Friday...let the games begin!

Moose from last summer

Well, alrighty, then, we made through another week without too much trouble, didn’t we? This is going to be a really busy Friday for me, though. I told you yesterday that we have our Small Business Expo here in Buffalo today and tomorrow. Today is going to be a long day as Rob and I have to get down to the fairgrounds around 10 a.m. to get our booth set up, even though the doors don’t open to the public until 3 p.m.

This is always one of my favorite shows as we see a lot of people for the first time since winter is starting to fade.  Around here, people tend to stay shut up most of the winter or they are off vacationing before the tourists hit town so we don’t see a lot of people. Of course, this has been a strange weather year and we’ve actually had everyone out and about earlier than usual.

Thistle woke me up at the ungodly hour of 2:30 this morning because we have a very loud Great Horned Owl sitting in the tree across the street.  He’s still out there hooting right now, as a matter of fact. She is totally freaked out by him and I guess I can’t blame her.  He really is rather loud. He almost sounds like he’s sitting on the front porch!  In order to get her to calm down, I had to get up and take her outside so she could get a closer look and listen. She has been making small growling noises under her breath ever since. I think she’s convinced he’s coming in the house or something.  Right now, he’s hooting to beat the band and she’s got her head cocked, listening and a very worried look on her face.  This is not going to bode well for my long day, though! I was really hoping to get a good night’s sleep.

I wish I could get a picture of Mr. Owl as he’s quite large and gorgeous but it’s just too darn dark out there.  He’s sitting in a tree near the streetlight so I can see him and I swear he’s at least 2 feet tall. Hopefully, he’ll stick around til daylight and I can get a picture! I just hope he’s not waiting for the little yorkies across the street to be let out in their backyard, thinking he’s got an easy meal coming. That would be awful!

Yesterday, I busied myself with getting everything packed and ready for today’s show.  Our large photos had so many grubby fingerprints on the plastic sleeves, I had to change out about 40 of them.  They look so much better now! That project took me most of the afternoon.  Thistle and I did manage to get two walks in, one in the morning after my tan and one when I took a break from the photos.  We had a nice morning walk out at the Mtn Plains Park, although the wind was still a little chilly.  Several people had the same idea so Thistle had some nice encounters with other dogs.  Unlike Tumbleweed, who didn’t care much for other dogs, Thistle just thinks they’re awesome.

Our afternoon walk was just around the neighborhood, which took longer than I expected because so many of our older neighbors were out working in their yards.  Everyone had to stop what they were doing and greet Thistle, of course.  We have this really nice older, retired couple who moved here from Kaycee and they have turned their whole front yard into a magnificent flower garden.  They were unable to grow anything in Kaycee and they are making up for lost time here. During the summer, they are out there all day, every day, tending to their flowers.  I really admire that kind of dedication and it sure makes the neighborhood look nice.

Thistle hanging out

I won’t be writing tomorrow as this show is going to take up all of my time but I’ll be sure to fill you in on Sunday.  I’m hoping Mr. Owl will give me a break tomorrow night and let me sleep, I fear I will need it after the long day we have today! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and you’ve got lots of fun things to do! It’s almost unbelievable that we’re at the end of March already!

breathing again....

Flatiron Lake in the Bighorns

Good morning and a happy Thursday to everyone! We’ve almost made it to the end of the week again! Time to get a spring in our step and start looking toward the fun we all have planned for the weekend, right?

Remember I told you yesterday that I was getting over my telephone reluctance by accepting an assignment to cold call a bunch of Wyoming businesses for the Chamber?  Well, I lied. Instead, I pretty much had a meltdown yesterday over the whole thing, darn it. I thought I had it under control but everything I did to try to make it go smoothly just turned into more and more anxiety for me. I had even typed up my little speech of what to say to these people.  But the closer I got to making that first phone call, the worse I got.  I spent two and a half days getting ready and I wigged out.  I ended up going down to the Chamber office and telling Rachel that I just couldn’t do it.  I have agreed to go personally visit all the local businesses in town that have Made in Wyoming stuff and talk to them face to face but I told her I just can’t do the phone calls. I  know that she probably thinks I’m a total freak and I’m beginning to agree with her.  I guess we all have things we just can’t get over.  Poor Rob has had to deal with this aspect of my personality for many years and I don’t think even he really gets it. Hell, I don’t even get it!

People think I’m really extroverted but I’m not.  I’m one of those people that’s really shy around new people although you’d never know it.  I’m always trying to make up for it by being overly friendly but inside I’m shaking like a leaf.  I guess we all have our little personality faults and we just drove into the cavern of mine.  I don’t think I’ll be trying any more experiments in trying to  overcome this one in this lifetime.  I have actually quit my membership on boards because I can’t make the stupid phone calls and I should have known better.

I must say, I feel a lot better today, though.  The tension I’ve been carrying since I got this assignment last Friday is finally gone. From now on, I’m just going to keep my mouth shut when people are looking for volunteers! 

Speaking of volunteers, we have our Small Business Expo here at the fairgrounds tomorrow.  We have a booth for our business, Wild Wyoming Images, once again this year.  This is one of my favorite shows that we do during the year.  The Expo goes on Friday and Saturday and there’s going to be a lot of local small business people there.  They incorporate a Business After Hours cocktail party on Friday night into it, too.  I believe we’ll have live music and the Invasion Bar down in Kaycee usually caters the food.  Amanda, who owns the Invasion, is an incredible cook and always had really yummy appetizers!  I’m not sure who is providing the beer and wine.

It’s going to be a long two days, though.  We have to set up in the morning tomorrow and there’s a vendor meeting/luncheon and then the doors finally open to the public from 3-7 tomorrow and then again on Saturday from 9-3.  The reason it’s one of my favorites is that it is the first time all season we see a lot of people that have been holed up all winter.  It’s a big social gathering for everyone in town.  The Chamber always has great prizes for this, too. I think this year they are giving away a flat screen TV and several nice trips. Our booth is going to be right next to St Francis Animal Shelter, and I know Olin is bringing a bunch of kittens from the shelter to entice people to come adopt!  So, I’ll have lots of fun with them for the duration of the show!

Cloud Peak in the Bighorns

So, today, I’ll be getting everything ready for the show, making sure we have everything ready to go.  We just had that show in Sheridan so it shouldn’t be too much trouble, everything is pretty much ready.  I think all I really have to do besides pull everything out and check it off the list is to go get our cash bank together.  I did notice that there’s a lot of fingerprints on the 18 x 24 photos (people really like to go through those) so I may have to change out some of the plastic coverings we use to protect the photos from all those grubby hands.

Other than that, I think Thistle and I are going to try to hit Mtn Plains Park for a walk at some point today after my morning tan.  It’s supposed to be gorgeous again today.  Everything in the flower garden’s coming up like gang busters right now.  I was out at my friend Sherry’s house yesterday and all her tulips are up and almost ready to bloom, which is usually unheard of this time of year.  Sherry has had an ear infection that she just can’t get rid of! She got antibiotics for it and it turned out she’s allergic to them, causing her some severe reactions and not helping to get rid of the infection.  As I left her yesterday, she was headed to a specialist in Sheridan.  She’s been battling this for about two weeks now, the poor dear.

Well, I hope you have a fantastic day.  I know I will now that I don’t have to call anyone I don’t know!

