Even if I did fail to complete the BBBC in February, I owe it to myself and the other participants to address the final five prompt topics. The tweny-fifth topic on the list is “spice.” I don’t know WHAT I was thinking when I chose that word, but here goes.

In the truest sense of the word, a spice is something used to flavor food. Many foods, without a spice or two added, are bland and flavorless. Life, without some spice added every now and then, can be dull. “Variety is the spice of life,” right?

According to encyclopedia.com, that proverbial saying has been in use for a long time.

…late 18th century; originally as a quotation from the English poet William Cowper (1731–1800) in The Task (1785): ‘Variety’s the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour.’ An earlier version is found in the The Rover (1681) by the dramatist Aphra Behn (1640–89), ‘Variety is the soul of pleasure.’ The Greek dramatist Euripides (c.485–c.406 bc) in his Orestes has, ‘a change is always nice.’

Our forefathers liked to mix it up a bit, too.

There are some people who like things to be dull, uneventful, and predictable. I can understanding wanting a life without drama, but I like to change things up. My job is predictable in its unpredictability. I never know what each new day will bring, which is good and bad.

My life, for the most part, is quiet. Relatively predictable, too, especially since the kids are all grown and out of the nest. The dogs keep things interesting around the house. Even if they are getting old — about 9 (Belle) and 10 (K) — they’re quite amusing. Irritating at times, like when they bark at passersby, attack delivery people, yak on a rug, etc., but mostly entertaining. They make us laugh for one reason or another every single day.

So what’s my spice? How do I, or we, keep things interesting?

I have several hobbies. Lately, I’ve been doing some embroidery and a lot of sewing. I’m not great at either, but I’m just learning. And practice makes perfect, right? (I call that my PMP philosophy.)

My mother-in-law gave me some lessons on hand-quilting while she was here over Christmas. So I combined two embroidery projects with quilting and made a couple of pillows for my girlfriends.

Tracey has made some amazing gifts for me over the years and I know Carol appreciates hand-made gifts, so I thought it would be nice. Neither pillow is perfect, but they’re made with love, and that’s what matters.

In keeping with my PMP approach, I signed up for a quilting class, scheduled for February 20th. It was being offered by my friend Kelly through her business, Kelly Ann’s Quilting. So that I didn’t have to lug my 1958-model Kenmore sewing machine to the class site (it does one type of stitch and goes forward and backward), Kelly Ann let me borrow a machine that’s been sitting around her shop for awhile. It’s a fancy-schmancy Husqvarna model that I suspect can pretty much sew by itself. It has a bunch of stitch options, is computer-aided, doesn’t require oil, is lightweight, and runs quietly, too.

Before I could use it in the classroom, I needed to practice a bit at home, so I started sewing together a bunch of little scraps leftover from the girlfriend pillow project. I liked the way they looked. When I stumbled across an embroidery project I’d mostly completed two to three years ago, I realized the scraps would make a perfect frame. So I made another pillow.

I’m really happy with the way it turned out. I wish I’d made the border on the girlfriend pillows as wide as the border on the snowman pillow. Another lesson learned through practice. LOL.

Travel is another spice in my arsenal. Motorcycle travel is like my hot Hungarian paprika. Car travel is more like cumin or chili powder. Add some friends into the mix, as I did last weekend, and you get fun. For a bit of extra zing, I added a roadside oddity or two.

This guy just happens to stand in front of one of my favorite eateries in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, a town in Lancaster County.

The food at Katie’s Kitchen is your typical, home-style Amish fare. It’s priced cheap and tastes good. I consider it a “favorite” because I love, Love, LOVE their fried green beans. Yum-Me!

Just down the road from the barefoot boy eating with pigs (speaking of LOVE, isn’t that label awesome?), is Big Amos, Barefoot Amish Giant. I had to go and visit Amos. Roadside oddities like that exist because people like me go to see them, appreciating them for their wonderful, wacky, weirdness. If he, and other oddities like him, didn’t draw folks in, there’d be no reason for the oddity’s continued existence. I feel as if I owe it to humanity to visit and get a photo with as many roadside oddities as possible.

Even if there are no oddities to see and/or the trip is short, travel is great medicine.

My dogs really, really love their daily walks, but so do I. It’s good to have a reason to get out there into the world every day. You never know what, or who, you’ll encounter.

Yesterday, on a whim, I decided to walk the girls early, while it was still daylight, which is a rare treat this time of year. A few blocks from home, I saw a guy exit the bakery who looked very familiar. After following him for about a half block, it hit me. I said, “Are you John Walsh?” He responded with, “I am!” (In case that name doesn’t ring a bell, it was this John Walsh.)

