Back to blogging?

It's been so long since I've blogged...literally years.  But it's been years since I've had much of interest to say.  Several times in the past few months, I've sent people links to my blog and I realize how awesome it was to chronicle things I would have certainly forgotten.

And of course, I realize how funny I am...at least to myself...but you know what?  I got that from my dad.  He thinks he's about the funniest guy around.  Sometimes he's just sitting there and he'll laugh.  He used to teach high school English.  He'd tell a joke, which usually no one got, and then he'd laugh.  And laugh.  And laugh...which usually then made the students laugh because it's fun to watch my dad laugh.  It really is.

Anyhow, I find myself doing the same thing when I read back over blog postings.  I think I'm funny and that's all that matters.  So maybe now that I have a milk cow and there are interesting things to talk about, I'll start blogging again.  I really couldn't tell you anything interesting about working in a Chiropractor's office...or going back to college...or working for a money manager.  But cows, now that's something interesting!

And really, I've turned into this crazy hippie about chemicals and food and stuff since working at the chiro's, so that might give me something else to blog about...in case any of you are interested in starting to make a shift.  I've found some things that really work, so you won't have to go through the trial and error.  And God bless Dow for going along with it.  I do love that man.  He buys me pigs.  And cows.  And keeps me in line.  He's a good man.

I hope we're off and running!

back amongst the employed

After having a 3 month hiatus from work - and diligently plunging ahead with wedding plans - I am back amongst the employed.  I suppose it's not nearly as exciting as dude ranching, but I am the Marketing Director for Irwin Family Chiropractic.  I think that sounds pretty fancy, don't you?  Just say it with me...Marketing Director.  Marketing DIRECTOR.  Yeah, that's right, I'm a director.

Ok, for those of you who are on my case about grad school, that is still in the works.  I've taken my GREs and I need to get on the application.  I'm getting there.

Right now, I'm going to be encouraging everyone to come in, get their back adjusted, get a massage to keep it there, and do their exercise to maintain.  Woohoo!

Anyone in Ft. Collins need an adjustment?  Lemme know!

biiiig news

I think the definition of "news" is that it is, well...new.  And I think if the news is 2 months old, it doesn't really qualify as, well, new.  But here goes anyhow.

Dow and I are getting MARRIED!  I had to wait to tell you until the proper people had been told in the proper way.

November 10, 2010 we went up to Lars and Amy's old cabin to join the Texans for music.  Oh geez, this is going to take some back story since I quit blogging around that time.  Alright, settle in!

Lars and Amy have an old cabin that they rent out by the night for people to get away.  In November 2009, The Texans came.  And endeared themselves to us, after staying in the cabin for a month.  The main Texans include George & Della, Bubba, and Leroy, whose family consists of What's-Her-Name and Her Kids.  Bubba has got an amazing voice, one you'd expect to hear on country radio and he plays the guitar.

So, this year, the Texans were back and we had dinner plans.  We were going up to the cabin where Della cooked up some chicken and dumplin's and we were going to play some music.  Except when Dow and I got there, Amy, Lars, and some new Texans were sitting around the table with cookies in the middle.  George, Della, and Bubba were nowhere to be found.  It turns out that Bubba broke his arm when his horse took off bucking and they were at the emergency room.

But there were still chicken and dumplings left, so Dow and I ate while everyone else sat there.  Then Lars said we should play music.  Without Bubba?  These Texans, and their teenage daughters, looked like they could care less.  And when Amy started to protest, Lars said, "Just a couple of songs; the girls really want to hear it."  Did I mention that the teenage girls looked like they could care less?  They even exchanged glances saying, "What the heck?"  And I thought to myself, "That's weird.  Usually Lars is really good at reading people..."  But, ok.

