She steps out into the morning sun, a growing child of five, taking in the warmth of spring and new beginnings. The child heads to her love, a pink bike that sits in the corner of the yard, the one thing that brings adventure to her life as the tires spin across the grass and gravel. The sun beckons her down the block, across the cracks of sidewalk cement and slowly, across decades, she ages into her real self, theRead more
Posts tagged: #Bicycling
Monday Morning Catch-Up
No, I am not back in Colorado. The week I returned from the mountains, we did get early snow (which didn’t stick), but my brother wasn’t quite as lucky. While our weather improved, his deteriorated for a bit. Thankfully, we are both back to nicer weather, although the photo above would make a nice Christmas postcard. The last two weeks have flown by with a mountain of busy-ness. Personal/doctor appointments, cat sitting for a friend, churchy stuff, getting together withRead more
#SoCS: Happy Colorado Places
Eleven days in heaven. A happy place. Mountains, canyons, cliffs, yellow aspens, flowers, views for miles. Many of you know that bicycling in the warmer months is my usual happiness, but a visit to Colorado in autumn is breathtaking. Being out in nature is my jam, whether on bike or hiking on foot. Nearer to God, nearer to the planet’s creation, nearer to the sights and smells that create a feeling of calm and peace. Unless, of course, I amRead more
#SoCS – Filling Frames
“The key to happiness is not to get more, but to enjoy what we have and to fill the empty frame of our lives instead of enlarging it.” ~Albert Szent Gyorgyi~ I like this – a reminder that I have plenty to work with inside my own frame and don’t need to turn an 8×10″ into 20×24. Friday reminded me that I have special people who make up part of my life’s photograph…spending the morning with a friend who IRead more
Capturing Life
“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.“ On Adrian’s Island, Jefferson City, MO, the pieces of the extra-large chessboard travel often, but not too far. There is no escape outside the square. Biking buddy and I returned from a nine-day vacation to Missouri. Our intent was to bike six days on the Katy Trail, but it ended up being only four days and 82.5 miles. The best laid plans… Actually, the heat prevented usRead more
Checking in with Priorities
“Instead of saying ‘I don’t have time,’ try saying ‘it’s not a priority,’ and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don’t like how we’re spending an hour, we can choose differently.”― Wall Street Journal Let me be honest. Blogging hasn’t been a priority of late. I could say that I don’t have timeRead more
SoCS: How Ya Doin’?
How many times have you asked that question of family and friends? A hundred? A thousand? Too many times to count? When we don’t stay in touch with our people on a regular basis, it’s a fairly common first question to ask. Right? So, how are you doing my fellow blogging peeps? I’ve been a tad busy the last couple of weeks, which means I haven’t published a post or been reading many of your posts. I apologize. I’m notRead more
#WATWB: Fox Cities Trail System
For this month’s We Are the World Blogfest, I’m going to share the Fox Cities trail system in the Appleton, Wisconsin area. These are some of the biking/walking trails that I utilize throughout the year, but most often in spring, summer and autumn. I may have gushed about our trails before, but the community that also includes Neenah, Menasha, Fox Crossing, Kimberly, Kaukauna, Combined Locks and other surrounding townships, provide many miles of natural landscape, rivers, lakes and farmland. FromRead more
#SoCS: In The Something
In the, in the, in the… I’m not coming up with much for the Stream of Consciousness prompt. In the heat of the night… In the final analysis… In the dead of winter… In the something… Okay, so I suppose I could write about the dead of winter since as of this moment, the temperature is 15F (-9.4C) and the expected high on Monday will be 1F (-17.2C). Yes, it’s cold here in Wisconsin and my plans are to spendRead more
Never Ever
“I could never in a hundred summers get tired of this.” ~Susan Branch~ One last summer hurrah That is all I need Til the season rolls around again And I am on my steed Summers tend to feel short in Wisconsin, but we northerners take advantage of the season as much as possible. Biking buddy and I had two wonderful days of wheeling in the sun over the past weekend, with unseasonably mild temps in the 70’s and 80’s F.Read more
Melange-O-Rama
Did you know that the meaning of melange is “hodgepodge” or “assortment?” I named my blog Mary J. Melange because I planned on writing a variety of content rather than singularly about cats or bicycles or poetry. It is today that I’m sharing a chaotic hodgepodge of stuff would have been called mish-mash were it not for Dan’s recent post at No Facilities. Great minds think alike, but I may have to outdo his assortment. Just because I can. IRead more
#CBWC: The Bridges of Wiouwash Trail
This week’s entry for Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge (CBWC) includes photos of bridges. A warning to all who go past Perhaps you should not pedal so fast Stop and enjoy the scenic view The Wiouwash Trail gently beckons you Its bridges take you to the other side Or bars you from a former divide. (The Wiouwash Trail is almost 28 miles long, from Oshkosh to Hortonville, WI. The photos you see here are from a nine mile stretchRead more
Mary J Melange 