seasons

Winter in Southern Oregon:

Winter in Michigan:

 



                                                                      Winter in Idaho:

                                                                Winter in Wyoming:

                                                               Actually, Easter in Wyoming.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Why? Why do the Road Trips God curse me every time? Is it something I said? Have I wronged them somehow?

Though not as mind-numbingly terrifying, white-knucklingly awful, brain-meltingly horrifying, as some I've been through and lived to tell the tale, this kind of driving is not my idea of a good time. I now understand why people retire in Florida. If it weren't for my dislike of 'gators and bugs bigger than my bread box, I'd be there now. 

On the plus side, I now need all two hands and two feet to count the number of highways I've shut down over the years. That's an accomplishment not many can boast. I barely make it through the White Witch's Winter Wonderland, my eyes blood shot from the force of the defroster melting my face, finger nail scratches on the windows, small children hyped up on the emergency candy supply (chewing makes them talk less which is a bonus when you are scared beyond belief and need quiet to plan your own funeral), blocks of ice eerily similar in size to the one that sunk the Titanic stuck to the windshield wipers, bladders about to burst, and the Lord's Prayer bursting forth out of my mouth in intermittent gasps, when I see friendly state troopers turning everyone back from the Mountain of Death and Dismemberment. Where are such friendly troopers when I attempt to go up the mountain, huh? Why are they always waiting at the bottom for me? Are they biding their time in order to judge my state of mind when I finally slide down on the black ice?

Hey, Roger Roger, here comes the Mommobile now. Gettin' a good look as she fishtails by...yeppers, by golly, her hair is white and there's a Twizzler stuck to her ear. That calls it for me: shut this mountain down, boys.

Roger that, over and out.

It really doesn't matter what time of year I plan a road trip. It doesn't matter what state lines I plan to cross. It doesn't matter what the weather men say. If your crops are in a drought, dear readers, I can save them. Either that, or bury them forever in snow: potAYto, potAHto. 

Now no more silliness. I must go unpack my suitcase; I'm fairly certain there's a small child in there somewhere eating all my Twizzlers.

Do you have a talent/gift for disaster that rivals mine? My shattered nerves would love to hear it.

wyoming weather update

The autumnal view out my window. The largest ice monster here is taller than my middle child.


Just an update on the weather, y'all.
The temperature here is 18, or 3 with the wind chill. Some lovely trivia facts for you this morning - courtesy of my husband who is foaming at the mouth with disbelief - it is currently warmer in:



Oslo, Norway

Moscow, Russia

Anchorage, Alaska


Duluth, Minnesota

...and compared to Cheyenne, Wyoming, it's quite balmy in:

North Pole, Alaska.

oh, the weather outside is frightful!

There's probably frost on the pumpkins, but we can't find them.

I'm guessing at least a foot of the white stuff fell last night. And it's still falling.

I'm ready, Mommy! Let's go sledding!

The 10th of October, folks, and the snow is a'flyin.' As I write this, it's 10 degrees, and with the wind chill it's -2. Our high today is 21. If you don't believe me, check out MSN weather and type in Cheyenne. The highways are shut down, and my dreams of moving before winter hit are dashed. I'm a little peeved, mostly because autumn is my favorite season and we had none of it. No jewel colored leaves to kick through. No apple or pumpkin picking. No cute, fashionable little jackets for us. Straight on through to the snow pants, wool caps, knee high water proof boots, and huge, poofy coats. We may as well enjoy being snowed in though, so the girls are out with the neighborhood kids, sledding, and I plan to spend the frosty weekend baking, watching movies, drinking hot buttered rum which I don't actually much care for but it's appropriate for the weather, snuggling with my hunky husband, and updating this. The killer is my new Diana Gabaldon novel is ready to be picked up at the library, and I'm too chicken to get in the car. We did get the snow tires put on Mike's car yesterday, just in the knick of time (or is it nick of time? I don't know what that expression means now that I think about it). One of our favorite winter pastimes from last year is sitting by the picture window and watching all the cars get stuck in front of my house. We're not completely cruel, if they can't get out after about 15 minutes or so, we will go help, but it isn't really all that helpful because my husband refuses to buy a snow shovel in protest of mother nature. So if you want to come visit (after the highways open back of course) you will have to kick your way through a whole lot of snow to get to my front door. But anyway, in spite of Scottish highlanders waiting for me in the hold section of the library, I'm not quite ready to venture out yet - maybe next week.

I don't how the settlers did it. I don't how they did it in California, much less Wyoming. I can't imagine being a woman back then, isolated, with no modern amenities. Small wonder some of them went crazy. I'm not very social at all, but a few days of no one to talk to and just your four walls to stare at, and gulp, no television! I should probably take up knitting or something constructive. Maybe you'll all receive scarves in the mail soon. Email me your favorite colors.

