Hey, hey, hey, it’s your birthday girl Penny here!
Mom says in honor of my birthday I get to let you guys all know that I’m a very special girl, highly intelligent, an over achiever, and athletic to boot.
Oh, wait. Mom’s trying to get my attention.
Mom says that was not what I was supposed to tell you. I’m suppose to tell you it’s my birthday and I turned TWO today! And that she’s not giving me any cake or blowing up balloons or anything.
On the other hand she’s also not making me wear a silly birthday hat, so I guess it’s all good.
Right.
But somehow it doesn’t seem fair that there’s not a worldwide celebration of my birthday. Or at least a house-wide celebration. And you’d think there might be a present or two.
Well. Mom does promise me a walk in the woods at a park of my choice. And she says I get an extra snuggle with daddy, which is one of my all time favorite things to do.
I’m a happy girl, that’s for sure, and all I really need is my mom and my dad and their big bed and my supper bowl and an occasional treat.
Yep. That’s all I need.
Oh…and my ball to chase and mom’s shoe to chew on.
And my sofa to nap on.
Yep. That’s all I need.
So….happy birthday to ME, the happiest sheltie in the world!
Talk later, I’m going to go threaten mom’s ankles until she gets me a treat and then a walk…
…your birthday girl, Unstoppable Penny…now moving on to her terrible adventuresome twos!
Many of you know the story about my dad and the semi-truck. I wish I could say I wrote a kids’ book about a daddy driving a big truck.
Dad and his baby sister.
But that’s not the way it went.
In reality my dad was driving to the Atlanta airport December 23, 2004, a plane ticket in his shirt pocket, heading north to spend Christmas with his family.
He loved water his entire life.
Around 6 a.m. with an hour to go, he was hit from behind by a semi-truck who’s driver didn’t notice all the traffic slowing in front of him.
A college man.
Dad never had a chance.
The semi driver said he fell asleep after driving all night, trying to get a load of electronics to Atlanta for Christmas sales. His dispatcher had enticed him to make a deadline in Atlanta in order to have another truck ready for him to drive to Florida, getting him home to his family for Christmas.
A married man.
My dad didn’t get to spend Christmas with his family. The driver didn’t get to spend Christmas with his family either, he spent it in jail. My siblings and I spent Christmas in shock, sitting in dad’s house, looking at the Christmas tree he’d put up before he left.
Trying to make sense of it all.
A new father.
And in the following months we found the Truck Safety Coalition, made up of CRASH, (Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways), and PATT (Parents Against Tired Truckers). It’s a group of people who have had similar experiences with large commercial trucks.
A dad and his girls.
Sons, daughters, grandkids, parents, friends, spouses, nobody is immune, we all travel our roads alongside big trucks. TSC supports survivors and victims’ families. It educates policy makers on common sense changes that need to be made to make us all, truck drivers included, safer.
A family man.
But we can’t do any of it without financial support. We’re a 501c3 nonprofit. We struggle, as do many groups, to fund the activities that give families hope. Giving Tuesday is one of our biggest fundraising days.
This year it’s on December 3rd.
Everybody growing up.
And, this year, we’re trying something a bit different. In addition to using the Facebook platform, we’re asking folks to donate directly to us. Here’s the link to my personal fundraising page: https://secure.qgiv.com/event/trucksafetycoalitionpeertopeer/account/1899034/. Give it a click and see dad’s story and my progress toward my goal.
You don’t have to wait until December 3rd to donate. We’re starting our campaign right now. In fact you could be my very first donor!
Always interested, always busy.
I said it on Facebook the other evening; I fully believe that Dad says thank you to everyone that has supported me and my siblings all these twenty years. We needed you and you were there. And along the way I’ve met even more supportive people. You’ve all helped me help TSC to continue the work that helped us in our worst moments.
Retired.
The circle of support continues. Round and round, as you helped us, we are supporting the new families who keep on coming. Truck crashes continue, families are irreversibly changed, we provide support, and in time, they grow and get stronger and provide support for the next family.
