Home on Prairie

We've have some insanely beautiful days of 80 degree weather and have tried to make the most of it. As soon as I say this of course, it is currently gusting 60 mph and anything not nailed down and snapped shut is probably in Eastern Canada by now.

It started off such a calm day. And by evening it was another story. It's a fascinating country we live in and always something to discover. 

I cannot get over the sky here (which I do know is incredible because of the wind) how much it changes, how many colors there are in it- it's quite a sight.

I had to take this photo of these sheets- it is NOT often you see them hanging straight down!

Kitchen love

I love this kitchen. Oh yeah I could easily adapt to one 3 times its' size with granite counter tops, a huge
island and walnut cabinets. But. Some dream house some day may find me in it.
The arch is sweet and the kitchen table has the BEST view of the whole house because it gets the early morning sun. It's my favorite place in the morning.

And of course the sign! It's helped me through many a morning on sense of humor alone :)

Happy Engagement Anniversary

This is a little late, but I've not been too timely the last couple weeks. Coming home to my husband after two weeks away made me remember how we did NOT like dating 720 miles apart and for four days at a time every 3 1/2 weeks. We saw each other 9 times before we got engaged. And 18 times total before we were married. That may seem wary to some folks, but we knew we were going to get married within 10 days of knowing each other. Our first official date happened a month after we met- and we picked out a ring. It took a looooooong 6 months to know if I'd ever see that ring, but I finally did. February 14th, 2011!

We were heading into town to pick out snowshoes for him.
Dustin says, "I'm so happy you're my Pre-Finance." He'd been calling me this for some time.
I asked, "When am I going to be your Real Fiance?
"When do you want to be?"
"Right now." At this point we were driving 65mph up Kila Hill which is the last hill going into town.
"Right now? Are you sure?"
"Yes." We had crested the top of the hill, he whipped into some random driveway, jammed it into park, raced his way around the hood yanking open the passenger door and asked,
"Carmyn will you marry me?"
I shrieked. Blubbered. Laughed and bawled. Blubbered and cried again.
"YES!" .....as the traffic screamed by and we noticed we were standing in the remnants of a mud puddle.

We are so not the roses, weeping violins and fine china dining type! (although it has it's place I keep telling him!)  Give us happy and simple any day :)

Happy Anniversary Dustin! Thank you for the best year ever!

Home, Friends, Chocolate = Fun Times

  My cousin just moved back to Ashley Lake from Virginia with his adorable wife and 2 and 1/2 kids. We are so happy they are here, but I WISH they had gotten this idea about a year or more ago and then I could be hanging out all the time. I went to visit for lunch and this is what the schedule was. Auntie Laura this is for you who really DOES have the cutest nieces in the whole world! :)

We played games and terrorized the cat because we could, who promptly left and proceeded to ignore us.

Then we played ni-night:

And of COURSE we went shopping because Ummm.... we caught them trying to give the cat a haircut. Guilty little parties aren't they?! But they found their purses of which Madison pointed out she didn't have any money. I asked why and she said that Emma must have it. I asked Emma if she had any money and she said no, but pulled out a pencil instead. Both of them agreed this was acceptable to go shopping! We drove to the mall on the bikes. Blankets included, purses forgotten.



























Somewhere along the line we met up with a lime. And we couldn't part with it to go shopping, but we did find a rabbit which was tried on as a scarf, then we went up to eat lunch. It was so fun to be with these cuties! I didn't get any photos, but Tess and I in the meantime rearranged the living room! (See Elizabeth?! It's not personal!) It is great now we think.



Then, I met up in town with my mom and sisters and a few friends to attend the Chocolat Affaire which is so cool! On Main Street in Downtown Kalispell the businesses get together and host a caterer who makes extrodinary chocolate somethings for Valentine's Day weekend. Everyone hits the streets, jabbers, chatters, and in general keeps in holiday cheer.  :) Even though I didn't get much chocolate pieces photos, we can attest that ALL was well and if you did make it to all 28 shops, your stomach would probably reject you over that much chocolate.

