To Tat, or Not to Tat...

As you may remember, several years ago my sisters and I decided (to my mother's horror) to get our noses pierced. I loved it and believe it or not, so did my mom. However, after ripping if out of my nose for the second time, I finally decided it just wasn't meant to be.

I saw a saying on the Internet the other day that I really liked. It was "I fight like a girl". Well, I'm hoping my fight is over and decided I wanted a t-shirt that said "I fought like a girl..." and had my sister Linda do something on her computer. I love it! But, before I had even gotten back what I asked her to do, I wondered to myself, "wouldn't this be an awesome tattoo?" I love the raggedness of the ribbon (symbolizing the harshness of breast cancer), and the single pink (signifying grace and elegance - ok, that's SO not me!) long-stemmed rose (signifying “I will remember you always”).



Something small, Linda thinks on my wrist. Maybe I need to travel down to Kat from the show LA Ink! Am I brave enough to do it? I don't know yet. Anyone want to join me? Sheri, what's the color of ribbon for your kind of cancer? We could change it and you could do one too! Why is it that I feel the need to have someone else join me in the pain I might experience?

What do you think? I want your honest opinion. Tattoo or no tattoo?

Water Parks and Chicken Coops...

What a gorgeous day to spend at the park with the kids...






Elmer and I have been checking out what people do with chicken coops. This one was actually built by our old neighbors who now live in Spokane. He's great with wood as you can tell. Last year, he spent the summer building, by hand, the most gorgeous canoe. I'd live in this chicken house.


This coop is just down the road from us. As you can see, it's still a work in progress.


And this. I'm not sure he's using it for a chicken coop. It's another house across the road on 10 acres. Evidently he found an old building and brought it to his property. I don't know what he's using it for, but it would make a great chicken coop.

My Son...

I have been so incredibly blessed to have 3 wonderful kids. My 2 oldest have turned out to be so caring and concerned about others (still working on that with the youngest, but he hasn't had enough life experience yet to understand how hard some people have it in life).

The picture below is my son and his family on the day he returned from a year in Afghanistan. I'm so very proud of them...


We found out a few weeks ago, that my son will be deployed in August for a year in Iraq. Not a day has gone by that I haven't thought about it. I will again, return to snail mail and write him letters at least once a week. I think it's important for deployed soldiers to have hand-written letters. Email is nice, but it's just not the same.

Today, our family is meeting at a park to spend some quality time and let the kids play. We're going to start doing that every other week until Jake leaves in August. We all think it will be great for him to have some nice memories before he leaves. His wife is expecting their second child early in July. It's hard for us all to think of him having to leave a brand new baby but I hope he knows that we will all be doing everything we can to help his family while he's gone.

So, later we'll be enjoying a beautiful day in the sun and taking lots of pictures. I am so lucky.

Bummer...

Well, the owners of the piece of land we wanted have decided to stick tight on their $150,000 asking price. Damn them. They have another piece of property across the road but it's directly above a surgeon's (magnificent) home and Elmer's not sure that would work out too well. So, he's been trying to figure out who he could get to go partners with us where we could build a "guest house" and have 2 homes on the property. The bummer of it is, about 15 years ago, we looked at some 10 acre lots in that exact location. At the time, they were $50,000. At the time, we thought they were crazy asking that much! Now, I think in 5 years, we're going to kick ourselves for passing this by for the price their asking.

I feel bad. Poor Elmer, he needs a ray of sunshine in his life right now. Seems like everything is hitting at once. His sister with cancer found out her chemo isn't working (and Elmer adores her), his other sister has had some weird medical problems they can't figure out (he adores her too), his aunt died suddenly and his mother is having a hard time coping with it all. He's basically worried about everybody right now. And the rejection on the property? Well, it was like the final straw.

Wouldn't life be so much easier if we cared about no one?

But wouldn't life be awful if we had no one to care about?

