Some pics

Noah is just a'chillin

Despite our best efforts, allergies...she loves the cats.

A southern bell

A swimming spot that a friend showed me two summers ago. Perfect! The fall is about 10 ft tall, and there is a pool of about 5 ft underneath.

The kids loved throwing off rocks from the edge

This is looking upstream on McDowell Creek

The weather here has been hot...hot...hot. At least 100, or over, depending on the time of day. Kids' have gone swimming, and we'll probably do that again today; after I get back from Albany. Yesterday I went to Corvallis and dropped off some resumes and today I'll hit Albany.

I am very anxious about finding a job. I need a job. I need to feel like I am in control of my own financial responsibilities, and not having to rely on Mark or my parents. I feel that I am an adult and as such, I have things that I am expected to care for. Financially contributing to my parent's house while they are helping feed and house us is one of them. I am certain that my family, with their open and giving hearts, do not mind us and are more than willing to bite the extra money that suddenly feeding three extra kids bring. But, add that up over a period of time and it does make a difference, and they are already sacrificing time and space for the kids and I. Even if all I can contribute is a measly $25/week: it is the effort that means something to me.

There are lots of free concerts at the Parks here and I am excited to take the kids to those. It is nice to hear a variety of music on a summer night. I remember going to Beausoliel once in Albany; it was great! I even got them to play my favorite song! And, the parks are all along a river...nice. :)

I have pictures on the camera, but I discovered that my camera software is not compatible with my parent's computer, and to install a compatible system requires a CD that is currently sitting in ND. Sorry folks.

Arrived...finally

After what felt like too much driving, I finally drove up my parent's driveway. Over 1500 miles and about 6 hrs of sleep.

I left Mn, ND after 10:30 pm and drove until Miles City, Mt. where I slept for almost 2 hrs in the car, and than drove again until Bozeman. It was perfect. The kids' slept the entire time and I covered most of the boring stuff at night. Later, we visited the ph 2.5 balanced lake of Anacada mine (it is an old strip mine that they are letting fill back up with water) in Butte. The best part of that day was our visit to an old mining Ghost Town in the mountains. The road was scary, but my car did very well. It was one of those logging/back mtn. roads that start out nice and pretty, but you turn up a corner and find yourself hugging the cliff on a narrow rocky road with absolutely NO WHERE to turn around. It was great! If I had had a truck or SUV (in good condition) I'd have been going faster than 5-10 mph. :) And, Hannah was loving the view!

When we arrived at the parking lot you had to walk down a path, and it was like stepping back in time. The air smelled of pine needles and the path was soft under our feet. You could also hear the buzz of working bees on the wild flowers. Neat. The kids' had an awesome time walking through all the old buildings and making up stories of this and that. They loved it! They said it was better than playing at a playground.

Thankfully a volunteer at the old town told me of an easier way to get off the mountain, and we made it back to civilization in quick (safe) time. We went to a lovely park in Missoula that is along the river and hosts an absolutely fabulous old-fashioned merry-go-round. It is fast too! So, the kids' played in the park and we went around the merry-go-round a few times.

The town of Missoula is amazing. I love the vibe there! I'd be very content to live there. There are three amazing kayaking/fishing rivers nearby and the town is crawling with bicyclists, hikers, runners, and college students. A Starbuck's agent told me that people often arrive to go to UofM and never leave. I think that if I lived there, Mark would never have to worry about me again. I'd have so many women-friends of like interest that he might become concerned I was changing my "status". (a joke)

Than after we left Missoula the tough part came. I was working on only 2 hrs of sleep. I'd drive until my eyes crossed, than find a SAFE place to pull-over and sleep until I woke (averaged 1.5 hrs) and drive again. Repeated this until I hit Umatilla, OR and than just drove until I got home. When I finally went to take a nap, I slept until 9 the next morning!

Well, I'm glad to be home and off the road. Kid's are adjusting to the pollens/animal-duff and other various forms of aerial pollutants. We have Hannah junked up on allergy medicine (alternative and non-alternative alike), Natty is "always" hungry, and Noah is just kicking it around. He already went rafting down the river today.

Later.

One thing I wish my mom had taught me

...was about all plants that are known for giving intense, burning, itching rashes. Now, she did teach us all about the lovely Pacific Poison Oak, and it taught us all about it's ability to breakout our skin in huge blisters that ooze slimy liquid. But, we never learned about Poison Ivy (and its various forms).

