Thanksgiving 2014

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! What a great time of year we get to have celebrations of gratitude. 

This year Scott and I were able to celebrate alone. Just the two or three if you count that little pup. Scott is working Thursday. Wednesday Scott and I prepared our meal and had a wonderful day of counting our blessings! We decided to try a deep fried turkey. Neither of us have prepared or eaten a deep fried turkey. I love new adventures with this guy!

Scott is watching the turkey cook. We dug deep in the store freezer to get a 11.87 lb turkey. It is such a scrawny thing.  It almost looks like a chicken! Poor tiny turkey!

Look at that golden brown turkey! YUM!

The turkey cooked in a record 42 minutes! Woot woot! It was such a nice day that being outside was such a pleasure! I love spending time with Scott! I am so very thankful for him in my life!

Here is my gluttonous plate of food! Just look at that turkey leg! I mean just look at it! Do not on the other hand look at the gravy! the gravy reminded me of pasty gloop-but it tasted wonderful!!! 

I loved every bite of this meal! It was one of the best meals I have had! I am sure it had a lot to do with Scott helping by making the turkey and stuffing (with freeze dried celery and onions--we are testing out Thrive products to see what we think--we think they are wonderful; but I digress) and helping me in all ways to have this meal! Then he helped me clean up! It was such a good day and I am thankful for all the things in our life! 

On a personal note--Tuesday Scott was told that he was not dispatcher/supervisor anymore and that they were docking his pay and Brett (a big fat jerk in my book) was taking his job. While I am relieved that Scott's stress level will be reduced and that the phone will stop ringing 15-20 times daily, I am sad and angry that this company could punish Scott for doing nothing wrong. But the company thinks Brett knows everything and is the golden boy. We are going to sit and watch Brett fail in the meantime we are going to save every last penny to purchase our own truck and go into business for ourselves. It is going to be hard. We have to pinch pennies now due to pay loss while saving for a truck. 

I am so tired of this company not realizing how hard Scott works and how many hours he puts in. But I guess Brett will find out soon enough. Sigh. It sure has been a heart breaking, self esteem killing, trust breaking, hard change to make Thanksgiving. 

I am immensely  proud of Scott. I am very proud to be his wife! And of course I am thankful for him, thankful I know him, am loved by him, have him in my life! I am a very blessed woman!

I hope y'all have a wonderful day of thanks!

I am preparing to sit in my pajamas and watch movies and knit. Oh yeah!

Halloween and Heber Creeper!

Halloween 2014! Here is the cutest Superman! Kevin is about 18 months and just a sweetie! He does a little American Sign Language and it is just precious! His parents are deaf and he is not. He reminds me of when his dad was a boy. Daniel was a busy boy. He was constantly getting into drawers and cupboards; making messes as he went. We had long yard sticks that we ran down through the drawer handles to keep him out. We also had a lock on the refrigerator because he loved to take eggs and crack them on the floor and bring the cats from outside to eat them. Oh the trouble he caused. And I see the same curious mischievous mind in Kevin, his son. 

Kevin sure is cute! Daniel, Hilaree and Kevin; and my sister Jo Ann and her husband John met Scott and I at Heber Valley Railroad to ride the once called Heber Creeper. 

Scott and I did not dress up. We were the odd men out. 

Daniel and Hilaree. 

Kevin giving rocks! 

Father and son--Superman all the way!

Blurry but so cute! I love these two!

Jo Ann is a great Minion. She is too cute! John is a golfer and looked amazing. His current profession is grounds keeper at the golf course in Delta. He has a degree in horticulture and knows how to keep those greens wonderful! He is a pretty impressive man! My sister is very lucky to have him. 

We all had a great time on the train. When Kevin got home he asked if he could go again. That is so cute! 

I am so glad my family loves me and indulges my planning of events. I am so thankful for them. I know I am a planner. I know I like to try new things. I also know that Jo and Daniel are great sports. It means so much to me to have people follow through on the plans. I am truly not offended if they choose not to participate! My sister Lori, and brother Brent chose not to come. I am not upset at all. I would be upset if they agreed to come and then 'no showed'. That would have hurt my feelings! 

Daniel comes to Vernal once in a while for work. It is so nice to have him visit! He is moving in a few days to Cedar City. I am happy for them, but am sad that he will no longer be doing service calls to Vernal anymore and I will not get to see him as much. I love Cedar City! Cedar is very far from the Vernal perspective! What makes it worse is Kevin is going to be a brother in April and I will e so very far away! I guess I better get working on my long over due teleporter!

