Polar Plunge at Public Swimming Pool
Terri Webster Schrandt

Sunday Stills: Taking the #Plunge

Plunge can refer to many ideas, in particular, deciding to do something after some thought or hesitation.

“Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.”
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I was originally inspired to share the theme “plunge” because of the popular Polar Bear Plunges that happen at the beginning of the new year.

Take the plunge – it’s Polar Bear Swim Day!

In January 2012, while I was still employed with Sacramento parks and recreation, we hosted a polar plunge at our local (non-heated) swimming pool. We did it to raise money for the swim team program and give folks a chance to plunge into the 35-degree water. It doesn’t snow in Sacramento but it gets mighty cold—this day was 34F degrees—the typical cold, sunny winter day. The water was cold enough to take your breath away!

Polar Plunge at Public Swimming Pool

We first staged a media moment. The gal pictured in the middle wearing water wings was from the media. We even had a polar bear mascot! Then kids, parents and other brave souls plunged in. You might be able to see the boy’s expression on the bottom left of this image–he looks cold!

Polar Plunge 2012
Taking the plunge!


Lake Spokane is very close to us but you won’t catch me taking the plunge into it now. Although it is warmer than the outside air, at least the ducks seem to enjoy it.

Past “Plunges”

Over the years, my adventurous spirit has demanded I plunge into activities that pique my interest. Before I met my husband, I would have never considered windsurfing, which led to stand-up paddling, swimming with whale sharks in Mexico, and moving away from California in late 2020.

Smiling Windsurfer bringing in her windsurf gear
Windsurfing-Woman
Off I go!
SUP delta
SUP-ing with Aero 2014
SUP session at the delta
Back from a SUP race!
Terri peeks at a whale shark
Whale shark was a few feet away from me. A good 20-footer.
Swimming with Whale sharks

“Plunge deep enough in order to see something that is hidden and glimmering.” ~Matsuo Basho

I recently plunged back into WW (Weight Watchers) to get at least 10 pounds off me before my daughter’s wedding in April.

Speaking of plunges, don’t forget to visit my friend, Liesbet of Roaming About who recently took the plunge to travel with their RV in South America. While you visit, please check out her book, Plunge!

Taking the Blogging Plunge

When I decided to start a blog in 2011, little did I know the plunge I was taking as I dabbled loosely for years, then jumped in wholeheartedly in late 2014. My blog was then titled Perspectives On… and I eventually changed it to what it is now Second Wind Leisure Perspectives. My blog morphed into more of a focus on leisure (fun), fitness and photography! I started Sunday Stills in 2018 and have had more fun than a barrel of monkeys!

Please indulge me for a moment while I share my 2022 stats. I had wanted to share the following last week, but the post was already too long (you’re welcome, LOL).

An interesting statistic for 2022—my Wordless Wednesday posts have performed exceedingly well with 100+ average likes since April 2022 when I began regularly posting for Wordless Wednesday. This one “Triple Favorites” was one of the higher-ranking in views.

Wedding photo
My neighbors’ wedding
American Bald Eagle
American Bald Eagle
Hilo Surfers
Hilo Surfers

Sunday Stills Photo Challenge was no slouch either, garnering over 2800 views for the month January, 2022.

Pro-Blogging Tip for Managing Your Images

Not that I’m a pro, but I have learned some valuable lessons along the way, especially when it comes to managing the WordPress media library. While on my winter blog break, I plunged into some blog housekeeping.

We only have so much room in our media files before we must upgrade. Plus, if the images are in kilobytes (KB) rather than megabytes (MB), they are not as prone to stealing. Popular blogger Cee Neuner has this to say:

“If someone wants to download any of my photos (700×700 pixels), it won’t print clearly if they want to print it bigger than 4×6.”

Tip From Cee Neuner—Help, I’m Running Out of Memory

For instance, I can easily change the scale from 3024 to 800. Most of us look at blog post images on mobile devices but even on a computer, the photo will still look good in a smaller scale.

If you have large images lurking in your media files now, it is a simple fix to edit your images in your WordPress media library. Simply click on the image from your library; from here you can see when it was uploaded and its file size. If the size is more than 1 MB, it’s too large and takes up precious space.

