the femine side

so i was trying to be more in touch with my femine side. got a manicure while waiting for a student getting physical therapy. she was fast. it looked nice. one under coat, two color coats and a top coat. first thing i nick two of the nails getting into the jeep. i wore gloves while washing dishes. but by sunday i had chips in two nails ... that is beside the jeep chips. by the end of monday after typing i decided it was time to take it off.

i think she had thinned it down to o much so it would dry faster. couldn't possibly be my life style.

secret things

life is full of secrets. i have a feeling that not only did i begin my teaching career with a secret among my students but i am ending my career with a similar secret. my first year deaning, a couple got married at christmas break. the boy brought her back to the dorm every monday morning. remember this was the 60's. the principal knew about it, the girls knew, but i didn't. the principal later went on to be president of a southern college. i think they should have finished school, but it would have been nice if i had known instead of wondering what all the weird looks were about.

this year and last one of the guys has been visiting his girlfriend every home leave. so over christmas he calls from an island in the caribbean. the girl is there. i hear no mention of parents. maybe they are on there honeymoon. i don't know. just seems a little weird. maybe the parents were there. maybe i have an overactive imagination.

stupid things

holding a cell phone with your neck while washing dishes. fortunately mine survived. my son told me to take the battery out and let it dry out which i did immediately. it has been a week and it seems ok.

buying more "cute things" when you are going to move in 3 months!

leaving your car running while you go to work when it is zero out .... after driving only 2 blocks and thinking you will turn it off in about 10 minutes and then having someone come in after an hour and ask why your car is running

belle house

over christmas we added bookcases and books and pictures to the northwest wall. well, we don't have a fireplace and our room isn't big enough for a big tv cabinet etc. and we are both book people. we need to work on the pictures though. the two on left are okay, but one of theones on the right needs a different fram and the one on the end is way to dark, so will find a different print and put this one downstairs.

it is a small room, but the chunky furniture seems to work ok and they are compfy.

right now we have a 50's table in the dining area, but will put the big oak table in their, maybe. notice the puzzle on the table....another thing my sister and i share. the book case on the right is hers (on loan) and the one on the left is mine (my great parents).

camping out inside

just when i was ready to work...right... the ice storm came in and turned off all the electric which meant, no tv, no computer, no videos, no cds, no dvds, no lights, no heat, no cold for fridge, and no water or sewer. and for a week! good think i had a down sleeping bag that was good for 20 below. felt like a homeless person hanging out in the malls and stores to keep warm and use bathroom facilities. finally braved taking a bath sort of with 1/2 gallon of cold water in a cold room. felt better even if it was bracing. not ready for artic dips though. finally had heat but no water or sewer. they had the pump going but after a very short time the water line to my house broke...frozen and it took 2 days to fix that. i think light was probably the greatest invention ever. it gives heat and lets you read and most inventions would not have happened without this start. it was really hard to read by candlelight.

what lies beneath

i always thought our elderly money person (younger than my self-but squarely in hippy era) was probably a hippy in his youth. he is a vegan, grows beautiful gardens, and wears sandals. so the following tale was a shocker.

he saw rats eating in his garden...they especially liked his beets and beans. he trapped several of them, but one wily huge old fellow...as big around as an overgrown zuccini...eluded him. the fellow lived under the little garden shed in the back yard. so our money man waited to people were off campus, got out his 22 and shot the thief in the heart. it didn't kill him right off; he was able to crawl back under the garden shed and die in an unreachable place. ....getting his revenge by smelling up the place.

turns out our money man grew up hunting and fishing, served in vidt nam, and owns a rifle. who knew!

the three mums and vase story

my cousin called me yesterday....at least it wasn't at three in the morning so i was coherent. he wanted to know about the vase and the mums. the beginning. the best i can remember is that my dad gave the vase and three football mums to nanny, his grandmother, one thanksgiving when he couldn't be there. i think it must have been in the late 30's or early 40's. in any case the part of the story i didn't know was that my grandmother gave the vase to richard--my dad's cousin. then she decided to get it back. made richard mad so he went out and bought a 600 dollar waterford crystal vase. i can understand. my grandmother was always attaching great importance to things that did not necesarily have inherent importance. in any case she got it back, and i wound up with it ... it skipped my dad....and i gave it to my daughter. i think my sister would have liked it. not sure how i wound up with it.

in any case, my sister, myself, my daughter, i hope my son, richard (when he was alive), my mother(when she was alive), richard's son and i don't know who else... always have three football or other large mums in a vase at thanksgiving.

gobble gobble

it doesn't matter if you are a veggie eater or a meat eater, thanksgiving has lots of gobblers. but why, there is usually much more food than can be eaten. maybe the length of the meal depends on the stories told around the table. in that case you have slow stuffers. my relatives on my dad's side were all great story tellers. i was always mad because when the best stories were being recited, i was at the kids' table. sigh. now i am going to have to rely on my cousin's memory for the stories. he suggested i drive up to sioux falls with my laptop and write them down. i think that is a good idea. will have to find a non snowy weekend. meanwhile, i will find a good book and rest my digestive system.

holidays

it seems like the holidays instead of being relaxing, turn into a frenzied rush to get everything done. i volunteered to help put up the xmas tree in the chapel. i hadn't done it before so was relying completely on ms. m since she has done it for ten years with another (former) teacher. we spent the first hour trying to stablize the tree in the stand. turned out we had the middle section on the bottom. went way faster when we put the bottom on the bottom and the middle in the middle. bummer.

