Myrna CG Mibus - Idyllwild

I'm on a writing retreat at the Anderson Center in Red Wing and took a break from my writing yesterday and this morning to get out and ride the Cannon Valley Trail . The CVT parallels the Anderson Center's property and to get to the trail I only need to bike a few blocks down a hill. I simply can't resist  riding the trail when I'm here! The CVT is my favorite bike trail and although I've ridden it many, many times, I never get tired of riding the trail or the beauty that surrounds it. With the leaves gone from the trees, I expected the scenery along the trail would be somewhat bland. But I was wrong. I spent most of my rides simply taking in the beauty along the trail. The sun shining through the bare trees. The green moss on rocks and fallen logs. The brown leaves covering the hillsides and carpeting the woodsy floor. On my ride to the Welch trailhead this morning, I noticed a newly constructed Marshall Memorial Rest Area alongside the trail. On my way ...

Some time ago, I updated my writing website found at www.myrnacgmibus.com using WordPress. My website now has a new look, greater capabilities and a new writing-specific blog – Writing Space . Why a new blog? Well, I’ve been blogging here at my  Idyllwild blog  since 2010 and, before that, was blogging on a iWeb based blog that I started in 2007. Though I started the blog largely to write about my writing life, over time I realized that my Idyllwild blog was mostly about bicycling and other fun things like flying and baking cheesecakes French macarons. That’s all great fun, of course, but I started to feel the need to create a new blog and keep it focused on writing and let my Idyllwild blog stay on the meandering path it’s already traveling on. I’ve been somewhat quietly posting content on Writing Space for some time now but am now officially announcing the launch of my new blog! Idyllwild stays alive here as “a blog tha...

I'm happy to share that I've had another feature story published in Piper Flyer Magazine - The Practical Piper Pacer. Cover and center title spread of The Practical Piper Pacer My first Piper Flyer article,   Airshow Entertainer: Lowell White’s Vagabond – A Piper Vagabond Finds Its Way Home , was published back in November 2014. Writing for Piper Flyer was a great experience so I was thrilled when editor Heather Skumatz contacted me to see if I wanted to write an article on Piper Pacers for the magazine. For a moment  I considered passing up the assignment because my schedule at the time was super busy and the deadline just two weeks away. But the idea of writing about Pacers - that's the kind of airplane I own and know so well -  was way too tempting. So, instead of passing up the opportunity, I asked Heather if I could write the story from the first person perspective (primarily to save time) and bump out the deadline a few days. She said yes to both so I g...

I have not been in the habit of writing for quite some time but a couple of weeks ago I created a writing schedule to help me get back in the habit. I drew it out on a big piece of paper - it shows my work hours (I work four mornings a week as an educational assistant with special-ed preschool children) as well as my evening commitments. After work and my evening things, I don't have a ton of time left for writing but I managed to block out three to four afternoons per week to write. The schedule needs to be pretty fluid as I didn't allocate any time to do things like eat, do laundry or exercise. Those tasks of daily living can sure take up a lot of time but my hope is that I still keep my afternoons more or less free for writing. So far, I've managed to stick to my writing schedule pretty well. I used to have the tendency to go back to sleep after getting the kids on the bus in the mornings. I need sleep, of course, but my morning job is helping me switch my schedule so...

Well, it only took a couple of days before I did another writing space reboot in my office but I think I now have an arrangement that works. Why move the furniture around just days after my Writing Space Reboot ? Well, even though I tried using a floor lamp, I was still having trouble with headaches and eye strain in my newly rearranged space. Terribly frustrating! My gut instinct has been that the issue is the way the light comes through the window and the light above my desk so I did some troubleshooting on how the light hit me in my old office compared to my new space and brainstormed other arrangement options. Long and short of it is I moved my desk once again and now it faces the window pretty much straight on. A lot of the time I don't need the overhead light but when I use it in the daytime it's not bothering me. In the evenings the overhead light is too bright so I'm using a floor lamp which seems to be working okay. Now my desk faces the window straight on. ...