Christmas at Gardner Village.

The girls from work like to go to Witchfest at Gardner Village. We have gone for 2 years. This year we had a tragic funeral the day after we planned on going. So we postponed it until this weekend--thinking we would be ahead of the crowds for Christmas. I have not been to Gardner Village for Christmas. It was wonderful!

The candy store had the biggest black bear I have seen. It is just soft and snuggly and wonderful! 

The elf displays were just 100% adorable! The details and creativity are impressive! 

Just adorable to me!

I had a great day out with Eden. Out of 4 women who decided and agreed to go only 2 (me and one other) came. I am thankful for Eden for staying committed and not flaking out. 

Flaking out, sick kids, dog being wounded by car, or whatever the excuse/reason it is hard for me. I am not sure if it is the failed expectations or the reaffirmation that I dont matter. It hurts. It just hurts.

I am tired of women. Consistently in my life I make plans with women who claim to be my friend and most of the time they flake out with one of thousands of excuses I have heard. While in my 20's I believed the women, forgave, repeated, was stood up again. In my 30's I drastically reduced my female friends and started becoming a loner and home body. Now I am 40 and I am just sick of it. I think I will just not agree to go on any girls day out adventures, lunches, or parties. 

Why dont women keep their word? Am I picking looser women to hang out with? The only thing I can think of is no one wants to hang out with me. I get that but dont invite me! Dont agree to come with me! Dont lie to me!

My heart just cannot take the rejection. I am tired of taking time and planning to go somewhere just to end up going alone. 

Oh well. I guess I will just continue with my belief that I am not meant to have a female friend. And it is awkward having male friends now that I am married. I just feel so alone and friendless.  

Nielsen Hacienda

Scott and I just returned from a vacation. We tried and tried to plan something grand and fun. Our plans kept falling through and nothing seemed to fit until my sister Jo Ann offered to let us stay at her place in Delta. So the Nielsen Hacienda was our new destination. We had such a great stay there! Jo Ann and her husband John were wonderful hosts. We had amazing treats, wonderful food and great fun. 

One afternoon we headed out to Topaz Japanese Internment camp. I had never been there before and really enjoyed the trip. 

It is amazing to me what Americans did to other Americans. The panic must have been great! I also found out George Takei lived in one of these camps as a young child. Topaz was in operation from 1942 to 1945. The history was amazing. 

We enjoyed a great picnic lunch! There is no cover out here--no pavilion, no tree, no table. Here Scott is sucking the juice out of his fruit cup while providing his own cover with his plate.  

On our way out to Topaz there was a stop in Desseret to get beverages from a great cold machine. They were almost slushy which is awesome on a hot shadeless day!

One of the best parts of the vacation was the Hub. Jo and John have this device that holds 400 movies. We had endless choices of entertainment. As you can see we snuggled down with Suzie and enjoyed the down time!

We taught Scott how to play Nertz. It is one of my favorite card games of all time. I love it so much! I had so much fun playing with Scott as my partner! I just love the game so much and it has been way too long since I last played! I have to admit that of all the fun we had on vacation this was my favorite! Even though we did have a few great hands of Canasta!

We also went to the mud fort in Desseret. I have been there many times and Scott was intrigued for a minute and then it was off to Topaz. We also went to the Great Basin Museum. It was a wonderful museum to me. Just the right size! Not too big, just right to have wonderful information and a great variety of finds.  The museum had old farm equipment, geological finds, stuff about Beryl plant, IPP, and the Lindyll train hub. It was pretty interesting to me. I really liked it. 

Scott and I took one day to go over to Dad's and transfer some old home VHS movies to DVD. It was pretty fun to watch with Dad. He really enjoyed it. We made copies for all the kids. Mom was really happy about that. 

All in all it was a wonderful vacation and I loved it quite a lot. I head back to work tomorrow and I am rested and ready to work! 

Camping 2014

We planned, postponed, dreamed, longed, ached and waited for this day! And it finally happened. We made it up the mountain!

Notice the puddles. It had been raining almost every single day so we took the 20% chance as a good sign. I mean we live in a dessert--for sure it cannot rain every single day. The reservoirs are at all time low levels. How much more rain could we really honestly actually receive?