Now...I am paying the price. Let me take you back first to the impressionable years of my childhood. While we were young and growing my mom taught us girls all about the "squat", and how it never hurt anyone as long as we did not share our bare bottms to the world, and used flat, broad green leaf plants to wipe our rears. If we decided not, or could not, drip-dry.

To give credit where credit is due, my mom did tell us the story about our grandmother (her mom) not knowing what Poison Ivy was and using it as toilet paper and how it got so bad she had to go the the hospital for a steroid shot. I remember us girls would groan in sympathatic understanding, but I do not remember ever being shown this evil plant.

Guess what everyone? The Poison Ivy vine leaf is flat, broad and green.

Where was I? you wonder. Running along the river of course. :)

POST NOTE (6-21):

I had to go the doc and get steroids. You can not imagine...

My dad is a soul that has journeyed through a lot. And in his journeys he acquired wisedom. Sometimes we listen and sometimes we act with the haste of our youth, but always his understanding is there.

Once my dad asked me if I knew the parable of the grasshopper and the ant; as told in Proverbs. I said, no. He said that I should read it because I reminded him of the grasshopper and that I should try to be the ant. I read, and was sad. I did not want to be the grasshopper. So, in little ways that conversation has guided me ever since.

One day while on the internet I found the below story and laughed really hard, and really long. In this case, I wouldn't want to be the ant...(and, Ayn Rand wrote a good book on this subject)

>ORIGINAL VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building hishouse and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper think she's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no foodor shelter so he dies out in the cold.

>MODERN AMERICAN VERSION
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth,this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Then a representative of the NAAGB (The national association of greenbugs) shows up on Nightline and charges the ant with "green bias,"and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism.

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when he sings "It's not easy being green."

Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News to tell a concerned Dan Rather that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during theReagan summers, or as Bill refers to it, the "Temperatures of the80's."

Richard Gephardt exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."

Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act," Retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of greenbugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panelof federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare moms who can only hear cases on Thursday's between 1:30 and3pm when there are not talk shows scheduled. The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits ofthe ant's food while the government house he's in, which just happensto be the ant's old house, crumbles around him since he doesn't know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on theTV, which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food,they are showing Bill Clinton standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats announcing that a new era of "fairness" has dawned in America.

Reflections

I've been reading this book that my mom sent called, "Dakota: A Spiritual Journey", and I'm actually enjoying it. I think part of my problem with not adjusting to this place is my lack of ability to get out of the city (alone!). Yes, I have a car, but in the last four years I have been bond to my job, kids, and house (for the most part). My break-aways have been when I have made the journey west to visit home. On occassion I have been to Cross ranch (alone x1), or down to the river, but it has all been on a limited time frame and I have had a purpose: run.

The other day when I went with Mark and the kids to Lake Nelson I really sensed something different. I sensed a stirring in my spirit, and it seemed that the call of the birds was the voice of that peace. I long to visit the place again, alone, and listen. Listen to the quiet, look at the stretch of grass that grows into the horizion, watch the birds as they play their mating games, and watch the sky.

You have never seen a storm until you have seen it appear on the horizion and than watch the sky change as it moves over you. The thunder and lightening humbles you, but stirs a wild passion in you too. It mixes fear, awe, and excitement. I love the storms here.

The smell of the countryside as the wind carries the scent of the grasslands is amazing too. But, after a storm when everything comes to you fresh from the burst of rain is almost indescribable. If they made the scent into a candle (and it actually smelled like it) it would be a best seller.

Back home, I was granted many opprotunities to be alone and experience something with the land. I think that is why I am spiritually connected to my home. I feel a deep and satisfying peace when I am there; and a sense of re-birth. But, I believe that those feelings can be created here as well; I just need time and opprotunity to experience them.

Mountains, the coast, and rivers with waters so clear that I can see the tiniest pebble on the bottom are a part of me. I breathe new life when I sit along the shore and hear the water tumble over rocks and watch an American Dipper bird find lunch. I feel a connection to the heavens when I sit atop a mountain and gaze over the land, or hear the wind whisper through the pines. However, I can also create something here. The seeds have been planted in my love of the Dakota storms, or the wide variety of birds (this is a flight path for many migrating birds from Mexico to Canada and visa-versa) that I love to observe, or the smell of the grass that blows across my face. I just need to time and opprotunity.

