Same weather, different Month.

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It’s February! Wheee! Tomorrow is Groundhog’s day, and if he says another 6 weeks of winter, I may scream. Or cry. Or whimper. We did have a few glorious days where the weather got up to 65F for one day and others in the 50’s, but today we are back to snow, cold, 29F weather. Brrr! At least most of the storm yesterday was rain and it didn’t turn to snow until late last night.

That was appreciated, as we were chopping firewood. Our friend Mark stopped by and gave us a small load of wood. He said that the ‘wood fairy’ had told him were were short of wood. He was right. I was so stiff this morning, that the prospect of getting up was daunting! No choice though, as it was a Bob & Earl morning. Bob & Earl’s is a little greasy spoon cafe in Trinidad. My parents found it and fell in love with it. Now that we are their designated drivers, we take them to breakfast about three times a month. If the weather is good. Luckily, it wasn’t too bad today. On our way down, we saw a bald eagle sitting on a fence post. In fact, he was still there when we drove home.

B & E’s is sort of the Cheer’s of the cafe world. Everyone knows you. We were an hour later than usual, and when we walked in, Holly the waitress looked at us and smiled as she said, “You’re Late!”. We all laughed. As she brought us our drinks, she took our order. “Now let’s see… Jon, you want a Mexican biscuit and two links. Carolyn, waffles or an egg with bacon, and sourdough toast? Right. You (Dan) want a Mexican biscuit, no onion, but extra cheese, and you want a breakfast burrito, no cheese.” Then she walks off.

Breakfast arrived 20 minutes later. Ahhh heaven. After breakfast, we dropped my parents off, got some groceries and then headed home. I’m updating blogs while trying to resist curling up for a nap.

Other highlights… We had a couple of ice storms. Slippery, nasty things! Beautiful for pictures, but dangerous.

We took Morgan up to CSU, Ft. Collins, and she is doing well.

I’ve been making hats for the Clothing bank at our school, and helping clean up Washington school so that the community and the school district can use it more.

The district’s finance manager retired. This has thrown the district into a tizzy, but we will survive. We’ve had a bunch of meetings as of late as well. A BOCES retreat, workshops and lots of committee work.

We’ve also been doing a lot of clean up around the house and yard, getting ready for SPRING! (ie, the warmer snow season) We cut down a tree out front that was just so scraggly and stacked the wood to burn next year. We are planning a greenhouse as well.

Last but not least… We have an SCA day in 3 weeks. I’m considering a new outfit. I have the fabric, but not sure if I have the time to complete it. We shall see.

Graduation!!!

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Yeah! We were just a little pumped. 🙂 Up early, on the road by 8:15am and in La Junta by 9:30am. All dressed up and just waiting to see Morgan graduate. 🙂 Nearly three hours later, we watched our girl get her diploma. Associates of Science degree. Lots of pics, lunch, and then the packing.

Yes, she was so twiterpatted, that she didn’t get packed. LOL! We helped, and by 6:30pm we were finally on the road. It was late when we got home, and we left most of the stuff in the truck overnight. The pizza left over from the night before disappeared as if by magic. 🙂 Starving college students, who knew?

Now our living room looks like a bomb hit it. Girl stuff everywhere. Boxes, bags and bedding. All with a girl in the middle. 🙂 It won’t be like that for long though. She’s off to California with her friend for a few months.

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Wendy House Renovations

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Well, by the time the weekend rolled around, the weather was back in the mid to high 60’s. So,… we decided to do some work on the Wendy House. First though, we had to go see Morgan. What neither Dan or I knew/remembered is that she wanted to come home for the weekend.

Bonus!!! We had extra hands to help with the work. So, Saturday morning at the crack of 10am, after a lovely breakfast of bacon and pancakes, we started the great destruction. Twelve hours later, we had 90% of the work done.

Sunday, after crawling out of bed by lips and toenails, we got moving again. We were fueled by bacon, orange rolls and plenty of tea! While Dan did some electrical work, Morgan and I tackled some outside work. We dug a ditch for a drain and then did terracing work on the driveway. The alley had been falling into the driveway for probably 3 years. Now, it isn’t moving… we hope.

After that, we drove to Pueblo for steak and then took Morgan back to La Junta. Dan and I took our sore and aching muscles to bed. 🙂

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And for anyone who doesn’t understand why I call it the Wendy House… it’s a Peter Pan reference. 🙂

 

PS…. Sunday evening

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We took Morgan back to La Junta so that she could start school after spring break. Half way home it started snowing. Yes, Snowing. We drove home slowly as I read the book we’ve been working on. The closer we got to Walsenburg, the harder it snowed. We got nearly a 1/4 of an inch in just the time it took for me to grab the wood basket and my gloves.

