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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.
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. 
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.
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.
Oh, and just in case Colorado thought that it might give us a week off, there is more snow due on Saturday. sigh..
Yes, it is snowing again. We’ve had a lot of snow since I wrote last. Probably 18 inches all total. Life in it’s own way has been crazy. We took my dad up to Colorado Springs for cancer testing. His bladder cancer is back and they will begin chemo in about two weeks. While we were at the hospital, Dan got some sort of stomach bug which has kicked his ass. Ugh.
He was nearly over it by the time we went up to the Colorado Association of School Board’s Winter Conference over Valentine’s Day. CASB’s conference was good and a fellow board member, David Tesitor went with me this year. Things in general with the school board are settling down. We just finished the superintendent’s evaluation. We work on her contract on Tuesday. I had been writing a separate blog about school board stuff, but simply couldn’t keep up with it. I’m working on writing more on my NaNoWriMo story which is a little more involved that I thought it would be.
On our way home, we stopped at IKEA. 🙂 We got new dishes, a kettle, a BIG cup for Morgan and some little bits and pieces. It was a good but tiring day.
Since we came home, it’s been running errands, general housekeeping stuff, electrical work at The Cowboy Connection for  Marianne Smithey and stacking a ton of wood. We bought a cord and I think we got closer to a cord and a half. 🙂
About that snow… I could just recycle the pictures. You’d never really know. However, here are the latest out our window.
As predicted, it began to snow around 11am. My son Bryan and the two grandboys, Gavin and Talon were due to visit around 1pm. They made it just before it started to snow heavily. We had a good visit and I gave them some things that Dan and I just don’t use anymore. It saved me a trip to Dorcas Circle, and them a trip to the store. 🙂 Plus, he brought me an armload of firewood. Wheee!
I gave the boys two books I’ve had for them which they were so excited about. 🙂 Who knew that Peter Rabbit and Goodnight Moon would bring such smiles. They devoured two apples and half a dozen gingersnaps while I made potato soup for dinner. When they said goodbye, Talon told me “I love you to the Moon and back.” Pretty good for a three year old. 🙂
It’s been a while since I felt like writing. On January 18th, after some of the most bitter temperatures in a while, I headed to Cheyenne. It had been 39 Very Long Days since I’d seen Dan. I swear that the travel fairies were with me as I literally flew up I-25. It is usually a 4.5 hour trip and I made it in just under 4 hours. 🙂 It was so good to be together again.
We had a computer client in Denver on Saturday. When we got back, we packed up all of Dan’s stuff and came home on Sunday afternoon. He will continue to look for work, but that will be done from here, instead of Cheyenne. Neither one of us liked being apart.
This last week has been hectic. Meetings, rearranging the house once more to accommodate the offices to the front porch where it is warm, and dinner with my parents. In that Dan missed Christmas dinner, he got to pick what he wanted for dinner. We had fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans with bacon. Mom made oatmeal cookies with butterscotch chips for dessert.
Friday we had a Spanish Peaks International Celtic Music Festival meeting. We are planning for the 9th Festival. It looks like it will be very good.
On Sunday we had a birthday party with a group we are a part of called Mach30. It was fun. Â Monday was interesting. Dan got an offer to build some electrical parts for a local WISP. It is exciting and should actually net us some income. We had a school district meeting as well that lasted until nearly 8pm.
Today we were suppose to go visit Morgan in La Junta. It was going to be a quick trip as I had yet another school board meeting tonight. Well, we woke up to about 4 inches of snow with more falling. Right now I think we have had about 6-7 inches. The wind has settled down, but the snow is still falling. We stayed home and I canceled the meeting. My parents didn’t go to Pueblo either. They got about 25 miles up the road and turned back. About 30 minutes ago I took some pictures. We are snugged up in the Guest house keeping warm by the woodstove. 🙂
We did have a white Christmas. It was lovely. I spent the day with my parents, Daniel and his SO Angela and Morgan. We had a lovely dinner, but missed Dan. He of course is still in Cheyenne.
