Jack Horner Has Nothing on Me!

Hello everyone!

I found some time to update this blog, for once! Of course, it may take me much longer to complete it, as I have the handyman here, and he may need to ask me questions and what have you, so just bear with me if I seem all over the place. I'll try to keep everything in order, but you never know, with all of the distractions.

Last entry, I told you that I had gone up to Craig early, and surprised Mike with a long visit. When I was up there, we signed the paperwork for the offer we made on the house that we have decided to buy. It's a great house, and it will suit us just great. It is in a great part of town, and we will have a fantastic view from each window of this house. There are no other houses blocking our views! When we saw the house the second time, there were three deers walking around the front field of the house. I think that I may just end up with some pretty awesome wildlife photos!

Because Mike and I didn't have to go house hunting last weekend, we decided to have some fun for once. On Saturday, we headed over to Steamboat Springs to walk the boulevard and window shop through all of the stores there. We wanted to ride the gondola up the mountain and hike around, but there was a huge storm that was heading in, and we decided that it wouldn't be in our best interest to climb up and hike around a mountain while thunderstorms were building.

There is a nice river that runs through Steamboat Springs, so we started our walk there. There are signs posted along the river that tell you that if you fish, you must not keep them, and another sign that says no tubing down the river. I don't know how many people walked past those signs, carrying their tubes and getting into the water. Mike and I had to laugh about that.

The stores there, are more art galleries than anything. We didn't go inside any of the stores, but we did walk through their Farmer's Market, which was three times the size of Craig's. In Craig, the Farmer's Market is pretty non-existent. There were possibly seven stalls in Craig, and they weren't looking too good on what they were selling, which were mostly crafty things, and some pies. Needless to say, we didn't buy anything there. In Steamboat Springs, they had more stalls, and they were doing a lot of crafty things as well, but at least it was nicer. We still didn't buy anything, but it told us that we needed to go to Steamboat Springs if we wanted to buy vegetables for cheap.

For lunch that day, Mike and I found a nice little sushi restaurant and it was pretty good! We enjoyed our little outing there, but we decided that we most likely had seen all that was to be seen in Steamboat, as we couldn't head up the mountain, so we headed back home in Craig.

When we got home, we decided to go to the soccer fields there, and kick the soccer ball around. The nice thing about Craig, is that they really do take great care of their parks. Unlike here in the Springs, where they focus on a select few, while the others go downhill. This trip to the park, made it twice in a row for us. We know that we're out of shape, but hopefully, this is enough to allow us to make the change over.  We were out there for about thirty minutes, before the thunderstorms headed in.

The nice thing that I have noticed about Craig, is that it seems like it rains almost every night. It's a nice break from all of the crazy hot weather that we've been having here lately.

On Sunday, Mike and I got up and headed to Utah to the National Dinosaur Park. The park is roughly an hour, hour and a half drive away from Craig, so not too far. The scenery was nice, and so was the company. When we got to the quarry, we took their little shuttle up to the dig site. There is an indoor excavation that they have preserved that is a wall of dinosaur bones. The history of it is this: a massive rainstorm caused a landslide which caused a lot of dinosaurs to fall into this pit, and were immediately covered by mud and rain. That's why there are so many in one location.

The long wall of bones.

Close up of the bones.

More bones.

A skull.

There are two stories in this excavation site. All of the pictures above, are taken from the top floor. When you walk down to the bottom, they have case of smaller bones, that are complete animals, and skin imprint and things like that. They even have a small section available for you to touch the bones. They do ask that you don't climb on the wall, which is funny that they have to even say it, but people, as we know, are not smart all the time.

Mike standing next to a dinosaur femur.

Mike next to a full skeleton.

Demonstrating the size difference between his hand and the foot of a dinosaur.

A fully intact little lizard.

An ancient turtle shell.

Skull.

Skull.

Imprint of dinosaur skin.

More bones!

Another skull.

I tried to get Mike to "Run Away" but he told me no.

After we finished up at the Quarry, we decided to head outside. We put on some very expired sunscreen and we headed down one of the trails that makes a big loop to another fossil wall, and then back to the visitor center. The entire loop is about a mile, in the open with no cover. We had the opportunity to join a tour guide, who was leading a group of people down this trail to point out all of the different types of stones, and then point out the clearly marked fossils and bones. We decided that we could just read the sign posts as we found them. We still made it to the center before the tour was over and they started before us.

The views down this trail were quite stunning! We did walk up to the wall of fossils, and found them. It wasn't anything like the quarry, but it was still nice to see, regardless.

Once we got back to the visitor center, we headed back to the hot car, and decided that we should get some food and drinks before heading to the next entrance of the park to drive around the vistas. We headed to Vernal, Utah and finally found their fast food restaurants. We ate as we drove to the next entrance, which was on the other side of Dinosaur, Colorado.