just around the corner

about the time you think things are smoothing out...wham.....life, God...the devil, does not let you rest. we loose a student, gain a student, etc... prospects good. catch a few students breaking the rules, arrange for some community service, and counseling, progress....maybe....more things blow in with the dusty air and wham, three students gone...for the best i believe, but it is still depressing. good thing, wanted enough to be asked to stay another year.:)

running to and fro

i remember that just before the divorce there was a flurry of activity... new house, decorating new house, new car, seeing counselor, new babies, moving twice..... then the end

now- here there is a flurry of activity, cows gone, new roof on chapel, new roof girls' dorm, new entrance gym, new paint on houses and trim on ad building, new furnances, new staffing, old gym being torn down, ........ so then.....?????????

cat attack 2

last Sabbath as I was relaxing on the couch reading i hear this yelp and remembered that the cats were outside. i dashed downstairs and opened the door. the two cats were at the door and came in while digger the dog was walking calmly and innocently with his owner.

what really happened?

the cats were waiting to come in when digger saw them and charged them. both arched and fluffed, but dennis charged back with claws and teeth, hence the yelp. by the time i got to the door, digger was acting as if nothing happened. he is only 3 or 4 times bigger then dennis.

farm trucks

If you have driven in the countryside you have seen this....farm trucks mating. they stop right in the middle of dusty roads and on the edge of plowed fields. they always seem to sidle up to each other like two worms exchanging dna info. even though they mate in the open, there are only a few teenagers around which must mean that either the young are very well hidden or there is a high mortality rate.

gifts two

more than one person understands what i like....we share a number of likes, art, music (but different types), our kids, travel, books, books, and horses. so the gift she gave me for my birthday was a .......horse book. it was one by ben green. i had read several of his books and had given several to my grandfather. but sadly they did not get passed on to me or my sister when he passed away.. so the book was for me and to share with my sister when i finished reading it. it will be in our bookcase upstairs where we are going to put all the books that make us look smart. the romances will be downstairs or farmed out to friends. it isn't that we don't read the books upstairs.....we do.... it isn't just for show. ......altogether....well when you are old you kinda want people to know that your brain isn't dead.....

gifts

often gifts reflect what the giver perceives as something you want but based on what they themselves think they would like to get. My daughter is really good at really thinking about what people would like as a gift as shown by her gift of a horse book to me for my birthday. :) But others are not so perceptive. Take for example, the gifts given me by Dennis Rodman - my cat. Yesterday I was taking a much needed nap, the back door was open so the cats could go in and out. In the middle of my nap I heard a meow. When I woke, I looked over at the gift Dennis brought me. A 2 1/2 food garter snake, alive and unhurt. I know he thought it was a very special gift. It was one he would really like to get. Just think of the fun. Well Mr. Snake found himself flung with great vigor back outside to the middle of the unmown meadow that is my backyard. I can only appreciate the thought of that gift, whereas I will really enjoy reading about Secretariat!

beware of cat

not only does dennis rodman the cat growl when unknowns knock at the door, he chases away intruders. the campus scary dog (he will take off your hand if you are not careful) decided to check dennis out. dennis and his pal sam were just lazing around watching the fininacial vp garden, also the owner of scary dog. as the dog comes towards dennis, dennis rises up and heads straight toward the dog at which point the dog turns and runs. good dennis.

escape

for four days i wandered around the hotel at oprey land in nashville courtesy my employers. there were three coverec court yards filled with water features and tropical plants. it was cooler and drier than outside, but certainly not as dry as colorado. it was very relaxing. meet lots of old friends and teachers from years past. since this is my last convention it was nice that i could go. i am retiring at the end of this year....i think. so if the convention was scheduled for next year i would have missed it. i saw the ann, english teacher at campion who has been unretired for two years now and mr. williams who i think is never going to retire. also met people who had taught in boulder when i was there...paul and deann, del, and students, caleb c who is now going to be a teacher, and old classmates from union- barb s. a nice goodbye. ps. i actually did go to meetings and learned about hunters' registrar program.

summer rodeo

FOURTH OF JULY - BELLE FOURCE
the rodeo arena is quite new but it is a little wide so since i didn't have a big expensive digital with big zoom the horse is a little far away. they had professional big time buckers and bulls which the local cowboys complained about. but i liked the show. the bulls were awesome. before the rodeo there is a parade with a little bit of everything. people grab seats early in the morning along the route. the cowboy band marches by the first time, with the older old members on the bed of a semi, but the band goes by two more times with all the members on the semi. they play for the rodeo too. and they are pretty good.














there are semis all polished in the parade, army trucks and stuff, lots of horses, some tractors, rodeo queens and princesses, little kids, more horses, some mules, politicans, clowns, high school class reunions, water guns, lots of candy being thrown, and fire trucks. and probably more. whew! great parade.

toad house

i was reading about global warming when i ran across an article about toad houses. you just have to make a hole in a clay pot at the edge, turn it upside down in the garden and provide a saucer of water and presto--instant bug snappers. just have to convince my sister. i know she doesn't like snakes, but i don't know how she feels about toads.

it was sort of a coincidence that i rented the movie the day after just two days before about global cooling. sort of scary. so which is it? warming? or cooling? or first one and then the other?

mystery solved

this week is take care of all the stuff you should have done...ie, oil change, teeth cleaning, health check-up. so the boys were stuffed into one cat carrier...dennis protesting with claws and taken to the vet about 20 minutes away. dennis was so stressed his paws turned bright pink and sweaty plus he shot lots of white hairs everywhere. sam though was very nonchalant....he never has had to stay several days at the vets after an operation with two shunts in his face. the vet seemed chatty, so i asked him about sam's diagnosis of kitty hiv. found out that when a kitten is little they may have antibodies for hiv if their mother had hiv, but after a while the antibodies will dissappear and then the kitten will test negative. it is clear that sam does not have kitty hiv. he is fat, shiny and mellow. he sleeps a lot but that is what older cats do... and older people too.