Scientists have found the gene for shyness. They would have found it years ago, but it was hiding behind a couple of other genes. ~ Jonathan Katz

yay...halfway through the week!

Full moon pic of windmill

Hey, we’ve made it half way through the week already! How did that happen? I swear the days are just flying by!  Good thing, because I am getting really ansty about going on vacation and I really need them to go quickly right now.  I’m impressed because usually it’s the other way around and time just drags when I have something fun planned.

Rob has our itinerary all planned out for the trip and has managed to fix it so that we get to spend more time with some friends in Sedona than we first thought we’d be able to. I just love being married to a “planner”.  He is the one who does all the lists in the family and although I’m always teasing him about his list making, it really comes in handy! He has made a great list of the things we need to take along in addition to having already scoped out all the good restaurants along the way.  Bless his heart, he’s even included a few sushi restaurants for me!

We are such an odd couple, I swear.  He’s a meat eater, I’m a vegetarian.  He’s a little on the anal retentive side (okay I’m being nice, he’s really anal, okay) and I’m what I call anal explosive.  I couldn’t write a list of things to do if my life depended on it.  He plans life out very concisely while I plod through it, hoping I get things done.  Rob is very detail oriented while I am a big picture type.  They say opposites attract and in this case, they are right.  We balance each other out very nicely.  We also have more fun on trips than most people do.  Rob has even burned a bunch of music cd’s just for this trip with music he thinks will be perfect for it.  That’s another thing I love about him, his taste in music.  If you were to meet him for the first time, you’d no doubt “label” him as to what you think those tastes might be.  I bet you’d be way off the mark.  Rob has one of the encyclopedic minds when it comes to music.  He knows just as much about Beethoven’s sonatas as he does about hard rock.  He likes a little more country than I care for but that’s okay.  At least he has an open mind when it comes to the new music that’s always coming out.  He’s one of those people, though, who can hear a song and tell you who is singing, what year it came out and whether or not it was a “one hit wonder”.  That just fascinates the heck outta me!  I tend to like music because I like the melody or the words, I can never remember who the heck is singing but I know I like something when I hear it.  If it weren’t for him, I’d probably not have any music on cd’s as I wouldn’t know what to get.

I guess I just don’t have that kind of mind. I’m the same way with reading books.  I don’t just read them, I consume books!  But, two days after I’ve read it, don’t ask me what it was about.  I might be able to give you the gist of the story but I never remember any details.  I have a lot of favorite authors but I couldn’t tell you who they were unless you remind me of their names. Funny how some people can keep all that little information in their brains while others, like me, just can’t.

Of course, I try to tell him it’s because I have all this medical jargon and scientific stuff cluttering up my brain.  That’s where my memory comes into play, I guess. I think we all have things our brains consider important and that’s the stuff we tend to focus on remembering. Of course, in true wife fashion, I also know where everything is in the house he’s misplaced. I often wonder how Rob would even fix himself dinner if I weren’t here.  I swear that man doesn’t even know where the pots and pans are kept.  He’s a great cook, though.  Back when I still worked as an RN, I worked 12 hours shifts and Rob always had dinner ready when I got home.

Anyway, so I’m getting really excited about our trip.  We leave two weeks from tomorrow! Because the entire US has been having this great early spring, we are ensured we are going to have lots and lots of nice wildflowers to take pictures of when we get down to Arizona and Utah. I am also really looking forward to visiting with some people we haven’t seen in a long time.  Don Weir, who used to run one of the local motels here in town for his brother, lives down in Wickenburg now.  We’re going to be spending the night with him and his new girlfriend, Judy, while we’re there.  Don is a very interesting cowboy who has worked in a lot of really neat places over his lifetime and has more stories than most people.  He’s even run the guest ranch down at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.  That place is only accessible by mule or hiking.  I can sit for hours and listen to Don talk stories about some of the places he’s lived! His late wife, Odie, was one of my best friends here before she died suddenly of a brain aneurysm back in 2006. His new girlfriend, Judy, reminds me a lot of her, same spunky attitude.

Playing in the backyard with Thistle!

Yesterday was a very laid back day here around the Yingling household.  The wind finally died down, at least.  Thistle and I didn’t get a whole lot done except to go get some lawn fertilizer for the yard, which Rob applied last night.  The rest of the time, I was busy trying to get my little spiel written up for talking to all these Wyoming vendors I have to start calling today to get their products for those gift baskets I was talking about yesterday. 

This calling is going to be a pretty big deal for me.  I have what I like to call “telephone reluctance”.  I don’t know why, I’m a chatterbox and I love talking to people but I just hate calling people I don’t know on the phone.  I actually agreed to do this for the Chamber because I really need to get over this phobia. It’s just silly and I don’t know what my problem is. There’s just something otherworldy about talking on the phone I don’t like, I guess.  I can’t see people’s faces and I guess that’s part of it. But, today, I’m going to be spending most of it cold calling these folks and we’ll see how it goes. I sure hope a lot of them want to send stuff!

Well, folks, it’s hump day and it’s all gonna be smooth sailing into Friday from here, right?  I hope you really enjoy your day and find something special to make you smile.

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”~ Elizabeth Gilbert

blowing into Tuesday....

starting to clear out the snow!

Yesterday was an enormously blustery day here in Buffalo! The wind just seemed to be never ending! The actual temperature was really nice, I think it got up to almost 74, but it was hard to get out and enjoy it with everything flying past you at breakneck speeds.  Once the birds finished half the seed I put out in the feeder yesterday, the platform insert went flying into my neighbors yard.  Even Thistle, who usually really enjoys the wind, was a little spooked yesterday.  I know we had to have had gusts in the 50-60 mph range, at least.

After going to my tanning, I stopped by and visited with a friend for a little bit and then I headed home to get out of the freaking sandstorm that was being whipped up by all this darn wind.  Instead of salt, they use dirt here in the winter for keeping the streets safe and because we had a weird winter, the clean-up has been slow.  Well, yesterday, all that dirt they had distributed made it look like a sandstorm out on the main drags, there were times you couldn’t see the mountain for the swirling dust!

So, I spent most of the day trying to find things to do indoors.  I did manage to finally read a book that I’ve been meaning to finish for some time now.  Thistle hates it when I read, she thinks I should be doing something with her, instead.  She spent the whole time coming back and forth to my chair and nudging the back of my book, the little devil.  Luckily, I only had a couple of chapters left and was able to spend time playing with her after I finished.

I'm still so sore from all that raking I did over the weekend, so I also spent a little time in my portable sauna, hoping to ease some of that muscle soreness.  It helped a bit but it's still going to be awhile before I pick up that rake again!

For dinner last night, we hit the Moose Lodge for some of Jason's fine ribeye french dip sandwiches.  Twice a month, Jason cooks on Mondays for us.  One week, it's hand cut ribeyes and then on the other Monday, he does the french dips.  They were absolutely yummy, although I really don't eat red meat anymore so Rob ate most of mine.  There was a nice crowd there, too, especially for a Monday.  

I think the wind is finally dying down this morning.  I certainly hope so as I would like to be able to take Thistle for a walk.  It’s only supposed to be in the 50’s but I think the sun will be out so it will still be a nice day.

