Almost Winter in Lucerne Valley California

Winter has arrived early in Lucerne Valley, CA. For the past 3 nights, the water has frozen in the hoses and the bird water buckets. I've had to wear layers to bed, as well as five blankets. Last night my boyfriend figured out how to make a hot water bottle.

I still miss the city life. But I also appreciate the giant yard we have and the lack of traffic. We live on a dirt road. We never have to sit in traffic, unless we drive to a bigger town. Compared to spending hours on the 405 or 5 or 22 FWY, it's a blessing. Everywhere you live has pros and cons. I guess I want the best of both worlds.

It looks like soon I'll have a ride to Rancho Cucamunga fairly regularly, at least until Feb. Then I'll have a ride into town more often if I need to visit a craft store. I've really missed having a local craft store. The Lucerne Market carries a few items if I get in a pinch, but it's no Michael's. Of course if I get a ride to town, I won't get a ride home for 4 or 5 hours. But I can take my knitting or a sketchbook or a journal or a book. I'm good at entertaining myself. In fact sometimes I get more done if I'm not at home.

Beautiful view from my backyard.

Every day I'm frustrated because I feel like I should be doing more with my life. It's almost 2 AM and I'm blogging, mainly because I haven't written anything all day.

Checking out the weather.

Frozen birdbath.

Saving wood for a chicken coop.

Pros and Cons of New Home Life

Getting used to my new home has been both a blessing and a curse. I love the tranquility (usually).  I love having quail in my yard and other birds I've never seen before. I love watching the hummingbirds wage war on each other. I love the neighbor's fat gunia fowl that leap over our fence to eat the bird seed I put out for the sparrows.

And I love the store Winco, which seems to have a bit of everything I need for prices I haven't seen since the '80's.

On the downside, I have no social life. I have no car. My boyfriend and I get on each others nerves from too much time together. If I need to go somewhere and it's on his route for the day I might get to go. That is so constricting it makes me want to scream.

My income has plummeted without DSL and good Internet access. The only way I can even type this blog is by going to the library and using their DSL. Last time I was here the computer I was on had Yahoo Messenger so I got to leave a message for friends I haven't been able to talk to since leaving Anaheim. Only today none of the library computers seem to have it. I have no control over what programs they do or do not have. And for some reason at 1 PM the library suddenly fills up with people so if I don't get there before that, there are no computers available. There is a 3 hour limit per day on computer time, so I'm trying to squeeze what I used to do online in 8 hours a day into 2 library sessions of 3 hours each per week.  And since Thursday is Thanksgiving, this week I only get one day to do everything. So I'm typing like a maniac trying to get everything done.

I'm so far behind on Nanowrimo because of my limited computer access.  I'm about 15,000 words behind. I can write longhand but then I have to type it all in later so it's a big time suck. Ack! I'm staying home on Thanksgiving so I hope I can use my boyfriend's computer. We are sharing one monitor and one keyboard, so if he's on it, I can't be. My monitor died in Anaheim, and the move used up all our money, so who knows when I'll get another one. I really don't know how I'm going to make a living if I don't get a satellite connection or something. Or Verizon gets off their butts and  puts more DSL ports in Lucerne Valley. I feel like a little old lady living out here in the middle of nowhere with technology from the 50's.

Library Hour Cutbacks

I was off to the library this morning at 9 AM when I remembered they don't open until 11 AM on Mon. through Thurs. and noon on Friday and Sat. With all the California budget woes, I'm amazed we have libraries at all. It just seems wrong to cut something that increases the education of the populace. Libraries don't just have books, but computers for those that can't afford their own, videos, community meetings, unemployment resources, tax forms, and many other things that keep a city working smoothly. I'm sure the staff at libraries fights all the time to keep their branches open.

I've always loved libraries. It was one of the more pleasant things I got to do with my father. Did you know military bases have libraries? In high school I worked at my library. Years later after I had children, I volunteered at the Cal Poly SLO library for a while. If you want your kids to frequent libaries, set a good example by going to libraries.

