The Civic's curse.

Once there was a little red Honda Civic.  She had her day, her time of usefulness.  She was after all nothing, if not reliable.  She outstayed her welcome, by a few years at least.  This past February I purposely put her in a snow bank to make a point.  Enough really is enough.

It was as though she hid behind this veil of protection, never a dented fender, never a scratch from the car who parked too close.  It seemed she was determined to mock me with her longevity.

We replaced her last March.  Her replacement has been in 2 accidents, the first the front end and last night the back.  It's had a couple of flat tires and a brand new set of four put on...  I have to wonder if she isn't somehow paying me back for every grumbling complaint, and nasty comment? She seems to be saying from her old car haven wherever that is.... "see I wasn't sooooo bad after all!'

He let her stay...... for a little while!

We have night time wanders here at our house, 3 to be exact.

Pumpkin almost never wanders, only if she's had a bad dream, or if it's really windy outside.

Yoni wanders for practical purposes.  His covers are messed up.  He needs more water.  He wet his bed.  He has a bloody nose.  He can't find Girrafe-y.  All good reasons to wander over to the powers that be, who sleep on the other side of the house, he lodges his complaint.  His issues are addressed, all things are righted, and back to sleep he  goes.

Snoofie, she wanders the most frequently.  Her reasons are varied and complex, and sometimes difficult to discern at 2 am.  The other Warden almost always asks her the problem, and sends her on her way straight back to bed, not this morning however.  This morning he let her stay for a while.  She assumed her position arms wrapped tight around my neck, her nose 2 cm.'s from mine, and this morning I was grateful..  Grateful she stayed for a bit to give and receive a little love and reassurance, with her little nose almost touching mine.

Good bye Sweet September!!

Our Indian summer came to a screeching halt as the calendar started to turn it's page.  Good bye Sweet September with all of your sun, and balmy temps, your gentle breezes, and whispered warnings of shorter days, and grey-er skies.  I'll miss your subtleties. The not so obvious gradual changes of color, the cooler mornings, the smell of chilly... Good bye.  In your final hours, the rain came down, the clouds descended, the jackets came out and the mountains peaks donned a lovely frost, as they peaked through the mist.  

I can't help but think that you are a transition Sweet September, a settling in, a preparation for things to come.

So as you leave I'll take your lessons September:   I'll settle in, life is changing, everyday is different.  Every stage brings it's challenge and it's promise of sweetness.  I'll settle in, say a fond good bye to what was, and embrace what is to come......

Conflict...

Conflict!  I don't like it, I avoid it, I'm super bad at it, it makes me uncomfortable, I have visceral reactions to it.   

It's everywhere, it can't be avoided so my options are live in a bubble or get better at it.  How does one get better at conflict?  Does this mean I have to practice?  Yikes.  If so I suppose I should warn my dearly beloveds out there, that I'm on a mission to get better at conflict, and it may mean I actually wade into to that mirky water.  BUT what if my dearly beloveds don't like me much anymore after I start practicing conflict instead of avoiding it?????

Anybody have any truly helpful advice for this turtle that likes to stay in the shell, until you bang on my shell too long and too hard, at which point I stick my head out to bite and then beat a hasty retreat back to my shell???????

Am I the only one with this problem?  

September!

It's September.  September in Montana = Paradise on Earth.  Don't be jealous, I have 6 months of winter headed my direction.  For now however I'm basking in the subtle color changes, the warm weather, topped off with a gentle breeze. 

 The gloaming is amazing this time of year the mountains turn pink, as the sun sets  The hay has all been baled, the quiet that comes with the end of summer and all of it's tourists is starting to echo back to me.

If I only had more time to drink it all in............  

Heading to the Heartland...

I'm leaving on a jet plane!  Now that song is going to be stuck in my head.  Today is Husby's 40 something birthday.  We're going to celebrate by me flying to Porkopolis to watch him run the Flying Pig marathon.  As a runner myself, I hate being the water girl.  I'm going to be a great water girl this time around, I'm going to cheer, and be supportive, and not think about the fact that I'd rather be a participant than an observer.  Instead, I'm actually going to make it all about him, for once, without any selfish surmisings of my own.

I'm not going to worry about Swine flu, how the kidlets are doing, or whether or not my plane is going to make it to it's destination.

