BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: BIG SKY EDITION

5/24/2013 Yellowstone National Park to Gardiner, MT

You want to know something weird?  So far on this trip, I've only seen ten black people, and one of them was Al Roker.

I know that's kind of out of left field, here, but I've seriously started counting and there have only been ten!  In contrast, I've seen hundreds of Asian visitors thus far.  Honestly, like hundreds, if not thousands, of Asian tourists have been in the national parks here with us.  I've never seen anything like it.   Steve said that every time I'm in a public place and I say "Mr. Lee!" about thirty people turn around.   I hope that doesn't sound racist.  It's not meant to be, I promise.  Weird.

Anyways, it snowed on us last night!  SNOW!  I mean, it wasn't much, but it's May and it's snowing and I love it!  It was enough to powder the ground and the cars, but not enough to cause any trouble. I think I was right about the hotel staff just having a few opening week hiccups, because after we packed, Steve and I got into the van to pull around to the lake side of the hotel while we waited on Mr. Lee to check out and it took him forever.  He said that they were having some computer trouble.  Apparently they expected us to be angry, because when I went in to make sure there were no problems, Mr. Lee was standing at the desk and they were very apologetic to me.  I wasn't angry or inconvenienced in any way, which seemed to surprise them.  Makes me wonder how they'd been treated earlier on.

I went back outside and Steve and I took some photos of the lake. It was huge and beautiful.  I always love to be near big bodies of water.  The sun was out and the wind was blowing, and the whole thing shimmered. Gorgeous.  It was also freaking cold out there.

Mr. Lee finally came out and we were on our way again.  As I said, we are slowly making our way back to Bozeman, still stopping frequently and taking pictures.  Today we went to Norris, which is another place to see thermal features.

 We saw Dragon's Mouth, which was much more impressive than my pictures show.  It  was cool because it made this weird roaring sound.  I wish I'd filmed it instead of just snapping the picture so you could hear it.

 We also stopped at another look off and saw this:

 Apparently, much like the Spanish Inquisition, no one ever expects a sudden thermal feature!  

I hope no one was parked over that when it broke through.  These things are so interesting.  A sign talked about how the thermals create highly acidic water, much more acidic than lemon juice.  My first thought was that it would make a great place to dump a body.

After leaving Norris, we went through Haden's Valley, which was just gorgeous.

 We stopped next at the Upper and Lower Falls in Yellowstone and it was just breathtaking.  At Upper Falls there is a place called Artist's Point (I think) and the view from that spot is just so perfect.  The falls were perfectly framed. 

I guess we can also see where Yellowstone got it's name!

The lower falls were less impressive, but only because you were standing right next to them, but it was still lovely.  I saw this nearby:

Don't quote me, but I think it's a tree monster standing on one foot.

I might be getting upper and lower falls mixed up, so forgive the mistake if so!
 
We stopped at a place called the Golden Gate Pass, but I hated it.  It was impressive looking, but the wind sort of funneled through it and it was strong enough to knock you down if you weren't careful.  Falling down off the cliffs is no joke, so I just got back into the van.

Next we made it to Mammoth Springs, which I thought would have mammoth bones or something, but it turns out it was just called that because it was so big!  Apparently, a lot of the springs have died, but they can erupt just about anywhere without notice.  We drove through, and I have to admit, it wasn't my favorite spot.  It probably wasn't landscaped, but the way the driving paths were laid out made it look too much like a mini-golf course.  It was kind of cool once we got to the end.  The spring had leached all the color out of the landscape around it, so except for the sky and some orange bacterial mats, it actually looked like a grayscale image in real life.

We decided to go back tomorrow to see Mammoth Springs and look around some more.  We headed out of Yellowstone and into Gardiner, Montana, which is literally just outside of the gate.  It's a tourist town, but still kind of quiet this early in the season.  I hate to say it, but something about it seemed a little post-apocalyptic.  Maybe because it seemed kind of empty.  I don't know, really, but I was a little heebed out.  I'm sure it's really a lovely little town, but I'd feel better if more people were walking around!

After checking into the hotel, we went to dinner at this tiny little restaurant.  The guy who served us wasn't that friendly, but the food was good!  I tasted elk!  I liked it, although it was a little strange to me.  After dinner we came back to the room and rearranged our luggage.  All I know is that I'm super tired. 

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: BIG SKY EDITION

5/23/2013 Jackson Hole, WY back to Yellowstone National Park

Today has been much more of a traveling day than the others have been. After breakfast, we got Mr. Lee to take us back to Jackson Hole, so that we could visit the shops that had been closed the evening before. We looked around for a while, and then we went on a quest to find...Harrison Ford's ranch!!! Shut up! Do you really think we could be that close to a place Harrison Ford might be and not look for it? Well, we didn't have an address, just a general idea of where it was, and we think we might have found it, but we can't be sure. Of course, we weren't going to show up on the man's doorstep and ask to see him, so we contented ourselves by driving by what might have been the driveway!  :)

We then headed back into Grand Teton National Park, and Mr. Lee started driving us through what I was sure wasn't a real road. It was narrow and twisty, and seemed to go nowhere.  He finally pulled over to the side of the road to take some pictures, but Steve and I were sure we were going to be eaten by a bear at any moment.

  

Pretty scenery out there, though.

He finally got back in and drive us back to a real, paved road, and we stopped again to take pictures in a marshy place.  These parks have the most varied areas I've ever seen. I didn't think we'd see wetlands, but we did, frogs and all!

After that we headed back towards civilization, and we saw a huge group of people pulled off to the sides of the road. Just a little hint, when you're out here and see a lot of people pulled over, go ahead and pull over too, because it usually means there is something interesting to look at.  This time it was a giant bull moose! The one we saw yesterday was a female, but this guy was big and antlery.  We got some pictures and watched him eat.  I wanted to hug him, but the NPS frowns on that, so I left him alone.  I wonder if these animals think it's weird that humans stop to watch team eat?  I hope we don't make them self conscious.

Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Moose.

We drove a bit more and stopped for lunch at Signal Mountain Lodge. The restaurant had big windows that lined the walls, and the scenery was awesome! Unfortunately, the food made me sick again. Seriously, two out of the three lodges we've eaten at have had food that made me sick.  Luckily I had some medicine, so I took that and dozed as we traveled back towards Yellowstone, where we'd be staying at the Lake Yellowstone Lodge.

Lake Lodge is a huge and gorgeous old hotel. Currently it's under renovation, but isn't that intrusive. I think they must have just painted the walls, because there is no art out and it looks a little bare.  We heard that they've only been opened for a week, so maybe they haven't been able to get everything back into place yet.  This lodge also reminds me of The Overlook Hotel from The Shining, but I think it's mainly a feeling about the place rather than the actual look of it.  It has a huge sitting room with enormous windows that look out on the lake.  It's a fantastic place, and I don't think it's anything like I've stayed in before. They are also serious about making sure you go see the sights! there are no tvs, no internet (except in designated spaces we can't seem to find) and we can't even get cell service.  Yikes.  My only complaint is that it's kind of shabby and a little messy right now.  Our room wasn't ready when we got here, the halls have some dirty sheets and garbage in it, and it smells like someone has been microwaving Spaghettios somewhere.  She shabby part doesn't bother me, because it is an old hotel after all, but the fact that the housekeeping staff don't seem to be on their toes does kind of bother me.  I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that it's because more people showed up than they planned for and once they catch up, It will be perfect.  The messiness aside, I'm excited to be staying here.

