I'm it

I've been tagged. This is my first time! Without further ado, here are 7 random things about me:

1. I read cookbooks for pleasure. It's fun. I collect them, and very occasionally use them when I'm actually cooking, but I am much more likely to get one and read it cover to cover over a period of days (yes, there are cookbooks on my bedside table) all-the-while scheming about how I would adjust each recipe to suit the kind of ingredients I actually have on hand. It fills my brain with all kinds of ideas and helps me be creative with leftovers and boring everyday ingredients.
2. I'm a whiz at puzzles. I like to work on the sky peices and boring colors, never the actual central part of the picture. And I don't like to look at the picture on the box while puzzling either - it feels like cheating.
3. Corn on the cob is one of my least favorite seasonal produce specials. It is messy and involves so much work for so little gastric pleasure.
4. I've never broken a bone.
5. My dream vehicle is a jeep wagoneer with fake wood paneling. I think it would make me feel carefree and jolly.
6. I still mix fountain sodas to make "swamp water" like I did when I was a kid, but only if it's at least 50% diet coke, because then it feels guilt free. I feel a little silly doing so in public...especially in front of other adults, but I do it anyways.
7. I don't make my bed. Well, sometimes I do at night right before I get in it, but that doesn't really count. I suspect that starting my day out with a freshly made bed would completely change my life, but I'm not ready for that kind of adult responsibility yet. Plus, it's hard to do on the mornings when my husband is still in it!

And now for the "four things" part...:

Four jobs I've had:

• Farmhand
• Personal banker
• Public Affairs Director for a non-profit
• Apiarist - well, kind of - I worked for a bee-keeper guy

Four places I've lived:

• Vermilion, Alberta
• Middleton, Idaho
• Caronport, Saskatchewan
• Hardisty, Alberta

Four places I've been on vacation:

• Tofino, BC
• Stanley, Idaho
• Rhododendron, Oregon
• Banff, Alberta

Four of my favorite foods:

• Bacon
• Home-made soup
• Bean burritos
• Potato pancakes

Four places I would rather be right now:

• Living in our new house!!
• In a yurt in the mountains, accessible only by snowshoe or skis
• Alaska
• Visiting with friends over a cozy cuppa something or a silly game of cards

Four favorite things to do:

• Hike
• Snowshoe
• Spoon on the couch with my husband and fall asleep watching football
• Cook dinner for people who love to eat

Done! Now I tag: anyone who needs something to blog about, but specifically the Julia, the zoo keeper.

Then & now

Here is a picture of the house as it looked mid-October:



And here is the same shot in mid November with a few less leaves on the trees:

I think I prefer the green season! There's still a lot to finish up inside before move-in (scheduled for mid December), but it's getting close. Next step - working on some landscaping!

They're out there.

Sometimes I say stupid things. The other day I stumbled upon this site. It was wildly entertaining and was comforting because it prooved that I'm definitely not leading the pack of people who don't think before speaking...or don't think at all.

Za is a word?

As if facebook wasn't a vile enough addiction, the time wasting has been compounded by a new discovery: scrabulous. It is a lovely little facebook application (in addition to being it's very own entity outside of facebook) that allows you to play a rousing (read, drawn out over a period of five days) game of scrabble with friends near and far. What fun! What next?

I would like to point out that I'm currently in the lead, madame!

Try it...you'll like it. That, or you will forever curse me for adding one more distraction to your day.

Oh, the little things!

Sometimes a girl feels a little melancholy. Sometimes it is a trip down the household cleaners aisle at the grocery store that makes a girl feel better. Sometimes all it takes is a little time-saving gadget and the feeling of a good buy to make a girl feel like she is on top of the world. Can something this endearing not have a name?

Progress

I'm a lazy poster! Just a quick update on the house - the exterior is nearing completion, but there's lots of work left to do on the interior. Here is a picture exactly one month after the work began. The painting is about 3/4 done and the shingles are ready for installation. Sheet rock should be going up today on the inside! Yay! It's coming together! It looks like we'll be in by Christmas, so I'm planning my Christmas tree location and mentally shopping for new decorations. Hey, a new house deserves new decorations, doesn't it?