More than 5,000 people die in commercial truck crashes each year. More than 100,000 people are injured. There are so many families.
We are working hard to help as many families as we can, and it all begins with your support. So thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, from the bottom of my dad’s heart.
Our community band holiday concert is this Thursday. Yes, the day after tomorrow, and before Thanksgiving. It’s never happened like this before.
We’ve only had 4 weeks of rehearsals to prepare, but it’s Christmas music, much of it we’ve played before. It will be fine. In fact, it might just be the perfect way to kick the holiday season off!
So…if you’re in the area, and would enjoy some uplifting music to kick start your holiday season…come on over to the Clarkston High School this Thursday evening, 7:00 p.m. It’s free.
You can have your picture taken with the authentic Santa, and we’ll have cookies afterward too! I personally don’t think you can have a legitimate holiday season until you’ve heard “Christmas Festival” by Leroy Anderson live and in person.
And Santa himself will be directing “Sleigh Ride.” That alone should make you want to be there.
Happy Holidays, everybody! Christmas music, then Thanksgiving. It’s always good to mix things up. Keeps us on our toes!
I’m afraid I have some sad news to share with all of you. My friend, sheltie Lance’s big sister Tally, a Gordon Setter, crossed the rainbow bridge last Friday. Tally lived with Lance and Katie’s half sister Payton and their mom and dad. As you know Peyton crossed the bridge in September, so the loss of Tally is doubly hard on her mom and dad.
My mom learned about Tally crossing the bridge on Sunday morning, shortly after she finished doing the Wordle puzzle. Sunday’s Wordle solution was “tally” and mom, of course, thought about Payton’s sister and smiled. And then she got the news and she wondered if anything in the world is truly a coincidence.
Anyway, I can’t say that I knew Tally well, I only met her once, and I have to admit I was something of a chicken then, cause she was a lot bigger than me!
She was nothing but polite though, and it was silly of me to be scared of her. She was such a friendly girl.
You might remember that Katie got to show Payton and Tally around her park in May of 2022. Tally had the best sniffing nose and just loved exploring new parks.
She was less thrilled to pose for my mom who is always taking pictures. But she did it anyway, cause she was a very good and polite girl.
Katie got to visit Payton and Tally at their house too. One time Katie and Payton were busy getting treats on the deck and Payton’s mom went in the house. Katie thought she was getting more treats, so she waited by the door. She sure was surprised when Payton’s mom didn’t bring more treats, but brought out Tally instead!
Tally got along with everybody, and was such a good girl that she didn’t even steal treats off the table! Katie was sort of jealous that Tally was tall enough to even think about doing that.
Tally and her mom were competing in obedience and she had already won lots of ribbons when she had to retire because she got sick with leukemia.
Photo from Tally’s mom Diane
She fought hard to stay with her family as long as she could, but last week she was just too tired.
Her mom and dad and Lance are missing her terribly.
Lance and Tally playing, photo be Tally’s mom.
Our only consolation is that she’s with her angel sister Payton, her angel mother Flair and of course my angel sister Katie. We know they’re exploring a new park every day with lots of things to sniff and the best treats ever!
If you’re of a mind to send positive thoughts, or prayers, or suportive vibes to Tally and Payton’s parents I know they would appreciate it. And poor little Lance, who has never been an only dog, needs support too.
Lance on the left, me on the right.
I hope that I get to see him soon. When I do I will remind him how much all you nice people and your fur babies care about him and his folks.
Tonight I was sorting through the pictures from my drive home from Alabama. I liked so many of them I feel like I need to share some of them with you. So…here’s the end of my vacation, with it’s long drive home.
A neighbor’s dog stopping in for a little belly rub.
I spent my last evening at the lake sitting on the dock waiting for the sunset, and reminiscing about times in years past when we all spent time there together.
It wasn’t a great sunset, but the clouds in the water were cool.
