Wasn't That A Dainty Dish To Set Before The Queen?

Casper is boring me.  Or to be more precise, sitting in front of a computer ten hours a day and then coming home to, as Dean likes to call it, our hotel room, bores me.  After work we take Angus for a walk, eat dinner, clean up, watch TV, go to bed, get up the next day and do it again.  Consequently when we come to Sheridan, where we are this weekend, I’m always looking for something to do.  SOMEthing to do besides watch TV in a half-empty house. That’s why a few weeks ago I decided we should pull off the paneling, get the walls textured and then paint them. I really needed something to DO that didn't involve a remote control or a computer.

We've torn off the paneling.  It's been textured and we've been doing a bit of painting.
 

I really hope soon I will be able to show you the finished project.

We’ve spent the last three weekends up here priming and painting ceilings and walls.  Gosh, I’m beginning to hate painting.  But I hate being bored more.   

Last weekend when we were up here Dean said, “I need to tell you something.”  My heart sank.  “Oh, no, he found out I threw away the dog fur the last time I brushed Angus” I thought. But no.  It was much less traumatic.  He just told me that once we’ve finished with this living-dining room redo, I need to find a project that doesn’t involve him. 

This weekend, as much as I wanted to finish the last bit of painting, I told Dean he could do whatever he wanted to all day long on Friday.  Anything he wanted.  All day.  Because I knew Saturday it was supposed to rain and THEN we could finish painting.  I thought he would spend this gift from me organizing his garage/workshop so he could frame the windows and put on the baseboards in the house so he’d be able to 

create some kind of uniquely Dean object d’art.  But he surprised me by spending about five hours watching You Tube videos to help him figure out how to put together the special fancy chainsaw sharpener he’d purchased last fall.  Too bad he discovered he needs to order a different grinder wheel to fit his baby electric chainsaw but I’m sure those cottonwood branches hanging over the house aren’t going anywhere.

Since it was a warm and gorgeous day I decided to keep myself busy by trimming the potentilla.  By time I’d finished clipping and hauling 15 branch and dead-leaf filled tarps my body hurt so much Dean had to help

 

 

me get up off the couch where I had dropped after stumbling in from the yard.  My hand might have been a bit less claw-like if he would have realized the big 2-handle hedge shears didn’t work because the screw that was loose was in the clippers, not my head, and not because I was “probably clipping at an angle instead of straight on.”  But on the bright side, after using the smaller hand-held pruning shears my fingers were curled in the exact position I would need to hold a paintbrush later, and the scabs and scratches on my forehead and arms shouldn’t leave a scar. 

Later, in the wee hours of the night as I was fumbling for the Ibuprophen, a family hike in the Tongue River Canyon sounded like a much better plan for Saturday than more painting or yard work. 

Dean managed to contain his disappointment that we wouldn’t be painting.   

Where's Myra?!

Where's Angus?!

 Pierce and Emerson asked him geology questions and even listened when he answered which was a totally new experience for him. 

 We headed home just before the rain started

and on the drive I saw three bald eagles.  Every time I saw one perched high on a tree I thought about asking Dean to stop so I could take a picture but then I'd think it would just be a waste of time since all I have is a little point and shoot camera.  I finally decided that was just stupid so when I saw a Golden in a tree I decided just because I didn’t have a fancy camera with a telephoto lens it wasn’t a good not reason to try.   

 I should have had a fancy camera with a telephoto lens.

This morning we woke up to winter. I knew it was too early to think we wouldn’t get any more snow but, like dying, even though I know it’s inevitable, it’s hard to truly believe it’s really going to happen to me.  There was no yard work today.  There was no hiking today.  Dean wishes there had been no painting today.  But I wasn’t bored.  

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Wasn't That A Dainty Dish To Set Before The Queen?

Sleep Is Overrated

Six weeks have gone by since I last posted.  Six weeks that feel like six days or six hours or sometimes even six minutes.  More things have gone on during the last six weeks than normally occur in our lives during a six month period or maybe even a six year period depending on how motivated obsessed and crazed we are I am.  I haven’t had a chance to write over the past weeks because as it turns out, when time is at a premium, sleep is more important to me than blathering on uncontrollably about every little boring thing that happens in my life sharing interesting and comedic events of my life with you.  But I’ve become attached to this blog and even if nobody has missed reading it, I’ve missed writing it.  So even if this post is short, filled with grammatical errors, isn't pretty and lacks entertainment value, today, while my stress level is somewhat lower and my brain is functioning reasonably well on a tolerable (although still not ideal) amount of sleep, I’m going to briefly jot down just what has transpired in the Land of Stilwellian since we I was taken over by an alien being who sucked out my change is scary/take your time/weigh the pros and cons then weigh them again/sleep on it/don’t jump into anything brain and replaced it with a jump into it/storm the beaches/full speed ahead/change everything! brain.