Barefoot in the Kitchen

A Few Great Slow-Dancing-in-the-Kitchen Songs:

• Amen - Arthur Godfrey
• I don't Love you Much Do I - Guy Clark & Emmylou
• Don't Put No Headstone on My Grave - Charlie Rich (not a particularly happy love song, but there's just something in that rhythm)
• Fantastic - Louis Armstrong
• My Handy Man - Ethel Waters
• Good Hearted Man - Tift Merritt
• Love Me - The Little Willies

Accidentally Organic

As an enthusiastic consumer and creator of food, I enjoy browsing around various food-centric blogs. Each author spends much time rejoicing over organic produce and the wonderful farmers-markets of their neighborhoods or regions. I love it! To me, food is the best sort of celebration for bringing people together, and I love the revival of enthusiasm for truly tasty ingredients. It also inspires a self-conscious grin over the irony of it all.

You see, growing up, “organic” was a necessity rather than a luxury. Our family of 7 hungry mouths, and the conscious decision to have a single income earner and an agricultural life-style required that we forgo a few of the conveniences that were ever present in the homes of my peers. How I longed for white bread sandwiches stuffed with non-descript sandwich meat and processed cheese, pudding snacks, juice boxes, and prepackaged Twinkie-like desserts of any sort. And pizza pockets and the like…say no more! What torture it seemed to unwrap my roast beef sandwich (from the roast the night before) on (sometimes homemade) whole wheat bread, and munch on my apple or carrots while potato chip bags crackled all around me. The worst part was that my peers seemed to also feel sorry for me with my unfortunate lunch.

I smile now, to think that the same generation – my peers who shot those pitying glances – are now the ones paying a premium for organic vegetables, artisan breads, and farm-fresh eggs. Oh, to have known the value of the life we lived! I treasure it now…as vehemently as I rejected it then.

Picking green beans by the washtubs full, topping and tailing the same in marathon stretches at the kitchen table, our grumblings minimized by the aural treat of listening to books on tape from the library…that sticks in my memory as a gift. I smile over my mom’s creative genius with our overly abundant zucchini crop on a yearly basis. Who knew you could make an apple pie that was half apples and half zucchini slices and barely notice a difference? I miss, miss, miss having roast beef, new potatoes, carrots, and onions and knowing that the whole delicious, roasted, mess came from our own acres. Store-bought whipping cream was the sign of a crisis moment, and only happened when we didn’t have a freshened Guernsey cow to give gloopy, golden cream by the jars full! And eggs from free range chickens…well, of course! It’s much easier to let them mill about the yard and scavenge than to feed in the henhouse – it just makes it a bit harder to find the eggs.

What a treat! What a treasure! What a legacy to carry on!

The Little House in the Weed Patch

Much progress has been made on our little house, and we are amazed at how quickly this is now coming together. Day 1 was on 10/2 and started with excavation. Here are some pictures showing how much has been completed in just 9 days!!

Below: the hole in the ground (sorry about the night-time photo) and one other sure sign that there are men at work:

Day 2: the footings are started; meanwhile, the trees all around are turning a lovely color and providing quite the view from our soon-to-be windows.

Day ?? (I haven't kept track very well) - A foundation and vapor barrier. On a side note - a beautiful sunrise glowing golden and lavender brought great joy this week.

And yesterday (day 9)...tada! Walls! At least on the 1st floor - one more floor to go!

Photo 1 - Hubby checking out the garage; Photo 2 - a view from the future backyard; Photo 3 - the view from the future family room windows; Photo 4 - I check out the 1/2 bath

This is all very exciting! I can't wait to be living there...finally! We are on track to be in before Christmas!! And I'm using a lot of exclamation points!! There will be more photos as things progress.

A List of things that make me smile:

· The sound of snowflakes falling on a still night
· Singing along to Charlie Rich’s “Philadelphia Baby”
· The Snake River canyon
· Bacon
· Neutrogena healthy skin glow sheers
· Globe willows
· Singing Christmas Carols year-round
· Songbirds – there is a particular one, but I have yet to identify it
· The rhythm of a paddle
· Pinking shears
· Choxie
· Retractable cords
· Yellow tomatoes
· Tidy little spreadsheets
· Flipflops
· Refried beans
· Leaves crunching under my feet
· A new haircut
· Prescription sunglasses
· Home-made soup of any kind

Mr. Birthday

We celebrated hubby's birthday recently. Since his birthday falls at the very end of the fire season, it is a rare occasion to celebrate it on the actual day. This year was different - he got home on birthday eve, and I was so excited to see him that I let him open all of his presents that night! Oops! But at least the piece-de-reistance was saved for a few hours until he thought there were no more presents to be had! Here he is enjoying his gift a few days later:



Since our 5th-wheel living quarters limit our entertaining abilities, we celebrated with his family a few days later by meeting at a local diner for pie and coffee - yum and comfort! Lovely Black Canyon carmel apple pie!

