Friends

I have been lucky enough to have 2 dear friends come visit me the last 2 weeks. Rachel L came out for a few days and then Mrs. Juicebox made an appearance. It was so fun to have them here. We hiked, watched HGTV, ate deserts, ate some more, read books and had great conversation. I miss them dearly. Sigh. I managed not to cry when I put Mrs. Juicebox on the plane this afternoon, so to reward myself, I bought a kitchen aid stand mixer in Empire Red. I still might cry, maybe I will make some bread instead.

And now I am on call all weekend. Please, Lord, don't let the pager go nuts.

Very belated...

Way back in May, Mr M and I packed up our things and moved across town. We are now farther away from our jobs and no longer have a garage, but we do have 3 important things:

1) No more mold. I knew we had mold, but I had no idea how bad it was until we moved and I found it everywhere! I have not been sick since we moved.

2) No more navy blue carpet that everything shows up on. I never thought I would be so happy to live around beige in my whole life.

3) We have a dishwasher! Now when our friends come over they ask us how it is living the high life with a dishwasher, and I have to say, "Life is good!"

Here are some belated pictures of our new place:

Starting by the front door, here is our dining area that is also part of the kitchen.

Here is the kitchen, note the dishwasher!
Here is our comfy living room. I have no idea why I did not fix the pillows before taking pictures.
Don't you like our wedding pictures all up in a row? I love them. So does Mrs. Juicebox, she kept looking at them when she was here.
Our blue bathroom.
Our room.
Our garage sale dresser we spent a weekend painting. It really brightens up a room.
We now have a guest bathroom. I may have overdone the white. But if anyone visits, you don't have to share with us!
Last, but not least, is the guest bedroom for those of you who want to plan a vacation up our way. It has a Serta mattress and I am assured by several people that it is a very comfortable bed.

Driving across Kansas

I was recently in a wedding in Kansas, and I drove from Dallas across Eastern Kansas and most of the flint hills. I was reminded why I like the prairie. It feels like home.

I think I have figured out a way to describe the difference between the Rockies and the prairie. See where I live is surrounded by harsh mountains of rock and trees that are pointed with pointy leaves. The environment is strong like a man and designed for self defense.
But the prairie is like a woman, her soft grass invites you to run, and her trees invite you to climb. She doesn't restrict your view of the sky or feel the need to surround you. Though she has a temper that appears during tornado season.
She invites you to play and wander. There are few thorns or sharp plants.
And you feel that if you could run fast enough at sunset you might reach the sun. It's not blocked by a mountain.

Exop II

You didn't think I was done with all my expo education did you? I learned a lot more. I learned that logging sports is a collegiate sport. Funny, I don't remember my college having that sport. Long distance track, yes. Logging sports, no.

Anyway, there is the two man saw. Go boys, go!

The one man saw. Go Boy, go!

The ax throw.

This guy isn't bad. I want him on my side next time I have to throw axes at bad guys.

OK, this is interesting, you start below where they are standing, run around the log, run up the log, balance on the log while starting your chain saw and saw the log you are standing on. Safety glasses anyone?

Next is a demonstration, because this is too dangerous to do at the college level. First, you chop a small hole. Oh, and this guy is on ESPN for his excellence in logging sports. (I am NOT kidding).

You stick a stick in it, get up on it,
chop another one, repeat twice.
Oh, and don't forget the just saw through a log with a chain saw competition.
Last, but not least, is the chop through a log with an ax. They gave this guy a special ax head because he is graduating
Don't you feel more educated now that you too are a part of the family forestry expo?

Expo, Expo

Last month I went the the Family Forestry Expo. What?!?!?! You haven't heard of the Family Forestry EXPO?!?!?! Just to prove that I am not making this up, I took a picture of the sign:

See, it does to exist. One of the things to watch at the Family Forestry Expo is how modern day logging is done. I had no idea. First, this red machine just cuts the log and then picks it up,

and lays it gently on the ground. Really, you couldn't even hear it drop.

Then, this yellow machine comes and hauls away a group of logs.

And takes them to this machine that picks up a log at one end and strips the log of branches as it goes through to the other end.

The logs are organized by size so that all the logs in one pile will go to one place to be cut the same size .

And that is what I learned at the Family Forestry Expo.

My shoes!

When my little brother really got the walking thing down, my parents bought him his first pair of shoes. He was so excited to finally be a big boy and wear shoes. (We didn't have a lot of money and my parents weren't going to buy shoes for a non-walker.) That night as he lay in bed, my parent's heard him exclaim to himself, "My shoes! My shoes! My shoes!"



And that is what I felt like when I got my new shoes. I needed some for work and I just thought these were too cute. I got a black and brown pair, and here is one of each.

The best part is the stitching on the heel and side.
Very comfortable with good arch support.
And even the bottoms of the shoes are cute.

More 10 C's!

I know that you can all barely wait for the next instalment of creative ways to display the 10 C's, so here is another one for your viewing pleasure. Good news is that my new job requires lots of driving, so I will be finding some more specimens for you all.

Adventures in moving

So Mr. M and I decided that we were tired of living in a moldy apartment with navy blue carpet and a neighbor who likes to drink a lot. So we moved last weekend. As soon as it is presentable, I will post pictures. But the real point of my story took place yesterday. Yesterday I was placing some platters and such on top of my cabinets above the fridge and I looked over and saw this:



That would be a gun laying on the cabinets of my new apartment. So I called Mr. M and said,

Me: "Honey, do we own a gun I don't know about?

Mr. M: "Ha, that's me hiding guns from you!"

Me: "No, really do we own a rifle?"

Mr. M: "Of course not, why are you asking?"

