snow | My Blog

And back into the Icebox!!!

Posted on October 21, 2009 by

Last night it started to rain. We went to bed fairly early because Morgan had a field trip to go on and they had to leave at 6am this morning. At some point in the night, the rain turned to snow. Daniel turned up around 2:15am. He didn’t want to fall asleep and not be able to be woken up. I woke up at 3am, when something pissed off the skunk. Oh gads! The smell sent me into an asthma attack. 4am, my alarm went off. Dan was suppose to get up, but didn’t want to move. I don’t blame him. 4:25am, Dan and Morgan finally got up and moving. It was snowing and they knew that they needed to get on the road. Dan, Daniel and Morgan left around 5am for Gardner. I went back to bed, as I could finally breathe.

7:35am-The phone rings. Daniel. “Hi mom, we’re stuck in the mud and Erin is coming to pull us out.” Huh? Okay. I figured that they had gone off the road and were just stuck on the side of the road. I hung up the phone and went back to sleep.

8:58am-The phone rings. It’s John this time telling me that Daniel and Dan are still stuck, Erin couldn’t get them out of the mud, and that they were waiting for Daniel’s Towing Service to unstick them. Great… The boyz went Mudding. What the hell were they thinking? I debated rolling back over and going to sleep versus getting up. While I lay there debating, Dan and Daniel arrived. Dan was soaked and mud covered. They were hauling the hose out of the back yard to clean off Daniel’s car. I got up and took a peek. There must have been ten pounds of mud on it.

Brandy and Blanca of course took advantage of the chaos to run off. Dumb dogs!

They hosed it off, and Daniel headed home to shower and hopefully get his car fixed. He had planned to get a ball joint or something like that repaired today. If he couldn’t, he was just going to sleep. While fixing breakfast, Dan told me what really happened. They had gotten Morgan safely to school and were almost home when they decided to go play in the arroyos near Toltec. Dan said to Daniel that this probably was NOT a good idea. Daniel, being Daniel said “Well, I want to” and off they went. They did fine right up until they hit clay. The sand in the arroyo was okay. However, the mud was…. sticky, sucking and treacherous. Daniel almost got them out. he slid off the ‘road’ and that was it. So, they called Erin, who has a big 4WD pickup. Daniel’s is a 4WD Blazer.

Erin came out and couldn’t even get near Daniel’s Blazer. He got stuck twice and finally gave up. So, they called the towing company. The guy with the tow truck has a Mudder truck that he tows with for situations like this. He almost got stuck. It took Everyone, 8 wheels, two drivers and lots of luck to finally get the Blazer out. The guy told Daniel he was lucky! gads! Boyz!

Dan said the mud was sucking the shoes off of his feet, and rivaled Montana mud. (and that is something to rival!)

So, now we are curled up with a fire in the fireplace, the two dumb dogs have returned and are drying off on the back porch, Spike is with me in the house and the cats are on the front porch. Dan keeps saying he will take a nap. (ha! silly boy) At least he did crawl in bed even if he does have his computer with him.

There is about 10 inches of snow out there and it is still snowing. Such fun. I’m going to finish this post, play on the net a few more minutes and then go back to writing my story.

And Now to play Catch Up!!!

Posted on October 9, 2009 by

When last I wrote, it was warm… sunny…. and Summer. Well, Summer went out with a SLUSH!!! It was cool, and began to rain. Next thing I knew, it was SNOWING!!!!!

We ended up with three inches of snow in town. Not exactly what we had planned for the last bit of Summer. Nor, for the Celtic Festival that was due to start the next day!!!

Of course, I had to tease Barbara Yule, the festival co-ordinator that she really didn’t have to import the weather as well as the musicians…… 🙂 She did laugh. Dan and I worked the festival again. Lights and sound at the Fox Theater. We had a good time. The music was fantastic. The main band this year was GiveWay, a 4 sister band from Edinburgh. Great! Lovely! I liked Roger Landes and of course Aine Minogue. 🙂 There was a Burn’s supper too as it was the 250th anniversary of his birth.

Linda Hickman, David Coe & Roger Landis on Friday night

It might as well be winter!!! Brrrrr…..

Posted on May 27, 2009 by

Yesterday, it was almost 55 degrees. And let’s not forget the rain…. Lots of it. With more to come. Makes me wonder if it would be prudent to build an ark…. Oh, and of course there was snow on the Spanish Peaks this morning. It warmed up briefly, but…. I’m still running around in a long skirt, denim shirt and wool socks with my sandals! Brrrrrr.

