Days of Leisure

Well, we had our 3 day weekend (Sun - Tues), but no transportation so had a quiet couple days around the house. We did get our first "visitor" - our pastor from church came last night & had pie & coffee. That was cool. We also got TONS done. Lots of cleaning & other little projects. I worked on Luke's quilt too. Jeff went for a walk today in the snow.
Last Sunday, we took a walk also, those are the pics at the bottom of Sage (our snow Loch-ness dog). She loves to get off the trail, but the snow's really deep, so she kind of does this lunge & sink move to get anywhere.
The third pic is Ben in the sled behind the snowgo the same day. That's how we got to the trail we used.
And, the first two were taken today. Winter has returned for another visit - with a vengeance! We got a fair amount of snow overnight, as the first pic shows, the 2nd one I just took in the middle of a blizzard that has blown in. Don't know if you can tell in the pic but it is REALLY blowing out there. Our boss took off for his nightly ski not too long ago.. wonder how he's enjoying it? Probably as much as he enjoyed his adventure on Sunday. He & a friend left early in the a.m., on a snowgo (pulling the friend on his ski's) to go x-country skiing up higher. Somehow they ended up WAY east - in Ennis! He had to call his wife to come get him at 9pm! We haven't heard that whole story yet... :)

Well, power went out as I was finishing this up last night, so am getting it posted today. We had a very quiet & dark evening. Read till the light went, then Jeff played his harmonica while, then we played a game by lantern & hit the hay early. That's about it for updates for now... everyone take care!

Life Lessons Learned from my Log home

1. Build up a firm foundation to stand on.
In your life, you want to have something solid to stand on while working on the rest of your life. If you have a rickety stool when you start to clean your beams, you can fall.

2. Plan to get dirty.
Life is messy. You should wear clothes that can get dirty, don't use good dish towels for cleaning cloths, wear eye protection and figure that you'll need to clean up later. Dust falls DOWN.. into your eyes, onto your just-swept floor.

3. Keeping your life from becoming a wreck will take constant maintenance.
Once you get one beam polished with your Old English, the wall next to it will show the dust. Once you get that wall done, the door appears drab. Do the door, the floor will require mopping.

4. There will ALWAYS be residue.
If you let an area of life get too dirty, it'll ALWAYS show residue even after it's cleaned up. So will your hands from cleaning it - oil is HARD to get off!

5. Don't expect someone else to clean up your messes.
Especially if they're 14-yr old boys. They miss spots.

6. Don't expect your whole life to be perfect.
You can clean for DAYS (or years) and never have everything perfect at once. You need to enjoy a relatively clean "room" and let the rest go.

"My home is clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy!"

Here are some pics from our Rockin' Friday night: Jeff playing harmonica, Ben working on a science project report, Josie sporting her sweet new purple bandana I just sewed, and also Josie peeking through the bars again!

The Weekend

Well, once again I've been organizing. And, asking myself "How many office supplies does one person need?" I unpacked at least 6 boxes of paper, labels, files, folders, paper clips, pens/pencils/markers, envelopes of various sizes & color, blank CD's & empty jewel cases & cd envelopes, notebooks (oh LORD the notebooks!) and assorted other ... stuff. Do you know that I probably have 300 writing instruments? And, of course, I made Ben go through & test every one to make sure it still worked. Drives me NUTS when I pick up a pen & it doesn't write! Or a marker and it's dry... grrr. The crazy thing about this much office stuff, is that I sold or gave away at least this much before we moved out of OR!! On the bright side, living as far away from a source of such items as we do, Bendigo has NO excuse to not complete school assignments! We always have the things he needs to finish them!

Oh! And good news! I'd finally given up ever finding the tax returns I'd prepared for OR, MT & ID & started doing new ones. After I'd gotten started on those, I thought "I'm going to look ONE more time & see if I can find those".. and lo and behold they were right where I'd put them (and where I had looked THREE other times). So, while a little frustrating, I was VERY happy that I didn't have to redo them! So, those are off in the mail yesterday too!

