Baby Talk

I know you are all as crazy over puppies as I am (*smile*) so here's a video to help pass the time.



I was on my way home yesterday and looked out over the mountains and realized this was the most of the Black Range I've been able to see. Must have something to do with precipitation and the way the clouds were. Anyway, I pulled over and snapped this picture. These are the mountains that my house sits at the base of.

Check, check, check, no check

Hire a sports guy - check (did that Monday)
Buy my dream German Shepherd - check (did that Tuesday)
Cry angry tears because I couldn't get my pilot lights to stay lit - check (did that Wednesday)
Deliver 7 Aussie pups - check (did that Thursday)

It's amazing how, out of all those glorious things, it's the one piddly thing in the middle that drew my emotion Wednesday night.

Okay, so I'm a girl.

But at that moment, when I'm laying on my stomach in front of the hot water heater, flame thrower in hand, trying to make sense of the directions and it's not working, and I really just want to take a bath and enjoy the luxury of, oh you know, hot water - at that moment angry tears burned my eyes and I grumbled about the "f*&^ing directions" and the "damn hot water heater" and I think I even (gently) tossed the flame thrower on the table in hopeless retreat.

So I can't do everything. And lighting pilot lights is one of those things.

"Where is a man when you need one?" was the real question running through my mind. When you actually need one for all the handiness that makes them, well, different from me, you can't find one.

My co-worker mused over lunch:
"Holly, I just can't figure it out. I mean, you stay up all night to deliver puppies, you're a ranching girl, you cook, and you STILL can't snag yourself a good cowboy? Not even to light your pilot lights?"

Yeah, that's how bad it's gotten, Sam. I can't even get a damn pilot light lit.

As if my honey-do list wasn't long enough after 25 years of...waiting, I've got one more thing to add before the order is shipped:

MUST LIGHT FIRE

The interpretation is yours to make.

While you're making it, I'm heading home to make a truce with the flame thrower I (gently) tossed on the table last night and try this whole thing over again. You know, with as much flame and propane as I've been mixing in the house over the past two days it's a wonder there hasn't been an explosion on my road.

I found a lake...

I love lakes.

After spending the past 5 years living 20 minutes from 175,000 acres of lake and spending as much waking (and sleeping) time on or near it as possible, you won't be surprised to hear that I almost cried yesterday when the dogs and I topped a hill and saw this:


Honestly, we all thought we'd died and gone to heaven.

I promptly dug my book out of my bag, grabbed the dog's leashes and my (pink, 5-mega-pixel) camera, let them out of the station wagon and away we went. The first thing Marley did was take a swim but he did it so promptly I missed getting his first swim in....3 months...on film. So you'll just have to take my word that he was a very, very, very happy dog as you can kind of tell by this (slightly stoic) expression on his face:


While Marley thought about swimming across the little lake to visit the fishers...


...Jada was embarking on lake adventures of her own, staring at the bubbly green algae that abounded where we were:

For those who are curious as to what this New Mexico lake looks like in its entirety, the following are for you:



So after the dogs played and I'd read some, I decided to check out some trails around there, thinking, in my old Kentucky ways, that I was sitting on acre upon acre of public land to be used and enjoyed by, well, the public. But it wasn't so:

As you can tell, Jada is very confused as to why I stopped and turned around. We did walk on the side of the mountain where there were no signs. I was cautious, though. People in New Mexico like guns.

I felt slightly confined because it seemed every way I'd turned that day for a good hike it was thwarted. Before we found the lake, I drove to what is called the City of Rocks State Park, which is about 25 minutes from my house. I'd been told by a friend that you had to pay $5 to park; it outraged me when she told me and it certainly outraged me when I saw the sign for myself. I mean, my taxes are already paying for the whole park and I have to pay $5 to park? Are you kidding me?

But they weren't.

So I snapped a picture, pulled over on this side of the stupid sign and let the dogs out to pee. A ranger was promptly over in his Polaris thingie asking if I was going into the park. No, sir, as a matter of fact I'm not.

