Blog Books

Wander Or Ponder Blog Book Dedications

Volume 1:  August 20, 2013 - July 15, 2014
Wander or Ponder is dedicated to chronicling my meandering travels and capturing my casual thoughts. Expect to find visits with family and friends within its pages intertwined with reviews of books, movies, and shows. Please sit back and vicariously enjoy the physical and mental journeys with me. - Diane Chambers

Volume 2:  July 30, 2014 - January 22, 2015
This volume of Wander or Ponder whisks you off to Seattle Oklahoma and SoCal. Enjoy home visits from Robin, Dan, Carrie and Vivian. Read about books, the circus, street fairs, plus a tree sweater forest. Relax. Be an armchair traveler and thinker as you browse the burst of 2014 activities spanning from August in Seattle to Christmas in Oklahoma.

Volume 3:  January 23, 2015 - Aug 26, 2015
Meet new grandson Isaiah Thomas Oxenford born July 16, 2015. Stay grounded during six air travel trips to Oklahoma, SoCal, Colorado, North Carolina for moving, births, birthdays, and reunions. Share Livermore-hosted visits and dinners. Join outings to fairs, fireworks, festivals, ice and train shows. Browse book reviews. Be an armchair adventurer.

Volume 4:  August 28, 2015 - January 31, 2016
Volume 4 of Wander or Ponder showcases three pumpkin festivals, two birthday celebrations, a 40th wedding anniversary, plus family Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays sprinkled with a bit of home renovation and some book reviews. Glimpse into our life this Fall of 2015.
- Diane Chambers

Volume 5: February 1, 2016 - October 19, 2016
Lillian Diane Chambers, our fourth grandchild arrived on May 11, 2016. Join our trips to SoCal for her birth and to OKC for Isaiah's first birthday. Visitors to Livermore included Diane’s sister Maxine and son Dan’s family of four. Also enjoy local outings and book reviews in this Volume 5 of Wander or Ponder.
– Diane I. Chambers

Volume 6: October 20, 2016 - June 12, 2017
Traveling, replacing, recovering, purging, reading – that sums it up. Catch highlights of a week in Montreal. Read of Frank's untimely fall and emergency hip replacement. Hear about a new furnace, a new car, and a 17-yr-old cat, still with us, broken leg and all. A nostalgic attic purge and book reviews complete the mix.
– Diane I. Chambers

Volume 7:
 June 13, 2017 - October 29, 2017
Wow! In four months we did a lot of traveling to visit family and friends. We flew to Lake Forest CA, Oklahoma City OK, Cary NC and Chicago IL. We had in-town visits from local and Philadelphia friends and did some birthday and holiday activities nearby with Alex. Throw in a few book reviews and it was a full third of a year.
– Diane I. Chambers

Volume 8: October 30, 2017 - April 24, 2018
Wander or Ponder Vol. 8 chronicles travels to Houston/Oklahoma City and Ontario/Lake Forest. Fun but exhausting, each trip paired a major quilt show with a family visit. Home, we enjoyed visits from grandkids, outings with Alex, and quiet Christmas musings. Enjoy the book reviews. I did twice as much pondering as wandering.
– Diane I. Chambers

Volume 9: April 25, 2018 - October 5, 2018
Volume 9 begins with the addition of a fifth grandchild, William, born April 13th. It includes visits with Dan's family, wanderings to Oklahoma to spend time with Robin's family, outings with Alex, and a sad farewell to Wima, companionable cat of nineteen years. Ponderings and book reviews also populate the pages.
– Diane I. Chambers

Volume 10: October 6, 2018 - January 17, 2019
Volume 10 includes two major visits. In September, we toured Minneapolis for a week with college friends. For a home-delivered adventure in Livermore, our kids and grand kids visited us at Thanksgiving for an early Christmas. Frank's 70th birthday celebration in Sacramento in November and book reviews added to busy times.
– Diane I. Chambers

Volume 11: January 18, 2019 - May 21, 2019
Vol. 11 travel includes a South Carolina/Georgia/Florida Heritage Quilting tour and a North Carolina 80th birthday visit to my sister. Alex traveled, without his parents, on a four-day trip to Disneyland and attended a prom. Outings to a light festival and the musical Hamilton were fun. Seven books are reviewed.
– Diane I. Chambers

Volume 12: May 22, 2019 - September 21, 2019
Wander Or Ponder Vol. 12 includes a June visit to Oklahoma. California day trips include an IMAX show of Superpower Dogs, the Charles M. Schulz Museum, a performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and a Play Date art exhibit. There was more pondering than wandering in this volume. Twelve books are reviewed.
– Diane I. Chambers

Volume 13: September 21, 2019 - November 5, 2019
Wander Or Ponder – Vol. 13 sees us enjoying Disneyland with five grandkids in early September. In late September and early October, Alex endured an eleven-day hospital stay due to an infection. Afterward, he rallied back to his happy self, enjoying family outings and relishing his role as Woody from Toy Story for Halloween.
– Diane I. Chambers

Volume 14: November 15, 2019- December 22, 2019
Wander or Ponder Vol. 14 recounts our annual trip with college friends. Our destination this October was Nashville. On Veterans Day weekend, we enjoyed hosting Dan and Carrie and our three grandkids, Vivian, Lillian, and William, in our Livermore home. This volume had only one book review. We were too busy socializing.
­ Diane I. Chambers

Volume 15: December 23, 2019 - May 20, 2020
We started with an Oklahoma visit in November, a Night to Remember prom experience for Alex in February, and then the COVID-19 shelter in place order hit in March and is entering its fourth month at the time of this publication. We pondered instead of wandered. Consequently, Volume 15 of Wander Or Ponder has many book reviews.
– Diane I. Chambers

Volume 16: May 21, 2020 - Dec 27, 2020
Volume 16 of Wander or Ponder has little wandering due to COVID-19. Consequently it is two-thirds book reviews. The other one-third is a smattering of socially distanced visits with Alex, modified birthday celebrations, and decorations for the fall holidays to brighten our sequestered time at home with books, puzzles, and TV.
– Diane I. Chambers

Volume 17:
 Jan 15, 2021 - Aug 14, 2021
We finally got to visit with the grandkids at COVID times! In April we met up with Dan, Carrie, VIvian, Lillian, William, and Irene at a cabin near Sequoia National Park. In June, Robin, Jeremy, Autumn, and Isaiah flew out to Livermore. There were May birthday mini-celebrations for Alex and Diane but otherwise Volume 17 is mainly book reviews.
– Diane I. Chambers

Volume 18: Aug 27, 2021 - Jan 27, 2022
As COVID lingered, we cautiously ventured out on local outings and visits. We frolicked on a beach in Southern California in October warmth. We hunkered down indoors during the sub-freezing temperatures of Oklahoma's January. The number of book review posts testifies that Pondering(15) still slightly outnumbers Wandering(11).
– Diane I. Chambers

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