  • Under the image, select “edit image.”
  • On the right of your image appears SCALE IMAGE. This will tell you the dimensions. Simply type 700 or 800 (recommended) in either field and adjust the second field accordingly. If you are in the habit of squaring your images, it will automatically populate to 800 x 800.
  • Select SCALE shown to the right and you are done. This is the view from my WP account within the media library when you click on the image to edit. Apparently, I use the Classic Editor for this according to 2 sharp-eyed bloggers.
how to edit image in WP

I plunged into my media files and reduced the sizes of at least 25 images published in early 2022 and 2021 which yielded another GB of space in my files. I still have more work to do but it is worth the time.

Since last spring, when I edit images, I reduce them before moving them to the media file.

Blogging Guru Hugh Roberts shares posts with excellent how-to advice. His post 5 WordPress Photo Editing Tools Available To Use On The Block Editor walks you step-by-step through how to edit your photos in WordPress. Freshly pressed this week is his latest helpful how-to post Blogging Tips to Kickstart Your New Year with great reasons to reduce your images.

If you really want to take the plunge into blog admin, go through old posts and delete them, but you will also have to delete each image associated with the post. This can take some time if you have been blogging for a few years.

I also adjusted the widgets in my right sidebar. When WP made adjustments to the block editor, I discovered my entire sidebar had disappeared a few weeks ago. I struggled, re-did a few of the widgets, then scrolled deep into my widget section and found “Inactive Widgets” and there they all were. From here I could easily drag each widget to where I wanted it in the sidebar.

Now that you have taken the plunge into the various blog challenges, taking the time to do a bit of planning and housekeeping for your blog will allow for a smooth 2023! Have I piqued your interest?

Inspiring Photo Challenges

Each week I am inspired by my fellow bloggers’ photo challenges. I enjoy incorporating these into my Sunday Stills weekly themes.

Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Reminders

Sunday Stills weekly-themed photo challenge is easy to join. You have all week to share and link your post.

  • Remember to title your blog post a little differently than mine.
  • Please create a new post for the theme or link a recent one.
  • Entries for this theme can be posted all week.
  • Tag your post “Sunday Stills.”
  • Don’t forget to create a pingback to this post so that other participants can read your post.
  • I also recommend adding your post’s URL to the comments.

This Week’s Featured Bloggers

Sunday Stills is a wonderful community of bloggers and photographers who desire to connect with one another. Below are this week’s links from bloggers who shared photos depicting PLUNGE. I add these all week as new links are posted.

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” ~Alan Watts

What did you plunge into for the new year 2023? A new pastime or hobby? New places to travel and explore? Perhaps plunging further into your photography journey with new equipment? Please share your experiences in photos, words, music, and other creative ideas.

bitmoji plaid

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119 comments

  4. I was never tempted by any of those Polar Bear Plunges. Too cold for me! Good tips on media size. I can’t even remember where I learned about photo sizes to use, but I’ve aimed for my images to be 300K or less since I started and they look fine. Now if I’d figured out how best to store the originals on my computer, I’d have a lot more space on it. Gotta do some weeding there. Here’s my morning plunge: https://grahamsisland.com/2023/01/08/my-morning-plunge/

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  5. I’ve been reducing my images for years. I use my watermark program to do so. I have had this site since about 2012 (I think) and am now at 72%. I see that early on I uploaded some images more than once. I suppose if I had the time and the gumption I could go back and fix that but it seems like more work than it could possibly be worth. Another thing I learned later in the game was using images over again. My Silent Sunday, Black and White Tuesday and Wordless Wednesday posts are all created using images already in my media library. Another thing I wish I had started doing in the beginning was naming and labeling my images with key words, but I have been doing that long enough now that I always have plenty to choose from.

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  6. That is a 5 star great tip. I had intended to do some blog housekeeping, and as space is always an issue, this will be included. Definitely know my widgets need work. Now wondering what I can plunge into this week? Definitely not through the ice into the water!!

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    • Thank you, Bernie. Even though I eventually upgraded to the next level of WP (no ads, more media space), keeping images under 300 KB is a great idea for all of us! Blogging is certainly plunge-worthy…I don’t know how people put up with self-hosted blogs, too much work behind the scenes.

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  7. Lots of great information, Terri. I’m still trawling through and getting rid of broken links (of which there are many 😆) I’m definitely reducing the number of links I use. Have a great week ahead.

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    • Thank you, Cathy, I’m glad you found this useful! I’m afraid to look at the broken links from when I started hosting Sunday Stills. I know some bloggers have quit since then and their links will be broken in the round-ups I publish! Enjoy your plunge!

