Can't God just waive a wand?

So, we've been here at our new jobs for a couple weeks now... 24 days to be exact.. but who's counting? You may be wondering how things are going... or you may not, but I'll tell you anyway. As a couple, we're enjoying the rural atmosphere and the opportunity to make new friends & get involved in a small community again. We believe we've found a church that we really like, and plan on joining. (We're headed to the Christmas party there tonight). We're checking out the local restaurants and have already found one or two that will be regular stops. We've gone to Montrose (Mont-rosse, like "gross" without the "g", emphasis on "Mont") where we ate at a great pub, did Christmas shopping and enjoyed a great mexican meal. Individually? Jeff is doing AWESOME.. he's reveling in his new position and has gotten TONS accomplished already, that had been let go/ignored for awhile. I have NO doubt that he's going to quickly become one of the most valuable people on the ranch. He's VERY busy with a lot of "desk work" at the moment as well, which he enjoys less, but that he's also glad he can just do and not be reliant on someone else to make decisions. He's got a lot of changes in mind for not only policies/procedures in the maintenance dept, but also in the horse program. So, that requires a lot of planning and typing and thinking. :) Me? Hmm... how to answer. I'm kind of up in the air at the moment. I'm tentatively "Head of Housekeeping", but that will not be decided for certain until the new General Manager of Hospitality arrives the first part of Jan. So, I'm working in that role for the moment, but it's hard to get too settled in when I know that things may change later. The bigger issue, is my place overall in the ranch... I've just come to the epiphany that my problem is that I haven't had to come into an established staff as the new person, in many years. Jeff and I have been hired to manage staff or supervise or whatever, and then staff was hired later, ever since we left Washington (and even before that for me). So, here I am, coming into a staff that is established, and NOT as the manager of their area. I don't really mind not being in charge - I just don't know HOW to not be in charge. So, I feel like I'm walking on egg shells trying to be considerate and not step on toes. But, it doesn't help that the owner was told, by one of my references, that I "like to be in charge" and other similar things... so every move I make or anything I say, is looked at by him as me trying to take over. Even when I'm just doing something that I was TOLD to do by someone else, he thinks I just decided to do it on my own. I've also discovered that, as nice as these owners are, they have the same way of dealing w/ staff that other very well-to-do people I've met, do. That is, they just want to tell you what they want, or what they think, and don't really want to hear your thoughts or reasons or whatever. Just nod and agree. And, anyone who knows me, knows how hard that is for me! So, when I asked to learn more humility, I guess I thought that God could just waive his wand and it would be easy. I HATE it when it actually takes work (like losing weight) and time and pain. I keep thinking about different people I've met or stories I've heard, about people who were very important in their own countries / professions, and then were either forcibly exiled or chose to re-locate, and ended up working "menial" jobs but with great attitudes. If they can do that... then what the heck is my problem? Pride.. that's my problem, and I know it. So begins my new schooling. Pray for me!

New Job

Well, Jeff really got thrown into the middle of work right off the bat. Not only are there few, if any, tools - most of what IS here isn't in working order. There's tools for welding, but no acetyline or oxygen for gas welding; there's only one piece of "equipment", which is a broken down skid steer; of the 2 ranch pickups, one needs repaired & the other has hub issues. He's had to fix the owner's radiant heat and there's also a major sewer backup as of tonight (yes, the night before Thanksgiving, just after all the friends & family arrive for the holiday). We have the next 2 days off, we'll work Sat & then be off on Sunday & Monday so we can run Ben to Denver to fly out. We've gotten a post office box & our next stop is to open a bank account.

