Friday afternoon

Starting swimming season early

Still stuck on square b/w photos...this Ilford app just does it for me. But colors are popping everywhere.
Crocuses under the apple tree are a color that might phone camera can't compute and survived a night ir two of frost. Birds are singing. Squirrels are running from branch to branch. Lazlo follows them quite closely under the hazelnut tree but his technique never improves. The pear tree and lilacs are budding.
It's almost camping weather. We're counting the days/weeks until Keith's temp job comes to an end.  What better time of year to be "unemployed" than spring? 3-day weekends will seem like a vacation after working full-time. We talk about what we're working toward and how to get there...jobs are part of that plan but we have flexibility for seasonal work for Keith. Which is great because there are a lot if tiny house projects to tackle.
The river is dropping a little and only one in the family is brave enough to swim so far this year. Head under and everything. Swimming season started early. Also rolling in dead steelhead season...dogs are disgusting creatures! Febreeze is fighting the smell in my car. On warmer days it loses. Gag!!

Almost spring

The sun has reached the point in the sky where the crystals hanging outside the bathroom window catch it. It's been dark for a few months; now my disco is back.

Hi-brow lo-brow

Rinsing your french press mug at the rain barrel

March forth

Slow Sunday

Working more = appreciating weekends.
Smartphone for work = easier posting.

Moved the explosives box to the bathroom.
Hung up an agate mobile to compliment the tp dish.
Moved the chalk board out of storage for project planning/diagramming.

Adjusting as we go...

When we moved here it was with the intention scaling back, living simply and getting by on part-time work. On paper, that sounds fine. But after four years of living at/below the poverty line we're putting a plan into play that will allow us to save some money for future (long-term) travelling  etc. This means increasing the number of hours we each work and there are some growing pains associated with that - but we're trying. Sometimes it feels like struggling, but it's good to get out of your comfort zone periodically, right? Right???

The snow is all gone (again) and it's making us wish spring would get here even faster. Though, on the weekend, when all I want to do is rest, I am glad for the cloud cover that justifies me staying indoors.

I planned on writing a post about things we do differently due to space restrictions and one of them is yoga. I only have a small amount of floor space that will accommodate my mat and sending the pups outdoors is the only way I can do downward dog without getting licked. I just never took the time to flesh out the list of what else we've modified for our space, but I will work on that - because it's a fairly lengthy list!

Cold storage

This is the first year our bird feeder has seen any serious traffic and I am very entertained by them. We've seen a lot of evening grosbeaks and some smaller birds - sometimes up to 5 on the feeder at once.

We've been trying to keep it filled with black sunflower seeds, but they are eating it as quickly as we can refill.

Keith enjoyed his first installment of his xmas gift from my sister, 3 months of IPA-of-the-month.

It's December and they're still digging in the field - no snow has lasted. On our past couple of trips to the river Lazlo's gone in wading. Climate change doesn't seem so bad at this point?

 

Keith dug out this old explosives box to keep our "refrigerated" items in a contained space instead of precariously lined up on the skinny table. It's super cute and works great - not that it has any insulating properties, but it's winter - nature's doing the work.

A six pack carrier makes a good condiment carrier.

After a failed relationship with a hand pump on our water bottles, we decided to go with a gravity-fed dispenser and couldn't be happier with the new "technology." Sub-freezing temps usually cause it to ice up so we schlep the water into the bathroom (where a small ceramic heater runs most of the day right now) or into the house to de-ice.

It's a new year so we're, again, attempting to say hello to good habits and goodbye to the not-so-good. Part of my good habit routine is trying to eat more oatmeal. I used to be an oatmeal hater - until I figured out I just needed to use less water. That was an epiphany I am embarrassed to admit. So I am gingerly wading into instant oatmeal which is not as good as the real thing, but a step in the right direction. I also flirted with the idea of joining the local gym, but at $40+/mo. I can't justify it since I would primarily just be using the treadmill. So instead I ordered a couple of long fleece active wear shirts during an Old Navy sale and will hit the road/trail. Just trying to make good choices every day - here's to health and wellness in 2013!

