luckie | RiverCliff Cottage…A Journey

Hi…thanks to everyone who keeps coming back to see me at RiverCliff Cottage. I continued with about 4700 views in the past 30 days and since I’ve been less than diligent about updating the blog, I am very thankful. This is actually not a very large number, but it’s larger than I ever anticipated, so I”m very happy! RiverCliff Cottage is my precious!

I’m learning more about blogging. At the onsite of my fleding career as a webmaster for Adventure Mendota, I tried to save money by using the same account as RiverCliff Cottage but as an add-on domain. Blue Host, the server where this blog sits, allows as many domains on one account as you want at no additional charge, and in many cases, this would work nicely. However, after the fact, I learned that this made it difficult for search engines to find the site. I’d Google Adventure Mendota, and there would be Adventure Mendota mentioned on RiverCliff Cottage but no website showing up. I added SEO plugins, tried this, that…very little success. Drat! Sunday morning, I’ve called and started the migration of Adventure Mendota to its own account. It was a $99 migration charge I had not planned for, but I didn’t want to deal with learning how to do it. How many times will I have to migrate a site? Probably not again soon. Never I hope. Concurrent with this, I’ve learned that websites that have a blog that is updated on a fairly regular basis have better search results. Do you know what this means? I’m going to add a blog page on Adventure Mendota–what a shameless self-promoter I’ve become!

Speaking of this baby called Adventure Mendota, I found a sign at the end of the driveway this morning as I left for work. A Washington County elf was out and about! Here is a portion of the sign…I cut off the phone number. Sorry! This is one of those milestones moments. It’s like when you get married, vote the first time, do you-know-what the first time…and so forth. This is an “I really did that” moment.

zoning sign

On the downside of the week, my Luckie dog has been ill. This is not a picture that I took this weekend. This was last summer, when she was getting in touch with her inner-Islam. She was wearing the veil that day.

Luckie With a towel on her head

She became very ill with severe diarrhrea and her appetite left. I just want to add that this all occurred at 2 am. Rumbling, sad, exploding dog. And me. I spent half of Sunday morning cleaning the bedroom that I’d just cleaned the day before. She’s worth it. I’m running her by the vet tomorrow, but tonight she has shown an interest in eating again. I’m cautiously hopeful.

When the time comes and she’s ready to walk the Rainbow Bridge, I want to be with her…to hold her. But let’s hope that time is not this week.

It is one gray, rainy Sunday here in Mendota. Mike asked if I wanted to turn the heat on, but I think the gas fireplace will knock the chill off in our house. “Turn the fireplace on”…that is a term that I did not hear until the 1990’s. We used to build a fire in the fireplace, but now we “turn the fireplace on.” We have two gas fireplaces…the one in this picture is a direct vent, and it throws out a very modest amount of heat which is perfect for a day like today.

While the small bit of heat this fireplace throws out is good for today, it’s not enough during the winter. At that point, we use it more “for looks.” There is something about a fireplace and candles that lightens my mood.

I’ve got a candle stuck in one of the bowls of gourds in this picture although it doesn’t show up that well. That’s okay as the prettier part of this picture is one of my dear girls taking a snooze. That’s Princess Gracie Barker Beaule. She a member in good standing with the American Kennel Club…she proudly mentions this to Luckie daily. Luckie, of course, is of questionable lineage, and as Gracie constantly reminds her, she will never be a member of the American Kennel Club.