When we went to dinner (don't worry, the medicine I took earlier seems to be helping me still) Mr. Lee found out that the waiter was studying to be a math teacher, so he asked him some math question, which sparked off a conversation between Steve and Mr. Lee, taking about complicated math stuff.  I felt completely put of the loop.  Usually they just ignore me while they play with their phones at dinner, but lack of cell service just meant that they had to think of something else that I couldn't contribute to!  Heehee!  Once we finished eating, I came back up to the room and they left to find a place to get Internet service so that Steve could do work stuff and Mr. Lee could work on some PSA stuff.  I don't mind, though.  It's peaceful and I might take a nap.

LATER:  Steve and Mr. Lee came back after a while.  They apparently had to drive quite a way just to find a cell signal. You'd think with bears and places to drown, they might want more avenues of communication available, right?  Oh, well.  Mr. Lee was ready to go to sleep, but Steve and I went into the big lobby to listen to the pianist play.  I felt  little awkward, because we both had our iPads, but no one else had any sort of device.  I felt rather gauche.  To explain, though, we were reading books on the Kindle app, so it wasn't like we were playing Angry Birds or anything.

When the lady stopped playing, that was apparently the signal for the room to empty, but we didn't know that.  I was so absorbed in my book that when I realized the music had stopped and looked up, the entire room was empty and creepy.  We went back to the room after that.  The last thing we wanted to see was whatever ghosts roam the halls of this joint.

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: BIG SKY EDITION

5/22/2013 Jackson Hole, WY

We had planned to start the day by shopping in Jackson Hole and then going on to our next place, but Mr. Lee changed things a little. We still went to Jackson Hole, just for a little while, but Mr. Lee wanted to go back to a couple of the places we'd been yesterday when the light wasn't just right to retake some pictures. I hate to admit that it irritated me! Steve doesn't really care much about taking pictures, and so when he gets interested in doing something while we're out here (and he had wanted to do this) I'd like for him to be able to do them.  Oh, well, Steve said it was OK, so what can you do? We figured that he and I would go after we'd finished with the stuff we'd planned for the day!

After we went to the places where Mr. Lee wanted to take his pictures, we had lunch at a little local stop in Moose, WY and hung out there until it was time for our raft trip!  Luckily it wasn't white water, but a sight seeing trip down the Snake River.  We met with our tour group, a total of six of us, and we were carted to the launch site and put into our life vests. I don't know if I didn't do something right, but I felt like my whole torso was getting a mammogram! I was squished.  We got in the raft and pushed off. 

This is his excited face.

This is his "Someone's Taking My Picture" face.

It had rained a bit when we were driving to the launch point, but the guide didn't think it would continue one we were out on the water, and for a little while it didn't. However, once it hit, it was scary! We were never in any danger of flipping or anything, but the wind blew really hard and it started to rain.  We all had to crouch down in the bottom of the raft until the wind died down. The guide had given us all thick green ponchos, and with the wind blowing so hard, putting them on was an almost impossible task. The guide said the squall was very rough, but it didn't keep us from seeing lots of pretty scenery and animals! We finally saw a moose!

Wet Moose!

We've been looking for a moose since we got here! I was so wrapped up in my coat, life jacket, and that poncho that I almost didn't get my camera out of my pocket before we left the moose behind. Luckily I did, but I don't think my pictures even remotely show that what I took a picture of was a moose. We saw three bald eagles, a sandhill crane, sandpipers, beaver activity (alas, no actual beavers) and another fox! I also found out that there are river otters out there, but we didn't see any. Probably a good thing or I would have capsized us all trying to grab one to take home. The raft ride was so much fun, even with the storm!  In fact, I think the storm might have made it more fun!  I didn't get to take many pictures, though, but we've still got a couple of days to make up for that.  Oh, and in the "interestingly coincidental" category, a young British woman was a member of our rafting group. She was from Nottingham, but had once lived in Texas, so she, her husband and baby had come to the US to visit with some friends so that they could meet her little girl. When she heard that we were from Alabama, she told us that they had just gone there because one of the friends that they'd come to visit had died suddenly, and they went to her funeral. I asked where she'd been, and she said Athens. She thought it was cool that Athens was my home town. So I met someone in Wyoming from the UK who had just visited my home town of Athens, of all places. Is a small world after all.

After we got back, we had dinner and then Steve and I went back to Jackson Hole to see the shops. Unfortunately the whole town seems to have closed at 5:00! Boo.  Oh well, we'll make Mr. Lee take us back tomorrow morning before we leave! We did a little laundry before going to bed, which was weird for me because I've never done laundry in a hotel.  I was afraid someone would come in and take our clothes out mid cycle and put their own clothes in, but that didn't happen.  Whew.  I'm glad. It turns out that a lot of the clothes I brought were neither warm enough or appropriate for what we were doing out here, so I was glad to get some stuff clean so that I could wear them again. 

From here on we're slowly making our way back towards Bozeman for our trip home on Sunday.

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: BIG SKY EDITION

Whoops!  Sorry, you guys.  Life is getting in the way of things these days.

5/21/2013 Grand Teton National Park to Jackson Hole, WY

Last night after I got into bed, some movement caught my eye. A spider was crawling across the top of the sheet right above Steve. I jumped up and tried to wake Steve, but he didn't hear me and the spider crawled across his back and ran to my side of the bed. Steve did jump up, and Mr. Lee killed the thing where I had to sleep, and even though he cleaned it off, I'm pretty sure I had to lay back down on disembodied spider parts. Steve was oddly unconcerned*, but it took me a long time to get to sleep.

*EDIT:  Steve said he didn't remember any of this. Apparently he was asleep, even when he got out of bed.  It was probably better this way!

When I got up this morning  and got in the shower, another spider decided to get in with me! I'm about sick of this nature crap!  Luckily I didn't run screaming and nude out of the cabin. You're welcome, fellow Jackson Lake Lodge visitors!  Heehee, don't worry, two little spiders were the absolute worst that happened.

After we had breakfast, we left the lodge and headed off for another stop-and-shoot. I suppose I should explain that what that means to those of you who may not know how vacations with Mr. Lee usually work.  He is a stereo photographer, meaning he shoots 3D photos for presentations and contests. Our Pratt Family Vacations usually consist of flying out west to one of the national parks, staying in a different place every night, and spending the days driving in between destinations and frequently stopping to take pictures of scenery. It's so much fun!  Today we drove through Grand Teton National Park, winding through the valley and taking pictures of the mountains. I'm absolutely sure that the Grand Tetons are my favorite mountains. They are punch your face in beautiful. We took so many pictures, and every view was just like a postcard.  We also saw a lot of wildlife! Mr. Lee got a bit too close with some bison. I was close, but he was closer.

 I swear, he couldn't have been closer if he had been riding them.  

We also saw some little critters that might have been ground squirrels! They were so cute!

 There were dozens of them and they made this cute whistling sound. I thought they were just "talking" to each other, but I found out later that they were only making that sound because they didn't want me on their turf. It was basically critter language for "Get off my lawn!"  We saw elk, a fox, a muskrat, and an unidentified scurrying furry thing.  We really hope to see a moose!  We shot pictures for several hours, getting cold, hot and sunburned all in the same day. The weather is very weird out here. 

We finally gave up for the day and went on to Jackson, WY, where we'll be for two nights in a row! Woo-hoo!

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: BIG SKY EDITION

5/20/2013: Yellowstone National Park to Grand Teton National Park.