So they sang a song.  And then they chose another.  How about "Don't Fence Me in"?  Now there are a couple extra parts to this song.  First, the song says "Wildcat Kelly," but Amy always changes the name to someone there - 95% of the time she picks Dow.  Then there's the sheriff and the sweetheart, who are usually the male and female there who know the song.  Since she usually uses Wildcat Dow, I asked who the sheriff would be that night, since no one else knew the song.  So Amy decided Dow should be the sheriff and Leroy should be Wildcat.  Messing up Lars and Dow's plan, but she didn't know that since she wasn't involved in "the plan".

I had Leroy move to the middle of the couch; I sat on one side of Leroy and tried to get Dow to sit on the other, but he refused.  Instead he sat next to me on the smallest portion of couch possible and I wondered to myself why Dow had suddenly become so weird about sitting next to a man.  Until I noticed his hand cupped on top of his pocket.  And I wondered if he was going to do it then, but then I realized that I shouldn't think that way or every minute of our time together I'd start wondering if "this" was the time.  So we went on singing.

When it came time for the sweetheart's line, I sang to Leroy in my very finest, "It's time to settle down!" and that's when Dow tapped on my shoulder, pushed my leg, pulled out the ring, and said, "If that's the case, will you marry me?"  And everyone except Lars was flabbergasted.

Amy's mouth hung so far open, I think Lars had to tell her to close it.  And the Texans, well, they had no clue what to think and the teenage girls just filed out of the room as soon as they could.  I, as you might have guessed, said yes.

The ring was, is, absolutely beautiful.

He picked a ring from an actual jeweler and had a few tweaks made so my ring would be one of a kind, with diamonds and swirls on the side.

And you can see the whole diamond, which is really cool...until you forget to take it off when kneading bread.  Then it gets really nasty.

Anyhow, that's the big news.  Dow and I are engaged and we're planning on getting married August 27, 2011 at Amy and Lars' cabin.

Much love,

The Dow Wrangler

happy new year!

Happy New Year to everyone!  I hope you all celebrated in the best way possible...and survived to tell about it.  

Dow and I had plans to go to a house party with Amy and Lars, but then this "big" storm threatened to come in and they cancelled out of fear they wouldn't be able to get into, or then out of, their cabin.  And as it turned out, Dow, Amy AND Lars were all sick.  I already had the gunk, so I was fine.  It looked like a boring night in.  Until I guilted Dow.  

After a long nap and some food, he decided we should go into town for First Night.  First Night seems like a funny name for the last night of the year, but whatever.  They have all these different venues and different shows.  Since we didn't decide until the last minute, we missed the first 3 shows, but we made it to the last 3.  Dow, of course, let me pick them all, because he's nice like that.  

We started at the Masonic Lodge where we saw the Grupo Tlaloc Danza Azteca, which was, as you might have figured out, an Aztec dance group.  

They all wore these awesome big feather headdresses.  This wasn't even the biggest one.  I'm not sure if it was actually green or if it was the spotlight, but either way it was cool looking.

If you look down at their ankles, you'll see they have "things" on their legs.  They looked like walnut shells and made lots of noise.  They danced to the drums you see in the background, adding even more rhythm with their feet.  It was pretty sweet.

Next we headed - on foot, in 5 degree weather - to the Opera Galleria for "All the World is a Circus," where a "French" guy told us all about the things other countries did for their circuses.

Here he demonstrates, with volunteers, how the Chinese walked on big balls, turned a weapon into a big yoyo, and did lots of gymnastics type stuff.  

I don't have a picture of the last place because it was the Nonesuch Theater and it was the first act of a play.  I just didn't think I should take pictures in there.  They sucked us in and then offered half price tickets to see the rest of the show.  How could you turn that down?

At 10:30, they shot off fireworks in Old Town Square.  That seemed like a good idea until I saw people wearing snow boots and ski pants and suddenly my long johns seemed inadequate.  And they were.  It was freezing, but Dow luh-luh-loves fireworks and he did come to town even though he was sick and wanted to go to bed and he let me pick all the shows, so I figured it was the least I could do...suffer in the cold.

I promised Dow that we would go home after the fireworks, but by that point we were hungry again, so we decided to go get some food and a drink until the countdown. 

They even gave us sweet hats (I had a tiara!), noisemakers, and free champagne!

