Thinking deeper...

 October 21, 2026

For the most part, and when it comes to new technologies, I do my best which is really not too bad. Now, I know very well that there are those out there, reading this essay, who would have stopped at the end of that first sentence and laughed—if not downright choked on their coffee. If it was the latter and not the former, I can only say: Sorry, Kelley.

All I know comes from my lived experience, right? And most of the people I know who are my age or a bit older have nearly made themselves bald, scratching their heads over all the whatsits, snappy chats and tickety-tocks that are a part of life in the 2020s. My brother and his wife never had cell phones. They did have a desktop computer and managed to do just enough to get themselves in trouble, from time to time. But they somehow never equated giving up on technology with giving up on the times. On the one hand, I’m sorry about that, and the experiences that they missed. On the other, I can acknowledge that their lives were likely less complicated for that lack.

My point is that for my age I feel as if I’m not doing too badly. I write my manuscripts on an MS word document. I perform my edits and all interactions with my publisher, online. I even do all my banking online. I pay all my bills that way, use my debit card while out and about and rarely have cash on hand!

That last one isn’t new. Back in the day rarely having cash on hand was an integral part of my ambidextrous lifestyle [note: if living hand-to-mouth it’s best to be ambidextrous]. I put the “UGG!” in struggle. What’s new is that “little cash on hand” is not the horror it once was, nor does it point to encroaching poverty—necessarily.

But I digress.

I’m spending a fair bit of my time behind the keyboard. I don’t have a lot of apps on my iPhone. My fingers have lost some of their dexterity in recent years, and I never mastered only using my thumbs to send texts. I’m an index finger all the way kind of gal. So when it comes to social media, all those things I do, I do on my desktop. No, not even a laptop, though I have a small one.

It’s on my desktop each evening, as I am winding down and looking forward to my bed, that I visit that rabbit-hole known as YouTube. I rarely go there in the course of the day, except for those moments when I’m looking either for a how-to video, or my next thought.

For those of us living in North America, social media plays what I would call an over-sized role in our lifestyle. The term “influencer” has become a title for many. Money is made and fame is achieved by those of an entrepreneurial bent with the exercise of the new trade, “influencer”.

I have trouble fully understanding the concept of being an influencer. But the one thing that nearly has me scratching my head?

Reaction videos.

I’ve watched a few. And I kind of understand their appeal. It’s like when we watch our friend for their reaction when someone tells them something important/amazing/dreadful/ that we already know.

On the surface, that’s…logical. But then I considered the fact that folks who put out reaction videos are making money from people reacting to them, experiencing whatever facet of life they’re reacting to. Digging deeper—or in this case thinking deeper—I could define the reaction video in a single sentence: People watching other people live life, instead of living it themselves.

There’s a part of me that sees this as a huge red flag, but conditionally so.

For a certain segment of the population—folks who are dealing with mobility issues and are therefore unable to much physically, folks who are more-or-less housebound, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Time spent on YouTube, Instagram and Tik-Tok is time spent at least mentally and intellectually engaged. They’ll laugh or shake their heads, or maybe even be really into whatever they’re watching. That’s time well spent for them, because it helps them to counter loneliness. It’s not as good as one-on-one human contact and engagement, but it’s better than endless silence and doing nothing at all.

However, I am certain there are those who are not in that category, who spend way too much time living their lives vicariously through others via social media.

When the health of a society calls for the participation of that society’s citizenry, this addiction to vicarious living serves no one well.

I’m not sure I have much optimism when it comes to this social media path we’re on. I am conscious that there have been many such warnings throughout history at those inflection points when society grew, changed, or shed its previous skin while slowly revealing the next.

But I just don’t know for sure. Only time will tell.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Independence...

 October 14, 2026

I am delighted to report that a slice of normalcy has returned to the life of yours truly. On October 10^th and the first time since August of 2025, I now have a clear, safe path from the bottom of my porch steps to the street in front of my house.

Last weekend our son, and one of our grandsons (our son’s nephew) worked together to install metal railings: one for the single step down from the new concrete pad at the base of our porch to the next level; two on either side of the two concrete steps down to the bottom concrete pad that ends with a drop curb at the street; and one long new hand railing down the wooden porch steps.

That last replaces the wooden hand railing my husband made when he installed the first set of porch steps a few years back. I was grateful for that hand-made railing, of course, but it was so wide a board that it was impossible to wrap my hand around it. And, in winter, my right glove always got wet because while the porch steps are maintained cleared of snow, no one ever thought to brush off that darn railing.

Our son also did one other thing while he was here. He brought his power washer and washed those porch steps. This was done so that we could make one more improvement, one that will be done within the next few days: installing non-slip treads to the wooden steps. These are adhesive treads, but David will reinforce the adhesive by using his heavy-duty staple gun to ensure those treads remain in place.

Last Saturday, I waited until all the rails were installed, and the kind workers had left; I waited a little longer until daughter and husband were both napping. Then I went outside, and walked from porch to road and back again, all by myself.

Hallelujah! Independence!