Last November, I traded my large office for my son's small bedroom so that Ryan could have space for a full-size bed. I had great hopes for my new office - but even though I did my best to arrange my desk and bookshelves just so, my new office space never felt quite right. There were little things that bugged me about the space, like the fact that my desk and bookshelves blocked most of my electrical outlets, but there were big issues, too, like the lighting. The space is small enough that no matter where I put my desk it's right under the ceiling light. I found the glare irritating and, to top it off, I ended up getting migraines when I worked. I really have never had migraines and didn't get them in my old office so the headaches were a very odd thing. On top of the headaches, I found that I was struggling with my writing and felt like I couldn't organize my thoughts or edit my work without a lot of help from Owen. I also pretty much lost enthusiasm for writin...

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” Albert Einsten I'm at the Anderson Center in Red Wing this weekend with two of my writing friends, Joy  and Chris . We're here having a writing weekend and are working on our various writing projects. The Anderson Center is an awesome place. We're staying in a huge house surrounded by lots of green space and a sculpture garden. It's quiet here and it's a perfect place to write, read and rejuvenate. It's also a perfect place for bicycling as the Anderson Center is right by the Cannon Valley Trail . So in addition to packing some books, my journal, fountain pens, computer and works in progress, I packed Zippy, my  Salsa Vaya, so I could ride this weekend - partially because I like to ride the trail, partially because I'm in the middle of another 30 Days of Biking challenge and partially because I find that riding helps me write. Earlier today I rode about 12 miles. Most of th...

In mid-January I saw a tweet saying, "Wanted: Your Best Bike Story From 2013." Intrigued, I did a little looking around and discovered that the bike-art poster show company, ARTCRANK , was gathering bike stories for their end of year best bike stories lineup. The requirements were simple, "Write ±100 words about your best bike story from the past year." T hat seems easy enough , I thought. But then I noticed the deadline was less than a week away. I must have been in a "can't do it" mode because I almost immediately told myself I didn't have many super rides in 2013 and didn't have time to write a story in the few days before the deadline anyway. But the best bike story idea stuck with me and I mentioned it to my writer friend Leslie (check out her  Winona Media blog )  over coffee one morning.  Leslie basically told me I needed to write something and submit it. I told her I had no clue of what to write. She suggested I look at my blog posts...

It's snowing today and blowing like crazy. Temperature is a balmy 16 °F right now. I'm in my office right now writing a bit and drinking a nice cup of coffee from a new coffee mug - it's a Doctor Who Disappearing TARDIS mug. When you pour something hot into the mug, the TARDIS (the TARDIS is a time machine - the letters stand for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) gradually disappears from one side of the mug and appears on the other. It's super fun to drink coffee out of it! My new coffee mug - the TARDIS is in the process of disappearing in this picture. It appears on the other side. It's cool. I confess, I found this wonderful disappearing TARDIS mug on sale and bought it to give to one of my brothers. Both Don and Joel are Doctor Who fans and would have loved the mug. But I'm now a Doctor Who fan and, well, I'm a bad sister and kept the mug for myself. Sorry brothers! I'll make it up to you and buy you sonic screwdrivers or something.

The weather has turned cold again here in Minnesota. The temperature this morning when I drove out of my garage was -16°F. Brrrr. The sun has been shining, though, and that makes for a pretty day out here in the country. I've been working on a story most of the afternoon and am feeling pretty productive. To reward myself, and to warm myself up because the house is cold as our furnace was out for the better part of the day, I did something that always makes me feel great - I brewed a pot of tea. I must be in a mood for travel today because the tea mug I'm using is my London mug and the tea pot I chose from my collection has on it a painting of Paris. As for my tea choice today it's one of my favorites - Lavender Earl Grey. Ahhh. Now that's a nice way to settle into the afternoon.

