Luke's new logo...

and teacher training postcard:

It's not right...

the colors are all wrong (or at least a little wrong), but I'm going to have to deal with it till I work up the energy to buy new paint and repaint the bathroom.



I have been thinking about finding a winter job. I've done a lot of thinking about this actually, but have yet to act on it. I'm still picking up a few lawn jobs here and there, just enough to keep me thinking I have enough money coming in to pay the bills.

My friend Luke just asked me to make a logo for him for his yoga studio in Lewiston. Here's a couple of preliminary sketches... but I think they're a little too busy. I'll have to work on a simpler version, or something completely different.

Well hello my long lost friends...

I know it's been a long dry summer for my blog. I apologize. I will try to rectify this over the following months and change my ways.

Here's what I've been up to lately...

I've been online dating. Shocking I know, but I thought I'd give it a go and see who I meet. I've met some very nice guys, but unfortunately I haven't encountered a bonfire that's consumed me yet. Or maybe that's fortunate? I don't know.

I've found that it does take a lot of time and energy and I've considered discontinuing as soon as my paid for month is up. And I think that will be in just days.

I went up to Sandpoint a few weekends ago to meet up with a friend for some camping and hiking. Unfortunately it rained on us all weekend, though fortunately the cloud cover kept the air temperature fairly warm. I think we missed the brilliant colors of fall by a couple of weeks, but we got to see the beginnings of it.



Besides meeting new guys and trying to decide what part they are going to play in my future, I've been hanging out at home with Pumpkin. She is doing fantastic. She's made herself right at home in my little abode and has even become a bit territorial over it. She has taken to watching life outside of the windows and if she happens to see any of my outdoor cats through the windows she bristles up all over and slams herself up against the window or sliding glass door. Of course I go over to try to calm her down and she acts sweet and innocent as if nothing happened. This is my little Pumpkin Pie reluctantly posing for a photo.



I've also been working pretty hard on my bathroom remodel project. It's been ongoing since February... I think I'm nearing the final product... I've gotten the ceiling painted just last night and this evening I'll be painting the walls with a dark blue glaze. The plaster that I just finished texturing the walls with wasn't a color that I was excited about so I'm going to augment it with blue... I'll post pictures of it when it's in it's finished glory. Everyone will be clamoring to use my restroom when they take a gander at that picture...



And since I didn't get this lovely picture posted in a more timely manner... and I just couldn't keep you in the dark about my culinary expertise... Behold, the salmon burger on a bed of spinach, topped with sweet pickled red onions and a cilantro cream sauce.



Take a look at the color and composition of that plate... astounding... and it was delicious too.

Fall is falling...

I got stuck in the mud this weekend... a precursor to the snow and ice I'll be getting stuck in soon!

I have been failing in keeping my blog well updated this summer... Sorry.

Here's a bit of what's been going on:

Little Miss Pumpkin is not so little anymore... She really does like to eat and eat.



The roomies outgrew the roost and flew the coop.



I finally finished painting Willow's parent's basement.



I got to try out sailing for the first time. It was a blast...



My mum requested an outdoor tub be set up for her birthday. This is located in my garden.



And the most recently photographed event was going to get wood with the fam.

I can't believe how fast this summer is going by. It almost feels like fall already. I don't like it. Wasn't it still snowing just last month?

Lawns are still keeping me busy, though many of them have become every other week instead of weekly. All of the odd jobs are keeping be busy, ie: flower garden clean up, hedge trimming, pruning, etc... I need to get back to a painting job I started in May also... It MUST be done by mid-August! So hopefully I can finish that up next week.

My own 'yard' has been very neglected. Just today I finally got around to weeding the flower beds in front of my place. It was so irritating to see that weed bed every time I drove home after a long day of work, too tired to work in my own yard. Now that it's somewhat cleaned up, I need to plant some more flowers in it. With all the weeds gone you can see that the flowers are quite sparse.

I'm sure everyone will be thrilled to know that I am finally bathing at home again. My dad got the bathtub fully plumbed in last week! Sorry it's taken me so long to tell you about it. I'm sure the suspense has been killing you. Now it's my turn to get some work done... I don't like the accent tile that I bought to tile the shower with, so I'm doing some investigating into making my own tile for the shower. There's a pottery studio down in Lewiston that I'm hoping will help me with my quest for the perfect tile. I want a deep blue green, that feels like deep water in the middle of a lush forest. I haven't found any tile at the flooring stores around town that fit that specific bill. I found a candle at Pier 1 that is the perfect color, so I've been hauling that around town tile shopping with me. No luck yet.

