A rough week

Posted on by

Last week was horrid. Rough. Buzy. However you want to slice it.

Sunday. Hectic. Kayla arrived back to spend the week with us. She was moving and needed a place to stay in order to finish up school. So, we had her stay with us.

Monday we had the meeting in Trinidad with the workforce people. I think that in spite of the hectic start to that day including being late, it was the best day of the week. I got home early enough to go do the school board meeting in La Veta.

Tuesday. Hell day. My friend Mickey’s son Eric died. He was in a roll over car crash, and ejected, because he didn’t wear his seat belt. The accident happened in the early hours of the morning, and the paramedics figured he died some time after the crash. He was 17.

Of course, this colored the rest of the week. The RE-1 school board meeting that night was full of tears and very quiet people. I think it was the shortest, quietest meeting I’ve been to there in years.

Wednesday. Gardening with the vets out at the veteran’s nursing home. I pruned 10 rosebushes in need of serious help and then dug and planted a 4×8 raised bed by myself. I got home, got changed and we all headed out to Gardner for the 8th grade graduation. It was a good yet slightly bittersweet event. Eric had gone to Gardner school, and his family lives just down the block from school.

After graduation, I had the memorial service for Eric to attend. It was at the high school. Very moving. Tearful. Painful. And just right. People told stories, sang songs, there was a slide show that lasted about ten minutes, and of course, lots of tears. His family was there. The principal gave his mom the award he would have gotten for improvement in English. I got to see Mickey and Sal, and my heart broke. At the end of the memorial, we all released balloons. sigh…

I walked from the high school to the library and went to a Town Hall meeting. That was interesting. We got home around 9:30pm.

Thursday. We cleaned the front yard and hauled TRASH!!! Also did a lot of prep work to clean up the rest of the house. I tiled the kitchen cabinet tops too. Used the same tile I did on the bedroom dresser, and they look cool.

Friday. This was run around doing errands day. Paid bills, bought groceries, applied for a job as a cook at a local hotel and did some more garden work in the front yard. Friday evening, I made bread for the cat coalition bake sale. Dan got a call from the family in New Zealand. Mikki had a bouncing baby boy around 9pm our time. 9 pounds, 2 oz and 21.25 inches long! I think Dan said they were naming him Richard. This is Dan’s second grandbaby. Finally hit the pillows around 1am.

Saturday. Took bread to the bake sale, dropped a loaf by the hotel and got a tour of the kitchen and then came home to clean house. Oh boy… Moved LOTS of stuff. The front porch is now tidy. We moved all the building supplies out to the garage. We also moved stuff out of the front and back yard to clean up. I have lots of supplies for the green house project, and will start on that in the next few weeks. I did load after load of laundry too. Where DID all those dirty clothes come from??? We did a huge amount of work, and got finished just in time for Ian’s family to show up. (the reason for the mass house cleaning in the first place.)

The visit went well, and Dan and I had a bit of quiet time as Ian went to see IronMan 2 with his family. Plus, something I ate disagreed with me. Ugh….

Today… I am moving slowly. Still feel punky. However, the house is clean, laundry is done and I don’t think there is anything on the schedule for the next 24 hours….. Wheeeee…. Oh, and my Mom is back from Littleton!!! 🙂

Family

Posted on by

Living in a small town has it’s advantages and disadvantages. Everyone knows one another and lots and lots of people are related. For me, that is Walsenburg. We all know we are interconnected, but just every once in a while, those connections really come to the fore. Like today.

Today was Sig Sporleder’s memorial service. Sig was an Great Uncle through my Grandma Sudar’s side of the family. Sort of convoluted, but it makes Gretchen Orr my cousin. Sig’s obit is available at http://www.huerfanojournal.com/more_news.php The Huerfano Journal is my cousin’s newspaper that I write for.

Dan and I were a little late for the service, but not too late. Daniel and his girlfriend were there too. Then we walked down to the community center. I baked focaccia bread. Once we got there, Dan and I do what we do best. We pitched in. I cut bread and Dan helped the ladies get all of the meat out on the table and then we cut limes for the beer. There was a ton of food, and lots ot dirink, both alcoholic and not.

I saw lots of people I hadn’t seen in years. At one end was the food and at the other was a slideshow of Sig’s life. It was great. We finally said our goodbye’s around 4pm. On the way home, I made the comment to Dan that I was related/connected to about half the people there. It was a good feeling.

Now to catch our breath and then get ready for tomorrow’s meeting.

Photos at last!!!

Posted on by

I finally got the camera and took pictures. I added some to a previous post about the dresser and then took lots of the Nibbler, the office and my garden bits. So, I’m catching up on blogs and the like for today.