Scott was a busy man up the mountain. He chopped down a couple trees by hand due to the fact our second hand chain saw failed to start. He has pretty impressive axe skills. Hitting the exact same slit every single time. It was amazing to see his skills. He claimed to have developed them on the oil rigs where he had to hit small wing nuts and that he learned really quick to hit the right exact spot. 

We spent a whole 7 minutes setting up our tent. It is so wonderful. I just love the thing! We had our entire camp set up in less than 30 minutes. I had Scott take a pic of me in my new Yellowstone zip up hoodie. I love that thing so much! Soo comfy. So long and so wonderful! 

Thursday we set up camp. Thursday between 1-6 it rained. We totally took a nap in the awesome dry tent!

About 6 we made a fire and ate dinner. We decided to try some freeze dried meals. So all we did was heat up water, add to pouch, stir, wait, eat. I loved it. The food is tolerable and so much easier than busting out the potatoes, onions, dutch oven and coals. We waited about 10 minutes for dinner to be ready instead of the hours of dutch oven waiting. I am a huge fan now of these dinners. They are the only way to go camping and relaxing. For me who is not the biggest fan of dutch oven due to all the onions and potatoes involved in every single dish. I hate the clean up, trash collection from peels, and cans etc. The pouches of the freeze dried meals are so wonderful!

After dinner we had a small fire for a couple hours while we each read our books and enjoyed the night. Then it started to rain about 8 pm. We just went to bed. It rained for the better part of the night. We woke the next day to a very soggy morning!

Here we are before 7 am. Suzie had been all around the camp smelling whatever had crossed our camp during the night--many deer prints, but I am sure racoon etc. She quickly became soaked from running around with her nose to the ground. 

The sun is finally rising and starting to warm us up and dry everything out!

Suzie loves being 'camp dog' She is on the look out even though there is a ball right under her feet. 

Friday morning was amazing. It was quiet and still. There was some fog nearby that quickly dissipated after the sun rose. We sat by the fire until 11 am talking and reading. It was a wonderful morning! We went for a drive after lunch and saw many cows and one crane. it was a great drive. We found other camp sites we would like to try next time. 

We got back to camp and made another fire and Scott in his wisdom suggested cooking some hot dogs really quick since the clouds were getting darker. We cooked our hot dogs and the rain started. We shoved the remaining dogs in our mouths and quickly put stuff up. We then went to the tent to find shelter. It rained for a few hours and then about 7 pm it stopped. I went out to the drenched fire and wrote in my journal. We contemplated packing up and going home (in hind site we should have), but chose to spend one more night as planned. So far we had not gotten too wet. The tent was holding up quite impressively! Then at 8:15 pm the rain stared and did not stop until 3:05 am. We tried to sleep. Scott did pretty good, I failed. Even though my eyes were closed the lightening was quite blinding. I spend the night counting seconds between lightening strikes and thunder rolls. The thunder was so wonderful. It echoed back and forth on the hills and sounded longer, deeper and much more threatening than if I was at my home. Sometime after midnight the wind started blowing and part of our tent was up rooted due to saturated ground and the steak not being able to find purchase. We fixed the fallen tent and noticed the tent had reached it's saturation point. We had small drops falling in. Nothing too serious just enough to make the blanket damp in a few spots. Once daylight came and we could see better we noticed a puddle. We think it came between the awning and the front door where there is a small gap and the wind much have been just right to allow the water to run right in. All in all we had a dry camp considering how much rain there was. We got out of bet about 7 am and dilly dallied and enjoyed the morning. Promptly at 8:03 am it stared raining again. Hard. Scott sent me and a shivering Suzie into the tent while he packed everything up. Then I put Suz in the car and helped Scott tear down the tent. We were packed and heading down the mountain by 8:41 am. Our goal was to come down the mountain about 9 or 10 am so we were right on schedule. Vernal was having rain so we piled everything on the deck and will dry everything out Monday. What a smokey, muddy mess we are! 

It was fun nonetheless. It is so wonderful to unplug and detach and just breathe mountain air. 

One of these things is not like the other.

Last weekend I had the honor of attending a sister week of a dear long time friend. This was 9th year of this great event. I have attended several of these gatherings in Indiana and Utah. So naturally when it was in Utah this year I arranged to attend. The sisters of this group are 5. Four are currently married. Three have children. 4 have jobs that they love. 5 find great strength in each other and love having a week with each other to recharge, renew and refresh.

