Missed Meal Colic

Yep, my cousin Mary Ellen was correct—I called Mom this afternoon and the saying is, “missed meal colic.”  You’ve missed a meal and you don’t know what you are having to eat—so there you have it from the source, my southern Mom!

We’ve had a smoke reprieve—Saturday morning it was so thick our eyes were burning.  I took Nat over to Livingston to pick up his new hearing aides and the smoke was so thick it felt as if we were driving in fog.  By the time I came home all the smoke was gone thanks to a strong east wind.  During the night the wind really blew and we’ve enjoyed another day with little smoke.  Our temperatures have also cooled which hopefully will give those poor fire fighters a little reprieve too.

Speaking of hearing aides—isn’t it amazing the technology contained in those tiny plastic pieces the size of your ear canal!  Supposedly Nat’s hearing aides can detect a noisy room and filter out only the voices he is trying to hear.  The hearing aides came with a special portable phone which communicates with the aides making it easier for him to hear on the phone.  As with anything there is a learning curve.

The cowboy has replaced the plywood on his new trailer and I’ve been working on a customer quilt making great progress.  We enjoyed a delicious lunch today and sampled some of the corn on the cob we bought at the farmers market—outstanding!! 

And that’s about it for our Sunday.

Mixed Meal Colic

Southerners have many odd expressions—trust me, I grew up in the south—my Mom uses one, “we are having mixed meal colic for supper.”  The expression is usually used when she is cleaning the refrigerator and all the leftovers are being served with no real theme in mind.  But where in the world did that expression come from—does it mean if you eat all that mixed up food you are going to have indigestion/colic???  When I was trying to come up with a title for tonight’s blog that expression kept running through my head—so we are having mixed meal blog tonight—a little of this and a little of that.

As for Windows 10—I removed it from my computer and went back to Windows 7.  I made an executive decision—when I get a new laptop in the future, then I will deal with Windows 10 as I am assuming new laptops in the future will come loaded with the software.  I just ran out of patience, wasn’t in the mood, etc.  And we live with limited gigabyte internet in the winter while in Arizona—Microsoft Windows 10 performs automatic updates (you cannot turn off these updates) and I’m not sure how that’s going to work with limited gigabytes. 

Rod, this next one is for you—I saw this on Facebook and immediately thought of your little Roomba disaster!

Thursday we spent most of the day in Billings leaving Emmi with Nat.  I had my eyes examined and am going to try mono-vision contact lenses again—one contact for close, one for distance.  I’ve worn mono-vision contacts before and they work well for seeing most everything I need to see except sewing—but then my glasses don’t work so well for sewing at times—when did the eye of a needle get so small???  On the way home we stopped in Laurel to look at another trailer for the cowboy’s trailer menagerie (don’t even ask me why he needs another trailer, he might ask me why I need more clothes or quilt fabric!!)

Today we headed back to Laurel to bring the trailer home—we were in the Cadillac yesterday—no trailer hitch on it!

It is so incredibly smoky and we have no fires really close to us—I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for the people in Washington and Idaho.  I borrowed this photo from Facebook and KPAX News—it is of downtown Missoula, Montana which is near the Washington/Idaho border.  If you squint you can barely see the mountains in the background--

 

And for the last part of the “mixed meal colic”—I finished, completed, have no more to do on the Winter Solstice quilt I started in 2014.  I finished the binding today on the way to Laurel and attached a label this afternoon.  I’m pleased—very pleased with the way it turned out Paulette!  Lately I’ve just lost my quilting mojo—I have a customer quilt on the frame which needs finishing and goodness knows I have plenty of my own projects to finish but I just can’t seem to get very excited about any of it.  Maybe when the weather cools???

Oops, one more thing—a very short GoPro video—we need to learn more about this little camera but we think it takes incredibly good video for its size!

ATV Riding and Farmers Market

Plans with Lonn didn’t work out for a longer ATV ride today so we just headed up the East Boulder—to Lewis Gulch and Moccasin Lake.  The morning started out less smoky than we’ve been seeing but the smoke rolled back in as we rolled along giving us hazy mountain views.  We are playing with a new toy—a GoPro Hero 3 which was gifted to us and tonight I’m struggling with the GoPro software—anyone out there using something easier for GoPro??  Geri—how do you export and edit yours??

Late afternoon we left Ms. Emmi holding down the fort and we traveled to Livingston for the weekly farmers market.  If you know anything about Montana it would be that we have short summers as in about the only thing you can grown at our elevation (5200 feet) is lettuce! People try, oh how they try and get struck down by hail, wind and August frosts.   About the only way to grow produce such as tomatoes is in a green house!  Folks in Big Timber and Livingston have a little better luck but not much!  Lots of lettuce, kale, carrots, and herbs for sale plus there were tomatoes grown in a greenhouse.  We purchased some good looking corn grown in Clark, Wyoming—at a much lower elevation. 

