Saturday March 14 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROTHER IN LAW BOB

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Yikes: Yesterday Bonnie asked me if I’d like to go to Mesa AZ. on a trip with her family, going again in her brother’s OTHER plane to his other home in Mesa AZ. I’m a little frazzled with this prospect. It will be fast, leaving tomorrow morning and driving to Vernal where Bonnie’s sister lives. And the plane will pick us up there. We’ll be back home Wednesday night, or if we get back to Vernal toward evening, maybe will then leave Thursday morning and be home by noon Thursday. Bonnie says it is a 3 1/2 hour drive to Vernal where her sister lives. We will go down past Flaming Gorge Reservoir to get there. So have to get packed and ready to go and leave at 8 a.m. Sunday (tomorrow - YIKES) morning. I'm a little in awe of just packing a suitcase and going like that, but figure I might as well.

I emailed my sister who lives in Green Valley south of Tucson to see if she could come that far so we could get together maybe Monday or Tuesday. It would be a wonderful opportunity for us to see each other, something that seldom happens. She's working today and going to Prescott next week so it may not be possible for her. We will have to get a better plan somehow that coordinates with Bonnie's plans. I have a friend in Apache Junction too - Haven't seen Diane for a long time.

Bonnie says Scott the pilot is going to a school of some kind down there that week. That's the main reason they are going. He will be staying at the house too. Her sister, Susan is going and Marc and his wife Debbie. There is room for us all. They have a hot tub. We may or may not soak so will want to throw in a suit. She will pick me up at our house Sunday morning around 8 am. So..... I'm off into a whirlwind. I won't blog or email while I'm gone and will talk to you when I get back.

Judi has a picture on her blog of snow in Texas as she is driving to New Mexico to meet Rollie for spring break. Paid the bills, filled out the questionnaire for jury duty I got yesterday, called Centurytel about that refund for bad Internet service (nope have to wait until weekdays 8-5), fix something to leave for Joe to eat. Got the floors mopped and laundry done. Also I can’t find my cell phone cord to charge it with so..... That’s the way my day’s going.

Spent time last night organizing all my newer photos into folders. Glad to have that done - a prelude to getting pictures back on to the blog. The old ones are still in a horrendous mess. Slept pretty good. It's beautiful here today, although still cold.

Deer at the Pinedale High School. This is the way I see them all over town. http://www.pinedaleonline.com/news/2009/03/PinedaleHighSchoolDe.htm

Friday March 13 2007

View of Fremont Lake

Another Friday the 13th. Isn't that two in a row? This is my 800th blog post. I probably could have written a book with all these paragraphs.

Very early Thursday morning there was a house fire downtown and a man in the house died of smoke inhalation. http://www.pinedaleonline.com/news/2009/03/HouseFire.htm I didn't know it at first, but he is the step son of one of my artist friends. My most sincere sympathy goes to Glenn and Josie for their loss.

Sherene sent me a nice family letter with a picture of her two boys. They are sure nice looking kids. They live in Texas. Also in the mail I got a letter saying I'd been chosen for jury duty. Not sure what to do about that but I better call someone and see. Today I'll get the bills paid using online banking. Joe went to breakfast today. The group goes every Friday. He must enjoy it as he always goes. A little before 11 a.m. I showed up at the church to help them with the dinner for a lady's funeral. I didn't go to the funeral because I didn't know her. People brought the food and we set it up and cleaned up later. Got to eat some lunch too and it was very good. It was nice to visit again with the members who came to help.

After that I took my down coat down to the quilt shop to have the zipper put in. I drove on Lake Street to look at the deer again and there were a lot of them. Many were laid down in the willows and it is really pretty to see them that way, but it doesn't make good photos because of all the willow branches in front of them. One of the ladies helping with the funeral dinner said they had a big bull moose staying in a yard or field near their house right now. I should go look for it for a photo.

This evening Joe asked if I'd like to go to Lakeside Lodge for dinner, so I said sure! We had rib steaks and they were wonderful, the whole dinner was especially nice. We went up there at 5 p.m. so there was plenty of daylight to enjoy the scenery out over the frozen lake.

WHY I LOVE WYOMING
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When it's Springtime in Wyoming
And the gentle breezes blow
At about seventy miles per hour
And it's fifty two below
You can tell you're in Wyoming
Cuz the snow's up to your butt
And you take a breath of Springtime air
And your nose holes both freeze shut.
The weather here is wonderful
So I guess I'll hang around.
I could never leave Wyoming
Cuz my feet are frozen to the ground.