All jokes aside, it is wet, with more rain due later in the week. Not our normal end of May weather. In some ways, this is good, because I have been indoors doing college work. I have my first class in mid session and I think I’m doing alright. Even learned how to do power point programs yesterday. I have one to do for class next week.

Right now though, I think I’ll curl up with a book, a blanket and a cup of tea.

Greenhouses, Gardens and Gagliano’s

Posted on April 21, 2009 by

It’s been busy this week. Granted, when isn’t it lately?

Dan made it to Colorado Springs safely and did his thing with the Computer Virus people. I worked on my computer and enjoyed the peace and quiet. Saturday we were suppose to have a garden meeting in Gardner. Howver, between the snow, cold and everything else, it got canceled. No big deal, I just went back to working on my computer and ignoring the world.

Erin came by around 3pm. He wanted to talk and finally got around to telling me that I will be a grandma again in December. This is #7. Gads. Dan got home around 4pm and we all talked for a while. John brought me some stuff too and I finally got to work on my computer.

Sunday the CSU extension office had their greenhouse workshop with Cord and Penn Parmenter. Dan and Matt when to it while I worked in the Community Garden sponsored by the Sangre de Christo Volunteers for Change. There were four of us working on the community bed. We shoveled dirt, alpaca manure and more dirt into the 4x30ft bed. I decided where I wanted my bed too. 🙂 Matt and Dan were still involved with the workshop, so I ran some errands before I picked them up. Once they were done, we dropped Matt off and ran up to Colorado City for some groceries at the Valley Market. Little, but good buys on stuff, especially the meat department. As we were walking around, we saw the candles we normally put on the altar. They had yellow and blue ones. I asked Dan what he wanted. “Just yellow. Don’t need any for protection… we have shotguns…” Which made us giggle and then invent a new “You must be a Red Neck Pagan if….”

***Bad Taste Warning***

You must be a Red Neck Pagan if you have no use for Blue protection candles, because that’s what shotguns are for!

*** Now to return you to the more “serious” blog***

Monday after I took munchkin Morgan to Badito, John and I went to Pueblo for the household shopping. First stop, Gagliano’s, this little Italian deli that my mom and dad showed me. Oh my….. Lick the walls droolable. In fact, I told John if he drooled, he’d have to sit outside. He almost didn’t make it.

We got sausages, olives, cheese, coffee, artichokes and bread. Best part is that I get to go there again in the morning with my mom and Dan. Wheeeee!

Afterwards we went to Romero’s Cafe for lunch. This is a fantastic little place. Robert Romero is a chile cook off winner and my parent’s friend. Good food!! Had avocado and pork burritos.

Then it was off to do the shopping. Sam’s Club, Vitamin Cottage and Walmart. Nothing exciting, but necessary groceries for the starving Huerfano’s. We got lots of greens for Beth which made her happy. However, the stuff out of Gagliano’s sent her flying too.

Today I was suppose to get all sorts of stuff done. However, I think that I went out sleepwalking last night. Went to bed early, but oh it was rough waking up. Felt like I’ve been asleep all day. Yawn….. I did take a nap, but.. other than a few errands and collecting info for the history articles for the Journal, I’ve gotten bloody sod all done.

Think I’ll go cook dinner.

fLaSh-KabOOm!- Snow???

Posted on April 17, 2009 by

Yes, that was how my morning started. A flash of lightning that I thought was the bedroom light being turned on followed by a boom of thunder that told me the storm cell was right overhead. I got to one-thousan- before it shook the house. Popped out of bed to see the rain and saw snow coming down instead. The thunder and lightning went on for at least 25 minutes. Never got past three on my count. Just glad that the computers were off!

After I got out of the bath, I went to let the dogs out. It was snowing so hard that I couldn’t see the back fence! Not a happy thing as Dan was due to head to Springs today for another meeting about this virus. argh… It was snowing harder by the time he left. 9am. He didn’t want to get stuck, and i understand although it makes me worry about the driving. Not his, other people’s.

This morning settled down, and now after about two inches of snow, it is grappling/snowing/raining ever so slightly. The dogs aren’t happy about staying in, but I am not going to deal with mud pies! Other than the occasional bit of dog noise, the house is very quiet. I figure that I will read and work on my computer. Wheeee!!!

And the Brides wore Red and Black!!!

Posted on April 4, 2009 by

This event deserved it’s own post.

A friend of mine named Jessie and her significant other Tiffany got married today. I’ve known Jessie for years, and she fell head over heels for Tiffany a few years ago. They decided to hell with the rest of the world and have a pagan handfasting.

