Musings

I’m going to start a blog. I am not sure what that word means, but I guess it’s where you log your thoughts into a journal on the internet. Why the hell don’t they just call it a bjournal? Maybe that sounds too Swedish? But I like it and that's what I'll call mine...a Bjournal.

Picking up my life where we left off when I started bjournaling…

16 June 07
Trip home.

We got a late start…it’s just as well, the little ones will sleep more now that we’ll be traveling in the dark. McDonald’s for supper. I’m sick of fast food…I need a salad. I took photos of the place our large rock used to live. It’s on highway 15, just south of Fenton and north of Highway 18. Algona Iowa, the butthole of the United States, it always has been, it always will be. It rained on us as usual, when we drove thru there. I felt like we were in Kansas in the Wizard of Oz, it was so dark and stormy. Then we drove by a grain elevator that was lit up and looked just like the Emerald City…only it wasn’t green. I could barely get a photo of it because of the rain on the windows. My camera wouldn’t focus right.

Pictoria (a new word I just made up to indicate a picture/photo will go here when I figure out how to post them on my bjournal!)


We just went thru Ventura Iowa…not far from where “the music died”. We have been thru sun and sirens, road kill and rain. In fact, it’s raining now. Reminds me of the song “Ventura highway in the rain…”. Altho those singers weren’t thinking of Ventura Iowa when they sang that one, I’m sure. Passing the turn off to Fertile Iowa, which is near Manly Iowa, reminds me of a stupid saying…a headline really…”Fertile woman marries Manly man”…yeah that sounds just like a headline from these parts…sometimes news is hard to come by. The reporter from Irvington Iowa, where we used to live, was called Nosy Rosie, I always wondered if that was her real name…Rosie. Anyway, she wrote headlines like that. My Chihuahua's name is Rosie and she's nosy too.

I love Iowa and I hate Iowa. I’ve lived in Iowa a good share of my many days on earth and it’s boring. I had the only horse in a one-horse town. The population was 50 people and that included all the outlying farms, not just the town folk. One thing I do love about Iowa is that I can’t get lost here. Not out in the country, anyway. You see, I know about section roads and I know that all roads connect. Iowa has more beauty than people realize. Farmland is beautiful…believe it or not. The tall framed houses and cemeteries with names like Pearl Rock Cemetery hold so much history, they have to be beautiful, but it can still be boring (Pearl-Rock?? They don’t correlate …is that like Silk purse-Sow’s Ear??) The Iowa Great Lakes are perfect, and used to be the best-kept secret in the state. Not anymore. But don’t knock Iowa if you haven’t tried it. I just wanted to say that.

Pictoria ...there's that word again! Here's a shot of a sunrise and our view of the lake from the front porch of our cabin. Iowa's easy to love.



Have you ever tried to figure out what the heck a particular spell check notification means? For instance, the phrase above, “best-kept”…. don’t type it without the hyphen!!! It will forever have a green line under it. It took me a freaking week to figure it out. Sometimes I just want to turn it off and show the world what a lousy speller/grammarian I am, just so I don’t have to see all these red lines, green lines, blue lines (the blue lines are new to me…it said something about “auto correct”) Putting a blue line and not automatically correcting it, ISN’T auto-correct!! It’s auto-annoy!!

I hated missing my nephew’s wedding, but my son wanted to spend this time with his little ones…it’s a long sad story. Scott and Elise should be married by now, as I type this, and the aunties and uncles, mamas and daddies are all getting sloshed at the free bar. I think there’s a free bar…but maybe not…these kids are two new teachers….they can’t make too much money yet. But I’ll bet they’re all getting sloshed anyway! It’s family tradition!

I think I’m going to like blogging/bjournaling. That’s a funny word. Blogging…makes me think of flogging as in getting a sound whipping…or maybe slogging as in going thru muck and mire. Sometimes my life could equate to either of those.

I love this computer, it’s an Apple iBook. Now if I can just get used to typing smaller and from my lap.

This is my first entry…I’m going to go enjoy the rest of the trip now (enjoy=sleep the rest of the trip). I shall return. Once I figure out how to produce this bjournal of mine!