Yes, even my stomach would have....

What a fabulous way to go though right?!

The hats were awesome! I wish we could wear them all the time.

We met Lily and Jen with her girls. We found a great old telephone that doesn't work to call to we found out. Instead it calls the front desk. oops. Such a disappointment! The old clawfoot was interesting done in a mosaic.

                                                     The Leaning Tower of Tea Cups.

What a day. and it wasn't over. For we got home and gave gifts. This was for mom -a cute sponge holder and another bike for her collection. Dad got a huge popcorn bowl and when you get to the bottom it says, That's All Folks! It's great. Plus, he got a hat which is a pretty neat hat I think. His pride and joy though still stands in his calculators. He got these at thrifts stores of all places! One here, and two in Washington. We don't understand except he says he needs them and likes to see the numbers. HAHA only my dad. I miss them all when I'm not around!

East, West, Hame is best...

Someday. Maybe. I'll call Wibaux home. I love my husband and he's there and it's home in that regard of course, but it's not Home like Ashley Lake Home. I miss it much. It's natural I'm sure, but someday we hope to feel home where we can wallow in the homey-ness of the very word, home. Perhaps it'll be there, but who knows. We're happy and thankful. That's what matters.

The purpose of going home this time was to see my best friend Sue and help her with the kids while her husband is at work. I stopped via Ashley Lake first because we got a great slide show from DP and we had to make the baklava and turkish coffee which has cardamon in it. I can guarantee this is the strangest coffee you've ever seen made, but it is SO good!!

We made 6 batches of baklava resulting in a little over 300 pieces. Lets just say it's amazing even though I didn't and couldn't eat any, it was good. I know this on smell alone and the fact that the sampling by others was in the double digit surplus...

You see me using a paint roller. This is not a trick! It is the best invention ever- our USDA Food Grade paint roller for butter! Each phyllo sheet is separated and buttered, with a nut/spice layer for 3 layers and 5 phyllo sheets, then an entire package buttered and layered on that. I think there are 25 sheets to a package. It's time consuming but again, worth it!

This is what 6 batches of baklava looks like! We had such fun doing this. It was a great day!

Then we had to go for a walk because we're on our feet all day. And we needed fresh air. So we went around the road through the meadow and happened on some ice! Which was great ice for skating and we wished we had time to shovel snow. But we didn't, so we saw some sights, of which this was impressive!

Here are bird tracks to the left, an eagle or hawk wing imprint and then the fascinating 'knuckles' of a birds talons imprinted clearly in the snow. I have never seen this in such detail! It was incredible!

Then we went home- see?? It's Ashley Lake in all its winter, cow feeding grounds glory!!

And this is who went with us on our walk. She was so tired and curled up on her favorite perch. Little Whiski loves walks, but really she loves cuddles in a warm house!

Baby Days

What a wonderful two weeks! I've been out of blogging land because I've been spending time with wonderful friends and their sweetest kids -a 2 year old and 3 month old twins. I have fallen in love, taken all the night shifts except two in the last week and have loved even 4am crying. After all, we know that's when they always have the best smiles! 

They picked me up at the train station in Edmonds, we went to Sunday morning meeting with these dear folks, the Scholls and had a wonderful meal. That was the start of my week and it was a wonderful start for I saw friends there I hadn't seen since I had lived in Seattle 13 years ago. Oh how the time goes....

This was my train ride. There really is nothing more beautiful than the pacific northwest. I'd live there again in a minute, but perhaps not too close to people. It is funny how I was amazed over the MANY people, but started feeling clausterphobic. Does this mean Wibaux has made me a Wibauxite yet??

I had to laugh when I left because Dustin asked if I had my sunglasses. I said, I bet I wouldn't use them the whole 2 weeks I'm gone. And I was right! Even though it's beautiful, it's rainy a lot. And while I can stand the rain, I can honestly say I am VERY used to the sun in good ol' Wibaux. Of course 45 verses 0 degrees isn't too hard to figure out either.

