Well, we must have been on the edge of the storm as we only got about 1-2 inches of the white stuff but it sure caused a feeding frenzy at the bird feeders.
After a light dinner we headed up the hill for a walk—the sun was trying to shine and I knew the mountains would be beautiful:
It’s 5:30pm, dinner is in the oven and I’m enjoying a glass of wine—it seems as if I just woke, what happened to my day?? It’s pouring down rain and the rain will turn to snow—we are under a winter storm warning for 12-20 inches—did someone forget it is May?? My friend Jill and I were talking today—why do we always complain about this kind of weather in May when it if perfectly normal for Montana?? We get snow in June, perfectly normal!
I’m not really sure what I did all day—made some doctor’s appointments—trying to get all that stuff done before our Alaska trip. I listed three sewing machines on Craigslist, a Featherweight, and two Pfaff’s—one a Grand Quilter and the other a Creative 7570 which comes with an embroidery unit. I’m downsizing, can’t you tell?? It takes a while for me to create a listing—first I have to set the machines up and take photos plus sew a few stitches so I can be sure they work then write the listing.
For lunch I made Gina’s taco soup—it was so good on this nasty weather day. Emmi has been needy she can’t go outside or rather she won’t go outside! The birds have been busy at the feeders stocking up for bad weather I guess.
A reader, Linda K. sent me an email today with a link to a National Public Radio broadcast which showed that seniors who learned new tasks such as quilting or computers delayed or prevented memory loss. See fellow quilters, there’s another good excuse to use on our husbands when we buy more quilt fabrics!! 
Yoga was first on my list of things to do—our instructor Julia had another commitment tomorrow on our usual day—and we are all flexible in more ways than one, so we met today!
For the last two summers we have used the little Toyota MR2 Spyder convertible very little and have decided to sell it. I have it listed on Craigslist and had an email from someone wanting photos of the engine, etc. So, I decided to give the sweet little car a bath—made me not want to sell it!!
My next project was a killer!! The truck camper, aka Truck Tee Pee, had some kind of wallpaper around the dining table and it was peeling badly in places—so I ripped it all off today. A lot of it came off easily but there were some areas which required a paint scraper!! Haven’t decided what we are putting back on the walls—maybe just paint???
Remember when we were in Moab, UT and I took some video of these guys trying to climb extremely steep slick rock with jeeps and pickups? My video would never upload as our internet connection was so slow—well, we are back in the land of DSL internet connections and here’s the video, it’s just over a minute in length.
Nat came for lunch and I used Pioneer Woman’s Pot Roast recipe for the beef roast—it was delicious—comfort food on another gray, cool, misty day.
Unlike the usual method for pot roast, the Pioneer Woman recipe does not place potatoes in the dutch oven with the meat and carrots. Her reasoning—the potatoes get mushy—and you know what, she is right! So, we had garlic mashed potatoes and the carrots.
Michael and I are trying to lose some of the weight we gained this winter and are doing well. Nat likes dessert but I didn’t want to bake brownies or apple cake then have it sit here tempting us for the next week. So, I came up with a low calorie dessert—I sliced apples, sprinkled them with cinnamon and the tiniest amount of sugar then sautéed them in about a tablespoon of butter until just tender. I served them with just a small amount of whipped cream.
The cowboy is a mechanic today—he has replaced one of the ball joints in the 1995 diesel pickup. It’s been a chore I think but as I type this he is almost finished. This morning on our walk, he looked the cowboy part don’t you think??
Looking at my bear art quilt just laying on the table downstairs I decided it could be next in line for quilting. I used a wide backing fabric from a bolt of fabric I all ready had and wool batting—I love wool batting, so soft and squishy!! The quilt is on the frame and most of the stitch in the ditching is done.
Yesterday afternoon I removed all the curtains from the truck camper (we need a catchy name for it) and put them in the washing machine—uh,oh!! The curtains were some kind of strange almost plastic fabric and they melted/fused to themselves—I did not use hot water!! So, guess I will be making curtains—we can buy blinds for some of the windows but not the curved ones at the head of the bed. I have an old Singer book called Sewing For The Home which has detailed instructions for making pleated drapes—yep, the dang things are pleated—wonder if they still make pleater tape???