And The Archery Field Was Overrun

I was right about ready to turn off my computer and crawl into bed when I remember my committment to do this daily journaling. Granted it's almost 1 AM it's close enough.

Today when we got to the archery range, there was a huge archery tournament going on. There were more cars than parking spaces and they were parked all over the grass. The grass is the area our organizer had paid the city a fee to reserve for us for our knitting, juggling,& archery event. She got there around 9 AM to set up and there was just no way we'd be able to use the area and move all those cars. And even if we could get them to leave the grass, there'd be no parking spaces for all the knitters, jugglers and so forth to park from our group.

And the only reason I got my boyfriend to drive me there was so he could do archery. The archery that wasn't going to happen now. Because the club of archers had rented the entire range.

Our leader had driven down the horseshoe shaped narrow road and found us a spot in another part of the park near restrooms. She did the best she could but there was only parallel parking and some of the spinners had to lug their spinning wheels a very far way.

But once we got all settled we managed to have a very good time anyway. We had contests, and a raffle and lots of eating and hooping. I juggled but no one else did. I guess the jugglers took their party elsewhere, maybe to the park in Irvine.

I won some yarn and stitch markers in the raffle.

My friend is going to try to get a refund for the reserved spot we got kicked out of. No way she should have to pay if she couldn't use that spot.

Stolen License Plate Sticker

Sometimes this neighborhood grates on my nerves. I've had more things stolen since I've moved to west Anaheim than I ever had stolen in my life. And now I have a new one to add to the list. My boyfriend and I were loading crafts into our truck for a craft fair tomorrow. We shut the tailgate. And I noticed his license plate registration sticker was gone. All that was left was two corners and a part of the '0' in 2010.

You'd think the DMV would just give you another sticker. After all, you are the victim. But noooooooo it's going to cost something. They aren't open on weekends, so I nosed around on the Internet. As far as I can tell, it will be $20. to replace it. Just what he needed, another bill while he's between jobs. I'm more upset than he is. I wish I knew the numbers on it, because I'm really curious to see if it's stuck on one of our neighbor's cars.

Weird Night in West Anaheim

After the neighbors woke me up at 3:15 AM with their pounding last night, I was in the Etsy chatroom. It was about 5:15 AM and the Etsy treasury was about to open up so I got all ready to make a new treasury for the first time in a month. Then my power flickers, I hear a popping noise on the street, and my computer loses it's ISP connection. I try to restart twice to no avail. I notice the house lights are now a strange yellowish color. So I go into the living room and the fish filter is making an awful grinding noise so I had to unplug that. My guess is a transformer on the street blew out. When I stepped outside the air had an odd smell to it like burning paper. Other apartments also had an odd yellow glow to their lights which were kind of flickering and yellowish. So were the safety lights over the driveway. So I came back in and woke my boyfriend up turning off his computer. I didn't want the power to suddenly come back on and fry everything. My phone kept trying to restart so I unplugged that too. A few of the apartment lights still worked so I took a book to bed and finally fell asleep about 6 AM. Then I slept until 11:30 AM when the neighbors once again woke me up pounding on something.

Up in a Hot Air Balloon

For those of you living in OC California, you may have noticed a giant hot air balloon that looks like an orange floating within view of the 5 freeway. Well, Toys for Tots is offering a tethered ride in the hot air balloon with the donation of an unwrapped toy. I may have to take them up on that. The info is here: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/orange-county-great-park-teams-up-with-toys-for-tots,636180.shtml

Local Fires

The air is full of ash today. We have the Corona fire on one side of us and the Sylmar fire on the other and in both cases it's been a disaster for the people living in those areas. I've been watching the news on channel 11 for updates. I have all the windows closed in my apt. Unfortunately we went to the swap meet this morning in the blustery winds and ash filled air so my sinuses and throat are not happy. Many of the freeways have closures today so I'm glad we had no plans to go out of town. First time in over a month we haven't had to go to Arcardia on the weekends. I'm more than happy to stay home the rest of the weekend and work on archery equipment.