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  8. Yay, a fun challenge for us to participate in, lessons to learn, and encouragement to do some blogging upkeep for the new year. Thank you for the inspiration! (PS – I’m with you in not wanting to jump into cold water. Although, 34 degrees sounds warm compared to the 10 degrees we have in my neck of the woods. We also have crazy folks that will jump into the frozen lake for a Plunge Challenge in February. I can’t imagine doing that EVER!

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  10. Hi, Terri – Thank you for the great reminder about image reduciton. I am absolutely useless about doing this consistently. I just experiemented with your suggestions on how to scale image from your WP Media LIbrary. When I clicked on an image, then on edit, I could not find any prompt for scaling the image (only for crop, flip or rotate). I will play again later to see what I am doing wrong.

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  11. I’ve done one plunge, Terri, and I won’t do it again. It was a scuba plunge in the Atlantic and my face nearly froze off. Lol. I like your summer plunges better and would love to dive with whale sharks! And thanks for the tips on how to create more media space. I didn’t realize I could resize images in WP. I learn something new every day!

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  12. So much good information here about managing WordPress. I feel like I need to print it and then give it a try. I have such a hard time finding stuff when I leave it electronic. Then again, I lose the paper I print stuff on too.

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  14. Hi Terri,

    As you know, I LOVE the word “Plunge.” When your post arrived in my inbox, I could not unsee the title as it is such an important word and I surely identify with it after publishing my book. Thank you for giving it – and my blog – a plug in your Sunday Stills of this week. I appreciate it.

    I once plunged into the Arctic Ocean, which was comparable to your polar bear plunge in Sacramento, I’m sure. That kind of cold makes you feel numb and takes your breath away, indeed.

    I always resize my photos before I upload them into WordPress’s media files. Not only is it easier to upload them with a slow internet connection, but it also means readers with less than idea internet can still see the photos once they load. It’s been a complaint of me when bloggers upload full size photos, because I often can’t load – and therefore see – their visuals. Plus the post doesn’t load correctly either.

    If only WordPress allowed photos to be resized in bulk when trying to create more storage. I have thousands of photos in my media files, since I publish at least 30 photos with each of my blog posts. It would be impossible to go through them one by one to resize them more.

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    • I’m glad you enjoyed seeing “Plunge” today, Liesbet! I’m always happy to share others’ works. Wow, a plunge into the Arctic Ocean–now that is a “polar” plunge! There are some editing programs that let you resize and watermark in bulk, along with other functions. I am now in the habit of resizing all images in my editing program before it goes into the media file. You are so right about big files slowing down the upload process while reading a post–a win-win in my book 🙂 Thanks for weighing in!

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  16. I’m in favour of Graham’s type of plunging, Terri. I think it was milder than normal here this New Year but I wasn’t remotely tempted. I mean, woolly scarf and hat wouldn’t help me, would it? Excellent tips, hon, and I really must stir myself to action.

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  17. Ok, you have a lot in here that I want to revisit and plunge into. 🙂 I upgraded my membership so as to have more space for photos and although I don’t mind the financial splurge, re-sizing still sounds like a good idea. I could start with my first posts many years ago, when many were from the web and not mine. We’ll see.

    We’re plunging into working with a contractor for the first time ever to re-do things in my parents’ house (they both passed away in 2022) and then move in when the re-do is done. That’s a big, somewhat scary plunge, so I don’t know that I want to take on any other major things. Some mini-plunges would work, though. 🙂 We’ll see about that too.

    Happy 2023!

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    • Since you share images daily, keeping those images in KB rather than MB will keep your budget in good shape for a while, Janet. Wow, dealing with a contractor to work on your parents’ home is a huge plunge, but well worth it. You will need some mini-splashes to distract you 😉

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  19. PLUNGING into the water is not too bad at all for us here in the southern hemisphere because “summer”…..I took the water theme and used memories of times with our grandkids when we had a backyard pool…and took them to a beach. I knew about image reduction for some time, and always make my pics 640×640…”that practice” however did not stop me from overloading my blog server (I have a website for my independent blog) and I HAD over 9000 images …why yes, I do like my pics. So, over the period of deleting posts and trashing them…guess what stayed? Yes, the images in the media library. I learned a lot from the experience late last year, and have now only got posts in my history that mean something for me and my readers…for example, someone with a diagnosis of head and neck cancer can come to my site, and look at the pages on top to maybe get some help or info. And my images are down to 3.600. Thanks for the fun on Sunday Stills.

