Seams Like a Story

October 13, 2023October 13, 2023

Wine Snobs

“Embrace your inner wine snob…go ahead and say ‘this Tempranillo tastes faintly of leather saddle,’ but don’t expects anyone else to know what you’re talking about…after all, they didn’t go saddle licking with you last weekend.” -from the website of Wine Snob winery in Glen Ellen, California.

Who would go on a road trip to California without a stop in wine country? Not us! But would we fit in with the wine snobs? We worried about this because we are not wine snobs. (At least I’m pretty sure we are not based on the fact that, though we appreciate a good glass of wine, we buy most of our bottles at Trader Joe’s) We quickly learned we had nothing to fear!

Ed and I , along with good friends and travel buddies D & L booked a lovely Airbnb in Kenwood, right in the heart of Sonoma Wine Country. The “Sonoma Valley Getaway” exceeded our expectations. The hosts left a bottle of wine and a personal note to welcome us. Not snobby at all! Best of all, the home was within walking distance of several wineries, so no need worry about who would be the designated driver. As long as we all remained in walkable condition, we were good!

Expect to pay between $25-40 a person for wine tastings in Sonoma Valley, but don’t despair! We found it perfectly acceptable to skip the tasting, buy a glass of wine, and go out to the patio under the trees and enjoy!

A glass of red win with a vineyard in the background — A lovely glass of zinfandel at St. Anne’s Crossing Winery (mostly gone before I remembered to take a picture)

We met several sommeliers ( a wine snob term for one who pours your wine-whoo hoo, listen to me now!) and found them to be knowledgeable and very friendly. One of our favorites poured herself a small sample of each wine we wanted to try before filling our glasses, then she announced “Oh, this one is good today!” Later she confessed “I’m a retired high school teacher. This is the best job I’ve ever had. “

It was 10:30 in the morning. I’m a former kindergarten teacher. I could relate.

The Wine Snob Winery (featured at the beginning of this post) advertises $15 tastings. Wine Snob is owned and operated by a fascinating young couple who are following their dream. They work with several vineyards to gather grapes, then make and bottle their own wine, design the labels, market their business, and run the showroom. Their motto is “you don’t have to be a wine snob to enjoy wine. You don’t need to use words like “velvety tannins” and “hint of lychee on the nose” to describe a wine. Your taste buds. Your rules. So don’t let the wine snobs get you down!”

My sentiments exactly! Cheers!

PS: If you happen to be a wine snob, no worries. You will be welcomed too.

A glass of white wine — A beautiful Chardonnay and a doggie friend at VJB Cellars

Threads of Thought

Have you been to California Wine country? What was your experience?

Do you have a favorite wine?

For the record: each wine we tasted in Sonoma Valley was excellent. Definitely a step above our Trader Joe bargains. This region of California is excellent for growing grapes and the winemakers here know what they are doing. Still not a snob, but I’ve been enlightened.

out of the crayon box book and wine glass

To find out how Debra (former teacher) became an author, blogger, traveler, and not a wine snob, get a copy of Out of the Crayon Box: Thoughts on Teaching, Retirement, and Life http://amazon.com/author/debravandeventer

(Pairs well with a bold red.)

September 27, 2023September 26, 2023

The Golden Gate Bridge. Who knew?

The author and her husband stand in front of the Golden Gate Bridge — We crossed that bridge (the Golden Gate) when we came to it.

The Golden Gate Bridge was one of my “must sees” for our California Road trip. I couldn’t wait to get there and was delighted when we went across three times before leaving San Francisco.

What makes this bridge so special? See how many of these facts you know!

Who knew the Golden Gate Bridge is the most photographed bridge in the world and is featured in many motion pictures?

When your wife is a blogger, you get used to her directing photo shoots, often yelling at the last minute or making you stop so she can get out of the car for the perfect shot. The first time we crossed, I kept telling Ed to slow down so I could get a picture. Fortunately, we found parking at the Vista Point parking lot just as we crossed over and the morning fog had lifted. If you go to San Francisco you MUST get your picture taken here or at some of the other vantage points.

