Little Book - Big Message

I met Keith Levy of New Zealand via my love of reading about tiny houses.  Keith has been featured by many of the tiny house bloggers.  I do believe I discovered him at Tiny House Listings.  If you want to visit the wonderful world of tiny houses, I have a blog section in my right-hand column.

What attracted me to Keith's Bedford Bus named The Flying Tortoise was the interior.  I saw it and I instantly liked it.  Keith aptly named a blog after his bus and I started following it after reading about him.  I really enjoy The Flying Tortoise blog.  It's one of the highlights of my day now because of the funny, quirky posts that always include pictures.  It's the type of stuff I never come across and I always find it interesting.

I initially contacted Keith, I believe it was, because I liked how he made me feel like solar could be simple and that's one of the things I'd like to check off my "I've Learned It" list.  I also contacted him because I appreciated how he said he uses 12-volt cigarette lighters for plug-ins.  That's just my style and I related to the idea.

My memory fails me because I don't recall how I discovered Keith wrote a book.  I asked Keith about purchasing his book.  Rather than stating a price, he offered to send it to me for free.  I was taken aback a bit.  Free is good and I love free, but I wasn't expecting the generous and kind offer, especially considering postage from around the world.  I got to say though that being very part-time employed, it was music to my ears.

I received the cute, little book via a brightly-colored envelope covered with New Zealand stamps and addressed in Keith's large, highly likable and very memorable handwriting.  I have his envelope propped up, so I can look it, I like it so much.  He must have a natural ability for good taste in handwriting, typefaces and fonts because the book reflects this gift as well.

Well, I can't share the secret of the book.  You'll just have to be in touch with Keith.  But I can say, it's a lesson and a lifestyle that is well to practice, live and learn.

Home Life

I don't think I can get enough of posting pictures of these two.  Both sleeping in their favorite spots.  Hawthorn, the Ragdoll kitten, is growing by leaps and bounds.

View From Where I Live

I had to post this gorgeous pic of the view from the deck upstairs where I live.  The folks I rent from, he took this pic.  He bought this amazing Nikon earlier in the year and it's one nice camera.

The house is sprawling.  They live upstairs and I live downstairs.  Don't get me wrong, I do not live in a basement.  The house is built on a slope on top of a mountain above an amazing "dragon" lake (looks like a dragon on the map - Table Rock Lake in Missouri) and the downstairs is far above ground.  The view from my bedroom is so high up, it looks like I'm on the second or third floor.

I think you'll enjoy it.

Happy New Year!

A lot of people may not know this, but I lost nearly 70 pounds in 2011 and I feel great! It's wonderful to be in 2012 and the journey will always continue onto greater health.

Happy Holidays

A Very Merry Christmas to All of You!

Christmas Eve Frost

It's quite a frost too!  Everything is white.  It's so pretty.  I noticed it getting cold all night and everything frosting over, but I had no idea what the morning light would bring.

What a sight!

Hawthorn Growing Up and Kansas Being Cute

A couple days before Christmas and Hawthorn is growing like wildfire and Kansas is just as cute as she's always been.

Full Moon

When I took my Saint Bernard out, I saw the full moon.  I just had to grab my eCAM and capture it.  Here are my photos.

The snow has melted and the dew is frozen and sparkly on the ground.

First Snowfall 2011

These are flakes, but the camera captures them as streaks, which is a bit disconcerting.  Perhaps I need to learn the tricks of how to capture snow falling to look like it really does.

I shot a quick video too, but now I've got to teach myself how to use video editing software to get it just how I want it, so I'll be back later to post the video.

It's accumulating pretty fast.  I'm one of those folks who likes snow.  I think it's pretty.

Okay, I got my video edited.  I'll share about that process in a sec, since you may want to know how to do quick edits to your own videos.  I want you to know that it's a very steady snowfall and it's coming down very quickly, even though in the video it appears patchy.  All I can gather is it must be determined depending upon the direction of the camera whether we see the snow coming down or just blackness.  Not sure why there could be that many snowflakes falling and the camera just picking up pure black.  Another one of those learning curves I'd have to understand when it comes to capturing the beauty of weather.