When we got there, we drove through all of their pull out points to look at the views. We sat some really beautiful landscapes, and also a couple of dead forests. All of which, I took pictures of, but haven't had the time to edit them, so you won't be seeing those pictures, yet. I'll be sure to include them in one of the next posts so that you can see them, I promise.

We spent the entire day out there in that park, and it was nice to have had the day to just relax and be together without having to do some sort of work.

When we got back to the temporary housing in Craig, we were both pretty tired, and sore. We took the night off from soccer and just watched some movies and snacked on some homemade dip.

The next morning, I had to head back to the Springs, and it was another sad day. I hate having to leave, but I know that it is only temporary. I just really hope that someone buys this house so that we can be together in Craig. As much as it will suck to leave behind family and dear friends, I know that I will still head back down to the Springs every other week or so, to spend time with them, so I know that it's not like I'm never going to see them again.

Of course, as I hit town, Monday afternoon, I got a phone call saying that the house was going to be shown, and it just happened to be right when I was heading back to the house from the long drive. So, I headed to my brother's house to play games with him and our mom until the showing was finished. I also headed over there again on Tuesday for another showing.

Yesterday, I had gotten together with the girls to have dinner and a movie at the dollar theater. We had Chipotle which was right next to the theater, and then after, because we had plenty of time, we went to a little yogurt shop that they build, literally next to the theater. We sat in the Kiddie corner, with my friend's seven year old daughter. Those chairs are really really small!

Ivey and Beth sitting in the Kiddie Corner!

The yogurt was pretty good, and of course, the kid who charges us for our snack, ended up giving us coupons for a buy one get one free deal, that expires at the end of the month. We were laughing at his poor timing, but that is good marketing for him, as it will keep people coming back for more. I don't think that we'll be heading back there anytime soon!

After dessert, Ivey and her mom, Tessa headed home, and the rest of us, Beth, Ana and me, when to our showing in the theater. We watched "What to Expect When You're Expecting". It was surprisingly good, though it did have a few sad moments. We were already talking about the next movie that we'd like to see when things start to come out to that dollar theater.

So, today has been a pretty eventful day so far. I woke up early, did 200 jumping jacks, and got myself together. I started my day by fixing the door to our deck, as some realtor freaked out because she couldn't deadbolt the door and was afraid that she wouldn't leave it as secure as I would like it. My first thought was to say," Was it dead bolted before you went out onto the deck?" The answer would be no...but whatever. The deadbolt has never latched, due to all of the weather stripping on the door. Of course, all I kept thinking was that this potential buyer would hear that the deadbolt doesn't latch, and won't be interested in buying, if they were interested at all. So, I decided that I needed to fix this and soon. I removed some of the stripping, and installed some new ones, and I still need a couple pieces, as there is still some sections that I didn't have enough to cover, but it now latches. Now they can take that off the profile to this house.

The other thing that I spent my morning doing, was scrapping all of the old caulking in the master shower, as someone thought that it was mold. It's not mold, just really old and grimy caulking. It doesn't matter how much you clean it, it's just gross. So, I spent a few hours, scrapping it all out and cleaning the shower. I have to let it dry before putting new caulk in, but at least it looks a lot better than it did!

The handymen are here now. They have successfully fixed the broken, fixed, broken again drawer in our kitchen, I believe they have already re-caulked the walkway to the door outside and they are currently struggling to remove the swamp cooler from the house. I feel kind of bad for them, as that swamp cooler is a pain.

The reason we decided to remove this stupid swamp cooler, is because people know that we have central air in the house, yet when they see the swamp cooler, they immediately think that there is something wrong. "Why do they have a swamp cooler? What's the point of that?" Well, guess what you annoying complainers...it's gone now...so what? Shut up! I don't know how many times I have heard people give the stupidest reasons to not like the house. "There's no laundry shoot" Really? Those haven't been installed into houses since the 70s. If you want a laundry shoot, install one, or build your own house. This one, is my favorite, "There's not pictures of them in the house." Um, I'm sorry, but we are moving. There are no pictures of us, and besides, you're not buying the house for our pictures. I'm half tempted to pull out the pictures again and put them up around the house, just to see if that helps with selling this place. We've had a pretty recent comment about the house, where they loved the house, thought it showed really well, and gave us a high rating, however, we're still waiting and hoping that they make an offer. But, as we've established before, just because people like the house, and thinks that it shows well, doesn't mean that it will be purchased. It's a little upsetting, but at the same time, I know that we have a great house here. Fantastic views and it's not a fixer up er. There is nothing major that needs to be done. I'm hoping that with the swamp cooler and other things that we've fixed, the house will sell. Who knows, but it couldn't hurt to continue to think positive.