This afternoon, I will be calling a bunch of vendors for the Chamber of Commerce. I think I told you we have this huge convention coming here at the end of April called the RMI (Rocky Mountain International).  The goal of RMI is to promote the region to the European travel trade.  My assignment is to get Made in Wyoming vendors to send us products that we’re going to put in gift baskets to be given out during the three day conference.  So, I have a list of about 250 vendors to call in the next week or so.  We are going to be putting a few of our photos from Wild Wyoming Images in there, as well.  This is a great opportunity for Buffalo to showcase itself as a destination vacation spot and our Chamber has really been putting everything into it to make it successful.

A Robin trying to stay out of the blustery wind!

Other than that, nothing much is going on around here at the moment.  I’m still waiting to get all my medical records from Billings Clinic before I can proceed any further with my quest for a clinical trial.  I swear, these people move slower than mud.  The folks at NIH want to know if I’ve already had a blood test for the marker they are looking for, to see if I qualify for their trial.  So, I have to wait for all the test results from Billings before I can proceed any further.  As I said before, if I don’t have that marker, I’m going to be going for the stem cell transplant trial in Seattle.  That one, I’m sure I’ll qualify for with no problem but it is the more dangerous trial. So, I guess I’ll just twiddle my thumbs until Billings gets around to sending me my records.

I’m going to make this short and sweet today.  Hope you are having a fantastic week and everything is going your way! I’m off to do my Nia workout and see what kind of trouble I can get into!

limping into Monday...

Buffalo's municipal pool - it's huge and free! Notice the olympic lanes go sideways.

Holy Cow, today I feel like my arms got stretched twice the length they should be!  I think I may have said that yesterday was going to be a nice, relaxing day, didn’t I?  Well, I lied!  It was such a gorgeous day that Rob and I spent quite a bit of it outside working in the garden and on the lawn again.

We had a lot of ice that accumulated in several spots in the front yard this past winter.  That doesn’t usually happen, but this year the darn stuff just sat in one spot, right on either side of the front walk.  It took months, I swear, for those two little ice islands to melt.  We tried real hard not to use any chemicals on the sidewalk as we found out in prior years that can really do a number on the grass.  Oh sure, they say on the container of ice melt that it’s safe for plants and animals, but they lie, they always lie.  I think they get a kickback from the grass seed people, if you ask me.

Anyway, what resulted from all that ice sitting so long, was a ton of dead grass.  In order for the healthy grass to start coming back out, we have to thrash out the dead stuff.  So, silly me, I decided yesterday that I was up for the task of using the thrashing rake to start pulling out some of that darn dead grass.  I don’t know if you have ever seen those particular rakes, they look like a medieval weapon!  They have a series of blades on both sides and you have to hold them at a certain angle or they’ll pull up everything, including the dirt. I only worked on a pretty small spot yesterday and now I can barely move my arms! I’m thinking that for the rest of the job, we may need to go rent one of those thrashing mowers because otherwise, it may take me til next winter to finish this project. 

When my arms started feeling like jelly, I switched to the regular rake and finished getting all the dead leaves out of our hedgerow that we are trying to grow in front of the house.  Our lilac hedgerow circles almost our entire property and for the last few years we have been trying to get it to grow on the last little bit of the front so we can block our view of the neighbors across the street.  Because it’s still sparse, the leaves from everyone’s trees seem to accumulate there all winter.  It was all packed down and starting to turn to mulch.  I had to get it out, though, as we have that all graveled with scoria rock and the leaves were just making it look messy. It amazed me that I got almost two full bags of leaves out of that little area!  While I was doing that, Rob was filling the flower gardens with fresh topsoil.

We have a great system here with the landfill.  Everyone takes their yard waste to them and they compost it and screen out all the yucky stuff and then you can go and pick up as much of it as you want after it’s turned into good soil again.  It’s free if you load it yourself and only $10 if they use the backhoe to fill your truck bed for you. Rob had gotten a whole truck bed full on Saturday and did a nice job yesterday of topping off the gardens. I can’t believe how much stuff we’ve gotten done so far this spring, we are way ahead of schedule!

I also spent several hours trimming my clematis vines.  That’s one of my favorite features of the garden out front and we now have four vines spaced along the front.  You have to let them sit with their squiggly vines all winter because they put out new shoots all over the dead vines.  You wait until spring to see where the new growth is coming out before you start trimming all the branches.  Ours have gotten so big, I have them tied up to the trellises so they don’t sag in the summer.  It’s a lot of work to trim them back in the spring but the payoff is incredible.  I have several different kinds of clematis, one makes purple flowers the size of your outstretched hand that blooms all summer and then I have several that are variegated and a little smaller in bloom.

The big clematis in bloom

So, this morning, I’m stiffer than heck, let me tell you! I took some ibuprofen last night before bed to stave off the worst of the muscle soreness, so I have no idea what I would have felt like otherwise! I’m not really complaining, though, it felt so good to be out in the sunshine working.  Rob has asked me to delay fixing dinner at the regular time for the rest of the week so he can go out after work every evening to work on stuff some more as the weather forecast is still saying we’re going to have lovely weather all week.

Today really is going to be an easy day, I think.  I have my tanning to do, first thing, of course. I should be able to stop that real soon if the weather continues like it’s been going. I would much rather get my sunshine naturally, if I can.  I think I told you that I have a skin condition that requires me to get a certain amount of sunshine, or I break out in a nasty rash.  It’s one of the lovely side effects of having AIDS. It’s called eosinophilic foliculitis and they believe it’s caused by my low t-cell count, causing eosinophils to attack the sebum (oils produced in the skin) of my sebaceous gland cells.  The only treatment is steroids or sunlight.  Since steroids deplete your immune system even further, I have to go with the sunlight. I’m probably one of the few people you’ll ever run across that actually has a dermatologist’s prescription to go torture myself in a tanning bed. As I said before, I’ve found I only need to go twice a week to keep the rash at bay, thank goodness.  I get really tired of slathering myself with lotion all the time to combat the dry skin that results from the tanning.  I also have to go twice a year to get checked for skin cancer because of it. Bizarre, eh?

Thistle munching her big bone

The rest of the day is pretty open at the moment.  I may have to go track down some girlfriends and see if anyone wants to go for a nice hike later.  I know Thistle is ready for a nice long walk, that’s for sure.  She was not happy that we spent most of the weekend in the front yard, away from her.  She let us know by digging more of her extra special holes in the middle of the backyard.  I guess I’ll be filling those back in today, the little cuss!

I hope you have a wonderful week and that your Monday starts it off right!

soaring into Sunday....

Last summer's Great Blue Heron at Kumor Rd lake

Man, the weekend sure does fly by, doesn’t it?  How come the rest of the week doesn’t do that? Rob and I had a really nice one yesterday but I swear there just aren’t enough hours in the day! Of course, it would seem longer if I didn’t sleep half of it away, I’m sure. 

We went for a nice drive in the morning yesterday around our favorite scenic tour of Kumor Road and the lake on our way to Sheridan.  The birds are really coming out now out there.  The little lake on Kumor is almost completely unfrozen now. We really thought it was at first glance, but on further inspection, we saw that a bunch of the geese were sitting on a very thin layer of ice on the far side.  I bet their little feet get cold standing on that!  Maybe that’s why they were so loud?  Gosh, I tell you, those geese can really get to honking when they want to. We saw some nice rough legged hawks nearby, too, but still no migrating blue herons yet.  I guess we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves with the nice weather.  I keep having to remind myself that it’s still only March!

