Sunday, January 17, 2016

Maybe 2016 Will Be the Year to Reactivate This Thing

Happy New Year, my new year, that is :-D
January 14th at Alpine Meadows.  What a great way to celebrate turning 65!
I must admit Facebook diverted me from this blog. I used to share my favorite photos here, but it has become so much easier to simply share a single photo on Facebook, or to quickly create a photo album. Then Shutterfly created Shutterfly Share, basically replacing my old Kodak Gallery albums (which Shutterfly inherited when they purchased Kodak) with Renata's Pictures. Now MS Open Drive, Amazon.com's Kindle Fire support, and Google Photos offer free auto-backup uploads, so my photos are available everywhere. Yesterday, I reactivated my Twitter account and may start sharing a bit more there. No, I won't open an Instagram account to duplicate even more, but the way social media gets bought and sold, I wouldn't be surprised if I suddenly have an account opened for me and I'll have to eat my words. Oy vey.

Anyway, it's a new year - 2016 is off to a running start and I'm beginning my 66th trip around the sun. Every day I work will hopefully be my last work day, as I look toward retirement at the end of this year. Time to get organized and hopefully keep venturadreaming.com a bit more active this year.

Here's wishing everyone sunny days, enough rain and snow, and happy times with friends and family.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Hummingbird Summer Morning

After a wonderful day of very unusual summer rain brought to us by Tropical Storm Dolores, we had a warm humid morning at home.  A hummingbird came by and enjoyed the calla lily nectar while we had coffee on the back porch. It doesn't get much better than this!







Monday, February 24, 2014

I'm Back and Hope to Return More Often

Ever since becoming active on Facebook, I've barely visited this blog. Then in early January, I tried to renew my venturadreaming.com domain and had no luck until yesterday.  My automatic renewal setup didn't work and since the domain registration was no longer through a Google app payment program, I didn't have a clue as to what the password to the account was :-(
So later in January, I discovered my automatic payment had not gone through as I thought and I could no longer log into this blog. I didn't do anything about it until a week and a half ago.  It was too late to renew the domain name at the original $10 per year but I had a few more days to renew at $39.99 per year.  If I waited longer than the set time after non-renewal, I would have had to pay an extra $250.00 to regain "my" domain.
Tom and I decided to pay the new annual fee to keep my Ventura Dreaming site name and then the trouble really began!

                                                                                 
I was caught in a Catch 22 - I was able to create and sign-in to the eNom.com site in order to setup new automatic renewal payment instructions but because my ownership of the domain name had lapsed, I couldn't give the Google help people my password.

Through a long back-and-forth email conversation, they told me to ask for a new password. I did that but couldn't sign-in because without my instructions for renewal, the domain still didn't exist! By then I was ready to give up and wrote back that I had done all I could but they could have the domain name, I was through beating my head against a wall.

Finally, I got this reply back yesterday: 
Hello,

Thank you very much for your response with all the needed information, approvals and password for verification.

I have successfully recovered and renewed your domain venturadreaming.com. Your domain is now available in your direct account for management.

So after all that hassle for the past six weeks, Ventura Dreaming is back and I'm ready to post to this blog again! 
.


Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Rehearsing Fern Hill at CSUCI

I've really grown to love this piece - we (Ventura First UMC's Chancel Choir) have been preparing to sing Fern Hill with the CSU Channel Islands Choir and the Channel Islands Chamber Orchestra for several weeks and I've begun to come on campus to join their Monday night rehearsals. Last Saturday, some of us participated in CICA's retreat where I took these pictures and video.


Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.





And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.






















All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.






















And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.







Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Friday, November 04, 2011

November Brings Rain, Snow, and an Update

Facebook makes it so easy to comment on things or share events and thoughts, I'm surprised to see how long it has been since I've "blogged". Today is my 5th anniversary of when I started working for Oxnard at the South Oxnard Branch Library - so nice it happens to be my "off-Saturday" so I have three days off this weekend and we're able to spend the time at Sam's house in Kings Beach. It's also nice Ann and Zane are always available to take care of Bob, the fish, and the house whenever we're away.
Life has been good for the most part - great most of the time with a few bumps along the way. Bryan married Jessica, Sam and Jenn broke up, Brooklyn is 1-year-old and Lindsay and April are expecting again. Tom and I celebrated our 40th anniversary in Italy!
I think I said the same thing a year ago, but I hope to post here again more often.