I may never love the land of the Dakotas as much as I love the lands of the Pacific Northwest, but in the same light...Mark may never love the lands of the Pacific Northwest like he loves the land of the Dakotas. Where we grow up is often where we find ourselves, but we can find out many things about ourselves in other places too.

When I took this I realized that the wind moved the camera, despite my best efforts. Actually, I kind of like it. When you get out in the countryside, where there is the silence of the wind and the calls of the many, many birds...it is really quite beautiful. The sky is your cathedral.
Miss Fancy-pants.
Limo-ride?

Pics I like

If you only knew...

I am not going into the details of my financial life. But when I read, "The money must be coming in by the truck load. A trip to Oregon, new car. WOW, I wish I had that much money" from some anonymous post my porcupine bristles stand on their ends. How should I take this??

All I can say is: if you only knew. How I wish that money could be picked from my magical garden in the light of the full moon. Or how I could just bend my knee in humble prayer and supplication and receive the answer in the mail for the rest of my life.

So instead I aim for higher education to increase my earning potential, and do what I love and love what I do. I aim to work while 'vacationing' in OR to pay my bills, etc. and I worry about the stupid IRS thing.

Obviously you must not know me, if you meant that comment with any sense of sarcastic tone. Even though it is basically my friends and family that have this link.

Pissed!

Today I got a nice thick envelope from the IRS, and I think. "Crap, this can't be good." I mean, they normally do not think to send you a nice long letter flowing with kind words about how hard you work to help fund the government. I open it.

"...information we have does not match entries on your 2004 Form 1040A. If this information is correct, you will owe $942."

Can I make my tax preparer pay the money since it is his data entry mistake? Through my investigation of our documents I see that we gave him the correct data, he just didn't read it, or understand, it correctly. Since he has no kids left at home, pretty much owns his own home, and takes vacations to CA...can I make him pay?!

I am going to call him and point out his error (nicely). I wasn't planning on trying to fork out another $100 bucks more or less every month till it gets paid. Oh, and it earns...interest.

Plus, will he have made other errors? Ohhh! It steams me!

Thank you

I see that the majority (being that 100% of you) have thought that I should keep the length and just clean it up (as eloquently written by Mario). So I shall. But, I do not promise that it will EVER be maintained for nice pictures. :)

I would like to say: I am incredibly happy for a friend of mine. She has made a decision in her life that lends me to believe that she is happy (not work related), content, and at peace. I am thoroughly happy for her. Thoroughly happy.

“May the love hidden deep inside your heart find the love waiting in your dreams.

May the laughter that you find in your tomorrow wipe away the pain

you found in your yesterdays.”

I think that I have figured out part of my kid's "problems". Nat (age 3) thinks she is not a 'toddler', but a BIG kid. So, anytime she thinks she is being kept from something because she is smaller, she has a distinct verbal argument with you. Hannah (age 5), is too smart for her own good. She connects things together too well, and unfortunately, she feels that she is not getting the "fair" end of the deal most of the time. That leads to all kids arguing why the way it is IS fair, and that she shouldn't be getting her way. Yes, even Nat can argue this, but it is more whining than conversation. :) Noah (age 7) just gets tired. Tired of listening to Hannah complain that it is "NOT fair!", tired of Nat whining that she doesn't get to do it too, and tired of mom throwing her hands up in the air and telling everyone to "BE QUIET". (Do you see why our trip out to OR will take its sweet time? The young'uns must be let out of their cage every 3-4 hrs.) Noah is also tired of talking to me and having a sister interrupt, poor boy can hardly get a conversation in w/o somebody else piping up, "Mom? Mom? Mom?!" But, at least my kids get along for the most part, and have great talks between themselves. Still, when they are tired of the other...it is irratibility for a long time!

I tried to fix the plumbing under the kitchen sink, and while it looks good...it is leaking! So, I wonder if I will have to re-plumb the whole thing. Because is not fitting in perfect sync with the old piping. Maybe I could take it apart and use plumbing tape to help seal the male/female parts? (the stuff I used is PVC pipe and has a washer that is supposed to seal when screwed down tight) Darn it all!