But this is what I came for. Sad of all sad stories, I'm missing a baby at the moment but trying to find photos that I accidentally deleted, so hopefully I will have all of them in a week or so. I will be heart broken if they can't be recovered because I fell heaps over in love with those three sweeties. I honestly thought of sneaking them back in a suitcase!

Saturday Morning

I love Saturday mornings. The only thing that would make it perfect is if Dustin didn't have to work on Saturdays. I get up and get my coffee inserted by IV.... (something I need to take some serious thought to) make my husband his roast beef sandwich slathered in my homemade hot mustard and piled with veggies. Then I sit, have a read, dream up a huge breakfast then make it and eat it. After that, the day is Saturday.

Saturday's are magical. You can get away with any food on Saturday. Any diet, any thoughts, it's a free day!

This Saturday though started out entirely different. Dustin got up, flicked on the light and zero happenings. Power was dead out. I remembered that there was a saturday yogo class in Glendive, so I got up. But no shower. no COFFEE AAAAHHHH! No breakfast. No sitting in the morning sun. But to yoga I went.

Besides Saturdays, i LOVE yoga. Always have, but this is the first class I've taken in a long time. I felt brutalized afterwards but stretched, mentally alert, stabilized and ready for the day. Later in the day I found this photo. I want to be able to do this someday.

Lots of people scoff yoga because they say it hurts you. Well yes it does! Hello! Because your body isn't used to that kind of flexibility! Yoga makes you limber and very strong IF the poses are done ccorrectly. If you cannot breath into the stretch or ignore listening to your body, you WILL hurt yourself- most often the joints. But when you are doing yoga correctly, it takes so much more stamina than running, I am instantly hooked. Again. It's hard work, and so rewarding. I love the way I feel when I'm doing yoga and I love how I feel after yoga.

I've had an offer this week to go to Costa Rica and get 100 credit hours of Yoga Instructor in April. It would be awesome.

When a storm rolls in

This is a view I never tire of. This looks to the northeast and often when I look out this window I see weather changes in the clouds I never was aware of when I lived in the mountains. The intense black of the sky was imposing, looking like it was going to rain or snow with a furry! But then, the sun peaked through and illuminated the wheat field!

I appreciate trees. I went to Billings yesterday with a dear friend Tracey and saw lots and lots of Ponderosa Pines. I miss those stoic giants! I really laughed when Dustin told me that our house had trees! Oh I felt so disheartened when I saw, what I considered then, as scrub brush. But I do appreciate them now. The wind is howling today and they just stand there solid, most of them in the wind breaks, thankfully blocking some of the wind.

Knits n Randoms

Just found a sign that says

KEEP CALM ~ CARRY YARN

This is good advice. 

And this is what has become of some of my projects this month

Baby Sack

Hat for me, but my hubby modeled

With all this strenuous activities, one needs chocolate. So I made Scotcharoos which I'd never heard of until I married my husband. I had to make my own rice krispie cereal which I did by boiling rice as usual, but with some ginger ale. Then I spread it over a cookie sheet and baked it in the oven. Do NOT use sushi rice... it's too sticky and too chewy.

Then i discovered a wonderful kitchen! My favorite here is the antique stove!

A big new Toy

Last year Wibaux got 100 inches of snow. It started snowing in September and finally disappeared in March only to rain for two straight months. Basements flooded every night, every house had 3-5 sump pumps and could hardly keep up. They tell me this is not a normal situation, nor a welcomed one.

This year, they predicted 200 inches of snow. No one is sure where the knowledge came from as it is now the middle of January and no snow. To date, we've had 3 inches total all winter.

I think the reason we don't have any snow is because my father in law decided with the winter they had last year, he was going to buy a loader which is something he's always wanted. And he did. With a vengeance because this is what pulled up in the their yard a few weeks later.