We’ve had short periods of sunshine this afternoon but right now it’s looking as if rain is about to fall.
I guess we were only allotted three days of sunshine, yesterday we had this:
Today we have this:
Michael spent some time sprucing up the new to us truck camper and ordered some replacement parts from Amazon—to replace cracked fan covers, etc. I spent the day quilting and finished the little “grandmothers flower garden” piece. This quilt has quite the story and once the owner has seen it I will post photos and the story.
Poor Emmi got a bath today but she did get a welcome surprise—Michael found her ball—it had gotten hung up in limbs caught in the creek. I put the “spare” back in the house in case we have this problem again. Our little creek is usually just a babbling brook except during this time of year when the snow is melting—it’s moving along rather rapidly right now.
This ugly guy was courting his girlfriend who was hiding from Mr. Amorous up in our tall spruce tree right outside the dining room windows this morning—I would hide in the tree too if the cowboy looked like that!!
The little early wildflowers are starting to appear—shooting stars, I didn’t capture the pretty purple color very well.
Right after we took a walk this morning Michael began getting things ready to unload the truck camper. And John, we thought about hauling the truck camper on the flatbed but our flatbed is way too tall—the bed overhang of the camper cleared the truck cab roof by about a foot—it looked a little strange to say the least. We also caught some wind being that high.
We have a short flat bed trailer—those spindly jacks which are used to raise a truck camper make me nervous--I was ready to get that thing lowered onto the trailer before the wind tipped it over!! It is safely on the trailer and now we can start cleaning—of course the seller said it was clean—and fixing a few minor items. We are anxious to try it out although we won’t be getting very far up into the mountains yet, way too much snow, plus we need to find a truck!
This afternoon we headed over the hill, retrieved Lonnie and met Sarge and Sarah at the Rib and Chop House for dinner. We enjoyed an evening of great conversation, laughter and delicious food. I had the beef filet which was fork tender—awesome!
Besides being left home alone, Emmi had another tragic experience 
It was great to be back in yoga class today, I’ve missed the exercises and my yoga buddies immensely! Some of our yoga buddies are lounging on the beach in Hawaii—Nancy, Shirley and Judy—so it was a smaller group today but still good.
Back home we ate a quick lunch and headed for Bozeman—truck slide in campers are designed to slide into the bed of pickup trucks. Well, the only truck we currently own has a flatbed—no box. So, I am not showing any photos just yet as we look like the Beverly Hillbillies!!! The camper is sitting up on top of the flatbed strapped down with heavy duty ratchet crank straps—it rode home quite nicely but we did get some looks!!
I’m trying to give Rick a run for his money—yea, right, in my dreams!!! But I did solve another friend’s computer problem tonight—took us a couple hours but we got it done via phone which is a little difficult when you can’t see the computer screen!! Remember when we were in Congress and I was helping Geri and Angie start blogging? They were both still using Internet Explorer so I installed Chrome on both their computers. I am normally careful when installing programs making sure I have the official site not some link which will take me off into computer never never land. Well, something went haywire with the install and suddenly both ladies have so many pop-ups they can’t navigate the internet.
I was still hanging out with Geri at the time so we worked on her computer one morning while in Moab, installed Malwarebytes and the problem with pop-ups was solved. Now Angie and Ralph are currently somewhere in California—to say Angie doesn’t like computer changes is an understatement. If at all possible she would still be using whatever operating system came before Windows XP!! 
But, back to her computer—she literally had so many pop-ups using the internet was impossible. When she opened Internet Explorer to find the link I had sent her to Malwarebytes something called Jolly **** kept popping up keeping us from getting any where. I had her close IE and open Chrome. In spite of the fact Jolly**** kept popping up we were able to circumvent it and install Malwarebytes using Chrome as the browser. Ran the scan, quarantined the found problems and success—no more pop-ups. Rick is the one who told me about Malwarebytes and Microsoft Security Essentials—both programs are free, they work and work well!!
It was a beautiful spring day in Montana!
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