Even though Dow didn't want to go in the beginning, he told me several times last night and again today how much fun he had, so I'm glad we did something more than staying home.

I hope you had as much fun as we did!

the three big...

...pigs.

Remember, I told you that at some point, the pigs would be dinner?  Well, it's that time.  And the life expectancy of a pig for eating (not potbelly pigs), is just not that long.

But it's ok, because while they used to be really stinkin' cute.  They got big.

 And then they were only cute, not really stinkin' cute.

 Miss Piggy was getting biiiiig and Sally continued to be a runt, but we couldn't help that.

She worked what her momma gave her.

Since Brutus and Miss Piggy were big, it was time to go...or so we thought.

When we got to the meat processors', we saw this lil lady.  I wish there was a way to show scale here.  This pig was probably close to 5 or 6 feet long and about 900 pounds.  That, of course, is good for sausage, but not a whole lot more.  It's just too big.

Pigs are supposed to be 225 to 250 pounds when you take them in.  We figured they were close, but it turns out Brutus was the biggest at 190 pounds and as the lady at the butcher's said, "it just goes down from there."  I think they were making fun of us for being rookies.

 It was fun having them and while I knew it from the start, I'm still sad to see them go.

new business

When our time was drawing close at the ranch, Lenny and I started talking about starting a business together.  What business?  Well, lemme tell ya.  We went through a lot of them.  I think we've finally settled on the food business because, well, that's what we know.

Right now we're in the process of finding a location.  And working on our recipes.  Hopefully, if things start to pan out, I'll take you on this journey with us.

happy november!

I can hardly believe it's November 2 and still almost 70 degrees outside.  Ok, so this was believable when I was living in Florida - which I'm pretty much completely moved in (i.e. overrun Dow) - but in Colorado?  No way!

I took advantage of such a nice day by helping Dow unload the hay he picked up yesterday.  See, I thought that maybe I'd go for a run/walk (that's what you do when you can no longer run because your lungs have become couch potatoes), except after throwing 66 bales off the trailer, I was done.  Shot.  But really only my arms.  I always find excuses.

So I figured I'd better ride the baby.

Remember this cute little thing?

Well, after Georgia and I got the saddle on her, Tim, the Frenchman, got to riding her.  So she's pretty well broke now.  But she's still a baby.   When I went out to ride her, she was a complete brat!  You give a horse and inch she'll take a mile.

Here's the deal.  I brought her home with me when I left the ranch, since I'm about the only person small enough to ride her.

And she's seen the good life her compradres have.

Notice they are on the outside of the fence, just having a leisurely sunning in the spring.

So now she thinks she needs to be with them all the time.  Doing nothing.

But what she doesn't know is that Bimbo has work by herself for more than 6 hours at a time.  And China (chee-nuh, like Cochina doll) has to lug around a 6'6", 250 pound man for that long.  I think those girls should just tell her to get over it.

And enjoy the beautiful weather.

pumpkin carving

It's been a tradition of mine, at least since I moved to Jacksonville, to have a small, family-oriented pumpkin carving party.  And we decided to continue it here in Colorado.  Except, once Dow got involved, it wasn't so "small" anymore.

We invited most of the families, young and old, up the county road.  It was quite the turnout!

It seems cowboy hats were the standard, though.  Something a little different from the previous tradition.

 Even my parents came!  That's my Mom straight ahead and my aunt to the right.

And my dad in the middle.

The outcome was great.  There were pumpkins everywhere!

Some pumpkins were happy.

Some pumpkins were scary.  

Heck!  Some were even hungry! (And smoking...in front of my mom's elbow.)

 But there were pumpkins EVERYWHERE!

Regardless of this face, I think everyone can agree it was a SMASH!

update II

If I blogged all the time, I wouldn't have to keep giving you updates.  But I don't, so I do.

Let's travel back in time - doodledoo, doodledoo, doodledoo.

