Nakedness

Preamble
Issues of personal privacy, openness, and freedom were what were on my mind when I woke up this morning. These on the microscale, mind you, not the grand scale of constitutional rights and such. Just little old me wondering at how much to say or to not say, trying to figure out if I’ve said [...]

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My Mission in Life

One thing about writing about personal things in a public forum – sooner or later you will have to retract something you’ve said, apologize, or otherwise eat crow…
I need to correct something I said in my last post. I did believe it was true at the time, and the realization was quite freeing, but it [...]

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A Warrior Path

Something clicked in my brain this morning. I was finally able to admit what it is that I miss the most about firefighting. The danger. Or, perhaps, more specifically, the opportunity that danger affords to test myself, my wits, and my preparation. In other words, danger has allowed me to build a warrior’s spirit.
This may [...]

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Jump. Fall. Fly. Again.

The metaphor of skydiving that I used in my original “Jump. Fall. Fly.” post of a few months ago has taken on new meaning. I’ve been hanging onto the edge of the jump door resisting this one for a while now, but the time has come to let go and take the dive. This bird [...]

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In Uniform and Out

A couple of things happened this last week that prompted me to look back into the past with renewed interest. Friend 1 sent me a book of devotionals in an apparent “coincidence” (she had no knowledge of the role those specific devotionals once played in my life) and in my blog reading, one of my [...]

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Five Best Weight Loss Tips From an Old Firefighter

As an ex-firefighter (female) with a lot of weight to lose, I decided to apply what I knew best. So far, I’ve lost 34 pounds and am feeling great. Here’s what has made the difference for me:
1. Know Where You’re Headed – I was going to title this “Get Directions from Dispatch,” but it’s [...]

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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Your Nose…

There’s smoke in the air, drifting in from somewhere in the area, but it’s been misty most of the day and I have no idea where the smoke is originating. As a result, I’ve been antsy all afternoon. I keep getting up and going outside and looking around; I feel like I should be doing [...]

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Building Healthy Habits – Summer Salads and Exercise

This is a followup to a previous post on how I lost thirty pounds. I’ve lost another three pounds, not as much as I had hoped to by this point, but still definite progress. At thirty-three pounds down, I’ve hit the “two-thirds of the way there” mark. The best part is that, though the poundage [...]

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Guitar Nails, Version 2.0

“Version 2.0″ of my flamenco guitar nail project arrived unexpectedly, due to a late night decision on my part to just “do it myself” and fix some problems that were developing with the acrylic nails. Here’s what I ended up with, followed by the story of how I arrived at this point.

There’s some uneveness in [...]

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‘Tis the Season…Wildland Fire Season, That Is

Two days ago, the fire danger went to “Extreme” on the Kaibab National Forest, Williams-Tusayan Ranger District. Today, I could see smoke from my backyard over on the Coconino N.F.

Temperatures have been getting into the nineties during the day and the forties at night. I just went outside (it’s currently 1900 hours) and measured the [...]

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Analog vs. Digital, Continued

Just for fun, here are a few of my old nature illustrations from back in the mid-eighties:

What a long, strange trip it’s been. I went from being an intern in the Exhibits department at the Museum of Arizona in Flagstaff, where I illustrated a show on cacti (where the Prickly Pear pen and ink drawing [...]

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Heartache

I got a phone call from my mom this afternoon and when she warned me that I’d better sit down, that the news was bad, I did. She’d been down to get her mail and learned that last night a fellow firefighter and friend of mine from the old days on the department had been [...]

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Hold On

Getting back to blogging after about a week away…first a trip to Phoenix and then leaving my Power Book cord at my friends’ place kind of crimped my Internet activities for a few days.
It was a good trip to Phoenix – Memorial Day weekend with F1 and F2, finished up with a flamenco guitar lesson. [...]

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Playing in the Dirt…My Heathen Ways

I’m looking forward to spending the day working for a surveyor tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll be the “rodman” or be behind the instrument, but either one is fine with me. It’s work with a friend and it’s work outdoors in the high country, so how bad could it be? Though I have [...]

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Quivering Mass of Insecurities

Good grief. This is the person who could go into a burning building, command an incident, extricate someone from a car wreck? I’ve turned into a quivering mass of insecurities in the face of a two-hour, freebie gig at a coffee house which will probably be so loud with crowd noise that no [...]

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