And then to Dad's to open even more presents - this time with a little help!

Ah, such fun, the week of birthday!

Shameless Repetition

I do have things to say and pictures to post, but not a lot of time at home in which to get it done. So, I am shamelessly filling space with a "note" that I posted on facebook in July. Pardon my laziness and redundancy if you've already read it there!

7/19/07: My hope is revived! Last night I caught the last part of Conan O'Brien's interview with Vera Farmiga. I didn't even know who she was when I turned on the tv, but she has now become my favorite celeb (I've never had one of those before). Why? Because she can speak. Intelligently. Her grammar is excellent. She uses interesting words - not just big words to sound smart but truly well-chosen words that are spoken easily and appear to actually be part of her regular vocabulary (refreshingly sans malapropisms). Her speech is art. This is rare. Sadly, this isn't E! newsworthy and will never outshine current stories of celebs-in-rehab, but I wish it could. If only tweens, teens, and beyond could be bombarded with more such images...we might actually be able to encourage a culture of identifiably intelligent, articulate, delightfully communicative - and even a little bit decorous - people.

Home is where…

For the past 3 weeks I have been homeless. Well, homeless in the logistical sense of the word, more accurately on a journey of discovering what “home” means. In the process of building our new house we have experienced the joy of a quick and easy sale of our original house, and the frustration of a few paperwork delays on our new land parcel. The result – all non-essential belongings are in storage and we are living in a fifth wheel trailer belonging to some very generous friends, parked next door to the home of the same very generous friends. I am often reminded of the times that I thought it would be neat to live a simple life on a very small scale – doable…but maybe not my choice for permanent living quarters.

The highlight of it all is finding that I don’t feel homeless. The “Lady of the House” next door…a.k.a. my roommate (I use their bathroom and am free to wander about), a.k.a. my landlord (they own our current lodgings), a.k.a. my business partner (we dabble in some real estate together), is my wonderful friend Julia. We both have husbands with busy travel schedules, so it is often just us and her children. I am welcome in the gorgeous, newly remodeled kitchen and am enjoying having some extra tummies to fill. I Love to cook! It is nice to have the kids ask me when I’m coming home, and when they can come over for a sleepover. It blessed my heart that my laundry was magically done and folded the other day.

It might be 3 more months before we have a house again. Who knows how our living arrangements might change between now and then? The novelty of small-scale living might wear off, and I might pine for a few more square feet and a full-sized pantry. But I’m glad to be experiencing this truth – that Home is a state of mind for me. As long as I have a cozy nest in which to curl up and sleep, somebody to cook dinner for, and people in my life who like me just the way I am – even as I look when I’ve just rolled out of bed – then I am at home. To be a bit cliché, “My cup runneth over.”

Right of Way

If I were the boss of the world I would (among other things) require an annual mandatory refresher course on the proper way to conduct oneself at a four-way stop. Does nobody know what RIGHT OF WAY means? And I would make quarterly written exams mandatory for blatant repeat offenders. Yes, that means you, oh older, more mature, definitely wiser, bejewelled-fingered, cell phone talking, working professional urbanite in the Infinity SUV, looking perplexed and waving me on so helpfully when IT ISN'T MY GO!

And yes, if you happen to read lips, you heard me right.

You-Haul

Things I had forgotten about moving:

• Stuff multiplies - give or throw away 10 things, start feeling good about the progress you've made, then turn around and discover that, while your back was turned, the 3 shoe boxes of old photos from summer camp and science fair have reproduced the following illegitimate offspring: a pile of scrapbooks, a handful of elementary school track and field medals, and a stack of mysteriously unlabeled three-and-half-inch-floppy-disks.
• Once the boxes are packed and out of the house, you are only about 60% through the moving out process.
• You can never have enough newspaper on hand.
• What appears to be a stack of way too many boxes will, strangely, turn out to be far too few for the job.
• There is no good, safe, place to store a 3'x3' framed piece of of artwork for 3 months.
• Grandma B's china has been through this many times before, and it will probably survive one more move without requiring air-ride transport, a dedicated security detail, and a private storage vault.
• A person who pursues the greener grass on the other side of the fence with such frequency has no right whine about how difficult it might be to get to the other side of said fence.