INTERESTING POETRY

The Pleasures of Hating
by Laure-Anne Bosselaar

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I hate Mozart.
Hate him with that healthy pleasure
one feels when exasperation has crescendoed,
when lungs, heart, throat,
and voice explode at once: I hate that!—
there's bliss in this, rapture.
.
My shrink tried to disabuse me,
convinced I use Amadeusas a prop:
Think further, your father perhaps?
I won't go back,
think of the shrink
with a powdered wig, pinched lips, mole:
a transference, he'd say, a relapse: so be it.
.
I hate broccoli, chain saws, patchouli, bra—
clasps that draw dents in your back, roadblocks,
men in black kneesocks, sandals and shorts—
I love hating that.

Loathe stickers on tomatoes, jerky, deconstruction,
nazis, doilies. I delight in detesting.
And love loving so much after that.
.

(Never gave this much thought to things I hate. But this is interesting. Brocolli is to burn in hell right now - anyone who takes coumadin will understand. I like jerky, and think men with white cotton socks and sandles and shorts look pretty funny. Maybe because I've never seen Joe in a pair of shorts, except swim trunks. Actually funnier are men in a suit with white cotton socks.)

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http://worshipbacon.com/wiki/Main_Page

Thursday March 12 2009

Stubby

14x17 Pencil Drawing by Lynn Thomas

This was one of our colts.

He was pretty but never amounted to much for

some reason and ended up with founder. We sold him to

a man in Riverton who would keep him in all the time

and feed him right for his condition.

So here we are on Thursday's blog. And nothing interesting is happening to write about. Joe went out of the garage to coffee. Then back in. Then out about 30 minutes later to get his haircut. Then back. Then out again to go to Rendezvous Pointe, where he needed to see the hearing aid lady Brandi again for his other hearing aid. He had lunch while he was there. I was going along but when I went to change clothes I decided I didn't really feel like going down there. They were having New York deli hot dogs with sauerkraut today and that just didn't sound so great. So I stayed home to continue catching up on the blog.

It's very sunny today and sometimes the neighbors flag is standing out erect in the wind and sometimes it's limp.

Betty called this morning and we got to visit for a while. Except for one of her sprinklers breaking, it sounds like everything's o.k. down there. Her daffodils are blooming and a few others are beginning to burst forth in color.

Charm wrote an amazing poem for SCAG last Saturday and gave me a copy of it yesterday. I'd share it but would have to scan it - and don't think this new printer has OTR.

Wednesday March 11 2009

This is Beverly's husband, my son-in-law Brent.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRENT
The card is in the mail.

Clear last night with a gorgeous full moon. Today got up late again. Tried to take a look at email, but there was no interenet connection again. Sandy who works at the phone company called about the new idea to get a building for art functions and classes that Paul Jensen has, and she said that the internet was down. Apparently Centurytel is working on updating equipment and this is causing the internet to be off and on. What an annoyance. Judi said they were going to reimburse people for their trouble, I just need to call them. Mine was off all day today, and I wasn't in the mood to be on the 800 number about it again.

So I didn't have much time to get myself dressed and head out to Bonnie's for lunch to be there by 11. She fixed us really yummy clam chowder and homemade wheat bread. She grinds her own wheat and it is so good. Afterwards we took the dogs on a walk nearby up the Silver Creek Cemetery Road - no traffic there. Thank you for the lunch and nice visit, Bonnie!

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Bonnie's Clam Chowder

Silver Creek Cemetery Road - west - upper, east - lower

Then I headed over to Dr. Susie's for the dogs checkup, shots, worming and cleaning their glands. She told me that the lump Sparky has had behind his shoulder is a layer of fat under a layer of muscle. That was good news. And that disgusting thing near his tail I'd been calling a grub is a sebaceous oil gland, and what comes out of it is like fat. Also still disgusting, but not as bad as I'd been imagining all this time. She said it's nothing and not to worry about either thing. Sparky is still a little too fat. He always tells me he's just fluffy. Susie said to Sparky, "Lynn just takes such good care of you". It's more like he manages one way or another to get all the treats and dinner that he wants from one or the other of us. Raven weighs almost 90 pounds now. She should soon be old enough that she won't be growing much longer. She's too big for me to lift for sure. They got good checkups, and we got the several medicines Sparky takes replenished. His eyes still need the ointment and the drops. She said his eyesight wasn't very good now.