False winter?

It's 2 days before Christmas and there's no snow on the ground. We had some a couple of weeks ago, just barely enough for the dogs to enjoy.

playing keep away with a cat toy

snow + grass = perfect snack!

Lazlo got the zoomies!

How we're spending most of the day during the winter.

Happy holidays to everyone out there on the internets. Wishing great things for 2013!

Read(ing)

All year long I am a book nut but winter seems to be the best season for getting serious reading done, I mean there's only so much you can do after dark confined in a tiny house and even that doesn't take that long (no offense). So, yeah, reading. I am reading a lot these days.

I got a funny comment/compliment? from the local librarian a couple weeks ago. I went in to pick up a book I'd reserved and she said, "When I saw this come in, I knew it was for you. It just looked like something you would read." I laughed because that's the kind of backhanded compliment I get from my mom on my clothing choices. Apparently I have a style that is recognizable - don't know if that's good or bad!

Some recent reading treasures, online and in print:

• The Long Haul by Amanda Giracca - a facebook friend turned me onto this online magazine written entirely by women, travel writing/non-fiction that is fantastic. This particular essay is about a small town in the northeast, but I swear it could be Montana, too. Just a snippet to get you hooked: "The porch is so warped to hell, it looks as though it hasn’t been fixed up since Chief Konkapot signed away this land for three hundred pounds a few centuries ago, scrawling the only thing he could write: his signature turkey foot, a three-pronged symbol which stood for his real name, Pophnehonnuhwoh. Kissed the land around the river goodbye."
• Closed for the Season on A Restless Transplant - I totally dig this guy's photos and posts from the road and this post is mainly about the Sierra Nevadas. Makes me want to fill up my backpack and lace up my hiking boots and just walk on down the road. With a camera.
• Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac - Keith calls this "the Ballsack book." I requested this book from the library on a whim after seeing it on a list some snooty guy said everyone should read (or something like that) and it sat on my night stand because it intimidated me and I was sure I wouldn't like it, maybe I should just return it. Then I cracked it and haven't looked back. I'm sure there's a lot of deeper social commentary about French life and politics that I'm not absorbing, but I'm just enjoying the story of a bunch of characters in a boarding house in Paris. The writing (well, translation) is compelling and so apparently there's good reason that it's referred to as Balzac's best.
• America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation by David R. Goldfield - I'm not too far into this massive door stop of a book yet, but so far it's very dense and informative and I think a good case for why I should be reading more non-fiction, there's just so many gaps in my knowledge about history and American history in particular.
• Prairy Earth by William Least Heat-Moon - Probably one of the best books I read in 2012 and of particular interest to me because it's about Keith's home state of Kansas. One particular county, in fact - very in depth, covering everything from the pre-settler history to archaeological records to gossip from the stores and diners and dreams about the place. If I was a writer, I would want to be like William Least Heat-Moon. (His other book I've read, Blue Highways, is in my top 5 books of all time.)
• The Morning News - I read this online at work mostly (hey, it's news) and there's always more interesting things contained in it than I have time to read (while still looking productive). One of my favorite writers from Sun Magazine, Sparrow, has been making some posts on TMN lately that are great.
• A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers - I'll pretty much read anything written by Dave Eggers but this was a stand-out for me this year. Completely foreign location, strangely modern plot, lovely tactile cover (bonus!) - I don't know, I just liked it.
• I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave on Mother Jones - Shopping an Amazon (with a Prime membership = free shipping all year) has been a bad habit I've indulged this past year and this insider look at what goes on behind the scenes is good reminder that cheap stuff almost always has a human price. Namely shitty working conditions for whoever facilitates us getting our stuff faster and cheaper than ever before. So before I click "Add to Cart" again on Amazon, I will remember what I read here.
• 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami - Hands down the best book I read in 2012. It's really hard to provide a synopsis for any of this books in less than 50 words, but it's about parallel universes, basically. The first book of his I read, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, got me hooked and Kafka on the Shore is another great one by him.

(Add me on Goodreads if you're so inclined.)