So, the wedding was today in Gardner. We were suppose to be there by 4pm, when the wedding/handfasting was suppose to start. However, you have to understand that Gardner runs on something called Gardner time. Sort of like Pagan time. John, Beth and I got there at 3:55pm. Everyone was running around like stoned chickens. 🙂 This was a B.Y.O.B. party. Now, I am not sure whether that was bring your own bottle or bong. Some of the people there were spliffy enough to give you a contact high just saying hello. 🙂 It was interesting in that I knew more people than either John or Beth. Sort of fun to play the social butterfly. Ginny was there with Nadia, so I got to play with my granddaughter. An hour later, the handfasting started.

Jessie wore a red gothy dress complete with hoop skirt and black lace at the bottom. Black tennies with sparkly red laces. B&W tights with skulls on them. Her hair was bright burgandy and spiky. Very nice. Tiffany had most of her head shaved except for a thin mohawk straight down the center, also dyed red. She had on red “bondage pants.” The kind that have buckles, straps and chains all over them and the legs are about 2ft wide. Her shirt was black and the tie was red. Over it all, she had this fantastic frock coat. Also covered in buckles and chains to immitate lace. The tails were a good 3ft longer than she was tall. Really cool that the “groom” had the train and not the bride.

The priestess used a standard Wiccan ritual. She wrapped their hands in various colored cords and then pronounced them handfasted. Very sweet and you could tell that Jessie and Tiffany were over the moon. This was followed by lots of food and a cake. The decoration on top of the cake was a gate in the tradition of the Adamms Family. Complete with bats on top. Black and red roses, etc. Very goth. Very J&T. They had the first dance complete with everyone at the party and then we had to head home as it had started to snow.

What a change from Monica and George’s wedding in the Catholic church a year ago. We certainly wouldn’t have had to explain any of this to Morgan had she been with us! Nice to wear the pentacles out too. Nadia had lots of fun playing with mine. In and out of my shirt, giggling away. She’s only 18 months old.

Home by 7pm. I came over to 520 to check on the dogs and Dan was already in bed. He had been up all night. So, I’ll find out how his job interview went tomorrow.

Then Hell froze over…

Posted on March 27, 2009 by

You see, yesterday was my last day of work. I resigned on the 12th. Finally had enough of the board breaking the law. I can say stuff now that I am no longer employed. Wheeeee!!!!

In case you the audience hadn’t guessed, they screwed up big time. Broke the Sunshine Law, various state and federal tax laws and various state and federal labor laws. Oh, and had the audacity to say that they didn’t have to follow the laws like other boards do. My biggest concern was how to bring them to justice… I didn’t want to sue them. I don’t want their little businesses. However, I really want them to understand just how badly they screwed up in the best way I can.

I hmmmed and hawwed for a month. Then it came to my attention that not only hadn’t they paid all of the taxes correctly, but that they had totally missed the Unemployment and Workmen’s Comp stuff. I tested the waters of that illegality on two of the people who work for WorkForce, the “jobs” people. Their reaction was pretty impressive. That whole OMGS!!! type thing. So, later today I will be calling Labor Standards and filing a complaint.

Dan, who is the treasurer at the moment will be resigning too. As his lawyer told him, 27 different violations that she counted, so get the hell out! It will be interesting.

Between sitting on my hands and doing nothing in the name of the Chamber, I applied for two jobs and did a bunch of writing. Some of it will be up on my wordwytch blog. Other bits…. who knows. 😛 I attended a lot of meetings about gardening too. :>

Now, about that hell freezing over… Our standard phrase around the office when someone decided to not choose us is “Either you pick us, or you made a mistake.” It started out as a joke and then we realized that most times it was true. Especially when we have had to redo work because some idiot charged less and screwed up badly. Well, in this case, it was one of “you had the best and threw it away.”

We have had beautiful weather. Nice, warm springtime stuff. Yesterday, we were under a winter storm warning. 1-2 feet type storm. I got up yesterday, and while it was cool, there was no snow. Went to work and around noon, a few flakes fell and then melted. Some storm. 2pm- quitting time! We packed things up and delivered them to my “supervisor”, the one who did nothing this entire last two weeks. Dan said that he’d take me to lunch. I said fine, and as the weather still hadn’t hit, we went to the bank and then headed towards Pueblo.

2:30pm. All the work done and we headed out. Five miles out of town, the flakes of snow started to fall. The road went from wet to slushy. Nothing we couldn’t handle. The snow got heavier and so did the wind. We stopped at Colorado City for gas and decided that we were not going to make it to Pueblo. So, we at lunch at Max’s. Nice little place. As the wind howled and the snow fell, I started to giggle. I had to explain that it looked like Hell was freezing over, and perhaps that was rather appropo considering it was my last day at work. Dan, the waitress and the other customers in the place all giggled. There was some good natured teasing about it being all my fault. 🙂

Then we drove home. Oh gods was it snowy! We got back to the highway and our first suspision that something was wrong was the fact that while there were plows on the Northbound side, there were none on the Southbound side. Dan was plowing the road. The wind was blowing harder and it was difficult to drive.

