Spanish Peaks International Celtic Music Festival!!!

Posted on by

Yes, it is that time of year again. Bagpipes, harps and drums echo in the mountains and towns of Huerfano County. The festival is one of our favourite events. It is also a very hectic time for all of us. Dan and I do lights and sound as well as anything else Barbara Yule has in mind for us.

Dan was off early to pick u sound equipment. Today the festival musicians and performers are in our schools. 🙂 So, Dan will be setting up various venues in Peakview and John Mall. Tonight is the artists pot luck up in La Veta.

Unfortunately,  I will miss the Ceilidh up in Gardner for the first time in years. I have a regional school board meeting up in Pueblo. sigh… pout… However, I am the only member of my board going and so I can’t miss it.

I’ll be posting pictures of the festival. Hope if you’re close enough that you can come and visit. There are some free events that are wonderful. Friday from noon until 2:30pm, there is a free concert up on old La Veta Pass and another one from 3:45 till 5pm, there is a street concert, downtown Walsenburg.

Plus, there are free harp, whistle, and drum classes on various days. In the evenings are the concerts with The Tannahill Weavers, John Doyle, Duncan Wickel & Friends, and many others. I hope you come visit. If you do, stop by the sound and lights and say hello.

Quiet at last

Posted on by

… 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.

Akkkk! Where did May Go?

Posted on by

I’ve been so busy, that I haven’t had time to post. At least not on this blog. May has been chock o block with meetings. The school board stuff has been running me in circles. For those activities, go to my other blog, Untapped Potential.

Our weather has been weird for May. Hot, cold, windy, cold! We even had a few days when it rained in town, but snowed up in the mountains.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Work has been slow, so I’ve been vacuuming my parent’s house. Mom is 75, so I see no problem with this. Plus it means I get to visit with her at least once a week.

A friend of mine posted a neat website. All about INFJ’s. 🙂 Yeah, me. Visit it here, here and here. After reading that last page… no wonder I’m a good hugger! I love the posters too. They are a riot.

The rest of this month will be taken up with three graduations, negotiations and a trip with my parents to Las Vegas, N.M.  We’re going down to Charlie’s bakery. Best tortillas in the world. 🙂

Oh, last but not least, a friend of mine is illustrating my story, Fairy Light!

Meetings and concerts and printers Oh My!

Posted on by

April has been a busy month. Lots of school board meetings and plenty of long nights. Yesterday was a prime example of life around here.

7:am- Arrive at the bus garage to meet Dawn Olson our superintendent and head for Colorado Springs for a Professional Learning Committee meeting.

9:00am to 3pm- PLC meeting with teachers, superintendents, board members from 11 districts, and CDE. Lunch included.

3:15-4:25- Drive home from Colorado Springs

4:30-5:20pm- Attended Jeanne Wilkins retirement party at Peakview School.

5:30pm- 8:15pm- Board workshop with David Benson and Iris Williams. Lots of good work towards becoming good board members. Dinner included

8:30pm – 9:30pm- Watched and listened to the last half of the Outside Track Celtic Concert at the Fox Theater.

9:45pm-10:30pm- home, relax and go to bed!

And today, Lots of pictures of Dan’s latest project. He built a 3D printer. A RepRap. To say that he’s pleased is an understatement. He still needs to work on some of the firmware and await the arrival of the plastic.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Busy, Hectic Week

Posted on by

This week was something else. Monday I spent catching up on all the email from the weekend and met with Sandi Hansen of Edison Learning. She is working with our school district to help bring up our educational scores on the Colorado student assessment tests. (TCAP).

Tuesday was meeting day from hell. Dan and I had a Southeastern Workforce Investment Board meeting in La Junta. This was also the day that Colorado tried to blow all of it’s topsoil to Kansas. We had miles of dirt fog. So much dirt in the air that we couldn’t see. Tumbleweeds were passing us and we were going 65! It took 1 gallon of gas to get to La Junta and 3 to get home due to the wind.

At the meeting, we discussed the workforce/employment issues in our region. The map showing the regions can be found here. We also had a really good presentation on Demographics for regions 6 and 14, which is what we are according to the state. It was very interesting and we actually got to solve a question that the Demographers had. There was a statistical blip that they didn’t understand and I looked at it and knew in an instant what it was. There was a burst of households in the 44 to 65 yr range. They didn’t get it and I explained that it was the grandchildren coming to Huerfano County to occupy their grandparents houses. The reason I knew that was that I’m one of those. I escaped the big city, Littleton, to come down to Walsenburg to raise my family in a low cost, low crime/stress area.

After that meeting, we drove home, grabbed dinner and then headed to the board meeting. This was the first regular board meeting for RE-1 in February. All others had been special meetings and/or workshops. We got a lot accomplished and once again, there is more on that meeting on my other blog.