Today, after church, Ben & Jeff hiked to the top of Lincoln peak, which is the peak we see out our window. Here are a couple pictures they took from the top, including the panoramic and also a couple from the walk Jeff & I took yesterday in the snow (we finally got some more! But it all melted today :( )

Facebook (2)

Read a GREAT article in Real Simple last night (well, not great as in literary genius, but great as in "I totally get that!"). It was all about Facebook and the ambivalence so many of us feel towards it. According to the author (Susan Dominus) "A force for socializing like no other, Facebook is a great game of six degrees of separation; a virtual, ever changing map of one's interlocking worlds; or a visual, highly annotated Rolodex that's available to select people in your life. Only on FB is friend a technical term: Confirm that someone is a friend and the site may announce that relationship to everyone else you've already listed as a friend."

Later in the article, she goes one to say "It's not just the time demands of the site that can be taxing; it's also the complexities of online social mixing - which, in contrast to regular daily life, involves mysterious sets of protocol and frequent overtures from unlikely sources. At it's most unnerving, FB feels like a crowded, never-ending cocktail party, one where you might find a tormentor from junior hihg, a blind date from your 20's, and your boss's boss all comparing ntoes - possibly with each other - on the photos you posted today from your 40th-birthday party last night." (Btw.. did I mention that when I joined FB, it suggested a guy I went all the way through school (kindegarten to senior year) with? And we did NOT get along even though our mother's thought we should? No WAY I'm adding him!!)

"Those kinds of social juxtapositions can make you giddy. (Isn't that whats' great about having a wedding, the chance to see all those different worlds collide?) But the constancy of those collisions - uncontrolled by seating arrangements, unlimited by the size of a catering hall - can also be uncomforable, even baffling."

The author goes on to relate a story about a friend of hers (using a fictional name for privacy). " recently accepted a friend request from someone she hadn't seen since the 6th grade and found herself plunged into the social anxiety she had experienced at that age. Suddenly she had access to the online conversation of her classmates. How was it that everyone seemed to have stayed in such close touch? Why were they ignoring her comments? Why were they making fun of the fact that they had sung "The Rainbow Connection" at graduation, a memory Joanna had always considered sweet and lovely? 'My memories are being invaded by other people's memories' ". And, again, relating to this - my high school classmates seem to have stayed in close touch, but I don't even remember a lot of them! They keep talking like I should have these fantastic memories of our time together... maybe I have early-onset alzheimers? BUT... occassionally, there is a redeeming moment - like today when one of them posted a link that plays a song we sang in Concert Choir in 1984.. I didn't even know such a recording existed!

"The past is no longer distant and blurry, a source for vague wonder and speculation..... on FB, practically every chapter of one's life that has ended, for better or for worse, may be reiissued with its own epilogue. Beautifully loose ends can be tied up, without warning, into something finite and sure. It makes you wonder: Whatever happended to...whatever happened to?"

Granted, the author goes on to note that "For some people, it's that time-traveling component that makes the site worthwhie". We can go back & take part in those past areas of our lives that made us feel alive - vibrant discussions of politics, "arcane pop-culture trivia". And, of course, it allows us to stay in touch w/ friends & relatives on a more intimate scale - especially when the live long distances away or we have very busy lives - than if we tried to use mail or email alone.

The article was much longer and move involved that I've shown here, but I found it timely and pertinent (which is kind of funny, since I just joined FB but just got around to reading this article from the April 2009 issue - basically it's a year old!) So, anywho, thought I'd share that here, since one of the limitations to FB is the ability to ramble as long as you want! :) In my blog, I have no limitations!

Junk Drawers

And No, I don't mean the one I carry around behind me! So.. I know you all have junk drawers... how long has it been since you totally organized it? Ok, I know that is kind of defeating the purpose of and the essential meaning of and the quintessential place-in-the-universe-of a "junk drawer". But, this IS me we're discussing here. I just can't STAND the idea of stuff just being thrown in a drawer with no order or arrangement! So, I unpacked our "junk drawer" box today and organized it as I put it away (it actually was organized and arranged the last time it was moved also- but moving and boxes are hard on organization). And found an amazing - and disconcerting - number of totally useless and outdated items. But, of course, those were totally offset by the items that make you exclaim "Hey! I needed one of those!" or "I wondered where that went!"