First Day of Work

Yesterday, we had our 1st meeting as employees, with the owners. They explained a lot of the history of different people on the ranch, whose names we had heard. We also discussed the owners vision of the ranch, and in general, how he sees that being implemented going forward. There is a LOT for Jeff, especially, to do & get a handle on. There really has not been any true/efficient management in awhile. They had "managers" last summer, but they apparently didn't really "manage" much. So, there are NO records for anything (vehicles, stock, maintenance,lots etc.), no horse registry/roster, no job descriptions, no policy/procedures, etc. Much of the actual hands-on maintenance has not been performed in awhile either, so Jeff will also have to jump right in so that he can get the snow-removal equipment running & other winter-related tasks. SO.. there is the "vision" sort of planning & implementing to do, as well as the day-to-day management tasks that have been lost in the struggle recently. The staff that is still here (only 5 or 6) are SAYING that they're glad to have managers again, but we'll see how long that lasts. They admit that there hasn't been any instruction/direction/oversight for some time, and that can be a hard thing to accept when you've had free rein for so long. As for me? At the moment, I don't have any real specific work. I'll help out where needed, probably in the office for the next month or so. Once the other manager arrives in Jan, she & I can work out where she wants me - probably head of housekeeping and then helping in other areas as needed. For now, I'm mostly still at home, unpacking & getting settled. Here's a few pics from our house:

Saga, part 2

So, we slept in until nearly 10am on Saturday a.m., and then had a lovely breakfast at the hotel restaurant. When we arrived at the fairgrounds, around 11:30, Jasmine was glad to see us and drank some more water before she jumped right in the trailer to continue on. I was worried she'd be difficult to load again after the problems the day before and the long trailer ride but she just seemed eager to get to going. Driving the Expedition with the horse trailer on it, was a little nerve wracking, as we were loaded quite heavy so it was a kind squirrely. Especially when getting passed by a semi or in areas of wind. We did hit rain & snow between Price & Grand Junction, but nothing too bad. Once we got thru GJ, and headed on the last stretch to the ranch, we hit really heavy fog the last 15 or so miles. But, made it thru fine & arrived at the ranch around 6pm. In our new house were 2 cute little "Welcome" baskets with nuts, juice, coke, tea & coffee - which was great, because while I could find our coffee pot, I could NOT find the coffee. Dinner that night was peanuts, chips, elk thuringer & cheese, juice & York Peppermint Patties. We did find that most of the light bulbs were either burned out, or have wiring issues and the sink faucet leaked terribly. But, nothing that couldn't be dealt with. And, there was a bed left in the bedroom that we were able to use so we didn't have to sleep on the floor - yay! We spent Sunday unloading and getting slightly settled. By that night, we had our own mattresses and bedding and food & some dishes unloaded. We watched some shows via the laptop, on the tv and then Bendigo and Niki arrived late that night. Monday, more unpacking & getting setup with great help from Ben & Niki. Some pictures hung & furniture arranged & books unpacked. We are finally feeling a little more settled! And, Josie & Sage are finally feeling at home too & settling down. Tomorrow (Tuesday) is our 1st day of work here at our new adventure. Not really sure what I'll be doing yet, so can't get too nervous about it... LOL Thanks to everyone for their prayers & thoughts. We'll keep you posted on the new jobs & how things go. Love to all!