Besides working and messing around at home, I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I'd like to do for work this winter. What I've come up with so far is: 1)Cook at Wais Divide (in Antarctica) 2) Work on a sailboat somewhere or 3) maybe go back to school for nursing? Who knows what will happen. I've been hoping that something will fall in my lap like it did last summer with the job down in Antarctica. I may not be that lucky again. So if anyone has any suggestions on where I should go or what I could do, leave me a comment with some info on it! I'm up for anything. In fact, I talked to a lady yesterday that said I could go cook a sorority in town for the winter, or she'd ask her son who is the skipper of a fancy yacht if he needed any help... or she know a professor who might need help with a camp he runs up in Alaska for glacier study in the summers. Now that's quite the variety to pick from! Unfortunately, I don't think I'd last very long in a sorority, and the skipper son only has two other job positions on the boat and they are filled, and the summer camp for glacier study job would be an office job in Moscow... So I'll be waiting for something else to pan out.

Ode to Chris

Poor Chris... He broke his clavicle last week.

I whipped him up some boxer shorts with this snazzy fabric that he fancied.



I was in such a hurry to get it packaged up and mailed I didn't get a picture of the shorts themselves... Maybe I can get Chris to send me a picture of him modeling them...

Summer...

just started and it's already flying by! Holy cow. My arms and back are super tan, but the rest of my body is as white as the day I got home from Antarctica... I'm an odd sight in a swimming suite I bet. Though I haven't made it into a suit yet! My friend Chris said he'd teach me how to swim... better (what I do is kinda embarrassing) but he moved himself to Boise and with the price of fuel, there's a slim chance I'll be spending the money to drive down there for the weekend...

Here's a pretty little picture of my lily white legs, one with a few gashes in it from a blonde moment at work.



My garden is going crazy with blooms. And my strawberry plants are loaded with little green strawberries hanging like grapes from them. A few things have gotten eaten by some fuzzy little wildlife that has moved in recently. But I won't be chasing them off because I think they're so dang cute. I hope they don't eat too much.



Here are some of my garden flower pictures for your viewing pleasure:









Unfortunately... sort of... I didn't get the bathroom sheetrocked or the bathtub installed last weekend. It was, after all, Father's Day, and my pops was working on helping me finish insulating the bathroom walls before we seal them up with the sheet rock. Then I skipped out on helping him in the afternoon and made dinner for the fam. We had a delicious dinner of bbq steak and other various tasties. Then we went and planted a pear tree I got him for his special day. My dad is awesome.



That's my bro on the left, Dave, my dad in the middle, David, and my mummer on the right, Mary. It's just like old times... I'll have to put up a picture on here of all of us gardening when I was just knee high.

So, since Dave was over, we had to take advantage of his muscles, and we had him help us carry the new (cast iron) tub into the bathroom. I certainly don't need back problems!



And my parting picture, these are my new roomies...

Miss Sugar Pumpkin...

is the name of a very sick little kitty I found in the yard of a vacant house in Troy as I was mowing yesterday afternoon. She's a stray kitty, not friendly and not clean... or healthy. She was completely out of it, stumbling around, falling over, and didn't even realize I was right next to her. After calling a Moscow vet and the Troy vet clinic (which is open by appointment only) and calling the Mosocw Police and talking to the Latah County dispatcher, I came to the conclusion that no one cared about this sick little kitty except me.

After finishing up my lawns for the day, I returned to the lawn where I saw her and found her right where I left her, huddled up under the edge of a bush. Of course I didn't have a kitty carrier in my pickup waiting for me to rescue strays all over the country... It's a good thing I don't find sick and injured animals very often... So, I went over to neighbor Ali's house and asked if she had a box I could take the kitty home in. She produced a perfect sized box and an old sheet, which helped a lot in catching the little scamper.

Last night Pumpkin slept in my kitchen in a pet carrier. She ate a tiny bit of food but then proptly passed out in it. At least she made it through the night. I'm hoping that she'll still be kicking by Monday so I can take her to the vet to get her checked out, though if not, at least she's had a luxury hotel to sleep in instead of the rain, cold, and bushes where I found her.

Poor little thing.

Rainy days...

give me a chance to catch up on paperwork. Luckily for me, it's been raining a lot lately. So I've already caught up on paperwork, now I have time for blogging! Yay!!!

I'm back in the groove of mowing lawns everyday, besides your basic yard work and gardening. My own lawn and garden look sorely neglected, though I have managed to mow twice and have gotten some nasturtiums, eggplants, zucchinis, and mini sugar pumpkins planted. I still have to get in and pick up the leaf piles I raked up months ago... I was also hoping to get up to the picnic ground to do some clean up work so that I possibly can have a couple picnics this summer too... We'll see. Unfortunately my days off are rainy days and those days aren't good for doing outside work...

A couple weeks ago I managed to talk my friend Chris into coming to Moscow to deliver some artwork I wanted to buy from him. In return for the art, I let him work with me for a week. I thought it was a pretty fair trade...