While in Sheridan, we stopped and got our usual Saturday Dragon Wall Chinese Buffet fix, that always wipes away any lingering nastiness from the prior night’s drinking.  Luckily, I’d been so busy talking Friday night, I really only had one drink.  I’ve started drinking something new I really like.  It’s called Birddog Blackberry Whiskey and it’s really yummy. I know it sounds sweet, but it’s really not.  It has a hint of blackberry in it, not overpowering like a cordial. Rob, on the other hand, had his usual amount of scotch and beer and really needed the buffet yesterday!

We also had to stop by the Verizon store and see my favorite guy about my dumb Blackberry phone.  It’s had this annoying habit of rebooting itself every hour or so. That’s not very conducive to being able to use it, now is it?  It takes the darn phone about 5 minutes to get itself back to normal mode every time it does that.  I had stopped in to see Jerry about it last week and he’d said I might be overextending my RAM on it and he had done some upgrading on it and told me to see if that fixed the problem.  Well, it didn’t, so we stopped back in to see what we needed to do next.  Turns out, there was just a little wiggle room between the battery and the connectors and every time I set it down or put it in my pocket, it would lose the connection and reboot! We stumbled on this fact because as I tossed it on his desk, it went into rebooting itself!  I was giggling as he used a “high tech” fix of placing a folded business card to complete the connection to tighten it!  Oh well, I’m due for a new phone in January and I guess we’ll just deal with the business card fix til then.  No way am I paying $600 for a new phone in the meantime when I can get a free one then.

With the phone finally fixed, we headed over to the local camera store so Rob could buy a new chip for the camera I bought him for Christmas.  Since we’re going on a long vacation in a couple of weeks, we need lots of chips to hold all the photos we’re going to be taking.  He also needs a new camera backpack to hold his three cameras now.  The old one is starting to fall apart from so much trail use.  He found a couple that he likes but none that would allow him to have telephotos on two of the cameras, already connected, in the bag, so we’re still looking. I tell you, photography is an expensive job/hobby!  I can’t wait until we finally get rid of most of his web business and only have to deal with the expenses from the photography business! I won’t complain too much, though, as Rob is an incredible photographer and we usually recoup his expenses quickly from the sales.

A bunch of pelicans from last year, too!

Upon our return from Sheridan, I decided I needed a little nap, which turned into an all afternoon slumber. I must have really needed it as I slept from about 1 p.m. til 5 p.m.  While I was sleeping, Rob created two new flower beds out in the front yard.  He did one out in front of our pretty bear carving, surrounding it with some scoria rock.  The other one he did around our new Canada Cherry tree.  We’re going to plant some blanket flowers in the beds that will come up every year and give it some nice bright colors in the summer.  Rob did a beautiful job and I can’t wait to get the flowers in!

Since I was so out of it from my long nap, Rob graciously fixed his own dinner last night.  I just love it when he does that!  I just had some tomatoes and blackberries for dinner, as I was still full from the buffet and had not been out gardening like he had.  Hmm, I’m sensing a theme of blackberries for the day as I read back through what I’ve written here! I drank blackberries Friday night, fixed my Blackberry, and ate blackberries, weird! I guess I really like those things, huh?

Anyway, today is another easy day.  I don’t have too much to do except for the usual laundry and house cleaning.  It’s supposed to be another beautiful day so I imagine we’ll take another drive.  We haven’t been up on the mountain in a while, maybe I can talk Rob into going for a drive up there! With all the wind we’ve been having, I imagine the roads should be pretty dried up by now so there should be too much mud on the trail roads.  That’s the only problem with Spring around here, they close a lot of the forest roads when they get too muddy from all the runoff from the snow on the mountain. 

Well, I hope you all have a magnificent Sunday and you find something fun to do, as well!

slothful Saturday....

Mtn Plains Park windmill at sunrise

Good morning, all my festive friends! I hope everyone had a fabulous Friday!  It’s so nice to finally get to the weekend!  It’s going to be an incredible one here and I can hardly wait for Rob to get up so we can get out and start enjoying it.  Yesterday it got up to almost 80 here and I think it’s supposed to stay that way all weekend!

People around here are getting really antsy with the weather to start doing things in the garden but it’s really too early. I’m afraid Mother Nature still has a few surprises up her sleeve for us, she’s just lulling us into a false sense of security.  I have yet to see a spring around here where it didn’t snow at some point in May and early June! You sure couldn’t tell by my front yard, though.  My lilac hedges are sprouting leaves like crazy, I think this is the earliest I’ve ever seen that happen.  I sure hope the poor little tender buds don’t get frosted by some bizarre weather!  My lilac hedge is the crowning glory of our yard every spring and it usually bursts into bloom around the end of May.  It is so intoxicating to walk outside when it’s in bloom! The hedge wraps around three of the four sides of our property and when it’s blooming, you smell lilacs all through the house for weeks!

Yesterday, I was so busy, I hardly had time to think!  We had a really nice Chamber Coffee meeting early in the morning which Rob and I had to escape early from as we had a workshop at the Hampton on water wise planting of perennials and weed control that started before the coffee was over.  It was a great workshop and we learned a lot of great stuff about planting.  Because of our extremes in temperature here and our “microclimate”, it can be tough to get things to grow, even things that are supposed to come back every year.  This workshop focused on planting things that are native to this kind of weather.  I came away armed with all kinds of great information, including a nice list of plants that will survive our harsh environment here. Now, I really have the “bug” to start planting!  They did solve one of my biggest mysteries and made just that one tidbit of information worth the whole morning.  Our state flower is the Indian Paintbrush and it’s a beautiful flower.  I’ve been trying to grow it for years now and it always dies.  I found out yesterday that it’s a “sucker” plant, which means it likes to have another plant to latch onto to grow!  So, you are supposed to buy one that is growing alongside something else!  I’ve been trying all these years to grow it from seed, which I found out is almost impossible! So, maybe this year, I’ll finally have some success.

After the workshop, we had a nice lunch with Zack and Carol Ann at the local Chinese restaurant.  It seems everyone else in town had the same idea yesterday!  It was packed when we got there.  I’m so glad to see the restaurant doing well.  The new owners are really nice and their food is so much better than the last owner’s.  Tommy, the owner now, is a sweet chatterbox, although at times, he talks so fast with his Asian accent, I only catch half of what he’s saying.

Rob dropped me back at the house after lunch so I could spend some quality time with Miss Thistle. The poor dear was stuck in her kennel all morning because we were gone and she was not real happy about that. I made sure we got in a nice little walk around the neighborhood before I set to making my appetizers for happy hour. Of course, Thistle was more than happy to stay right with me while I was doing that!  She’s my chief pre-washer before things go in the dishwasher, you know. I’ve always wanted to name a dog Prewash but Rob won’t let me.

Thistle directing my cooking from the greatroom

I managed to finally get through to my GYN’s office and get scheduled for a biopsy, too. I had a bad pap result a couple of weeks ago and now we have to see what it means.  I’m a little worried as I had cervical cancer back in 1990.  Back then, they did a conization, where they try to remove the cancerous area, but at the time there were no clear borders so they ended up giving me a partial hysterectomy.  I haven’t had any further problems in 22 years until just now.  One of the big things they are finding with AIDS patients recently is that we are way more susceptible to all forms of cancer. You can probably see why I’m a little concerned.  Unfortunately, they are unable to do the procedure until after I get back from vacation. I was really hoping to be able to go off with this already resolved, but what are you going to do? I’m not panicking or anything, it’s just an uneasy feeling, if you know what I mean. I told Rob, I’ve fought off bigger, meaner cancer in the past, this little thing isn’t going to rattle me too much.