The month is April.  My roommate Sarah, crazy girl, tells me she's going to get married.  On July 31.  Of this year.  And she does it.  Which means, she's moving out to live with her husband.  Crazy girl.  And since she's my eyes and ears at my house, and well, let's be honest, things are going well with Dow, it's time to move everything out of my house, get a property manager, and rent the whole thing out instead of this Craigslist piecemeal stuff.

Dow and I come down at the beginning of August, with tons of help from Little Jessica and her husband, we get the house packed and moved into storage in about 5 days.  Ugh.  Oh yeah, and we had to repaint.

Somehow, while I love this wall, I guess not everyone else will.  Bummer.

I then realize how dumb it is to pay all that money for a storage unit - I planned on getting everything in April when we come back to sod - and bemoan all of my good kitchen stuff.

So, my parents and I drove down to Florida in Dow's truck and trailer.  Yes, 29 hours dragging this hugemongous thing.  And that's where we are now.  We have to try to fit everything from a 10x10x10 storage unit into this, now very small, trailer.

And drive 29 more hours home.

the pioneer woman

I love the Pioneer Woman.  In case you have no clue who she is, she's one of the top bloggers.  As in, she makes boocoo bucks...just from blogging.  She has her own cookbook out now.  And she's going to have a movie made about her one of these days.

So what does she have to do with me and my blog?  Well besides the fact that before she was big and famous, she's what inspired me to start my blog.  And more importantly, she's what inspired me to write this posting.  Why?  Because she wrote this article on Ten Important Things I've Learned About Blogging and one of them was this:

2. Blog often.

Whether you write a sixteen-paragraph essay about the cosmic implications of a free market system, a one-paragraph description of what happens to your soul when you walk into your godforsaken laundry room, or a simple photo and caption, consider your blog a precious bloom that requires daily nurturing.

And watering.

If you water a plant once every two weeks, it will shrivel.

Unless that plant is a cactus, and then it would thrive.

And to tell you the truth, I really can’t figure out how a cactus fits into this analogy, so forget I brought it up.

And you know, I've finally found how to keep my plants alive.  I just water them.  I don't fertilize them or anything.  I just give them lots of water.


So do you think it will work here?  The strange thing is, I kinda quit blogging, because, even though my stalker-thing tells me how many people are visiting daily - and people tell me I haven't been blogging - I think no one is really reading.  But you are!  If only I would write, you would read.  So I'll try to get back to it.  


I still take pictures for you.  I do.  Why don't I put them up?  Maybe the slow internet.  Would everyone please call Dow (don't email, he hates computers) and ask him for faster internet?  He might like computers better that way.


Anyhow, here's my first watering.  Here's to hoping for a great harvest!

poetry

Whewf!   At the end of July, Ellen told us this is what they call Dude Ranch Burnout.  And she promises we'll get a second wind.  It seems to me, that just when I hit a second wind, the storm pushes through and I'm tired again!  Which might explain why I haven't been on the computer, let alone blogging.

So for all of my loyal readers who are yelling at me for not blogging, I'm giving it another go.

Today, is poetry.  I briefly mentioned on Friday nights we have Cowboy Poetry.  And, as Dan always says in his Sunday Orientation speech, "Whose cowboy poetry, you ask?  Our cowboy poetry."  Everyone is required, yes that's right, required to write their very own cowboy poetry.  There are no rules other than you have to have something.

Well, you see, I generally have Fridays off, so I get out of poetry.  But that doesn't mean I don't make it into other people's poems.

Here's one for instance.  It's from a little girl, who was with her family and her parents' friends' family and she was the middle child.  So sometimes, she'd just give up and start crying.  But of course, with the way I learned to ride horses ("If you don't make that horse run, you will get off and you will not get back on!!!), I told her there was no crying allowed and she would have to be tough and make that horse do what she wanted...she needed to COWGIRL UP!

And so that's what she titled her poem...

COWGIRL UP

At first I was shy and a little bit scared

But I worked in the ring with rangilers who cared

One day on a ride I was scared and I cried

But LeAndra looked at me and said Cowgirl UP 

And I finished the ride!!

