure Day !

Hard to believe this day has finally arrived! The boat is provisioned, the dinghy is on-board, the new genoa sail has been test-fitted, and, gulp, it's just about time to Go.

We're still at home at the moment. Mike is mowing the lawn. I'm doing some last-minute cleaning of floors, updating my blog, checking e-mail and, in a few minutes, I'm going to bake some cookies to welcome our housesitters. Around three Richard will arrive and it will be time to say good-bye to the cats. That will be the hardest part. I miss them already! They know something's up. Scout is stuck to me like glue, and Jack has been following me around the house head-butting me or biting my leg every chance he gets.

We're disappointed in the weather. It's overcast, gloomy, and rainy today. We will probably have rain tonight. I just hope it doesn't rain tomorrow night because that is when we will be doing our first overnight sail. We'll be taking turns through the night, one of us at the helm to keep the boat on course, the other sleeping. Every two hours we will switch. Mike calls it "two on, two off." I call it "two terror, two comatose." I'm not crazy about standing watch alone in the middle of the night. It's so dark! The moon is new right now, too, so there won't even be much moonlight. Well, you've heard the saying, "every day, do something that scares you." With experience I'll get braver. And the further south we go the warmer the weather will be.

I'm also a little disappointed in my current health status. I've had a bad cold w/cough for several days now, and today I'm feeling achey all over as though I'm coming down with the flu. So annoying, just when I need to be at my best. Well, I've got plenty of meds so will just have to battle it through and hope to feel a little better each day.

A friend from County of Napa, Nancy, asked me yesterday on the phone, "what are you going to do all day?" She is worried I will be bored. True, sailing can be boring -- we certainly won't be speeding along like in a speedboat. It's a very leisurely way to travel, and you have to be patient and just enjoy being out on the water. Mike loves that, as well as any sea life we come across, the phosphoresence of the water at night, even watching for changes in the weather. He is a born sailor even though he suffers from motion sickness! The first few days will be the worst for him, but he'll take dramamine and hang in there until he acclimates to the motion of the boat.

As for me, I have so many hobbies that I could fill the days four times over. I will be doing lots of digital scrapbooking on my laptop, as well as keeping a detailed journal of our trip, updating my blog whenever I can, photographing absolutely everything, knitting socks, reading, cross-stitching, and cooking meals. All of those things will keep me very busy during my leisure time, also known as any time that Captain Mike doesn't have me busy following his orders to 'swab the deck' or 'trim the sheets!'

We'll be thinking of you all during our trip. Enjoy the Fall, take care and, please, keep in touch!

Life - It's for Living

Hello . . . and welcome to my blog!

I'm excited about blogging; I found blogs recently, began reading various ones and, well, I'm hooked! I feel like I have friends all over the world now. It's different from e-mail and even instant-messenger type communication. Blogs are where people write about whatever is on their mind, going on in their lives, or interests them. You really get a feel for the depth of a person by reading their blog postings.

This is my personal blog. I also have a blog for my business, "Webajeb Digital Photo Albums & Portfolios" where I blog about my experiences in getting a small business up and running, how the business is growing and changing, and new products and specials. It's called BlogWebajeb and you are welcome to read it by simply going to my website www.webajeb.com and clicking on the Blog link at the top of the Home Page.

THIS blog, however, is where I'll get more personal . . . and blog about my life & experiences, my passions, my heartaches & worries, and all the exciting changes that are going on in my little corner of the world.

For example, would you believe my husband and I BOTH just quit our high-tech jobs??? I'll be talking about why, and what we're planning to do next.

Other topics I can't wait to talk (blog!) about: Family, friends, travel, holidays, the "Baja Ha Ha," sailing, photography, digital (and traditional) scrapbooking, reading, knitting, crocheting, cross-stitching, handicrafts (love handmade items!), sewing, hiking, camping, handmade books & journals, gardening, writing, family reunions, cooking, cats, animal rescue, and whatever else pops into my head! I hope you'll visit my blog often and, please, leave comments!

More soon! Meanwhile, feel free to email me anytime!