A Cracked Time/Space Continuum

This has been two weeks that seem like anything but two weeks. A space/time rip is all I can imagine it could be. Feel free to forward my address to any authority in charge of investigating such matters. You never know if my experience is the thing that might possibly solve the time travel conundrum.  I hope they have a reward of something or other. 

So, what crippled me the most these last two weeks? No phone service? No cell phone reception? No internet? (no furniture, no dishes, no cooking utensils) Nope.  Well, yes, but primarily it turned out to be having no camera.  I had no idea how dependent I have gotten on documenting our days.  I finally bought a disposable one, but I missed so much before that.

I had to call Precious Daughter 1 while I was driving on the freeway in order to have her use the internet and find me a place to get a broken window fixed 14 hours from where she was.  She steered me to the only laundromat in town while she was at it. It is a very strange feeling to be so unconnected to the world, let me tell you.  In fact, once she called me very concerned about our Houston relatives having to evacuate and that was the first I knew there was even a hurricane. Bizarreness. And I have phone calls still unreturned to see how they are doing. 

While we were doing more errands one day we found a circus going through. It was a great circus and we rode the elephants. Wonderful afternoon! I have pictures from my phone of the elephant but I have to figure how to get them to the computer first and then I'll post them. 

There is a chiropractor in The Dalles who will be presented with my Queen Award (I'll send him some cookies). He fixed my plantar fasciitis and heel spur while I was there, and I've been out of commission with my feet for months and months. Gregory Keilman. Check him out if you are ever in the area. Or anywhere near by. I traveled a three hour round trip five times while I was there and consider it a highlight of my trip. Thanks, Dr. Greg!

And for all those five trips to The Dalles, I had errands to run for my sister. Measuring things is not her strong suit and we had to get the blinds cut three times before they fit the windows. And then when she was finally able to hang them, she found the windows are 60 inches long and she had bought blinds that were 48 inches long.  It's one of those things where you simply take a breath and move along. 

There was a black widow spider in a box of stuff from a storage facility and we kept it in a gallon jar and fed it flies until we left. 

One day we went across the Columbia River into Washington and climbed Beacon Rock. It's an awesomely beautiful climb. The Rock is 480 feet tall and the path winds back and forth through 52 switchbacks for a mile to get that high. You can see boats on the Columbia and trains run practically right beneath you. It's breathtaking. Especially with four children who run ahead and aren't afraid of getting too close to the edge and who love to climb over the rails.  That we survived unscathed should have been a headline. The excitement is in the climb and the view. The thrill is counting heads once we are down and finding a full count and no blood. 

Then Jason got a dirt clod thrown into his eye one night and his eye was almost swollen shut by morning even after removing all the dirt.  In the morning I could see his cornea was scratched and he was having trouble seeing but he was better the next day and he's so fine I cancelled his visit to the eye doctor. Sheesh. His list of emergency room visits and hospitalizations is pretty amazing and I'm glad we dodged another one.

It took us two days to get home. I have trouble staying awake when I'm driving and at the halfway home mark I fell asleep at the wheel briefly and found myself about to plow into the side of a hill. Jerking the car back to the road scared us all and we found a motel with a pool and an internet connection and started to get rested, refreshed and reconnected with the modern world. 

Honeyhusband had a delicious dinner waiting for us, he straightened the pantry and he bought new baking sheets.  Precious Daughter 2 had been watching the place and left us a beautiful loaf of her special chocolate chip banana bread in the freezer for us.  Awesome homecoming! I will be delighting in this for ages! 

 

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Going to See My Sister!

My sister and I haven't just gotten to hang out in years and years. Probably ever. And in a few days I am going up to her place in Oregon and she's coming from Denver and we are going to spend a couple of weeks getting her place ready to sell since she's, you know, living in Denver.

Because it's too far to commute from Oregon to Denver on a daily basis.

Unless she had a private airplane and a license she hasn't told me about. 

And she hasn't. 

So.  We are planning on working hard and playing hard. And yes, I'm taking all four of the still at home lovelies. 