Something new I've learned with this move:

• A girl who marries a boy who has a penchant for hanging pictures with excessive amounts of super-adherent-double-sided-tape should make sure that that same boy is around when it is time to remove those pictures.
• Sunny Sweeney provides motivational background music for efficient packing.

Abcdef...uh...

I have recently made the alarming discovery that I do not truly know my alaphabet. Oh sure, I can sing the song (even in french) but when it comes to indepentdently knowing that "I" comes after "H" or that "W" comes after "V" there is a hitch in my mental recall. This realization was eased upon me when I noticed that I am constantly muttering portions of the alphabet whenever I have to file something alphabetically. It seems that my memory can only recall this information in sing-songy snippets of the alphabet song.

This is a startling realization for me after a good 28 years of feeling that I really am pretty damn intelligent. Silly me.

2 Acres, an Appaloosa, and a GMC

It's becoming a reality! The conversation about moving out of town began over a year ago. We started working on the land deal in October. We waited on pins and needles through the county planning and zoning commission meeting, listening to the examiner hem and haw about "development" being "premature for the area" etc., etc., and finally received his reluctant blessing to turn our 2 acrea of dry ground and weeds into our dream. Is it pathetic for a girl to shed tears of relief and happiness over a planning and zoning meeting? I did. I cried. Then we went out for pie.

Now we jump through the hoops held up by builder, lender, fire district, utility company, and other permit grantors. We pick flooring, colors, fixtures, fight about how our little house will face on the lot, and worry about how many extra thousands of dollars will be required to run in the power. We put our little house in the subdivision up for sale, and hope that it sells before we start paying our new mortgage payment. We dream about trips to the mountains to cut fence rails, we talk about where we should plant trees, how we will use our land, if we will have a goat (I say yes, he says no). It is exciting, and scary, and seems too grown up to be something that we should be allowed to do. We don't know how to build a house!

Cutesy, maybe, but our new address will be Oasis Road. Here is the before:

View of our property from the north

Our Russian Olive trees from the east

Another view, past Roman, from the adjoining pasture

Goodbye to our little First House

Hopefully I will be posting the "after" pictures in a few months. Now if the interest rates could just hold steady...or even drop!

A Literary Crush

I tend to develop crushes on authors. It started with Mildred Walker, thanks to my mother's battered copy of Winter Wheat, and hasn't stopped yet. When a book is so enjoyable that it breaks my heart to reach the last page, then it makes sense that more from the same author might offer some relief. This was true of Walker, and, now that I have exhausted the library's offerings from Mildred Walker, I've had to move on.

So, how to choose the object of my next crush? That was a tough one. Thanks to Barnes & Noble classics and a $5 price tag, I picked up a copy of Willa Cather's My Antonia. Bingo. That was exactly what I have been looking for - another author who can write passionately about endless prairies and howling winters, whose characters are both regular and extraordinary, and whose ability to paint a picture of relationships without overt descriptions brings her stories to life. I gobbled it up and have now moved on to Death Comes for the Archbishop.

But what next? There are a number of Willa Cather's books on the shelves of my local library, but I will read slowly and savor them, because who knows when I will stumble upon another author whose stories make me feel so lonely and complete at the same time.

Now be warned, book-ies, this isn't edgy, self-important, summer-truffle-stuffed-breast-of-guinea-hen writing, it is meat-and-potatoes-and-homemade-apple-cider writing. It will either satisfy or bore you in the manner of home-cooked comfort food.

This, of course, is my humble opinion.

Advice, please!

It seems to be time for a new camera. How does one shop for such a thing? The sheer volume of cameras on the market is overwhelming, and the options available on each are a whole new level of confusing! So...help! I know there are some experts among my friends and family, so here is your opportunity! Advice has been solicited. Please deliver!!