I had a great surprise in my mailbox yesterday - a new book to read! The book, Finding Harmony , is due out everywhere on February 1st but I am super lucky and got a pre-release copy of the book. Yay! Here's the new book - Finding Harmony. I love the cover! Finding Harmony is the third novel in the Kate & Annalise series written by Pamela Fagan Hutchins. Though I already have a stack of books to read , Finding Harmony is going to the top of my list because I have been waiting, somewhat impatiently, for it to get published. Why? Because I was so taken with the storyline in books one and two ( Saving Grace and Leaving Annalise ) that I've wanted the series to keep going. In fact, back in July when I finished reading Leaving Annalise (at 2:00 a.m.) I immediately tweeted Pamela to ask her if she was going to write another book in the series. I wanted more! I was pleased to get a tweet back saying that, yes indeed, Pamela had another Kate & Annalise book in the wo...

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions but I did come up with a simple formula for making 2014 a great year. In short in 2014, I will: Read more Write more Ride more That's it - you can be done reading my blog now.  However, you can keep reading if you want a a slightly more fleshed out version of my Read more, write more, ride more goal. Read More -  I have a good start on reading more having finished two fiction books already this year (The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin and A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy). I'm also well into The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (a Christmas gift from my daughter, Rose). I want to read books in an actual chair with a cup of coffee or tea. You know, relax and read a book instead of sneaking a few moments with a book in the bathroom, say.  I want to let go of the guilt of reading and get my brain around the fact that a writer needs to read and that downtime with a book is good for the soul I don't ...

It's been ages since I've blogged. The idea of writing to catch you all up on what's new and all that just keeps me from writing because the task seems too daunting. As for trying to write something clever about the New Year, well, I just tried that and got stuck. But I think it makes sense to write something, to get myself going again with my blog. So here I am writing something. This isn't going to be anything spectacular at all - but I am writing something in the hope of keeping the flow going and blogging more often. But so I don't bore you with this first effort of the year...I'll just keep this post short and sweet. Here's a picture of my fatbike, Bear, in the snow and a gentle reminder that, even when it's cold, you can still get outside and enjoy the beauty of the world (wear proper clothing, of course!) It's been cold, cold, cold here in Minnesota with wind chills of -40° F. Despite the cold temps, I have gotten out on my fatbike a cou...

Bit by bit, I'm getting my new office organized. It's a slow process but I'm making progress. Tonight I got my memoir collection on the shelves organized by author. I know I have more books floating around the house to fit in here and I still have space for them. That is good. I'm thinking I will put my writing books on the bottom shelf of my bookshelf. I expect the bookshelf will be full very soon.  Memoir collection - or most of it. I'm sure there's more floating around the house. Also in progress is bookshelf organization in the rest of the house. Our fiction, science fiction and non-fiction, poetry and drama collections are going on shelves in the upstairs hallway. The aviation and religion books are going on shelves downstairs. There are books on other shelves in the house, too, that feel like they need their own space: horse books, Border Terrier books, James Herriot books, Harry Potter books, the Guardians of Ga'hoole collection, Laura...

We've been doing a lot around our house lately. We replaced a terribly worn out carpet in our living room. We had our friend, Michael, do some painting for us upstairs because, well, if we had to do it all the painting would not get done in a timely manner (case in point, the upstairs hallway Michael painted for us in a day was a project that I intended to start, oh, seven years ago and never got around to). With all the painting, we've been sorting and cleaning and donating things that we no longer use. It's a good feeling to get things out of here - but it's also kind of disruptive and unsettling. We've reorganized three rooms and our upstairs hallway in the last month. Well, I can't say that we're totally reorganized quite yet, but we're getting there! Rose's room was first. Her once pink and purple walls with floral border are now a lovely turquoise. She moved out her little girl looking things and now has a room that looks like a high school...

