Day Tripping

The weather here in Southern California continues to be absolutely beautiful. I do not miss Portland’s dampness one bit, not when I can experience all this sunshine day after blessed day.

 

The daytime temps are perfect, allowing us to still comfortably wear our T-shirts and shorts even this late in the year, and the nighttime temps are just chilly enough to warrant snuggling beneath the quilt I made for Ken out of his old T-shirts. In other words, it’s just how I like it.

On Wednesday, we decided to take advantage of the gloriously beautiful weather by driving to The Salton Sea. On our way, we passed through Palm  Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Indio, Coachella, and finally Mecca, Desert Shores, and The Salton Sea. I think I named them all.

It was one town right after the other, blending so well it was difficult to say exactly when we passed from one to the next, unless we happened to catch the welcome signs. Although the farther we drove, the poorer the cities became. Then, it was easy to tell where the rich left off and the working stiffs began. The first half dozen cities were so opulent that even the bus shelters looked like stucco gazebos, for lack of a better description.

It was too rich for my blood, although Ken did catch me ducking into a Goodwill in Palm Springs. I just had to see what the rich had to offer. (Evidently not much because I left there empty handed!)

These are some of the pictures from the first part of our adventure. Mecca, Desert Shores, and The Salton Sea will have to wait for the next posts.

Along Highway 10 just outside of Banning, there’s a stretch of the desert that has been put to good use as a wind farm. I love seeing alternate energy sources being incorporated so well, as they are in So Cal. Some may call them ugly or even eyesores, but I find them beautiful in both their simplicity and purpose.

Peace,

Jenni and Ken

Glorious Fun

Oh, it has been a glorious week so far, and it is only Wednesday!

I’d love to just blurt out all the goodness that God has been bestowing on us as of late, but I will take my time and parse it out properly over the next few posts.

Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day. I spent it with my daughter, doing not much of anything, just mom and daughter stuff. We made gluten free peanut butter cookies (recipe to follow) and she highlighted my hair . . . wait for it . . . wait . . .

PURPLE! And so now with my natural silver/gray, I’m sporting the Sacramento King’s colors! Too funny. That one’s just for you, Dale! (Okay, so it doesn’t show up all that well in this picture, but my hair is tinted purple on the ends.)

Those of you who know me personally might notice something else about the pictures. I’m losing weight, although I am not sure how much because I have not stepped on a scale since Portland. Needless to say, I am down a few sizes. Yea! And it is simply melting away without all the usual starvation and torture. What’s my secret, you may ask? Well, when we started our journey, we basically changed our entire lifestyle. That, and I give thanks to God for this, another blessing in my life.

Okay, so I am blurting out an awful lot of the goodness all at once.

On to the cookie recipe. It is the simplest and most delicious cookie recipe ever. Even if you are not gluten intolerant, you may want to try these. They are amazing.

GLUTEN FREE PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp vanilla

That’s it, unless you are hankering for chocolate with your peanut butter, then add some chocolate chips and you are good to go.

Bake for 10-12 minutes in a 350 degree oven, and I promise they will disappear right before your eyes, even before they have had a chance to cool. Better double the recipe, folks, it is that good.

Love and blessings to you all,

Jenni and Ken

New Life From Old

While we were in the mountainous region above Banning, which I spoke of in my last post, we came upon what remained after a recent wildfire. From a distance, the area looked, charred, desolate, devoid of anything good or life sustaining.

As we approached, I meditated on how life’s trials can leave us charred, alone, wasting away for want of that certain something that will renew our souls.

Then I walked among the burned relics, the charred bushes, the melted debris left behind earlier by litterbugs.

And this is what I found, life striving to survive despite all odds. The char was falling away to reveal glowing, vibrant branches beneath.

I was awestruck, speechless. The beauty I found in the midst of this destruction astounded and refreshed my soul.

Thank You, Lord, for all Your lessons and Your grace. Amen.

Love,

Jenni and Ken

Banning

The other day, we decided to take a drive into the mountainous region above Banning. Our end destination was to check out an RV park called Silent Valley. Though it was technically only ten or so miles outside of Banning, those ten miles were winding, sharp, and steep in places. When we turned off California State Highway 243 onto Poppet Flats Road, the elevation was at least 4000 feet.