This summer Joe and Tammy gave us a gift card to the Rib and Chop House restaurant in Livingston.  Our plans were to go to the farmers market then have dinner but we just weren’t hungry enough for that expensive a meal—so Mark’s In & Out it was—we split a burger and each had milkshakes. 

OK, I’m giving up on the GoPro videos for tonight—will try again tomorrow. 

Favorite Season

It isn’t summer—don’t get me wrong, I do like summer, late June and then July usually but August stinks and lately it stinks literally of smoke!  I guess summer is like winter—I don’t mind winter in November, December, January and February but when it’s still snowing in May, I’m done with winter!  I’m that way about August, I’m done with summer!  At least our temps aren’t unbearable—today it was in the low 80’s but the smoke from all the forest fires is thick!  My heart goes out to all those fire fighters working in this heat trying to get a handle on the multiple fires—and my heart especially goes out to the families of the three firefighters killed. 

Not much excitement around here, we did see a black bear on one of our evening walks—but that’s about it.  Mom and Chuck made it home to Arkansas.  Michael has been working on the cargo trailer and our Can-Am hauling trailer and I was industrious today washing all our windows.  The windows really needed washing—they were grubby!

Sunday afternoon we went into Big Timber and visited with Nat for a while taking him a huge stack of jigsaw puzzles a friend was getting rid of.  Should keep him busy for a while!

Here are some more birthday photos:

Lora Elizabeth’s Birthday

It’s hard to believe our little great granddaughter is now one year old—it seems only yesterday we were in a Great Falls, MT hospital eagerly awaiting her arrival.  Her actual birthday was a little earlier in the month but due to Mom and Dad’s schedules the party was today.  Friends and family gathered in Great Falls where Laci and John live on base—it was major ordeal (due to lack of staffing) to get me and my car on base.  John was sent to sponsor me and when it took so long I’m sure John was thinking Mimi had a past she didn’t want anyone to know about!

As you can see Lora Elizabeth is a much loved little girl!  Before the cake attack we enjoyed burgers and hotdogs along with various other good stuff and while the cake attack was going on, the adults had cupcakes.  I’ve tried to post a video of the cake demolition but my internet seems to be really, really slow tonight and uploading isn’t happening—will post later.

Mom and Chuck left this morning after a too short visit—they’ve been gone from Arkansas several weeks and were ready to head home.  They traveled through California and Oregon visiting friends and relatives then into Montana visiting more friends, relatives and lastly—us. 

Mom and Chuck took the Can-Am out for a ride and of course Emmi had to go along!

Upgraded to Windows 10 while gone today and hope that isn’t the reason for this slow, slow computer tonight.

Home and Family Visiting

The hospital in-services lasted until almost 11pm Tuesday night and my 3:30am wake up call Wednesday morning came awfully early.  I had uneventful flights but by the time I drove up our driveway yesterday afternoon I was running on pure empty.  

My Mom and Chuck were here when I arrived—the cowboy and Emmi were also very glad to see me.  Diane, one of my first cousins, her husband Brent and their son Wyatt from Washington came for happy hour—it was so good to see them!  They are renting a beautiful guest house near us.  The last time we saw Diane and her family was in 2006 when I was doing an interim management assignment in the Seattle area.  Wyatt is 20 years old and a delightful young man—personable, easy to talk to, helpful and he didn’t sit looking at his phone the whole time he visited with us!  Diane and Brent have done a fabulous job raising their only child!

Mom and Chuck went into town for errands and stopped by to visit Nat.  Michael spent the day loading and securing a huge window into our cargo trailer—the window is headed to our house in Arizona.  He also washed the Can-Am—I think he likes that ATV—he sure is concerned with keeping it clean!

Diane, Brent and Wyatt joined us for supper tonight and we ate like kings!  Ribs, corn on the cob, chicken tenders, Caesar salad with brownies and homemade ice cream for dessert.  They are starting their journey back to Washington tomorrow. 

Oh my is it ever smoky around here—heavy, heavy smoke.  The mountains have disappeared behind a wall of smoke.

And the FedEx lady delivered my iPad—it’s so good to have it back!

Delta Rocks

Monday morning early I received an email from Delta, “we are still looking for your lost item.”  At 11am when we came out of the hospital after in-services I had another email from Delta, “we have found your item.”  Delta rocks!!!  My iPad was password protected and of no use to the regular, everyday computer user—I’m so happy it was found and is on its way back to me!

I told you it was busy in Yellowstone Park this summer—record busy!

We’ve spent a busy two days in San Diego at a large hospital performing product in-services for nursing staff in two ICU departments.  In between the varied in-service times we’ve been eating well—a little Cheesecake Factory lemon cheesecake:

Oh, I forgot we had dinner there too and it was outstanding!

My coming from the airport view out the taxi windows.

And a view of the pool from my room. 

After the last in-services tonight I will board a plane Wednesday morning heading back to my cowboy and Ms. Emmi—and to visitors from both sides of the country—my Mom and her husband Chuck, plus my cousin Diane and her family from Washington are staying in a guest house near us for a few days.

Smokey Skies

I know I shouldn’t complain—I grew up in the hot, humid south and my family still lives there, they know what HOT is!—but I am so tired of being hot!  We have no air conditioning as the temperatures don’t often rise above 85F in summer but this run of heat is getting on my last nerve making me crabby.  Rarely does it stay warm at night but Friday night was one of those nights—our temp Saturday morning was 70 degrees at 6am making for a very warm day—usually we are at about 50-52 degrees in the morning.  And to top it off, we now have so much forest fire smoke—you can even smell it in the air. 

Still no iPad, a commenter, Chris, asked if I had tried: http://www.apple.com/icloud/find-my-iphone.html.  My iPad is cellular capable but at this time we have no cellular plan for it—so I wasn’t able to locate the iPad using iCloud.  I contacted both airports speaking to people in lost and found plus I spoke with a Delta/Skywest desk agent in Billings—still no iPad.  I’ve been reading using the old Kindle I have—it belonged to LoraLee but she wasn’t fond of using it so gave it to me—I keep trying to “swipe” the screen!  It has buttons along the side which say, “next page” and “previous page.”  You have to press those buttons to move forward in a book.  It also uses an USB cable to transfer books from Amazon—isn’t technology progression a wonderful thing!!

Our sweet baby girl has been sick—she doesn’t often go to daycare but this past week Lora caught a bug and ran a high fever.  When someone said, “little kids are the best petri dishes,’' they weren’t kidding!  She is all better now. 

I am suspecting Aunt Katie had a hand in the diaper on the head trick!

Hanging out with Grandpa Lonn.

Today, Sunday, I flew to San Diego to work a couple days leaving the cowboy and Emmi home alone—a little too soon to be away again but I won’t be gone for long.

Massage, An ATV Ride, Quilting

The cowboy and Emmi took a friend up to Moccasin Lake this morning—Emmi has decided the Can Am is her personal carriage—she gets very grumpy when left behind and will try to follow even when Michael runs up to the shed in the old Kawasaki mule. 

It’s unusual for me to be home alone—no husband, no dog—all morning I went around looking for Emmi—the cowboy not so much! I took advantage and worked on a customer quilt—belonging to my friend Linda.  It was a block of the month quilt from our local quilt shop—barns, fences, stars—lots and lots of stitch in the ditch and stitching around applique—it’s going to be gorgeous!

This afternoon I headed to Big Timber for a luxury—a massage from the best massage therapist I’ve ever been to—Gayle.  She isn’t one of those touchy/feely feel good kind of massage therapist.  Gayle makes spots hurt but when she is finished you absolutely feel better!

I appreciate all the encouragement about taking Crestor—I really do!  And the emails suggesting alternatives—I just think the time had come for me to take a statin.  We really love to cook and eat—we eat well and we exercise.  I’ve lost 15 pounds over the last year and even that didn’t reduce my cholesterol—so statin it was.

The best selfie I ever took! 

I’m Feeling Old

For a few years now I’ve known my cholesterol was high—as in way high, 260+ and my LDL (the bad one) was almost 200—not good.  I am relatively thin, walk daily, eat well most of the time and have absolutely no family history of heart disease.  My Mom does have high cholesterol.  Several years ago a physician prescribed simvastatin (a generic statin)—I thought the drug was making my legs hurt and stopped taking it.  Simvastatin lowered my cholesterol significantly and when I stopped taking the medication, my cholesterol numbers shot way up again.

While researching statin alternatives I read blogs Nina had written about different types of cholesterol testing other than the routine cholesterol/HDL/LDL testing.  I paid out of pocket to have a NMR Lipo-profile test done—not good news again—I have too many of the wrong size particles swimming around.  So, being a nurse I began to worry as all nurses do—what if I have a heart attack that could have been prevented by taking a statin??? 

My gynecologist was very concerned about the numbers and wanted me to see a primary care physician.  Michael sees an internist in private practice in Billings and I chose to make an appointment with the wife of the internist—she is a nurse practitioner.  Tuesday was the day and what I suspected would happen—happened.  I am now taking Crestor—Melissa likes it better than any of the other statins—she notices less side effects with Crestor, the dose can be lower and still achieve results.  So, I’m feeling old today—but seriously I am looking on the bright side—I refuse to have side effects! 

No news from Delta about my iPad but I am feeling a little hopeful.  John and Pam’s daughter lost her iPad on an airplane and got it back; Rollie has lost two iPads on airplanes and got both back—so maybe there is hope!  On the advice of a reader, I did contact the Salt Lake City airport and received a reply from them—they don’t have my iPad.  I have an upcoming business trip—guess I will have to resurrect my really old Kindle! 