Although he wasn't a very fast worker since he had broken his heel bone the month before and was still gimping around from it. And also while he was here he came down with the single-wide sickness I've been battling since I got home from the ice.




Last weekend I managed to get out of town. I got my yard work done on time despite the afternoon rain storms. My friend Chris and I did some yard sailing and some Good Will shopping. I found a sweet $20 BBQ to bring home, propane tank and all! And at wiped out Good Will of all of their wool sweaters!!! I'll be rolling in felted craft projects in no time at all! I'm quite excited.



This picture above is Chris on his brand spanking new clay brown velour sofa in his cozy little pool boy cabin near downtown Boise. He was being a little camera shy.

Besides trying to get the felted crafts rolling, I've started another knitting project. I'm knitting squares of different colored yarns, then am going to felt them and then sew them together into a quilt. It should be rainbow-tastic.



As far as bathroom progress, it's still coming along slowly. The rewiring is close to being finished. Since the walls are thinner than the standard thickness (being built with one by ones and all... It is a single-wide you know) a few of the electrical boxes need to be 'custom fitted' to fit in the walls. The plumbing is just about done, and soon the tub will be in and then we can put up the backer-board for tiling and the drywall. Soon is such a relative word.



Besides the bathroom work. I've found that some of the other outlets need replacing also... by means of testing them with a space heater.

I'm still not showering...

but there has been a bit of progress in the bathroom! This is what it has looked like for about the last week, but then it started snowing... in the bathroom.



It was a bit too cold for me to go pee at night, so I decided to do something about it. I went and bought nails, then lost all motivation to work out in the nasty weather. This is where my mother stepped in and helped me get my butt outside to put a new wall together. She's such a hard worker, lucky for me.



Now I even have insulation up in the wall! So my home is staying a bit toastier than it was. Good thing I had all that warm clothes to wear that I brought home from the ice!

Arcata or BUST!

I just got back last week from a road trip with my mom to Northern California. It was awesome, the weather was rainy, I got sicker, I got drugs, then I got better, then we got home. Here are some pictures from the event.



First we stopped in Bend, Oregon to visit Tanley and Jed. Tara came up from southern Oregon for the weekend too. The weather was beautiful. We walked around downtown, did a little shopping, stopped in at a fun little tea house, and went to McMinnamin's soaking pool.



From Bend we booked it down to Arcata where my mum's cousin lives. It was drizzly the whole time we were down there, but we were chillin inside most of the time so it didn't really matter. Personally, as long as it's not snowing I'm okay with the percipitation!

Here's some pictures of the flowers that had just popped out:









We did make it out one day and went to a restaraunt in Trinidad. Here's the pier right out the front door of the eatery.

What the heck am I talking about?

Well, this is for you Miranda...

I know for a fact, that the majority of you who are reading my blog don't know where I live or what form of home I'm living in. I have been bouncing from apartment to Airstream trailer to house and back again for years and years... Currently, I am renting a single-wide trailer, it used to be my Grandpa Dwight's abode. He passed away a year ago and now it is owned by my Uncle Dwayne who lives in Virginia. I hope someday he lets me buy it from him... It's right next to my parent's property, about three miles north of Viola out in the country (and fields). I love living next to my parents, I love that it has tons of childhood memories, and I love all the trees and the little creek (even though it dries up halfway through the summer).

Here's a little picture to feast your eyes on...



Miranda, I am still taking very good care of the little Airstream. (For those of you who don't know, I purchased the Airstream form Miranda about four years ago.) She, the Sweet Pea Pod (as dubbed by me) is transforming into an espresso stand. My new business someday will be called Dilly Dally Espresso. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but not holding my breath, that I'll have it up and running by this next winter. I'll be posting pictures of her transformation as it happens over the summer. Wish me luck!



So tell me Miranda... What do I do about being tagged? I know I read about it in your blog, but don't remember where or what it said about it! Help a girl out.

Still working on the bathroom...

I have come home to a dreary little town and dreary weather...




The crud got me. I've been sick since the third day of being home. It's soooo tiring. I should be all better in no time, since I don't have the time or energy to continue being sick after Friday.

It has also really been hampering the progress on my bathroom... well besides the weather also. Here are some things I've picked up to install in the new and improved bathroom:


Accent tile...


Fancy big new window...


Cast iron tub...

Here is my little nephew enjoying a banana at my bithday dinner. The rest of us had kabobs to eat.





I went on a shopping spree at Goodwill for my birthday... and I found this cute little rose bud creamer! Do I use cream? No. But I had to have it anyway. Maybe I will start using cream now, you never know.

This may look like it's not all that steep of a hill, and it's not... but my silly little pickup refuses to make it up to the top of my driveway after the last snow... When will it be spring???