Tuesday, July 27, 2010

It's stinking hot here!  Wow, 93 degrees actual today with a 109degree heat index!  Hot and sticky (sounds like an 80's hair band song) YUCK!

I miss my friends, haven't heard from them in a while.  Missed the Guild meeting last month, now it seems like a year since I've seen or talked to them.  Haven't had a chance to quilt much either, I need a day off!  OK, let's make a schedule for quilting and go from there.  My iron had quit working so I was out of commission for a while.  I got a cheapy to get me back on track the other day though so now I need to find my groove again!

Know what this HOT HUMID weather means?  You don't?  Oh, let me tell you........SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS.  Tornadoes, hail, high winds, you know, all the fun stuff.


Here's a pretty flower, looks like night out but it's not......just stormy.


More stormy weather flowers.  All our flowers and the garden have taken a big hit this year.

Check back in a while to see if we are still here.  Might be following Dorothy flying over Kansas........

Gentrie

PS  the spell checker always highlights my name......can I be added to the dictionary please?

Monday, July 26, 2010

Broken Windmill

Coming home from South Dakota yesterday I saw something I have never seen before.........a broken windmill.  These things are huge, I was amazed.  Remember that storm I told you about we got stuck in on Friday?  Well......


Here it is next to one that is working and fine.


This is looking up at it from the truck window as we drive by (I think Mark may have slowed down to 60mph).  It's about a 1/4 mile off the road.  Those blades are 65' long.  That one on top is splintered and just shattered.


Wow!  That was some storm there!


Gentrie 

Sunday, July 25, 2010

My Baby is gone......

Well, she's at Grandma's house.  We went this weekend and left her there today.  I'm sad, I miss her and yet I'm kind-a looking forward to having some time to get a few things done and a little bit of quiet.  Hailey has been known to talk for hours without stopping.  I'll admit I don't always hear what she's saying.......after the first hour I tend to start tuning her out.  I know you are saying BAD MOM!  Believe me....you would too after a while.

I must admit that by this next weekend I will probably be stir crazy with silence and be itching to have her back talking non-stop in the background.

On the way to Grandma's we got stuck in a nasty storm.  Had to pull over to the side of the road (or what we thought was the side of the road) because we could not see ANYHTING.  I'm talking nothing ,not the lines on the road RIGHT in front of the truck.  We stopped with a bunch of other cars and sat in the rocking truck.  Literally rocking, hoping a tire wouldn't lift off of the ground.  Hailey was asleep in the back of the truck shortly after stopping.  I haven't seen lightning like that since I was young.....it was WOW!

One of my favorite pictures....she's growing her bangs out.  That's a German World cup soccer shirt she got from Elli's parents when they visited.

Gentrie

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

I'm gonna miss her.......

My daughter is leaving this weekend to spend 1 WHOLE WEEK with her Grandma.  She's gonna love it.  Helping with chores, she loves helping with "farm" chores, brushing and riding horses, going swimming, getting ice cream form the local shop.  Yeppers, she's gonna have a blast, and I doubt she'll even miss dear old Mom and Dad.

This is how she watches TV these days.........
(By the way....it's 77 degrees in this house and those are her WINTER pajamas.......she's CRAZY!)

In fact.......she actually said:

"So you and Daddy are going to take me to Grandmas', stay ONE night and then go home, right?"

"Um it might be two nights honey"

"No, you are staying one night then going home."

"We don't get to see Grandma and visit?"

"Only for one night."

I can see we'll really be missed.....NOT!

She has a favorite cereal too that Grandma introduced to her.  It's adult cereal and it's about as healthy as it gets, all natural, no sugar, no preservatives, no nothing.


Did I mention it looks like DOG FOOD!?!?!?


Missing her already.........Gentrie

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Home Sick.......

I've been reminiscing lately and find myself a little homesick.  My parents sold there place in Montana when they moved to South Dakota.  (Yes I still consider that 20 acres home, literally half or more of my life has fond memories there.) They bought that 20 acres when I was 1 year old.....I was 31 when they sold and moved.  So.....needless to say it was the only home I knew for a VERY long time.  I've been missing it lately......the town and all.  Although the town is not the same as when I was growing up there (a lot smaller).

Big Porcupine Creek, I love driving through this area the S curve meant I was almost there! We lived on Little Porqupine Road.


The courthouse where my Mom worked for 20-some odd years, I spent a lot of time exploring that place killing time waiting for my Mom. (I'll tell you a secret, I've been in that dome on top!  SSSSHHHH, don't tell!  Stain glass floor in there......awesome!)


I floated this river.........A LOT!  When I wasn't doing that I was working....as a lifeguard....water was my life!


The "F" Hill....we lit the F every Homecoming during the bonfire on Kokomo Hill......sounds cool huh?  It was!

Such memories, I'm needing to go back and visit, but it is soooooo far!  Maybe next summer, hopefully, maybe.

Gentrie

Friday, July 16, 2010

WOWZER!

So I'm checking want-ads as we speak.  Well not while I'm typing this but as you are reading this.  My wish, someday is to work out of my home and not to have to work in the grind.  Since moving here I have seen the most amazing display of laziness, contempt and petty childishness I have EVER witnessed anywhere.  I have only had one job since moving here......you who know me know where I am talking about.

It all amazes me and stuns me and I can't believe I am in the "heartland" and seeing absolutely NO "heart" at all.  I have been ruined for th ework I am doing.  It has left a bad taste in my mouth and now I am gun shy........what business can I do from my home and make enough to support my family?

Unfortunately, construction is lazy and sporadic in this country which translates that Mark can no longer support us on his own.  In Montana he could have.......not here.  It's been a serious blow to his masculine ego and changed his whole personality.  Of course, I believe mine has most definitely been changed also.  I HAVE to be working to help support us.  I could have had a choice before, not anymore.  It sucks.

The economy sucks now which translates to there are NO jobs out there.  Seriously, anything above hamburger flipper does not exist....look at the classifieds next time you read the news paper.  The few positions listed above burger flipping are very specialized.

I'm broadening my scope and keeping my "door" open.  Something will come along and I will be "saved". 

"Just keep swimming.......just keep swimming......just keep swimming"  To quote one of my daughters favorite movies.

I'm pushing out the posotive vibes.......please help me push them out there......a change has to be coming on these stormy winds, and I don't want to be blinking when it blows by!

Love you guys!  

Gentrie

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Really?......

I'm stunned and confused and find I have a gaping whole in me.  What is going ON around here?  I feel like I'm living on another planet!

Yep, I now get that everything we experience is preparing us for something else, and we live and learn and blah,blah,blah,blah.  But what the HELL is going on here?  My world is a bit upside down....and I know I'm the one who put it there, but REALLY?

Am I completely out of control babbling?  Yes, I need to pull my fractured world together somehow and move it another direction.

Ok....pulling it together......pulling it together.....and.......move on.


Gentrie :)

Friday, July 9, 2010

Epiphany.........A light goes on

OK......before I get to the epiphany part I had a brilliant idea this morning, and it seems to have broken the flood gates up there in my brain.  My brain waves did a major overhaul this morning with this first idea and then I had the epiphany.

My idea was: (Background short version, I lost my wedding ring.)  I'm going to have a wedding ring made with one of the quartz crystals my husband and I "mined" ourselves on our HONEYMOON!  I've picked out the gal and am meeting with her tomorrow to go over my ideas and thoughts and show her the crystals.  The crystal will be facet cut and she'll make the rest.  It will be COMPLETELY original.  While it will not be a diamond it will mean more to me than any diamond I own or have owned, including my lost but not forgotten wedding ring.

Isn't that BRILLIANT?  This bright idea opened some door and things were just rolling out my head and oozing out my ears. 

And then it happened..............


It changed everything and it kept bouncing around in my head all day.  It was a little distracting but in a good way.  So I told you about reading the book Cold Tangarines that I won.  Well I'm wrapping it up and I always read a chapter or two on my lunch.  While I have connected with a lot of things that have been said in the book, when I read this paragraph today.....well, something clicked.....a light went on.  I felt the gears snap into place or something like that anyway.

Here it is:  "Everything is interim.  Everything is a path or a preparation for the next thing, and we never know what the next thing is."  IS THAT DEEP OR WHAT?!

Ok, maybe not for you, but when I read it, well I already went into that above.  It's not like I didn't know this already in other forms and words and ideas.  Maybe my mind was just in the right spot at the exact moment I read it.

I read that whole book and while I could relate to her and sympathize and teared up at times, that one phrase hit me like a ton of bricks.  It gave the hope and insight I had been looking for, this too shall pass.  Hopefully it all passes into somewhere better and more peaceful and well different from here.  Here is the rough spot and while there are bright sunny moments.......I'm still getting road rash! 

THIS is my interim to the next thing.  My hope is the next thing does not involve road rash!

AND...... discuss........get back to me when you are done.


Gentrie

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Sticker Mania

We had sticker mania tonight.  Hailey got a Highlights package in the mail and they gave her stickers.  It wasn't long before they were all over her.......and Dad.

Dad you want a sticker?............Sure..........


Here, have some more Dad.......

(I love the wild hair-do!)


And......some more.........


Dad is such a good sport!

We have sticker days every now and again.  They are sometimes fun........until Dad has to peel them off.....owww.

Gentrie

Monday, July 5, 2010

A Dragon's 4th.....

".........as the dragon raises it's elegant head the sun beams send shards of saphire diamonds spinning to the ground.  The flames bellowed and licked at the trees in the area.  I could feel the heat on my face almost singing my eyebrows.  Then it was gone.......only a faint wiff of smoke and flame hanging in the air."

So many thoughts run through my head at any given moment.  They are all fragmented and small pieces of a bigger something.  That something I am not sure what it is, but it's out there, waiting for me to tap into it.  I feel this way about the 4th weekend.  It was hear and gone so fast.  Scortching hot and BUGGY, yes buggy, as in mosquitoes and biting flies.  Even bug spray couldn't keep them away.  It was all over way too soon though, even with the bugs.

I hope everyone had a happy 4th of July!  I was cut off from my computer and the rest of the world.  It was all good though!

HAPPY 4TH!

Now get back to work!  (Cause I have to!)

Gentrie