September/October 2011

Fall is in the air, can't you just live in this time of year forever? Kevin and I took a trip to the cabin to winterize and the following photos relfect the crazy  world we lived in for four days up there in Island Park. This first photo was taken on a drive near our cabin...so beautiful. I'm using this as my desktop wallpaper for now.

 

This picture was taken a few days before...It had snowed 6 inches but melted off quickly. We took a walk around the property to enjoy the views and the fact that the snow wasn't so deep that we would need snowshoes to do this.

 Here's Kevin in the thick of some pine trees. He was really good too..didn't shake the branches as I passed underneath, didn't throw snowballs, though I'm sure he was tempted...
We got the cabins winterized (ours and mom's) and left for the winter. I hear it's still gorgeous up there but we won't be back until Spring.

On a different note, in September, my grandmother, who is 97 was visiting Escondido for a month so my sister Annette, my neice Natalie, my mom and I all went down to visit for a long weekend. During that time, two of my brothers, Mike and Richard, and my other sister Jeri came and we all got together along with many other relatives for a small party. It was great to be there and enjoy each other. It's very rare to see that many of us in one location!

We took this family photo. All of the siblings are here except for Bob, who couldn't make it down. Also pictured is Richard's two daughters Piliki and Kaala. They are beautiful little girls who are growing up so fast!

 On our way from the airport to Escondido, we had to stop and find a beach and put our toes in the sand. These photos were taken at Laguna Beach. It was the perfect day for this, warm breeze but not too hot. We had a lot of fun just doing goofy things and going into the water too far with rolled up jeans and getting the bottoms wet.

I sent this photo to the kids while I was standing there in the water...they were all excited for me. I wish they could have come down too.

Life is back to normal now, back to work and all that. I see Christmas decorations in all the stores and am starting to think in that direction.

We have a pile of wood in our driveway that we need to stack. There are other chores around the house that we are putting off until the yellowjackets die off (they have taken over the back yard to the point that we can't go out there during the day). We will have to approach them more aggressively next year before they get this bad...

I have ideas for the house that we may be able to get done this winter. For instance, I want to put built in bookshelves/cabinets in the livingroom on one wall. I would also like to take one of the bedrooms and turn it into an art studio. I'm not sure how to do that and still use it as a guest room...but I will think about it some more.

Ok, better quit for now. That wood won't stack itself!

August

Gonna go all out and post twice in one day! Hope you can handle the excitement!

After my lip fiasco, I am very cautious about going into our planter bed...we have TONS of strawberries in there now and they need to be picked every few days or they rot on the vine. I make Kevin do it!

I could just see me tripping again and having to explain a black eye or another cut lip. Besides, the wasps and yellow jackets are gearing up for Fall and they will GET me if I go out there (I even had a dream about these huge wasp/yellow jacket hybrids that had built a nest in our garage!)

I'm all freaked out about the economy. I mean really FREAKED out. I was reading some stuff on the internet and it has me very worried. I hope all of you faithful readers (all three of you) are storing food and getting your bills paid off. I have posted a web site before for anyone who wants to know more about our impending disaster but I'll post it again in case you didn't get a chance to go to it:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/ Start with The Crash Course and then read from there. I don't pay to belong to the higher access stuff that he posts on there. I just look at the Daily Digest.

Kevin and my 30th wedding anniversary is coming up on the 22nd. We are going out of town the weekend before to Bend, Oregon. http://www.oxfordhotelbend.com/ Check it out. Gonna play some golf (I CALL it playing golf but it's somewhat short of that description for me), eat at a nice restaurant and  just relax. I need a break from all the bad news! Kevin says we still have to live life despite all the crap that's happening. I know he's right and really, I do manage to get through every day without falling apart. You wouldn't know it to look at me that I am this ramped up about things.

Polina and Jasper are back from Russia now. Polina is getting ready to start PA school this next week. She is SO EXCITED! And we are thrilled for her. She has wanted this for a long time. She will do great, I know. Jasper is working hard and enjoying his job at Micron in the marketing department. He has travelled a lot for work this year, going to Japan and Taiwan. I think he's content to stay home for a while. His trip to Russia followed on the heels of his Asia trip so he is pretty sick of planes right now.