THE END!!!

LEANDRA ROCKS!

That's in her words.  I didn't add anything, I promise.  Even the last part.  Even the size of print.

But, here's an even better one.  This is from Domagoj (Doe-muh-goy).  

He's our dishwasher here, which you would know if I ever wrote my meet n' greets!  Notice that he's wearing the ugly hat that Oz picked specifically so no one would steal it???  Anyhow, back to poems.

LEANDRA

LeAndra, my our darling bright,

We miss you on Friday night,

You deprive us of your poem,

That would make Shakespeare look dumb.

On Wednesday nights you sing like an angel,

While sometimes you shout in anger,

I can't believe your sweet voice,

Can make such a horrible noise.

Those lovely freckles under your eye,

Can outshine a bright night sky.

Your strange and weird name,

Is the final fuel for your charming flame.

Of course, you can't have a poem like that and not have a response!  So here is the one and only poem I have, or will, write all summer.

DOMAGOJ

Oh Domagoj, our darling bright,

We miss you this Friday night,

You deprive us the words of your crush,

The likes of which could make a girl blush.

Your head is so shortly shorn,

A lack of hair is no reason to scorn,

You can still wash dishes,

Better than anyone wishes,

You speak with such a Croatian accent,

Be still my heart, lest I need a stent.

Ah, the name is Domagoj,

To the ladies it brings such joy,

But your heart I have to break now,

You're just not my sweet-lovin' Dow.

Ok, so maybe it's not my finest work - accent, on a time constraint, is a hard word to rhyme - but I think he appreciated.

Until next time!

lenny

This is Lenny.  Lenny is our cook.  And as you know, I like to give people nicknames to protect their anonymity, if they so care.  So, why did I name him Lenny?  A book, I've alluded to before, Of Mice and Men, has a character named Lenny.  And you see, Lenny is...special.  He's big.  Like our Lenny.  And he has this bad habit of loving things a little too...roughly.  Which means, when he's holding a bunny, he ends up killing it.  Our Lenny?  He has that effect on kitchen utensils.  He loves them.  He really does.  He just loves them a little too...much.

The other thing about our Lenny?  He almost didn't get hired here.  Why?  Ellen couldn't hear a word he was saying.  Oh he's not quiet.  He's just...distracting.

Let's start at at the top and work our way down.  

First of all, he's got this on his neck.  What is it you ask?  It's a deer skull.

It wraps around to his head.  Apparently he did wear a cap to his interview.  He wasn't sure whether the hat would be worse manners or showing the tattoos.  Apparently it didn't matter.  Ellen still knew they were under there and couldn't focus.

 

Even with long sleeves, this leopard shows his spots.  

But really, he's more recognizable with this - a bottle of Jameson.  His signature drink.

  

This arm is pretty neat.  You see, Lenny is a man of many talents.  While he makes his "real" living by owning a couple of bars in California, his passion is as an "exotic" animal trainer.  And the full zoo can be found on this arm.  When you have some time, you can explore all the animals that collide with each other.

Now, you might also notice the cast on his hand. You can blame us for that.  Yep, sure can.  Lenny is not afraid of animals, obviously (he's trained lions and tigers and bears, oh my!), so we've been teaching him to ride.  Except that when we were loping, and I turned around to let him know that the people in front of me were stopping, he pulled his reins back and to the left.  Cimarron (her real name), did what he asked and stopped to the left.  Except Lenny continued going right.  Right over the side.  In the process, his middle finger got caught in the reins.  And broke it.  

Broke it good.  

But those surgeons fixed it good, too.  Like the pins?

Fortunately, he forgave us.  And he still loves us.  And still cooks for us.  And for that, we love him.  Ok, so we love him anyhow.  But I just wanted you to know we love his cooking.  A lot.

So this is him in all his glory.  In fact, this is his self-imposed uniform.  I think the most I've ever seen him vary from this is black jeans.  He had to get some new ones, since he ripped a pair.  