The plan is to celebrate: life, health, love and all of the blessings I've had bestowed on me.  The biggest of which is a dearest friend who I'm lucky enough to call husband, and may he live many more years!

Happy birthday beloved and friend!!!!!

Why I love the Blogosphere...

If variety is the spice of life, then the blogosphere is a spicy place indeed.  I was toggling through various sites, just hitting the next blog button, it was a virtual trip to be sure.  Lets see, I ran into several scrap booking blogs, an Asian women blog, with lots of Asian women in orange hats. A blog about building muscle mass written in Spanish with huge pectoral muscles posted everywhere, a blog about Islamic bathing suits, modest to be sure...., a few sights selling baby clothes, and more blogs than I can count that were in a foreign language, which suits me fine because then I can make up what I think they may be saying.  There is a blog about poker that I've visited, and I learned all kinds of things the other day about Freud that I never knew, there are lots of mommy blogs, and a few by homeschooling mommy-s.  Those are not quite as interesting since, that is pretty much my reality, and it's the unfamiliar that I'm interested in.

Frankly, I am loving variety right now, and will take it where I can find it.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I live in and love Big sky country, and we have variety here, mostly with regard to the weather.  My friend, Miss Juicy lips, we'll call her, likes to say that spring in MT is bi-polar.  That about sums it up.  If you don't like the weather in MT wait 5 minutes, that's what the locals say anyway.

As for other kinds of variety, not so much.  For example, there are more cows here than people, .2% of the population are non caucasian, lots of salt no pepper, rather dull in that regard.  Let's see what else?  There is no variety in the restaurant department.   There are days that I'd be willing to draw blood for some good Indian food.   The mall, well lets not even call our collection of 13 stores a mall... and so on, you're beginning to get the picture right?  It's not really food or stores that I really feel hungry for though, with regard to variety.  It's people, people with different thoughts, different lives, different world views, different tastes, different languages, life experiences,  different politics, different religions.  I've spent my whole life in a very small world, with people who look like me, talk like me, think like me, worship like me...  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I've loved those people.  However,  I am peering over the fence for the first time with more curiosity, than fear.  I don't want to be exclusivistic  anymore.  I don't want to think that just because I'm English speaking, the rest of the world is too.  I mean that last sentence figuratively, but it conveys my meaning.....  

I've recently torn down some of my barriers.  I've allowed myself to care for a few people with different ideals than my own.  I've never felt so open.  Someone remind me that while I'm enjoying those with differences, that familiarity is beautiful too./// or as Travis Tritt said once in an interview, don't forget the one that brought you to the dance.

Like I said, this is about expanding my horizons....... so that I can be a more complete, loving, and enlightened sort of woman.

My car the missile!

As it happens, I've taken another life.  How's that for a dramatic entry?  Some would say deer are as common as rocks around here and that would be a true statement.  However, for the first six years of residence here in God's country, I avoided the wide eyed, 4 legged wonders with relative ease.  Sadly I've hit 2 deer in the last 3 months.  The locals would say that deer strikes run in 3's.  I'm desperately hoping that, that means the one Husby hit last October is included in that tally.  I'm sure our insurance carrier is hoping the same thing.  The good news is that I'm fine, the bad news is that my oldest daughter is starting to wonder about humans.  As she was riding down the road with Husby, she asked, "deer don't really do anything do they dad?"  They just sort of eat grass and that's it?  Yes, that about sums it up.  Why do some people want to kill them then?  Hmmm?  I doubt that she was talking about me, since technically I really don't WANT to kill them.  Rather she was  probably referring to hunters.  A few weeks back she decided that we should stop trapping  pocket gophers on our property, because after all, they have feelings too.  So it seems we have a budding naturalist, or perhaps a PETA person on our hands.

Life with a Kindergartner here in the great wide open, it doesn't get much better than this, now I sound like a beer commercial.

Speaking of the great wide open, I love it.  I've chosen it, it feels like home, when I leave, I'm always happy to fly back to our tiny airport with all 3 of it's gates....  BUT, as with anything this place can pinch, and confine.  I never really noticed it until the last 6 months or so.  I never really noticed a lot of things until the last 6 months or so.........  Stay tuned, I want to tell you all about my awakenings........... Now that I've told you all about my murderous morning.

Later then..

BIG FAT KUDDOS...