Tonight, Mike makes the drive home. I am happy that I get to see him, as I do miss him every day. This separation thing, makes me really respect what military wives go through. We have a full day planned out for Saturday, while he is here. We have tickets to see the Renaissance Festival in Larkspur, as he's never been, and the last time I went, I was about three or four years old. I still have the dress my mother bought from that trip. We are going up with a lot of friends, as it was supposed to be a girl's day out, but because Mike is coming down, and because he would like to see everyone, we changed it to allow everyone to come. I'm excited to go, and it's another fun thing that Mike and I get to do together!

On Monday, I need to head over to the Mazda dealership and get the tire locks installed and pick up the all weather mats for the car. They were supposed to have these things in two weeks ago, but never told me that they had to order them in from a specialty place. So I had to call them a few times before they finally answered me. Mike and I were joking about how this behavior doesn't deserve a 10 rating, as that is what they ask for, or else they fail and won't get as many cars in. I kind of don't care. It's annoying, but at the same time, it's not like I'm going to be one of those people that just have to have things done right at this very moment.

So, I think that about covers it. Lots of drama that I can't really talk about, as it is not my place to say, but other than that, there hasn't been a whole lot else going on. I know that I have been writing more lately, and that's nice to get back into. I believe I mentioned that I have started to publish one story online and have gotten so many good reviews and comments, that it really has started to make me really motivated to continue on with writing again. I think that I get two followers every day, sometimes a week, but it's quite nice. So far, I haven't gotten any bad comments or reviews, though I will take them as constructive criticism if that happens.

Well, I best be off. The handymen have just finished removing the swamp cooler, and should be wrapping it up soon, so should I.

Until next time!

Long Drives, Nice Surprise

Hey everyone!

It feels like it's been a while since I've written, but let's see if I can catch us up.

Mike has been living in Craig, for the past 25-27 days now. He's really enjoying it up there, and is really loving this new job and the people that he is working with. I know that I've mentioned this before, but it's so nice to have him come home in such a positive mood, instead of hating life. There are so many good things that are coming out of this job for him, new opportunities to grow and learn, and that really is all that he wanted at the old Memorial. Mike told me today, that a nurse was asking about me, and asked what I did for a living, and after telling her that I was focusing on photography, she asked him for a business card as she would probably contact me in September do to a wedding shoot. Seems like I might get a little work being here!

Last week on Friday, we had the carpets in the house cleaned. It needed it badly! The guy who did it was very professional, and did the whole house pretty quickly. There are some stains still left behind, but they look so much better than it was before he did his work. I mean, after all, those are the original carpets in the house since it was built back in 2000.

You can clearly see a difference!

Since the floors were wet, and wouldn't be walkable, it made sense that I was heading to Craig anyways. The cats had to be locked up in a room because of the carpets and because I was leaving. However, we wouldn't be able to have showings on the house as all the small move able furniture was crammed into the kitchen and other tiled walkways.

Last weekend, Mike and I did more house hunting, and saw another seven houses. There was a house that we loved the weekend before, as it had homemade stained glass, built in bar with a big fish tank, a huge vegetable garden and flower gardens all over the property, and a walkout deck off the master suite....the rooms were large and spacious, which was hard to come by in Craig, but we just loved it. So last weekend, we walked through the house again, to really look for things that weren't us, or that we'd have to fix or replace. After talking it over, we realized and agreed that as nice as this property is, there were some things that would hinder us. For example: we would have to replace all of the toilets and showers, as they were for miniature people and with how beautiful that yard and flower gardens were, if we somehow weren't able to keep up with it, or keep it as nice as it was, then we'd be letting the community down and would most likely hear," Oh, there goes the people who let that property go to waste. We didn't want that kind of pressure. Besides, if the main reason we liked the house was because of the gardens, we can do that anywhere.

So we started looking again last weekend, and the first house we saw, was pretty ideal for us. We didn't see anything right off that screamed that there was a problem, and we did hear, however that there was rumors that this house had water damage. Well, lucky for us, it rained over the weekend, and we asked to see the house one more time, to figure out if the house would fit our stuff. The second walk through allowed us to see if the furniture would fit, and it will, and we looked for any signs of water damage, and we didn't see any. Mike and I decided to move forward and make an offer on the house.

That Monday, I headed back to the Springs to take care of the house, yard and cats. I was going to stay in Craig with Mike until Tuesday, and make it a long visit, but we had a handyman coming out to do some work, or so I thought, and needed to be there. Monday evening, I moved things back into their places, let the cats out, and did some cleaning. Tuesday morning came earlier than I would have liked, and the handyman was running late, but came when he said that he would. He looked at the things that I asked him to take care of, then told me that he'd contact me within a few days with the estimate. Estimate? I thought you were working? Oh well. So when I hear back from him, I'll set up the time and day for him to do the list of things that I was hoping he was taking care of that day.

