From one tree...

to the next.

Perspective on winter.

Stepping out.

Weather or Not!

       We have plenty of sunshine here in Cody, but for a couple of weeks in each season, we can expect wind.  Wind that topples signs, and branches and nearly blows you off your feet.  Wind that grabs the car door and almost jerks it out of your hand, or at least makes it a fight to open and then close the door.  Not the kind of wind that you have to hold up your saliva-dampened finger so you can detect it's direction,  but the kind that twirls you around and propels you unwillingly in the direction it's going.  Wind that throws you off-balance, and makes you stagger, while it takes your breath away.  Wind that makes you feel like Superwoman for getting into your car in one piece, never mind the hairdo, while somewhat wryly checking the damage in the rear-view mirror.  

      A garage without a garage door opener is still a garage, for which I am grateful, so I may only need to check the temperature to see how many layers to put on for the couple of miles jog down to the bridge and back, or deciding it's too windy, go work out at the rec center.  Overhearing the upcoming weather report when I'm at the post office or grocery store, by listening to people talk about weather predictions or chatting briefly with the store clerk, usually is sufficient.  

    Occasionally, Jerry, the plumber, wants to knows whether to wear long johns, or asks me to check the weather report if we're thinking of going away, leaving our customers without a plumbing and heating tech.  Last night, however, Walgreen's posted a storm warning in large red letters on a lighted sign outside their store, letting us know to expect severe winter storm conditions from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. 

   I was well aware of the weather, a swirling blizzard of icy snow needles piercing my eyelids, lips, cheeks, stinging my hands, and whipping cold, icy flakes around my legs.  Facing a headwind that resisted forward momentum, I leaned into it, head bowed.  Holding my breath and buffeted by gusts, I crossed the parking lot, then the wind tried to tear the car door out of my hands and slam it against my legs, while whirling snow left me gasping and blinded.  I was relieved to see the Walgreen sign to know that it wasn't expected to last very long! 

   Speaking with a potential renter this week, who moved here in October from Spokane, Washington,  I assured him that a person does get used to the dryness and the brown, barren landscape, but it takes awhile.  It was a good reminder last night of what I've learned about weather in Wyoming... sunny, harsh, extreme, sometimes even vicious, and quickly changeable.  For a few moments, as we talked, I felt homesick and yearned for a milder climate and evergreen trees.  Pining wistfully for the familiar, spreading, lacy branches of a thick, green forest, I longed for the moist air that gently soothes the skin and for the privacy of the lush growth that shields the neighbor's possessions from view.  

     However, living in Wyoming, as I do, there is a certain challenge and pleasure finding that elusive beautiful thing, the unexpected treat for the eye during the long, barrenness of a high-plains winter. Stopping the car for the bright, colorful pheasant feeding next to the tall blades of textured winter-beige grass, and the rough bark of a clump of gray-blue sagebrush, where  he hid from me, as I turned back, before remembering that it would make me late to try to find him and take his picture.  


    Noting the misty white cloud partly blending with the snowy tip of a blue mountain peak, a high altitude snowstorm was breath-taking in a completely different way from the storm that raged last night down at our level. The landscape turns from summer's blue sky and mountains, green fields, and white clouds, to fall's golden shadows and purple mountain majesty, then to blue and white with an underlayment of chilly, textured, enduring browns and rust for the winter.  Clouds change shapes, and shades, every sunrise and sunset different from the last one, highlighting mountain contours, deepening and lengthening shadows. The  palette unfolds, and I'm relieved that the tempest has stilled, for now.

Cold Breakfast

The light coating of snow belies the
 ferocity of last night's blizzard!

Fat cat steps out...a chilly pause!

Rare gray skies...didn't spend much time looking out the window!

As a writer, you have control of the words you put on the page.

 But once that manuscript leaves your hand, you give control to the reader. As a director, you are limited by everything: weather, budget, and egos.

Nicholas Meyer

Writer's Block

If you would not be forgotten 

As soon as you are dead and rotten,

Either write things worthy reading,

Or do things worth the writing.

Ben Franklin

A blank page presents itself, untouched, clean...and empty. Easy to feel excited about the possibilities and a writer may be hopeful that something wise or funny would flow from within, covering the page quickly.  Thoughts come and are discarded. 