Today we got up, packed, and went to breakfast.  Nothing of note happened until we walked out in the lobby, and we saw Al Roker!  I don't really know much about the man, as I'm usually at work when the show is on, but I thought it was neat. Don't worry, I didn't do anything weird in front of him, I promise. I wanted to get a picture of my foot with him, but that really would have been weird, and I'm trying to be on my best behavior.  Mr. Lee took a few pictures in the lobby, and we left.  It was very cold, rainy, and icy outside, which sucked. I never mind the cold, but the rain and ice was nasty. Plus, it was screwing up my pictures! You need a lot of sun for the colors of the geysers to come out, so gray skies and rain just don't help.  We decided to back track a bit since the rain messed up our plans yesterday. We went to one of the geyser areas, thinking that the worst of the rain had gone, but no. We got halfway down the walkway and the rain turned sideways. By the time we got back to the car, we were dripping wet and freezing cold.  We stopped at one other geyser area while the wind and rain were going on, and we almost decided to give up, but the sun decided to show its face and so we finally had some light to work with! You wouldn't believe the change a little bit of sun made in the scenery! We decided again to backtrack a little more to see if we couldn't improve on our other pictures. You may not be able to tell much by the two pictures side by side, but I blame my camera because it was a huge difference.

 No Sun

Sun!

After that, we headed on with our plans, and had an epic Stop-and-Shoot (TM) for several hours. As we drove through the mountains, we stopped at the Continental Divide:

We saw some waterfalls:

 

and a lot more beautiful scenery.  It was still cold, but the sun had come out in force, so at least we weren't in the rain anymore.  The higher we went in the mountains, the more snow we saw, and that just made everything more beautiful to me.  It was kind of bizarre, because I'm used to snow disappearing when the sun hits it, but we were up so high that bright sunlight shine on it and it didn't budge. I came to the realization that, though breathtakingly gorgeous, Montana and Wyoming had yet to just knock me over in awe the same way our other trips out west had.  Don't misunderstand me! It was still amazing and I was loving every minute of what I was seeing, but even the alien-like geysers were more interesting and fun than awe inspiring.

We were hungry by the time we'd been doing this for a while, and decided to stop at the next town we came to for something to eat. Unfortunately, there were no towns in between Yellowstone and Grand Tetons! There was a whole lot of absolutely no civilization! Even the camping villages we saw were still closed for the season, so we couldn't even go to the general stores and grab something.  Since we couldn't find anything, we really had no choice but to go on to our next hotel, which was the Jackson Lake Lodge. On our way, we saw two bears! Mr. Lee said it was rare to see bears, but we managed to see two relatively close together.  Granted, they were far away from us, so my photo of it looks like a black dot in the middle of a field, but still...bears!

The correct distance to take a picture of a bear is "Very Far Away."

There is a bear in there, though, I promise.

The lodge is one of those places that you'd imagine retired couples or families might come and stay for a couple of weeks during the summer. There is a main lodge house and hotel-like cabin rooms all around it.  It made me think of that lodge in Dirty Dancing for some reason. It turned out that we were there on their opening day, which I thought was neato!  I offered to give the new employees a training scenario to see how they would deal with a guest wreaking havoc on place, but they declined.  Boo.  We put our bags away and went to the lodge house for dinner, and when I walked into the lounge area I looked to of the giant floor to ceiling windows. You know what I said in the above paragraph about none of the scenery being awe inspiring? I was so wrong.  I'd never seen anything like the view from those windows. I didn't think you could see so much from one window, but the Tetons spread out behind the lodge and it was gorgeous. Snow streaked the mountains, and a field of colorful grasses spread out in front of it. It didn't even look real, it was so beautiful.  It was more like someone's ideal of what the mountains might look like. It punched me in the gut. Oy.

Gut-Punch

We had dinner in the diner, and I'm pretty sure our waiter thought I was flirting with him.  I didn't mean to if I was.  Eh, that's fine, even though he was probably around 19 years old and I'm an old lady, you have got to give the young whipper snappers a thrill now and again, right?  We also had another waiter who found out where we were from and asked us if we "were all Roll Tide."  What does that even mean?  We said yes, thereby lying and perpetuating the stereotype of people of Alabama (sorry guys), but it was easier than trying to explain why we are more or less unaffiliated and very liquid in our collegiate football loyalties.

We were going to go do more picture taking, but by then the light was going and we were tired. I took a few pictures of the gorgeous mountains, and we came back to our room. So much fun! It's still so hard to believe the world can be this beautiful.

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY - BIG SKY EDITION

5/19/2013: Bozeman, MT to West Yellowstone, MT to Somewhere in Idaho to the Old Faithful Inn

We left Bozeman this morning in a drizzly, cold rain.  I didn't mind the cold, but the rain was unfortunate. The place we stayed in Bozeman seemed unusual, in that it looks like a very rural farming area that is slowly being civilized. All of the new stuff looked brand new, even smelled brand new, but it was interspersed with old, dilapidated buildings and barns. I really liked the place, though.  It's a relatively small town*, and it looks like a nice palace to live! We drove through some beautiful country: lots of hills and low mountains covered with dark pines. Even in the rain, you could tell it was a beautiful place.  It reminded me a lot of driving to Nederlands , the place Josh took me into the mountains in Colorado. Our drive took us through the Gallatin National Forest, where we saw some snow, and the Gallatin River. The mountains out here look like they're melting into the ground. Mr. Lee says that these mountains are very old, so that's probably why.  I wish we could have stopped to take more picture, but the weather was kind of yuck, and we didn't have very good light. We did stop a couple of times, but it was so freaking cold and rainy that we didn't stay out long.

We finally made it to west Yellowstone to get a bite of lunch at around 11:30. West Yellowstone is a sort of skeezy little tourist town just across the border of Wyoming. Don't worry, I say skeezy with love. It was one of those places for tourists with rows of souvenir shops, restaurants with clever names and museums of local interest, and I actually love places like that. It was small and cute. I forgot to get a foot picture there.  :(  We didn't stay long, though, because our next stop was in Idaho!

Mr. Lee took us to Idaho at my request, because I'd never been there before.  Despite my fondest dreams and wishes, it did not smell like freshly cooked French fries.  He also said he wanted to show us an interesting place, which turned out to be Big Springs, which was a small place where a natural spring bubbled up. It was really, very beautiful. The water was so clear, and if you stood in the right place, you could see where it came out of the ground.  I don't think I'd ever seen the actual source of a spring before!

It had started to spit snow, and rain a bit, so we got back into the car and went back to West Yellowstone.  We had to get a couple of things at the market, and we stopped in one of the souvenir shops (because I'm a gift shop junkie!), and then we were off to our next destination.

We made it to Yellowstone National Parker not long after, and we almost immediately saw some elk! We went a little further, and found a nice place to take some pictures. It was just COVERED with wildlife feces. Ick. I haven't had to tiptoe through a field like that since dad raised cows in our back pasture. Bison, elk, deer, moose, you name it, it had pooped there. Seriously, I think the new motto of Yellowstone National Park should be:  "Yellowstone: Seriously, Watch Your Step."  I got tired of dodging turds, so we got back into the car and drove till we saw some bison eating near a parking spot, and we were able to get pretty close.

 They weren't scared of us, but I think it was because they knew they could stomp us to death. I tried to talk to him, but he ignored me. I decided at that point to eat one of his brethren in revenge.

(Is it weird that I now want to taste pretty much every animal that lives in this park?  I've never had the urge to eat wildlife before, but now it's a goal of mine!)

We stopped at one of the geyser areas to see some little geysers and mud pits. It was neato, but it smelled so very bad.

As lovely as this is...it smelled so bad!