I probably won’t go out every day; I may not go out more than once a week. But now if I want to, I can. I no longer have to impose on anyone else to assist me to and from my car. And that’s all that matters to me.

I do tend not to drive much in the winter. Our daughter will, as she did last year, move my car once a week. Daughter will park in our single spot in front of the house—at my insistence—because she goes to work most every day. It wouldn’t be right to leave my car in that spot when I may not go out on any given day. However, if there is a need for me to do so, then before she leaves for work in the morning, she’ll see to it my car is there for me. That system worked well for us last year. Well, until January 12^th when there was so much snow and ice everywhere that I was unable to get off my property, period. That situation lasted until the first week of March.

Currently our daughter’s car is parked in our driveway each night. The driveway is accessed off the cross street on the southwest side of our house. That street is a steep hill; and in winter it’s one of the first streets in town to get plowed, which makes that driveway prone to being plowed in. And since there is no one in this house able to dig out a driveway? It gets “closed” at the first sign of an incoming snowfall.

Also, as it turns out, the gate that gives access from the yard to the driveway freezes shut each winter. That’s not a problem in one respect, because we’ve always considered that driveway to be for fair-weather use only. It is a slight problem, in that during the winter months we also cannot use the back gate for setting out the trash on that side street for weekly pickup.

The good news is that since our house is on a corner, we can also set the trash out in front of the house. The inconvenient news is that during the winter, our trash containers are therefore stationed on the front porch.

There may come a day when home improvements are made so that the back gate doesn’t freeze shut. It would be a greater problem if that gate were to freeze open, because our backyard is used by the dogs—or by us, for putting the critters outside and out of the way from time to time. An open gate would make that impossible.

But until such a time as we can get those improvements done, we’ll simply do what we always do. We’ll improvise, adapt and overcome.

If that’s good enough for the U. S. Marines, it’s certainly good enough for us.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

Autumn preparations...

 October 7, 2026

Well, the frost was on the pumpkins the other day, and right on schedule, there go the trees. Some of them lose their leaves early. Our walnut tree, for example, the moment it's done the business of forming the walnuts, begins to shed its leaves. This is not an example of the famed “autumn splendor” this area of the world is known for. Nope, it’s case of ugly brown and yellow wilt and then down they come.

I also seem to recall waiting forever, as a child, for my glorious weeping willow to get its leaves. That’s another tree that drops them early, if I’m not mistaken.

But the bigger, hardier trees—the maples and oaks and others—keep those beautiful green leaves well into September and beyond. Until, of course, we get that first hard frost, with the temperatures dipping toward the freezing mark.

It was so cold a few nights ago that when I got up the next morning I immediately checked the weather forecasts—the 7 and the 14 day ones. That was a huge sigh of relief I gave when I understood that the nighttime low wasn’t going to be diving below freezing again for a while. It’s forecasted to hover in the low forties, and that’s cold, but not freezing.

Unfortunately, we did have that one night and already those beautiful trees that only last week had presented a nice lush green have already begun their turn. The leaves become dull, and then, on a few here and a few there, you see traces of yellow and red… It’s only a matter of time, now. Soon, all we’ll be seeing are dozens of nekkid trees, their scrawny branches and twigs flailing and creaking in the breeze.

The sight is enough to make the observer indulge in a teeth-chattering shiver in sympathy.

Of course, we’re not denying the change of seasons. We never do in this house. It’s autumn, time to begin to see what more we can “put down” in the freezer for the coming winter.  Everyone living here likes beets. So, when one of our local stores had ten-pound bags of beets on sale for $5.99, of course we had to buy one. I’ve never frozen beets before. Back in the day, I used to make jars of pickled beets. But I’ve never frozen them.

The great beet adventure turned into a two-day event. We have a Food Saver Vacuum Sealer for packaging food for the freezer. That machine does its best work when what’s in the bag does not have a high moisture content. With the corn, what worked was bagging the corn in sandwich-sized bags and then, as soon as they were frozen, repackaging them with the sealer.

For the beets, we used the flash-freeze method: cook, drain, and plunge into an ice bath. Then drain that (after about 10 minutes) peel, slice, and lay the beets in a single layer on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. We have three cookie sheets, and each one held two layers of beets, the second layer separated from the first, of course, with that parchment paper. Then the trays were placed in the large freezer and left overnight.

The next day, daughter and I finished the job, removing a tray at a time and filling the bags to our desired quantity. No beet slice thawed during this process, and we ended up with fourteen bags of beets—fourteen meals throughout the winter of a side dish that we know had no chemicals used in the processing.

Our grandson—our daughter’s son who lives with his other grandparents—gave us five butternut squash out of their garden. This type of squash can be peeled, sliced, diced and flash frozen without cooking. That’s a job we hope to do soon. I’m also heading to a garden market before long in hopes of finding some baskets of green beans.

If all goes well, we’ll have plenty of veggies for winter suppers—and the sense of knowing that we worked and provided for ourselves and whoever else comes to our door.

That’s not a big thing in life. But it’s not nothing, either.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury