Cats

I'm in a debate with myself.  We have mice.  I hate mice.  We need a cat but I'm not fond of cats.  It wouldn't be so bad except that their pee really stinks.  And I won't have an indoor cat at all.  After our lovely (insert major sarcasm) experienced at the rental I'm not sure about having any cats.  And I hate when they dig in gardens or sandboxes and use those as a litter box.  Ugh!

On the flip side though I really hate mice.  They chew on everything.  They poop and pee on everything (and they stink almost as badly as cats). 

So I'm stuck.  Do I hate mice badly enough to get a cat?  Or would I rather set traps that the kids have the possibility of getting into?  Speaking of the kids... They would love to have a cat. 

I was just thinking too that a cat would help keep birds out of the garden.  We have lots of birds that will be thinking my garden is a great smorgasbord of goodies. 

For the most part I like cats and their personalities.  I like that they take care of mice and other rodents.  It is just that they can get so stinky so fast, and that overrides most of the good stuff.  Plus we have travels coming up that will have us gone for quite awhile.  Cats are pretty self-sufficient but I don't know about the length of time we'll be gone.  And there is no way I am road tripping with a dog and a cat.  I've done a road trip with a cat.  Not fun.

Maybe like the rest of the critters I'm waiting on we'll wait on a cat as well.

Speaking of critters.  I'm trying to decide what we are going to do about a chicken coop.  I'm seeing from all the wildlife activity here we are going to have to give the girls a secure coop.  It is windy here too so we'll want them protected from the wind and the blasting summer sun.  I'm thinking we'll use the east end of the house for a location.  This way the house will take the brunt of the wind.  The downside to that location is that any commotion the girls make is liable to bug the kids since it would be right out their window.

At least we have some time to assess the property and make decisions.  Most of what we want to do can be changed pretty easily if we don't like the first decision.

Decluttering

I spent yesterday going through some boxes my mom brought to me about 4 years ago.  I've had them in my attic and then the basement and then moved them here.  Ugh!  As I went through them I think my mother saved everything I ever did in school.  I'm not sure why she saved so much of it.  Other than the fact that I come by being a pack rat honestly.  She is too.  But I was brutal about throwing stuff out.  I basically kept one folder of report cards and my baby book.  Otherwise it all got tossed.  School projects, drawings, award certificates, drawings, reports, drawings, and more drawings.  I drew a lot.  I think I had two big paper boxes full of mostly drawings.  Some were good and some were awful.  Time to get rid of them though.  I havent' looked at them since I drew most of them.  No sense in packing them around or storing them for another 20 years for Bear and Mia to throw out.

It has made me decide to only keep one or two things from each year that the kids draw/write/create.  They (and I) don't need to store 13 years worth of school drawings someplace.  I'm learning we can save some of the family stuff without cluttering the house.  I'm still trying to deal with several plastic containers worth of stuff from my dad's side of the family.  There is some really great stuff in there and some stuff that is worth a lot so I don't want to just get rid of it but I don't really have space or the desire for a lot of it.  I appreciate the family history and I want my kids to know that but I need to find a way to pass that on without cramming our lives full of stuff.  I may have to actually build some sort of a scrapbook for the little slips of paper that my grandmother wrote tid-bits on.

Things like a note about my great-grandmother's crochet work.  My grandma said that her mom always called her crochet her "cigarette" and did lots of the handwork.  Then in later years she took up smoking and quit doing so much handwork.  If I understood the note correctly and my memory of the stories my dad told were correct, my great-grandmother didn't start smoking until after she was 60.

Things like that I want my kids to know the story of.  Also, I've been deemed the keeper of this stuff for my brother as well.  He is a bit transient since he works for ranches and doesn't really have anywhere to keep this stuff.  I really do wish he would come get some of it.  I'm liable to get rid of it and if he wanted it he's liable to be ticked at me. 

These last couple of years our relationship is so-so.  Not that he'd want me saying that online.  He hates "his business" being out there.  I understand to an extent but he takes it a bit over the top.  Let's just say it is a good thing he lives a couple of states away and we only see each other once or twice a year.

The point there is that he needs to come get some of this stuff if he wants it. 

It has felt good to be going through the stuff and getting rid of things.  I have several more boxes to go.  I really do think my mom saved everything.  And I'm terrible about getting rid of stuff.  I always think that I may need that someday.  It never seems to fail either that once I finally get rid of it I find a need for it.  Figures. 

This move has shown me just how bad of a pack rat I am though.  Well, maybe some of it is just how bad my mom has been about it.  We kept moving boxes and Tom would ask me who's box it was.  It seemed like the answer was always mine.  Yikes!  So, while the kids play in the back yard I'm inside sorting stuff.  That is, until I can't stand it anymore and I go play outside too.

Death

This is finally not so recent that I actually dare post it.  I had to write in order to deal with a lot of what I was feeling when I got word that my friend's wife had died.  Some is a little disorganized but I think I'll leave it that way since this was just what thoughts were running through my head in dealing with this death.  Someday, I hope, I won't have several people die in a year.  I assume some folks don't have this.  I hope they don't at any rate.  I wouldn't wish losing loved ones on even my worst enemy.


I got word this morning that a friend of mine's wife died yesterday.  She's young so this doesn't make much sense.  I only know a tiny piece of the circumstances so I certainly won't go into it here.  That being said it has me thinking about life, death, and those that we surround ourselves with. 

I've spent the last several years in a high stress job that I loved.  I loved the job and the people I worked with.  They became a second family.  Unfortunately because of the type of job it was it also meant I had an unusually high number of co-workers/friends/family get killed at work.  This can make it tough to go to work everyday.  And yet you know you can't not go.

