out of the mouths of babes, part 268

According to Anna, this classmate is "just pure evil."



Well, at least now we know why.

::life list, part 1::

Melissa over at Suburban Bliss posted part of her life-list today, and it inspired me to do the same. Similar to a bucket-list, but I don't plan to kick the bucket any time soon. So here are a few things I want to do in my lifetime, in no particular order.

* Learn to speak Italian so that I can...

* Spend a year living in a small Italian town, fully immersing ourselves in Italian culture (and food)

* Para glide

* Learn to tap-dance and/or clog

* Sew a dress for myself that I feel GREAT wearing. Preferably from a vintage pattern

* Sing in public (and not embarrass myself)

* Take David to see Gillian Welch perform live

* Take Anna to The Museum of Natural History and The Smithsonian

* Own a horse

* Build something out of wood with my own two hands

* Sell something I've made myself

* Spend a few weeks alone on a tropical island with David (not, you know, STRANDED on an island. Definitely an island with hammocks and someone to cook fresh fish for us and bring us drinks)

* Go back to Switzerland

* Learn to cook Indian food

* Learn to yodel

* Finish a marathon

* Go birding in Texas and/or Florida

* Go to "The Campout" with my girlfriends

* Go to New Orleans

* Drive across the US in a vintage convertible

* Buy and refurbish a vintage Airstream trailer (possibly to pull behind our convertible as we drive across the US.)

* Visit at least one house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

* Spend the entire summer at a cabin on a beautiful mountain lake

* Learn to make authentic gelato

* Go back to the little cabin I grew up in and walk through it. And also walk the trail up behind it to the W's ranch, to see if it was as far as I remember it.

* Build a tree house

* See the Aurora Borealis

* Float the Colorado River

* Eat at Cafe Poca Cosa again

* Fly into a remote Canadian or Alaskan lake by float plane

* Own a Vespa scooter

Sure, some of these might only happen if we win the lottery. But a girl can dream. Now, what are some of yours? Either post them in the comments or on your own blog. But be sure to let me know so I can read 'em.

Because we woke up to 4 inches of new snow, goddammit, and I need a laugh today.

(be sure to have your sound on)

Red Horse Mountain Ranch

So. worth. every. penny.

The "crik". The colors of the rocks were so beautiful.

(for our friend Syringa)

They are refurbishing the saloon, where they'll have live music and dancing. It sits down in the field amidst the horse pastures.

Anna practicing to be a "wrangler".

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

This sweetie-pie is related to the hairy beasts that live on their ranch in Boise. I've been charged by those long-horned monsters before; they don't like to have their pictures taken, for the record. This one, Belle, really was sweet, and she LOVES to eat muffins. And, uh, anything else.

aaaaaaaaaaa

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

This is Poco; he had the most gorgeous markings. I want him.
aaaaa
aaaaa

This place is so magical. From the moment we arrived, we felt like we'd come "home". As we arrived, someone came bounding out of the lodge, greeted both Anna and I by name and carried in our luggage. She gave us a great tour of the property and told us to be sure to stick around after dinner for the cowboy poet. After we ate, they set up a comfy leather couch in front of the huge stone fireplace and he serenaded us as Anna lay in my lap. The other guests hadn't yet arrived, so it was just me and Anna and the wranglers, enjoying this crusty old guy with the voice of an angel.

(A note about the "wranglers": they are all 20-somethings who share a common love of horses. They live on the ranch, some year-round, and you can feel the sense of community. It would be Anna's dream job (mine too, if I were 20 years younger), to live on that gorgeous ranch and spend each day caring for and riding horses. Some of them come for a season or two and end up staying for years. One of our wranglers was raised in Connecticut and was on a yuppie career-path when she realized that she didn't want to spend her life in pantyhose and heels, surrounded by sky-scrapers. So she made her way out west and she's been on the ranch for 8 years now.)

As we were eating breakfast the next morning, one of the gals came and sat down next to Anna and very solemnly said "I just talked to the wranglers and they're short-handed down at the barn this morning. We don't know how we're going to get the horses ready to ride in time. Do you think you might be able to help?" Anna just BEAMED. She didn't even finish her breakfast because she didn't want to be late. They put her to work brushing the horses and even had her pick their hooves. She loved every minute of it.

We got to go on two long rides on Saturday; despite it being chilly and there still being some snow on the mountain, it was so beautiful and Anna had perma-grin the entire time. She charmed the wrangler ahead of her by talking the entire time, telling her everything she knew about horses (which is A LOT) and the different experiences she's had riding. She remembers the name (and breed and color) of every horse she's ever ridden.

Yesterday I received the nicest email from the owner, thanking us for our visit and saying how "extraordinary" everyone found Anna to be and that she was on his radar to become a wrangler in 2020. It was very cute. He also said that, as a fellow Boise High School grad, I would be entitled to a life-long discount; the discount code is the name of an eccentric teacher we discovered we'd both had and had shared a laugh about.