Great Trip, Home And I Lost Something

Portland was awesome—it was sad to see the dry landscape—I’ve been to Portland many times and remember the lushness of the landscape.  The road side grass is dried out and brown, the rivers and creeks have little water, some are not flowing.  Drought conditions without a doubt!

What I didn’t remember was the traffic—awful!  We enjoyed some great meals, visited a fabulous grocery store, New Seasons Market—what I wouldn’t give to have that kind of grocery store in our neighborhood--and did a lot of shopping and sightseeing.

We visited the Tillamook Cheese factory as did many, many other people that day!

We had lunch in Cannon Beach right across the road from Haystack Rock.

And there was even a quilt shop participating in the Row by Row shop hop in Cannon Beach.

Sunday we headed to the airport and went our separate ways—I arrived home about 6pm, exhausted!  I think I was so tired I just could not fall asleep—about 1am I thought, “where is my iPad??”  I have no idea why I suddenly remembered the iPad might not be in my bag—I got up, searched the house and the car—no iPad, I must have left it in the seat back pocket.  What a bummer—I filed a missing item report with Delta, the iPad is password locked—we will see what happens. 

Cute Quilts And A Friendship Story

You know, it’s hard to write blogs in advance!  I am still hanging out in Portland enjoying some girlfriend time—Sunday I will head back to the cowboy and Emmi—I am certainly looking forward to seeing both of them!

I receive various quilting related catalogs and imagine my surprise when thumbing through the latest issue of Keepsake Quilting I spotted these:

JoAnn Hoffman is a talented quilter who lives in Hill City, SD—she designed, pieced and quilted these too little darlings.  When we purchased the longarm back in 2008 the company, APQS, offered me a free beginners class—the nearest to us teacher was JoAnn Hoffman.  We loaded up the truck/fifth wheel/motorcycle and headed to Custer, SD where we stayed in a campground—Broken Arrow.  A woman named Geri checked us in and we later met her husband Larry.  We enjoyed our stay not realizing at the time how intertwined our lives would become. 

While I was learning to use that big sewing machine Michael toured around Custer and the Black Hills on the motorcycle.  We visited Mount Rushmore and did some more touring on the motorcycle.

Fast forward to a stay at North Ranch in Arizona.  These people show up at a Mike and Pat happy hour—it’s Larry and Geri, the campground owners from Custer where Mike and Pat have a summer home.  Fast forward again—Larry and Geri show up in Montana the following summer staying at the fishing access not far from us. 

Larry and Geri sell the campground and start fulltime RVing—and we become close friends taking a six week long trip to southeast Alaska last summer.  It’s amazing the friendships you build throughout the years, isn’t it! 

Life is good and one last cute quilt from Keepsake Quilting:

Cute Baby

Wednesday I traveled to Portland, OR leaving the cowboy and Emmi holding down the fort.  Before I left I pre-wrote a couple posts and this is one of them.  When my cousin Mary Ellen was visiting as well as the ATV gang, Laci came over and brought Lora Elizabeth.  Friday Lora will celebrate her first birthday—kind of hard to believe it’s been a year since we were in Great Falls, MT eagerly awaiting her birth!  Soon after she was born we headed to Alaska with Larry and Geri. 

Here are some photo taken by someone else shared on Laci’s Facebook page and borrowed by me!

Tuesday during the day and into the night we had a band of noisy thunderstorms moving through with some rain to cool things off.  We are so very glad thunder and lightening doesn’t seem to bother Ms. Emmi—she never even reacts—she slept through the storms.  We got our first schnauzer, Jazz, when we were participating in Cowboy Action Shooting—that little pooch grew up on a shooting range with lots of noise—nothing bothered Jazz.  When we got Emmi and weren’t shooting any longer we were very careful never to react to loud noises around her—I tried really hard not to jump when it thundered!  Our carefulness paid off—a calm pooch except when she is left alone for a few hours—then she’s not so calm or quiet—she tells us what awful people we are for leaving her alone while dancing on her back legs!

On Tuesday I went to Big Timber—the longarm quilting machine at the quilt shop wasn’t behaving properly—seems it was just a case of operator error for which both I and the quilt shop owner were happy for!!  It’s 4H fair week in Big Timber and this procrastinating quilter didn’t enter a quilt this year—oh, well, there is always next year!  Michael spent the day doing what this southern girl calls “piddling.”  He installed the handy/dandy mountable gas tank Lonn gifted him for this birthday last year on the Can Am.  We are absolutely loving that Can Am—I see the cowboy heading out of the garage with it frequently—taking it up to the shed in the fields to retrieve parts, etc., going down the driveway to get the mail—yep, we love it! 

Life is good.