Friends, colleagues, fans, I daresay, await.  The pressure mounts, the head bows, begging that the influence of one's thoughts would be uplifting, seeking the Supreme Being from whom strength has been found before. Then I realize that once again the problem is that I have been seeking a different answer than the one I have. 


Thus I discover the quandary of the author, one who creates, that one's work may fail to find the essential resounding chord, nevertheless the risk must be taken, and the writing must be written.  


This day is special.  It's February 16, 2012.  
Memories are flowing.  I wonder, is it safe to share them?  Thirty-one years ago I held my first son in my arms for the first time.  In awe, I thought that he was the epitome of perfection and that if it were even possible that another child were ever born, that child could never be as perfect as this one.


Then, astonishingly, other children were born, and I supposed it was possible that their parents were just as profoundly awestricken by their child as I was with mine.  


There was that 9 month old who wasn't sleepy, but Mom wasn't ready to give up his nap time.  So the battle commenced.  "Waaa!!", the sound came from his room.  The pacifier was on the floor, so I handed it to him, and down he flopped in his crib.  Moments later, he cried again, and the pacifier was on the floor.  Again, I handed it to him, and flip, the pacifier was in his mouth, upside down as usual, then flop, down in the crib, closing his eyes, snuggling in.  But Mom wasn't that dumb...so hiding around the corner, I watched through the doorway.  Sure enough, as soon as he thought I was out of sight, he popped up on his feet, and gave his pacifier a fling.  Caught in the act, he looked up and saw me, and a huge grin spread across his face.  Just so he knew who was boss, I was determined to win this battle.  He got a swat, and did take a nap, although I knew who was really winning the battle of nap-time.  Besides that, I was slightly suspicious that I had a 9 month old who was smarter than I was or at least smarter than I thought!


  I remember the two year old in the red baseball cap and red shirt, standing on the tail gate of the pickup, a piece of 2x4 in his hand, confidently pointing.  "It goes there, Dad."  Likely it did.  The same two year old insisted on wearing only jeans...no dress pants on Sundays and I wondered what I was in for when he got to be a teenager!  I remember him steering his yellow and blue plastic car up and down the hall, obeying my command to be quiet, waiting for his baby sister to wake up from her nap so they could play and I remember how she woke up joyfully, smiled at him, and how tender and patient he was with her and with every child, and my heart melts.


He grew into a preteen and the struggles came with kids who were not as kindhearted.  We tried to deal with problems, and we asked our friends for advice.  We followed their suggestions, but nothing seemed to work, and we had to try other things.  Bullies seemed to abound.  He asked us what to do, and did what we said and then he told us that it hadn't helped, and what should he do now.  Finally we decided to wait it out together, and the instigator gave himself away, and then moved out of town. 


He's started several businesses, from his teens onward, and he's been a loyal employee, worked several jobs at a time, and has a great attitude although  the years have produced layer upon layer of amazing difficulties. The man owns his share of my heart and who is to say how much real estate that is. 


I marvel at what he has become,  and marvel more that it sometimes seems I'm the only one who sees it.  Every struggle is felt as if it were my own, every step of overcoming is as if it were mine, every virtue that I admire in him that comes to light through the daily struggles fills my heart with a deeper admiration and thankfulness for this man who has grown from my heart, with me and through my errors.  His talents are vast, and he has certificates for quite a number of them, but it is his character that fills me with wonder.


  He has forgiven me, laughed with me, cried with me, and has been the only one who was my comfort more than once.  


I am thankful to be the mom of this great young man, although he reminds me often that things haven't gone as he planned and tells me that he isn't close to being where he thought he would be, financially, by age 31.  We've been through a lot together.  Wishing him a very Happy Birthday!

The Constitution only gives people the right to 
pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. 
Ben Franklin

There is no kind of dishonesty into which

 otherwise good people more easily 

and more frequently fall than that 

of defrauding the government. 

Ben Franklin

Red Butte

♥

I'm with Cupid!

←

last seen at Wal-Mart ☺

Sunrise ♥

House Rules




          Don't worry about what people think, they don't do it very often. 

Heidi's chocolate mousse.

Patty's house, Patty's way...no fun if you take games too seriously.
Each of us played all of our tiles!

Procrastination has it's good side. You always have something to do tomorrow.