Here are some the things I'm considering as I shop:

• Hardiness - the thing will need to survive the occasional hunting/kayak/canoe/hiking trip, as well as the county fair and the occasional construction site.
• Versatility - if it could please take lovely pictures of my real estate listings, while still providing beautiful pictorial memories of mountainscapes and life-like action shots. Last weekend I was trying to take pictures of my niece during her western pleasure class. I felt a little bit like a sniper setting up for a shot. I had to lead the horse by an estimated distance, push the button, keep moving the camera along with the horse while the screen went black and it thought about taking the picture, then wait for the picture to appear on the screen and hope that Alli and Red were actually mostly in the frame! How annoying!
• Size - I don't want to pack around a beastly thing.
• Zoom - I only have digital zoom right now, and it is a big disappointment!
• Screen - it would be nice to have a display screen that flips around so I can get a glimpse at what is going to be in the picture even if I can't be behind the camera. Since Casey and I are usually off galavanting on our own, nearly every one of our photos together is taken using the self timer or by one of us holding the camera out a arms length and taking the picture. Sometimes we miss.
• Cost - I don't want to spend a ton. I was thinking under $350. Maybe even under $300.

So far I've read a few reviews and am leaning toward the Canon PowerShot A640. Well, that's kind of a lie. I saw it at Costco and liked it, so I've read about 10 reviews, but have not read up on anything else and am scared that I'll just buy this one because it seems good so far, and I'm too daunted by the options to start broadening my scope and reading reviews of other products. Help!

Audio Treat

Yay! I have a husband at home again for a few days! I was happy to show off my super technological skills with the iPod. Interesting fact - there are now 662 songs on the thing, but, when it plays random selections, about every 3rd song is by Johnny Cash, Elvis, or the Million Dollar Quartet. It seems that our our music library is begging for a little diversification!

On that note, I'm going to pause and recommend the Million Dollar Quartet album for a refreshing musical experience. It was an impromptu 1956 recording of a jam session involving Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins (although it seems that none of the songs featuring Johnny Cash made the CD, but perhaps he's still in the background, and he was there long enough for the photo session). The chit chat and interaction of the musicians between songs is so interesting and brings new life to some old favorites. My favorite track is "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", but there are many gems among the 40 (or so) tracks on the album! I've found that it's a great sound track for washing dishes!

A visitor among us!

This week we had, for the first time since I've lived here, a visitor from Canada who came - not to attend a wedding - just to hang out! It seems that we girls had developed a regular habit of throwing weddings. Now that maddness is over and Cousin Jon, with a break in the cousin wedding schedule, braved the desert in July and headed down to spend a week with us! We've enjoyed it! There has been much playing of video games, a little poker, sleeping in and lounging about, as well as some great conversations, catching up, and consumption of such fine-dining delicasies as tamales and kabobs!

Here are we are:

Out for dinner: Jon, Nate, Jo, Bon, Amy, Beck

Before the kabob carnage: Dinner at Jo & Nate's

Lance and Jon enjoy a deep discussion about retro video games

The rest of us smile and nod

Jo and Phoebe demonstrate the power of treats

Their happy poker faces before my begginer's luck kicked in

Then, tonight, I dragged everyone out to the dust, weeds, and mosquitoes of our acreage and future homesite - a little off the beaten path, but the tamales and Coronas were tasty! It was nice to watch the day fade away and imagine what it will look like from our backporch! It can't happen soon enough!

Our very informal picnic-in-the-pasture

Tomorrow some of the crew heads up for some camping/hiking in beautiful Stanley, then Jon heads out for the next stop on his roundabout road trip. We've loved visiting with him and wish him safe travels and happy trails! But now we are spoiled and will want to have company more often!

eureka!

There are now songs on the iPod, and no calls to big sis were required to accomplish this. Wow! Where has apple been all my life? There was very nearly no thought required!

Here is the problem - tomorrow I will buy accessories. And, I suspect, this will only be the first of many trips to do so. Shocking? No. Potential for monetary hemoraging? Great. Huge. But I will feel very urban and mildly hip until something new comes out.

The iTunes gift card is still locked in a drawer.

But one thing is true - this is a much higher level of technological sophistication than the last electronic
device I purchased....

And so it begins...

Here I am, blogging. I think I was feeling a little left out having to comment anonymously on other blogs. No more being a spectator! I'm as wary of this as I am of the new iPod that I bought this weekend and have only looked at. There is nothing particularly sinister about either the blog or the iPod, it just feels like crossing over a bridge that will inevitably blow up behind me. Kind of like once-upon-a-time when I got my first cell phone - even then it was a bit crushing to know that, try as I might, I would not ever revert to the pre-cell phone me. I suspect the same is true of iPods and blogging.