The snowy peak we had seen in the distance, now appeared to be within our grasp, just over the next ridge.

Although Silent Valley appears, for all purposes, to be a wonderful place to stay, being essentially a town within itself, we decided not to chance taking the Raven up that hill. For now, we are just bouncing back and forth between Fisherman’s Retreat and Cherry Valley Lakes, and we will most likely still be bouncing back and forth come Christmas and New Year’s.

When I prayed about whether we should move on or not, (since Ken had itchy feet and wanted to get to Arizona before any snow falls on the passes), God gave me peace about staying in this area for now.

Besides, we are making connections here. God is presenting us with good, new relationships and He is healing old ones. We’ve hooked up with a local pastor and his wife, and they have been blessing us with their goodness. And Ken, being the gregarious one, has made several other friends as well. There are good people, here in Beaumont.

I feel good here, soul-wise. I feel at home. Ken is happy either way, whether we move on or stay, so long as a decision has been made. So for now, we stay.

Blessings to you and yours,

Love,

Jenni and Ken

Banning, as viewed from Hwy 243

Blessings Abound

Have you ever stopped to consider how often the blessings of God grace your life? How everything, even the simplest of things, has been touched by His hand?

Have you stopped to study the intricacy of a single bloom?

Or stood silently in awe as a great egret took flight?

Or marveled at the glow of the approaching sunset? God can even take LA’s pollution and make it beautiful.

These are but a few outward examples of His love for us. For He also gave us friendship and love, laughter and tears, compassion and forgiveness.

The blessings in my own life are too numerous to count. All day long, I praise His Holy Name for giving me glimpses of heaven.

All of this, I witness and find joy in, not in spite of my pain and illness, but because of it. For through my struggles, He has taught me much, and I am ever grateful.

Where can you find blessings today?

Love,

Jenni and Ken

Absenteeism

When life gets rough

And I sit on my duff

I’m tempted to cry

And wail and moan.

I feel so alone

When I ache to the bone.

But nothing

Offers comfort to me.

As I survive

And once again come alive

I know it wasn’t me

Who brought me through.

For The Lord is my shepherd,

And His dove, His holy bird,

Leads me out of my torment

Once again.

Thank You, Lord. I praise Your holy name for bringing me through the past several months, when my health was sliding rapidly downhill. Though I am still not as well as I would like, You give me the hope to believe that I am on the mend and will soon be able to participate in life more often.

Thank you, also, to all my readers who have stood by and waited patiently to hear why I have not been writing. The regimen I was on most recently for my Lyme disease took its toll worse than usual. That, coupled with the extra stress of traveling, was just too much for my body to handle. My pain and fatigue were unrelenting, and I could not do much more than survive. I depended wholly on The Lord, Ken, and Tinker Belle to get me through.

I do not regret making this journey, not in the least. Though we are in a rather barren area, with brown being the predominant color, I absolutely love it. The lack of rain and subsequent humidity has been a Godsend for my arthritis (bone pain is a whole other matter), and even though it is nearing the end of October, we are still enjoying temperatures in the 80’s.

Besides, I’m near my daughter, and our relationship is flourishing as I get to know her as an adult, rather than as a child. We are blessed to have this opportunity.

I cannot make any promises as to how frequently I will be writing in the future, but I hope it will be more often. Please forgive my absenteeism and know it was for a health reason.

Love,

Jenni and Ken

Juggle and Dance

For Sale: Older family home on the outskirts of Beaumont. This is a must see and will not stay on the market long.

Years ago when Ken and I were in the market to purchase our first home together, we scanned the newspaper and we relied on friends to give us the scoop on choice properties they had heard about. This was before we had a computer in our home, mind you. Back then, we used the old-fashioned style of networking.

We saw some beauties, as we traipsed around every weekend from one open house to the next. Most of these beauties we could not afford, of course. But we dared dream big for someday’s sake.

(Wouldn’t this be lovely. Actually, it is Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon.)

(Trevor and I washing our feet, above, after working outside in our garden, below, Spring 1999)

The house we settled on was not my first choice, but it was in a good neighborhood, top-notch school district, and it was on a cul-de-sac and was fully fenced. All these were important for my children and so trumped, for instance, a larger kitchen or a basement. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a two-car garage.

