Tag Archives: Community

Hello, Friends!

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Flowers in my backyard that are always in bloom!

Thanks to the amazing and compassionate Vicki from Victoria Ponders for nominating me along with 10 other bloggers for the “Sunshine Blogger Award.” This award was started by Kimberly Vargas Agnese. I usually avoid such things, but I found the questions intriguing and Vicki’s answers so thoughtful.

So here it goes:

What is your morning routine?

I follow Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” which grounds me for the day. I begin with three pages of journaling. Then I listen to a Bible reading on my phone and pray for an ever increasing list of friends and family members. After that (or before if the weather is too hot) I walk three miles. I’ve been doing this consistently for 10 years. If there’s a day when I can’t do my morning routine, I feel out of sorts. 

What is your favorite season? Why?

Definitely summer followed by Spring. I have the best memories growing up in the Pacific Northwest in summer, which is such a beautiful season there. Raising my kids, we’d spend summer in Laguna Beach. Now we go to Santa Barbara for a few weeks up to a month. I love the water, yet live in the desert, so I look forward to being by the ocean all year long.

What is your favorite childhood memory?

Being with family on our boat in the summer. Enjoying fishing, digging clams and catching Dungeness crab with our mom cooking seafood on the boat within minutes of being caught.

Who or what has been your most unlikely teacher?

My kids. They taught me how to appreciate being present in the moment with them. Also, not to worry over things I cannot control.

Who or what are you most proud of?

Again, my kids. They are loving, kind adults and a joy to be with. 

What is something that surprises people about you?

How outdoorsy my childhood was thanks to mom and dad. I took a fly tying class and Power Squadron boating safety class with them. I picked Chanterelle mushrooms, fished for salmon, rockfish, and trout, dug razor clams and little necks and caught Dungeness crabs — enjoying Western Washington state’s lifestyle.

What motivated you to start blogging?

A fellow swim mom who read my children’s stories and YA manuscripts. She loved to read blogs when I knew nothing about blogging. She encouraged me to start bleuwater.me, which then opened doors to writing a weekly sports parenting column for SwimSwam, a swimming website with more than 8 million views per month. I wrote that column for more than five years.

What forms of entertainment do you enjoy the most?

I have always been a reader since I was a young child. I enjoy finding a new author. It’s like finding a gem. I’ll know there will be more good books to read. I also enjoy being outdoors, walking, hiking and taking pictures.

If you are a book reader, do you prefer a paper copy or a digital copy?

Paper copies. I prefer paperbacks, because I feel less guilty about turning down the corners. Also, they are less expensive, easier to carry and read than hard bound books. My arms don’t get tired with paperbacks!

What’s your favorite music genre, and who is your favorite singer?

I like rock and roll from the 1970s and 1980s which were my high school and college days. I have Sirius set to 1970s in my car and I love to sing along to old favorites. My favorite singer is Don McLean from “American Pie” because my mom listened to him nonstop in the 1970s. She was a Coloratura Soprano and music major. She loved McLean’s voice and poetic lyrics. Listening to his songs brings me closer to memories of Mom.

What societal causes do you care about the most?

Currently, my focus is helping sex trafficked victims in the Phoenix area. Phoenix is one of the nation’s hubs of sex trafficking — and our country is the first or second purchaser of children for sex in the world. Today, I’m visiting The Phoenix Dream Center, which is a residential facility that provides a safe, secure home complete with medical, mental health, and career training, to help victims return to a “normal” life. They are having a ribbon cutting for a new kitchen which my women’s group fundraised to purchase all the appliances. I’ll also be donating clothes after Spring cleaning my closet. I’ve volunteered in my community for different causes since college.

Now I get to tag a few friends:

John from Las Vegas Photoblog

Suz from Busy Bee Suz

Sadje from Keep It Alive

LA from Waking Up on the Wrong Side of 50

Wynne from Surprised by Joy

RiverGirl from River’s World

JoyRoses from Nuggets of Gold

Deb from Deb’s World

Janis from Retirementally Challenged

Eileen from Myricopia

PKAdams from Blue Skies Green Pastures

Don’t worry if you’ve already been tagged or if you’d prefer not to do this. I’m taking a page from Vicki and using most of the questions she asked and have thrown in a few new ones:

Here are the guidelines from Kimberly about the “Sunshine Blogger Award”:

• Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog.
• Thank the person who nominated you.
• Provide a link to your nominator’s blog.
• Answer your nominators’ questions:

What is your morning routine?

What is your favorite season? Why?

What is your favorite childhood memory?

Who or what has been your most unlikely teacher?