Once he left, I decided that I really needed to take care of the yard before I headed back up to Craig. Mike and I discussed my arrival to Craig this week to be on Thursday, so that I could sign papers, if our offer is agreed upon. I spent four hours on the yard, receiving four blisters, and a sunburn for my efforts. The new sod had grown very tall and was still holding in a ton of water from the watering each morning and evening. It stalled the lawn mower a few times, but I raised the blades up to as high as it would go, and continued on...it took me so long to keep the mower from dying on me. The weed whacker ended up tangling inside, so I had to take it apart to fix it, and that took a while as the knot was preventing my efforts to removed the component that I needed to remove to get access to it. I also had to rake all of the wet cut grass shavings, and by the time I was finished, I wasn't a happy camper anymore.

During the time outside, Mike had texted me to tell me that he had been called about a counter offer on the house we were looking at. He wanted to discuss our options and I finally texted him back to let him know that I was available to talk. I told him that we could certainly counter offer again and see what happens. That night, I was told that an agreement was reached and that I'd have to sign papers on it, when I came up on Thursday.

I decided that I would head up to Craig on Wednesday, instead, to surprise him. I locked the cats up again, which they will hate that room soon. I got the house in order, and bags loaded into the car and headed out. I had to drive through a couple of storms, and I managed to grab a quick picture of the storm head before going into it.

When I got to Mike's temporary housing, I called him, as his door was closed. He normally has his door open to allow air to come moving through the hot apartment, but this day, it was closed. I asked him how he was doing, and what he was up to. He told me that he was waiting for the realtor to call him so that he could head over to sign papers on the house. He asked me what I was up to, and I asked him why his door was closed. It took him about five seconds to process what I just said. He opened the door, still on the phone with me to say," I guess you're here!" It was a nice surprise for him that I showed up early. I'm making it an extended trip this week, as I arrived on Wednesday afternoon and will most likely leave on Monday morning.

I signed papers with him, and we had a nice dinner at a local Italian place. Mike didn't eat a lot of his meal, packed it up to take with us, but left it behind at the restaurant. He headed back, but by then, they had tossed it. He was beating himself up over that. I felt bad because I wasn't paying any attention to his leftovers, as I didn't have any to take home. I was pretty hungry from the five hour drive.

That night, we decided to just relax and watch a movie. Since Mike finally finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo, he chose to watch that movie. Now, for those of you who have read the book and seen the movie, you know that the movie is very very loosely based on the book. The movie doesn't really follow the book at all. But if you watch the movie first then read the book, you think that you're reading the wrong book. It's still a good movie, great cast, but it doesn't follow anything. Not that this isn't normal in Hollywood, but still.

This morning, I finally got to sleep! With the cats clustering around me at home, even though we have a Cal-King bed, they still like to cluster around me. Mike and his co-workers had asked that I come to lunch at the hospital today. So I did. The hospital is so nice and clean, and not like a typical hospital clean. It looks and feels very homey like being in a lodge. We had lunch and talked, and then Mike showed my the pharmacy and some of the hospital.

We have plans tonight to head to the local farmer's market that they hold every Thursday, June-Sept. from 3-6pm. Since Mike gets off at 430, I figured that it would be nice to head over together and take a look at what it's like and see if there is anything worth buying. We'll probably head over to the Wal-Mart here and grab a soccer ball too, and possibly kick it around some. I'm not sure what we are doing for dinner, but it's supposed to be a really nice day here, so if we go out for dinner, it would be great to sit outside!

Things are starting to really fall into place. I'm very lucky to have the life that I do, and I'm very fortunate to have the man that I fell in love with. I know it's only a matter of time before the next great chapter comes out, but until then, I'm going to enjoy this chapter. I am still amazed how much life is great when you're living more positively, and surrounding yourself with amazing friends and family.

Tuesday night, I had a girls night and I had so much fun! I'm really blessed to have the friends that I do, and the ones that treat me as family. We had dinner and watched Mirror, Mirror. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. I was surprised as it was very witty and funny! Even with the added commentary from the peanut gallery that was watching it with me... =) I've suggested that we get together again soon, as I'm not able to do weekends much anymore because of the Craig trips.

Well, I'm not sure what else to say, as I think I've pretty much covered it all.

Until next time!

My Own Little World

Hey everyone!

Well, things have started to return to normal after the fire that we had a couple of weeks ago. We are still at 98% containment, and will most likely see full containment within the week. During the calming period, I had been inspired to make a slideshow in tribute to all of the first responders and fire fighters who were there, helping restore balance.
Here's the link to that video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AfQs_Pl9Dg&feature=plcp

Of course, the sadistically funny thing to happen with the weather recently, was all of the thunderstorms we've suddenly been getting, and during one the other day, was a tornado in town! Granted, it wasn't strong enough to touch down or cause damage, but it got people to freak!