Did you know when the Golden Gate Bridge was completed in 1937 it was the longest (1.7 miles) and tallest suspension bridge in the world?

So when I first saw the bridge I thought, “Oh, it’s smaller than I expected.” It looks so much larger in photos. But, there is only one Golden Gate Bridge and it is San Francisco, and once I learned a little more, I love it! There are bike and pedestrian paths along both sides and as you move along, you feel as if you are part of something significant. I got goose bumps.

Who knew the Golden Gate Bridge’s signature color (International Orange) was made by Sherwin Williams?

The bridge is constantly being repainted to keep it glowing. The bright orange color is one of the things that makes the bridge iconic, and it helps the structure stand out on foggy days. I wonder how they get it painted? While we were crossing, we saw a worker walking on the catwalk way, way, up high. Whoa! By the way, you can get a can of International Orange at Sherwin Williams. Just for fun you should go to your local store, ask for a swatch of International Orange and tell them you are going to touch-up a bridge.

crossing the Golden Gate Bride — Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge

You have to pay to go across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Electronic tolls are collected in one direction only-in the southbound direction into San Francisco (you can check in anytime you like-but you can never leave?) At the time of this writing our car will cost $9.75 and an invoice will be sent based on our license plate. Well worth the money and not even the cost of a gallon of paint.

Do you know how the Golden Gate Bridge got its name?

Nope, not for the area’s association with the Gold Rush. The name actually comes from the water, The Golden Gate Strait, that runs beneath it.

So there you have it. I’ll leave you with this:

“The morning fog will chill the air, I don’t care. My love waits there in San Francisco. Above the blue and windy sea. When I come home to you, San Francisco. Your golden sun(bridge) will shine for me!” (Music by George Cory, lyrics by Douglass Cross, sung by Tony Bennett)

Threads of Thought

Have you been to San Francisco?

What are your memories or what would you like to see there?

Read more from Debra! Get your copy of Out of the Crayon Box: Thoughts on Teaching, Retirement, and Life http://amazon.com/author/debravandeventer

September 5, 2023September 5, 2023

Creativity Blocked? Paint a Room

A ladder, cans of paint, and a white room

This week, the painters came. It was time. When we moved into our home we inherited the previous owner’s color scheme–beige with a dark red accent wall and a foyer that was sponge-painted with sparkly gold paint. It’s only paint, we rationalized. We can change it. Eleven years went by, other things took priority, and I did my best to decorate around it. This week, the painters came!

Before they arrived, we had to decide on colors.

“What do you think?” Ed asked.

“White, ” I said.

“White?”

“White.”

Many Shades of White

Interestingly enough, it’s a bold choice. Most folks opt for some color. (Is white a color? Is it the absence of color?) Anyway, I was taking my inspiration from “Desert Modern” décor. Look it up. It’s a thing, and since we live in the desert it captured my imagination.

“Walls the color of white-washed adobe are the perfect backdrop for warm desert colors,” the Pinterest post promised.

Of course, what they don’t tell you is there are hundreds, maybe thousands of shades of white at the local paint store, and not one is named White-Washed Adobe. After squinting at paint swatches taped around our living room for several days, I finally narrowed it down to two.

“Deb, just pick one,” Ed pleaded.

“Ok, here, ” I said as I squinted one last time and grabbed a sample off the wall hoping it was white-washy enough.

The Big Reveal

During the painting process, our home was like a construction zone. A team of professionals swooped in, taped, primed, and painted. I stayed my office/studio venturing out to take a peek now and then. From what I could tell, I was going to like the new look. After a two-day flurry, the painters packed up and left. I stood in the middle of the living room.

“It’s a lot of white.” I said.

“That’s what you wanted, ” Ed said. “Think of it as blank slate. Now we can start creating the look you want.”