It had gotten so cold that I wound up standing in the stream of sulfur smoke just to keep warm, so I'm sue I smelled nice after we left.  We decided to just go on to our next hotel. We were lucky enough to get a room for the night at The Old Faithful Inn! It's usually booked up a year or more in advance, but someone must've cancelled because Mr. Lee got a room! It's 109 years old, and it's made of twisty wood and beams. We didn't stay in the oldest part of the hotel, but our room was still attached to the building. The rooms are kind of spartan, but it was ok. This is the kind of place where you don't spend much time in the rooms.  The hotel put a stuffed bison on the bed, which I thought we got to keep - like the little bars of soap - but alas you had to buy them.  Since I'd already named it, Mr. Lee got said he'd add it to our bill. :)  We put out stuff down and explored until our dinner reservation.  We found out that on Tuesday, May 21, the cast of the Today Show was going to be broadcasting from this hotel. Camera guys and a director were busy planning shots and putting together equipment, and we stopped and talked to one guy for a minute.  Too bad we won't be here. I could have streaked during the broadcast!

We went into dinner and ordered our food. I got a really delicious bowl of pea soup and some bison pot roast! Unfortunately, there was some kind of oil or spice in the food that I must be allergic to. I only got a couple of bites into my pot roast, when something inside of me went terribly wrong. It wasn't a sick feeling, it was more like I got stabbed in the gut. I thought it would pass, but it didn't. I had to go back to the room, curl into a ball and lie down. I got briefly, but awfully ill, and it finally passed, but not for a while. After I felt a bit better, we walked outside to watch Old Faithful erupt.

It's weird waiting for a geyser to go. It steams a lot, and there are brief moments where you think it's about to happen, but it quiets down again. It's like waiting on a sneeze! It was still freezing and raining outside, and a whole bunch of people gathered around on the sidewalks to watch. The time came...and went. I was convinced we had somehow broken it.  There is actually a 10 minute window both ways where the geyser can go, but it passed that window. I had fashioned a burka out of my scarf, because my ears were freezing, but I didn't give up!  It finally blew up, or whatever it does, and I was suitably impressed.

Thar she blows!!

 Of course, I did have a moment of clarity in which I realized how insane it seemed for a bunch of people, mostly adults, standing around in the freezing rain, waiting on the earth to sneeze.

After that we called it a day. I still wasn't feeling so hot, Mr. lee and Steve were ready to go back, so now we're in our room, chilling out (literally.  It's freaking cold and all we have is a steam radiator in here) and planning our day tomorrow!

*EDIT - Apparently I only saw a very small edge of Bozeman.

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY - BIG SKY EDITION

May 18, 2013: Huntsville, AL to Atlanta, GA to Salt Lake City, UT to Bozeman, MT

It's time again for one of my great western adventures with Mr. Lee and Steve! Only this time we didn't head out to the Wild, Wild West.  Instead, we decided to visit the underground super volcano known as Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons! 

We got up early this morning and headed to the airport. I had to go through one of those full body scanners at the Huntsville airport, so I started off the trip by ruining someone's morning because they had to see me naked-ish.  Sorry, random security person!  We boarded fairy quickly and headed to Atlanta.  Blerg.  I do not like the Atlanta airport!  It's too big and too crowded.  Our layover ended up being a couple of hours long, but it wasn't too terrible. We got some breakfast and hung around until our next flight boarded. 

Our next flight was took us to Salt Lake City, UT.  The plane was completely packed, but the passengers were really calm.  Much better than our last flight out west to Las Vegas. Of course, that flight was full of gamblers and party people. For all I know this plane was full of Mormons heading home!  It got a bit bumpy at times, and I was seated right next to the wing, so I couldn't really see any scenery, but it wasn't too bad. 

THERE WAS NOTHING ON THE WING OF THE PLANE!

We landed and found our way to our next gate.  It was the smallest little airport gate I'd ever seen, which would have been fine if the strange Asian family hadn't been in such close quarters with us! That probably sounds rude, but I'm being 100% honest. The little boy ran around and around, paying no attention to his mother, who was slapping him around the whole time, and he kept running into Mr. Lee.  The grandmother kept making this disgusting sound with her face.  It was like she kept hawking a loogie without spitting. It was so gross. Steve called her The Hacker.  It seemed like forever before we finally boarded our last plane to Bozeman, Montana.

Bozeman, MT! I already see a mountain!

The plane was tiny! It was like being crammed into a tube sock.  There were two seats on each side, and I was seated across the aisle from Steve and Mr. Lee.  Since the plane was full, I knew I would be sitting with a stranger, but I wasn't bothered until I saw that The Hacker would be my seat mate! Ugh! Luckily, her grandson asked if I would mind trading seats with his grandfather so that they could sit together, and I gladly moved further back into the plane. 

I'm actually glad I did, because I wound up sitting next to two very interesting people.  The woman I shared a seat with was from Bozeman, and she was very nice. It also turned out that her daughter in law is the actress that played Juliette on Lost! Neato!  Well, at least she said she was.  Who knows really.  The guy on the other side of me was also from Bozeman, and he was so funny. We spent the whole flight making each other laugh and talking. We just talked about dumb stuff, but I enjoyed it.  I felt like I knew him from somewhere, but I know I didn't.  He just reminded me of someone, I think.  It wasn't until we got off the plane that I realized we'd talked so much that I'd forgotten to get his name! Oh, well, I just refer to him as Airplane Guy.  He was nice!  I liked him.  Of course, he could have been a serial killer for all I know.  Oh well, who cares.  I think I made Tyler Durden's fabled "Single Serving Friend."

After that, we got our rental car, and found our hotel.  We are staying in a place called Homewood Suites. It's a really nice place, with rooms more like small apartments than regular hotel rooms. The only thing I don't like is that the carpets remind me of the floors in The Shining. Eeesh. We got dinner and now we're back at the hotel. I'm so tired, but Steve and Mr. Lee want to watch some movie called Spencer's Mountain.  It has something to do with The Waltons or something.  I don't know, I'm just trying to stay awake.  Hopefully I can go to bed soon, because our adventures have just started!

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I'm a terrible judge of character.  I think I've always kind of known this about myself, but it never really seemed to matter much until recently.  If someone is nice to me, I tend to think "Oh, this person is awesome!" and I ignore the bigger picture.  I mean, I'm not completely daft.  I think there is a part of me that can know some things about people really well, and I can see things about them that they don't realize I can see, but even then, as a whole, I don't always judge them correctly.  I'm sure I'm not the only one, of course.  I'm sure we've all known people like the friend you thought you could confide your problems to, who might listen to you talk, but turns out not to really care all that much about your actual problems. Then there is the person you think is so nice and fun to be around, but they are only that way to those they think need to see that part of them, and secretly they are kind of awful to other people.  I'm sure you can add your own experiences with people to this list ad nauseum, and you'd never get to the end of it. People are multi-faceted and honestly, we only see the parts that they let the light shine on when we're with them.  I'm sure I've badly disappointed people who thought I was better than I really am, so I shouldn't be too shocked about finding out that someone I considered a friend and all around awesome person turned out to be a black hole of absolute suckage, but I am.  I think what bothers me most is that I was so convinced that this person was great that I wasn't seeing what should have been completely obvious.

Now, before you start to wonder who has done what to me, I need to let you know that what brought on this realization has nothing at all to do with me.  This person has never been anything other than decent and helpful towards me, personally.  This is pretty much why I'm being intentionally vague.  Since it isn't my problem, I can't (with good conscience) lay it all out here for you fine folks.  Trust me, I'd love to do it, though.  Oh, and also, this person is litigious and has no scruples about suing someone over them publicly talking about what they did.  Glad I found that out before saying anything.  While I don't think they read my blog, I have certainly learned my lesson about posting certain things online.  I don't know if I've ever known anyone to be morally reprehensible before, but this person is.  It makes me kind of sad, too, though.  I actually really liked them, but after being fooled by them for so long, I couldn't ever feel the same way.   I hate when people suck.