There are days that don't go according to plan. Days that get awkwardly goofed up. Today has been one of those days. Until just moments ago when Rose, my daughter, came up to my office and told me that there was a package that arrived in the mail for me. She made a comment that it was addressed to "Myrna Mibus, Writer & Pilot." That's just plain strange , I thought. I wonder what kind of thing I got in the mail? And who would send a package to "Myrna Mibus, Writer & Pilot"? I found the package on the kitchen table. It was about the size of a book. I opened it and inside I found a package wrapped in blue paper with a golden ribbon around it and a small card attached. I opened the card before the package. And I cried. I do that sometimes. Here is what the little card said: I saw this book and thought of you (even though I doubt you have any shortage of ideas to write about). :) Thought you might enjoy it anyway ... From: Cassi I unwrap...

In late April my family and I headed to Florida to attend a wedding and to get some time away from the  long, long, winter we were having in Minnesota. We all needed a break from school, work and weather. And I was told by my family that I needed to take a break from checking email, especially my work email. I gather most people can step away from their computers during vacation. But the thought of not checking email for not just a day but five days just boggled my mind. It didn't seem possible. It didn't seem like a smart thing to do because, you know, someone might NEED to reach me. Someone might have a problem that only I could solve. Something on the website I maintain might break. Something might go wrong... But my husband, Owen, reminded me that people go on vacation all the time and don't check email. That it's actually okay, even healthy, to step away from work once in awhile. And, Owen gently mentioned, I had been in such a stressed out state over work that...

Last Saturday morning I met Joy Riggs  and Christine Lienke , two of my best writing friends, and headed out for a mini road trip to Zumbrota, Minnesota. Why drive to Zumbrota, a city of just over 3,000 tucked between the farm fields of southeastern Minnesota? Well, it's a great little town with nice shops and a great arts community. I love small towns and Zumbrota is well worth a visit. But our main draw for the day was a talk on writing - Writing from The Middle of Nowhere given by Michael Perry . I first learned of Michael Perry when I read his book Population 485 . I think that was back in 2003 or so. I've since kept an eye on him and have heard him speak on writing and read from his books a couple of times. He's down to earth and funny. He's smart yet not the kind of person who tries to make you feel less than when he talks to you. He, with his plaid shirts and jeans and humble manner, reminds me of my relatives, the hard-working farmers on both sides ...

I’m at a writing retreat with two of my writing friends, Joy and Chris. Soon after settled in our retreat space, the lovely Anderson Center in Red Wing, Minnesota, Chris and Joy got right to work on their projects. If we had a retreat leader (we don’t, this is a self-led retreat), the leader would say that Chris and Joy are ideal retreat goers - hardworking, industrious, focused. If said teacher handed out grades Chris and Joy would get an A. Anderson Center picture compliments of The Anderson Center, www.andersoncenter.org I, on the other hand, would only get a B. But the B wouldn’t be for my writing. It would be for Tea Kettle Cleaning. Because this is what happened to me when I settled into my room to write last night. I looked over three essays I started a while back and concluded that they are not worth editing or even looking at ever again. But then I realized that I haven’t written anything other than blog entries and content for a website project in about six...

Last summer I spent some time in Forest City, Iowa doing some research for a travel story I hoped to write. In the process I discovered that the owner of the local B&B, The Elderberry Inn , is a distant cousin of mine. Through my new-found friendship with Carolyn, the B&B owner/distant cousin, I found out that she and five other women gather twice a month to paint on porcelain and have been doing so for 30 some years. "There might be a story there," Carolyn said. And she was right. At first I thought I simply had a story about six women who painted together, six women who were keeping the nearly lost art of porcelain painting alive. But upon meeting the ladies - Janice, Marian, Florence, Carolyn, Delores and Marj - I knew there was something extra special about this group of painters. In fact, this group of ladies was so full of life and laughter, kindness and fun that I decided that I had to make another trip to Forest City to do more research for the s...