Of course it arrived on a sunny day, but you can see them bundled up. It was 8 degrees outside with a howling wind that dropped the temp right around a balmy -20. Why does equipment ALWAYS get delivered on the coldest day of the year? It happens without fail that it's gelled up going down the road at 65 so naturally it doesn't start. They fiddled around for nearly 2 1/2 hours before Frosty showed up. That Terex either got tired of having ether poured to it, or knew Frosty meant business, for 20 minutes later we were in business. He won't smile at all, but this guy is excited!

Little towns, big distance

Big blue sky. This is a regular sight out here. I like the angle of the trail left by the airplane so arrogant of  what's going on below because it's 35,000 feet down. I imagine the occupants of the plane are busy reading world news, or the latest book and have no regard to what's happening on the ground. 

Miles of fence, billions of miles of wire, hundreds of thousands of acres that man doesn't see very often, and little towns of seemingly no consequence. 

But, it's a matter of perspective. Up that high, the world below looks like funny little ants aimless in their direction. And on the ground, the immenseness of the sky, the rise and valleys of the ground makes the ol world here seem huge and unconquerable. It doesn't seem possible to get anywhere when no matter where you are, the horizon meets the land with an endless amount of distance on either side.

Dustin woke me up one Friday morning informing me that I had to take him to Watford City. I got a lot of these photos on the way up and no photos of Watford. Why? Because I was in such shock as to what that town was like. I couldn't wait to get out of there. It was so scary, a tiny little town where the ants descended and made a sleepy little town, voted the Best Town in North Dakota a few years ago to a over run and under cared for metropolis. It's horrible and not a pretty sight with thousands of campers and trailers popping up like villages every other block and takes 30 minutes to get out onto a 2 lane road.

But this cute little town below is indeed a town. This is Trotters. All that is left is the school house and a church.

A week ago, I had a melt down. The kind that I cried and cried and cried for 12 hours, for absolutely no apparent reason and when that happens, the only therapy is to go home.

Except I couldn't go all the way home. So I went to a 2nd home up in Plentywood which is another cute town that I didn't get any photos of. I'm really bad at this! 

But I found refuge there, in the big country. We tore apart a basement and redecorated. I found my favorite chair in the world looking out to the rolling hills and farms beyond with a good cup of coffee and chatter for company. And found my equilibrium once again. I'm so thankful for 2nd parents and faithful, good, honest, friends. 

Here is part of our decor, a huge clock and 'wheat'.

There is a line I read somewhere that said, "There is nothing like a magnum of French champagne and a fountain to set you right again." I've not had the experience, but it is safe to say, there is nothing like French clothing and good company to set you right again. It truly works!

This is Regina, Saskatchewan. A cute little city, and fun shopping. I said this to a Canadian and she nearly died... clearly she only believes Winnipeg is the best!! And I'll have to take her word for it until I can compare the two! That photo is for you ASB!

One of the funniest sights I saw coming up to Plentywood was this. Antelope, next 7 exits. It is not a lie, nor are there any roundabouts, stop signs, or clover leafs. Nope, just straight road as you can see below... but there are indeed 7 exits. For 7 driveways, each 200 feet apart.

And then, we head on to Baker. An old cow town that became a dirty oil field town years ago. It's starting to clean up a bit and become a self respecting little town as there are adorable shops and a fabulous coffee shop and little things that make you feel loved by a small town and yet cultured from a city. Go to Lawler's if you ever are through there. You can't miss it. It's the yellowest of yellow storefronts you can imagine :) You can see a portion of it just to the right of the photo of town.

I crack up at the dumbest stuff... but this stop n go storage.... yep, they were in such a go, they didn't stop to finish the rest of the phone number!

The Bike

See this?

Bike.

Yep.

Not just any bike, but the bike that has an attitude. With a Kapital A. I have one in our house because, well, it’s good furniture after all. It holds towels and sheets amazingly well because, alas, we don’t have a dryer, and I’ve found that freeze drying towels and sheets outside don’t work as well. Plus it’s cold and windy which breeds crabbiness in me with quick abandon.