I introduced myself and we chatted for a bit. He does not live in my part of Virginia, he was just visiting. Know what he said? “What a wonderful little town.”

The whole encounter was a bit surreal.

I suspect folks get tired of me talking about how nice it is here in Warrenton, but it really is. 🙂

I guess that’s enough spice for now. Thanks for your patience with my lateness and inattentiveness. I really do appreciate all of you.

There was a time when I enjoyed using cursive (aka longhand) script when putting pen to paper.

I was going to say I print more than I write nowadays, but then I looked through three legal pads full of work-related notes and discovered that I use an odd mix of both.

I think my handwriting is clear enough for most people to decipher. What do you think?

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This Year’s Brave, Bold Bloggers…

Be sure to visit their blogs to see how each interpreted this challenge.

• Richard’s Page
• Fuzzygalore
• ScooterInTheSticks
• markneustadt.com
• Life on Two Wheels
• PrincessScooterpie

My blog doesn’t really have a “name” per se. I mean, “toadmama.com” doesn’t feel like a blog name to me.

I’ve tried things like “ToadMama’s Web Abode” and “ToadMama’s Interstitial Space.” I even published under “Appalachian Tours” before, which was really a separate moto-focused blog. That’s back when we spent a lot of time in West Virginia AND I was operating under the delusion that I could maintain a personal blog and a moto blog at the same time.

ToadMama is my nickname. Kind of. Maybe it’s more like my creative alter ego. (Not very creative apparently considering I can’t come up with a name for my blog!)

To be honest, I still kind of like ToadMama’s Interstitial Space. What do you think?

As for the origin of ToadMama, that’s a long story. Somehow, some of my girlfriends and I fell into the habit of calling each other “Mama.” Not in a motherly way, just in “Hey, Mama” fashion.

I wish I could remember how the whole Mama thing started with us. We’ve been doing it since the early 90s. So, sometime in the mid-90s, when I finally decided to sign up for an AOL Instant Messenger screen name, it seemed natural to incorporate “Mama” into the moniker.

As for the Toad part, well, I’ve always liked frogs and toads. At the time, Toad.net was my Internet service provider. After trying somewhere between 10 and 300 different screen names — remember, AOL IM was VERY popular at the time — ToadMama was the first that wasn’t taken. I hit the ole ACCEPT button and have been ToadMama ever since.

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This Year’s Brave, Bold Bloggers…

Be sure to visit their blogs to see how each interpreted this challenge.

• Richard’s Page
• Fuzzygalore
• ScooterInTheSticks
• markneustadt.com
• Life on Two Wheels
• PrincessScooterpie

I’m a map girl. Always have been and always will be.

That’s not to say I don’t appreciate the convenience of a GPS (or Google maps via cell phone, which is sort of synonymous in my mind) telling you when to turn, but I definitely prefer plotting my course with a map.

I prefer paper maps, for that big-picture view, but nowadays tend to use a combination of paper and electronic maps when planning most trips.

I love DeLorme Gazetteer maps, but they don’t always have enough detail for my liking. They have far more detail than your standard road map, but nothing beats Google maps and being able to zoom in on stuff. Heck, when traveling through unfamiliar territory, I’ll even switch to Google Maps street view to see what the landscape looks like near most turns. That’s particularly helpful when traveling through states like West Virginia with road signs that use teeny-tiny print.

Or states like Virginia that use a unique combination of numbers and names to label roads, which aren’t always consistent between maps. And which can change when you cross from one county to the next.

Or Pennsylvania, which seems to have the most roads without signage at all, at least in my experience.

I’ve been know to take a DeLorme Gazetteer or two to bed at night, fueling dreams of places to go, roads I haven’t traveled, and sights as yet unseen.

Map apps are good, too. I love my RoadsideAmerica app (thanks to Fuzzy the birthday girl for that one!).

And Spotwalla. Gotta love being able to track your route as you go, or follow someone else’s trip.

SpotWalla is a secure personal location manager that supports a wide range of satellite-based tracking devices from SPOT and DeLorme as well as any Android and iOS device running Bubbler GPS or SWConnect respectively.

Spotwalla is especially convenient when Hubby and/or I are traveling without the other. It’s so easy to just look at the Spotwalla map than have to rely on phone and/or text updates. I use SWConnect via my iPhone.

I like AmericaRidesMaps, too. I bought the Va Blue Ridge Parkway series early last year, before I knew I’d actually be riding down the BRP. I should have bought the nine-map Full Southeast Package. It’s well worth the money. (Lynne from CurvyRoads told me about a similar map publisher, but I forget the name. Maybe she’ll chime in with a comment and enlighten us.)