Me: "Well, I just found a gun on top of the fridge."

Mr. M: "Riiiiiight."

Me: "No, really I am for real"

Mr. M: "You are really for real?"

Me: "Yes"

I then decided to call my landlady and left a message on her phone.

Me: "Hi, this is D from apt X, ummmm I found a gun on top of my fridge. I haven't touched it, and I am not really quite sure what to do with it. Perhaps the last tenet would want it back? Call me back and let me know what you think."

Then I thought, "Hey, my brother is in the army the more I look at this thing, the more plastic I see, I will call him and ask if it is a real gun."

Me: "Brother, hey I found a gun on top of my fridge, but a lot of it is plastic, do you think it is a real gun?"

Army Brother: "Oh yeah, it could be a real gun, my expensive pistol has lots of plastic on it. Take a picture of it and send it to me. Just don't point it at anything."

Me: "Umm, I don't think I am going to touch it."

Army Brother: "Hey I am at R's house seeing her new baby, do you want to talk to her?

Me: "OK"

R: "Hi, how are you?"

Me: "Fine, I just found a gun on top of my fridge."

Mr. M later came home and determined that it is an air gun, and by brother wrote me back and told me the model of the gun. My landlady picked it up today, so I don't have to worry about it any more.

Loose Ends

Sorry to take so long to write a new post. Life is just busy. So wrapping up some loose ends:

1) When I said I would vote for Clinton in a previous post, I was referring to the primary held that day in Texas. I was not talking about the general election. Which by the way, if I had wanted to vote in the Republican primary here in Montana, but I could not. Why? Because only elected officials and precinct captains could vote in the Republican caucus. That's right, only about 2,000 people in this state were allowed to determine the Republican delegates from this state. Where is the ACLU when you actually need them?

2) Andrea wrote a great comment about health insurance. I was really tired and not making a lot of sense that day, but she said most of what I think. What I really think is that we should all carry just disaster insurance. Example: insurance only kicks in after you shell out three grand or so for the year. This would bring a lot of pricing down because people would ask how much things cost. When was the last time you went to the doctor and asked how much a straight up visit would cost?

3) I will be starting a new job soon. It doesn't make a big difference for this site, since I don't really write about my job, but for those of you who know me in real life, I will be working for hospice. I am really excited and a little nervous to be starting a very different way of being a nurse.

Back to our ...

regularly scheduled silliness. Here are some more 10 commandment signs for your viewing pleasure.

This is on the front of a church.

In a random field. Isn't that a nice barn?

Not quite sure where this one is, Jana took it.

Don't forget the billboards.

And another billboard. I stopped taking pictures of billboards because there are so many of them.

If I still lived in Texas...

I would go cast my vote for Hillary today (I can't believe I wrote that). But you can vote for whomever you want. But for your reading enjoyment, here, here and here is why I am not a fan of Obama. (Not that I am crazy about Hillary, I just think that she might not send our county into as bad of a recession.)

Just a dip

To appease Mrs. J, I am posting a few thoughts about national health care and such. But just this one time. I promise not to make a habit of it. Any by the way, feel free to disagree with me. Many intelligent and caring people fall on both sides of this issue. But no name calling, please.

This is simply to say that I think a national health care system is a horrible idea. I am not saying that we have a great system, but putting the government in charge is not the answer. Anything that the government tries to do, can be done much better most of the time by someone else. Anytime the government has tried to help make something affordable it makes it worse (anyone heard of gas lines in the 70's? Anyone noticed that college tuition went through the roof when student loans were so easy to get? The money pit that is the public school system? Tariffs on sugar so that our food will have corn syrup from that American farmer and we are now all fat?)

Just some thoughts:

1) One of my nursing instructors explained that when she had researched British health care, the government did not pay for kidney dialysis after the age of 50. So you turn 50, you have a big party and 2 weeks later you are dead. The government decides how valuable your life is. I have been to dialysis centers in the U. S., 90% of the people I saw are on dialysis because they are drug users, did not control their blood pressure, or did not control their diabetes. But someone (the federal government) pays for their dialysis. I don't see how having nationalized health care would make it better.

2)Our local paper ran an article the other day talking about the huge number of Canadian babies being born in the U.S. because the Canadian hospitals are full. So Canada ships laboring mothers to the U.S. If Canada could not use the American system as a back up, they would be in trouble.

3) Studies have been done that show that people who have good health insurance in the U.S. overuse the system.

4)People in the British heath care system are often on waiting lists for months to have surgery or see a doctor. When was the last time that you heard of someone in the U.S. being placed on a waiting list for care? (It happens, but it is rare and often involves the government paying for the care.) Or check out this Canadian lady's experience.

5) Click here, here and here for some interesting articles.

To be perfectly clear

There are some interesting people in our small town. A large number of the population believe in displaying the 10 commandments. Why this is so important to them, I am not sure, but it's a big deal. These pictures go along with the eternal question from college, "Who does that?"

Here is one classy lady's front yard.

Look closely, during the Christmas season, this contains Mary, Joseph and a baby Jesus. But during the rest of the year we have a large wooden Bible.

On the other side of her yard, we have the 10 commandments. Two things I love about this sign. 1) The commands get smaller as you go down and 2) the "thou"s start to appear at command 6.

Now my neighbor has a bit more money and her son bought her a real granite sign. Got to love the bald eagle on either side.

While I am not a big fan of putting up 10 commandment signs, you have to admire the creativity that goes into some of these things.

No Title

Here we are parked on the east coast of the island, looking west.

And if you turn around and look east, you see it was a really windy day.
You also see Chinaman's hat.
And you might see me later that day making fun of models.
Now I have superpowers and I can fly.