It took us 45 minutes to drive home 23 miles. It was an adventure. The girls were happy to see us. They’d been outside! oops!!! I missed a lady I was suppose to go check on a garden with, but I would have reguardless because of the snow.

Today it is still snowing. We have at least a foot in places where it didn’t melt on impact. The dogs are enjoying the stuff. I slid and plowed my way to Safeway this morning for soymilk and eggs. Wheeee……

Now I’m going to catch up on my journals, read my book and clean up my computer. Right after I call Labor Standards.

Blink…Clouds…Blink…a few flakes…Blink…SNOW!

Posted on February 10, 2009 by

Yes, it is snowing. One minute we coud see the houses across the tracks at the Depot, next thing it was like looking through a thick lace curtain. No idea of how much we are suppose to get. However, if it is too deal, Dan will be driving Morgan to school, or she will be staying home for the day. We will just have to see.

Work was fun. I woke up with no voice. By 10am, I had a croaky voice. Now I just have that “sexy” husky tone. sigh,… The dogs think I’m barking at them. Granted, they keep giving me this “mom! your sick! get in bed!!!” look. sigh… Maybe I will in a bit. Right now I’m trying to sip down 32 oz. of the Wellness tea. Oh, and write in my poor neglected blog!

Everyone else is at work. John and Beth at the library. Dan at Huerfano County Youth Services fixing the phones. The wiring there is “special” to say the least. I won’t even go into the mess we found there a few months back. gads. I’d have been embarrassed to do a job like that and charge that much money. Oh well… We are getting it fixed.

Work has been interesting. Some of our members are a little odd. They think that a chamber of commerce should be able to run without contact from the outside world. sigh…. Meanwhile we have other members that want us to be everywhere Now! I”m a bit of that camp. I figure that we have to have a physical presence if we want to get anything done. sigh… We shall see if things get worked out.

We are also revving up for our big fundraiser, the Black Diamond Jubilee. A black diamond is a piece of coal. We are a coal mining area. So, it fits. It is a big event with vendors, street fair stuff, etc. in June. Wheeeee…… and here we are just getting over the Groundhog Breakfast.

Aieeeee!!!!!

Just another manic wee-eek!

Posted on January 17, 2009 by

Wish it was Sunday…. oh wait… tomorrow is Sunday. The days have boiled past. Now I could really go for a nice hot soak in a tub, a lovely dinner, watch a bit of a movie and then crawl in bed.

Saturday, I went shopping with Jolene. A girl’s day out! Wheeeee!!!! I got a few new sweaters, undies and a skirt. We had dinner at the China Recipe, a decent restaurant in Pueblo. Yummmm…

Sunday, I did grocery shopping with Dan. Not a lot to pick up, but it seemed to take much longer than necessary. Hmm…. maybe it was because we had Morgan with us. teehee….. She needed new shoes, and I refused to buy them without her trying them on. Fussy feet. We went to Chile’s for dinner and had to tease her because she has become a “veggiesaurus”. Best part was her trying to flirt with the waiter. He was late 20’s, and she’s 12.

I started Monday with taking the girls, Brandy and Blanca to the vet. My mom gave me a little bit of money and after paying off some bills, I decided to get them fixed. Dan did a deal with the local vet, and so we got two dogs fixed for the price of one and the repair of a printer. Wheeeee!

Of course, it snowed that day. Lots of it. The roads were slick, and the WorkForce people didn’t make it up from Trinidad. So, I did bits of their job as well as my own. Plus, this week, Dan has been helping me out trying to get the office in better shape. Since he is now the treasurer for the Chamber, he wanted a place for his computer to park when he has work to do. The dogs were real unhappy with the snow when we picked them up. Don’t blame them really.

Plus, we’ve had to pick Morgan up from school this week. Jolene normally takes her to school and has been bringing her home. However, Jolene’s schedule changed. sigh… So, we’ve been driving up to Gardner to pick up the girl after basketball practice.

Thursday, we met with City Council Finance committee and got the ordinance fairly well straightened out. Talk about a sigh of relief!