And, organizing a junk drawer also raises the question of what should actually be IN a junk drawer. I mean... should it truly be "junk" and "junk" by whose definition? Or, should it be a "Useful" drawer? Or.. a "this totally has NO other location this could call home" drawer? I mean... do you keep all the little tools you use around the house in the junk drawer (I especially like my flower-decorated set of pliers, tape measure, box knife, etc). Do you keep your batteries in it? How about electrical cords? Post it notes? Rubber bands, paper clips, nails, screws, string, air freshener, padlocks, pencils, mints, old keys, your "handyman's useful tips" book, dog brush, double-sided tape, a deck of cards, outdated coupons, old notes.. shall I continue? Yes, all of that and MORE - WAY more was in my junk drawer box.

Well, beyond my attacking the junk in my life (HAH! I WISH!) I cleaned the laundry room, did my full days work for the ranch, washed & folded clothes, made dinner (pork chops & scalloped potatoes)... it was a VERY productive day!

The boss leaves tomorrow for their spring break vacation. Jeff and I were kind of laughing because we don't really mind when he's around - he's easy to get along with, doesn't hover or micromanage or any of that - but it is still kind of relaxing when they're gone. Not that we plan on slacking off or anything, but it's just a different feeling to have the place to yourself!

Btw.. here's a pic of Mom that we took during our trip up there last week. She always scolds me when I take her pic, but it's not like she can run away! It was SUCH nice weather that day & so we forced the doors & went out into the courtyard for a bit. (The doors are not "plugged in" during the winter so residents can't wander out there, so you have to pull them open). The red sweater was one I'd taken up to her that day. Also, there's a pic of the dogs cuddling in the car, of Josie peeking down from the loft (she likes to be where she can keep an eye on everyone) and of bison down at the range in Arlee.

Peeping Mooses

Well, was awoke early today by Josie's baying at a Moose - that was literally looking in the bedroom window. You could have reached out & touched her! Josie does NOT like those mooses sneaking up on her like that! Of course - that's probably what some poor moose or elk or bear or deer or who-knows-what, was thinking when the mail bag landed on their head last week. According to the local P.O. and the Bozeman Chronicle, a cargo door opened in-flight during a mail flight from Bozeman to... somewhere I can't remember. So, if your 1st class or Priority mail doesn't show up - it could very well be in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, which is the location over which the bag was lost.

Our boss (Kim) told Jeff last week that Bendigo will make a very good old man... he meant it as a compliment apparently, but we had to laugh. It was a very on-spot comment.

We continue to work on getting settled in. Still more boxes to unload, but still stuff missing too. Sure hope it's in Richland! Warm temps here during the day (up in the upper 40's usually) but still cold at night. Sure could use some more moisture soon though!

Well, back to work & gotta get out & enjoy a little sunshine too! More later!

Moving In

Well, we finally have (most) all of our stuff here - except the storage unit in Richland and the boxes I seem to be missing. I think there are moving gremlins - just like sock gremlins in your dryer. Somehow I'm missing at least 1 kitchen box... an important one! It had our coffee maker, toaster, cookie sheets, etc., in it. And I also am missing silverware and who knows what else! Where the heck does it go? I mean... I'm quite certain that all that is in the Richland unit is stuff from our storage shed out back when we moved.. NOT kitchen stuff. And we have everything from the storage unit in Salmon (kinda hard to miss a box in those things).. and relatively confident it never went to Kalispell, but that we got eveything from there also (except of course a red duffel bag and our BBQ). Wierd.. wonder what else I'm missing?

My "Miss America 1952" picture made it, though (Thanks SO much Gordon!) I wonder if the Gremlins will trade my kitchen stuff in exchange for the picture?

This last trip was not entirely uneventful... car issues. But, what's new with us? I swear we have the WORST time w/ automobiles! I'll fill in the whole story later, but the bottom line is that we have to get a new engine for our new vehicle - UGH. Anyone up to replacing our engine in exchange for a Dude Ranch trip? Anyone? Anyone? :)

Well, more later. Gotta unpack MORE boxes.