Put the pen to the paper

I need your help with the spring makeover. Tomorrow I have a conference call scheduled with Kirsten Wright of Wright Creativity.

After hearing her in a couple of interviews, I checked out her website. It was just what I needed! She is giving with knowledge and information about blogging, integrating social media and a lot more. My current homework, so to speak, is streamlining this site’s categories. Categories are different than the pages you see listed at the top of the site. About Us. About Our Lhasa Apsos. Those pages lay the foundation and, you’ll notice, have been pruned down. Categories provide the backbone for blogging. When it’s all said and done only six or so categories will show in the sidebar. And tags will be utilized for specifics.

Here are the categories I’ve come up with:

Apso Aficionados
Art and Photography
FFT Lhasa Apsos
Gompa Lhasa Apsos
Lotsa Lhasa Info

And…

..here’s where I need your help. A name for my ramblings, my soap box. The site is about Lhasa Apsos, ours in particular, but part of its personality, part of the reason I like blogging is I get to write. I was never a big Guns ‘n Roses fan, but have loved this part from Don’t Damn Me:

Don’t damn me
When I speak a piece of my mind
‘Cause silence isn’t golden
When I’m holding it inside
‘Cause I’ve been where I have been
An I’ve seen what I have seen
I put the pen to the paper
‘Cause it’s all a part of me

That really speaks to me. But I don’t know if Put the Pen to the Paper is a good category name. Debby Puts Pen to Paper? Ideas? Comments?

Funny thing… One of the links Kirsten provided in her Wright Creativity post this morning is titled Are you creative for you or your readers?

I know that everyone has a different reason for reading my blog, or for writing their own. But, after spending the last 6 months working on this one, I have figured out that there is one main point that I have to think about: Am I creative for me or my readers? The answer is, and must be, both!

Whew! Was I glad to read that! I was almost afraid to read the entry. My creative juices started flowing again. I didn’t want to damn them up, putting my own creativity to the side!

Against the Wind

Unbelievable. I’m sitting here this morning looking out my library window at falling snow. Until several days ago that would mean a reprieve from the unsettledness of the extreme fire season. Not so anymore. Thursday it snowed. Thursday afternoon the Meyer Ranch fire started.

All this week Bob Seger’s Against The Wind has played over and over in my head. Running against the wind. That’s what we – Animal Evac Volunteers – were doing last Sunday morning, some of us that maintain red card certification. We weren’t really running. That isn’t allowed during pack tests. The three levels of pack tests are arduous, moderate and light. Arduous pack test = 3-mile hike with 45 lb pack in 45 minutes. Moderate field test = 2-mile hike with 25 lb pack in 30 minutes. Light walk test = 1-mile hike with no pack in 16 minutes. No jogging or running in any of them. Still, it was against the wind.

Walking against the wind. It was so freakin’ windy last Sunday. Head down, against the wind. You’d think the wind would push you along on the opposite side of the track, but nope. The track sits in a hillside, which kept the wind away on one side of the track. The side where the wind would have pushed us along.

Our fearless leader Chuck did the arduous. Ken and Laurel did the moderate. I did the light. They wore vests containing the appropriate amount of weight. The vests are weighed before the test begins…

AEV was formed in 2002 during another extreme fire season. It was the year my family, including all the dogs and Laura the cat, spent three days away from home. Fortunately we were home the afternoon the Black Mountain Fire started. We live on Black Mountain. Nate had his driver’s licence. We had three vehicles and several hours warning before mandatory evacuation. There was time to prepare. But what if we hadn’t been home? Once an area is sealed off by the authorities, there’s no getting in.

People have told me, “there’s no way they could have kept me out.” Ya. Right. Then you’ve never been in that situation. It was eerie. Ash was falling. The sky was orange.

So, each year I fulfill the requirements for red card certification and volunteer for Animal Evac.

I googled the lyrics for Against the Wind this morning. Yep, the song is a love song, a long lost love. But the first verse creeped me out!