We'll have a blast.  Terri is the one who taught my children to bark for treats in Wal-Mart.  She's such a good influence on my children.  

I can hardly wait!

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So Sweet!

My second daughter is married and busy and the children miss her lots, even though she lives near by. So she decided to start taking each of her brothers and sisters out for a special time in town every once in a while and Jason was first. He "counted the sleeps" until yesterday when it was time to go, got up and was dressed and waiting excitedly until Kimberly came.  As they were getting ready to leave, he quietly went over to his twin sister and whispered, "Jaime, come on, let's go!". Jaime told him it was his turn to go and her turn would be later. He nodded, then said, "yeah, but come on, come with us!" 

 I am so blessed that my children love to be with each other. 

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When it Rains, It Pours

So, is this skunk season, or what?

Today we smelled a slight skunk smell that got stronger and stronger as the moments went by. Since skunks are nocturnal, I wanted WonderBoyII to go out and check things out, but carefully, and with a weapon (a long stick, as it happens) in case it turned out to have rabies.  He and Princess PondScum followed the odor and found it down the hill where it had succumbed, probably after being hit by a car.  So what happened to the poor deceased and very smelly skunk? Princess PS  brought it up to the driveway on a stick and the prevailing wind brought the smell straight into the house. Freshly dead, still wiggly and smelling like it had just sprayed, which it had. 

We started out making a big peach cobbler and putting nectarines in the freezer and ended up dealing with skunk.  The fun just never ends around here!

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The Skunk Episode That Broke my Camera

WonderBoy II loves to trap animals, observe them for a short time and let them go. We've seen lots of interesting critters that way--possums (oh, what a disgusting excuse for an animal they are), foxes, raccoons, stray cats, our cats (hello! what's up with that? Cat food on the porch, cat food in the trap--gee, I'll take the trap for 300, Alex...), and the occasional skunks.  Usually he ties a rope on the door of the trap and keeps it positioned in such a way that he can easily get the trap door opened without having to get too close in case it is an animal from which it is wiser to keep some distance. It is a lesson learned by trial and error, let's be clear.

On the other hand, when things go well for a period of time, there tends to be a laxity in the undertaking, and such was the latest Skunk Episode.  WonderBoyII and his sweet and adventurous sister, Princess PondScum (she's getting older. We need to change that nickname) set up the trap by the generator house and found a skunk trapped the next morning but they had neglected to put a rope on the door. Princess volunteered to scoot over on her tummy and tie the rope while WonderBoyII shinnied up to the roof of the generator house and opened the trap door while filming it on my camera. Camera dropped from roof in process. It is still in working order and has the video of the skunk release, but it is in the shop for repairs and they told me it might be a month before it gets back.  

The release went wonderfully, with Princess PondScum chasing the skunk down the driveway for just that little bit extra fun. "Prudence, Schmoodence" seems to be the motto at our house.

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The Before and After Project Quilt. In Photo Pieces

Because of my highly sophisticated blogging skills, I'm unable to change these pictures to be in order. I just kill myself with this kind of stuff.  And, look at things underlined. Now if I *wanted* things underlined it would never happen in a million years. Geez, Louise.

I did find out that I can't upload pictures well here and have to go somewhere with Real™Internet.

Now, all I can say is that I have got the quilt top finished and I hope to get a different backing material tomorrow so I can finish it in this century. 

So use some creativity and imagine these pictures were in order.  

Thank you very much.










The middle. 

(You know, instead of "the end".)  

I continue to find myself so amusing.Thank you, BooMama, for this great project idea!  Go see other great projects here.

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Seriously, Folk...

I have posted less and less lately as I have so many pictures of our projects, horse camp, etc. but they TAKE SO LONG to load and lots of times I can't hang around that long. I'm talking twenty minutes for each picture, if they load at all.  I loaded one picture of the quilt pieces blasting fast--in about 5 *minutes*, put the next one to upload and since it went on top of the first picture instead of below, I had to dump the entire two pictures uploaded and start over. That was last night and I'm still waiting for the first picture to finish. 

If anyone knows of a way to do this better, I'd love to hear it.

Cause I've got some pictures I'd love to post.

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