All 5 of these women are wonderful, inspirational, hard working, smart, musically talented, creative, passionate, dreamers, caring and great citizens of the country. While they are such great women and I love each of them very much I have noticed a few things over the years. Only 1 sister seems content with her body size. 1 sister seems content with her life. She seems content with her relationship with her spouse. She loves being a mother even during the hard moments. She is a regular attending member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She honors her temple covenants. She seems happy-deep down happy.  Is this because of her choices? Is this a result of how she was raised? What makes her so different? Do the other sisters recognize this? How can I be like this 1 sister?

I enjoyed my time with the sisters and I hope to continue to be invited in the following years. I also hope I can live a better life and be a happier and better person. These are simply my observations and hopes for myself.

Is My Blog Dead?

Is it? There is no signs of life, there is not much activity. It just might be dead. I am weeping over the loss of my dear friend-my Blog Bubble. BB has been there for me for eight good years. He has listened when I complained, cared when I cried, laughed when I married Dan, cheered when we divorced. He was there while I dated and dated and dated and found Scott. He was there for all my adventures. But most of all he was there to get the words, thoughts, feelings, and ideas out of my head and out in type format. This process of getting words out of my head and into type helps me process the good, bad, pretty and ugly in my life. I find it very cathartic.  My thoughts and feelings are sometimes jumbled up in my head. My heart conflicts with what my brain is telling me and my brain dominates what my heart is trying to feel. Putting feelings and thoughts into neat little sentences which grow into paragraphs who mature into stories, articles, factiods, help me to make sense out the jumbled chaos that is happening inside my head. The resulting word rush results in a heart in harmony with my calm mind. It is a release. It is a joy. It is necessary.

So why the death of the blog? I blame no internet in my house.

I have chosen a life with limited internet access. It works for me. I am not condemning anyone or preaching a limited internet life; I am simply explaining my choice. I have found over the past year and a half that I am connecting to actual people more. I don't plan my meals around what picture I can take to post on my blog. I don't plan my weekends with great photo ops in mind. I just go and do and be. It is hard because sometimes I just want to google some recipe or an actress or find movie times but I survive and realize other things are important. I watch so many people playing on their phones and ignoring their spouses and their children. I see people playing plants and zombies in church instead of looking up scriptures. I see many many friends ignored for the glimpse of a text or tweet. It is a weakness of mine that while I tried to focus on good things I found I was missing out on the better things. I am no longer guilty of distracted driving. I ignore texts and only look at facebook 1-2 times a week. I am rarely on pintrest and never on twitter even with accounts. I have never done instagram and fear I am missing out. I feel I am a fuddy duddy who lives in a cave. Yet here I am--not regretting my choice.

I do not think I will put this blog out to pasture just yet. He might have some good post left in him. But for now I will revert/continue to use pen and paper in the form of journals (I have 16 volumes dedicated to my life--picture free sadly).

Oh BB how I have loved you! I am tearing up now just thinking about how much you have helped me! I cannot quite let you go just yet! I feel bad for neglecting you....I sound like the movie Her which I have not seen but can relate since I am talking to a blog. A inanimate blog.

My Kitchen

I am finally getting around to writing about my house.

Scott has been living, off and on, in a house owned by his grandmother since 1996. It has been a worry to me about our future in the house. We have been allowed to paint but not change the things we wanted to like the roof, fencing etc. I have wanted to remodel and landscape.

Recently my sister who was widowed in November 2012 had been living in ‘grandma’s’ house with her husband and children since 1997. Due to the recent passing of her husband her in-laws decided to disregard the husbands deathbed wish and included ‘grandma’s’ house in with all the farm land and sold it. My sister now has to worry about paying rent or buying the house from the new owner or moving. She has not had a mortgage for 15 years and all the equity in grandma’s house is no longer hers. There is plenty of blame all around for this current situation. Regardless of who didn’t get papers correctly signed and who lied etc after many years my sister and her kids have nothing. I am not going to be in a similar situation. I do not want to imagine life in 15 years and Scott passing and I am kicked out of my home that was never really mine anyway. I would lose all the ‘sweat equity’. I also worried that when Grandma passes away –without a legal will which she refuses to make- all her assets will be divided between her three children and NOT three children and ONE grandson. Even if taken to probate court-which causes me to shudder—going to court against family—I think the judge would say one grandson does not have rights if none of the other grandchildren have rights. So I am sure of the future in the house is not secure.