The Move Saga

Well, like anyone who’s every moved ANYWHERE, our move had its ups & downs. I don’t know how much I’ll get thru here tonight, but here goes the story of our trip from MT to CO. Like our “best laid plans”, ours went awry as soon as we started loading the truck. We forgot to load two furniture items that should have been at the front of the truck, due to their size & by the time we remembered one of them, the truck was getting pretty full. SOO… off to Bozeman Thursday evening to the ONE U-haul location that stayed open til 7pm. We arrived there at 6:45 & were able to rent a 5x8 trailer to haul behind the big Uhaul truck. Took it all the way back to the ranch & got home about 9pm on Thursday – remember, we’re supposed to leave Fri a.m. We did a little cleaning but pooped out around 11pm & went to bed. Up early Friday & Jeff continues loading… STILL not enough room!! So, he re-loaded, pushed, prodded & crammed, while I purged some of the stuff still left & we thought we finally had it all pretty well loaded – until we realized we forgot the table! Have you SEEN our table? So… Jeff figured out how to get THAT in but the benches just weren’t going – so they stayed behind. I’d been cleaning all this time, and STILL wasn’t done. I had done a lot of the harder cleaning the last couple weeks, but underestimated the time it would take to dust logs and finish up the rest. So, instead of being done at 10am, we were STILL finishing up at 3pm. FINALLY get it cleaned & walk out & realized Kim isn’t there for a walk-thru! He’d driven out earlier with no indication of his return, etc., so we wrote a note & headed down to load Jasmine….. …..who, of course, had other ideas. We were NOT getting our hands on her, so we decided to run her into the round pen to catch her. EXCEPT, that she managed to evade the “run-in” and ended up running around the cabins, all over the ranch. Did finally catch her, but then should wouldn’t load. We’d done a number of “trial runs” with her, that all went great. But, of course, the day we are running so late, she’s decided to be contrary. (Of course, the fact that she’d run all over the ranch & gotten wound up, and the stud horse was screaming at her, didn’t help I’m sure). FINALLY… WE’RE LOADED! So – out the gate, Quick! Roads were pretty slick up to Targhee, but after that was pretty good. Couldn’t move too fast with me towing the horse trailer & Jeff in the big Uhaul truck w/ the trailer, so it took a LOOOONNNGGGG time to get to our stay-over destination of Price, UT. But, the drive thru the Park was beautiful as the sun was getting low, and we missed all the rush-hour traffic in Salt Lake City. And, we met a very nice man by the name of Jason Wilson in a truck stop on the ID/UT border who got us good directions to the fairgrounds in Price (where we had a stall reserved for the night for Jasmine). He is a hay broker, so if you need good quality hay, let us know & we’ll get you his #.  Arrived in Price around 2:30 a.m., exhausted. Drove right to the Fairgrounds, but then couldn’t find the barn / stalls. Walked all over the place! Finally, we saw a dark shape way at the back & discovered those were the stalls. But… they were all locked. I’d been told to use “whatever stall was open” but we couldn’t find one. Finally, after checking literally EVERY SINGLE STALL of the 100 or so there, we found the LAST 4 were unlocked. UGH… get Jasmine settled, water, hay & went down & checked into the Holiday Inn, which was a great hotel – just what we needed! And, they said since we checked in so late, we actually could keep the room for not only that night, but the next one too, for a one-day cost. We didn’t have the time to do so, but at least there wasn’t a hurry to get out of bed & checkout in the a.m. So, crawled into a very comfy, very large king size bed & CRASHED. That was our 1st day… more later on the 2nd half of the move.

Another New Adventure

We can't really be called true Nomads as I don't think we move quite often enough to qualify. But, we DO like to go and try new places and things and so we are headed off to our next new adventure. Beginning around Thanksgiving, we'll be starting new jobs at the Smith Fork Ranch in Crawford, CO. Jeff has been offered the Ranch Manager/Facilities Manager/Horse Operations Manager position and so will have a lot of responsibilities. I do not yet have a formal title, but will be helping out in many areas to start with. While the job pays exceptionally well for the industry, we are most excited about the new location and new challenges. Having never lived in that part of the country, we are looking forward to exploring the red-rock country & all the surrounding countryside. The ranch we're going to is a small "boutique" guest ranch, that can accommodate up to 26 guests. They offer a lot of activities, but food and wine are their highlight. There will be two managers. One, the "General Manager" will focus on guest hospitality, including the food & wine, accommodations & sales. The other "Ranch Manager" (Jeff) will focus on the horse activities, ranch facilities and habitat. They will be equals and both will answer to the owner when necessary, but will be quite autonomous in their responsibilities & authority. I'll post our new contact info when I get it and we hope that this more central location will allow more family to visit. We will have extra rooms in our house for guests as well! And, there are both an Amtrak station as well as a reasonable airport in the area.