in the kitchen

since my sister had never had a souffle, and we always have eggs that never seem to get used; we decided to make a souffle for supper or dinner(some people have very strong opinions about the name of the evening meal!). we decided to use the bread instead of a white sauce, per Joy of Cooking, and everything was going along smoothly until we poored the milk in the blender. i thought i had tightened the bottom, but, alas, no! milk ran in rivulets all over the counter and floor. after that mishap was rectified, the rest went smoothly. the result was a hugely high souffle that was very good. we were just about done eating when i remembered i had bought a white wine to go with the souffle. our next adventure involved trying to get the cork out. i have done this before without a problem, but this cork was really stuck. my sis remembered a christmas present from last year and dragged it out. it was a fancy looking cork remover, but it only managed to push the cork further into the bottle. ....which left us the option of pushing it all the way in. ergggg! i think we just should have cereal or gone out to eat.

new starts

september seems to be a month of new beginnings, not only for school kids but for several of my family members. my sister got a job supervising an after school program and hired me; my son is starting a new job in riverside, california; and my son-in-law has a new job in california, also. my daughter already had a job in riverside.

i used to have the weather reports for five different cities on my home page--now i am down to 2.

i wonder what month has the greatest number of job changes.

book festival

as a teacher i always enjoyed going away to conventions. ...especially english conventions. so many books and posters and books and friends and books. so i was especially pleased to discover south dakota is having a book and author festival in deadwood next weekend which is where i will be.

i had a book birthday card to border's in rapid city--very cool place--and a list of books and authors featured at the book fair. i bought two books, cold dish and whistling season. i am taking those two and a couple of books by ted kooser in hopes of getting autographs.

right now i am reading great plains--non-fiction-- and am enjoying it.

it was a another book date with my daughter-she was at her book store in california and i was at my store in south dakota. she picked up a book by annie proulx.

basket wars

the cat baskets were used all the time at pva, but the cats ignored them when i put them on the floor of my new digs. finally i sacrificed book space and put the baskets on top of the bedside tables. now the cats fight over who is going to use them. cc headed in first, then dennis moved in. after a little war, mostly promoted by cc, dennis chased cc out. they were gone for a little while, but only dennis came back. must have had a little talk with cc. i found her downstairs on the new bed.

my new digs

So far this is how my new home looks. trying to get my most essential stuff in my room.

it sort of feels like a collage dorm room. the beginning of your life and the ending are sort of parallel. trying to keep it neat though. the bookcases serve as my desk storage. notice the cats fighting. they all ignored the baskets when the baskets were on the floor even though they slept in them at the old place. as soon as i put them on top of the tables, the basket wars began.

center something

friends from grade school came by last week to visit with my sister and i. since none of us had been to the center of the united states, and since belle fourche claims to be the center of all 50 states, we decided to find the markers. with directions from my sister's boss, we trecked about 15 or so miles northeast of town, slipped between the barbed wire fence and walked a few feet to the flag and the usgs marker. it is the one with the arrow on it. as we looked around we discovered another marker about 6 feet away. it is is the one with the triangle.

i can't find out exactly what the symbols mean. looked up on google but i think i will have to go to the library or to a bookstore. in order to attract more tourists they are building the monument to the center of the nation in belle. i was really distressed at all the different centers until i read an article that said the accuracy was within 10 miles. arggggggggggggggg. so i quit stressing out.

i guess there is a game? people play using their gps units called benchmarking. there are quite a few around belle, but as i don't have a gps, i guess i will go back to unpacking and hanging doors in the basement.

another tractor show

sandhills and mini

turned out there was unfinished business at pva, so i drove the 500+ miles from belle fourche to kearney through the sand hills of nebraska. since i don't think i will be making that trip to many more times, i took highway 2 from thedford to alliance. i love driving the roads....almost empty... and seeing the rolling hills covered with prairie grass and cattle. there are enough ups and downs and curves to make driving interesting. the only bad part of the trip is the lack of radio stations. this is the first car that i have had that has a cd player and i can't get used to it. so....i forget to take along cds!