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  21. Hi Terri, I started my post last night but was too tired to get it posted so finished it this morning. After I read your post I decided we are both on a very similar wavelength and honestly I have to say i wrote most of mine before reading yours! I love all your versions of plunging and I also enjoyed Liesbet’s books Plunge. I appreciate your advise re photos and blogging, I’ve managed to reduce the size of most of my photos over the years but can’t come at deleting posts for some reason :). Great to include Hugh’s posts as well, he has so much knowledge and shares it so generously. Anyway my post is now finished and I’m glad i took the plunge 🙂

    Taking the Plunge #SundayStills

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    • I am glad you took the plunge too, and yes we manage to write about similar things–and that is awesome, Debbie! I originally did not want to delete some posts but 1–the images were hijacked from google, and b–many of those original posts were answers to daily prompts and slightly lame, LOL! Kein problem!

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  22. Thanks Terri for the size tip and for RR for letting me know it’s in Classic view.
    No cold water plunge for me. Have done that (but not icy cold) and was ill for a few days after.
    I am so envious you have swam with Whale Sharks, the gentle giants of our oceans 🙂
    PS my post is scheduled for later on today

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    • Yes, I’m glad I could offer a bit of advice I learned along the way. I use the old classic dashboard for my admin page but of course use the block editor for everything else. Obviously my media file view is in classic–talk about learning something new, LOL!
      Looking forward to your post, Brian! Hmmm, I wonder what you will plunge into?

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      • I just did a whole lot of photos in Classic view. So easy and just use the arrow across to the next one. I use 640X480 which is a standard size in my Corel PaintShop Pro photo editing program.
        I also opened a new linked site just for photos when my main site started to run out of space. So far that has worked well.
        I started to do a delete photos and older posts but that became tedious. This is a much better solution thanks Terri 🙂

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  25. Hi Terri, What a great post!
    Congratulations on all your successes with your challenges. You work hard and you are an efficient reader and lavish commenter on others’ blogs. That being said, you still have to put out a great product in order to attract viewers, and you do that. The icy waters of Spokane do not call me, but the picture does! You also offered some great advice in this post. Your suggestions are compelling!

    I took the resizing plunge (never the polar) a while back when I started curating and even before. My media library tells me that with 13,120 items, “You are currently using 4.5 GB out of 13.0 GB upload limit (35%).”
    It was 17% or so a couple of years ago, so I’ve been laxer in the last two years in spite of my curation project. I projected that my blog should be at 70% in another 10 years. However, if

    I have almost doubled in two years my capacity, then I need to recalculate like the voice of GPS. At this rate, I will have to close up shop, change my practices and delete some bad posts, or get more space in 2033 – 10 years.

    Speaking of polar plunges, when I taught kindergarten, one of my five-year-old student’s parents were out in a boat on Dorena Lake near Cottage Grove, Oregon – in the summer. The 36-year-old father jumped into the melted snow water and instantly had a heart attack. He died that day. My advice to polar plungers is to make sure you have a healthy heart before you take the plunge. Now, I think I’d wear a wet suit and layers of long underwear underneath before I plunged into anything colder than 85 degrees.

    On that chilly note, I think I’ll go take a hot bath after resizing a few photos! 🙂 Have a great week.

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    • You are too kind, Marsha! I’m glad you read the media memo years ago. I had to look at images I posted in 2014 and some were huge! I also see images that I just resized, but I have a feeling the post that they graced is long gone. More work this week I guess! Rain, rain, rain, not a lot of walking this week! BTW, I linked to your WQ page for “piqued interest” but will likely have a WW post to pique interests.
      That is sad about the person who had the heart attack while polar plunging, wow.

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      • Actually, he was not polor plunging on purpose and it was in early summer. I still went through and resized the last three posts. They were surprisingly still fairly big even though I changed the size in Lightroom or Bridge. I also added alt tags while I was at it. For me the easiest way to do it in WP is to use the classic design. I think you have to do each one individually, don’t you? It’s not likely that I’m going to get to all 13,000 of them.

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      • Yes, the classic editor seems to be the winner for resizing images. I started with 2014 and am slowly working my way forward. I still have images that should be deleted however…pretty sure I already deleted the posts they were in. Oh well, it’s a process!