In the thirteen years we lived in our home, I longed for a larger one. I longed to have an office and a guest room and maybe even a family room, instead of all those rolled into my daughter’s old bedroom. I grumped and grumped about it only having about 1200 square feet of living space, yet in the end, when illness took over, I could no longer even keep that small of a home clean without help.

Then we lived in the tiny duplex for three years. This was a major adjustment, being so  much smaller than even that 1200 square foot home. But we did it, and I grumped about all our junk, day in and day out, until I could grump no more.

Now we live in a 32 foot Firan Raven motor coach with no slide outs. It is crowded. We cannot seem to get rid of all our junk. I guess it’s human nature, our junk, our mess. We all have something hidden in our closets, or spilling out as the case may be.

Even though it’s crowded and we have to juggle and dance more often than not, I love living in this confined space. Most everything I need is close at hand. Our bedroom is wall-to-wall mattress and pillows. Most nights I sleep like a baby tucked safely in a crib.

I am claustrophobic, but this arrangement does not bother me. I have the whole out-of-doors as my living space. At most resorts, we have a pool and a hot tub a short walk away, and with all the beautiful, new surroundings, I am eager and willing to walk Tinker Belle every day, too.

Sure, I would like a large house some day, but I can clean this one, end to end, in under an hour. How could I ever beat that, without hiring help?

Blessings are where you look for them.

Love,

Jenni and Ken

Cooling Our Heels

We knew this day would come. We knew we would run out of money before we ran out of month. Why wouldn’t it? It happens to everyone, everywhere, who lives paycheck to paycheck. Being on the road doesn’t make us immune from these everyday woes. It actually makes us more vulnerable.

Our home is one wheels. When it breaks down, we become, essentially, homeless, as happened back in July in Yreka. This was a major financial setback, but (knock on wood) we have not had any problems since.

Over this past month, every semi-annual bill that could possibly come due, did. Therefore, after our valiant push to get down here to Southern California, we now must cool our heels. Kick back and relax. Stay awhile.

As for my mission, God has me working on abiding right now. That’s a word we in this modern time rarely use. We tend to want everything right now. Microwaves ruined us in the kitchen. And on the computer, we get frustrated if a page takes longer than two seconds to download. We cannot even wait to make purchases anymore. If we cannot afford it, that’s what credit was invented for.

With everything available at our fingertips, simply for the asking, we’ve really gotten into a me-me-me attitude, and it sucks. Sorry, but it does.

Stop and smell the roses, already. There’s more to life than the tip of your own nose.

So here we sit, biding our time. God has me in a wait mode right now with my mission, anyway. Maybe that was in response to me complaining that I was so tired and needed a rest, for when I prayed for answers about my Hesperia dream, I was told to be patient and to wait.

When we drove through Hesperia two weeks ago on our way to Beaumont, I was so tired that God could have placed a neon sign directly in my path, and I would probably have missed it.

Friday is moving day again. We will be traveling a whopping six miles down the road to Cherry Valley Ranch.

I like this waiting mode. Besides, it gives me more time to spend with my daughter and, after payday, we can also travel westward to the Los Angeles area, to visit other family members. Seems we’ve got family everywhere and plenty of time to visit!

Love,

Jenni and Ken

Blessings, Divine

Please forgive the lapses in my postings. Life tends to get out of control when one has a chronic illness. Sometimes I feel like a tumbleweed, tossed around at the mercy of the world’s winds.

Since we arrived at Fisherman’s Retreat in Redlands, I have spent most of my time indoors, recuperating. Sometimes I feel left out, as Ken goes on his daily walks without me. I’m just not up to such long walks right now.

There are blessings even in this, for without me out there taking pictures, Ken has been honing his skills. He has become more intentional in his photography. I’m even considering turning that branch of creativity over to him totally, for a time, anyway. It is much too much, all that I try to accomplish with my creativity. And it is good, very good, to give him this special chore.

So, from here on out, the majority of the photos I will use in my blog will actually be Ken’s contribution. The Lord has blessed me once again, through my husband and all this beauty.

May you be blessed in your comings and goings and doings and being,

Jenni and Ken