On the 4th of July, was Willow's second birthday. Feels like time has just flown by! She was playing in the pool with her cousin, and we had a barbeque with family and celebrated her birthday. When Willow began opening her gifts, she was quite content to just sit and play with the silverware that Sarah's mom gave her. Eventually, we managed to get her to focus long enough to open the rest of her gifts, which she played with each one, once opened. She loved the M&Ms that she got too. You couldn't get them hidden fast enough!

As I mentioned, I believe in my last posting, that I was having some car troubles with my Equinox heading to Craig a couple weeks ago. When we got to Craig, we took it to the Chevy dealership there, which we found out later that they have a bad reputation to make things worse than it was when you got there with it. Not knowing this, they "looked" at my car, washed it, reset the computer chip and gave me a clean bill of health, not to mention the $48 bill. Being told that the car was fine, I drove home, over 200 miles back to the Springs. I told Mike that it still felt as though the car didn't have enough power to get up hills, and was rubber-banding. (The term rubber-banding is used in video game speak, when the game stutters and causes your character to suddenly be several feet behind where you were just at) Not thinking too much about it for a while, and then I start the car to head to my mom's house, only to hear the car sound like it was a disel truck. Not normal. I drove it to my mom's house, had my stepdad take a look at it, after driving to get lunch to listen to the car. He popped the hood, and found the problem. The EG valve that runs from the engine into the exhaust manifold was broken off. It looked like someone had caused this. After speaking with Mike on the matter, we send it into the dealership, one of them, here in the Springs. They told me that the part was remodeled and that it would cost about $200 or so. I tell them to go ahead and fix it, as I need a car, and I had them replace the air filter as well, as it was time anyways. The bill, once fixed was roughly $265 give or take. A couple days later, I'm driving to my brother's house for Willow's birthday, and the car really didn't have the power that it was supposed to have. Going up the hills in my brother's neighborhood was difficult. I drove around the neighborhood a couple times, and figured that I would just park it and worry about it later. That's when I noticed the check engine light was on. After complaining to Mike about it, and telling mom, Roy and I make another drive to see if there was anything he could hear or feel wrong. I made another appointment to get the car looked at.
Now, at this point, I had done some reading up on my car, when I got home. I discovered that my car was a big problem maker during the 65K-100K+. I was sitting at 82K. Not a good sign. People were complaining about the same issues and what they had to replace how many times. I talked to Mike and said that if they come back with an easy fix, that's no issue, however I would still be nervous driving up to Craig with that car, as it isn't a reliable car anymore. After several hours of talking and researching new cars, we decided that we would wait to hear what they say before making a decisions. I sat in the dealership for a few hours, making "friends" with the creeps there, and finally got someone to tell me what they found. It was the catalytic converter that was needing replacing. The price for replacing that, and they would have to order it in, so just for the part itself was going to run me over $900. If you add on the shipping of the parts from two different places, labor and holding, plus the cost of the part, you'd be looking at somewhere around $1800 or more. I told Mike and he said that it sounded like we would be doing some car shopping.
When Mike came down last weekend, we had already both done some research online, however, as I told Mike, it's tough to make any real decisions about the kind of car you want when he has to be able to fit into it. It's really challenging to try and fit a 6'5" man into a car if it is not built right.
So we had brunch on Saturday mid-morning and headed next door to the Mazda dealership. We saw the model that we were looking at online, and immediately started to get in to look at it. Within minutes, after finding out that Mike could fit into the back seat, front passenger and driver seat, we were talking it for a test drive. After speaking a little about it, we decided to go forward with the choice and buy it. A few long hours later, we were leaving with a new car. The reason it took so long to finalize it was because four people said yes to buying a car, and they only had one or two people working in the finance department.
Mike says that he's pretty jealous of the car, and I'm really enjoying it.

The car is the 2013 Mazda CX-5. It's a really sharp car, really roomy, and just a great car all around. The gas mileage is amazing! I'll be saving over $77 a month in gas with this one, compared to my old car.

I am so very blessed to have such an amazing man in my life. He takes great care of me, and provides for me not only in the things that I need, but the things that I want. Sometimes, those two things are the same. Even though we are on the opposite sides of the state, we are still really close. If anything, this distance is drawing us closer as a couple and as friends. I miss him everyday, but I also get to talk to him everyday too. I'm a terribly lucky girl to have been able to get a man like him in my life. I know that it is only a matter of time before our great life turns into a fantastic one, and I can't wait to see where and when it will happen. The journey to get there is worth the wait, and it's also the most fun.

This Thursday, I'm getting together with my great friend, Ana, as we haven't had time lately to spend with each other, and on Tuesday next week, we should be getting together with the rest of the girls, because it's been so long since I've seen them. I've been so busy with the packing and going from here to Craig. It's a tough and busy time, but I know that it's going to be totally worth it in the end.