I thought about Katie a lot too and how much she loved the lake house. She’d spent plenty of evenings out there on the dock with me waiting for the sun to set. I hope someday Penny will be able to do the same.
The moon was coming up as the sun was going down.
Then, in the morning, I set out for home just under 1,000 miles away. It was hard to leave.
Bye! See you next time!
I took a new way back to the freeway, a couple hours away, to avoid the traffic of Birmingham. Even though it was Saturday morning and the city traffic wouldn’t be that bad, I wanted to see if this new way might work.
White barn with fall color.
Plus it put me directly in farm country. And you know what that means.
Red barn very near the lake house.
Barns. It means barns.
I only got off the road once to pursue barns. I can’t remember for sure but it might have even been my second day of driving. Though I can’t promise I showed such restraint.
This was the barn that made me get off the freeway.
There were so many great barns in the area that I did a couple of big country blocks.
At one point I ended up in a tiny little town where I saw this interesting house. I only slowed slightly because I could feel the eyes of the residents following my car with it’s out of state plates.
In a little town maybe 2 or 3 blocks of houses total.
And then of course there was no entrance back to the freeway right there, so, darn, I had to do another country block.
Little or big, I love all barns.
And then up ahead I saw this.
Is this what I think it is?
What is that you say? Well, let me crop the image a bit more.
Oops, I think he saw me.
Yep. A bald eagle, in a dead tree right by the narrow dirt road I was on. I held my camera out the window. I knew if I tried to get out of the car he’d fly away.
Look lady, you’ve interrupted my lunch!
Which of course he did anyway. But oh my seeing the eagle made me smile!
And then I was back to looking for the freeway and noticing barns. Lots and lots of barns.
This one might need a little tender loving care.
And lots of beautiful fields too.
The sun kept peeping out from behind the clouds, causing stripes of light.
All complete with dramatic skies.
I was so lucky on this two day drive home. It rained, but not a lot, and the traffic wasn’t horrible. Driving on Saturday and Sunday helped.
Red is just so classic.
My favorite barn on the trip back? Why this one, of course.
So much drama!
I hope you enjoy it too and all the other barns I got to see on my drive around the block.
I don’t’ know when I’ll be able to go on another barn hunt, but that’s OK. I’m sure I can find cool stuff closer to home this winter.
The road calls.
Thanks for being out there to share my experiences with me!
Thank you, everybody for having patience with me as I traveled. Last year when I did this summary I was smart and built it as you linked your Walktobers to my post. This year, for some unknown reason, I just left it until the end.
Which is now.
If after you review this post you find I’ve missed your Walktober, just let me know and I’ll go find it and edit this right away. But I sincerely hope I haven’t missed anybody!
So without further ado, let’s get to walking!
First up is Ruth who walked in her local nature reserve. She described it as ‘being in a little bowl of nature.” Doesn’t that just make you want to visit it yourself? Lucky for all of us Ruth included several pictures so we can pretend we’re right there with her!
Next is the Widow Badass who was out and about with the celebrity schnauzer, Bowser. There’s nothing quite like a cute dog walking in brilliant fall leaves to make a person smile. We hope you’re smiling too as you read about their walk.
Speaking of dogs enjoying a fall walk here comes Monkey, a handsome sheltie, who likes to take his mom on walks whenever he can. I think he did a great job showing us around, don’t you?
And then there’s Barbara showing us beautiful sculptures glowing in the sun. Such a pretty place she shared with us, and very unique too! I’m sure once we read about her walk we’ll all wish we had a park near us just like it!
Debbie, who happens to be Monkey’s mom, took a walk on trails surrounding Lake Charleston in Illinois. My goodness, look at all the beautiful things she saw on her walk! I’m thinking we should not tell Monkey she went without him!
Well, I managed to insert Lisa’s post twice, and so far I can’t figure out how to remove the duplicate…so I’ll leave it in for now. Just scroll on by, people, just scroll on by.
Somewhere in the middle of all your walks I got my own in. It’s been so long now I can’t remember where I took you. So I guess you’ll have to read the post and find out!