My nearly perfect husby left this morning on a jet plane.  It's not him flying, or going that bothers me, although I miss him when he's gone.  Oh no, it's the being a single parent that completely takes all that I have and more.  So that begs the question, how do people do it????  I can't wrap my mind around having to raise children by myself.  I sincerely pray that I never have to.  

So if you happen to be reading this, and you're a single parent, can I just tell you that you amaze me?  During this time alone with my children I'll be praying for and thinking of all of you that do the enormous task of guiding little ones, without a constant fellow teammate for support.  

Here's my plan to make it through:

1- paper plates

2- eating outside if at all reasonable

3- early bedtimes for everyone especially mommy

4- putting everyone in room time as often as is necessary for me to regroup

5- calling in back up, if I feel in danger of doing anyone bodily damage

6- purchase and use an economy size jug of Calgon.

7- I'm sure there are more, that I just haven't come up with yet...

So to single parents everywhere KUDDOS......... Be kind to yourself as often as possible because your job is unbelievably hard!

Ode to Curry...

We've just returned from a belated Easter brunch.  It was complete with egg hunt, prizes, outdoor frolicking for the kids, but most importantly some OH SO YUMMY FOOD!

Sandy, also known as the Goddess of hospitality is incapable of doing anything on a small scale. She was the hostess, she and her husband Karl truly have a gift.  This is an annual bash that they pull off.  I'm happy to report that this year there were no snow drifts.  It was actually nearly 70 degrees, quite balmy.

Back to the food, and therefore the subject of my post.  Let me just say that I am far from a rock star in the kitchen, but there are a few things that I make that draw rave reviews wherever I take them.  Today's hit was my potato egg curry recipe.  I'll attach it at the end of my post.  Just to give you an idea of how good it is, I had 3 rds, and I'm generally not a compulsive overeater.  If I believed in reincarnation, and could choose who I was in a past life, I would most likely have been, a man who lived somewhere, where curry was a regular/ daily part of my diet...

Potato Egg Curry Caserole

6 med. potatoes

6 eggs

1 can of mushroom soup/ 8oz's

1 pint of sour cream

1 stick of butter

1.5 tsp of salt

1/2 tsp of curry powder/ heaping

bread crumbs to sprinkle on top

Directions:

1- boil potatoes and eggs

2- over low heat melt the butter then add remaining ingredients

3- spray 9x13" pan with pam

4- slice 3 potatoes, and spread in bottom of pan, follow with 3 egss

5- pour half of the sauce mixture over the potatoes and eggs

6- repeat steps 4+5.

7- sprinkle with bread crumbs

8- bake at 300 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

Enjoy...  I'd love to take the credit, but I got this one from Heather, a friend in Florida...  I discovered it at a baby shower, and made a glutton of myself then too..

Cheers,

NLK

Confessions of a Working Mother....

Well first let it be said that all mothers work. (Well most anyway). I am a stay at home mom with 3 little chicks. Pumpkin is 6, Snoofie Poofie is 2.5 as is her twin brother Yoni Boney.
I do however get to go into professional mode occasionally and work a couple of days a month.
Here is the confession, and I feel guilty for even saying it, but when I leave to go to work, I get in the car, and practically zoom out ot the driveway, with the radio cranked and a huge smile on my face. Why? Well......... I do love my job but that is a minor contributing factor... Here are the other larger ones.
1) Adult conversations
2) When I go to the bathroom no one comes with me.
3) I don't have to change my patients clothes.
4) There is no wiping involved.
5) Someone makes me lunch not the other way around
6) ..... they pay me....
7) Best of all when I come home I've been missed, and I remember while looking at the faces of my 3 cherubs exactly why I'm a stay at home mom.... Most of the time..

Getting my feet wet....

So here we go...  I am notoriously slow at taking advice.  I have had several loved ones tell me that I need to start a blog, find an outlet, journal, write a book....  The time has come apparently, to do all of the above.  This space if you will, is going to be my means of self expression for the time being.  We'll see how it goes.

A word of warning, I'm verbose, tend to ramble, don't always make sense and am the absolute queen, of the run on sentence.  If none of the above have frightened you away, then stay tuned.  I love to laugh, mostly at myself and the ironies of life, crying is also an acceptable expression of emotion, so I may do some of that too.  In short I can't wait..... Now, here's hoping that I can think of things to say!