Mostly because:
1) I didn't have $5 on me and
2) I wasn't going to pay it

Besides, the City of Rocks looked stupid anyway:


But the good news is: we stayed at the lake for almost 2 hours and then went home where I continued reading my book on the porch:


And the dogs slept near me and I think Marley is saying 'thank you' here:

Photo of the Day

I took this picture with my trusty little pink 5 megapixel digital camera that always stays in my purse. Thankfully I took it with me to the game because the people who I thought were going to be there taking pictures for me weren't.
Not too bad of a shot for an $80 camera.
This was snapped right before I had to move before getting side-swiped.

Time Out!

We take a moment from our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this message: Holly is losing her mind in the office.

Not really.

What I thought could possible be a day off has turned into a 9 hour work day and I'm sitting here trying to pull on my football hat and churn out a good ------------------------------------->
For the ones who know anything about sports and what my life has centered around for the past 3 weeks, you'll know what that last word is.



Illustration of how I felt about my day off not being a day off ----------------->
In better news, Brooke called me at the ass-crack of dawn this morning, which roused me out of bed, which proved beneficial because I got errands done before coming into work. Otherwise I'd have slept way too late. Thank you Brooke!!







This is something I'm very happy about --------------------------------->
If you're going to be hanging out with at all in the next, oh, 2 months, you're going to be hearing a lot about puppies! And actually, even if you're not able to hang out with me in person, you're still going to hear a lot about puppies (Kristin!) :)








My plan for tomorrow ---------------->
My team and I are covering 3 first round state championship high school games. Wow. We're good.













Do you know what's coming? ------>













Yes, The Nose came with me all the way from Kentucky!!! -------------->















I'm going to finish the football preview and go home. ------------>















In other news, and I don't have pictures to back this up, I had to cook dinner for my dogs last night. Two days in a row, I forgot to go buy dog food so when I got home at 1 a.m., I made them stove-top oatmeal and mixed in lunch meat and cooked bacon/bacon grease. They were quite pleased with the concoction and I CANNOT forget to get dog food tonight on my way home!

Photos of Me

I had this idea last night when I got home to shoot some snapshots of my (sometimes boring, most of the time crazy) life. So I did. And because you all care, here they are:

The first thing I do when I get home is take off my shoes, and, as you can see here, I'm not very good at taking them off in the appropriate places.









The pile of paint, which is indicative of the creativity that took place last week.













Cooking my celebration dinner - a celebration because I found out last night I can hire a sports reporter! So it was home-grown rib-eye steak, mashed potatoes and green beans.












Marley was really confused why we weren't playing -
















And last night, I broke a cup - one of my favorite coffee cups from mom.














I did the dishes...finally.
















This is my audience while I'm cooking, washing dishes or doing anything really. I move from room to room and my entourage follows me. Makes me feel popular. :)











My completed meal - it was heavenly.

A large portion of my weekend (and that being 12 hours on Saturday) was spent doing what I seemingly do best...driving.

And since Blogger didn't do what I asked, you'll have to look at the second picture first and then the first to really understand what I'm talking about.

When I got home Saturday after a long day of driving, talking, writing, driving some more and trying to figure out the ins and outs of football-telling, I sat on the couch and pounded out a quick column. The following is from that column, which I think best describes the feeling I have when I'm driving in New Mexico:

By the time I've reached Datil, I've crossed the Continental Divide three times (if I counted right) and feel as if I'm sitting on top of the world. In Kentucky, I used to have that feeling but on a much smaller scale. We'd be horse-back riding in the woods for hours and then all of a sudden, the trees would part and deliver us into a meadow full of green grass and a tranquility that the mountains didn't carry.
When I get to Datil, that's what I feel like.
The highways have carried me up a couple thousand feet through mountain ranges and rock edifaces to this: the high plains, where the mountains I was once in the middle of retreat to the background to allow the peacefulness of this massive meadow to take over. On one side, some of the mountains look like sand dunes; they're void of trees or grass and the afternoon sun glints off their tops, making them appear like gigantic gray caps. On the other side, there are more mountains but these have green junipers and cedars. In between is acre upon acre of plains.

