Frozen Days

Avalanche Area - Snowshoeing up Flatiron

Saphira and i

ElastaWoman

Me soaked in sweat, but loving it!!

ElastaWoman and i

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Looking for the Yurt on top the mtn!

Finally got the heat going!

Boarding Down!

Miss Moonbeamer and Mist's little boy

Art Dog's Buck

Brothers Bonding

Our Family Christmas Pic

80's Dance with AlliCat, Archer and Saphira

Archer and Saphira posing 80's Style (looking like me and my hubby)

How Archer Gets My Deer to the Truck

Hunting was hard this year, but Archer helped me find one

Girls Day Out - Eikhardts

Girls Day Out - Starbucks

Miss Moonbeam

Husband and Deer

How i Decorated for Christmas

Many things we cannot change.... a mom fighting for her life on a breathing machine, a man fighting cancer, another man struggling to find contentment and peace. Some things we can.... our attitudes and the way we respond to situations. Every day, the way we respond determines the course of our lives. We can let the pressure break us, go the way of the easy response, or we can fight for the futures better outcome. This is my story. I've been a girl picking up and fighting forces that can be fought and equally hard, letting go of fights that are not my battles. Sometimes resting and trusting and not fighting are the most painstaking. These turmoils surround me daily, and its hard knowing when to fast and pray and when to just trust God and leave things in His capable hands.
   Its been a busy busy fall. My husband has been working full time at the airport, trying to get hunting in and welding every weekend in his garage. By the grace of God he got a deer last day of the season.
    He asked if we could go work on tearing down a building at the old property in Yaak this past weekend. There were a lot of groans..namely from me, but we changed attitudes in a hurry and packed up. Turned out it was a wonderful wonderful weekend. On Saturday we worked on that shed and then went over to spend some time with our old friends for an amazing Mexican fiesta. We got to sleep in their romantic cabin in the snowy woods. It was idyllic with fresh snow and a warm fire burning in the wood stove. It was just what my husband needed. In the morning, after an amazing big breakfast, my girlfriend, daughter and I embarked on an adventure snowshoeing up a mountain and snowboarding down. We'd both been under different stresses, and the outing was a needed one. Every time I instigate things like this, I often wonder what I was thinking. I would later find myself crawling up the steep face of an unforgiving snow covered beast, clawing every inch of the way as my daughter and girlfriend patiently take a few steps trying not to roll their eyes - lol. "Well it gives us some entertainment" they laugh. I can never figure out why I resort to crawling, when the people behind me aren't all that winded, but I guess I just have to accept that I am what I am. I'm still proud I don't give up until I'm at the top :-) I wasn't the only entertainment of the day. Some guy wanted to take our pics for the paper... because i'm sure climbing to the top of a mountain is a great feat and we are cool chicks. Actually it was his SECOND time up. I was also proud when we figured out how to get the heater going in the tarps stuck to the tree that was supposed to be a "yurt". Anyhow, it was a needed reprieve.
   I've lost about 13 lbs on my quest to wear a bikini in Hawaii this winter. As you know from reading my blog, I've been trying to get there for a few years now and it will soon be happening. Also been having fun with Zumba. The kids are all doing well. Archer is working at the hospital and spent a lot of time hunting. He has a good hiking buddy who stole all our hearts by storm. Artdog's been helping his dad in the shop and was proud to have gotten the biggest buck in our family this year after all his hard hunting. Super Catman busy busy in school and play. He loves playing Frisbee with home school kids on Fridays. Miss Moonbeam is her usual bossy busy cute self :-)
    All in all i must stop blogging because Miss Moonbeam is sitting here demanding to be cuddled  ;-)

Good Days

Our First Fall Here....




Super Catman's Homeschool Volcano Project

 

Priest Lake Dinner Together



The 50 lb Hubbard Squash we were given...as you can see it was quite celebrated.



The Son Who Makes Me Laugh (Daily)  Art Dog ..... at his finest



How My Boys Celebrate Being Given Long Underware (Thanks Matthew (Kind Eyes!)



Shopping with Bhama!



Our Kids with Their Grandparents from MN at Copper Falls



Inlaws visiting - all of us



The Most Recent Pets Which We Have Acquired




Harvest Night Party - Miss Moonbeam and Super Catman

 

Mc Family Time - Shopping Day with The InLaws

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Art Dog Learns Welding with Dad



Our Date Last Month - We flew to Priest Lake and ate at Cavanaughs.



I Was Shocked to Discover Miss Moonbeam Decided The Dog Must Be Bungeed and Drug Around The House.  I Couldn't Resist a Quick Shot Before Freeing Our Pup!