A few days later, once the snow had melted, I had a young buck in my front yard eating berries. I stood next to our truck and tried to take pictures, as our tomcat, Redtom, was stalking the deer. I startled the deer, which in turn saw the cat. They startled each other and both ran. A few minutes later, the buck came back to eat berries and Redtom kept his back to the buck with the “That was NOT a mouse!” look on his face.
New Year’s was interesting. I spent most of the time trying to calm down Brandy, our dog, who did not care for the fireworks. She was upset until at least 4am. Yawwwwn… I ate dinner with my parents and Mom sent Brandy a bag full of ham scraps and bones. It helped. 🙂
I am hoping that 2013 will be a good year.
I swear that this month has flown. Don’t know if it has anything to do with the fact that I’ve been driving up and down I-25 between here and Cheyenne, but damn!
We recovered from all the company, meetings, odd ball jobs and then we started going up to Wyoming to visit Erin. We also sat up all night watching the elections. That was very interesting. It will be interesting too, to see how things work out in the next few months.
We had a WorkForce conference in Canon City. I got to visit my friend Jude and her little farm full of geese, ducks, chickens, and goats. She had two of the cutest baby goats. One was angora and so soft! The last day of the conference was also my 53rd birthday. I had lunch with my friend Jacque at this neat bakery in Florence. It had macaroons to die for. Omg! Then we drove home and pretended we didn’t exist for the whole weekend. It was lovely.
My parents are going to Las Cruces for Thanksgiving at my Aunty Tony’s house. We get to watch the cat, Zoe. Wheee… Otherwise, I’m making Green Chile for dinner. I hate turkey. Morgan is going to her mom’s for Tday, so it will be just Dan and I.
I’m doing NaNoWriMo. I’m a bit behind. Tonight I plan to see how many words I can write between 6 and 10pm. Hopefully a few thousand. I’m writing a story about colonizing Mars.
… 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.
Natalie, my oldest daughter has been visiting. We haven’t seen her in six years. So, on her way down from Canada, she stopped here. We’ve been out to see Morgan, had dinner with my parents, visited with some of the boys on the phone, drove up to see the aspens and have visited until the wee hours of the morning. Here are some of the pics so far.
This month has rushed by. We started with Battlemoor and will end with the Spanish Peaks Celtic Music Festival In between, we have had birthdays a plenty. Morgan’s, Dan’s, Mom and Dad’s. And, since we got paid, there were new glasses for Dan and Morgan, new shoes for Dan and new tires for the truck. Then it was back to the daily grind of house work, computers and cleaning.
I thought I’d get a breather in there. Wrong. Day after his birthday, Dan felt ill. By Monday night, he was in bed. I won’t share the gory details, but he was not a happy camper. Oh, and he passed out/fell at one point. One moment he was fine, next… out. So, he spent most of the next day in bed and has been making a slow recovery ever since. Why? Well, when he fell, he smacked his hip and cracked a rib. We knew about the hip right away… Can’t miss it if it hurts to sit. And yes, plenty of bad jokes were made about cracks… However, it wasn’t until he actually began to feel better, and stopped hurting everywhere, that he realized he’d cracked a rib.
Now of course, it’s the beginning of the music festival. Dan is up in Gardner today with some of the musicians at the school. Tonight is a pot luck which I need to make a cake or something for and Thursday night is The Taste of Things to Come, the first concert. It is going to be a really good festival this year.
Oh, and on top of that, we are 1) cleaning house to do the plumbing-don’t faint, 2) cleaning house because it’s time to get ready for winter, and 3) Natalie is coming to visit October 1st!!!!! I’m sorry that she’ll be here when it is all chaotic, but we haven’t seen her in nearly 6 years. (bounce! bounce! bounce!)
After mid-October, when I think I’ll get some time to sew, we’ll see what else crops up.