2)  Steve got a solo for his spring/summer concert series!  Woot!  I'm very proud.  It isn't a long solo, but he's tickled, so I also have sympathy tickles.  Hopefully, I'll have a video of him playing it at some point. He's doing really great in the MCB and I'm glad he's found something that he likes to do and is a stress reliever from his work.  It's his thing, and I'm glad he's enjoying it.  If you saw the video of Butler "singing" while Steve played the trumpet, don't worry.  He really plays much better than that!



3) I wish I could find a "thing."  I haven't really enjoyed doing anything in a long time.  That sounds weird, but it's true. I feel kind of stuck.  I have dozens of hobbies, but I haven't liked doing any of them lately.  It's really strange, because it's like I'm in a holding pattern, waiting for something, but I have no idea what I'm waiting on.  I don't even have any idea what kind of thing I'd like to do.  You know how sometimes you are talking, and you get stuck while trying to think of a word?  That's how my whole life feels right now.  I hope whatever I'm waiting on is a good thing.

Is that odd?  It seems like it might be odd.  I dunno.  Maybe I'll take up tightrope walking or something.  I just wish I didn't feel so stuck. I NEED A THING!

4) Have you ever heard that smell is the sense closest tied to memory?  I find that to be very true, but it may be because I can smell things better than most people.  Honestly, have you seen my nose?  :)  Well, I bought a tube of lip gloss the other day, and the smell of it reminds me of something, but I can't remember what it is.  All I get is a feeling of uneasiness, like whatever the smell reminds me of might not be such a nice thing, but for the life of me, I have no idea what it is!  It's a very particular smelling lip gloss, and it isn't something I have used often, so you'd think it wouldn't be hard to remember what it reminds me of!  It's a mystery!  I kind of think it might remind me of a date I went on when I was 15 or so and the guy tried to kiss me and I was REALLY not wanting him to (we didn't date long, obvs), so I had to dodge him a lot, but I'm not sure that's it. 

5) I'm afraid that almost my whole blog post has seemed a bit negative. To alleviate this I present to you:

A QUICKY

I love my mother so very much!  No offense to any other amazing moms out there I might know, but in my humble opinion, my own mom is the best. :)  She's so funny.  She probably doesn't mean to be funny sometimes, but she is.  People who make me laugh are awesome. Laughing is my favorite.

Since I moved to Huntsville, trying to explain my family's accent is kind of hard, because I think people might think I'm exaggerating them a bit.  I'm really not. Huntsville isn't far removed from my hometown, of course, and plenty of rednecks live out here, but it does have more than its fair share of northern and international transplants, and the southern dialect is still a bit new for them. Since I did public speaking in high school (and because of a cute boy I knew who told me he thought southern accents didn't sound very smart), I beat my accent into submission, and because of that I've met quite a few people who don't realize I'm from the south. At least not until I've talked to them for a while.  At any rate, they seem surprised when I mimic my mother or sister's accent, because they don't understand why my own is so different.

I tell you all of that because I wanted to show you an automatic email I got from our voice-mail provider.  It sends us an email letting us know that we've gotten a voice mail so that we know to check it.  It used to just have the "You've Got Voicemail" message on it, but they've upgraded to having a computer actually transcribing the messages people leave so that you can read them without having to go through the hassle of signing in to the website to listen to them.  Usually, with the exception of some names and places, the computer transcribed messages are very accurate.  When my mom calls, her accent confuses it.  Here is the message I got:

"Hi Kayleen. Hey we made the dog-show-or(?) were sick or out on the balcony looking out at white-riley(?) hey I just thought I'd let you know I would not it okay alright(?) love you all. Bye bye."

I was all...what?  Did she have a stroke?  Then I listened to the message, and what you see above was not even close.  I'm not going to tell you what she actually said, because I want to see if any of you know your "Country" enough to decipher it.  Personally, though, you may need to get in touch with a Navajo Windtalker to see what they think. :)

DOCTOR, DOCTOR, GIVE ME THE NEWS...

So...I hurt myself.  Some of you already know this, but I'm going to talk about it anyways because it's my blog and I do what I want!

In light of full disclosure, I'm going to embarrass myself.  I hurt myself at the gym, but I didn't realize it at first. Well, let me rephrase... I knew I'd hurt myself, but it didn't seem so bad.  Maybe the endorphins had kicked in and  I wasn't feeling too much pain, or maybe I was just not paying attention, but I wasn't concerned about it until I got home, and by then my left arm had gone numb.  I'm going to assume that most of you would have thought at that point "Huh, I must've pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve."  Alas, my first thought was "OMG, I'm having a heart attack. I'm going to die here, on the floor, alone in my house."

Now, I'm not usually one to jump to that conclusion right off the bat, but to be 100% honest, I don't expect to live to be an old person.  My father died of a heart attack, my mom has heart issues, and I figure that if it isn't cancer (also rampant in our family) that takes me off, it'll be my heart doing something weird.  So there I was, in my kitchen, trying to decide if I was having a heart attack or not.  So, I Googled the symptoms.  That was not smart.  I didn't have most of them, but it "reassuringly" said that "For women, heart attack symptoms aren't always the common ones."  Well, damnit.  That pushed me over the edge and I began to have a panic attack, which in turn caused more of the symptoms that aligned with the common heart attack symptoms.  Greeaaaat.

Deep down where my common sense grows, and I do have some whether you believe it or not, I knew I wasn't having a heart attack.  Granted, I have very little useful medical knowledge, but something told me that I'd be in much worse shape than I was in if I were truly having a heart attack.  However, the rest of my brain went unto complete panic mode.  I called Steve and told him I was sure I was OK, but just in case I died unexpectedly, I was sorry.  Sorry about what, I couldn't tell you, but panic attacks are a bitch to begin with, and having one while you are convinced you are going to die are even worse and they make you a smidge irrational.  Did I head over to the hospital?  Nope.  I went on to work.  I figured that if I was going to die, why not do it at church? Cut out the middle man, right?  So I got to church, ransacked the first aid kit for some aspirin, and then sat down on the floor. Also, to cover all my bases, I took one of my anti anxiety pills. I was sitting there, in the floor of my office, all alone (everyone was late that day) wondering if I was going to die.

In case you're wondering, I didn't die.

No, I probably should have taken the anti-anxiety pill much, much sooner.  Once I calmed down, I realized that my arm was numb because I'd hurt my back.  I'd been so worried about my heart that I had ignored the fact that I'd pinched a nerve or pulled a muscle or whatever I'd done.  I was also very embarrassed that I'd gone to the edge of crazy for even a fraction of an hour.  Luckily, I hadn't gone to the hospital and insisted that I was dying.  I really, really don't want to end up being one of the people an ER nurse talks about when they are recounting stories about patients.  I mean, unless they are talking about patients who are awesome.

So that crisis averted, I managed to live with my back & neck pain for a few more days.  It was unpleasant, but I could deal with it.  It got kind of bad, but nothing I couldn't handle. At least I was able to handle it until the day I bent down to pet the cat.  Seriously, I just bent over to pet Rorschach and it was like my back said "NOPE! No more!"  It felt like I was stabbed by an icicle.  Everything locked up and I couldn't straighten up all the way.  Steve had to help me to bed and I just lay there like a slug.