sturgis at night

my nephew and his family decided i needed to see sturgis during the bike ralley. since he works during the day, my sister and i went with them one night. it was toward the end and probably 80% were gone, but there were still enough bikes to fill up the main drag and more. some of the bikes had added lights like the one to the the left center of the picture. i think those are cool, but they must look strange when you see them ahead of you at night on the highway. of course, there were a few barely dressed females. one woman who should not have been doing it, was dressed in a string bikini and leather chaps riding a harley. not a pretty sight. and i think i saw the shortest pair of shorts ever on a candy dressing for a business that modified bikes. once was enough i think.

sturgis rally

it is the week of the motorcycle rally in sturgis. this is a gas station in belle. too bad if you need gas. the bikes are everywhere. good for business, but it makes it difficult to travel. there have been several accidents, but none fatal. most of the bikers have a lot of skin showing, and are not wearing helmets.

there are a lot of interesting bikes and trikes. so a few with side cars, some had trailers. one was the front of a bike welded to the back of a ford pinto. the guy had hacked off the engine part and replaced it with the front of a bike. just too weird for me.

helpful chicken

while in maryland for pony penning, we visited my nephew. his wife has a pet chicken, still quite young. the chicken, larry, (we called it peepers) followed her all over and cried to be let out of his cage in the living room if she was in the room. my sister became addicted to hand held computer games and larry is helping her play. he did peck at the screen!

pony penning

my sister and i were able to get 200 dollar round trip tickets to pony penning at chincoteague. we had to drive to sioux falls and her son had to pick us up at the baltimore airport, but still a good deal. i think my sister got tired of riding in my mini though, or maybe it was my driving.

anyway we arrived at her son's around 2 and got up at 5 to drive out to the island to get a good spot. we found out that to really get a good spot you have to know to walk away from the park and go down the road a piece to the actual holding pens....and you need to bring a folding chair you don't care about because it is going to be in the muck. you also need to wear wellies so you can wade through the muck to get to the shore where you can really see. we did sort of see them swimming, but we got the best view of all the ponies when we went early to the auction pens and waited for them to be herded in. they came running in, mares calling for their babies and babies calling for moms. the stallions ran around the small pen challenging each other to re-establish the pecking order and to gather up their mares. pretty ponies and cute foals. the really tiny babies didn't have to swim across. they got to ride the ferry!

on the way home, we got up half and hour late and were late getting to the air port. we still might have made our flight, but the tickets were confusing and the major domo traffic director at us air didn't help us out much. we finally figured out that we need to be at the united counter. but by then our flight had gone. we shamedly admitted our ineptitude to the man at the counter and asked nicely if he could help us. he didn't say anything but typed away at the computer. and he got us on the next flight out which would allow us to make our original connections in chicago. he was so helpful, in fact, that he upgraded us to first class on both flights. that was the first time either of us had been in first class....an probably the last. he really didn't have to do that, as there were seats in the other area on both flights. we should have gotten his name and reported him for good service!

fires and men

i haven't met a male yet that doesn't like fire. this fire was tended by every male in our camp.

my sister and her family whisked me off to a lakeside camp in the black hills as soon as i moved into town. even though the elevation is not that great...not like camping in the rockies--it was significantly cooler. had to use hefty sleeping bags inside the camper to keep warm. ...not those wimpy cheap bags you pick up for sleep overs for the kids.

it was warm enough during the day for the kids and their shepherds to swim in the lake. i found out later that the park people hauled in truckloads of sand to make the beach. just right for small groups. we were there before the fourth of july so it was not crowded. being there in the middle of the week helped too.

my nephew --in the picture-- was a cook in the coast guard. he likes to cook, so even though my sister and i were in charge of breakfast, he helped with the eggs taking special orders. lucky for the group, i would have just made scrambled.