Now, that's how I feel about traveling in New Mexico, poetically speaking. Later in the column, I get to the nuts and bolts of how I really feel about it:

Hwy. 117 is the type of New Mexico highway who's job is 1) be a road and 2) test the toughness of its passengers. Loose gravel, no center lines and sporadic roughness are just some of the things it uses to test your endurance. One of the rancher's wives actually said that the road conditions was one thing she saw deter people from living out there.

And if written words aren't enough, here's some video proof for you:



It's really not as bad as I'm sure my voice makes it out to be - there were lots of factors that day that made the trip less then appealing:

1) I was sick
2) I was tired
3) I was driving alone

But despite those factors, the trip is always rewarding because a) it is beautiful...and that's pretty much all there is to say about it. It's pretty beautiful country.

Dreams...and things I don't want to do again in the near future...

I was chatting tonight with my co-worker, Sam, while I was trying to finish my football stories (which I should be doing now) and I was telling him about my dreams last night, one of which involved him. So, for the sake of saving my fingers some typing, I copied and pasted:

the one you were in - we were out doing a story at a laundry mat and this younger couple comes in with this little kid with them. The kid was following them but she could barely walk, she was that little. So the couple starts making out and I start holding the baby. Then the couple leaves and the girl looked at me as she was walking out and smiled and said that the baby wasn't hers

so I said to you, "Sam, I'm going to keep her" (she was beautiful) and you were like, "Holly, you can't do that. You could be arrested for kidnapping."

so you made me go tell the police but I didn't want to because I didn't want her to go into foster care.

the end.

then another dream was that I was driving my car and this guy was in the back seat and I guess he hijacked me or something. So I stabbed him in the thigh with my pen. And when he grabbed my arm I kept stabbing his wrist until he bled to death.

the end.

then...I had this horrible dream about a neighbor (like not in the same neighborhood as me) who's little boy fell down the steps in his house and I could hear him crying. Then I heard his mother pick him up and throw him down the steps again until he died.

the end.

They were the kind of dreams where I woke up after each one and just laid there as still as possible hoping they weren't true. I'm hoping for a better night tonight!

And to add to the complete randomness of this post, here's a list of things I hope to never do again in the near future:

- stand in 34 degree weather watching a football game that I have to write a story about later and have absolutely no clue what is going on. And wouldn't you know it, the TWO SECONDS I take my eyes off the field and divert them to the stands, I hear this commotion on the field, I look and all I see is one of our guys flying through the air and I hear the crowd screaming cheers. So I looked at the time and jotted this on my notepad: 12:15 - something good happened.
(I later learned it was a blocked punt - whatever the hell that means.)

- drive 555 miles in one day in BFE by myself.

- cover elections, two district champion football games and tootle the New Mexican wilderness in a matter of, oh, five days.

In brighter news, I saw the sun rise over the New Mexico mountains this morning and watched it set over (different) New Mexico mountains this evening. There is nothing as beautiful as that.

LakeSide Memory

Welcome to my office.

Earlier this week I was looking at my piles of old newspaper wondering what I could do with them to preserve them in a more artistic manner. Two attempts at newspaper crafting later and we have the above products, of which I am most proud.

All of these are articles or pictures and some of my columns from the newspaper I used to work for. I only chose the ones that 1) meant the most to me or 2) caused me the most trouble. I really enjoyed reflecting while I sorted and glued, hodge-podged and sprayed acrylic sealer.

I also finished painting the office last night and I'm in love with the color.
Mostly because of its name.

I knew, after I decided on the newspaper art, that I wanted the walls to be a greyish color. I was looking at Wal-Mart and found this color called "Lakeside Memory."

Yes.

I bought the paint because of the name.
And it totally matches, I love it and because I have so many lakeside memories, it was completely and thoroughly appropriate.

