My I.P.O. ... otherwise known as " My Coming Out Party"

After several weeks of struggling with the develpment of my blog, finally, yesterday, I felt it was far enough along to let my family and friends in on my little secret.

So...  I wrote one of my "blanket coverage" letters and told them all how to view my newest endeavor.    

Well, wouldn't you just know?  I typed the address wrong and almost immediately got an e-mail from our daughter in PA telling me she couldn't access it.  Okay...  out went the second e-mail...  This time I got it right.  YES!

Now Folks...  it's official...  my private enterprise has now been released ...  the Initial Public Offering has been launched!  I've come out in the open and while I never expect to post daily, I do hope to post often about where we're at, what we're doing and stuff like that.  I hope you find it interesting enough to stay tuned.  Please feel free to leave comments...  (that way I'll know y'all really are out there ;-)


I read other people's blogs.  I LOVE reading other people's blogs!  One topic that seems to be of interest to several bloggers now is how to get enough exercise when the weather's bad.  A couple of years ago I heard about the Wii.  Since we didn't have a TV at first I didn't give it much consideration.  But Bill figured out how to suspend a TV under an overhead bin, and we found a  (fairly) flat-screen TV that would work for us....

The Wii system we bought came with a "balance board" ...  (maybe they all do, I don't know)

 This is me...  working out on the Wii/balance board in our "living room". This is rather a euphemism when you live in a 26.5' motorhome that has no slide-outs... 

BUT...

I usually work out in 1 hour increments....  walk, jog, steps...  and never leave my (approximate) 3' square. I can step to the side...  I can step to the back....  And it doesn't matter what the weather is outside, nor the time of day.  For me the only requirement is electricity ....  and I have been known to use the generator for my hour of excercise.

I'm not a rigid about using the Wii...  in fact, I'd rather be doing something active outside... but I really don't have any excuse not to get my 10,000 steps in each day.

As an added note...  that TV has never been used for anything except my Wii. We bought a DVD player thinking we'd use it for movies, but that was 2 years ago and we haven't gotten around to that yet. 

Another thing I've noticed about most of the blogs that I read is that you all have pets.  Usually dogs, but there's the occasional cat.  K.C., our last cat, died 3 days before we started this big adventure.  Truth is, she was 19 years old, never been off the farm, and so we rented our house specifically to have someone who would take care of her.  She would have hated living in a confined space and at the time, we thought we'd be gone only a few months.  So it was really a bit of a blessing that she passed when she did.  Our lifestyle since then really isn't conducive to having a pet.  We're in and out of various countries, we leave our motorhome for as much as month at a time to pursue other travels...  and when we volunteer we're often away from our rig for long hours.

So I've kind of gotten the reputation for not liking dogs.  That's not true...  but I will have to admit that there have been plenty of dog owners that I felt didn't deserve their four-footed companion.

I've fallen in love with a few dogs in our travels.  My favorite was "Peep", a Great Pyrenees that I met up with in the desert of Utah.  Maybe that's why I'm so taken with Snowy, the dog who takes care of the goats across the road.

Snowy has started to watch for me when I walk out to the mailbox or walk over to look at the baby goats.  She had puppies when we were here last year, but since then, I think the owners had her spayed.  So her main duty is to keep predators away from all those goats.  I think all the baby goats might be the reason she's taken to hanging out on the outside of their pen.  Would you want all those kids clammoring all over you all day?   But then, it might have something to do with that huge box of milk bones I keep in our car ;-)

Celeste and Victor have dogs... 

We've all heard the expression... "the tenacity of a bulldog"...  well, Jack is probably the bulldog where that expression came from.  He loves to play.  Bill throws Jack's various toys...  Jack retrieves them...  but refuses to give them up, even though he wants Bill to coninue playing.  I'll say one thing about Jack...  he sure has strong teeth and jaws to hang onto things while Bill's swinging him around!

The otherhousehold dog is Rylee...

Doesn't he look angelic?  HAH!  See that white spot on his nose?  He'd checked out the boards was painting the other day.  White paint of course!  Rylee is kind of the instigator...  he's the one who runs off when the opportunity comes along.  He's just a tiny little "Benjy" type dog, but he's just full of it!

Okay... enough about the dog population....

About Bill's genealogy.  He uses "The Master Genealogist" software to keep his records.  I think he's used a few other programs in the past, but likes this one best.  The owner of Wholly Genes, the software company, is Bob Velke.  He's the man who arranges the genealogy cruises we go on each year.  Bill has been working on his family history for at least 25 years....  but I guess that's another whole blog in itself.

That's all for today....