On the nightstand: Dean Koontz

Homeschooling Digest magazine

a nice cleared off spot, ready and waiting, for An Echo in the Bone

On the tv: football...sigh

So You Think You Can Dance

glee

Top Chef

In the dvd player: Burn After Reading

Henry Poole is Here

In the cd player (ya, ya, I know y'all have Ipods): Leann Rimes

Alison Krauss and Union Station

Shawn Mullins

Jack Johnson

In my favorites: http://www.theredneckdiva.com/

http://www.ataleof3kohlers.blogspot.com/

http://www.thehomeschoollounge.com/

http://www.4takashiges.blogspot.com/

http://www.thegremlinwrangler.com/ (doesn't write anymore, but you'll laugh all day reading the old posts)

http://www.thekrazycouponlady.com/

http://www.goodreads.com/

In the oven, or soon to be: clam chowder

cinnamon raisin bread

oatmeal cookies

chicken pot pie

a test run of a dairy free chocolate cake

P.S.

Ok I have spent three times as much time trying to align margins and put in spaces and tabs on this dumb bunny post, and it just won't stick. The evil geniuses at blogger are laughing their sadistic heads off at my expense. I am sorry for the smashed together look of this blog, and if I were smarter, perhaps I could fix it. Unfortunately you'll just have to deal with it, and hopefully it won't annoy the living daylights out of you the way it does the author.

Can you hear me now?!

G and his buddy, Rowan

Cora and a lizard she found. Sorry about the blurriness, Gianni smeared peppermint lip gloss all over the lens.

Mike's side of the fam: Brian, Mamma Alice, Grandpa "Nonno", Matt.

Anna at the petting zoo.

Goat meets Moose

Learning horseshoes

Cora was, as she puts it, unbeatable.

The perks of hotel livin'

We had us some Christmas in September this month. Knowing that if we still live here in Wyoming we will not be making that holiday trip home, we took a final road trip of 2009. Mike's dad, Keith, spent a couple weeks with us here at home before we left, and then we headed to Pocatello, Idaho together to meet up with two brothers and a mamma. After lots of visiting and swimming in the hotel pool and eating out and petting animals at the zoo, we moved on into Boise. We had a lovely Christmas type dinner at the High House (I say Christmas type, because there were no turkeys to be found but we made due with yummy roasted chickens). Time went by too quickly, especially as we don't know when we will see everyone again, but there was plenty of fun. I forgot to take many pictures but here are the ones I got.

No news on the job front yet, but we are anticipating moving. So begins the agonizing process of getting rid of all that junk you'd just as soon not pack. The girls are going through their precious belongings trying to locate things that they'd be willing to sell at the Kohler's yard sale this weekend. They are entirely motivated by greed (we live within walking distance of the dollar store). They cannot comprehend why no one would want to buy a chewed up dog collar, a stuffed animal with a missing ear, markers without the caps, and naked Barbies with homemade haircuts, so I think I may steer them towards the idea of a lemonade stand as a Plan B.

Here in Wyoming, Road Construction season is winding to an end, to be followed, oh yippee skip, by Almost Winter. Then, naturally, comes Winter, and finally, Still Winter.

On our long drive back, we heard Brad Paisley's song, Letter to Me, and Mike, being the philosophical guy that he is, asked me what I would say if I could go back in time and talk to myself at 17. So, here goes:

Lyss,

Stop worrying what other people are thinking and saying about you. They are more than likely talking and thinking of other things anyway. Don't be afraid to be the goofy person you are inside, outside. Laugh a whole lot more at yourself, and actually mean it. Stand up for yourself, and don't apologize for things that shouldn't be apologized for. Don't try to blend in with the crowd because you don't. And while it's nice that you have enough courage to 'just say no' to so-called friends, go ahead and go one step further and refuse to hold their cigarettes while they go to the bathroom. No need to be a doormat.

Don't be afraid to try new things, even if you know you'll be terrible at them and quite possibly fail. Don't just do the things that come easily. You hate the expression 'get out of your box' now, and you're going to hate it just as much later, but the idea still holds.

Keep your good friends close. Don't trust absolutely everyone. Those people that seem to have all the answers, don't. The ones that you swear now will rule the world later, won't. The girl that had all the boys will get a divorce. The confident boys weren't really all that confident especially now that they're losing hair and gaining beer bellies. There will be deaths and situations that will be far too sudden, leaving hard questions that will make you wrestle with God himself. There will be loss of friendships that will make you sad because you know they're gone for good.

You worry about finding the perfect man, but don't worry, you will. Together you'll have crazy adventures and won't try to change each other, and you'll have some sweet kids to boot. Ten years are going to by fast and he'll still call you his love and think you're perfect.

