The Life I Always Wanted

I had a somewhat blissed out weekend, in which I decided that I probably have the life I always wanted...except that I don't know that I ever really had a specific life in mind. I guess the point is that I have a bit of serenity at the moment (this, too, shall pass!). I am grateful for the people in my life and stuff I get to do fairly regularly, and nothing too major to whine about.

I have healthy, smart, fun kids.

My husband loves me and I love him.

I have two dogs who also love me...of course, I am also the one who remembers to fill their water bowl, but I'll take it!

I have a home AND a tacky little trailer by the water

I have plenty of art supplies for just about anything I want to do (that doesn't mean I have ENOUGH, just that I recognize that I do have alot)

I have friends and family within a moment's notice

I got to take a nap in a hammock the other day

I am creative and clever and I am almost never bored

How is that for a gratitude list? I little corny, maybe, but it's still good to make a list now and then. I try to remember to make a list of at least five things at night before I fall asleep, but alot of the time I fall asleep before I get very far. Which is something to be grateful for in itself...the ability to fall asleep relatively easily most nights!

Now today my rat allergies are cranked up to about 11 on a scale of 1-10, we are in the middle of a big old experiment at work and I am just an itchy, sneezy mess. I look like hell, and I can't put on any makeup to hide that fact because it would just run off with the eyes and the nose...but I am working at being grateful for a job that I like (with the obvious exception of our research animal!), and grateful that the guy who invented benadryl. Nothing else works quite as well. I a bit foggy, but I'm functioning!

I also have a "be careful what you ask for" item: One of the Goodyear Guys is also a shepherd...and I told him that I am a spinner so he brought Tom three big bags stuffed full of raw fleece--woo hoo! so I dumped one of the bags in the driveway last week and started to 'skirt' it...which means pulling out anything icky, like "dung tags" which might also be referred to as 'dingleberries' or simply 'poo' and burrs and stuff...there were LOTS AND LOTS OF BURRS! What the heck were these sheep doing all last fall? My goodness! I tore my hands up and make a big mess in the driveway, but I managed to get a laundry basket full of de-burred fleece to wash...there is alot of lanolin in that fleece, too! three trips into hot water and the spin cycle in the washer...and I now have a laundry basket full of hay and fleece...I have been carding the wool so that I can spin it, but it's still pretty nasy stuff...I think I might have to learn to weave rugs or something.

THEN, I took the next bag down to camp to dump it, and bought some gardening gloves to protect me from the burrs...and SURPRISE! No burrs! Not a one! This bag had a good bit of poo to pull off, but I think this must me lambs wool, because it's got a much shorter staple length and lots of hay, but very few burrs. It's much finer stuff. I washed it a bunch down at camp and it was nice and sunny on saturday so it dried out pretty well. I haven't started to try to card it because I am still working on the first batch...but I'm learning that maybe I don't want to retire to the side of a mountain and raise sheep after all!

Norris Lake

Sam, getting his comeuppance from Luke. Sam has been regularly beating the tar out of Grandma Mary, so it was refreshing for the rest of us when Luke won. Sam is still smarting, but I think he needs that!


We have been back from vacation for over a week, so I really think it's time to get those pics uploaded!



We had a great time at the lake. Our house, named "Bullwinkle" for reasons I am not privy to, was very nice. Ninety three stair steps from the house to the dock, so we all came home with serious glutes! The weather was beautiful, too. It only rained on the last day, so we got lots and lots of sun and fun.

Getting ready to go boating. The water was so clear and green there!

I have to practice relaxing. I am so used to being needed somewhere that I was a little nervous with all of the free time I had...I kept feeling like I needed to be doing something somewhere else. This was probably the first vacation we've been on where we didn't have to pay attention to the kids 100% of the time. The cousins were there, so our kids hung out with them alot and didn't really talk to us very much!
Mark, Nancy and the kid from the house next door relaxing on the mega station floaty thing


I did wind up needing to go to Walmart to buy fabric while we were there because even though I took a quilt to work on, it wasn't 'getting it' for me, so I had to buy something and start a new project. I'll post pictures of it one of these days.
Niece-in-law Danean with great nephews Mason and Johnny.


On the way home we stopped for dinner at the Sander's Cafe--across the street from the location of the first place that the colonel made fried chicken. It was a KFC and a museum in one. Interesting. It made me want to take one of those road trips across the country to see all of the obscure monuments and such...you know, like the world's largest ball of twine.



Peace!