My favorite map software is MS Streets & Trips, but it has been discontinued. One of these days, I guess I’ll have to start using the GPS software Hubby keeps telling me to use. Sigh…

So there you have it.

The shortest and/or quickest route isn’t always the best route. Especially when exploring on two wheels.

Just for giggles, Google “Toadmama map” once. You’ll see far more maps than photos. LOL.

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This Year’s Brave, Bold Bloggers…

Be sure to visit their blogs to see how each interpreted this challenge.

• Richard’s Page
• Fuzzygalore
• ScooterInTheSticks
• markneustadt.com
• Life on Two Wheels
• PrincessScooterpie

Asking me to pick a my favorite book is like asking me to name my favorite musician. There are far too many to choose from. And books, like music, fit a certain mood, speak to a certain interest, meet a need, and/or fit a specific purpose.

While it’s tempting to name a variety of my favorite books, I’ll share the one that’s been on my mind most lately.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein is a novel about a dog. Like most dog stories, you probably won’t finish without shedding a tear or two. But I like the way it ends from the dog’s perspective.

If you, like me, have ever had to make the horrible, gut-wrenching, humane decision to end you beloved dog’s suffering, you might find a bit of solace in the story. I know I did.

It’s well-written and an all around great read. I really need to find my copy so I can read it again.

 

 

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This Year’s Brave, Bold Bloggers…

Be sure to visit their blogs to see how each interpreted this challenge.

• Richard’s Page
• Fuzzygalore
• ScooterInTheSticks
• markneustadt.com
• Life on Two Wheels
• PrincessScooterpie

I’m not a fan of the term “best friend.” The funny thing is, I’m not entirely sure why. Friends mean a lot to me, and I don’t take friendship lightly. I guess my biggest problem with the term is its implied singularity.

If you’re lucky, and I am, you have more than one friend. To pronounce one of them to be your best friend sort of implies the others aren’t as important. That just seems wrong to me.

Real, true friendship is a mutual thing. It evolves over time. I mean, it takes time to really get to know a person. To understand the way they think, the way they react to situations, their likes and dislikes, how they carry themselves, the way they treat other people, their sense of humor, etc.  It also takes time to figure out if you’re compatible. If you actually like spending time with that person. If they value your friendship the same way you value their friendship.

Making friends is like dating in a lot of ways. You meet someone you like, for one reason or another, and you spend time getting to know them. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. When it does work out, it’s a mutually beneficial thing.

I get really weirded-out when someone I barely know says I’m their best friend. Or the best friend they ever had. It stresses me out. It should be flattering, I know, but I find it very uncomfortable. Like all of a sudden I’m being held to a higher standard. It’s especially stressful when the feeling isn’t mutual. I start feeling guilty that I don’t like the person as much as they like me, for whatever reason. And all of a sudden it becomes work. It’s easy to overlook flaws in people, or a few things you don’t like about a person, but when there are a number of things you don’t like, or few things you have in common, why would you even want to be friends?

Often it’s time and previous shared experiences that bind people together. I’ll be going on an annual girlfriend getaway next weekend with two women I’ve known for around 40 years. We all have very different lives, different interests, etc. Heck, we don’t even live in the same state anymore. But we all have a lot in common, too, and we’ve been through a lot together. I can’t imagine life without either of them even if we do only see each other a few times a year.

I have a couple of other friends I’ve known for a very long time, too. I see them less often, but we have history together. I value their friendships as well.

I’ve known Brad since I was about 15. We met in high school.

 

Diana and I have been friends since about second grade. So, over 40 years. (Wow, I’m getting old.)

There are others I have known for less time, but they still mean a lot to me.

Tammy, Annelies, Heather, and I used to work together. As luck would have it, our husbands/significant others enjoy each others’ company, too.

 

And we can’t forget the fine folks I’ve befriended since moving to Virginia.

I don’t have a picture of Janet and me. She’s the lady who owns The Empty Nest (Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Stockist). There’s Sandy and Sandra, neighbors who I know and like, but need to spend more time with.

There are others, too, some of whom I am still getting to know better. Some I interact with more on Facebook than in person, but would love to get to spend time with in person.

And we can’t forget Mike. He’s my husband, and my friend, too. We have lots of fun together.

And we can’t forget all my blog friends. Even if I haven’t met you all in person, you’re important, too.

I told you I’m lucky. I have lots of friends. They all mean a lot to me, all in different ways. How could I possibly proclaim one of them as being the best?