Enter Creativity

“I Walk into a White Room…”

That’s the title of the first chapter of Twyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit. This is how she starts each of her choreography-design sessions. She walks into the empty white studio and begins the creative process of bringing music to life.

I’m not a dancer, I’m a writer, but the creative process is the same. My brain begins to re-arrange bits and pieces of my room. Could the sofa move here? This picture looks better there. We need a pop of color over here. A plant perhaps?

It’s like moving dancers around on a stage or words on a page. Playing with color, texture, and shape in this way stimulates a burst of creativity that’s bound to spill over into my work as a writer.

Work in Progress

a rusty -brown saguaro lawn ornament in a green pot makes an art installment

It’s a work in progress. Our original sofa and chair was repurposed with a hand-knitted throw and some new accent pillows. A rusty-brown saguaro lawn ornamant in a green pot makes for an interesting art installation. Some thrifted pieces have added interest.

Fixing things up, moving bits around, adding in some new elements. Yeah, I’m working on my manuscript.

Threads of Thought

What experiences with paint colors or painting a room have you had?

What do you do when you are blocked creatively?

Don’t you wonder who comes up with the names for paint colors? What’s the funniest one you’ve come across? (And if you find White-Washed Adobe let me know)

A bright blue book with a border of crayons across the bottom and the title OUt of the Crayon Box: Thoughts on Teaching, Retirement, and Life

Grab a copy of my book Out of the Crayon Box: Thoughts on Teaching, Retirement, and Life http://amazon.com/author/debravandeventer

August 28, 2023August 26, 2023

It’s About Time

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot. -Michael Altshuler

I’m a clock watcher. This is a natural consequence of having been a teacher. I can think of few other professions where a minute here or there makes a difference. Take your kids to the music class five minutes late and you’re done. Lesson finished three minutes before recess? Better have a ‘time filler’ or two up your sleeve.

The habit of clock watching followed me into retirement. I have a digital clock in my writing/sewing studio. Many days, I’m not on any particular schedule, and if I’m involved in a project I lose track of time. Yet, for the most part, knowing where I am in time and space seems to ground me.

“Time moves slowly, but passes quickly,” -Alice Walker, The Color Purple

This week, the numbers on the clock in my writing studio began to fade . Once Ed replaced the battery, the clock had to be reset. Ed was able to figure out how to do the minutes, seconds, and date, but neither of us could figure out how to set the day of the week. A small thing perhaps, yet I knew this would drive me crazy. If, for instance it was Friday,August 25 but my clock said August 25 was Tuesday, I would maybe start to obsess about it and then I wouldn’t get any writing done and then my time would be wasted and then I would worry that I’d wasted my time.

After much fiddling around, I discovered that one must set the year (which isn’t displayed) in order for the clock to align the current date with the correct day or the week. To my surprise, the date had been set for 2018, the year I had purchased the clock. It had been marking my minutes, days and years for five years. This was a revealation to me. Five years. That’s 1,825 days or 43,800 hours, or 2,628,000 minutes. Where did they go?

“There’s only one thing more precious than time and that’s who you spend it on.”- Leo Christopher

I’ve been thinking about the passage of time this week as I approach my birthday. Yeah, it’s one of those with a zero attached to it. I’ve never been one to let chronological age define me, yet this one seems monumental. But now, I’m thinking (because my mind works this way) maybe I’ll just put in a new battery, a new outlook, reset myself, and continue on- renewed and refreshed and ready for whatever comes next. One of my favorite lines comes from a scene in The Best Exotic Marygold Hotel where Judi Dench says as she contemplates starting a late-in -life career , “How many lives can one have? As many as one chooses.” To put it another way:

“Is it possible for you to contemplate that in a very real way this may actually be the best season, the best moment of your life?”-Jon Kabat-Zinn

My best season, my best moment. Now. I think this is my favorite way to look at time.

(PS…Lest you think I’m becoming too philosophical in my new decade, I’ll leave you with this last quote because I think it’s really funny and its almost my birthday, so humor me.)