As they say in "Glee":  Here's what ya missed:

•  Ryan accepted a teaching position in Sheridan. 

•  We all jumped up and down clapping and I shouted “I guess we’re moving to Sheridan too!”

• We all spent hours and hours at Leslie and Ryan’s house painting, packing, cleaning, tiling and moving furniture.

•  We helped at Leslie and Ryan’s garage sale where we got rid of parted with some of our junk precious possessions.  

• We spent two days (a week apart) in Sheridan checking out the real estate in preparation for purchasing the perfect house “sometime in the next two years.”  The last house we looked at on the last house hunting day was "the one".   I nearly begged Dean to let me call and make an offer even though it had everything I said I didn't want.  A huge lawn to mow, septic, propane heat, and is five miles from town.

 

Our creek -- running alongside our property

Family Room

Front of House and Dean's "man cave" aka garage

View from family room of part of our 1.5 acres

•   Dean began searching for my brain.

And what's been happening the past six weeks: 

 *  I spent hours talking to “Luke the Banker” … oh, if only I had time to post about my experiences with “Luke the Banker” … oh, how I could go on …

 *   Dean tried to plant a vegetable garden.

*   I intermittently worried I’d jumped into this whole buy a house and move thing too quickly and had moments of fear and panic when my chest got so tight it felt like I might be having heart issues.  I didn't add chest pains to my list of worries though because I'd already learned from my ER visit last fall (when I was worrying about how I'd get us from the airport to our vacation rental in Edinburgh) that chest pains are just my own special reaction to stress.

*   It was hot.

*   Most days I was exhausted.

*   Leslie and Ryan moved in with us.  Our house went from two adults and two cats to four adults, three children, two cats, a salamander and all the paraphernalia, clothing and toys that accompany them.

*  Weeds took over the garden.

*   Pierce got a puppy for his birthday.

Baxter.  Angus' brother.

*  We got a puppy.

Sir Angus Wallace MacDuff (Labradoodle/Bernese Mtn. Dog Mix)

*   Dean intensified the search for my brain.

*  We spent a whole day stringing a fence and building an it’ll-do-for-now gate in the backyard.

*  We took turns getting up at night with the puppy.

*   Myra got two gerbils for her birthday.

*   It got hotter.

*  Our house now included four adults, three children, two cats, a salamander two puppies, two gerbils and all the paraphernalia, clothing and toys that accompany them.

  
*   Myra said she “loves rodents because rodents are small and they scamper.”

*   We decided to use the next two years to fix all the things we would need to fix before selling our own house.

*   I was still exhausted.

*  An electrician replaced a ceiling fan, under-counter kitchen lights and a couple of broken switches.

*   A roofer replaced some missing shingles.

*   Two people gave me bids on repairing stonework on our garage.

*  Abby came home for a week to visit.  Yippeee!!!  She asked why we are fixing everything now when we said we would take care of it over a two-year period.

*   I collected and tried to organize ten inches of paper from "Luke the Banker" and our realtor.

*  We took Abby to meet Jorge in Omaha and visit family in Lincoln.

*  Abby sent in the VISA paperwork for Jorge.  Yippee!  Yippee!!  Yippee!!!

*  Fires burned around Wyoming and Colorado, it was 87 degrees in our house when we returned home from Lincoln and it smelled like we'd lit a campfire in the living room.

*  We got a bid for central air conditioning.

*  We spent a weekend in Denver visiting friends.

*   We drove to Sheridan and closed on our retirement home.

And here’s what’s comin’ up:

 *  Central air conditioning will be installed in our Casper house on Friday (Sheridan house already has it!)

*  We’re still going to be getting up in the night with a puppy.

*   Stonework will be repaired on the garage.

*  A “for real” gate will be built.

*   A puppy door will be installed in the garage door.

*  We will help load up two adults, three children a puppy, two gerbils, a salamander and all the paraphanelia that goes with them and unload them in Sheridan.

*  There will be crying after two adults, three children a puppy, two gerbils, a salamander and all the paraphanelia that goes with them have moved to Sheridan.

*  We will be trying to live in and maintain two houses for two years hoping that what we need or want at that moment isn’t always at the other house.

*  We will be spending as many weekends and any other days we can manage up in Sheridan.

*   I have a feeling we are going to need new tires or a new car or both.

*   Dean's search for my brain will continue.

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Sleep Is Overrated