Mindy went to language school in Seville, 

Spain, for six months and then 

spent a few weeks traveling in Spain in 2002. For the last 

five weeks of her stay, she decided to travel around other parts of 

Europe, so I flew over with plane tickets

I got using credit card miles.  I landed in 

Madrid where friends, Don and Barbara graciously 

welcomed us into their home.  Mindy waited impatiently, while I slept off jet lag. 

We took the train to Barcelona, 

and then the bus through the night

into Florence where we began our tour of Italy,

which lasted the next nine days, covering Sienna, Rome, 

Pompeii, Venice and Torino.  

Shivering in the rain and cold of a European winter that 

pierced even through the thick, hearty layers of Wyoming 

winter clothing, we purchased three prints of the old buildings 

in their summer outfits, from a street vendor.

Good intentions, and good memories notwithstanding, 

the prints stood encased in cardboard 

 in the corner for the next several years.  

A couple of years later I ran across some $2 frames at a yard sale that

 really fit quite perfectly.  Then one day I decided to stop at Michael's in

 Billings to choose some mats, and picked them up a few weeks later.

 This week, while cleaning, dusting, and rearranging my office area,

 I decided to see if I had all the pieces.

The only thing I was lacking to finish the project, 

was three pieces of glass to protect the prints, something to 

tape them into place, and the backing. 

The glass shop called yesterday to say I could pick up the glass.

Mom taught me to finish one project before I start the next 

and required us to do it.  She bought the 

supplies for sewing projects for three daughters sewing at the same time

so things could have gotten out of hand, but she nipped that little problem in the bud.

Nearing the end of a project, I would sometimes get a feeling of disappointment, 

but I soon learned that it was the finishing

touches, the hem, and tacking down facings, that gave me

the satisfaction I had envisioned at the beginning of the project...something I could wear.

I marvel at how far from that ideal I have gotten.  We have 

numerous projects started and quite a few not finished, and while I live

in hope of finished projects I've learned to live with some that aren't finished and may never be.  We have started and completed more projects than a lot of people, and sometimes

my friend, Marguerite, marvels at all we get done, but that isn't the point.

Finishing projects has as much meaning as the project itself. 

Real crystal, everlasting flowers.

Hope and new beginnings! ♥

Looks like an overwhelming task, but I think if I get organized...

Working towards spring, I'm sure of it!
It's a process!

Baby Mukluks

                           

Light! ♥

♪♫

...drops of golden sun...

I found beauty in yesterday.  This morning 
as the snow began to fall, I felt a deep sense of well-being.

How can these things be?

Accepting the situation.  Arches remind me of rainbows.

This way?

Austrian Pine

Lesson learned...double check your camera setting.

Wyoming, in the Dead of Winter

Farmer's Delight, 
a post, straight and strong.
And note those weeds getting really big.  They need to be removed 
after the next helping of moisture.  Remember to bring gloves.  

Beauty in a moment.

Golden Willow

Learning to see...finding my 

eye.  

The sun on the 

Golden Willows

was delightful, but I knew it wouldn't be easy 
to express the full "glowi-ness" with the camera.

Through the lens I saw 

this water-color-y effect 

and decided I liked it, 

but I didn't know if

the camera would 

capture it.

Digital photos are great...

I ran inside, loaded my 

results onto the computer...and 

Voila'!

Mourning another way of life.

You weren't expecting company?

Bending, alone, or so it may seem.  Perhaps bending toward
 companionship?  Or perhaps just "being", like in yoga, a
tree bending in the wind.  Expectation, for
the moment, is set aside
and the interlude simply enjoyed.
Breathe.
Namaste.

Making Hay While the Sun Shines 

Remembering and acknowledging difficult moments with a little giggle.
One Fourth of July was spent waiting and watching father and son working on this baler.
The head and body of one was laying on the bale chute inside this machine, feet and legs only appeared.

Hours of precious daylight passed, we waited anxiously, brought lunch, stood by, hoped.

Friends and family may have been going to the parade, boating, or attending a family picnic.

Our one concern was that the baler would be fixed and work could resume to finish one custom
haying project and move on to the next one, and the next.  The simple gravity and urgency of our concern swept away any feeling of envy toward someone living an easier life.
If hindsight really is 20/20, what lesson did I learn?


Need clears away the "cobwebs".

You have a friend.