“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”

Threads of Thought

Are you a clock-watcher?

If you had more time, what would you do?

When does time move quickly or slowly for you?

To get your copy of Out of the Crayon Box: Thoughts on Teaching, Retirement, and Life
CLICK HERE

August 19, 2023August 19, 2023

Vintage Vinyl Mania

A Blast from the Past

vintage Vinyl album Abby Road — The Beatles Abby Road

Vinyl Mania…

was bound to happen sooner or later. Ed and I grew up as teenagers in the 70s where the music of the times surrounded us. I was at a slumber party when I got my first glimpse of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. I remember riding a bus into town and buying my first record. It was a 45 rpm, Yellow Submarine with Eleanor Rigby on the flip side. I visited my grandparents and played it so much that my (usually mild mannered) grandpa announced that he had heard quite enough of ” yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine.”

Ed remembers loading his record player before going to bed and and being “rocked” to sleep each night.

Something new came out around the time we went to college and we both outfitted our dorm rooms with the latest 8-tracks. No more worries about scratched or warped records or broken needles. Just pop in a cassette and you’re good. To this day there are still places in Carole King’s Tapestry that I expcect to hear the “click” in the middle of the song.

Thankfully, the 8-track craze was short lived and vinyl endured. As a young married couple, we joined a record-of- the-month club and began to collect albums from our favorite artists. We had an impressive turntable with gigantic speakers.

Vintage Vinyl Albums: Seals and Crofts, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Led Zeppelin, Crosby Stills Nash and Young — My faves: Seals and Crofts, Cat Stevens, James Taylor,Crosby Stills Nash and Young..Led Zeppelin? (how did that get in there..must be Ed’s)

Time Goes By….

and more important things required our attention…got jobs, became parents, bought a house. Our new home was equiped with a built-in cassette tape deck and inter-house sound system. The turntable and huge speakers gathered dust in our basement for decades. When we retired and moved across the country, we sold them in a garage sale. We could’t part with our beloved records, perhaps we were hanging on to the past, so we boxed up the ones we wanted to keep and they moved with us. We stashed the box in a closet.

But Vinyl Lives ON!

I blame our current Vinyl Mania on my son who recently purchased a turntable and began collecting record albums. One night a week, he hosts an “album night” where the TV , phones, and computers are turned off. Each family member gets to pick a song, or a side of a favoite record to play. On a recent visit, we saw this in action and had so much fun!

Vinyl Revival

One thing led to another. Back home, we took our long-forgotten records out of storage and spent an entire evening looking at the cover art and list of songs, sharing memories of each one. The records looked to be in good condition, so we bought an inexpensive turntable to try them out. Boy, did we miss our our stero set and speakers, but we figured out how to hook things up to our television sound bar. The sound isn’t great, but it’s a start. Then we bought a record-cleaning kit, and a wall display system for Ed’s office, and a record storage box, and of couse I had to get a little stand to display the record that was currently playing.

A wall of Vinyl Record Albums — Ed’s Office wall display, mostly Beatles, one Stairway to Heaven

a photo of a bookshelf with a record player, records, a picture circled in red — Accessories: player, storage cube, cute stool, and who’s in that picture?

Four friends walking across Abby Road in London — Ed and I and friends at Abby Road Studios, 2018

The Music Lives On

Did we go a little overboard? Maybe. But I’m in the kitchen chopping a salad to go with tonight’s dinner and Elton’s voice floats in and before I know it I’m singing:

My Gift is my song and this one’s for you.

Threads of Thought

Ok, now it’s your turn. I want to hear your stories about your favorite song or album. What memories does it invoke? Leave a comment below (remember that comments are moderated, so be patients and it will show up, I promise). Or if you’re connected through my fb page, leave your story there. I know you’ve got one!

Find more stories from Debra in Out of the Crayon Box: Thoughts on Teaching, Retirement and LIfe http://amazon.com/author/debravandeventer