Nostalgia | West Virginia Mountain Mama

Posts Tagged With: Nostalgia

A Blogging Junky and the Blogger Monster on My Back.

Posted on November 12, 2015 by jolynnpowers

How many of us bloggers write more than one blog? How many write poetry and flash fiction on top of the blogs that we all generally write each week? How many have several topical blogs or work blogs? I am guessing hundreds if not thousands of us do. It must seem crazy to the outside non-blogging world that any of us would write more than we have to. I am thinking that this writing thing is a habit or an addiction… something like junkies feel.

It all starts out with your friends doing it. They share their stories and some tips on how to take that journal of thoughts or notebook of ideas and turn them into some thing much cooler, a…. blog.

Yea, you get to be one of the cool kids.

You get to try writing on a real blog, where people you have never known before will read and write back to you. You get that first high. The one that comes from writing that first page and first post. Wow you get to hit the publish button and you are now a writer. Not the hide under the bed kind of writer anymore,but a writer that is now on the World Wide Web, out their in the universe for everyone to see.

The first LIKE changes everything, just like a first high would.

Someone out their LIKES me and wants to share some good stuff with me. I am liked, I touched some one,I am part of group, I am not alone, that is how they hook you. You can’t believe that some one out their understands you… so you write more and more. At some point you gain a follower or two. Two people who read your nut ball stories and rambling thoughts regularly and may even drop you a note about how wonderful your writing is and how true your statements are. You are in deep now, you schedule posts, maybe research topics and take colorful photos to gain more followers and get more LIKES.

It is official it’s a habit,you have a Blogger Monster on your back.

You think about writing when you aren’t doing it. You talk to people about it when you are doing other activities and wonder how you will fill you time if the power goes out and you can’t get to the computer that day. You spend time sending notes to other bloggers that your personal friends and family know nothing about…. Sending smiley faces and recipes back and forth at all hours of the night and day.

It is a full-blown addiction.

So what do you do? Stop writing? Could you if you wanted to? Do you want to ? I am guessing like myself that in many cases the answer is NO! I enjoy it too much and it fills a large gap in my creative life. It gives too much back for me to stop. So I am wondering if I am a WordPress Junky, If one blog is just not enough. Maybe I just have more to say deep down inside, about even more important things or more edgy things that I may need to share with a whole different group of people.Maybe I just need to write more than one or two posts a week … my posts now are just not enough.

I see where this maybe going… it maybe true…. I think I have a Blogger Monster.

I think it is time to spread myself out a little farther, to try to write something different. I want to experiment with more styles and topics. I want to try poetry and fiction and short stories. I hear that is where the really cool kids hang out. You know who I am talking about, where they create just for the fun of creating. Heck, those kids don’t even really try to teach you anything they just let the words just sore.

I am not even sure there is a treatment or a cure for what is happening. I am guessing the one thing that will help is to write more. I will add another blog to my writing life. Not sure what it is all about yet but it will be a fiction site where I can work out short stories and poetry with the hopes of one day making my love of books and words come together some how. That somewhere out there are others who love West Virginia, its people,and places and want to hear some more of her stories. Maybe then when I get to spend more time with this monster so I can sooth it and make it lie down for a long rest. Until then I guess I will just try to keep posting here every week and working on getting some thing up and running where I can write fuller deeper stories.I hope to bring you all along when I am ready, That is if you want to go down this path with me. I will let you know where and when this addiction has landed me as soon as I settle down. In the mean time this mountain mama will post every week and be getting ready for the fall and winter seasons. Time flies and I have so much to still do. Jolynn

New light sconce light fixture and some of the base board and ceiling molding

Christopher work at my desk in the new family room

Categories: blogging, Change, history, nostalgic, writing | Tags: blogging, creative writing, history, Nostalgia, writing | 11 Comments

Collections, Memories, My favorite things.

Posted on February 5, 2015 by jolynnpowers

Now that the move is over and the boxes put away it is time to try to make a house a home. I have been feeling better and slowly trying to figure out where everything goes. Some things are finally taking shape and others are still in a stage of ” When we get time”. One of my favorite projects every time we move is how and where to display some of the wonderful things that we have collected over the 27 years that Tom and I have known each other.

Over the first 18 years of my marriage, Tom and I raised horses on his parents farm. We breed, trained, showed American Quarter horses. We raised our older son on farm work and feeding animals. It was a good life, but by the second baby ( 17 years later) it was just more work them I could handle alone. I was the main care taker of the farm and our 9 horses 12 chickens 3 dogs 2 geese and one cat. I just did not enjoy the work any more and Tom just could not be home to help due to his long hours at work and weekend business. So as time passed we sold off all of the horses gave the chickens away and said good-bye to the farm. So as a tribute to my husbands love of horses and his farrier (blacksmith) business I took what most people hide away in tact boxes and Rubber Maid Totes and made him a hall of good memories. The hall grew out of things that we had collected over the 18 years we had the farm and horses. He loves it and so does Cody. Cody has many great memories on the farm and was happy to see that we had not gotten rid of everything when we moved.

Horse decor with trophies and photos

I was lucky that I had saved my son Cody’s pony blanket, it worked out as a nice backdrop for our trophies. I also added the spurs that my father made back in the Seventy’s. He was a welder and loved the old west and loved to make things. So the result is a pair of wire edged dragon spurs. I don’t think anyone ever used them on a horse but they sure look nice. The photos are of some of our wonderful babies. Tom and I always loved to work with the young ones and we won a few shows with them.

Horse decor photos of Tom

I also wanted to show off some of his horse shoes and a bandanna that I made him for when he worked in bad weather. I added an old feed sack and a wonderful photo of Tom working on an anvil and farrier school. The bits are ones we have used over the years and make us think of the mares we rode with them. All these things remind me of some of the best times in our married life and I am glad I could make it for him.

Then I moved into the kitchen and tried to find a reasonable way to display my collection. I guess we all have funny things we collect and mine is dishes and /or plates. I started my collection in the 80’s while traveling and it just continues to grow every year. I have plates from all the places I have visited in Europe and the US. Some are fine china and others are pewter or stone ware but all of them have some kind of connection to a time or place that Tom and I have shared over the years. I am sure many of you have collections of souvenirs, my father had stones from many of the places he went and when he passed he had a large “rock collection”. A friend collects shot glasses from her travels and some collect spoons, or decks of cards. Some times the items in our collections help us remember a place better and sometimes a great story to go along with the item.

kitchen wall full of plates

Jubilee china from England

Delft transfer ware wooden shoe maker Holland

Trier, Germany Volks Marching china plate

West Virginia State Park stoneware plate, Holly River State Park image

What do you collect? What kind of memories do they hold for you or are they just for the fun of collecting. How did your collection start. As I said above mine started as a way to remember some of the places I have traveled and grew from that. Let me know that I am not alone in having way to much stuff and not enough room to share it all!

I also want to thank Holly over at Redterrain for the idea of talking about objects we love and why we love them. She has a wonderful Photography blog of her home in Australia and she wanted to know if her readers had some object that we have a deep connection to… and as you can see I just wanted to show her my Plate collection. I love them and they are one of the few things in the this world I would miss if I had to give them up.