Once more...with feeling

It seems that the older you get the more quickly time decides to speed by. My father used to try and tell me that, but like so many (read ALL) young people I never really understood what he was saying. Now I do. You go to bed on Friday and when you wake up it is Monday. Then Tuesday rolls around and suddenly it is Friday again! Young whippersnappers drive too fast in their trucks, expect snap decisions, and overall move out of phase with us older folks. Time is a paradox. Sometimes it moves too fast and other times, well no...it always moves too fast. My toddlers are now 12 and 14. My bones are suddenly non-compliant with my mind, and my brain... Well let's just say the light are on, but the tenant has gone to the store and left the lights on.

This blog is a prime example. I blinked and a year went by.  Many pithy moments and engaging moments lost to time. Ah, well. Never too late to start up again.

So off I go to wake up a teenager to buy school clothes.  Always a dicey proposition, waking her up. Never know if I am to get a good morning hug or step on a Bouncing Betty. (Look it up.)

Time marches on. Make the most of it. It'll be gone before you know it.

Anyone out there?

Hello? Tap, tap. Is this thing on? Anyone out there? So a duck walks into a bar... No that's not right. Wait...Hang on. I'm a little rusty. So, I'm back. Sort of. I am having trouble making time for this blog in my brain and in my life. Mothers are constantly interrupted. I have so far been asked five separate questions...now six...as I try to type this on my iPad. The two difficulties combined sap the creative thoughts out of my brain. My daughter is downloading software, my husband is designing dog agility jumps for her and the other daughter won't get dressed even though I am trying to get her in the car. You actually have no idea how much is swirling about me. I feel like Dorothy in the tornado. I even have a dog whining at my feet. Calgon, take me away! Either I need to find a better time, or ditch the pad. This is ridiculous. More later. News at 11.

Willow has arrived

Greetings all. Here is our new puppy. You have no idea what it took to get her. When I have recovered more I will post the story.

2Cellos make my heart sing

If you don't know these guys, pay attention. They are gonna be big!

Clap your hands!

Something really wild but oddly addictive.

The sun is back in the frozen state and my brain is slowly thawing out. I have started a new job, well, 7 months ago, and I am finally settling in. Time has been my enemy lately and I am struggling to keep head and heart together in one blissful unit. Ah well, we all have the challenge of learning to be happy.

The moose are fed up with the deep snow and are moving into the urban areas, i.e., downtown, and you cross paths with them more often than the neighborhood dogs. Some of them are so tame you can put your Ken doll on one and let it go for a ride! (Long story, search the Alaska Outdoor Forum for that one.)

As I slowly come back to life with the return of warmth and light, I will try to be more available and funny. Right now, no fantastic words of wisdom or pithy comments on the state of the world. Just hanging on, like so many people in the world right now. Hanging on and counting my blessings. And trying not to focus on what I don't have, but focus on those things already in my life.

Take care all. Talk to you soon.

To camp is to live

So, how have you been? Me? Oh, I don't know. Things are crazy as always. The dog insists on defending our home, even when there is no one out there. The kids continue to act like the irrational, completely whimsical creatures they are, and my husband is trying to make sense of all of us women-folk and our strange and mysterious ways.

I am trying to figure out how to go camping with no camper, no boat, and no ability to sleep on the ground anymore with my old bones. Also, how do you find a tent site on a whim? In the old days, you just went somewhere and set up a tent. Now you have to use campgrounds and make advance reservations.

I am depressed about the whole ordeal. The worst thing is not having the boat anymore. Losing that was like losing a member of the family.

Ah, well. If my kids can sleep on the ground, so can I. I just need to find a place we can go that is legal, enjoyable, and we can drop in at the last minute. And no, I don't mean the Fred Meyer parking lot.

Big Brother

Facebook is the new Big Brother. Watching. Violating your privacy. Making money. Yep, the new Big Brother is watching you. I think it should be called FaceBro.

Know your Labs

Looking for trouble

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
- Ernest Benn

Fruit bats orphaned by the floods in Australia. Can I have one?

Superglue is not my friend. It is imbued with fiendish properties best left to horror novels.

For example:

Last night we decorated our Christmas Tree. One of my daughter's favorite ornaments was broken and she asked me to fix it. Well, technically she didn't. But I wanted to fix it because a miniature plastic Barbie in a ballgown just doesn't look quite right with one hand broken off at the wrist. She looks like the latest victim from the movie "Saw IV" and who wants to think of that on a Christmas tree.

So, I attempted to glue her poor little appendage back on and instead I cemented a permanent relationship between two of my fingers and her gracious little plastic hand.

"Oh, look! I'm shaking hands with Barbie", I joked until I realized I would not be able to get the hand out from between my fingers without losing a significant amount of flesh way past the surface tissue.

So here I am. Plastic Barbie hand glued to fingers. Fingers glued to each other. It was one of my brilliant signature moves.

I called in reinforcements and my husband obligingly, and eventually, found the bottle of acetone and Barbie and I parted ways after much amusement to my family and my own personal humiliation.

I had started to gather my shredded dignity about me when the owner of aforementioned Barbie ornament inspected my fingers for damage and stated, "Well at least you didn't glue your nose shut, like last year!"

Superglue is not my friend.

The bear facts, part I

I fed a bear when I was a kid. Really. A wild, Alaskan Black bear. At the time this did not seem unusual to me. Given the ensuing decades and a small amount of reflection I realize things could have ended very badly for me back then. But they didn't.

I did scare my Uncle Dick half to death though. When I have properly framed this episode in my life, I will update my blog. But for now, picture me at about 8 years old with a fish in one hand and a bear two feet away, on a lovely summer afternoon along the river.

I love this gal Allie at Hyperbole and a half....

You Like?

Like my new look?