Nibbler

Then there are the garden pics. Not a lot of stuff, but it is a beginning.

Last but not least, the office area.

We’re Hoooommmmmeeee!

Posted on by

Dan and I went to Denver for the weekend. We had a client to visit on Friday. Computer work. She is a lovely person to work with and we have no issues with driving up to Denver.

Then we had a business meeting Saturday morning. We met for breakfast and hogged a table for probably an hour while we discussed stuff. Dan got himself elected chairman of the workforce board, so he now has to do the whole politically responsible thing. LOL!!! It was a really good meeting and I think we got a lot accomplished. Oh, and I got roped/voted/convinced into being his ‘aide de camp’ also known as Girl Friday and any other nickname you can think of. Was I surprised? No. Did I expect this? Yes… about 30 seconds after he got elected. 🙂 Still nice to hear him ask though.

After the breakfast, we went to REI and looked around. I found a gardening/hiking hat that is so cool. Then we drove up to Boulder and bummed around there for a while. WEnt to see Ironman 2. Very cool movie. More sexy geeky technology.  🙂

We were suppose to meet up with friends, but it didn’t happen. Two got stuck in a meeting. Who in the hell does 12 hour meetings? Gads!!! By the time they got done, we were all too tired. We will try next time we are up in Denver.

Sunday we did a bit more shopping, drove around and waited to see if our friends were free. Nope! One got sick, so we just gave up. Headed home and stopped at Red Robin’s in Castle Rock for dinner. I had a really nice burger. Chilies and guacamole on it. Yum.

We got home at a decent hour. Dan did some tutoring with Emma on math. We were in bed by 11:30, and it was really nice to sleep in our own bed.

Paint Fumes and furniture!!!

Posted on by

The last two days have been busy. Ian and Dan brought bookcases over from the Methodist church. We worked the living room and office to accommodate the ‘new’ shelves. IT is still a bit torn up, but it looks so much better.

Today I painted the dresser and one of the bookcases. Blue to match the paint in the bedroom.:) Then we put wood style floor tiles on the top of the dresser to finish it off. It looks soooo cool. I’ll get pictures and post them tomorrow. All I have to do now is finish the curtains, hand the new lights and the bedroom will be totally done.

Tomorrow we are going to use some of the tiles in the kitchen to fix where the Formica top has peeled off. Hopefully this week Dan and Ian will start the plumbing. (hope! hope! hope!)

Now to make a bit of dinner and watch a movie. I’m exhausted!

Now this is what May is suppose to be like!

Posted on by

Warm days,  cool nights and lovely breezes. Okay, Winds. Then again, when isn’t it windy in Walsenburg? Oh well. The weather is warmer, I can wear skirts, sandals and light tops again. Wheeee!!! Can you tell I get tired of jeans?

Life has been busy. It was suppose to be a relaxed week. HA! It got really busy really fast. Not only were Dan and Ian trying to fix the Neon and the Nissan, but they had computer work, and then the Lights at the Fox. Oh gods. They wired the theater in 9 hours when it normally would have taken 3 days. They also discovered that there was a piece missing called a terminator. (stop laughing) Without it, nothing would work. Dan and Ian about had a seizure. Checking online and on the phone, and discovered that they cost $300. Or, you could ‘build your own’ for about $5. Guess what we did? Yup! We built it.

The reason it was so necessary to get things running this week was that El Fandango was performing for Cinco De Mayo. One performance on Wednesday, one tonight and another one on Saturday if I remember correctly. Practice went well, so hopefully the shows will as well. Dan was happy the way the new light board worked too.

We let Nibbler play with the big dogs this evening. Daniel was here, so I figured that he and Ian were strong enough to pull the dogs apart if anything went wrong. No problems. Wheee!!!! Now to just rebuild the fence.

Tomorrow I have to buckle down and write an essay for school. Oh, and return about 20 phone calls.

Dammit, it’s May and still COLD!!!!

Posted on by

We had snow yesterday. Today it is a whopping 48 degrees, and the sun we had lasted for about 45 minutes. Brrrr!!!

Yesterday, I headed down to the gardening meeting in hopes of planting my squash seeds. Half way there, it started graupling. By the time I got to the community center, there were snow snakes blowing across the parking lot. It was too cold to even pull weeds.

Today hasn’t been much better. I’m just glad that it was warm while we washed Nibbler. He stank so bad that we had to wash the pup! I did housework today as well. Mopped the floors which are still drying. It is just too damn cold to be May!

Oh well.

Two more assignments in the business class and I will be done. Huzzah! This has not been one of my favourite classes. I’m very tempted to switch online schools.