   Finding a warm fluffy sleeveless jacket with my hospital logo on it at the second hand store was just one more reason to remind me that God loves me.   I'd have never spent the money on that, and I'm ALWAYS COLD working night shifts.  This was JUST PERFECT.  Come to think of it, I can't count the times "just perfect" things have found their way to into my house.  A month ago, it was a nice mattress and bed frame with drawers and shelves.  I'd been desperate to find something like that for Super Catman.  All in all, good things come :-)
   Not to say there hasn't been challenges, most of which I'm not at liberty to share, but even in them, God is Faithful.  When yesterdays terrors threaten to disrupt my life, I have to remember, once again, those were yesterdays and today is fresh and new.  Ghosts can't live in the light.

     I've stepped into a different life.  Instead of snow on the ground and dread of the coming winter, I have this goofy expectation of good things to come.  Earlier this week I was out harvesting lettuce in my garden.  Life is SO MUCH EASIER now than it was living in the Yaak.  Every day I am surrounded by new reminders that I can finally breathe easier.  Some of the fun things I've been doing includes running with the neighbor lady, taking Zumba classes and more outings seeing friends, shopping, etc..  Gone is the constant fight to feed the kids balanced meals when I can only get to town once a week.  Now when I run out of milk, I have it again the next day.  I get giddy just imagining NOT having to pack groceries on ice spikes up our mountain in the Yaak come winter.  My garage and freezers are full of produce people have GIVEN me.  Never before have I EVER lived in such land abundant with so much harvested that neighbors willingly share so much surplus.  For the first time as long as I can remember I haven't felt stressed out over groceries.
Instead of the dread of isolation, there are all kinds of things I'm excited about doing this winter.  By far the most exciting of which is that I bought tickets for my man and I to go to Hawaii!!  Its been a long time coming and it seems like a fairy tale for it to actually be happening.  I guess you could say I'm finally getting my honeymoon for my 40th birthday, and I'm still in honeymoon phase with our new place :-)

  

 
Ps 34:12 Whoever of you loves life

and desires to see many good days,

13 keep your tongue from evil

and your lips from telling lies.

14 Turn from evil and do good;

seek peace and pursue it.

My Summer in a Nutshell

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It just hasn't been in me to write for a very long time. Of course when the weather is nice I NEVER want to be inside much less stuck in front of a computer. My creative flow gets a bit dwarfed and pales in comparison to the desperate bikini screaming from my closet that she must be in the sun NOW!!! You'd think she'd be grateful I got her out there, but she's just never satisfied. Once she's layed in the sun for a while, then she starts begging to go to the lake. I tell my kids that I have to take my bikini to the lake because she needs to go swimming and everybody shouts "hooray"!! Then it takes half an hour because the truck is piled high with assorted "necessities" and we are off to the nearest local lake.

My bikini momentarily becomes shy because instead of being at a remote lake in the Yaak, there are gawking fisherman loitering in her swimming area. She is disgusted she can't come out and must stay incognito. She pouts a bit warning me that I'm going to be all stuck full of wet yucky clothing if I don't get them off. Soon she and whatever choice of cover up I have are in a big brawl. I try not to attract a lot of attention. After all, the place we swim is a designated fishing area, but my bikini just doesn't buy it. She wants to be out swimming and no people or circumstances will stop her. She can't be reasoned with. She's a one girl show. There isn't any accessory clothing she gets along with.

Most of the time, the fisherman hear her growling and get nervous. They figure she's going to scare the fish away so the end up leaving. Then laughing fiendishly, before I know whats going on, she beats the crap out of my cover up top and water shorts and she's on the loose. Truth of the matter is, I've tried having relationships with an entire wall of bikinis in my closet but they're all the same. They are domineering and opinionated and can't be told "no" if the sun is out.

This problem with my bikinis takes a lot of the responsibility off of me. I never have to worry about modesty with them because they have no sense of propriety. They don't care if I'm all bloated with pms or not. They don't care how old I am or what my latest fat content is. There is just no reasoning in them. They never even told me that I had quite distinguished love handles. I'm pretty sure they knew, but they withheld the information on account of I couldn't see behind me and didn't know until I saw a picture of me at the Long Bridge Swim this year (ugh)! Anyhow, my bikini's, every last one of them are incorrigible and since we're placing blame on them today, I blame them for my lack of blogging this summer :-) Hopefully now that the lake here is cold and the boat isn't going out to Koocanusa on the weekends I can stuff them into a box and their screams will be temporarily muffled.