The Cedar Waxwings...

are everywhere! They've found our strawberries. We don't mind, but I bet the robins do. They're so beautiful, I hope they stick around for a while...

The Chicken Cooker Thingey...

You know I'm not a good cook. I'm really not. But, my sister-in-law gave Elmer the most awesome cooker. It's a giant clay pot that I just can't seem to ruin anything in! I've cooked a turkey, several chickens and pork - this thing is awesome. You can put your vegetables right in with the meat, you can make soups and stews. Anything you want to cook can be done in this clay pot.


You have to soak it in water for about 30 minutes before you use it, then just put your food in there and it's like a crock pot but better! I love this and everybody needs one. I mean it - EVERYBODY should go buy one of these.


My next purchase is going to be one of these...


This same sister-in-law (she's so friggin' awesome) bought one of these for Elmer's brother. We cook in nothing but cast iron. I love the way they cook, but I don't like the clean up. Yep, my next purchase is one of these. They're cast iron coated with enamel. I cleaned my brother-in-laws after a party once. It was a breeze to clean. I love these too! I love both colors - maybe I'll have to get one of each!


and, a few token pictures of my great niece. Is she cute or what?

Where the Deer and the Antelope Roam...

For many years, Elmer and I have dreamed about having some property where we can have some animals, set up a few wall tents, and sit on the front porch and have some space where the deer and wild turkeys will come. I dream of something like this house with a big wrap-around porch. Perfect for sitting and having people over to sit with us...



and this wall tent which I know you've seen many times in different posts here (if even to start out to use as a guest room)



We have a friend here in Hidden Springs who's a realtor and has been instrumental in the development of the community. He knows everybody and knows what's going on around here. About a month ago, we told him we wanted to find some property and asked him to start looking around for us. Within about a week, he had talked to someone who owns a shit load (that's a lot) of property around Hidden Springs and they happened to have a couple of pieces they didn't know what to do with and were willing to sell. One piece is 11 acres on the north side of the road with rolling hills but it's right up against a bunch of power lines. The other is on the south side of the road with a little spring on it and a pad for a house. We fell in love with it and knew this 15 acres was where we wanted to be.

I started doing research to find out costs for getting power to the property, digging a well, permit fees and even if a house could be built on it. After all the research and finding out the costs, we felt comfortable in making an offer.

Two of the three involved felt our offer was was fair, due to the expenses we would have to pay to make it livable but one wanted to counter with an added $100,000 - a slight difference. Maybe understandable if the property had power, water and septic and was ready to build. So, we'll be countering again. I don't know why, but I feel a real peace and just have a feeling this property will belong to us and that this time (after several attempts at purchases where we were a day late and a dollar short) this is where we're meant to be.

I drive to the property (it's only about a mile from where we live now) every day. I pull off the road and just sit and look. I imagine the house and barn and the animals. I imagine sitting on the porch and seeing the deer on the hill. In fact, twice in the last week, I've seen a doe and her twin fawns on the property. Exactly what we've imagined.

So, until I hear diffent, I'll continue to dream and think about all the hard work it's going to take to make this 15 acres our home.

It's 6:20 am

and one of our roosters is crowing. He started out several weeks ago with a kind of sick sound that was pretty quiet. Today however, he sounds like a rooster. I think this weekend he's going to have to find a new home. I don't imagine the neighbors will like it too much once he starts waking them up at 6:20 on Sundays...

I Poo, in Blue...

This absolutely cracks me up! I may go buy some just because I love the commercial so much...

Would Somebody Please Make it Stop!

A few days ago the weather showed us having an entire week of 70 degrees or above and sunny! Yesterday, it rained. This mornings weather shows the next 4 days - rain. Supposed to be dry and nice next weekend. I don't believe it, they've said that before.

Our yard looks wonderful, but please, make it stop! I'd really like to have some summer before summer is over. We missed our normal spring - nothing but rain. Now that "spring" is over, can't we have a normal summer?????