Mike is already making a lot of friends in Craig, mostly with his co-workers and their families. He talks about them all the time, and he was invited to a barbeque on the 4th of July by two of them, and could only go to one of them. I told him that I was really proud that he went and started to make friends. People ask about me out there often. It's not the same kind of being asked about as it was here. Here, I felt that people were asking how I was doing, as it was the conversation starter for them. And in this case, with these new people, some of whom I have met, and some I have not, but they seem genuinely interested in how I am doing. I've even received some friend requests from some of them! I think that they will help us in the transition period out there.

Friday, we're getting our carpets cleaned. We have a really good company lined up, and they will be doing practically the whole house for $250 or so. It might be less as they have a few things that they will do to save us money and prep the house for selling.

Well, I think that pretty much covers most of the things that have been going on. Life is on cloud nine and things are just great. It's amazing how much better you see life when you keep the positives in mind and heart, and let go the rest.

Because I don't know if there is a showing today or not, I best get the house opened up anyways, and head out, just to be safe.

Until next time!

Forward Motion

Hello everyone!

So let me start with the latest update. The fire is now standing at 70% containment. There was a MAFF plane that crashed in South Dakota that was helping us fight the fire, and headed there to help with the fires there, and it crashed, killing 4 and injuring 2.

Another sad note for the day is this: My brother's cat, Smokey, is being put down today at 4pm. It's a sad day for everyone, as this is a large surprise for us. She had been losing weight, though no one had seen just how badly she had come along. She will be missed very much.

The weather has been calming down, but not too much. We've gotten a few rainstorms, which are helping with the fire.

Mike has been enjoying his new job in Craig immensely. I haven't seen him this excited to go to work, be able to give his opinions and knowledge in a long time. He is looking at goals for the future there, and it's great to see the possibilities presenting themselves for him.

Mike came down this past weekend to visit. For the training period, Mike has the weekends off. Once he is confident with the processes at this hospital, he will then have Sunday and Monday off. He came home late Friday night, and left Sunday afternoon. It was a short visit, and I am looking forward to seeing him again soon. It's really tough to be separated from one another but we know that it is only temporary.

We have had numerous house viewings since we put the house up on the market. There have been a few people who have provided feedback for us, however, their reasons for not liking the house are really stupid.
Here are some of the things that people have said:
They don't like the 3/4 wall by the stairs.
They don't like the open master bath to the bedroom.
There are no pictures on the walls.
They don't like the light fixtures.

Now, mind you, most of these were from the same woman who hated the place when they pulled up and by hearing her complaints, I knew that she was the kind of person who needed to just build her own home or go to the Broadmoor. There was no way to please this person, and we knew it.

We did have one offer, though it was extremely low balled, and we countered with a better offer, for us, and never heard back, which means that this person wasn't serious about it. We've also been told that we have been the second choice for people, but they found a house that they liked better. We've only been on the market for a couple weeks, so this is great. We're making great progress, so to hear that there are likes, and that we are the second choice for many people, tells us that we have a high chance of selling our home quickly.

I believe that I mentioned in my last post that my car had to get some work done, and we got it back and things are sounding just like it was supposed to. My "diesel" sounding car, is back to normal! Yay!

For the past few days, I have been writing again. I joined a website online that allows me to post my work for free to the public, and it allows me to get feedback from people, whether good or bad, and it will help me better my talent for writing. I've already gotten some good feedback, and it is driving me to continue. As I told Mike, by doing this, not only will it help me become better at writing, but it will motivate me to complete the work that I have put aside for publishing.

I am so very blessed to know what it is that I want to do, or what I want to pursue. There are a lot of things that I am pursuing at once, such as my writing and photography, as well as a few other things, but I know that I am one of the lucky ones who has a clear goal in mind. I am not one of those people who consistently bounce around with what to do with their lives. I've watched people do just this thing. I understand that as we grow up, we change our minds, and our interests, but someday, you just have to pick something and stick with it. I also know that there are people out there who will never be happy doing what they chose to pursue. So, again, I'm a lucky one.

Well, I'm not sure that there is much more to update you on. Things are going well, and a little less stressful now that the fire is getting smaller and more contained. So, until there is something more to update you on, I will save it for next time.

Until next time!

Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet?

Hello everyone!

Gosh, it's been forever since I've updated you. There has been so much going on.

So, let me see...I guess I'll start with the most recent and perhaps, I will elaborate on things past, if I have time.

As many of you may have heard, (or if you haven't, here's your chance) there was a massive fire storm here in Colorado Springs. The Waldo Canyon Fire started on Saturday, June 23rd around noon. Both Mike and I saw it, as we were leaving Home Depot with some new plants to plant in our backyard to make it more pleasing to the eye for the potential home buyers, as our house went up on the market the Friday before. We saw the smoke just billowing off the mountain, and thought, well, it's still pretty small, however, it is pretty far from any civilization, so I hope that they can get to it quickly before it gets worse...

It got worse, but we wouldn't see how bad it would get, until Tuesday, when I came home from our drive out to Craig.