Dr. Susie, Raven, Dinell, Sparky

On the way home I finally went in to the Heritage shop to see about them putting a new zipper in to that down coat. Sue said they have a good seamstress who will do it and do a nice job. So I need to wash the coat again and take it back.

In the other half of her store she has a selection of women's clothing, and had a sale on so I spent some time going through everything and picked out about six things that came to just over $100 - and one of the sweaters was originally $140. So I got some pretty good buys. Got a slip and a brown skirt to wear to church. Didn't find anything to match the skirt though. That's the way my shopping always turns out. I'm sure I'll have something that will work.

For some reason I got into a whirlwind organizing the freezer, and it's lots better now to be able to find things in there. I'm closer to the goal of getting all the old meat from the ranch used up before buying more. Fixed us garlic shrimp with fresh mushrooms, brown rice and peas for dinner. And was ready for bed about 7 p.m. - same as usual - naps and watching old movies in between. TCM is featuring Ronald Reagan this month. Realized he was already married to Jane Wyman the year I was born.

After reading my haiku some days back, Bonnie googled haiku and wrote the nicest poem - her first ever haiku. Hope she doesn't mind that I shared it with you here.

big sky clear and blue
cold wind whips and bites at ears
voids the spring promise

Tuesday March 10 2009

Really Really Old Painting of

Cowboy horseback in storm.

Copied for a study from a Charles Belden Photo

16x20 Oil by Lynn Thomas

Up fairly early, but the alarm didn't go off - found it's inadvertently set for tonight - sadly that's due to my poor grasp of techno smarts. So started off about an hour later than I intended. Got all the last minute things done, and the soda bread in the oven about the time Charm arrived. It's her turn to host the Tuesday lunch, and since none of us can get in to her house at Boulder Lake, she loaded all her luncheon onto the snow machine sled and hauled it out to her car - 8 miles?, unloaded sled into car, unloaded from car into my house. She prepared us wonderful Hawaiian chicken, rice pilaf, green pea salad, and mini bing cherry cheesecakes.

Attending were Ruth, Wanda, Melita, Charm and I. Joe joined in on lunch in his recliner. Everyone did good work mainly on pieces in progress. I got the cow moose drawn into last week's pastel and still need to put the calf in. We had our usual nice time.

They reminded me that March is my month to host the large Mixed Media group, so real soon I need to get out the 25 invitations. Not sure whether to have it here or at Rendezvous Pointe. A chance for more procrastinating!! Remember I set up last month's meeting and that turned out to be the day we unexpectedly left for the trip to Vegas on the plane. Charm took over for me that day.

So..... everything got tidied up by 4:30 p.m. or so, and I heated up Joe some leftover veg. soup for his dinner. About 6:40 Bonnie and Amy were here to pick me up to go the a party at the church - The Birthday of Relief Society. They served a dinner, and there was quite a large group of women attending. They had some games and fun things to do. One was to get acquainted with someone you didn't know, and I really enjoyed meeting ..... (bonnie will remind me of her name!) It started with "A" and I've been through all the "A" names I can think of, no luck with the memory. Home before 9 and had a very nice time. ANGELA!! Bonnie says Angela.

It was a overcast day, with the sun trying to peek out every so often and some show showers. Still cold and breezy.

Monday March 9 2009

Trinket and Rosebud

18x20 Oil Painting

by Lynn Thomas

Ginger and Sox

18x24 Oil Painting

by Lynn Thomas

[Just a note to let you know everything's fine. Staying busy - I got behind on the blog and then the internet went out again all day yesterday - in Kallispell they said - had to reset that this morning (Thursday). ]

Anyway Monday nothing special happened. I got up late again and cleaned the whole house. Our small Tuesday painting group will be meeting here in the morning. As always, it's lucky people come over once in a while so the place get's cleaned up. Went down to the clinic for a protime test and did the grocery shopping. Fixed us a simple supper since it was getting late by then. And after dinner got the wet and dry bowls measured out to bake two more loaves of Irish soda bread in the morning to have warm with coffee - just will need to set the oven, stir wet into dry, get the batter in the pan and bake. Late getting to bed.