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      • I started with the most recent photos first. I was surprised that they were not as small as I thought. Lightroom does not show you the pixles like Adobe Elements, so I didn’t realize that picking low meant that they would still be so large. Good thing you wrote that article and inspired me to check. 🙂

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      • 🙂 I’m kind of glad too. When you read my post, you’ll see what you started! I got a bit too engaged. I wish there was a quicker way. I think the reason I have so much room on my account it is because I had someone, Mark Brinker I think, optimize my photos about 6 years ago.

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  30. I’d never be tempted by participating in polar bear challenges, even though I prefer cold weather to hot weather, Terri. However, I have heard about the health benefits of taking a cold shower, which I occasionally do.

    In the UK, many people participate in Boxing Day dips when they plunge into the sea on Boxing Day morning. I’ve never attempted it, but I admire those that do.

    I was interested in your photo resizing information. I remember doing the same method you outlined years ago, but there was a problem: all WordPress did was duplicate the larger image into a new smaller-scaled image. You had to remember then to delete the older, bigger image. Perhaps that doesn’t apply anymore, and they’ve updated what happens. I’ve not used the Classic in years, so it may have all changed.

    Thanks so much for linking to one of my posts. That’s very kind of you. If you get around to reading my newly published post, you’ll see I have a section on resizing images. I tend to resize images before loading them onto WordPress.

    Here’s my photo for this week’s theme of plunge. It’s a photo of Toby just after we took the plunge to have a dog. Neither of us had owned a dog for over 30 years when we got Toby, so it was a life-changing plunge.

    Have a great week.

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    • First off…Oh my gosh, Toby was an adorable puppy. He managed to grow into those ears, Hugh! It is quite the plunge to raise a pup–I’ve done it many times over the years.
      I haven’t posted blogging tips in forever, mainly because you and others do an amazing job keeping us informed. I’m always happy to share good ideas, so when we plunge into our blog housekeeping, we do it efficiently! So far editing in the media files classic view doesn’t duplicate the images, so that seems fixed. Funny since I’m a fan of the block editor that I inadvertently view my dashboard and media in classic view.
      Now I’m off to check out your post!

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      • Yes, those ears on corgis remain horizontal for about 9 months, Terri. It’s hard to believe that he’ll be 12 in October.

        Good to hear that photo resizes in the Classic editor no longer duplicate themselves. Fortunately, I’ve deleted all my posts (and photos and images) that contained big images. And now I’ve got into the habit of resizing images before I upload them to WordPress; I’m sticking to that method.

        By the way, I forgot to mention that it was great reading how well your Wordless Wednesday post perform. The majority of mine do rather well too. I think Wordless Wednesday has been around for a long time. Another blogger thought he’d found where it originated, but nobody from the blog where he found the information ever got back to him. The blog also looks dormant and very dated.

        Thanks again for linking to my recent post.

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      • WW is a refreshing change to sharing wordy posts, so we can thank whomever started the trend. I appreciated your how-to post on proper etiquette for WW, Hugh. The best part of course is the engagement with all the comments!
        By the way, I’m collaborating with Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday in providing monthly photos for the prompts. Cool, huh? We have a great community!

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      • Yes, the comments section of Wordless Wednesday posts is where all the words about the photo or pictures should be, Terri. I’ve come across some Wordless Wednesday posts full of words – some over 1,000- words. I don’t know what people think when they write a 1,000-word post and label it ‘Wordless Wednesday.’ That would be like me writing a 500-word piece of flash fiction when only 99 words are allowed.

        That’s great about providing photos for Colleen’s poetry challenge. I bet they’re prompting plenty of great poetry.

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  31. Great tip, Terri! I typically resize my pics before putting them in my media library, but I’ve never really looked at what size they end up. I’ve been decreasing them by percent! D’oh! LOL – I’m going to shake my head at myself, then take the plunge into updating. 🙂

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    • I thought I was reducing the sizes too but not enough, Cathy! A little housekeeping goes a long way for those of us who enjoy photography but don’t want to clog up our media library with large images. Enjoy your blog admin plunge!

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  34. Hi Terri, lots of good plunges here. I hadn’t realized that your husband was behind many of your current hobbies. Wish I could get Malcolm to adopt a few of mine!

    My blog is photo intensive and I want to keep it that way. I have never had any complaints about how the posts load, but that could be for a number of reasons. Please let me know if you have experienced otherwise. Thanks for the photo scaling tip. I usually do that prior to using a photo on the blog, but a quick review last night revealed that some are still much bigger than optimal sizing. So, thanks for giving me another job!