I used a pretty typical video editor at first, but it was far too complicated for me.  I found Avidemux and it's super simple to use.  It does the most obvious thing you'd want a video editor to do when removing a section of video.  You mark the beginning of the clip you want gone by clicking A and the end of the clip by clicking B, then hit delete.  You'd think that's the most obvious thing ever, but it's not.  Most video software gets so overly complicated, it's unbelievable.  The key to remember with Avidemux is you must include your extension in the file name when saving your video.  Be sure to tack on AVI or MP4, or whatever format you're using after the period.  For instance, firstsnowall2011.AVI, and that's all you need to know to be able to use it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cute Kitty Poses

I spied Hawthorn on the wicker couch and couldn't pass up another photo op.  She was napping, but as soon as she spied the camera, she opened her eyes.

I'd say based on that look on her face, she was none too pleased with me disturbing her.  And she looks like such a roly poly butterball, doesn't she?  She loves to gobble up her canned kitty food, which I have to keep under control because I think she'd eat til no end.

But let's just get cuter . . .

Never did I expect she'd start doing cute kitty poses for all of us.

She's not done yet. She's got some stretching in her.

I initially grabbed my eCam to capture her in her various stages of growing up because I know she'll grow up so fast and I'll regret it if I don't have cute pictures of her all along the way, but I sure didn't expect to get such sweet and fun kitten attitude.

Aww! Photo Moment

When I saw this, I jumped up quick and grabbed my eCam.

Both girls lying on the same wicker couch - Hawthorn, the pretty Ragdoll kitten and Kansas, the sweet Saint Bernard.  Glad to see they know they're a pair.  Just us three girls.

Vintage Delight

I believe I yelled, "Stop the car!" when I saw this building.  There was no way that I was going to allow this vintage charmer to escape my camera lens.  Don't you just love it?

Now I just need to dig up some history on it.  The inside is quintessential 1940s and 1950s, maybe as far back as the 20s or 30s.  I don't know.  It'd sure help if I had my Mom with me on trips like this because I could ask her when she was growing up if the places were similar.

I know it reminds me of one of the rare Woolworth's lunch counters I glimpsed that amazingly still existed when I was a very little girl in the 1960s.  I can still see that counter in my mind's eye to this day.

Central Dairy is located in Jefferson City, MO.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I owe the first two to Granny Mountain, one of my favorite blogs.  They are so funny!

Saint Charles

I promised to write an entry and share my photos of Saint Charles, Missouri, just outside of Saint Louis, after making a quick visit on my trip to pick up Hawthorn, my sweet Ragdoll kitten, who is doing wonderfully.  She is so full of fun and energy.

Saint Charles is old, so old in fact it is the oldest city on the Missouri River, the third oldest city west of the Mississippi and one of the original five counties of Missouri.   It's been settled since 1769 and interestingly, it was Missouri's first state capital and home to the first railroad bridge to span the Missouri River.  It's been hit by tornadoes and floods and survived beautifully.  It's been home to Daniel Boone and it was the starting point for the infamous journey of Lewis and Clark.

Being located on the Missouri River is of particular interest to me because I'm drawn to towns located on the banks of rivers.  They're something special and it's a great place to spend time and to walk or run.  When I lived in Parkville, another Missouri town situated along the Missouri River, but on the opposite side of the state being next to Kansas City, I used to run the riverside trails in pretty English Landing Park.

I was fortunate to see Main Street firsthand after seeing it on the Internet several different times.  The 13-block stretch can't be done justice via pictures.  It's something to see.  It reminds me of Massachusetts Avenue in Lawrence, KS in the sense of the length.  There's not many cities and towns that can boast such impressively long downtown main streets.  I'd say the architecture in Saint Charles is far more impressive though and makes much more of a statement.  It's very reminiscent of Boston.  One thing I've always liked about Saint Louis is its similarity to New England and the East Coast.  I adore these architectural building styles; if it were possible to stand in one spot for all eternity, I'd do it around architecture like this.

Saint Charles is home to one of the nation's largest Christmas festivals.  There's a museum for Lewis and Clark as well as the home Boone shared with his family.  Suffice it to say, there are so many festivals, fairs, events and places to visit, I may just come back and write another post detailing all there is to see and do in Saint Charles.  If you'd like to dive right in, I suggest the Saint Charles pages on greatriverroad.com as an easy-to-read guide.

I'll be back to take more pictures.