I am getting anxious about leaving. So many things to figure out: can I take the bikes? Found a bike rack that fits the car, but if I get it than I have to forgo something else and what if I need that something else more? (Don't know what the 'something else' is yet. Could be an extra tank of gas and motel room?) Can all bills get paid before I leave? Will Mark be o-kay till I get a job in OR? Should I get a safety tote filled with jumper cables, flashlights, etc. before I leave? How much should I try to get now vs. waiting and getting them in OR? I want to sign up the kids for activities in OR for the summer, can I? Oh, so many thoughts. I want my kids to have a GREAT summer, and I want to be part of it too. But, I must balance. Whew! What my mom must have gone through! This is a toast to my mom, "Cheers!"

I gotta go finish my daily chores. Adios!

Cast your vote!

Howdy folks.

Here I am, sitting on the fence of indecision. So, I am asking you to cast your vote on which way I should go. This always happens right about now...should I, or should I not?

Tell me:

Should I go for really short?


(Don't take my pic!)

Or should I try to continue growing it out longer?




Plus, I am going to color my hair with a darker color all over, and
highlight it with a light brown on the top.


Whew! That was a task to find pics! And remember family and friends, I am approaching 30, but do not FEEL 30.

Cast your vote now!

Dear Jon

There are not enough pictures of you in this world to capture the person you are. There are not enough songs, or poems, that can tell of you; or what you mean to us.

I am sad. I want you to be there for me to race against at Clackamas..., I want to share my enthusiasim with you, and not be thought of as eccentric. You'd laugh and give me a hug. Than tell me that you'd kick my butt, but you would stand at the finish line with a huge grin on your face as I crossed. Proud that your big sis with three kids could still cross a finish line.

I remember your hugs before I left for ND last summer. They were so gentle, and yet firm. They linger to this day. I remember that you whispered in my ear, "Liz, come home. I miss you.". I said I know. But, I didn't really know. I didn't really understand.

I'm going to really miss you at the race. I'm going to be sad that there are no future events to do with you. It seemed that you and Liorah understood my deep passion to push personal limits with the outdoors. Now... And, we were just starting to experience them. We were just starting to do things together. I probably would have made you nuts because I was (am) cautious and would have jumped to the role of "the sensible one", but you would have pushed me beyond my known limits and helped me experience what I want, but only read in books. In the end, I would have been extremely thankful.

__________________________________

I started that May 31. Today is June 2/3. I have been finding my tears coming to my eyes in unbidden moments, or my voice cracking when I talk of you. Before, I could hold in strong and firm. As the time gets closer for me to leave for OR, I start to think of you and I start to hurt. I start to get angry, and I start to cry. I set my jaw and the tears only roll down my cheek instead of burst forth with the wail that shouts inside my heart. In its' proper time, I say. In its' proper time.

I soothe myself by telling myself that if I feel like this, than ... or ... must feel like ... And, when I think that it must hurt worse, I calm down because I want to be strong for ... or ...

Jon, I'm scared about coming home and not seeing you. But, I am also looking forward to some fun times with my kids and everyone else. You won't be far.

I heard two songs when I flew into PDX after your death. And I found the CD for a whooping $10 at Target, so I had to get it. I listen to these lyrics and I think of you-every time. I love you Jon. I really, really love you. I hope you knew that and I hope you know that now. Love you more!

"May it Be"-Enya (but heard by 'Celtic Woman')
May it be an evening star
Shines down upon you
May it be when darkness falls
Your heart will be true
You walk a lonely road
Oh! How far you are from home

Mornie utulie (Darkness has come)
Believe and you will find your way
Mornie alantie (Darkness has fallen)
A promise lives within you now

May it be the shadow's call
Will fly away
May it be your journey on
To light the day
When the night is overcome
You may rise to find the sun

Mornie utulie ( Darkness has come)
Believe and you will find your way
Mornie alantie (Darkness has fallen)

A promise lives within you now

A promise lives within you now


"You Raise me Up" (this song makes me cry like none other)
When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.

There is no life - no life without its hunger;
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But when you come and I am filled with wonder,
Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.


Jon, I always felt strong, and weak but protected, in your presence. And, I will greatly miss that. You always saw the best in me. Thank you.