Good Intentions

Sheesh........I had good itentions to keep up this blog but for some reason, it didn't seem very important. So now I'm going to try again. It's 2016 for "Pete's sake".....wonder who Pete is...
anyway, we're still here in New Mexico and getting ready to head to California in 4 1/2 weeks to turn Cheyenne back to CCI. She arrived just yesterday it seems, with her green ear and sharp teeth. The green dye wore off and the teeth got replaced by big girl teeth and she's grown into a beauty. Have to admit I've not done as good a job of training her as I planned to, but she's pretty well adjusted and a happy girl. She's also one dang smart puppy so I think with the professional training, she might do ok. If she doesn't want to be an assistance dog, she will come back to us and sleep on the bed and/or couch and be our pet.

It's going to be hard to give her up.....this time Gene will get to hand over the leash to CCI and I'll be the one crying.  Levi is still with us....going to be 15 years old on April 15th....he's deaf and doesn't see real well, but still eats everything he's given and is our sweetie.  I wish I could give him back his eyesight and hearing but all we can do is keep him safe and fed and loved.  He and Cheyenne get along great and he'll miss her too.

We put a new deck on the house last summer (Gene did about 95% of the work by himself) and it's a great space. Wraps around 3 sides and is a great party space. We had a "deck-warming/Linda's birthday party" party on August 30th with about 30 friends from the neighborhood and town attending. I asked them all to not bring presents but just food for the food shelf in town and that was a big success.  It was a glorious, sunny NM day for the event and we were glad to have shelter from the afternoon sunshine too.  My friend, Nancy, from Seattle, sent me a hammock and I spent many hours just lying in it and looking up at the sky or napping. Can't wait to hang it again this spring. 

Work is continuing at the church and we are very close to hiring a new pastor. I've been on the search committee and we think we may have found our candidate.  Sure hope so.  It's been very interesting and fun but we're ready to hire someone and get on with life.  The new pastor will be my boss so I have a real interest in who we hire. Looks good at the moment and we're hping to have an decision in the next month or so.

Working on a king-sized quilt for my nephew, Chris. He asked me to make it as his thank-ytou present for a friend of his who lost all of their family quilts in Katrina.  Lots of work but I think it'll be spectacular when it's done.

So,now we're sort of up to date....will try to keep it that way. 

Summertime and the Living is HOT

Moose Lake Landing - BWCAW - 

Hot hot hot.....95 today...again....have had quite a bit of rain lately so things are green and growing but we need more...soon.....doesn't take long for the heat and wind to dry things out.

leaving in the morning for Minnesota and my class reunion. Gene is staying home until mid-July and then will join me "up north" for a ocuple of weeks. Our house-sitters will take care of Levi and the house so that is a good thing. Not looking forward to the long drive but will take my time and enjoy my new car.

Yup, after 12 years my 2003 Rav4 got traded in for a new RED Rav4. It's bigger than the old one but gets about the same mileage. Has a nav system and my phone is all connected. Not that I make a lot of calls when driving....even talking "hands-free" is a distraction but I do love the satelitte radio....no more country western stations that seem to proliferate in the Midwest. I can listen to Willie's Roadhouse ocassionally though but love the oldies, broadway, classical, etc choices.

So, my travels will be updated at the "travel-blog".....http://hometotherange.blogspot.com/  This is the blog I wrote for the last trip up north, just updating it. For those folks who care.....mostly it's for me so I can remember what I did when and who I visited with....can't trust the memory!!

Happy Trails to You!