I know I'm being a bit vague but I cannot afford to be more explicit.  Despite cherishing memories with the folks I used to work with and loving my co-workers and their families this latest tragedy makes me all that much more happy I'm not working there anymore.  To tell you the truth, I was getting numb to death.  A person should not become numb to death.  A person in their early 30s should be going to weddings not funerals.  They shouldn't be struggling to try to remember the last wedding they attended.  Funerals are easy to remember at this point.  I have been to a frightening number of them.  Young people, old people, or in between it doesn't matter.  The funerals hurt.  I know, they are supposed to.  But I'm not supposed to know so much about how to set one up, what is expected at one, or how to go through the stages of grief. 

I can only imagine not knowing how to do this.  It is a numbing thing at first with denial.  Then the questions of "How? Who? When? Where?"  The "Why?" comes later.  That is more of a personal conversation rather than with the messenger.  I tend toward less anger than many.  I think this is my own thing.  I know we all die sometime and my emotions are all ready so strung out I just don't think it lets me get full blown angry.  There just isn't any point.  Sure, there are moments.  Those are usually when the "why?" comes along. 

There is just a flood of what next?  The worst, and the best, is the flood of memories that come in.  I love having the memories of the people who have died and yet they can be painful.  A conversation, a smell, a sound, a place, or whatever crazy memory creeps in.  With my Grandad it is him watching a dry British comedy and laughing like I'd never heard him laugh before.  My dad creeps up on me when I least expect it.  The most startling was a smell that put me in the mountains on horseback with my dad.  So suddenly and vividly that I was in tears before I even realized what had happened.  Other people it is one little spoken word or that hug you didn't make.  I missed out on a hug I felt like I should have given even in that moment and yet didn't.  Turns out, I should have just given the guy a hug. 

I've realized for the last 4 and a half years each year has been marked by at least one death if not several.  It is a sad thing to mark your years by death.  My poor son too.  He's 4 and someone last spring (at a funeral) asked if it was his first.  Sadly not by a long shot.  I think that particular funeral was about his 5th.

What this all boils down to is that I'm very glad to not be working.  To be spending time with my children and my husband.  And I am very ready to hunker in on our little chunk of the world and not have much of the "real" world come crashing in on me. 

So, so, glad I don't work outside the home anymore.  I was shredding paperwork  from this job yesterday and it was a great therapy.  I was surprised by how emotional it still was but hopefully some sort of closure can happen now.

Good Morning!

We get the most beautiful sunrises up here.  And sunsets.  I love watching the sun catch the long trains as the chug across the valley below us. 

In one of these boxes I'm sure to find my camera and sd card reader.  I feel like I've been saying, "It's in a box somewhere." forever.  Soon I'll have those boxes gone.

I'm looking forward to the sun coming up just a bit more.  I put bird seed out for my little birds that come visit every morning.  They don't seem to move over by the house until the sun is there.  I don't blame them.  It is pretty darn chili in the mornings around here.  Especially when you're in the shade.

For now I'm off to see if I can get myself in gear so I can get some more cleaning, organizing, and unpacking done.

Wind

And lots of it.  It can really howl up here.  Actually this whole area can get really windy.  They say it is a spring thing and it goes away.  Only partly true.  Considering we aren't that far from Laramie, WY and that is one windy place.  I've learned though that one can get used to the wind.  We used to live where the wind seldom got below about 10 mph.  Every.  Single.  Day.  It was a rare day indeed when the wind didn't blow.  I would go some place else and wonder why it felt so warm only to realize after awhile that it was because there was no wind.

Today there is no getting warm outside.  The wind is bitter cold today.  Funny how quickly it can change.  Saturday it was beautiful (still a bit windy) and about 60 degrees.  We got some nice work done outside over the weekend.  How wonderful it was to be outside and not have cars and trucks constantly droning by.

We met a couple of our new neighbors.  Both sets seem like nice folks.  The neighborhood doesn't seem to have any kids but that is okay.  We'll just make sure we socialize through the schools with the kids.  We're hoping to have some friends up for dinner here soon.  If I can actually get it together and get some more unpacking done.

We are getting close on the unpacking.  We are finally getting to the stage of putting pictures up in some of the rooms.  We have 2 kitchen boxes left that I hope to get to today.  I'm a little scared to look in the garage.  We have all the boxes that we've had stashed in our attic, garage, and basement for the last several years out there.  I'm a little frightened of what I might find.  Most of it needs to just go away.  Some of it is special stuff to save for my kids I'm sure but most of it needs to go.  I get to do that sorting with the house stuff too.  We are making headway though.  At this rate we'll keep Goodwill in business for awhile.

Oh, and a kid update:  Barrett is 51 pounds and just shy of 46 inches tall.  He is off the growth charts and I'm pretty sure he is growing like crazy still.  I think he's grown a half inch in about 3 weeks.  Mia is right at the 90th percentile on both height and weight.  She's 36 inches tall and about 33 pounds.  And talks up a storm.  Bear is doing a great job teaching her to count forwards and backwards and he's working on her ABCs now too.  She parrots him constantly.  Usually he takes it in stride but sometimes he asks why she is always copying him.  Sorry kiddo.  She's a little sister and she will do that.  We just tell him it is because she loves him so much and wants to be just like him.  True story too.  He is her everything.  She loves her boys to pieces.  She'll snuggle with Buddy on the floor and when you walk up to her she says, "This is my friend, Buddy."  I love the relationship she and that dog have.

I'd better get to un-packing.  We have company coming soon and I'd hate to have to make a bed up on boxes. :)  I promise we won't do that to you family.  You will have comfy beds and a guest room.