What is your favorite meal that you would never get tired of and why?

What is something that surprises people about you?

What motivated you to start blogging?

Would you rather spend a quiet evening at home or out with friends or a party? Why?

If you are a book reader, do you prefer a paper copy or a digital copy?

What’s your favorite music genre, and who is your favorite singer?

What societal causes do you care about the most?


• Nominate up to 11 bloggers.
• Ask your nominees 11 questions.
• Notify your nominees by commenting on at least one of their blog posts.

Thanks for reading and have fun with this!

What is one question you would like to ask?

Moments of Joy

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Olive cat staring at me
Olive the cat gives me the look that it’s time to eat.

Thank you to all my fellow bloggers who I follow as well as friends who follow me. Every day, I get joy from reading your posts. I love interacting with you through comments. I realize that is part of what I look forward to every morning.

It’s a bit of sanity in an ever changing, crazy world.

Most of the blogs I read are positive and you share recipes, birds, deer, pets, and relationships with your loved ones. Each of you has a unique personality. You add to the structure and fabric of my days.

Thank you!

Here’s a bit of joy in a video of Olive watching quail through the window:

What do you enjoy most about blogging?

A few more issues

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The latest issue of the HOA newsletter.

I thought with my new laptop I’d be through with computer issues. But an issue came up with the latest issue of the newsletter that I volunteer to do for our homeowner’s association.

If you didn’t read about my computer issues, I was losing files and realized that the “automatic backup” wasn’t backing up. You can read about that HERE.

My new laptop doesn’t have the fonts for the newsletter. I get missing font messages and the type reverts to Helvetica or Geneva which doesn’t look great. So, I asked my son — who created the layout and template for me — to help fix it. He told me to email him the newsletter and he’d convert it to a pdf on his laptop. (He has the fonts.)

After my son made the newsletter look pretty, I sent it off to my newsletter co-editor for proof reading — plus the board of directors for their input.

In the end I received 10 small corrections and tweaks last night. Instead of sending the newsletter to my son to make the corrections, I thought I’d try turning on the old laptop — which has the missing fonts. I thought I’d be able to update the newsletter all on my own. What I discovered is those fonts on my old laptop are missing. too!

So, even with a brand new laptop that’s working great, I still have issues to fix.

With different fonts, spacing is different which changes every page’s layout.

What a mess.

On our beach vacation, our kids are joining us and my son has promised to install the fonts and we won’t have to be emailing the newsletter back and forth in the future.

Do you work on any layouts besides your blogs? Do you enjoy it or find it tedious? What computer problems or glitches have you dealt with?

To be or not to be….

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The Newsletter Editor

flagpole in HOA
Flagpole at the entrance to our neighborhood.

Our community has a newsletter. In each issue it features an article about the latest homeowner’s association meeting, updates on city utility news like trash days are changing or when bulk pick up is scheduled. There’s always a recipe, an article about wildlife or plants and a welcome to new neighbors. It’s interesting and done by a husband and wife. ‘

For the past six months they’ve asked for a volunteer to take over the newsletter. The couple in charge have done it for more than ten years, since its inception. They are done. This current newsletter stated that if nobody volunteers — then the newsletter is over.

I thought, do I want to do this? Should I do this? I’m not a newbie to newsletters. My first job in PR, I wrote at least seven newsletters a month for various clients including a city, a realtor, a hotel and three or four for a medical center (staff, physicians, research, and a couple medical specialties.) After that job, I worked for a developer and I was in charge of newsletters for several country club developments for the members. That was before “desk top publishing.” I had to type my copy, drive it to a typesetter. I would work on a layout with a pencil on paper! I took numerous trips by car to the printer with corrections to the typesetting and real live photographs. Once I had a “blueline” I was relieved.

In my free time, I did the newsletter for the Desert Advertising Club. I was a board member and volunteered my time. While raising kids, I volunteered to do newsletters for their swim team and a charitable organization I was in.

I know I can do this newsletter, it’s in my “wheel house,” but do I want to?

I thought yes and no. The pros are it’s quarterly. Not monthly. And — this is the biggie — I moved less than a year ago and I don’t know anyone except for the realtor up the street who sold us our house and an occasional hello to next door neighbor Brad. The newsletter might help me be less isolated and more engaged in my new surroundings.

Our neighborhood has five clubs, book club, coffee club, wine club, etc. But they haven’t met because of COVID. They were supposed to start up this month, but they are holding off until 2022.

The downsides — do I want to do the newsletter? Do I want to have a deadline? Do I want to be more active in the community or do I like my quiet life more?