So, ten minutes later, we have a fire going in the wood stove and almost an inch of snow on the ground. ah… Springtime in Colorado.

Blizzard!

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If I had waited just a bit, I could have written about yesterday. I woke up early thinking it was a little cold. Just a tad. Brandy was curled up deep in her blankets and when I looked outside it was snowing. Between the winds and the size of the flakes, it looked like I was in the middle of a snow globe. I went back to bed.

A few hours later, we all got up. I made breakfast and we ate it in the dining room. Out the windows, we were able to watch the wind slew the snow sideways, and the cars not cope well with the icy roads. Once breakfast was done, we moved into the guest house and fired up the wood stove. While the temperatures dropped to as low as 14, we were toasty warm. Morgan reigned from the bed while Dan used a tv tray. I had my desk, which faces the windows and let me watch the storm. That snow globe weather didn’t stop until nearly 6pm.

Rather than cook, we splurged. Yeah Taco Bell! 🙂 It’s funny when we go there, because one of the staff is a friend and she knows what I want before I speak most days. Okay, I’m not very adventurous, but at least it isn’t difficult to take the cheese out of what I want to eat. Dan and Morgan pigged out on chicken tenders while I had tacos. Then we came home, fed the wood stove and chatted, played on the computers until midnight and in general had a good time.

Today the sun is shining and the temps so far have hit 40F. That’s good, as we have to take Morgan back to college today. sigh… I’m just happy we had her for a week. She gets to take home transport this time. Her half brother Matt finished her bicycle at long last. Her commute has just dropped to 5 minutes. We head to La Junta later this afternoon. March Blizzard3

March Madness

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I could have entitled this post Yet one more snow storm… but I didn’t. On Mach 8th, we had more snow. 14 inches all total. Brandy was not a happy dog.

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Then on the 15th, Dan went to La Junta to pick up our daughter, Morgan. It is spring break for her. On Sunday, we drove to the Sand Dunes NP. We had a long drive over all, as we went all the way up to Crestone and to the Karma Thegsum Tashi Gomang  It had just started to snow when we headed up the road to the Stupa.  By the time we got up to it, it was snowing very hard, so instead of getting out and looking around, we headed back down the mountain. In less than 20 minutes, there had been over 2 inches of snowfall.

On our way back to the Sand Dunes, we saw over 100 Sand Hill Cranes. It was really neat. The rest of our animal count that day was two hawks flying and about 45 prong horn antelope.

The Sand Dunes also got a dusting of snow. The moisture made the walking easier. Morgan climbed up to the second highest dune and rolled down it twice. Plus she hiked about twice the distance that Dan and I did. I walked the creek bed of Medano Creek. It wasn’t very far down the dunes yet, and there was a lot of fire debris from the forest fire two years ago. Overall, we had a really good time and came home exhausted.

The rest of the week has been spent relaxing. Morgan has had naps with her naps. 🙂 I’ve been writing and doing hand crafts. I’ve been carving Nalbinding needles. They fit in with my Viking persona in the SCA. I may be good enough to actually show it off come time for Battlemoor.

Nalbinding needles.16Oh, and just in case Colorado thought that it might give us a week off, there is more snow due on Saturday. sigh..

 

 

Quiet at last

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… for at least a little while. Erin came by to visit with Natalie on Thursday. We had pizza and chatted until he had to get back to his truck around 9pm. Friday we went to Pueblo. We took Natalie to Bingo Burger for dinner and then we looked around in various shops for a light coat for me. No luck. Finally around 9:30pm, we took Natalie to the bus station and saw her off to Austin Texas. After a quick stop for a drink, we drove to La Junta and picked up Morgan. She had a meeting in Colorado Springs the next morning. We got in late, up early and headed out.

The meeting was a People to People meeting about a trip to Australia. Morgan was really excited about this, but as the meeting wore on, it was apparent to us that Morgan had ‘out grown’ what People to People could offer. That jump in maturity has sent her straight out of PtP’s league. So, it was a rather sad trio that drove home. We are now thinking of just raising the money for Morgan to go visit Natalie in Oxford.

To take the edge off, we went to the Citadel Mall and got Greek gyros for lunch. Yum! Then we did the great coat hunt for me again. In the end, we gave up and I bought a pattern and material for a coat. I’ll be making that this week. (hopefully). We drove home and after a bit of dinner, headed to bed.

We slept in for the first time in nearly 8 weeks! It was glorious!!! We got up, pottered about and then after watching the Space x launch, had a bit of dinner and then drove Morgan back to La Junta. It was a nice ride home, as we watched rabbits zip across the highway. We also talked a bit about my project for NaNoWriMo. (National Novel Writing Month) I’ve decided to give it a try again. Last time my computer died. We talked about the plot, some characters and where I’d like things to go. We discussed just how much I was going to have to pick his brain too. 🙂

Today, it was back to the grind. A much quieter house now that the girls are gone, but good to be back to a more ‘normal’ (?) schedule.

