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! 

.

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.

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.

Beautiful Snowy Morning

We've spent a very relaxing Spring Break with Sam & Jenn. Five days in this beautiful Tahoe North Shore area with our kids is a great way to vacation!

(Nov.4, 2011 note: I've never edited previous blog postings until now. Back on this day in April, I posted being overjoyed that Sam and Jenn were getting married in November, this Saturday, in fact. Sam broke it off in August and although I was very sad, we all agree it was the right decision. I've just removed the photo I took that week of the happy couple - no need to open old wounds by keeping it up.)

Wind: Another Trial for Mother Birds

We are having another windy day and gusts of 25-30mph were blowing the avocado tree branches all over the place this morning. Poor Mama Hummer was spreading her wings and tail over the nest, but she still had to leave to find food. You can barely see one of the babies along the left side of her body if you click on this picture and see the enlarged photo.
This is the first time I've seen her with her back to the house, but I guess she was facing the wind to protect her nestlings.