See, on that Sunday, Mike and I packed up both of our cars, and headed to Craig, so that Mike could start his new job at The Memorial Hospital out there. So, on Sunday afternoon, we headed out towards Craig. Before we left, we filled up the cars, and started the 5 hour drive. Once we got out of Denver, I started having major car issues.

The first moment of my problems was having trouble getting up the hills in the pass. Suddenly, my traction control light came on, and my car was rapidly losing power, on a three lane highway. I quickly hit the hazards and pulled over, turning the car off, and pulling out the manual. Fortunately for me, Mike had seen that I was slowing down, and then pulled over, so he did the same, just a little further up the highway. There were two other cars pulled over as well. Mike came over, and I explained what was going on. After waiting for a little bit, I started the car, and led this time. The temperature outside was about 101*. A few miles up the pass, and my car stuttered again, and I pulled off the highway. Mike told me that if we could just get to Silverthorne, on the other side of Eisenhower Tunnel, that we could get it looked at, or worse case scenario, I get a hotel room, and he continues up to Craig and comes back for me the next morning. He joked about trying not to stall out in the tunnel, as it's a hazard to do so.

So we take off again, and I'm hesitant, as I can feel the car struggling to get up hills, and I know that I'm losing power. I enter the tunnel, and shortly in, I lose all power in my car. Hazards on again, and the car shuts off completely. No power at all. I began to hit my steering wheel, utterly and completely frustrated, shouting a few profanities, as cars a whizzing by me in the tunnel. I look up and see the signs in the tunnel telling me that help is on the way. I'm grateful for prompt help, but again, it's a terrible hazard to be stopped in that tunnel as people will most likely speed through and cause accidents if they are not paying attention. The nice guy came to my wind, cracked a few jokes and pushed me out of the tunnel with his special bumpered truck. He explained to us that it was most likely vapor lock, as he sees this all the time, even with the men who work at that tunnel. We popped the hood and opened the gas cap and waited about twenty minutes. After that, we drove to Silverthorne which was about another ten miles from the tunnel and we stopped at the Target there to buy some fuel injector fluid and then fill up with premium fuel.
After doing that, we didn't have any more issues with my car all the way to Craig, which was another couple hours away. So the 5 hour drive to Craig was actually more accurately 7.5 hours.

Mike and I viewed a couple of houses in Craig, found some that we liked, and a few that we didn't. We ate at a few places, and found a place that we will most likely frequent when we are both living up there.

When we got to Craig, we picked up the keys to the temporary housing that Mike will be using for the next three months, and we walked in. The place was so hot inside and reeked of smoke. For two days, I was stuffed up and unable to breathe. We made sure to bring the air filters up the next trip up so that we could work on getting that smell out, as I am allergic to it.

I left that Tuesday morning, as Mike had to start work there for the first time, and I made the lonely drive back. I still struggled up the hills, but didn't have to stop on the side of the highway. As soon as I crested the hill of Castle Rock, which is halfway between the Springs and Denver, I could see just how bad the fire had gotten. It looked like we had been bombed.

The highway, the closer you got to the Springs, slowed down. People were pulling off to the side of the highway to take pictures, and the traffic slowed because of those people who were looking at the smoke and not driving. Because we were having our house shown by realtors that afternoon, I ended up going to my mom's house for a few hours, to allow these people ample time to view the house. Once I knew that they wouldn't be there, I headed home.

When I got home, and double checked all the doors to make sure that they were all closed and locked, I let the cats out of the locked room that we had placed them in for safety. After that, I turned on the news, and saw just how horrible this fire had become. Our back yard and every windown on the west side of the house, you could see the smoke, and the fire. I took several pictures, but then the smoke erupted so thick and heavy that I couldn't stay outside. The smoke had engulfed the city, sending this eerie orange glow throughout the city, and the smoke was so thick that I couldn't see past the apartments that sit right behind our back fence.
Once I got back inside, I could hear the news station informing people that they were evacuating sections of town, and I ended up texted the friends that I knew lived in those areas to make sure that they were okay. The fire was heading down the mountains in record speeds and began to burn through houses.
It was then that I began to freak out. I was crying and calling my mom, my friends and even Mike who was in Craig, just getting off of work, in tears, freaking out, and asking where do I go? What do I do? I knew the answer, and I was already preparing for the moment in case I needed to evacuate the house. I locked the cats back up in their room, so that I didn't have to chase them around the house, got their crates out and stacked up in the living room, packed all of my clothes, food and water from the pantry, important documents and statements, as well as my computer and camera, and asking Mike what else I should try and pack.
For the next several hours, I would cry as I watched the news and looking out of our windows to see the fires blazing.

When I got back on Tuesday afternoon.

You can tell it has grown here.

You can make out the flames as they crested the ridge.

This is when it started to erupt over the ridge.

The flames have gotten bigger.