Chelsie and Michael are awesome too. Michael starts into his final year in school in a few weeks. He's doing really well and we are so proud of him. Chelsie has moved up a level at work and has her eye on some further opportunities within her department. They have attended a few weddings of friends (4) this year and are wedding'd out. I don't think I mentioned it before but Chelsie wrote a novel and it's been published! It's a download only and it's available at Amazon.com. Here's the link to her book:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_31?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+pull+by+chelsie+shakespeare&sprefix=the+pull+by+chelsie+shakespeare
She is currently busy writing her second novel!
We watched their dogs over the weekend while they attended a wedding and they were good for us. Their mini-shnauzer (sp) is pretty funny. She likes to stand up on her hind legs and Chelsie has taught her to sit on her haunches with her front paws in the air for a treat. Well one day, Kevin came down the hall and she stood up on her hind legs. Kevin thought she was going to jump up on him so he said "down". She didn't do anything so he said "sit". So she sat on her haunches with her front paws still up in air. He didn't know about the thing Chelsie had taught her so he told her "sit" again. She started kind of waving her paws in the air. He just rolled his eyes and walked away! Awwww...I told her she was a good girl ;)

Well, that's all I can think of for now. Going to go buy some more canned goods! See you later ;)

July post a little late...;)

I'm trying to get under the wire on a post for July...it's technically still July so I'm good right? (not July anymore!)

We started out the month with a trip to the cabin where we did this project...it took a lot of work and some cussing but we finally knocked it out sometime around July 10th (and we left on the 11th!) So I can't say that the trip was "fun" in the classic sense but it was rewarding! The slate turned out great and we have had nothing but rave reviews. If it looks familiar, it's because we copied the design from the tile backsplash we had recently installed in our kitchen at home (not cheating since we picked the design in our house also).

There was some funky weather but that's par for the course up there and we were used to the weather changing every five minutes...makes it interesting and cool because you can get outdoors when it's nice, and snuggle in when it's horrid. It hailed and rained and then it would clear out and be beautiful and warm. This is the view from our front windows during the biggest hail storm we had that week.

Chelsie and Michael came up for a brief weekend but we packed it in with some fishing for Michael with Kevin and some hanging out time with Mom. We also cooked our dinner of fresh bull trout with potatoes and berry cobbler over a fire out by "the bend" which is a large curve in the creek that runs through the family property up there. It makes for great memories to share that with your kids! Love having the kids up there because they are so enthusiastic about everything there and make it all fun for us...gets us away from the working aspect a little bit more.

Meanwhile, back at home, we have gone golfing a few times. Polina and Jasper even went with us a couple of times and it's been really fun to see Polina take to golf like a fish to water. Jasper is doing great too and they both seem to enjoy it a lot.

Later on in the month, I had a mishap. I was out trimming a shrub and I thought I saw some wasps or something flying out of it...needless to say, I panicked big time and ended up tripping over a tree stake line and running lip-first into a rock we had put in our planter bed earlier (remember the photos of a while back?   yeah, those rocks!) Ended up infected...triggered a cold sore in the same spot...got on antibiotics and antivirals, fielded jokes and inquiries from co-workers...lots of fun was had by all I can tell you! (sorry no photos!) What a lousy way to wrap up July!

Hopefully, August ends better since Kevin and my 30th wedding anniversary happens on the 22nd of August! We are planning something special but I don't know what exactly just yet...better get it arranged though since it's less than a month away!

Skipped May

Well, how did that happen? I totally skipped a month and I was going to be SO good! The BEST intentions in the WORLD! I really want to be good, I promise. 

This is Mafia saying he wants to be a good cat, he promises…

I have hit a (hopefully passing) phase that can best be described as Down time? Do nothing! I'm serious...the dog needs grooming BADLY, the laundry needs done, the art supplies I bought (and the accompanying book on how to learn to draw portaits) gathers dust on my overcrowded desk. Little items of business, like  car registrations and mail-in surveys that I want to fill out mock me from the same dusty desk.

What is this paralysis? I don't exercise evn though we have had decent weather lately and a treadmill upstairs...