The Year of the Bathroom

I've been waiting for inspiration on what color to paint my bathroom and last weekend it came to me: blue, which is a far cry from the orange I had in my mind but could never bring myself to purchase.

So I went to Wal-Mart and picked out my blue and not just any blue: Insignia Blue. I put the first coat on Tuesday, I finished it last night and stepped back in artist wonder.

The first thing I noticed was how blue it was.

I walked across the street yesterday to my friend Amy's office and was explaining to her my painting projects. I was trying to describe the color blue of my bathroom and I spotted an Obama/Biden sign leaning up against the back wall.

"It's that blue," I pointed.

"Oh," she said. "Obama/Biden blue!"

So if you need a mental picture of just how blue my bathroom is, think Obama/Biden Blue.

This morning I also thought that it looks like a New York apartment. Partly because the walls are textured like the adobe they are and the blue is like In-Your-Face-Obama/Biden-Blue.

In other painting news, I managed to splatter a second coat of Roasted Tomato on my bedroom walls after my brother pointed out that he could still see the white on the other side of the first coat.

He's right. The second coat looks AMAZING.

I also purchased enough of the Va-Va Voom red for a second coat on the living room. It's going to look so good.

And this morning I painted half of my office after receiving divine inspiration for that two days ago. Like the bathroom, I'd been waiting for the right idea to strike me and I was so excited when it did. But you'll have to wait to hear what it is until the project is complete - it's so blog-worthy it's going to get its own blog...like the bathroom.

Student or no student

I've been complimented in round-about-ways the past couple of months and despite the fact that the compliments make me want to stand on my tip-toes and say emphatically, "But I'm a big girl!" I also realize that when I'm 85 years old (or even 40) I'll be paying money for these compliments.

As I've made myself more accessible to the town by attending various organizations board meetings, the board president usually squints at me over his/her spectacles and asks, "Are you covering this meeting for a class?"

I used to respond in a way that would make them feel less like an idiot when they realized my real occupation but now I don't care about that anymore.

It happened again last week at a meeting and the woman who knows everything about everything made an assumption that I was there covering the meeting for a class at the local university. The evil side of me didn't waste any time in shooting the following words out of my mouth: "No, I'm the bureau chief of the Sun-News." She looked slightly stunned as she stuttered out something about it being great and how glad they were to have me and I slightly smiled inside.

This morning I went to Wal-Mart and picked out paint my office and bathroom, the trim and enough for a second coat in the living room and bedroom. At the checkout, my checker-outer-lady said, "What are you painting?"

"My house," I replied cheerily.

"Your..." she trailed off. "I thought you were a student."

"No," I said. "I work at the Sun-News."

"Oh."

So those are my thoughts tonight at 5 as I sit here waiting for 7 to come so the polls will close and I can go wait for the results to be counted.

Family

My (crazy, funny, awesome, humorous-sometimes-serious) family was in my town this weekend and I am once again reminded that out of all the families to be born into, I'm really glad I picked mine. :)

Okay, so my choice really had nothing to do with it at all but I really am (since this is the Thankful Month) thankful. Yeah, we've had our ups and downs, our highs and lows but at the end of the day, we can all sit down and watch a ridculously stupid un-scary (but it was supposed to be TERRIFYING) movie, laugh at mom when she screams and covers her head with a blanket and discuss the option of sperm donation as a money-making endeavor for my brother in college. (that option was unanimously ixnayed as probably not the best choice.)

Admittedly, I did not take hardly enough pictures this weekend but here's a few to provide a snapshot of my (dangerously wild) family.


Micah with his wig at the museum striking a pose that is slightly disturbing but funny.

Katie and Daniel at the museum store. They went into one of the many venues in SC that has randomness and bought each other a "present." So Katie ended up with the Hot Stuff oven mitt and Daniel with his wig that he actually wore quite well.

Micah found the perfect accessory to go along with his wig.

Sometimes I don't know what's waiting for me when I leave the office. The other day it was this Coachmen with people inside watching TV. Earlier they were sitting on their step eating dinner.