Floppy Disc

OK - this is really about floppy discs....the computer type....the ones we old folks understood years ago...that now have been replaced by teeny tiny little cards that fit into a teeny tiny little slot on the laptop....if you're lucky.  Well, I had a need to read a floppy disc or two this afternoon and of course, there is no slot on my laptop for such an ancient thingy. So I figured I had one around and went searching....no such thingy anywhere. So I took myself (figuratively speaking) to Amazon to search for one. Figured I would just order one or maybe even stop at Radio Shack on my way to choir. I'm beginning to think there is some little gremlin at Amazon who just waits in the corner for me to search and then jumps up and says "Dummy - you already ordered one of those back in 2010!"  That's what happened.....and it even showed me the order....sheesh.  Big Brother is Watching. But I knew I had one somewhere so I believed the little bugger and went back out to the great room and searched thru all the boxes where computer gadgets hang out....and it was no where around. So I came back to my sewing room and looked thru all the baskets and boxes and such where it might be hiding!  nope...nada....nuthing!  so I gave up. But lo and behold, the floppy disc gods were kind....I turned my chair around so I could pet Levi and looked at the very top shelf of a rack of fabrics and other important stuff and noticed a brown box sitting there...calling to me..... YAHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!  there is was...still in the box....yes! I had ordered it in 2010 and put it on the shelf so I'd see it easily. Maybe that was in the days before this room got "reorganized" by fabric gremlins. My afternoon was saved. Plugged the little thingy into my laptop, figured out what software to use to read the disc and viola! I now can read the embroidery software that is on floppies!  will wonders never cease. Of course, my new problem now is that I don't have enough USB ports on my laptop to run the mouse/dongle/floppy disc thingy.....so it's off to stop at Radio Shack anyway and see it they have a USB hub. But progress has been made. Hmmmmmmmm...maybe I should clean this room and find other hidden treasures!!  

Moral of the Story - Don't forget to pet your dogs!! 

2014 Already

It's not hard to write a blog.....write once a year and you're done! Ha. I really really plan to keep up this blog this year.  See, already changed the title to include 2014......

Matriculation Day - Feb 14 2014

It is February 2014 and can't believe the months are going by so fast. 2013 was pretty much taken up raising Michele.....24/7 .....  but what a sweetie. She is a very special girl and we miss her so much now that she's gone off to Advanced Training in Oceanside CA. Graduation/matriculation ceremony was Feb 14th and as usual, it was fun, hectic, sad, joyful, and in the end she just walked away with her new friends and never turned around to say goodbye. No news until April 4th. The first couple of weeks are spent getting checked out medically and temperament tests too and then into training. Training reports are sent first Friday of each month so we have to wait until April. That's the hardest part. In the back of your mind you know they can be released at any time but we're trying not to think about it. Just have to have faith that she'll want to be an assistance dog and graduate in August.  In the meantime we have Levi around to keep us company. He's now the "church dog", taking Michele's place in my office.  

Life has gone on pretty much as usual. Very little snow this winter and no rain so far. Hopefully that will change but we don't hold out much hope - I hate the thought of fire season. Gene's greenhouse got a little damaged during one of our snow storms this winter so he's got work to do to get the thing back in shape and start planting. There was nothing planted in the GH for the winter so that was good. 

Still working at the church 4 hours a day....singing in choir and playing bells. Also helped form a bell quintet and am going to sing with the Santa Fe Community Orchestra this spring for a performance of Elijah! At the Cathedral Basilica. Should be fun. 

Quilting still matters......joined the Modern Quilt Guild here in LV - we're not exactly sure what "modern quilting" really means or how to describe it, but we are learning. Right now we're working on Round Robin quilts....or as I like to call them, Circular Chicken quilts. Why? Because the name of our group is the Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild. (The river that sort of flows thru LV is the Gallinas River and Gallinas means chicken in Spanish so therefore...the CRMQG.  Alos have gotten some machine embroidery done - made dishtowels for my sister for Christmas with some software I found in the drawer for the machine. It was fun to do although changing thread is a pain in the patoot! One of my goals for 2014 is to finally learn how to use the serger I inherited. It's so intimidating to even look at it. The closest Viking dealer is in Colorado Springs so that's a bit of a drive to learn how to use the thing. But I guess I'll get out the instructions and see what damage I can do. 

Yes, I will keep up this blog!!  I will. I will.  I will try. 

So Much for Resolutions

Okay okay - so I "resoluted" to write in this blog more often in 2013....but that was 2012 when I made that resolution and it didn't happen. Until today. It's 83 degrees outside, not very windy, and cloudy. We are perhaps going to get some rain....at least that's what "they" say....50% chance of scattered thundershowers. HA! Sure hope the rain gods are listening to the weather service. All of New Mexico is in a severe drought and that is not helping the firefighters although the lower wind speeds and higher humidty do help. I keep asking God (the one in charge of rain) why some parts of the country are flooding and we can't get a dang shower here?