Happy hour last night was a whole lot of fun!  We had quite a nice crowd, including a few people that rarely get to join us.  Ray and Becca managed to find a babysitter so they came out for a bit and Jim and Breean’s mom was in town so they got their first “date night” since they’ve moved here and joined us for a bit before heading out for dinner.  If we didn’t solve all the world’s problem’s last night, I think we came pretty darn close.  Dawn showed us this magnificent body art she did on one of her pregnant friends that was just awesome.  Gosh, that woman is talented! One of these days, I’m going to hire her to do something on me, I think, if I can talk Rob into letting me do it.  I’d love to be a canvas, I think that’d be wild!  Dawn travels all over the country to do her work.

Well, not much else is happening at the moment.  Today is going to be an easy day of just puttering around and going on a little drive to see what we can photograph, I think. The meadowlarks are finally back so I imagine we’ll take a drive over to that little pond near the lake to see if any other birds have come back for the spring. I can’t wait for the pelicans and all the big birds to hit the pond.  The geese are sure back in full force, honking everywhere!

Have a wonderful weekend, folks!!

Friday frenzy!

View from the park, see that road on the right going to mtn? That's our roof you can see where the road seems to end!

Hallelujah and pass the peas, we made it to Friday! Gosh, yesterday was the most glorious day yet in the little burg of Buffalo, too!  My car thermometer actually registered 77 degrees at one point in the afternoon.  I spent as much time as absolutely possible outdoors, yesterday. I have to tell you this is the warmest March I’ve ever seen in the 14 years we’ve lived here.  There’s already a lot of talk in town, though, about the upcoming fire season, and what kind of impact this warm spring is going to have on our beautiful national forest. I keep reminding people that the water content up on the mountain is still good, and we aren’t out of the woods for snow for the spring yet, either.  It’s funny how we are so attuned to the weather here.  Of course, there’s bizarre warm weather all over the country this season.

Yesterday, I took Thistle along when I went to tan.  She’s become quite the little lady when I take her for drives now.  She sat patiently for the 15 minutes I was in Kris’, waiting in the driver’s seat, looking like she was going to be my chauffeur.  I can now completely trust her in the car.  It doesn’t hurt that all the ladies coming in and out, coo and stop to talk with her through the cracked window while she’s sitting there, of course.

After tanning, we headed over to Mtn Plains Heritage Park, which is only a couple of blocks from the house but can seem a world away because of the magnificent view.  There were already a bunch of people with their dogs there at 9:15 when we arrived.  It looked like I wasn’t the only one who was intent on taking full advantage of the beautiful day. I couldn’t believe how warm it was out there, and there wasn’t the usual wind whipping around the park.  It was just a beautiful, calm day!  As soon as we got out of the car, Thistle had to do her usual barking at the big bronze statue of the bison, which I find hilarious!  Every single time we go to the park, she’s convinced that bison is real.  Once again, we had to spend the first 5 minutes checking out the statue to make sure it wasn’t real.  Thistle, of course, starts off with her hackles all raised, circling closer and closer, until she finally realizes that dumb statue isn’t going to attack her. 

When we finally got moving on the trails, we ran into several people who had their dogs and of course, had to stop and talk, allowing all the dogs to meet.  Thistle just loves other dogs and that’s so awesome.  My last golden, Tumbleweed, really didn’t like other dogs and it was a constant problem when we would encounter others, as she really hated having her butt sniffed.  Thistle, on the other hand, thinks absolutely every dog should be her friend, and especially the little dogs.  So, for the first round of walking, we did more socializing than anything else.  Pretty soon, the other walkers all drifted back to their cars and we were alone on the park’s paths and that’s when we really started having fun.  I got Thistle running as much as I could so I could wear her out a little.  I was amazed how well my knee held up, too!  This morning it feels just fine.  Anyway, we ended up spending about 2 hours out at the park, enjoying the scenery, running our fool heads off and taking short breaks on the park’s covered benches. 

We got back home just in time to make lunch and I figured Thistle would be totally pooped out from all the exercise.  So, I made myself a nice cold sandwich, which I put on the dining room table and went back into the kitchen to make Rob’s lunch, which yesterday, was hot roast beef and sugar snap peas.  I was only gone from the dining room about 2-3 minutes.  As I come back into the dining room, I see that Thistle has grabbed my sandwich off the dining room table, eaten the whole thing, and all that’s left is a couple of pieces of lettuce on the floor! I was so mad but I was also laughing so hard, just from the thought of how fast she had to scarf that down.  So, we learned a new lesson yesterday…Thistle is now big enough to grab stuff off the table! At least it was something healthy and not something that would cause her harm.  She spent the next couple of hours sleeping off the sandwich, totally knocked out in a turkey stupor.

While she was sleeping off her feast in the kennel, I took off to visit Breean and her son, Wyatt. If you remember, Breean is the new co-planner’s wife, who just moved here from Basin.  She said they are getting more and more acclimated to Buffalo and really enjoying it.  She’s gotten a part-time job that will be starting in a month so we’ve still got some time to hang out together before that starts.  It was still such a beautiful day, we sat out on her back deck, almost sweating in the sunshine.

Football in the backyard!

When I got back to the house, Thistle was rousing from her comatose state and I took her out in the backyard for some play time with her football until Rob got home. All in all, it was just a perfect day! I even managed to get some medical appointments scheduled that I’ve been putting off. 

Today is going to be a really busy day.  We have our monthly Chamber of Commerce Coffee this morning at 7:30.  It’s early this month because we have a Chamber Small Business Expo next Friday and Saturday (we have a booth for that).  After the Chamber Coffee, Rob and I are signed up for a Small Acreage workshop that’s being sponsored by the Lake Desmet Conservation District.  That’s going on from 9-12 at the Hampton Inn.  We went last year to their workshop on trees, shrubs and bugs and really got a lot out of it.  This one is concentrating on water wise landscaping with perennials and weed identification and management.  It’s a constant battle here with the wildest assortment of weeds!

At 12:30, we’re meeting Zack, the City Planner and his wife, Carol Ann, for lunch at the local Chinese restaurant.  That’s always a hoot.  Because they have teenagers, we don’t get to socialize with them a whole lot, even though they are two of our favorite people, so we try to have lunch or dinner with them at least once a month.  They keep joking that it will only be a couple of more years before they get their own childhoods back when these last two kids go off into the world.  Carol Ann has 6 kids, so I know she’s looking forward to that day!

The afternoon, I pretty much have to myself but I need to spend that getting appetizers ready for happy hour this evening.  I think I told you that Rob is pre-diabetic so I have to make sure he has something to eat when we go out for cocktails.  Our table of friends has been getting larger and larger lately at the Moose, we’ve recruited quite a few friends for membership lately, so I have a lot of food to make.  Today I’m going to be making some little appetizers with fresh mozzarella balls, basil, and cherry tomatoes that were a hit a few weeks ago.  I also have some leftover sourdough bread I’m going to chunk up and make rosemary garlic toast with. Of course, for Rob’s meat addiction, there has to be a bunch of cut up sausages to go along with the whole shebang.  I found some great coppicollo , ham and  salami while I was shopping the other day.