I'm telling you, the ranch is so beautiful and the people so charming, that by the time you leave you are already plotting how soon you can come back. I know I am.

It's official.

This post will mean nothing to those not related to me, because if you didn't know my grandma, you won't know WHAT the hell I'm talking about. So either move along to dooce.com, or you're welcome to stick around while I once again prove what a dork I am.

My grandma Gertrude was a....trotter. By that I mean she, well, trotted wherever she went. It was a matter of efficiency you see: if she was in the kitchen and it was time to pull the laundry out of the dryer, she trotted to the laundry room. If she was in the living room and the timer went off, she trotted into the kitchen because, you know, that .021 seconds she saved by trotting could be used elsewhere, later. I don't know that any of us gave grandma's trotting much thought until we started to notice our mother doing it too. Oh, she tried to pretend she wasn't trotting (she still denies it) but every time she trots through the house from one task to another, my sisters and I give each other a knowing glance that says "oh yeah, she's totally turning into grandma".

Well, as my sisters and I grew older, and we found ourselves pulled in several different directions, there may have been one or two times we caught ourselves trotting. I remember when I first moved out on my own, I'd come home from work and be so looking forward to collapsing on the couch in front of the TV, that I, maybe every now and then, caught myself trotting from the bedroom where I'd changed into my comfortable clothes to the kitchen where I'd grab a bowl of cereal for dinner. Because the .021 seconds I'd saved by trotting? Meant an extra .021 seconds on the couch in front of the TV. I'd laugh to myself and swear that no one EVER needed to know about this. But then, of course, when I got together with my sisters, I'd have to confess that I'd caught myself trotting....which meant it probably wouldn't be too long until I started keeping used kleenexes and stuffing them up my sleeves or in my bra to use again later.

Anyway, I just got back from a visit with my physical therapist. I'd gone, a couple of weeks ago, to have a running analysis done. That's when they have you run on a treadmill while they film you. Then they enter the video into a special program that allows them to analyze your gait and determine what is causing your pain. You know, do you pronate? Do you supinate? Are you landing too much on your heels instead of flexing through your entire foot when you run? Two weeks later then have you come back in to tell you what they've determined and how you can work with your issues to eliminate the pain.


Well, after analyzing the data, his official diagnosis?



I'm a TROTTER.

Who's the best mom in the world? Huh? Who is?

SSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Don't tell Anna, but I'm surprising her with a overnight trip to Red Horse Mountain Ranch this weekend, in honor of the fact that it's Spring Break. Since we took our big trip to Maui in February, Anna's Spring Break is going to consist of being shuttled around between her dad and boths sets of local grandparents.

But we GOTTA do something, don't we??

Eric and I had taken Anna to Red Horse Mountain for her birthday few years ago, and she hasn't stopped talking about it since. But since then the ranch was purchased by the Tertling family; they're from Boise and when I was little, they owned what amounted to a mini "Wonderland" (you know, like Wacko Jacko) with a full-sized railroad (!) around their property, a carousel for their kids and llamas wandering about. Anyway, since they purchased the ranch, it's gotten prohibitively expensive for "regular folk", meaning everyone except wealthy east-coasters in search of a "real dude ranch" experience. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Anyway, because it's the "shoulder season" they made me a great deal. So! I'm going to pack all of her stuff tonight and I'll just load her up in the car tomorrow and not tell her where we're going. Then we'll settle in to a cozy tiny log-cabin, have dinner followed by Cowboy Poetry by the big stone fireplace and then spend most of Saturday riding horses. She's gonna hate it. :)

(The above photos are from Red Horse Mountain's Face Book page. Yes, even dude ranches have FB pages now.)

Now git on out there an' have a great weekend ya'll!!



Yeeehaaaww!!

::craft geek part 84::

Yesterday my niece, Jacki, threw down a challenge: she'd seen some very cute felt-flower headbands and, knowing how I love me some felt, asked me if I could do something similar.


I went home, dug into my copious stash of felt and got busy cutting. This is my first attempt, and I learned some things: extremely sharp scissors are KEY. Mom, I would like to say right now, on the record, that I now understand why you were such a Nazi about keeping us kids from using your "good sewing scissors" to cut things like, oh, cardboard and wire. I apologize for using them to turn all my Barbies into dykes.


Anyway! I also woke up in the middle of the night (thanks, Jacki) thinking that next time I'm going to try spraying the crap (yes that's a technical craft term) out of the felt with STARCH before cutting it, to make the cut edges that much cleaner. Also, my mom had mentioned that little girls might not appreciate (or keep on their noggins) traditional stiff headbands, so I picked up a couple of these stretchy headbands. It's not too shabby for my first attempt but nowhere near as cute as the ones Jacki saw on etsy.



The important part is that it must be worn as a headband, NOT as one of those ridiculous garter-belts some mother's put on their babies. This one is intended for Jacki's sweet little blondie, and I think her hair is FINALLY long enough to wear it properly.