Wednesday should have been quiet. I got some stuff done around the office and then went to meet with David Benson around 4pm. He and his partner, Iris Williams are working to help our school district with trust issues. We have a situation whereby nearly 100% of the district dislikes/distrusts one person. Not healthy, and it is causing major issues. It was a really good discussion and we talked till nearly 5pm. Afterwards, I went to the library and then went to work to pick up Dan. We had to be to Peakview by 6pm to see a 4th grade play called the Emerald Egg. That was fun.

Thursday we were up early and went with my parents to Colorado Springs. Dad had his cancer checkup. Dan drove us home as Dad was a little loopy from the pain meds. We stopped at Romero’s for lunch. Yummm!

Friday was just as early a start. I had a State Youth Council meeting to be at in Denver. The weather was  bit nasty, so we left early. The meeting was very good. More info on that over on Untapped Potential. We drove home through bands of snow. We were going to stop in Pueblo for dinner, but with the snow, we changed our minds. Good thing we did as there was a huge car pileup accident due to the snow.

Friday was also Daniel’s 22nd birthday. 🙂

Saturday was sort of a stay in bed type day. We slept in, relaxed and did as little as possible. 🙂 Better yet, we went to Wonderful House in Trinidad with my parents. It was my parents way of thanking Dan for driving. They even promised him that he could bring a date if he wanted, or if he didn’t, they have this daughter…. that they’d set up as a blind date for him. ROFLOL!! Needless to say, there were a bunch of blind date jokes all evening.

Today is catch-up day. Dan has gone into work for the day and I’m writing blog posts, reading emails and cleaning house. Wheee!

For more school board adventures, check out my other blog, Untapped Potential

Wow!

Posted on by

January went fast. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I had almost as many meetings as days. So far, February isn’t looking much better and it is only the first. sigh…

We’ve had a couple of warm days which makes life easier. Tomorrow is Groundhog’s Day, and Imbolc is on Saturday. Six more weeks until Spring! As it is, Colorado is suffering a drought. 17 months of sub-par moisture. We had 5 years of it starting in the late 90’s. I hope that we get a bunch of snow in the next few months. Yeah, I know that isn’t popular, but we need the moisture and snow is one way we keep it around long enought to actually make a difference.

Some things have changed. Brian brought home a puppy last week. Mastiff and retriever mix. Plus, the dog we rescued from 7/11 on New Year’s Day is still with us. We’ve named her Pasha. She is a very sweet dog, and if we can get her to stop chewing the harness, we’ll be able to let her stay outside all day. We still haven’t gotten enough of the fence repaired to have the dogs out unchained. Brandy of course is NOT happy about having to share her people with other dogs. Oh well.

School board life has been… interesting. Yeah, that’s a good word for it. Interesting. It is taking up a bit more of my life than I expected. Granted, the district has some major issues and we need to be a proactive board instead of seven bodies in chairs. I’ve gotten my desk in the office fixed up pretty well too. There is a lot of stuff and now I have two desks to spread it out across.

Hopefully, this weekend we will be able to get some work done on the Wendy House. It has been cold or I’ve been too busy to do anything. My luck, it will snow. 🙂

I should have known better

Posted on by

Life didn’t mellow out, slow down or get easier. Instead, it got crazy.  The school board meeting that should have happened on the 8th was canceled. We had snow and the auditors that check the election couldn’t certify the vote. You can read all about that here . I started a blog about my school board life.

The 9th was my birthday. I made dinner and a carrot cake. It was great and while we did nothing really special, it was a good day. Thursday and Friday Dan had to work sound for the local high school play. Saturday we had dinner in Trinidad with my parents. We went to Wonderful House for my ‘birthday’ dinner. Yum!

Over the weekend, I attempted to seal cracks in the Wendy House. The wind was brutal and my parents called us on Sunday to tell us how they’d driven up HWY 12 and came across the wind damage at Stonewall. We were lucky here in Walsenburg. A few limbs down and that was about it.

Monday… Bryan and Katie have been having issues. Not exactly fighting, but issues. They decided to talk, but didn’t set a time. Katie kept pestering Bryan when he was either just waking up, going to sleep, heading to work, etc… Not a good time to talk. So, he said ‘let’s talk on the weekend’ (ie Nov 19th) She said okay. He went to work. Tuesday morning around 6:45am, Bryan knocks on our door. Katie and the kids are gone. The house was trashed and she apparently packed as much as she could get in the car and left.

We were all devastated. Eventually we found that she was in Ft. Smith, OK. with her girlfriends. I have to admit I am worried about the boys. I miss my two grandsons, Talon and Gavin.

Wednesday was the make up meeting for the school district and a Accountability meeting. Dan and I are now part of the District Accountability Committee. So, Dan went to the Accountability meeting and I went to the school board. We got sworn in and then held elections for officers. I’m now the president of the school board.

Thursday morning, we had the police doing a welfare check on Katie as she hadn’t reported to work. Then that afternoon, her boss from the hospital was by. Katie never called the school, daycare or her job. She just left. The day was lightened by the fact that I had a mouse try to run up my pant leg and then later ran across the sleeping dog.