Sometime in the afternoon, I have to find the time to take Thistle for a walk, because it’s supposed to be even nicer than yesterday!  Whew!  I think I’m really going to be ready for my weekly Captain Morgan by the end of the day, wouldn’t you say?

Another pretty view from the park

I hope you have a wonderful Friday and an even more special weekend.  If it’s nice, don’t spend it inside, get out there and enjoy nature!  Everything here is sprouting out buds like crazy!

playing with the earth....

Mr Elk who lives over at the Sheridan Wildlife park

A big, fat happy Thursday to everyone! Gosh, I can’t believe we are almost at the end of another week! I could swear I was just sitting here a minute ago talking about last weekend.  They say as you get older the time goes faster but sometimes, it’s a little ridiculous.  I was talking to some neighbor kids yesterday as they passed by on their way home from school, asking them about Easter break and they were telling me that Easter wasn’t until April 8^th and that they just didn’t know if they could make it that long!  I remember back when I was that age(the kids are around 7-8), holidays seemed to take forever to get here. Now, I’ve already starting planning for next Christmas because I know that sucker is gonna sneak up on me in a month if I’m not careful!

Anyway, I ‘m doing great this morning, as Tony the Tiger would say!  Whatever that weirdness I had the other day is all gone and I’m back to my old self, whew!  I’m still trying to figure out exactly what got into me Tuesday, if for no other reason than to avoid it again in the future.  After talking to a bunch of people, it seems it was a weird day all around.  I guess, though, you have to have a bad day every once in a while to remind you what good days feel like.

Yesterday morning, I finally got to try out a new exercise video that I’ve been waiting for in the mail.  I just absolutely love it!  Can you hear the singing in my voice?  I just have to share it with you in case you are like me and secretly hate all the exercise stuff you do.  I mean, I love my yoga, but really, all the other stuff I do, I do because I have to. This new dvd I got, I just happened to stumble on while reading my favorite online yoga magazine called the “Elephant Journal”.  If you’ve never run across the journal, I highly recommend it.  I’ve been reading it for years and it’s chocked full of all kinds of neat stuff.  They seem to be always ahead of things in their articles.  Anyway, this dvd is about a concept in exercise called “Nia”.  Evidently, it’s been around since 1983 but I had never heard of it.

Nia is a “love your body workout”, an expressive movement practice that results in holistic fitness, personal growth and lifestyle change for your body, mind and spirit, according to the jacket.  It takes its concepts and dance movements from India. It is really just the coolest thing I’ve done in quite a while.  Instead of making you follow certain steps, it’s more of a free form, flowing thing where the instructors just “guide” you with what to do with your body.  There’s a lot of swaying and shaking and dipping and just plain old free form dancing you do with this.  At the end, instead of a “cool down exercise” on the floor, they do what’s called “playing with the earth”. You get down on the floor and just move around however you want, stretching what feels good, rolling around, etc.  I have never been good at instructional stuff.  I really suck at things like step classes where you have to know a certain routine or those choreographed cardio classes.  This one, though, you just go to the beat of your own drum.  I gotta tell you, at the end of the video, I was sweating like a big dog!  Since the dvd encourages you to do your own thing, you can’t get bored with it, either, which is another of my problems. Best of all, it’s 120 minutes, so you can do as little or as much as you have time for each day!  I found myself “Nia dancing” the whole rest of the day, too…just floating through my day! In case you look it up, I found it at www.nianow.com and the best dvd to start with is called “Global Unity”.  Interesting name for an exercise video, eh?

After exercising, I had to stop in on my good friends, Jim and Karen, because I saw from a post by their daughter on FB that they lost their dear dog, Rex, the other morning.  Rex was an awesome older dog but he’s been having health problems for a while now.  He had just been diagnosed with hepatitis right after they returned from their vacation a few weeks ago and it was touch and go, even then.  His poor lungs filled up with fluid and just as they were trying to make that awful decision of whether to take him to the vet to let him out of his misery, he took the decision out of their hands.  We had a nice big, wet, hugging session together and I spent most of the morning with them. Duchess, their other dog, looks very bewildered as I don’t think she’s ever been without Rex, either.  While they were on vacation, Rob and I had been out on one of our full moon photo shoots in the wee hours of the morning and he got a beautiful shot of the full moon in the dark behind the motel and cabins that they own. I brought that to them yesterday and they really liked it.  You can even see stars really bright in the photo.  Karen says she’s going to hang it in the motel office.  They have quite a few of Rob’s photos adorning the walls of their cabins for the guests.

Yesterday afternoon was another run to Sheridan for more of my blasted prescriptions and to pick up a few groceries.  It was such a glorious day, though, the mountains were shining and reflecting the sun so brightly the whole way there.  I really don’t mind that drive most of the time because of the gorgeous scenery.  We joke around here that we could do our nails or write a letter on I-90 while we’re driving because of the lack of traffic, too.  The only time it gets busy is in the middle of summer when all the RV’s and traveling tourists are in the area.  The rest of the time, if I run into 6 or 7 cars the whole 35 miles, that’s a lot.  Sure not like the rest of I-90, eh? With the 75 mph speed limit, it only takes me about 20-25 minutes to get to Sheridan.  Not much different than going 5 miles back east in traffic. Of course, yesterday, all the fields were filled with brand new calves, bucking their little legs all over the place.  Gosh, those new little guys just make me smile! One sad note, the eagles seem to have left for the year, again.  Usually, in winter, I see lots of baldies on the drive but yesterday, I didn’t see a single one.  Every time I thought I did, it was a hawk or a raven.  So funny, I went to a high school back east called Loch Raven and never saw a raven, here they are like robins, you see them everywhere! They sure are big fellers, too!

Mtn Plains Heritage park at sunrise

Today’s a pretty easy day, so far.  I’ve got my usual tanning this morning after I do my Nia workout.  I think Thistle and I will see what trail looks interesting for hiking this afternoon.  If the wind is cooperative, I think we’ll head over to Mtn Plains Heritage Park.  The mountains are still really covered in snow from that dump and cold spell we had the other day so I’m better off out on the plains.  The trail over there has one of the best views of town and the mountains.

I hope you have a lovely day planned and if you are stuck in an office or something, you can make your own haven in your mind, at least.  Friday’s coming fast!!

stranger than friction....

The Waxwings are back!!

How is everyone today?  I hope you are doing well!  I had the strangest day (for me) yesterday and I’m still trying to put some sense into it.  You ever have one of the days where everything goes just a little wonky and you can’t put your finger on why? It’s almost like the Creator sticks his thumb on your life and makes it tilt in a direction you don’t want. I had a day like that yesterday.

Everything started off just fine.  Rob and I had a nice chat in the morning before he went to work, excitedly talking about all sorts of upcoming things.  I got my exercise in for the day before I went to see Carmen for my massage because I wanted to make sure that if I was gonna pull a muscle during my routine, I should do it BEFORE I saw her, right?  Well, that all went smoothly, no surprises there.