So what DO I do in my down time you may ask? I watch tivo and get caught up with The Bachelorette, Dancing with the Stars, (which the season has been over for a month now and I'm just now watching the ending), and surfing the internet. I am obsessed with the state of our economy and the certainty of a bleak future. I can't really talk myself out of this one...just too scary.

I go to costco and buy another couple of cases of canned food, trying to figure out how many black beans we would eat in a year, and how long a bag of pancake mix can last on the shelf. I haven't really even BEGUN to get the stuff I want stored. I don't have the room, for one thing.

I spend some time getting things ready for our cabin projects, which makes me feel like I am accomplishing something. Big tile job coming up over the Fourth of July week, so I bought all the supplies for that and will spend about ten days up there. I also want to take my art supplies with me and MAYBE draw a little...no promises!

I am working a lot (but no more than anyone else). I really am getting into a groove at work and feel good about how things are going. I'm a couple years into this profession and am starting to see where a couple more years will really solidify my skills. When I first started, I felt like the onion just had TOO many layers. But now that I have peeled a few of them off, I am gaining confidence that mastery will be within reach eventually.

My whole point of this post, I guess, is to just get something down on screen so I can look back on this time of my life at a later date and say...wow, what a weird funk I was in!

Front yard update...

In reference to the picture I posted in the last posting, we finished planting our front yard rocked-in area with a spruce tree, a maple tree, and a bunch of strawberries...Now with the weather starting to warm up, the leaves are coming out and we have a much nicer front yard. The strawberries are supposed to fill in and hopefully produce berries while acting as ground cover. It's been a long wet spring and I am ready for some warmer days! In other news, I went and visited my mom in Malad a couple of weeks ago. It was shaping up to be a really nice visit until she fell in her bedroom and broke her wrist! My poor mom! She went in for a pinning last week and is on the mend. But she is requiring help to get showered and dressed, fix meals, etc. So Annette and I arranged for some ladies in the town to come in once a day and help her for a few hours. Then Heather (Annette's oldest daughter) comes to hang out most afternoons to keep her company and fetch her the phone and things.

Kevin and I are getting very cabin hungry at this point...which usually happens this time of year. It's too early to get in there so we will have to wait for Memorial weekend. In the mean time, we have had a little more work done to it...the stairwell leading down to the basement needed treads finished and the whole staircase strengthened. The job is finished and we received some pictures from the guy who did the job.

This is the view from the basement going up the stairs...the treads were all open before so you could see through each stair. Now they are covered with the antique oak hardwood that is on the main floor.

This is the view going down from the main floor. The guy did an excellent job and we are lucky we found someone who pays attention to detail and takes pride in his work. We can't wait to get up there and see it for ourselves!

Cat update

After our scary ordeal with Mafia having seizures, we put him on some powerful anti-seizure medication. Then, as you may recall, we weaned him off. Well, I'm happy to report back that he is his old self again. no more seizures. Here he is in the wood box that I bought to go on the ottoman in the livingroom to hold drinks in...you know, kind of like a coffee table. He loves the box, especially when it's directly in front of the fireplace! I really didn't intend for him to have access to it but we can't keep him out of it. I guess it's a small price to pay since he did us the favor of surviving. Waiting for Spring around here...rain and more rain has hampered our efforts to improve our yard...just muddy right now. We will be planting strawberries as soon as this patch dries out enough. It looks really dry in this picture but it's just gloppy mud underneath. We placed these rocks last summer and intend to plant a maple tree and some smaller shrubs as well as the strawberries. We'll see how it all turns out! I do NOT have a green thumb...

Kitchen remodel !!! finally...

We bought the house in 2003 and it had these generic oak cabinets and white appliances in it. We loved it at the time...Notice the raised bar on the left-hand side of the picture...handy for catching all kinds of papers, keys, cell phones, but not for sitting and eating. It did block the view of the kitchen sink from the livingroom though so I guess that's good.About a year and a half ago, we had the oak resurfaced with a darker wood veneer and new cabinet doors and drawer fronts. But we didn't know exactly what we wanted for the counter top and even toyed with the idea of painting the edging around the tile to match the dark wood cabinets...I just didn't like the tile at all with the cabinets at this point.