Next we have Jo’s walk She takes us to Tavira in Portugal! The wonderful thing about our annual Walktobers is that you never know where you’ll end up! And Jo got to meet a fellow blogger there as well, which is always special.
From Portugal we move on to Canada with Dale, specifically over near Quebec, if I have done my sleuthing correctly. If not, maybe she will let us know ! Dale combines lots of beautiful fall colors with some sculpture as well on her walk about town.
Back in the United States Carin takes us on a walk around her neighborhood with her sheltie Levi. Penny has met Levi in person and she would like you all to know he’s a very good host!
Up next Linda takes us on a lovely walk around a pond in the Armand Bayou Nature Center near Houston Texas. It’s one of the largest urban wilderness preserve in the country, and we’re lucky to see some it right here through the magic of Walktobers!
And once again I have a duplicate post that I can’t delete. WordPress is giving me fits, but I decided to try and publish this as is versus spending even more time trying to fix it.
Hopefully you all enjoy each other’s walks, and that’s what this is all about! AND, if anybody knows how to delete links that I pasted twice into this please give me a hint on how I can clean this up!
I am already looking forward to Walktober 2025! I hope you are too! And thank you to everybody that participated in our October tradition. Thanks again for all your patience with me!
I’m headed home now from a week at my parents’ house on the lake. I hadn’t been there in a few years.
First covid happened and then we had other priorities for a couple years. It was hard to find the time to go South.
While I was there I had a few days without any agenda where I mostly sat on the deck and watched the water in the lake change over the course of the day.
Years ago my mom used to try to convince me that folks in Alabama enjoyed fall color, though I’d always argued certainly not the color we have in Michigan.
I was down there, this year, at the perfect fall time, with yellow, green and red popping under warm southern sun.
The leaves across the way reflected in the lake as I sat on the dock, memories of years past flitting through my mind.
I wished my parents were with me at the lake house. I wished my mom was making potato salad. I wished my dad was telling stories.
I spent the week surrounded by memories of times when we were all together. It was both a sad and a happy week.
You might have noticed that mom is still missing. I’m kind of worried, even though daddy said it was all going to be just fine. But I’m also a bit miffed, cause mom has more beautiful pictures of me and she hasn’t posted them! So I guess I’ll have to do it myself.
Katie warned me there would be days like this.
So without further ado, here are the images from our second 4 season photo shoots! I think you will agree I am simply stunning.
Ahem.
November of 2023, where it all began:
Winter of 2024:
Spring of 2024:
Summer of 2024.
Fall of 2024! (My personal favorite.)
I hoped you liked my second set of 4 seasons images. Mom told me she had fun too, but NOBODY has as much fun as me!
Talk later,
Your professional model (who will be increasing her fees if she has to do all the work around here),
I’ve been down at the lake for a couple of days now, but for all you barn lovers I’ll do a short post from my second day of driving south.
I saw a promising area, with rolling hills and what seemed like a lot of barns somewhere in Kentucky off of I 65. I pulled off at the exit and turned onto what looked like a service drive to head back and look for the barns.
Even as turned I began to feel faint bits of recognition. It felt like I’d been down this road before.
Then I started thinking, ‘if the road curves sharply to the left and then goes up a hill I’ve definitely been here before.
And it did.
Even funnier is that I think this is the third time I’ve been down this road, each time on the way to Alabama, and each time enticed by beautiful barns visible from the freeway.
This year, not having a dog with me, I went further down the road and found some ‘new’ barns — structures I hadn’t seen before.
And as the sky darkened with an oncoming storm, I saw in the distance a white church spire that I had to go find. So I did.
I wandered around the cemetery a bit, and shot some barns off in the distance. Then I high tailed it back to the freeway for the rest of my trip home.
I’m going to try very very hard next time I’m driving down to Alabama not to be seduced by this road and it’s barns again. I think three times is plenty.
Change Is Hard 