Scott readily agreed with me and went on the hunt for a house. You have seen outside pictures. Here is some detail about the kitchen.

This is a picture of the back door. This is taken before we moved in.

A picture of the flooring-I like it. The pics look like there are scratches in the floor-there are not. They must be scuffs that have been washed out.

This is the corner. The stove was not installed at this time. Nor is the fridge.

A whole view of the kitchen. The stove and fridge were placed as part of the staging of the house.

All moved in and put together!

A closer view of my favorite corner! Everything is so handy! I love my gas stove! I love the hanging spatulas and spoons for easy grabbing. It is my favorite corner in the house!

This is the other corner-not my favorite-but way better than the small orange corners I had before. I do love the refrigerator! It is very hand having the freezer on the bottom! We were very lucky that the refrigerator fit. We measured between the counters and did not notice that the cupboards above were not lined up. It barely fit between the cupboards! We were very very lucky indeed. Next to purchase is a new dishwasher. That will be a little down the line!

That is my kitchen. I enjoy it very much. We are using a card table for our dining purposes and will one day get a real table with real chairs!

Here is to the future! Which is much more secure even if I have a card table and old icky dishwasher!

Another Peek at the Stewart Shack

The following pictures are of my real life! My unorganized, less than perfect, real life!

This is the master bathroom. Yes the light bulbs are different colors-It is weird but I have not taken time to fix it nor to put away my hair band and lip stick, so it must not bother me too much.

The shower is very nice. It is real stone and quite nice. There are 2 heads with one removable.

The jets can be angled to spray in all directions to allow massage of my back and shoulders!

This is the other shower head in this his and hers shower. I like to get both ends going and really steam up the place! It really helps that I have a ginormous 75 gallon water heater! I have yet to drain it!

My mom had one of these hanging on our bathroom door as a child. She and my father would put their underthings in them. My mom started making them again and gave me this one shortly after I married Scott. It has “Keep your laundry tucked away” embroidered on it. My previous bathroom was blue and she made it to match. I love it! It reminds me of my childhood and of my mother all in one daily glance! Oh FYI there is a flap on the bottom to make loading the washer very very very easy!

Speaking of washing machines! Right out the second door of the master bath is the wash area. Hardly a room but it fits my needs!

Now onto my closet! It is a good square closet with and L bar. It has enough room for all our shoes and clothes and dirty clothes baskets! Again it is perfect for me!

Here is our bed. Not made squarely—and I call myself a hygienist! But this is how it really is. I am cold and need my WSU Dental Hygiene blanket on my side! Suzie prefers to snuggle down on my side! Sheesh! This makes it difficult to make the bed! That is my excuse for having a bed in disarray while I have no children to require my time. I guess I am just lazy! Ugh! I do not want to think that about myself. So I will conclude that I am an imperfect person with an imperfect house.

This is the spare room you will be entreated to upon arrival at the Stewart Shack!

This is also the bathroom you will pleasantly use! Heat lamp light included!

I just wanted to show the cute tile floor someone did—probably in the 80’s! Regardless I enjoy it!

Well that is another installation of our house! One day I will get the family room cleaned enough to take a picture and include it. I also need to purchase another couch for the upstairs sitting room. When that happens pictures will follow!

Introducing the Stewart Shack

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Valentine's Day and all the rest of the holidays I seem to have missed!

Scott and I did our traditional trip to Temple Square and then to Melting Pot. It was wonderful as always!  I do enjoy that tradition we started. 

We had a very tiny Christmas this year! The reason was we closed on a house on Christmas Eve! What a great gift Scott got me!

He did a lot of the work all by himself. He got the Realtor, the loan, looked at the house first, got the paper work done etc. I just showed up for the house viewing. He did all the inspections etc. He even signed for everything by himself while I was at a work party. How great is that? He did such a great job! 

Scott in the process of moving! Just a classic shot of the fun we have.

The boxes slid and I couldn't resist another shot while I was laughing so hard. 

Here is our little house. I am calling it the Stewart Shack for now. It is 4 bedroom, 2 bath little nugget of a house! It is an upgrade from where we were living before and so life is great! I am so thankful for the house and the chance we have to make it our home. Now if we could just get a magic wand to poof all of our copious amounts of food storage from the basement of old house to basement of new house that would be great!