About 6 weeks ago, we got granite put in with tile backsplash but with the white appliances...But now we have the stainless appliances just this past weekend so I wanted to get this in the blog before I forget! We are so excited. it's like livng in a new house!

Notice the drawers to either side of the oven door...they used to be cupboard doors with shelves but we had huge drawers installed for pans and now you just reach into them to get a pan instead of having to get down on the floor to reach under the cupboard shelving.

We lowered the raised bar to the height of the rest of the countertop so that we would have a bigger expanse of granite there and open up the room to a view of the livingroom. Now we will have to keep our dishes off the countertop...no more cheating and hiding the mess behind a wall ;)

Undermount sink and new faucet as well. So nice to be able to wipe the countertop crumbs right into the sink!

Well, that's it. I'm so glad this project is FINALLY done and that we can enjoy the total effect!

March

Ok, this is ridiculous. A post a month? No respectable blogger only posts once a month. (Now for the lame excuse)...It's just that I feel like my life is just not that interesting. Is that sad or what?

Things happen all the time, bookclub, kids over for dinner, cat having seizures and taking him to the vet...you know, normal stuff. Oh, we are also having our kitchen countertops replaced with granite and getting stainless steel appliances. We have the countertop in but are waiting for the appliances to ship. So I haven't taken any after pictures until the new appliances are in. So yeah, things are happening. But I just don't feel inspired to write about them.

But this blog is more of a journal than anything else so I will try to forget that countless fans are hanging on my every word, and just write about stuff.

Mafia started having seizures about three weeks ago, out of the blue. So weird. He would lay on his side and convulse and paddle his legs. Then his eyes would dilate and he would drool all over the place. The first two times it happened, I was all, oh well, he's gotten into something, it's a freak thing. By the third time, I was all, Kevin! something's really wrong with him! (while crying hysterically). My reaction surprised me because I think I'm pretty logical about animals...you know, they don't live as long as us and they get weird illnesses and die and stuff. But I could NOT help it.

The next day, I took him in to the vet...239.00 later, I left with a bottle of pills that costs 3.00 and instructions to give him the pills twice a day and bring him in in two weeks for a blood test to check drug levels in his blood. So these pills are supposed to take up to a week to stop seizure activity. Well, he never had another seizure since that day. I don't think the pills are the reason. I think he got into something and it worked itself through his system. But regardless, I've been giving him the pills every day for two weeks now.

We are now running out of pills...and I don't believe in them anyway...and I don't want to put him through another vet visit...and I don't want to pay another 80.00 for a blood test...so I am playing vet and weaning him off the pills...am I a terrible mom? Kevin and I have agreed to experiment on our poor cat. If he starts having seizures again, we will, of course, go get more pills and start the whole thing again.

We've had a couple of family nights at our place that involved build your own meal type dinners. They are so fun. The concept is provide a lot of toppings or fillings and have everyone just put what they want in their own thing. The first time I tried it was with pizzas. I first made the dough and shaped it into individual rounds so that everyone could make their crust thick or thin.Then I got a lot of toppings together into small serving dishes so everyone could pick what they wanted. I had feta cheese, fresh garlic, basil leaves, tomatoes, pine nuts, pesto, tomato sauce, etc.Here's Chelsie and Polina with their pizzas...Kevin and Jasper...They all turned out really good. Michael couldn't join us that night so Chelsie made him a pizza in a pie plate and took it home.

The next time I tried this was with burritos. I got those tortillas from Costco that you cook yourself. And then I had all the fillings available that I could think of. Michael and Chelsie did all the prep work so I didn't have to chop any thing up. Nice for me! Grandma Gibbons was with us for that dinner. We all made our own burritos and had a great time catching up with each other. I am liking the cooking together concept. It's more fun than just cooking it all yourself and then there is a cool activity for everyone to participate in.

That's about all I can think of for this time. I really want to do a separate post for the kitchen and include befores and afters.

Spring fever!