As I was telling a friend of mine, I think pain is stupid.  If I'm going to hurt, I want to have to work for it.  Laying in bed or on the couch and just hurting because I'm awake annoys me.  I know pain is important because it helps you to understand your limitations and keeps you from doing things to further injure yourself, but still, it's stupid.  I didn't listen to my pain, and of course, that make it worse.  The day after I had to be put to bed like somebody's maw-maw, I decided that it wasn't so bad.  I had errands to do and I needed to get them done that day, so I hauled myself out of bed and out into the world where I pretty much walked around without bending my neck or moving too fast.  It sucked.  I wound up on the couch for the rest of the day lying on a heating pad/ ice pack, except for when I managed to construct a nifty little harness to strap a cold pack to my back so that I could get up and move around.  The pain came and went all weekend, which was no fun, but at least I didn't have to be immobile the whole time.

I went to the doctor this morning, and he didn't seem very concerned about my back.  I thought he'd at least refer me to a chiropractor, or prescribe a muscle relaxer or something, but he didn't.  So I guess this will just have to pass on its own.  If not, I'm going to have to find a chiropractor on my own.  Fun stuff.

At least I didn't die of a heart attack, though, right? Silver lining! :)

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Finally!  I keep wanting to sit down and write, but I never seem to have the time.  I had no idea I'd be so busy at work that I couldn't do this, and that stinks because I can think of a thousand things to talk about while I'm at work.  When I get home, I can't remember anything.  That is not an exaggeration.  I think I'm getting old.  :(

2) So, speaking of work, it's still going well, albeit I'm very, very busy.  I honestly didn't think I'd be doing so much stuff, but the pastor keeps finding new things for me to do.  Ditto for the youth pastor, who has apparently realized I have a hard time saying no, even when I really, really don't want to do something.  At least I've managed to convince him that I will not, under any circumstances, travel with his youth group.  If I wanted to be responsible for children, I'd give birth to some.  Plus, I would be the most terrible chaperone ever because I'm really not very mature and I have very little patience!  Don't get me wrong, I really like and respect all the men I work with at the church, but I do find myself wanting to hide from them sometimes!

One of the things I've been doing for the church is editing the videos of the Sunday morning sermons so that they can be distributed to our home-bound members on DVDs. That is one of my favorite things, because it seems to mean so much to those people who can't actually make it to church.  It gives me a warm fuzzy, so I'm glad the women's group came up with the idea!  I also edit the videos to be put on YouTube, and I'm learning that copyright laws are a bitch-kitty.  We've been hit with several infringement "cases", which have mostly been redacted, because whomever views our videos probably understands that we - as a church- aren't trying to make money or actually infringe on anything.  By all means, we should fall under "Fair Use" because the music is just a part of our services, and we also have a CCLI license that should cover our butts for almost everything, but the scouts on YouTube are hyper-vigilant about making sure we know we have music in our services that someone else wrote.  I wouldn't care a bit, but if the claims aren't redacted (which they mostly have been) our channel can be taken down.  The weirdest thing, is that most of the larger publishing houses have removed their claims, which allow us to keep the songs in our videos for free, but the smaller, Christian-based companies actually want us to pay them.  I don't think that's what Jesus would do, guys!

3)  So I went to the dentist the other day, and everything was going fine until the dental hygienist grabs this...thing.  It looked like a regular, pointy, scraper thing, but when she put it in my mouth it actually sent a bolt of vibration through my head.  It scared me to death, which made the lady start to laugh.  I have very, very sensitive teeth (and she didn't know that) so she was using a "Sonic Scaler" on my teeth.  That is not a Doctor Who joke, it is a real and terrible thing.  If you are unaware of what this is, imagine that horrible, pointy thing that dentists use to scrape on your teeth, and then add intense vibrations that shoot through your head via bone-conduction.  It sounded like a drill.  It also caused my teeth to spark so much pain that I almost fainted.  Luckily she put the danged thing away when she realized she was torturing me. 

Other than that, the only incident of note was that they found a cavity.  I have no idea how I could get a cavity because I'm super weird about making sure I brush and floss, but Dr. Knight did say my tooth had been on his "Watch List" like it was some kind of enamel terrorist.  He said I have an old filling that was coming loose and right next to that was the tooth they'd been watching, so I imagine that it had been damaged by the old silver filling, which in turn caused a cavity.  He asked me if I'd had any pain, or sensitivity (UM, HELLO!) with that tooth, and I had.  In fact, I made a special appointment with them MONTHS ago because I thought I'd cracked that same tooth because it hurt when I bit down on stuff.  They acted like I was some kind of hypochondriac because I didn't want to chance another root canal by catching any problems early.  So for all I know, they could have fixed whatever was going on back then, but they decided to wait until now to make sure my terrorist tooth went into full jihad mode.  Boo.  So now I get to go back in two weeks and get stuck with needles and have a drill in my grill.  Joy.

4) My house is still a wreck, but not for lack of trying to fix things. Well, that's not 100% accurate.  I've been too tired and busy to go on a full scale assault of the guest room to clear it out, but I have made some efforts.  Plus, we still haven't found a place for the stuff we had to move when we redid the kitchen and since we still haven't been able to find the right kind of base boards, we can't move everything in the kitchen back into it's proper place.  I am so grateful to have a home, and I love where I live, but I'd love it even more if I could move around without knocking things over or tripping over something.  I realize we sound like candidates for an episode of Hoarders, but trust me, we just have very little room to store our normal things. The closets are tiny, the attic has no floor, and our garage is not temperature controlled, so finding space to keep things out of the way is hard.  This house was probably built for nudists who didn't have furniture or any other possessions.

YUMMY CHOCOLATE OF THE DAY

I KNOW, RIGHT?! 

It's been a long time since I did a YCOTD, but to be frank, I haven't been eating as much chocolate as I'd like.  Well, actually, that's not 100% true, I'm not eating as much INTERESTING chocolate as I'd like.  Shut up, I'm supposed to be eating better.  If I tell people about the chocolate, I'd have to count it as real food!

I recently ordered a sample collection of Chuao chocolates from Birchbox.  Birchbox is basically a very girly, makeup-beauty-lifestyle subscription service where you get a box of 4 or 5 different kinds of samples in the mail every month.  Sometimes you get awesome stuff and sometimes it's kind of meh, but I love it because I've found a lot of different products that I really like without having to buy a full size product.  Also, I love getting mystery boxes in the mail.  I can't help it.

Anyways, sometimes Birchbox sends samples of snacks in the boxes and since I loved the sample of Chuao that they sent me, I ordered the entire box, which is 7 small bars, all of different types AND they're only 50 calories each.  Not bad, really.  I'd had some of the Chuao chocolate before, and I knew I liked it, but I wanted a more complete idea of the bars they offered, so this sample box was a great thing.  Each piece is about two inches long, and about 1/3 of an ounce, so it's enough without being too much.

The first one I tried was called Spicy Maya, which is described as "seductive cinnamon, pasilla chili and warming cayenne bedded in dark chocolate." 

 

It. Was. Amazing.  No, not just amazing, it somehow actually tasted sexy.  I know that isn't going to make much sense, but that is the best word I have.  The chocolate was dark and a little bitter with a good melt (not greasy), the cinnamon and chilies added some heat, and every once in a while I'd hit a bit of chili that was a little bigger than the other pieces and it would add a pop of heat.  There was even a slight after burn in my mouth and on my lips that lingered a while after the chocolate was gone.  The little chocopod (as the small bars are called) was just the perfect size, too.  Any more of it and I think it would have been too much. 