Morgan and Anabel

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Life has been just a tad hectic. Between work for Dan, lots of meetings for me and life in general, we’ve had two big events. The first one was Morgan going off to college! Earlier in the month, Dan and Morgan got her Colorado ID and then registered her for college at Otero State Jr. College in La Junta. Locals call it La Hunna. 🙂 It’s about 78 miles east of us. Morgan took her accuplacer test and maxed it. I’m not sure who was more proud. Dan, because she did so well that she doesn’t need any classes below 200 level, or Morgan because she beat her dad’s scores. 🙂

Then the great packing began. Morgan had lots of stuff. Some she left, some was trashed and loads was packed to go to college. Our big worry was housing. At nearly the last minute, we did find her some temporary housing. It is a very nice house about 3 blocks from the college. So, on Sunday we drove her out there, met the woman who owns the house, unpacked Morgan and then took her to Walmart for some groceries. Morgan had a little melt down, but not bad at all. Especially as she won’t be 16 until next month!

Then we said our goodbyes and headed home. On the drive home, we hit a coyote. 🙁 No help for it though. We dropped like rocks into bed.

Monday morning, Dan went off to work by 6am and Anabel, my grandaughter arrived at 9:30am.  She’s 8 and I hadn’t seen her in a year. It was so good to see her. We talked, took lots of pictures, made a carob cake and a carrot cake. My parents and my ex husband came over to see Anabel too. Anabel and I looked at treasures, made her a pillow, and two necklaces. She played on the Xoom while I did dishes and cooked dinner. Luckily, Dan got home in time to see her too. She’d been asking for him all day, which I thought was great. 🙂

Her Great-grandma Sue picked her up around 7pm. I’ll miss her, but we will see her soon. 🙂

And now the house is so quiet.

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Someday, Sun day

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Well, it was suppose to be my day off. However, Karen called around 10pm to see if I could come in to bake bread on Sunday morning. They had a good night at the restaurant, and had gone through 7 of the 8 loaves I’d baked. I said yes.

So, I woke this morning to cool cloudy skies. It was so cool, that I had to shut the door to the kitchen to get the bread to raise! It rained. The peaks were shrouded in these very cool cloud strands. I baked bread and came home. Whee….

However, I didn’t get the stuff done that I wanted to. There were too many people in the house, and I couldn’t concentrate on school work. So, Dan and I took a drive. Daniel had been nice enough to let me borrow his car, so we drove up to Cuchara and had lunch at the Dog Bar. Yum!!! It wasn’t a long drive or a long lunch, but it was good enough to refresh me.

Dan had a gig to go to in La Veta with David Enke tonight, so Ian and Morgan went with him. Ian will go hang out with friends and Morgan will help her Dad. They dropped Kayla off at 203, so I’d have time to get my school work done without interruption. Kayla has been staying with us since the 16th, which is a long time. Her parents are picking her up around 11pm! Gads. I don’t understand why they are coming down so late.

I have all my school work done now and can relax a bit. Wheeeeeee!!!!! All I need to get done now is a skirt or two for work and some dinner. Maybe a story written too. I have this idea in my head…

Serendipity

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This week started out a little crazy. All sorts of new projects up and running, including college classes. I switched universities after CTU started driving me nuts. I’m now attending Ashford Online University. Changed my major too. I’m now a Public Administration major. Sort of a mix between political science and business management.

My first class is a psych class, trying to assess the students and their learning styles. Well…. amongst the tests to play with is the Meyers Briggs type and temperament test. Now for whatever reason, I have never taken this test. (please faint over by the couch. the floor is already full). Discovered that I am an INFJ, which is rather rare. Dan who is taking the same class with a different instructor took the test too. He is an INTJ, another rare bird, and oddly enough, we are well suited to each other, LOLOLOL!

At the bottom of one of the links, was an email list. I checked it out and the webpage that goes with it and decided to talk with people like me. The list has been great fun. Yes, it is busy, but I’m enjoying myself. I shared links on the blog here to a few of the pics of the dogs, so I suspect that is why my stats have gone through the roof today. 🙂

Dan and Ian are off to La Veta for a concert. David Enke is doing the sound and the guys are doing the lights. So, I’m all alone except for the dogs for a while. Nice time to turn my music up and disappear for a while. Recharge my batteries and dance around with Nibbler. Tomorrow I have to crack the books for a bit, make banana bread and probably cook dinner.