You think now that you'll be a flawless mom someday. Well, sorry to break it to you, kid, but you won't be. Your children are going to make you grow and change so much you could spend the next decade pondering it and not come up with all the right descriptions or realizations. They'll boggle your mind with how much you love them, and the very things that you love the most will be the ones that drive you nutty and test you the most. They're going to bend your spirit and the limits of your unselfishness way more than you think possible.

Appreciate your family and the things they've done for you. It looks so easy to you, you've never really given it much thought. Do. Remember they're there for life. And when you grow up, don't leave them behind, waving sadly. After all, you'll be moving back in their basement soon anyway.

Oh, and one more thing. You're not fat. Trust me. You'll never be that size and shape again, so for crying out loud, put on a bikini and enjoy it while it you can!

On that deep, wise note,

love,

yourself at 31.

might as well enjoy it!

this is hardly April showers!

Daddy and Moose rocking and rolling...their leather pants are in the mail...
The lovely spring view from my front window. Ahhhhh, are the tulips up yet?

wyoming

Things you wanted to know about Wyoming, but were afraid to ask:

1. The wind is INSANE. Businesses keep the left door on their double doors locked at pretty much all times, due to wind. I have lost control of shopping carts. With 2 children in them at the time. I have not been able to open the van door carefully at times, and I am using all my strength, and when it blows open it hits the car next to me. Which is usually ok because Wyoming drivers have those nice padded wrap-around thingys on the front of their cars. The ones that don't have lots and lots and lots and lots of dings. Signs routinely say "caution: winds at 50+ miles per hour" on the highway, yet you really only need to worry when it gets higher than that and you start passing overturned semis. There is a garbage cyclone in front of the bookstore near my house...sounds kinda gross, but it's neat to watch and it pretty much never stops. When it's really cold and you walk outside, the wind whips right into your lungs and you can't speak. In other words: it's a bad hair year.

2. You can't buy liquor in the grocery stores, you have to go to a liquor store. This is not difficult as there is one on every corner. Kind of like Starbucks in Seattle. And they have drive-thrus (not kidding). And also margherita slushy machines. And they're open like, constantly, round the clock, even on Sundays. And even though you're supposed to be 21 or older, people bring in all their kids. Which begs the question, why exactly don't they just sell it in the grocery stores?

3. In spite of the foreward march of progress in the drive-thru alcohol consumption, you can't find a single coffee drive-thru. Cowboys like their coffee non-frou-frou, and I guess they prefer to get out of their trucks to purchase it.

4. It's the least populated state in America. So if you want to come visit me, I'm super easy to find.

5. Our airport is so small you can park right in front, literally. There are a few old chairs in the lobby you can sit in while you wait for your loved one to get off the puddle jumper he was just on, clinging to the edge of his seat in fear, while the "plane" puts-puts to safety. If you're going against the wind the ride from Denver is short, if you're with the wind, well, you barely have time to get yourself a ginger ale and you've landed. It's the general concensus that it's better to just drive yourself from Denver.

6. Jimmy Stewart made a movie called The Cheyenne Social Club about him buying a brothel. Good stuff. But I don't think we have brothels here anymore. Coicidently, (or maybe not) Jimmy Stewart was also in North By Northwest which takes place at Mt Rushmore, just one state and an afternoon's drive away. So if you like Jimmy Stewart (and if you don't you're no longer my friend) you should come see the places he liked to make movies at.

7. Antelope are frequent. I went garage saleing last summer and so did the antelope. I got better deals however because I can haggle and they can't, not really. They can stand there and look pretty, but most dealers aren't as impressed by that as they are by humans crossing their palms with some silver.

8. When I told anyone I was moving to Wyoming I was met with blank stares. Then they usually say, 'I broke down in Wyoming once. But I didn't know anyone actually lived there...' Then I would say, 'We're moving for my husband's job.' Then they look less baffled and say, 'Oooooh! You're military!' because that's the only reason they can think of that would explain things. Sometimes I just look agreeable at that assumption because I'm ready for the conversation to end. Similar to when the girls were tiny babies and people assumed they were boys, and they'd coo, 'Oh what a cute little man!' At first I'd correct them, but then I got to thinking, hey I'm never going to see these people again so what's the point in making them feel bad about themselves? So then I just started saying, 'Isn't he though?' And on we'd go on our separate ways. But I always kind of worried just a little that I would see those people again, and then I'd have to explain myself at some point and they'd think I was a nut and wouldn't understand at all.

9. The elevation here is around 9000 feet high. I don't have anything else to say about that; it's just a fact.

10. Last year we had a snowball fight in August.