Oh, chocolate, I've been away way too long.  *Swoon*

PS:  Sorry if this review sounds a bit porny.   I have just really, really, really missed good quality chocolate.  You have no idea.

GRRRRRR

I'd like to think that I'm generally an easygoing type of person.  I mean, I know that's not true about all things in life (just ask Steve - heyo!), but I'd like to think that in most situations, I can take the daily bits of unpleasantness and keep rolling along nicely.  I say, I'd LIKE to think that, but after yesterday I'm not so sure anymore.

I had an appointment at my doctor's office.  It wasn't with my doctor, but I had to see a nurse so that I could get a prescription refilled.  It's apparently a new rule or law or something, because it's the first time I've ever had to do that just to get a refill for this particular prescription. It's inconvenient, but I can understand that someone, somewhere feels that this is the best way to do things now.

So I went into the office first thing in the morning.  I was the first and only patient in the waiting room, and they made me fill out an insurance form (again) after saying it had been two years since it was updated (It wasn't. I'd been there three times since last January.)  I also made a faux pas by not remembering the name of the nurse I was there to see.  I had written it down, but forgotten to bring it with me and I called her two different and wrong names before they realized who I was talking about. Oops. My appointment was at 8:15, but that time came and went.  I'd always thought that not being called at your appointment time was because other patients took longer than they thought, but apparently not.  However, I really wasn't that bothered about not being called back right away.  I figured they had their reasons.

The door opened and a nurse told me to go to the scale (as every dang nurse always does) and then she directed me towards an exam room.  Something about this lady was weird.  I felt right away that she seemed...I don't know...terse or angry.  I apologized about getting her name wrong, thinking it might have insulted her, but she didn't crack a smile or even really look at me.  She walked over and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm and up close I could really tell she was angry about something.  I just kept quiet and she walked out of the room.

Have you ever been around someone who was really mad at you?  You get that weird, tingly feeling in the pit of your stomach and your face gets all warm?  That's how I felt as I was sitting there.  I began to wonder if I had inadvertently done or said something that I hadn't realized, because it felt directed at me.  She wasn't gone long, but when she came back in, she didn't even close the door to the exam room.  She just turned around and said in a rather rude way (I'm paraphrasing:)

"I can't write you a prescription, you don't qualify anymore.  These are not my rules.  I don't even know why they told you to come in."

She gave me a very, very short reason why I wasn't eligible and said when I came back to see the doctor next month, maybe I could get it then. I was genuinely puzzled, because while I could sort of understand her reason, it didn't make a whole lot of logical sense, so I got a chance to ask one question before she pretty much stalked out without saying another word.  I had been with her for less than five minutes.  I was completely nonplussed.  Honestly, I've never been treated that rudely in a doctor's office before, especially by a nurse.  I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, but she acted as if my very presence in the office was some kind of joke meant to inconvenience her in some way.  I was slightly concerned about not having the prescription refilled, but not so much that I would have made a scene or anything, so I have no idea what her problem was.  Was she ticked because of whatever this new rule was that said she had to see people specifically each time the prescription was refilled?  I don't know, but I did know that whatever her damage was, I didn't cause it.  By the time I'd gotten to my car, I was mad.  The more I thought about it, the madder I got!

It pretty much ruined my whole day.  That sounds kind of hyperbolic, but being treated so rudely first thing in the morning really set the tone for the day.  So thank you, lady, for giving me a scorching case of the Mondays, and thank the horse you rode in on, too.

SIGH

I am why we can't have nice things. :(

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving home from work when something hit the side of my car.  I think it must've been a garbage can.  Well, in retrospect I think it was a garbage can that the garbage truck might not have put back completely off of the road.  I honestly didn't see anything, so it had to have just been the corner of the thing, but still.  At the time, I was so startled that I didn't even think to look behind me to see what I'd hit and by the time I got home, I freaked out thinking that I might have sideswiped a person!  I mean, I guess I knew I didn't hit a person, mainly because I'm fairly sure it would have sounded less Rubbermade-y and more meaty, but I was scared!  I pretty much sat in my office waiting for sirens.  Not that I'd just hit a person and run or anything, not if I actually KNEW I'd hit a person.  At any rate, there were no sirens.  Let's move on.

Anyways, whatever I hit knocked the passenger's side mirror off of the car.  Not the mirror housing, but it popped the mirror off.  I hated driving without it, because the convertible top of my car creates a huge blind spot, and I just knew that I'd try and change lanes and cause an accident.  Luckily, though, Steve was able to get a slightly smaller mirror that fit the housing, so after about a week I had a new mirror!

Fast forward to this past Monday.  I'd forgotten to get the garbage can from the street when I got home from work, and again after Steve and I got back from running an errand at Target.  I remember mentioning to Steve that we needed to bring it back in, but we got sidetracked by something when we got in the house and forgot about it again.   By the time I remembered it was still out there, a storm was blowing in.  The wind was blowing very hard and it was raining a bit. Since I was wearing shoes (and let's be honest, pants) I ran out into the rainy, windy night to wheel the can back to the house. 

The rain was cold, which was very uncomfortable, so I got the can and I tried wheeling it through the yard.  It was too squishy after the rain, so I wheeled it to the driveway and started to run.  I had to maneuver it between the cars, which I always have to do, but the wheel on the can jigged and I smashed it into the passenger side window of Steve's Challenger.  Oy.  The mirror housing snapped off and just dangled there by the power cords. I threw the can into the garage and ran back out into the rain and tried to fix it, but apparently I'd broken some important piece within the mirror housing, because it just sort of wobbled on its stalk like a broken doorknob.  When I got back to the house, I told him what I did.  Then I ran and hid.

Don't misunderstand me, Steve isn't a violent type of person.  Seriously, he barely has emotions to begin with, so I didn't hide because I thought he'd yell at me or anything.  I just felt so terrible.  I'm so freaking clumsy!  I've never been one for the wanton destruction of personal property (except for that one time and I'm still finding glass underneath things) and to know I was the one who broke his CAR of all things made me feel awful.  I think I'm very much like a child in some ways, and hiding when I'm uncomfortable is one of those ways.  He was actually very nice about it.  Much nicer than he needed to be, and told me to come out from beneath the laundry pile.  He tried to see if it could be fixed, but he didn't have what he needed to make it stay.  Then we jumped into my car and rode through the, by this time, rather violent winds to Wal-Mart to get some kind of adhesive to fix it until he could have it replaced.  It was near midnight by this point, and I had forgotten how scary the Midnight People of Wal-Mart can be! Luckily, he was able to find some kind of bonding agent that has held it on very well, so hopefully it won't just fall off while he's driving!  I suppose he'll have to have it replaced one of these days, but apparently with his car you can't just get the part mailed to you.  It has to be ordered and painted to match the car, then it has to be installed by a mechanic.  I still feel bad, but not as bad as I did.  This is the second time I've damaged his car.  NO wonder he won't let me drive it!  :)

Oh, and to make the day complete, I broke an iPhone!  That one wasn't completely my fault, though.  Steve had given me a deactivated iPhone that I was using as an iPod-with-a-camera (not sure what was wrong with it, but it couldn't be used as a phone anymore.)  I had it in my purse and when I reached for it on Monday found that the cover and screen had separated from the body of the phone.  It wasn't detached, but it had lifted away from the button near the bottom, and I couldn't push it down and fit it back in the frame.  I realized a piece of plastic inside was bent outward, so I lifted the screen enough to wiggle my finger inside to try and push it back down, and the glass cracked and the whole thing fell apart!  When I showed Steve, he told me it wasn't my fault.  I was unaware of this, but apparently some iPhone batteries are faulty, and they can swell up inside the phone, causing them to--well, not explode, but it pops them apart from the inside.