Nadie and Michele

Otherwise, the year is clipping along quickly. Michele is  nearly 13 months old now and a real sweetie. She is gorgeous and smart and doing pretty good in her training. She has finally decided that it's ok to jump into and out of the car....for a while there I thought I'd be lifting a 50 lb retriever into the car every time we go somewhere...but after she spent 10 days with Andrew (another puppy sitter) in Albuquerque she realized that "car" is an OK command. I'm sure he didn't help her into his truck. So we've solved that problem. She still loves to pick everything up in her mouth that she can find...from dog poop to sticks to rocks.... we were using a "leave it" command until we were told that that is not a CCI command....it's "don't" or "no". Not sure where I picked up the "leave it" idea but we've switched to the correct commands and she listens. "Come" and "stay" are still hard for her. She's so curious about everything outside that coming when called is more like a suggestion for when she is done checking out her yard.... and stay....oh dear....the butt goes down with a sit very nicely but getting it to stay down is another story. Making slow progress on that one. But overall she is getting better. We are awaiting her signal that it's time to go to the convent but so far that has not happened either. She'll be away for 3 weeks when that happens at a pet spa in Santa Fe. She keeps us busy but we love her. We have to take her to "turn in" in California the middle of Feb 2014 and I don't even want to think about that. It's going to be hard to say goodbye but hoping that she will graduate and be someone's helper. 

Ready for golf

Life goes on here in the desert. Gene is busy again this summer with his gardens....he has a new truck that he used to pull a trailer with a 600 gal water tank on it and goes into town to get effluent water - it's really cheap and we are trying to save our Ponderosa pines in the back yard. With this awful drought, the trees all over are really stressed. Gene also has lots of stuff planted in the greenhouse and outside gardens....tomatoes, potatoes, asparagus (that'll be ready to harvest next spring finally), onions, beans, and squashes. Maybe other things but I am not sure. He sure stays busy with all that. We've already had a few small tomatoes - YUMMO - and can't wait for more. He also put in a dahlia garden in the front of the house with drip irrigation and it is looking good. His cactus garden is coming along great and some of them are blooming now. Me? I have flowers in pots on the deck and a couple of tomaotes in big pots too.

Gene - before the party!!

No big vacations this year....we had a great 70th birthday party for Gene on May 4th with about 35-40 people stopping in to wish his HB. The family pitched in and donated money for an iPad for him....he is as addicted to it as I am to mine. Gene's sisters and a friend from Minnesota came down for the party and lots of neighbors and other folk came over. Great wonderful cake from Meadow City Cakes with a garden theme 
and other snack and sangria were served. It was really fun to invite all our friends and watch those who didn't know each other meet and everyone seemed to get along great. The party was from 1-4 but there were those who stayed until 7:30 and some who showed up at 7:30 or so and stayed till 9:00. I was exhausted but it was a really wonderful day and the birthday boy had a ball. The picture was staged....he really did not sit in the rocking chair with a jug of sangria and his walking stick. We managed to get him dressed and mobile!!

"An Excuse for More Cherries" aka Las Cruces - the Crosses

Heading to Loveland CO in August for the Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival...I entered my "crosses" quilt in the show and am taking a couple of classes. Driving up by myself and enjoying a nice hotel with lots of water for 5 days. Not sure what we'll do with Miss M yet during that time. She's fine staying home with Gene (they LOVE each other) but I might see if someone in the Denver CCI group would like to puppy sit. It's good to get the dogs into different situations and to meet lots of others. We'll see.

So now I'm heading out to watch for rain...and water my tomatoes. Maybe that'll make it rain. And leaving this post with a resolution to write more often. Wish I was heading to Tower for the 4th but maybe next summer again. I'll just re-read my blog from last summer and remember all the fun.

Hmmm...there are big holes of blue in the clouds....that does not look like rain to me.

Resolutions????

Oh boy...it's time for resolutions again...but I'm not making any...I know what I'm supposed to be doing and not doing so no reason to go over all that again!!  At my advanced age it's either going to happen or not and I'm not going to stress out over things. Maybe that's my resolution.
The year is nearly over (well, in some places it is and the new one has started) and we're cleaning up after Christmas and getting ready to go to the neighbors for a small party tonight...doubt we'll make it much past 10! Besides they just got home from a week's vacation and must have jet-lag.
It snowed here last night and we woke up to 2-3 inches of beautiful fluffy snow which the dogs loved. Michele loves to run in it and bury her nose into the drifts and snuffle along. A very happy puppy. Levi - not so much - but then he's a little closer to the ground and I imagine gets his "boy part" cooled off quickly. But he does run after her in the snow and digs around a bit.
Had a nice Christmas...lovely service at our church on Christmas Eve and then company for dinner on Christmas day. But, boy was i tired afterwards. Luckily didn't have to work the day after....mostly napped and watched football....
Sun is shining this afternoon, snow is melting, dogs are playing and Gene is starting to work on the breakfront that he's making for me. It's to store all the wonderful Spode Christmas Tree china I got from my brother last year. Been storing it in various cupboards and closets this year but soon I hope to be able to have it all in one place. Looked all over for the serving pieces when we used it for dinner on Christmas and could not find them....ugh....but lo and behold - they appeared afterwards....in the cupboard above the refrigerator. DUH!!!  But at least I found them. Of course that got me to cleaning out other kitchen cupboards and now I have organized all the spices (no, not in alphabetical order), put the contents of 3 cans of cocoa into one can, and generally got stuff in some semblance of order. Arghhhhhhhhhhhh..............  who needs lemon pepper and whole cardamom seeds that came down here with us from Seattle??? 