I texted the kids, talked it over with hubby. They all think I should do it. My kids especially think I should because they know I’m happy when I’m working in my field — even if I whine about it.

I decided to sleep on it. Two days later, I decided YES. I called the number in the newsletter of the current husband and wife editors. I got the “disconnected and no longer in service” message.

I checked the neighborhood directory and noticed there was a typo on the phone number. I dialed the correct number and once again — “disconnected and no longer in service.”

I looked up their cell phone and it went straight to voice mail. I left a message and emailed them.

That was Friday. It’s Sunday and I haven’t received a call back or an email.

So to be or not to be — Newsletter Editor? We’ll wait and see.

What are your thoughts about volunteering? Do you think it benefits the people volunteering as well as those who receive service? What do you think of people volunteering because of their own agenda or motives? Can you think of any examples?

What a difference a pool makes in a community

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Our gorgeous city pool, home of the Piranha Swim Team.

I’m researching the history of our swim club because it’s the 50th year since the Piranha Swim Team began. Plus, a big chunk of our family life centered around the pool and the Piranhas beginning with mommy and me classes, learn to swim, through the kids’ years with our team and their high school. Now my husband and I both swim Masters.

This project has been fun because it’s like putting together a complicated puzzle. I talk to a variety of people and learn about their love of swimming and how the team and city pool has impacted their lives. I’ve spoken with an “original” Piranha, who joined the team at age six from day one of the team when it was called the Palm Springs Swim Club. I’ve talked to a coach from the ‘80s who grew the team from a dozen swimmers to more than 150. 

I learned about a woman who was one of the team’s early coaches, Pearl Miller, who was greatly loved and respected by many—and found her US Masters records online. Coach Miller competed in her 70s through age 92! She began coaching the team at age 74 and held a contest to name the team. The top two names were Palm Springs Sunfish and Palm Springs Piranhas.

One of my longtime writing friends told me she moved from Montreal to work as an assistant coach for the Piranhas in the ‘80s. She said her career as a freelance writer and her marriage all came about because of her years on deck. She became close friends with several swim families including her future husband’s. Another swim family’s dad worked as the sales manager for KPSI, a local radio station, and hired her as a copywriter that spurred her career of decades.

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My kids and Angus the Guide Dog flunkie who inspired my son to fundraise at the city pool.

I remember with pride my son’s second-grade birthday party when he invited his class at school plus his swim friends. I was stressed about where we could host 50 kids.The pool at the time charged less than a dollar a kid and a pool party it would be. Then my son surprised me when I said he couldn’t have presents, because 50 presents were ridiculous. I thought about the nightmare of watching him open a stack of presents and what to do with them at home. He was okay with that and asked if he could request donations for the Guide Dogs of the Desert in honor of our Guide Dog flunkie Angus. He ended up raising close to $2,000 for Guide Dogs from the pool party, not only from his friends, but news spread and people showed up at the pool to donate.

Every year our Masters team raises money for Angel View’s Crippled Children’s Homes thanks to local CPA Steven Erickson who started the event. It’s a New Year’s Eve lap swim of 10,000 yards where we adults ask for sponsors and pledges. The pool is not just for kids, but it’s part of our adult community, too.

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Two of my friends swimming their 10k for Angel View.

 

The pool sees visitors from all over the world who enjoy lap swimming in our gorgeous pool while on vacation. The Piranhas host meets several times every year with literally a thousand families traveling from throughout the southwest United States to compete at a single championship meet and stay in our vacation resort town.

I think of all the kids who learned to swim at our city pool. It must be in the tens of thousands. Pools in backyards and condos are common in Palm Springs, where summer temps hit 90 to 126 plus degrees. Because pools are in backyards everywhere, children die from drowning. The city pool offers learn-to-swim and water safety classes. It’s literally a matter of life and death, not just recreation or sport, or a way to open doors for college. Think of those lives our pool and swim team have impacted.

From the World Health Organization:

Drowning Fact sheet
Updated May 2017:

In the United States of America: drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death in children aged 1–14 years.

Access to water

Increased access to water is another risk factor for drowning. Individuals with occupations such as commercial fishing or fishing for subsistence, using small boats in low-income countries are more prone to drowning. Children who live near open water sources, such as ditches, ponds, irrigation channels, or pools are especially at risk.

Teaching school-age children basic swimming, water safety and safe rescue skills is another approach. But these efforts must be undertaken with an emphasis on safety, and an overall risk management that includes a safety-tested curricula, a safe training area, screening and student selection, and student-instructor ratios established for safety.

How is the community pool part of the fabric of your life? 

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