Friday we went out to Gardner School for One Room Schoolhouse. Each year they have a day where the whole school reverts to the one room school system. It was a lot of fun. Dan helped make ice cream cone cones and we both helped Pam’s class make telephones. Afterwards we went up to see Jack and Barbara Yule. Dan did some computer work and then we had a nice lunch.

As for this weekend, it has been fairly quiet. We did some work, got paid, enjoyed a good meal in Pueblo and Brandy got sprayed by a skunk. We also took a drive where we saw at least 100 deer and 60 wild turkeys. It was great.  Today I got to spend two hours visiting with a dear friend I haven’t seen in 30 years. Bill Farquhar and his wife Kristen were on their way to Denver and stopped in town long enough to eat lunch and visit. 🙂 It was so good to chat and catch up with him.

Now I’m catching up on all the blogs, emails and other things, because if things go as they have been, the next two weeks will be busy!

 

What a crazy day!

Posted on by

We tried to sleep in! Then Brandy wanted our attention. We got ready for a leisurely day… hahahahahahaha!!! Silly us.

Apparently the phone rang at nine. We didn’t know. At 10am, Erin rang to see if we could help Morgan move. I said yes, and started to get ready to go down and help. Hahahahaha. I checked the phone because it said we’d missed a call. The restaurant had called. Karen needed me to bake.

So, I showered and headed to work. Made bread, two coconut cream pies and did a lot of people ‘mopping up’. A refrigerator blew a coil or something and died. So, everyone was a bit frantic. Ooooooommm……. Lots of smiles, backrubs, grounding and other energy work along with the cooking. Phew! Ate lunch and finally got home around 3pm. Took a brief rest and tried to catch up on all the other calls I’d missed.

Meanwhile, when I was gone, Barbara Yule called with computer issues, and my Dad came by. He had pictures for the La Plaza Inn website for Dan.

I made arrangements with Pauline to pick up her washer and dryer and then called John to meet us at the house Morgan and Erin were renting. By 5pm, I finally had everyone in place. Wooohooo!!!! After that, I picked up some stuff that I’m taking to Stefan and Bryan in Arkansas. Gads those books are heavy.

Now to go do some sewing. I have jeans to hem for $$ and then I have two dresses to sew for the trip. Wheee…. If I am lucky, the only things I will have tomorrow will be a Huefano County Cat Coalition meeting and then helping Morgan and Erin pack. sigh….

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!!! 🙂

There are days…

Posted on by

Life flows. You get into habits. Or, you get into bad habits. Comfy habits. Then things change. The job, lifestyle, something.  That Cosmic Clue X 4 swings your way. You try to organize. You try to get life in order so that things just work. Anything to avoid that whiffling noise followed by the resounding crrrrrrack up side the head.

Well, Dan and I have been hearing that whiffle bat headeing our way.  We are both still out of work. Not for lack of trying, but just circumstance. On my part, there must have been a ton of unemployed secretaries  out there because every job I have tried for I have gotten the “nice letter”. sigh. Dan’s computer job in Springs turned out to be a wash. A scam. The company has a habit of courting techs, having them do some “try-out” work and then dumps them under the guise that “things just don’t really work out. The company gets the work done and no one gets paid. Dan was So Very Unhappy about that. At this point, we are probably going for the jobs at Safeway or 7-11, etc. yuck.

Meanwhile, on an upbeat note, we had another meeting with Debora Hood. She is a busiiness solutions consultant that we met at the BBB Power Breakfasts. Very neat lady. She has been helping us figure out how to set up LoboSavvy. (coming soon to your computers…. LoboSavvy.com… The Place to go to for Comouter Tech Support for your business or home.)

So, back to getting organized. All last week, everywhere I turned, I was running into articles about cleaning up, organizing, getting your life in line. You name it, the stuff kept popping up. Even in my fortune cookie!!! So, I took the hint and decided that it was time to get our asses in gear.

Do you know how HARD it is to convince someone who is normally very organized that he needs to get organized? Gads!!! However, I had a captive audience yesterday. In our desire to get home Thursday night, we forgot to pick up dog food. Normally, I would just have grabbed any old dog food. However, we have these two dogs that just don’t do well on the low protein stuff. So, it was off to Pueblo for dog food. While we were driving, I brought the subject up. We got a little bit of extra time to talk about it because the car decided to have a snit fit. So, as we sat on the side of the road waiting for it to cool off, we talked about how we need to get organized. Business wise and personally.I think the personal side will be harder than the business.

This means of course that we are starting today. Yarggggggghhh….. I know that I am just as bad, especially about sleeping in, but oh gods the alarm went off early on a Saturday. Plus, this week will not be a typical week as we have my parents to deal with and construction work on the house. Such fun. Closets and drywall and mud oh my!!!