Road Trip

Image from Google Images

I wrote most of this post over two years ago, but I am starting to feel this way again. 

I wish my title meant that I am planning a road trip. Unfortunately it only means that I have been thinking about road trips a lot lately and wishing I was planning one. It's been a while since I have been on a road trip.....California to Colorado with my sister-in-law, Nancy

A good road trip is hard to beat. A good traveling companion, like the above mentioned Nancy, is a great plus. Whether alone or with someone, I love the "cocoonish" feeling of being in the car with nothing to be responsible for but putting the miles behind you. Good scenery or just one town after another, I love seeing things I've never seen before. I love having hour after hour to listen to old songs on the radio (and sing along if I'm alone) or listen to a book on a CD.. I love the time to talk with someone without all the normal distractions. And, there is no better excuse for eating junk food than a road trip.

I know, there are all kinds of road trips. Road trips with kids are in a class by themselves, but I bet most of us have memories of family road trips that were good, or at least memorable. I remember my Dad being stopped for speeding and having "words" with a policeman that I thought were going to land us all in jail. My kids learned that I could get from the front seat to the back of the station wagon or van with amazing speed.

My longest road trip was driving from Colorado to Belize.....seven days there, five days back and weeks in Belize in between. There were things about the trip that weren't great (a not-the-best traveling companion), but the road travel was an unforgettable experience. I tried to find some pictures from that trip, but I ran into some old Christmas candy, or maybe it was Halloween candy, in the closet and I got distracted and gave up.

As I said, I don't have a trip planned right now, but I may have to pull out a map and start planning.

Would You Look At That or Little Things Mean a Lot

A work colleague that I have talked to a lot on the phone but never met in person came into my office today with a gift for me. The gift was a very cool little electric candle operated by a tiny remote control that turns it on and off, changes the color, sets the light to flickering or steady and sets it to turn off after after a set amount of time. It is even scented, and it was a very apt gift since we have a strict prohibition against burning candles in our offices.

A cool gift, but it meant so much more on a day that was stacking up to be hectic, bordering on stressful. It was a gift that allowed me to stop for a moment and appreciate someone's thoughtfulness. It was a gift that made me think about needing to show that thoughtfulness to others more often. It was a gift that made me feel good and made me want to do something to make someone else feel good. The giver said "oh, it's not much," but to me, today, it was a lot.

Freewheeling Friday

Between baseball and, frankly, a little summer laziness I have been away from my blog for nearly two weeks. I thought that after that much time away I would be full of things I wanted to write about, but it seems like whatever little blog mojo I might have is a use it or lose it thing. Oh well, I can't let having little to say get in the way of a Freewheeling Friday catch-up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have been going to a lot of baseball games and I have missed a lot of games since the schedules often overlap. What I haven't been doing is taking lots of pictures. I borrowed this one from daughter-in-law's Facebook page. Wil, who will soon be 6, is a first time Little Leaguer and he takes his baseball very seriously.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A couple of things that happened this week showed me that even things that irritate us can give us something to be thankful for.

I missed a baseball game on Wednesday night because I got caught in a traffic back-up caused by a very serious wreck. Even though it was irritating to be stuck in traffic for over an hour and to miss the game, I was very grateful to be the one stuck in traffic and not one of those involved in the wreck.

Thursday morning at about 2 a.m. I was startled awake by the phone ringing. (The only good middle of the night call I have ever gotten was when Joanna called to tell me Brandon had been called up to the major leagues).  This early morning call turned out to be a reverse 911 call about a missing little girl. The phone rang again about an hour later with the information that the little girl had been found. Even though it was irritating to be woken up at that time by a ringing phone, I was thankful that our town had made the effort and that the little girl had been found.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My friend Sonia at Gutsy Writer has asked her readers to write a life list, a list of 10 things you want to do. I haven't come up with a list and I am wondering if it is because I have a waning sense of adventure (which I don't think is the case) or if I am just feeling a sense of contentment with my life right now. Of course, there are always new things I want to do and places I want to go, I just can't seem to come up with a list. Go visit Sonia to see some very interesting lists.

I Blame Baseball

I have never been what anyone would call a prolific blogger.  The truth is that I am more of a hit and miss bogger, but I usually come up with a post at least a couple of times a week. Lately I feel more like an almost never blogger. 

I blame baseball.

My four oldest grandkids are all playing baseball this summer and it seems like almost anytime I am not at work there is a baseball game to go to. I am, in fact, missing a game this morning, but there are two more I could go to today. There are two Monday night, one Wednesday night.....and so on until sometime in July.  I don't get to all of them by any means, but I love to go to the ones I can, which leaves me with little time for blogging or much of anything else right now.

When time and energy permit I will, of course, choose blogging over cooking, or laundry or any other chores, but if I don't show up here much for a while it is all baseball's fault.