Friday I went to a meeting with the Colorado State University Extension office about gardening! It was a good meeting and I think that this will be a good project for the city and the county. Then, I got paid!!!! Wheeeee!!! We had to take a big box of brochures to Pueblo’s CF&I Steel Mill Museum, so we did a bit of shopping as well. Dan and I got home late because we stopped into Barnes and Nobel. I got a book and a bookmark. It says “You say WICKED” like it’s a Bad Thing!” and it has the witch from the Wizard of Oz on it. 🙂 We saw our friend Shirley there too. Caught her up on the fun from Monday. She works for Workforce.

Today we got up at the crack of dawn to take Morgan to her basketball tourney in Gardner at 8am…. yawwwwwn! HWY 69 is an East-West road, and coming back (eastward) at 7:15am this morning was horrid. We pulled over for 15 minutes to let the Sun get off the highway. Dan literally couldn’t see to drive.

After playing with the dogs for a bit, we came down to the chamber. Why? Because Dan was meeting John from the finance committee to get the treasurer’s books. Whee….. I put in 3 hours extra time. ah well… Plus played on the computer.

We headed to Gardner around 1:30pm to go watch the girls play in the finals. Gardner took second. The Craven team was really nasty. They played a foul offensive game. grrr… One of the girls got hurt. Liz. She’s a real sweetie, and smacked the begeezus out of her kneecap. Dan, Cathy (the coach) and I gave her ice packs and cuddles while the game finished. It is a bad sprain, but should be ok.

Of course, my car acted up on the way home and so it took us nearly 30 minutes to go 1 mile at one point. We were rolling downhill and couldn’t make the turn to the house so we glided to the Chamber parking lot. Dan worked on the books a bit and I decided to post for the first time in over a week. Gads! I want to go home now!

Where’s my popcorn and movie!?!?!?!?!

Snow pups and Chamber hiccups

Posted on December 10, 2008 by

The last week has been busy. Between trying to teach Blanca how to be a housedog, changing weather, plumbing foul-ups and Chamber events, I haven’t had much time to post. Oh, and it snowed.

Not just a dusting like we’ve been having ever 3-4 days since Thanksgiving, but an honest to goodness snowstorm. More on that later.

Middle of last week, the laundry room sink clogged. No way to fix it, so John started to undo the U-neck under the sink. 40 gallons of water later, he pulled a clog of lint/cat hair and OMG’S gunge out of the pipe. Only problem, the plastic was so cold it shattered at one end and we couldn’t put the pipe back together. Dan and I would have to do that the next day. Not a problem.

Next morning, I hear water running. We thought Beth was in the shower. She thought that one of us was in the shower. John went to look. Next thing I hear is “OH Shit!” and the sound of the water being shut off. It had been a VERY cold night, and my first thought was that the pipes had frozen. Burst pipes, etc. No, some idiot had walked into our back yard and turned on the outside tap. Water ran for about 15 minutes, but that was enough to flood the basement and the kids room with about 2 inches of water. Ice cold water. ARgh! While the kids cleaned up, Dan and I fixed the laundry room sink.

Last week we also had the on-off-on again Chamber of Commerce Christmas Party. On Tuesday, no one had sold any tickets. So, we canceled it. Then they changed their minds and on Wednesday, they got it up and going again. So, by Friday they had about 30 people coming. Oh, and me. I hadn’t planned to go. Couldn’t afford the ticket. However, they decided that being the Chamber Rep, I aught to be there. So, they paid for my ticket. Chris gave Dan his ticket at the last minute, so off we went. It was at the La Plaza Inn which is a very nice B&B in town. Marty made roast beef. Lovely. After dinner, Larry Patrick ran the present auction. Everyone brought a gift and then it was auctioned off. Now Larry plays dirty tricks, so if you scratch your nose, you bid. If you blink loud, you bid. Lots of laughter ensued. We raised about $650. Dan got a bag of kids toys and one person got a traveling trophy. A plaster deer head. It now lives in the Chamber office.

Sunday was a really warm day, so Dan and Matt started digging a trench for the electric line from the house to the guest house at 520. I had to help for a while when Matt had to run home. Gods we were tired by the end of the day.

Monday Dan was suppose to help me at the chamber after he got the pipe at the local lumber yard. It was 4 times the cost, so he headed to Pueblo. The weather was getting bad, and by the time that he got home it was raining. Dan and Matt put the pipe in the ground and covered up the trench as fast as they could. They were soaked.

However, it was a good thing that they got it done. The rain turned to snow, and when we woke up on Tuesday, we had nearly 9 inches of the stuff in places. Brrrr!!!

It was a very cold day and even colder night. Today I concentrated on keeping warm. At the Chamber, the heater circut blew again and so the boiler didn’t go on until nearly noon. The dogs are not enchanted with the snow either. Brrrr!!!