This is how much smoke that was blowing across the sky.

It started to come into town.

It had hit buildings in this picture.

Again, it had hit town here.

This is when it hit town, and the smoke died down.

This was taken at 8pm thereabouts. The fire is burning in town.

From every west facing window, I could see the blaze, and how much damage it was doing. I was terrified, and feeling so alone and scared. Despite knowing that the fire was far away, relatively, the perception of distance was deceiving as it looked to be much closer than it really was. I was glued to the TV for updates, and I was hearing places like the Flying W Ranch, that has been in this town for over 60 years, had been completely leveled. I was hearing that people were fleeing their homes, and I was hearing things about wildlife running into town for safety, as they had no where else to run. I was crying so much, praying so hard, and just hoping to see a miracle before anything worse could happen...unfortunately, that is when the news station announced that the fire had struck town. It was burning through houses. Within a few minutes, they were expanding the evacuation zones, and in my head, I am viewing the area and trying to determine how close I would allow this fire to get before loading the car. I ran to the gas station earlier in the afternoon to get gas, just in case something horribly wrong would happen, and there was utter chaos. Turns out after I got my gas, that gas stations all over the city were over run with people and they were running out of fuel. I was one of the lucky ones to be able to fill up on gas.

Later that night, I heard on the news that a church right off of Woodmen (which is our biggest cross street) and I-25 had caught on fire. All I kept thinking was, if they can't put that church fire out, and if it jumps I-25, it will travel quickly up Woodmen and towards me. Luckily, they were able to get it out.

That night, I barely slept. I had a ten minute nap on the couch, fully clothed with shoes on, TV still on for updates on this fire. I kept texting my mom asking her if she was evacuating yet. The evacuation lines stopped near her house. The rest of that day, I spent my time in front of the TV, waiting to hear if they had contained the fire in town. They were still working on it, but they were making great progress on it. It wasn't until that late afternoon that they were able to put it out in town completely, and start working on it up in the pass.

The next few days, I was stressed, and my nerves were shot. I felt sick to my stomach, still freaking out that the fire could explode again, and wipe out whole neighborhoods again. It took them a few days to finally release information that it had destroyed 347 houses and killed two people who refused to leave their homes. The pictures that the news stations were taking and showing to the public had me in tears again.

They are still working on it even now, and I hope that we can get it out soon. There are no leads as to what started this fire, but I know that in Teller County, they had an arsonist, or more than one, setting twenty fires in that area. I truly hope that if it is an arson, they catch that person and give them some hard hard punishment.

Mike had come down this weekend, as he was off work, and we both agreed that it wasn't a good idea for me to leave the house, just in case the fire exploded again, so he came down to visit. It was a short visit, but much needed. He and I kept in close contact the entire time this was going on, and I had to do a lot of my communicating with loved ones through texts as the city was asking that we refrain from using our cellphones because of large volume was creating issues in the networks.

Before Mike came down on Friday, I was heading over to my mom's house to help her with Willow, my niece, and because the house was having a showing for a couple hours. As soon as I started my car, it sounded like I had a disel truck. I knew enough about cars, especially mine, to know that it wasn't supposed to sound like this. When I got to my mom's house, I asked my step dad to take a listen, so we drove to get lunch, and he popped the hood to my car and found the problem. Now, when I got to Craig when I was having so many issues on the drive up, we took it to the Chevy dealer to have them look at it. Supposidly they didn't find anything wrong. They reset the computer chip and washed my car, all of this cost us $48. The problem to my car was that the ERG pipe, which is basically the exhaust mainfold that leads from the engine down into the exhaust was broken off, causing all sorts of problems. I took it in that Friday, and this last Saturday, the dealership here had fixed it. It sounds like it's supposed to, and runs smoothly. Granted, I don't have mountain passes to be testing the power of my car, but I think this is what was cauing my "vapor lock" issues when driving to Craig.

Mike headed back to Craig this afternoon. So now, I get to wait another 5 days before I see him again. I miss him, and it's tough to be seperated from him. If anyone knows of someone looking for a house to buy in the northeast part of the Springs, send them our way!

I'm so happy that Mike has this new job at this hospital in Craig. It is a small 25 bed hospital, but the people are so much happier and friendlier and they are a great company to work for. To see Mike come home everyday, excited about his day, and looking foward to work the next day (as much as work is exciting), and it makes me smile and know that this is the best thing to happen to us. I haven't seen him smile this much in a long time. I'm very grateful that he is loving what he is doing again.

What else is new? Hmm....

I got a new haircut, but I don't really have any good pictures to post. It's a darker brown, and the cut is short and I have bangs...I didn't think I would have bangs again! It's still taking me some time to get used to them.

I won't be posting much in the sense of recipes, as things have been crazy busy, so just be patient!

Hopefully things will calm down around here, and I'll be able to make more of an appearance in life!

Until next time!