Changes to blog

Changes to blog

A Fresh New Start for 2018

Posted on December 9, 2018 by jolynnpowers

I am starting off my Holiday Season with at fresh new blog address and a updated About Page. It all seem fitting as I just recently turned 50 and the New Year is just around the corner. So I am giving the blog a fresh new start.

In the five years that I have been sharing stories with the world I have learned so many new things about writing, blogging and myself. So you may see that some of the topics that I write about are little different from 5 years ago but the themes are the same. I love my home in the mountains of West Virginia and I love the outdoors more today then ever before, so that is not changing. But I want to feature interesting people from West Virginia in my blog more often. This kind of thing takes much more time and work to produce. I am willing to put in the work if you are willing to read a story every few months about maybe a local musician, artist, child, or just a old farmer. I have wanted for years to start taking portraits of the unique and beautiful people that I meet and I think this is a way I can explore both sides of what interests me about blogging. I also think that after the resent Presidential Election and Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations portrayal of West Virginia’s people, I need to balance what is put out into the world about who we are, not everyone hunts, not everyone works in a coal mine and not everyone is living in a cabin in the woods. I want to talk to the artist that moved here because they could create in peace, I want to talk to a farmer who cares for a herd of animals in the snow at 7 below zero and I want to talk to a African American Southern Baptist Minister who feeds the hungry, and I want to share photos of people who make my home a better place. Just like these two guys who are making my holiday so much brighter.

Christopher Powers visits Father Christmas at the Beverly Heritage Center in Beverly West Virginia 2018.

I hope this first post at the new site finds all of you well and preparing to enjoy a wonderful holiday season. I am excited for the New Year and what will inspire me in the next 12 months and I hope to hear about what you enjoy about the blog and what inspires you. Welcome to the official site of West Virginia Mountain Mama.

Categories: About me, Beverly West Virginia, blogging, Changes to blog, Christmas | Tags: Beverly Heritage Center, Blog up dates, blogging, Christmas, creative writing, West Virginia | 6 Comments

Not having WIFI Made Me a Terrible Blogger.

Posted on November 28, 2018 by jolynnpowers

Ok maybe WIFI is not the only problem I face as a blogger, but it sure made writing harder. It has been over 9 months that my old laptop lost it’s ability to connect to my wireless router. That meant two things for me, I could not read in bed anymore, where I read most of your blog posts and I had to work connected to an Ethernet cord. That was the killer for me. I had enjoyed time writing in the comfort of my recliner or in bed but now I was forced to sit at my kitchen table on a hard wooden chair. Who wants to do that for a couple of hours every evening. So I got lazy and just stopped reading and writing as much. I miss all of your stories and photos so much.So when the old lap tops brain finally said” I am full ” and slowly died I was so happy get a new laptop and get to back to reading and writing.

So I hope to see more of all of your blogs and get more time to comment. I kinda hate reading for pleasure on my phone, the eyes are shot and the screen is tiny, so I just skipped many of the notices I got about your posts.

The other good news is that I have finally eaten up all the free media space that WordPress gave to me 5 years ago. So I am preparing to get my own domain address and make this blog a real website. I think this will take place about the 15th of Dec. but I have to get the new machine up and running completely before I go changing everything here. All I can say is that having a free blog was one of the very best things I have ever done for myself. I hope I feel the same when I start hosting my own website. This also means that address will change and I will share that info several times over the transition

I have so much catching up to do. I hope to pop into all the blogs I fallow over the next few weeks and get back in touch. All of this will give me something to do while it is so cold and snowy outside. It should be 18 deg F in the morning…. burrr.

So here are a couple of photos from Christopher’s 1st trip to the Barbour County Fair and his first ride on a fares-wheel. I thought I would just show off the beautiful view we had at the top during that afternoon. Maybe this will be my first blog post at the new site? Who Knows??

carnival rides at Barbour county fair view from Barbour County Fair Grounds