There you have it.  Just like last summer, once Georgia leaves, I realize I haven't done any meet 'n greets.  So I'll get going on them.  And they'll be farewells instead of meetings!

the three little...

!!!!PIGS!!!!

Remember a few weeks ago (ok, let's be honest, it was about two months ago), I promised you a surprise?  And then it didn't happen?  Well, a month ago, it did!  (The dichotomy of a blog?  The more you have to blog about, the less time you have to blog!)

Here's the story.

I have always wanted a pig.  At least I can remember being 7 and wanting a pig.  You see, they have what they call a  greased pig contest at the Lincoln County Fair every year for girls of a certain age.  I'm pretty sure starting at 7 and ending around 11.  And for those of you who know me, I'm of a slight build...always have been.  But some of those farm girls are pretty stout.  So I never caught one.  I'd be happy when I had grease on my hand to prove I'd touched one.

My dad almost bought me one, but somehow, he changed his mind.

20 years later (please don't do the math...), I still wanted one, which means I've been working on Dan for over a year to get pigs.  But it wasn't until Dow came into the picture, that Dan finally caved.

But let's get this out there before you read any further and fall in love with the pigs.  The only way I was getting a pig, with my dad and or Dow, was that we would eat them when they're full grown.  And it doesn't take pigs long to get full grown.  So there you have it.  Yes, we are going to eat these pigs.  I'm sorry.  -- Check back in about 6 months and I show you some great pork recipes!  (Was that too much?  Sorry.  Sometimes city and country humor just doesn't cross over...)

The first night they got here, they were scared to death, but within the first week, they became friendly.

So without further ado, let's meet the three little pigs!

This is Sally.  She's the runt.

And Miss Piggy.  Original, I know, but I couldn't come up with anything else.

Finally, Brutus.  The original name.  You see, before we got the pigs, I cleverly gave them Shakespearean names.  And Dow told me they'd be males, so one was "Oedipig Rex" or Rex for short, and "Eat you, Brute?" or Brutus for short.  (My dad was just glad that one was Pig Latin.)  But we ended up with two females and only one male, so I had to come up with names on the fly.  Don't ask me where Sally came from!

And if there's any doubt in your mind where the term "being a pig" came from, check this out.

But you have to admit...they're undeniably cute!

Not to mention a dream come true!!!

guilt

I'm thinking that maybe I should consider becoming Catholic.  Guilt comes so naturally to me!  It's been darn near a month since I blogged last and I'm not sure if I should feel guiltier about that or about the fact that I haven't run since that last blog.  I just hope that my body is as forgiving as you are!

I've got two blog posts started from a month ago...which hopefully will get posted soon.  Hopefully, right?

But let me tell you, in the meantime, what has kept me so busy since then.

I kept one of my tutoring students and she brought on a friend for the summer.  Uff!  Remind me not to do that again next summer if I'm still dude ranching!  This job is really a job and a half, without adding anything else to it.  Anyhow, last week was their final, which means crunch time.

And...now Floridian friends, please do not kill me on several accounts (here comes the guilt again...).  I was in Florida last week.  Why, you ask?  Because my roommate up and got married on me.  And moved out.  Seriously.  Dow and I discussed my options and we decided that I wasn't comfortable enough to have random Craigslist strangers in there without anyone I knew there to supervise.  I mean, all of my stuff was there for goodness sake!

Sooooo...we flew down, painted the crazy wall. 

Made it the same neutral color as the front room.

Packed everything up, sold what we could (including the piano).  Pressure-washed the exterior of the house.  Shoved everything into a storage unit.  And turned it over to the property manager who will hopefully rent it to a retired couple who has nothing better than to take care of their house and yard.  A girl can dream, right?

And the only people who knew we were there was Little Jessica, my Florida dad, and my friend who lent us the pressure washer.

May I just tell you that I think we worked harder in the 5 days we were there then we do here...and we work darn hard here!  We're exhausted.

So, if you will, please forgive me, so I can go on with my life.  And I'll be guilt-free...

...until my next confession.