The furniture, aka The Bike and I have something to prove and I hate every blessed minute of it.

You see, I got married. That's NOT crabby. That's very very good- the best!! It's just the Bike part.

But, like all  wifely-poo’s do to prove to their hubbily darlings that love originates through a man’s stomach, takes it upon herself to cook divinely French rich sauces over chicken or fish with a side of a beautiful herbed brown rice that makes me tuck in with knife and fork and he nibbles politely oohing and ahhing over how nice it looks. And, because a job for me is in excessive scarcity, I stay at home puttering and muttering while he goes to work and is rewarded back home with beef ribs cooked with fantastic homemade BBQ sauce drizzled over red skinned mashed potatoes made with, Cream. Oh yeah. What’s that old verse? “big heart never liked little cream pot?” Tis true, tis true. Then, consider the gorgeous salads and homemade eggnog and cookies and slow baked apples that take at minimum four hours to cook at 200 degrees. Going even so far as to make stews and soups and homemade fresh bread right out of the oven with a pat of butter and slaved over beautifully canned little soldiers of apricot or raspberry jam that I made just a month after we got married.

Oh yes, there is a call to all newly married women who are on the hunt for the most outstanding recipe to stop him in his tracks and again renew his undying love like the day he asked me to marry him. How pathetic that I still think this may gain me flowers...

When I brought home chicken wings from the store looking horribly freezer burnt and a disgusting yellow orange because I didn’t have time to cook that night, he pounced on them like a cat, with a bottle of ranch and ate the whole platter. I watched feeling positively green/grey over how gross it is while he grunted his approval between bites finally coming up for air at the last one, and noticing my expression felt his duty to offer me one.  I declined, no words needed. I noted that I never knew the way to a man’s heart was with chicken wings that only took 12 minutes, including opening the package, and then dumping them cooked onto a plate.

Needless to say, that happy little background is why I’ve gained 12 pounds (if I’m really honest, 14 lbs) in four months and why I’ve decided to take a hard look at the bike. I have ALWAYS eaten like that. Mom cooked that way, I cook that way and nary a pound was thought over.

UNTIL.

I turned 30.

And got married.

This whole turning 30 thing I laughed unworriedly over aunties and friends saying your body changes  and I’ll have change my ways. All  taken with a laugh and a shrug while slicing off another slab of cake, ignoring their pleas that gravity takes over, pounds begin where there never was, etc. Well, it happens and horror of ALL horrors, I start talking about it with others or with my hubbly because there’s no one to talk to and when he says the same thing, “you look fine,” I stoop to writing about it. I muster that I have no pride left. I’ve never dealt with this quite in this fashion.

So bike and I. We have a forcible conversation every time I try to touch it. For one it’s a fairly new one and actually tells you how you’re doing. I’ve decided I’m rather partial to my gram’s old bike which was so ancient, you decided how you FELT how you were doing and took an early exit.

But back to this bike, it tells you how far you’ve travelled, how much time you’ve been at it and how many calories burned. I look down after 5 minutes and explode with rage and wondering how on earth I’m actually sweating. I hate sweating over exercise. I’d much rather be outside gardening and sweating under sun and sky or chasing cows and sweating in the muck or sweating in a tractor over bumpy ground with no AC because on those times you don’t know you’re really working out. It’s ever so much better.

However, I refuse to go outside. It’s a wind thing. And I detest the wind more than anything I’ve ever encountered. Exercise, coupled with wind lambasting me in the face, hating every minute of it….Yeah. Not gonna happen. So, just bike and me.

I’ve sweated over this bike. I have got up to 14 miles in 35 minutes and not one thing is happening to my body. No change. I may detest the bike more than wind.  (not really) But seriously. Why no change? I’ve done this for a month now, and rotated workouts etc and so on like my trainer husband tells me to do. Is it possible to “plateau” on your first day?? I’ll have to ask him.

I’m off for a bike. And a ½ cup serving of cottage cheese for lunch, with a little side of tuna. Oh ye French sauces....!