    As far as my personal plunges – I got a new laptop and have been adding and updating programs, transferring photos to an external drive from my old computer, and generally finding my way. Instead of reloading Photoshop Elements, I purchased Lightroom and have been getting to know it through tutorials and lots of practice. My goal is to organize and store my photographs there, exporting just a few favorites to MyPictures.

    This is the time of year that I typically make blog updates, so I have to get to that. I think it’s time to check links, delete a few old posts and perform a general ‘soft overhaul’ to the look. Thanks again for reminding me how much work there is to blogging. I still enjoy it though, and that makes it worthwhile.

    Thanks for an encouraging post.

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    • Thanks, Suzanne, as far as taking adventurous hobby plunges, I didn’t need much nudging to try some slightly scary things. Anyone who loves photography has a big job editing, sorting, publishing or simply sharing images. We’re fortunate to have a wonderful blogging community of helpful folks, and I’m glad to share some as well as a few tips of my own. Sorry for more work 😉

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  35. Oh, Terri!
    Well, You’ve handed me a new project. I have been woefully negligent with my media files and rarely resized them in the seven years since Easin’ Along hit cyberspace. I’ll begin with 2022 and see how bad things actually are. Thanks for the prompt!

    At first, I thought that was you in the Polar Plunge photo at the top taking the head-first dive. I suppose that you resisted the temptation. My son always does a Polar Plunge, but he’s in Charleston, and I doubt the water is as cold as in Sacramento.

    We’re having a rainy week here, so I’ll start editing today. Have a great week, and please stay n touch. Joe

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    • You’re welcome and I’m sorry, Joe 😉. I’ve taken my own advice and when I sit down to work on posts, I hop over to the media files and resize a few. I sometimes reuse images for galleries and lately for Wordless Wednesday posts so they need to be checked for size. Rain here, too, Joe. Great for blog housekeeping. Good luck!

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  38. Wow, I wouldn’t fancy jumping into that icy water! I admire you too for the new activities you take up 🙂 Good tips on managing WP too, although as I have a paid version I don’t worry quite so much about the size of my media files. I like to post my photos in a reasonably high resolution but I try to stay around 500 KB or a little lower when I resize.

    Here are some plunging people (and animals) as my contribution this week: https://www.toonsarah-travels.blog/gallery-taking-the-plunge/

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  40. You are adventurous, that’s for sure Terri. I learned some info from your post as to resizing the photos. I have to do some blog housekeeping and may change my theme but when I have more time, like when I am retired (no date on that yet – I said I’d stay until my boss retires as it’s just the two of us and he’s in no hurry to retire at almost 76 years old). I have a gallery of favorite photos on my home page of my blog and I thought of eliminating those 50 photos, but I like them – maybe I’ll feel differently in a few years. In the meantime, I did a lot of walking (1,284 miles) in 2022 and I took a lot of photos, some not sorted out yet. I did encounter some birds I had never seen before, fulfilled a few items on my annual “Birdie Bucket List” – I don’t think I’ll have the experience of so many new birds in one year; this was a fluke. Here is my recap of a year with my camera:

    A year of magical moments in nature with my camera.

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    • Thank you, Linda! My parents had us camping at a young age, chasing bears out of our campsite by banging pots and pans, fishing, hiking, etc. My adventurous hubby is also a motivator! I’m impressed with all your walking, but also that you take a ton of photos. I think blog housekeeping just comes with the territory, and believe me, I could do more. I linked your post to last week’s Sunday Stills.

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      • I should be more adventurous but no one is prodding me to be that way Terri. 🙂 My parents and I went camping when I was very young. My father rented a tent and it leaked – bigtime, so it was motels the rest of the trip. I never tagged or categorized any of my photos until a couple of years ago … I’ll soon be blogging 10 years, but never had any WP followers until 5 1/2 years into blogging. Thank you for linking it – I usually do one recap post about walking at year-end but did that the end of the year and I had so many fun bird encounters this year I made that a separate and long, picture-laden post.

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  42. Ha!! I have taken the plunge matrimonially too many times. Wish I had met PC about 2 decades earlier.
    Those ‘polar bears’ are brave souls indeed. One unseasonably cold Halloween our glass patio table fell into our poo (wind) and broke in exactly 1 million pieces. I had to fetch all of them out of that frigid water before we could run the pump/filter. And we couldn’t heat the water because that meant it would have to pass through the filter. My daughters still tease me about the dreadful noises I emitted as I plunged under water to retrieve each piece of glass.

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