my sister and i developed a list of things to always take on a camping/picnic trip even though other people may be in charge.

new friends

after a few weeks, sam decided that it was okay for cc to take a nap in the same space as sam was taking a nap. they chose the new bed downstairs because it was cool, quiet, new, and to be ornery i guess. trying to keep that room cat free, but it is a little difficult when you don't have a door!. will have to wash the bedding just before company comes, and hopefully, we will have doors.

we measured the opening and went to the hardware store in spearfish to get doors. gave them the size and came home with doors. had to take them back as it turns out the door size has to be two inches smaller than the opening. the clerk, though very nice, failed to ask the old ladies the right questions. hopefully we won't have to special order. the guy that framed in the downstairs should have picked a more common size of door. what did we know? he should have known though. it is all in the details.

good news bad news

good news, i have one row of boxes unpacked
bad news, what to do with the empty boxes, want to save them, but where?

good news, car average mileage is now almost 30...was 25 when i started driving
bad news, cost 43 dollars to change oil...synthetic

good news, dennis doesn't have kitty hiv
bad news, sam has kitty hiv-confirmed
good news, he has lived for 12 years, most die when very young
bad news, now have to get cynthia's kitty cc tested for hiv

fourth of july rodeo

belle has the best small town (5000) parade and rodeo on the fourth. the parade has horses and mules...ridden and driven...ponies, little kids on big horses, rodeo queens, politicians in fancy new cars, fire engines, big semis all cleaned up, military stuff, the cowboy band (made of young and old with the very old riding on a flatbed), shriners, alumni classes from the high school(there color is purple), with everybody throwing candy and other goodies at the crowds. one of the pieced of candy hit my glasses and knocked out the loose eye piece. thought i was going to have a black eye!

the city fireworks are on the evening of the third because many families have there own fire works on the evening of the fourth. my sister's sons had fireworks at their dad's place. pretty impressive. not only could we see ours, but there were at least 8 that we could see going on around us. not just roman candles.

side note: found out that my sister's ex's brother bought the old water storage tank on the hill. he is turning it into a house. the walls are like four feet thick. probably doesn't have to spend much on heating or cooling.

belle fourche

after 3 final days of agonizing packing the last of the house...garage & kitchen...and the truck, i have arrived at belle fourche. immediately my sister whisked me away to roubouix lake ( not sure of the spelling) in the black hills for 3 days of camping with her son and his in-laws. now i am working on unpacking.

the first night neither my sister or myself could get cars in the garage. she mentioned something about it would probably hail since both our relatively new cars were outside. it did. we have some little tiny dings in the cars. not sure what we will do about it yet. someone said that if if washed the cars so we could really see where the dings were and then on a really hot, hot day, put ice cubes on the dings that they would pop back out! hmmmmmmm.

well, as soon as her son picks up the washer and dryer in the garage, my sister can get her car, a blazer, in the garage. i am working box by box it get enough room to drive the mini in.

misty dawn

i have been writing names on hundreds and hundreds, and hundreds of transcript plastic holders in preparation for moving files to the conference office since our school is closing. lots of interesting names.

i have never liked my name...means bitter -- if you look now for the meaning it says something about loved, but the original hebrew is bitter.

now my son tells me he doesn't like his name.

my sister's youngest son doesn't like the spelling of his name.

my daughter has the same name as thousands of her generation.

BUT, no one in our family is named misty dawn.

i saw it on a transcript.

kitty bathroom

my son made a practical kitty bathroom out of a toy box. very cool if you live in a small space. i like that the lid opens up for cleaning up. since i am moving into a house that will have three cats, seriously thinking about making one or two.

needs of the soul

i just finished watching a pbs show on the rebuilding of tick hall on montauk point.
in order to satisfy my soul i need to order my life, surround myself with beauty, and live with generosity.

what they did cost much money, but to have beauty and peace in life does not require money, just the right attitude & sensitivity.