Anyways, so I've been very careful not to handle or get near anything of value this week.  At this point, I'm pretty sure I could break a chunk of granite with by bare hands without meaning to! 

KELLY SMASH!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

Well, another year has gone by and I officially no longer have to scale down the age settings on the elliptical at the gym.  Excuse me while I go into a corner and sob a bit. 

*one hour later*

OK, I'm much better now!  Actually, I had a very nice birthday this year.  Well, at least there was little to no mayhem, so that's much better than some years.  I spent most of it at work, though.  Generally, I take the day off from work, but I didn't think of doing it soon enough.  I'm not kidding, this birthday sneaked up on me! (Sneaked doesn't sound right to me, but spell check says it's a real word.)

The pastor and the youth pastor took me to lunch, which was nice, but it was a little weird.   I mean, it wasn't weird in a bad way, but I'm still not used to being so causal with my preacher, so it was weird just hanging out and having lunch with them.  Shut up, I'm still getting used to it!  :)  We went to a place called Shane's Rib Shack.  The youth pastor had been telling me about the place and since I couldn't think of anywhere else I'd rather go, I picked that.  Honestly, I can never think of a place to eat when people ask me.  I'm terrible at it.  I panic, name a place, and then spend the entire meal worrying that the people I'm with don't like it!  However, this wasn't a bad choice at all.  It was actually really good! I mean, it was no Dreamland, but really, you can't expect that.  My only complaint, and it's really my fault for not knowing this already, was that I ordered a rib sandwich expecting it to be a sandwich made of rib meat.  Nope, it was two pieces of Texas toast with ribs in the middle.  Like, actual ribs on the bone in between bread slices.  It tasted good, but I had to remove the skeleton before I could eat it!

I actually had planned to leave early, but I wound up staying later to try and upload a video to Youtube, a video that refused to be uploaded.  I just got disgusted with it and left.  On my way home I stopped at the Cafe City Diner to pick up my birthday cake substitute, a couple of giant pieces tiramisu, for after dinner.  They were the size of Steve's head!

It was "Punch Someone In the Face" delicious.

When I got home, I saw where a bunch of people had posted happy birthdays on my Facebook page!  Look, I know that doesn't really mean much, and I know most of them probably didn't know it was my birthday until they saw it online, but I don't care.  I still thought it was nice.  They didn't have to take the time, so I took it as a plus!  Where else but Facebook will people you never talk to, never see, and probably don't know well enough to have a conversation with, tell you happy birthday?

Steve came home and we gave each other our Valentine's day gifts.  I'm so grateful that he knows I wouldn't like to get flowers or jewelry on Valentine's day.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's bad for people to give their wives or whatever flowers or jewelry, but it isn't something I personally like.  I got him jellybeans and he got me a t-shirt with a cartoon of the Dramatic Groundhog on it.  Tres romantic, no?

It makes me laugh. Don't judge me.

 We had to run a couple of errands, and we grabbed some 5 Guys burgers (and fries) on the way home, which I think put me over my daily allowance of meat for the next couple of days, but they were so feckin' good.  I opened my cards from my family and my birthday gift from Steve (a plotter, like the one I used at the Sprocket -pitooey- but for personal rather than industrial use. Awesome!) and we watched TV.  It was a lovely, low key birthday.  However, I didn't know it wasn't over yet!  I didn't actually get it until the next morning, probably because I had fallen into a meat coma after dinner, but I got - hands down - the best birthday video that has ever been made/ will ever be made. 

So, unless the universe is saving it up for later on in the year (which I sincerely hope it isn't, 'cause last time that happened it was really, really bad) the birthday curse was relatively mild, possibly absent this year.  Well, except maybe for what happened to Russia.  So, Прошу прощения, Russia.  My bad.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to think of me!  I'm really not worthy, but I'm glad you guys don't know that!  :)

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1)  You know, I can't believe that it's been so long since I've written anything on here.  My blog has always been a fun thing for me to do, but these days I never seem to have the time or energy!  That kind of sucks.  Anyways, I have no intention of stopping, but I hope you lovely people don't give up on me.  My life is just kind of boring right now.

2) Well, I made it through my first round of preparing taxes for the church workers!  Yippee!  Actually, make that a hesitant yippee, because I have no idea if I'm going to get a sternly worded letter from the IRS telling me that everything is wrong and I'm going to be arrested for tax fraud or something.  Since the church is a tax-free organization, all I really had to do was prepare income tax stuff (1099 & W2 forms) for the church employees, and that wasn't super hard or anything, but it was nerve wracking. I had to use a typewriter, y'all.  I might as well have been chipping the darn forms on pieces of slate. I type fast on a computer, but it took hours for me to do the forms because I didn't have spell check or any way to erase what I'd typed if I screwed anything up.  Yes, you can do all of your tax forms online, or at least with software, but the church can't afford to upgrade our Quickbooks so that we can automatically print the tax stuff.  People get very weird about their money, and rightly so, but being the one responsible for making sure it's right is awful.

I also had to make sure the church contribution letters were done, and that was another kind of pain in the ass.  If you aren't familiar with what contribution letters are, they are detailed reports of the offerings that are given to the church so that people can get tax deductions.  Some people don't bother using them, but some people are meticulous and they want every penny they give to be counted.  Of course, since I wasn't the only one working with the records this past year, and since a new program had been used (on a separate computer and the files hadn't been transferred) there were a lot of mistakes.  I had to manually, and individually, type in dozens (possibly hundreds) of new entries because our pastor didn't want anyone to get sheets from two different programs.  The work was tedious and sometimes confusing, so I have spent the last week or so correcting people's letters if they needed them corrected.  Fun stuff, you guys.

3) So I'm still trying to do the weight loss thing, and I still hate it.  Actually, I haven't been as careful as I was before because I think I've lost my mojo.  For one, I had a specific date and event to work towards back in October.  Having a goal date with a planned event made it easier to work towards losing weight.  For two... wait, is that even a thing? Secondly?  Is that better?  Secondly, the holidays happened and all of that lovely food was around and I didn't want it to go to waste. :)  For three...I don't have as much time to devote to going to the gym as I had before.  I've been trying to get back into the groove, but now that I'm working, it's more difficult to get to the gym because I either have to go really early, or after work, and I'm always too tired after work.  It's very frustrating.  I know this is a stupid thing to say, but I'd almost rather be able to focus on losing weight than working.  That is probably vain, and I'm sorry for that, but damnit, it was working!!!! 

I wasn't going to say how much I'd lost because it felt like I was jinxing myself, but at this point it doesn't matter. To date I've lost 35 pounds, and now I'm stuck.  I'd lost 37, but the last two pounds keep on coming back, going away, & coming back again.  After steadily losing weight (albeit slowly, but that works for me) for so long, being stuck is really frustrating.  Keep your fingers crossed for me, guys, because I've got a goal and I want to reach it. I just need my mojo back. Send me vibes.

BTW, 35 pounds probably sounds like a lot, but I'll be darned if I can tell where it came from.  Seriously, I see those commercials where people are all "I lost X amount of pounds by using this diet!" and they have the before and after pictures where they look so drastically different, but I don't think I look that different.  I mean, I can kind of see it, but mostly I think I must have lost it all from my head or some other useless place.  Maybe other people can tell, but I can't.

4) The other day I tried a drink that was so weird that I need everyone to go out and get it because I don't want to be the only one.  I wrote about it on my other blog, so you'll have to go there to read about it.  Mamma Chia...the slimiest drink on earth!