At Carmen’s we decided to start on my legs this time, after I explained to her about Joey working on my shoulders and giving me all those exercises to help strengthen those little muscles.  Gosh, Carmen has magic hands, she really got my legs all straightened out!  It was toward the end of our session and Carmen was doing some energy work on me and that’s when  all the weirdness started happening.  She was concentrating on one side of me and we could both feel the energy flowing and then all of a sudden, Carmen’s hands flew off me!  She asked me if I felt something unusual and I said yes, it felt different from the other side.  She told me that I had some built up anger somewhere and she was feeling it really strongly! So, after a few minutes discussion about what it might be, she went back and said it seemed to be better just by me acknowledging it.  So, we finished up the session and I was feeling pretty darn good, even humming to myself as I went back to the car.

But, for some reason, for the rest of the morning, I couldn’t get warm.  You ever have one of those days?  The weather was starting to moderate back into the 50’s and the sun was shining, but no matter what I did, I felt cold.  I actually started thinking I was coming down with something.  Shortly after that, Rob called and asked if I’d like to go to Pizza Hut for lunch.  Now, I love going there because I’m a salad freak and they have a great salad.  We always go early, before they let the kids from the high school out for lunch at noon, as they are like a swarm of bees on the pizza buffet!  Well, we got there at 11:15 and they must have changed the schedule for the kids because it was packed with the little munchers!  Poor Rob, every time they’d bring out a pizza, those kids would swarm it and there’d be nothing left but the pan.  Finally, they got enough and Rob was able to get his pizza.  I’m glad I don’t eat that stuff, apparently salad is not high on the adolescent hit list as there was no fight for the lettuce!

Eating lunch did nothing to stoke my inner fire, I just got to feeling even colder. As Rob was dropping me off back at the house, friend Ginnie called and asked me if I’d like to take a drive in her fun little beater truck (not her regular vehicle) out to Klondike Ranch to see how all the baby calves were doing.  I explained that I was really cold and I just didn’t think riding in that little truck was sounding like a fun time at the moment.  She suggested I try warming up in my little portable infrared sauna, which, of course, I hadn’t even thought of.  So, that’s exactly what I did.  That did help warm me up as the sauna gets up to 130 degrees.  But the minute I got out of it, I was cold again. So, I grabbed my blanket and snuggled into my recliner and took a nice nap for most of the afternoon.

When I woke up at around 4 p.m., having had almost a three hour nap, I actually felt worse than when I went to sleep.  Rut ro, I kept thinking to myself, I must be coming down with something! Not only that, I felt angry!  You ever do that?  Just wake up mad? Now, I’ve done that on occasion, but I usually have a good reason.  Yesterday, however, I had no reason whatsoever to be feeling that way.  Playing with Thistle didn’t help, either.  It was almost like someone else had taken over, like it wasn’t me.  Rob came home and I told him that I was feeling this way and that I apologize in advance for any curt remarks I might make.  Of course, everything continued to conspire against me for the evening, even! 

I had just cleaned the barbeque grill last week so I decided to make Rob a nice ribeye on the grill for dinner.  I went out and preheated the grill and came back 15 minutes later and the temp had only gone up to 300 degrees.  What?  We fiddled and looked and fiddled some more, the gas was fine, full as a tick, the jets were clear…. Ugh!  I ended up having to finish his steak on the stove, which just added to my lovely mood! Rob likes his steak well done so I practically have to ruin a pan if I do it inside.  So, we got through dinner (mine was leftover Chinese veggies from the weekend) despite all the crap I had to go through. 

So, for the rest of the evening, I just sat and did Reiki on myself while Rob and I watched television and he went back and forth to work on websites during commercials.  Rob was very understanding about my mood, although puzzled.  You see, I’m a really happy person and this just wasn’t like me.

We finally went to bed and I was sure that this was the end of a bad day, just chalk this one up for the record books.  No, not so fast, lady!  About 1:30 this morning, dear little Thistle decided to hork on the bed!  THAT was the crowning of the long day!  Not only that, but as I was going to get a towel to clean it up, I returned and she was eating it! Yuck, yuck, yuck!!! She’s fine, of course.  Dogs hork like we cough, unfortunately.  I had just washed the bedspread this weekend, of course and will now have to do it again.

Thistle the horker

So, I’m hoping that I’m over whatever that was yesterday.  I feel fine this morning.  I don’t feel angry or sad or anything. I actually woke up with a song in my head again, so that’s good.  I have no idea what could have triggered all that meaness in me.  I’m just glad I recognized it and stayed away from people.

Today is supposed to be gorgeous weather again.  I think first thing, Thistle and I are going to go for a nice long walk and drop in on some friends down the street on our way back.  Just in case I have any lingering madness, that should push it right out the backdoor of my brain, right?  Whew, maybe I was just making way for spring, clearing out the cobwebs of winter, I don’t know.  Thanks for listening……Let’s all have an awesome day, shall we?

Spring equinox....

Spring Sunrise!

Good morning, my fine friends!  Today is the Spring equinox!  Most of you are probably thinking it’s a day early as it usually falls on March 21^st and you’d be right.  This year, thanks to it being a leap year, it falls early on March 20^th, instead.  I’m practically giddy that we can now say it’s spring!  Yesterday was quite a wild weather day here in old Buffalo, I tell ya.  It started off a bit gloomy and then began spitting a mixture of rain and snow, which later turned to all snow throughout the day.  It was that big, fluffy, wet spring snow that blanketed the lawns and the mountains but really didn’t mess up the streets much at all. I persevered and wore Capri pants, despite the darn snow. I don’t think my sneakers appreciated it but, oh well! I did have to break down and light the woodstove yesterday to get the chill out of the house

So, we got through yesterday’s messy weather and today we’re supposed to start seeing major improvement again.  I told you that snow yesterday was just to soak the manure in the garden and that’s just what it did.  Well, it also left a beautiful white covering on the mountain foothills. That will probably be gone by this afternoon as it’s supposed to get back up into the high 50’s, at least. 

I had a great session with Joey, my physical therapist, yesterday. He gave me some new exercises to help strengthen my neck some more and praised me on doing the ones he had already showed me.  One of the things we concentrated on was proper form for the exercising I already do at home.  Seems I have been doing a little bad posturing when swinging my kettlebell around and he thinks that may be contributing to some of my neck pain. So, all in all, it was very productive.  After I left him, I went home and tried out all the stuff he taught me, while trying to keep Thistle from getting in the way.  She was a bit riled up yesterday as it was just too soupy out to go for a walk and it never got above 35 degrees.  So, there was a lot of house playing going on for us, instead.

Today, I have my bi-weekly appointment with Carmen at Spirited Hands Massage.  I think that we may actually get past my shoulders this time, thanks to Joey! For the first time in a long time, I don’t have massive knots in my shoulders that usually take up our entire hour. Maybe we can actually work on my hips and legs today.

Yesterday I also stopped off at Artful Hands, which is an art and consignment store downtown and dropped off two huge bags of spring and summer clothes I no longer wear.  I did that thing this past year where you put all your hangers in the opposite direction and if you don’t wear it for a year…get rid of it.  I have to confess I am a clothes horse but I am a frugal one.  I just love shopping second hand, it’s sort of a game for me.  Artful Hands lets me just use whatever I’ve made there as a credit and I just love that, so I came home with 5 new tops.  Now that’s what I call recycling! I have lost a lot of weight over the winter so it was fun to get some new clothes. I swear, I can’t figure it out, though.  I weigh less now than I ever did in high school but it sure doesn’t sit the same way, no matter how much I exercise.  I used to have a great hourglass figure, now I have almost no butt to speak of.