I'm feeling it already...the urge to purge! I want to get rid of everything! I'm sick of all my fake plants and nic nacs! Arggghhh. I want to move things around and clean clean clean. I want to paint and bring in new fresh stuff!

The trouble with this attitude is that I am so behind on even maintenance things like deep cleaning and putting away the Christmas decorations. Maybe when I get that done, I won't feel so grossed out by my house.

In other news, I'm back to work after two weeks off. It's been heavenly to just relax and not worry about work for a while. One week is just too short to get that relaxed feeling I think. I'm more than glad that I have a good job, don't get me wrong! I feel my good fortune in having a challenging and rewarding career. I just need to recharge my batteries every now and then.

Well, short post but I am going to try to get busy today and at least get the Christmas tree down!

Oh, I guess I should mention that a few years ago, Kevin and I thought it would be a great idea to just buy a fake tree...after all the years of going out to get a tree and dealing with the dry needles, etc. at the end of the season. We bought one that already had the lights on it so it would take that hassle out of the setup and take down processes...how smart!

But the first year we put it up, we were blinded by the lights they put on this thing. So we went out and got some fresh pine boughs to put in and around the fake branches. It dimmed the lights somewhat but then we had to take all the real boughs out at the end and they threw needles all over. So we bagged that idea.

The next year, I wired a bunch of fake evergreen boughs to the fake tree in order to cover the lights and add a little variety to the greenery on the tree. That didn't really work either because the lights were so overpowering still.

This year, we got the brilliant idea that we would just take out every other bulb or so since the strands stay lit even if you are missing some bulbs...it worked until some of the remaining bulbs got overheated and burned out! So here is our lovely fake tree about half way through the Christmas season. We had to string some lights at the top to get us through Christmas just so we could have a semi decent tree.

See how bright the bottom is even with half the bulbs gone? Ridiculous! Or as Chelsie likes to say...Rahhhhdiculous!

So we decided to sell it on Craigs list and tell people the top half doesn't light but they can string lights and it works ok...maybe we'll get 50 bucks for it...who knows? The sad irony is that we have hated this tree from the start, have gone through three seasons with it...and are right back to the commitment of getting a real cut tree every year from now on.

Big Island trip/Happy New Year!

Kevin and I recently attended a non-wedding on the Big Island of Hawaii. Without going into details or revealing the parties involved, let me say that the bride and her family handled the situation with grace and generosity. The groom's parents were also very gracious and made a difficult situation easier.

The wedding had been called off the previous weekend but all the travel arrangements were in place so the entire party assembled on the Big Island for a few relaxing days in the sun. We had a lot of fun and saw just a small part of the island. It's definitely a study in contrasting landscapes! We stayed near an old lava flow so the surrounding area was just barren rock. But the small islands of green (that were built up with resorts) made up for it. The beach we went to most of the time was absolutely beautiful and one of the best beaches I've been to.

I had to throw this photo of Kevin in here...he was trying to sleep on the flight over and decided to rig up his eye mask to keep his head from lolling forward. Notice how the strap of the eye mask is wrapped around the headrest on the seat of the plane...it worked...kind of. But I couldn't stop giggling so he eventually removed it. I ruin all his fun! This is early morning on that beach I mentioned...no one was around...very quiet. What was I doing so early in the morning on a beach you ask? Why, taking Kevin to the beach park so I could have the car and he could fish! I sat there and read and caught up on my blog (previous post was written in that park) then I went to a starbucks and did some shopping at a some nice shops near there. Same park later that day...beautiful trees...hard to imagine that only 200 yards away back up the drive is a black rocky expanse as far as the eye can see.

This park was full of turtles all over the place. This is the part of the beach we spent most of our time in...fine sand, secluded spot, great swimming. I loved it. The girl who's wedding had been called off spent a lot of time there also, just relaxing and contemplating the sudden changes she was facing. She said she was so glad she came if only to rest on a beach like this and be able to think without the pressures of everyday life. I agreed!

Ok, back to the way most of the rest of the world spends it's December...brrrr! This shot was taken by Polina's mom Elena during the winter last year...love this shot of these trees in a park near St Petersburg. I want to make it into a poster or something. I hope my readers are having a good winter! Happy New Year!