Happy New Year to all....

Holy Cow - It's Been Awhile

Sheesh!!!!!!!!!!!!1  Has it really been 3 months since I wrote in my blog?  Hmmmm  time does fly. I think we've been busy...and exhausted and all that....those are my excuses. But today is a gorgeous sunny NM day with lite breeze - about 65-70 - and not a cloud in the sky. Windows are open to catch the wind....and Gene is out hunting somewhere "up north" in new Mexico....so time to catch up. If I can remember what has happened. 

Vacation is long gone but not forgotten. And my cousin Walter's wife, Karen, keeps posting wonderful pictures of the lake and Katie's wedding and making me homesick!

Since coming home a little bundle of fur arrived for us. Michele, our new CCI puppy, landed in Denver on August 3rd. She is a Golden/Lab cross and ..well..what can I say? She is adorable...growing like the proverbial weed and very vocal, to put it nicely. SHE BARKS!!  Reily was so quiet..this one..not so much. But she's coming around. She was ~10 lbs when we got her and at her last vet check about 3 weeks ago she weighed 28 lbs...and has those long legs that just seem to keep getting longer. Poor Levi...they were about the same height when she arrived and now...well, he can nearly walk under her. But she's smart and loveable and irascible and well, a puppy. Some days I just want to send her back to someone else and then I get over that and all is well. Judy and I drove to Colorado Springs to pick her up as they couldn't fly her into Albuquerque due to timing of flights and hot weather, etc so one of the gals from the CO CCI group met her at the airport in Denver and brought her to CO Springs office and we got the puppies there. Judy has Nadie who is not from the same litter..like Oreily and Ojai were. N&M were born one day apart so no relation but they are both GLX and fiesty. When they get together there is chaos! And then they collapse and sleep and wake up and do it all over again. So raising this girl has kept us busy 24/7. She does go to work with me and does quite well. Likes to go to the post office and Walgreen's. Have not taken her to Wal-Mart yet but she rides in the car nicely and generally behaves. We have to keep reminding ourselves that she is just a puppy. She LOVES Gene and will be very sneaky and crawl into his lap before we know what is happening.The word "off" is used a lot. We've already decided that if she does not graduate from AT, we will take her back as a pet. She has her own blog too...http://raisingmichelle.blogspot.com/

We went to Albuquerque with Judy and Nadie a few weeks ago for a meeting...lots of puppies and 4 graduate dogs too..what an afternoon.... don't ask me why she's the only one being held....let's just say I wanted to do that. 

So otherwise life is life. Gene has a new truck (2006 Silverado with special towing package and 4x4 and all the bells and whistles). It's gorgeous and looks brand new...he's a happy camper. And in fact, is off camping right now. He drew a mule deer tag for area 2-B here in NM which is right up on the NM/CO border - he really lucked out getting that one. So he got out all the old camping stuff and some new things, his guns, ammunition, food, etc and headed out for the back country. Haven't heard from him since then but didn't expect to as not much cell phone coverage up that way! 

I'm still working at the church, quilting, and doing all those normal things.....we are managing on our water catchement system very nicely and the water commission group is getting closer all the time to drilling a well for our community system. We will probably be able to hook up to it fairly soon after pipes are in place because of where the well will be located. We are just off the road that the piping will come down so it'll be a good thing!!  Lots of work yet to do and lots on money still needed but things are getting done. 

Off to feed the livestock and clean up around here  before watching game 4 of the World Series. Can't believe that the Giants could win this in 4 straight....of course, I really don't care who wins the thing but fun to watch.