Anyway, there’s not much going on around here today.  That’s a good thing, I guess, all in all. I have to get my rear over to Sheridan at some point this week to pick up my prescriptions but I’m putting it off as long as I can.  I guess if nothing pops up this afternoon, I’ll pile Miss Thistle in the car and we’ll shoot over there.  It never fails that those darn rx’s are ready right after I’ve been over there.  I have them on auto refill and of course, never keep track.

I’ve been messaging back and forth with my Aunt Becca about the trip to go see them for my birthday.  We’re all so excited that we get to see each other!  Becca is a long distance owner/operator trucker with her husband and we’ve seen each other twice (very briefly) when they’ve come through Buffalo on their runs but we haven’t had a good visit in ages.  As you can imagine, we are getting a little giddy about the prospect of spending some real quality time together.  Becca is also a writer and a darn good one. I adore her husband, as well.  I haven’t seen her boys since they were quite young, although I am friends with them on facebook.  Both seem to have turned into quite intelligent young men.  Mack, her older son, will have moved to NC by the time we get there, so I probably won’t see him but Zander is still living at home and I look forward to talking with him.  He’s become quite the prolific poet.

Western Tananger - saw one of these guys yesterday!

Well, I won’t bore you any further today.  I’m going to go hit the coffeepot and see what mischief I can get into before Rob gets up.  Have a beautiful day, today.  We made it to the official first day of Spring!

Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love! ~Sitting Bull

monday is popping up again!

Oh my, Monday sure came around quick again! Good morning, everyone!  I hope you had a lovely, productive weekend, as Rob and I surely did.  Stepping out on the back deck this morning for my greeting to the mountains, I caught a good whiff of the lovely, fresh manure Rob blanketed on the garden yesterday.  That’ll sure get your senses going in the morning! It took Rob yesterday and last Sunday to get enough to cover the whole thing, our veggie garden being the size that it is.  Today we’re supposed to have a mix of rain and snow and that will be just perfect to get that manure soaking into the garden.

We actually have kale coming up already in the garden, too. Rob says there should be some ready for eating in a few weeks! I just love that stuff and it’s so good for you. I used to hate it when I was a kid as they used to serve it in elementary school in the South but I learned that the reason I disliked it so much was that they chopped it up, stems and all when cooking it.  You have to remove the bitter stems and it tastes just like spinach, only it doesn’t get all mushy like spinach does. Now, it’s a staple in our house when it’s growing, which is all but the depths of winter.  It’s actually a perennial vegetable!  The first year we planted it, we did a whole row and Lordy, that was way too much! I found out that year that not too many people had ever eaten it, only seeing it as garnish in restaurants.  But, that was the year I found out you can grind it up and freeze it (I hate to waste food) and I found this awesome recipe for Kale pesto that I used the ground kale for.  I hope the cops never look in my freezer, because it looks funny with all the baggies of ground kale in there! They’d be in for a surprise when they got it down to their lab and opened it and smelled the distinct odor of garlic emanating from the baggies! I’ve already had a few friends do a double take when looking for something in my big freezer.

The garden last year!

Anyway, as you can tell, I’m starting to get really excited about spring.  We are supposed to have just today and tomorrow that’s a little nasty and then we’re to return to the glory of 60’s and 70’s for the remainder of the 10 day forecast.  Since we cleared the front gardens, things are really sprouting now, I guess they just needed a little sunshine to get motivated.  Last year, we had hollyhocks mysteriously appear in our garden and this year, I’ve been having to pull little ones all over the place.  Don’t get me wrong, I really like them but they need to stay in the back of the garden if they want to stay!  Hollyhocks are very pretty but they are an invasive plant and will take over your garden. Not only that, they get about 8 feet tall.

Today is my usual tanning day.  That’s first thing this morning, after which I’m going to have to stop by Gin’s house and see how the festivities out at the Lake turned out over the weekend. This afternoon, I have my second physical therapy appointment with Joey about my neck.  I have been faithfully doing the exercises he showed me how to do and by gosh, I think they are really helping!  He’s had me doing very subtle exercises where you push very lightly on the front, back and sides of your head, just enough to exert pressure, to strengthen the deeper muscles of your neck.  He says we use the big muscles to hold up our heads instead of these smaller ones and those are the ones I need to strengthen.  I feel a little like Mr. Spock when I do them, because you only use two fingers and I’m glad no one’s around when I’m doing them. But, heck, whatever works, right?

The other big thing Rob and I did over the weekend was to plan our trip to see my relatives in Alabama in May.  It was supposed to be for a memorial for my Great Aunt Becky, which we are still planning to do in a fashion, but it’s not looking like her daughters will be joining us.  I am really excited about this trip as I haven’t seen some of my family in decades.  I think the last time I was in Alabama was 1993, when my mom and I did a trek through the south, researching and looking up family records and dropping in on family.  That was also the year my birth father died and I just happened to be a state away and was able to be with him to say goodbye in North Carolina.  So, this is gonna be a lot of fun!  We are going to stop in on our friends, Denny and Paula, who live in Oklahoma on the way down and back, as well.  They used to own one of the motels here in Buffalo and they still come back frequently for visits as they have property over in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We arranged the trip so that I’ll be spending my birthday with my aunt and uncle in Huntsville!  Becca, my aunt, is working on getting my uncle Kip and my cousin, Chuck, to maybe drop in while I’m there, too.  Kip lives in Georgia and Chuck lives in North Carolina.  It’s been so long since I’ve seen Chuck, I don’t think I’ve ever met his son, Chip, who I believe is in his middle 20’s, at least. Kip had come for a visit with his family back when we lived in Manchester, but his boys were very young at the time.

Visit to Denny and Paula's a couple of years ago, Paula is the redhead.

It’s crazy how far apart families can get as we are trying to sort out our own lives.  Becca, Kip and I were pretty darn close when we were little kids, as we are close in age. I think I told you my grandparents had two sets of kids, practically.  When my mom and Uncle Charlie were practically old enough to leave home ( well, mom was 15, and Charlie was older), Nana had Becca and Kip.  Just a couple of years later, at age 20, Mom had me.  So, Becca is only 6 years older than me and the same age as Rob and Kip is 4 years older than me.  Then, when Mom decided to move from California to Maryland, we moved in with my Uncle Charlie and Aunt Dot in Kingville, MD for almost a year until we got our own place, so Chuck, Rick and I were pretty close for a while, too. I doubt that Rick will be able to make the trip to Alabama as he lives in MD, still, but we’re going to be there in August for my mom’s 75^th birthday, so hopefully, I’ll see him and his family then.

Being an only child, these offshoots of my family are very important to me.  Sometimes, I regret not keeping closer in touch over the years, we all do.  But, life got in the way and I’m just happy we’re all getting back in touch with each other now. They all have great kids and have been busy raising them and now, we have all raised our children into fine young adults and it’s time to reconnect! I have a feeling there won’t be much sleeping going on in the Burke house while I’m there, as we have so much story telling to do and catching up will be our highest priority.  Can you tell I’m excited?

Well, it’s Monday and there’s lots to be done before I head out into the town to do my errands.  I hope you have a wonderful day planned, too!