Antici.................pation

Stupid dogs wouldn't let me sleep in. They're persistent. It worked out alright, though - I got the house into a semi-clean state and get all the bedding washed. Keith is on his way home, all is well. 


I've been sick for a week or so. Deadline for a big project at work + Keith being gone + floating germs = the sickness. I'll be glad to have my natural stress reliever back in the same state as me.


We woke up to some impressive hoarfrost this morning.

This winter has been really strange. Yesterday was beautiful, if cool. But the sun was out and the only snow left is in the shadows. Dogs and I had an extended lunch break at the river and then wrestling in the yard. There were three boats on the river just in the space where we were. Last week I saw a river otter swimming.

Found this fantastic mini zen garden at the river yesterday and pocketed it. Don't regret it one bit.

Percolating ideas

We should know soon how much longer Keith will be working in Montana. We're hoping for extremely short-term and I am trying to be less whiney about him being gone.

So let's focus on something positive - like when he gets back we will have money to finish some of our tiny house projects! Kitchen and bathroom are at the top of the list. I've been slacking reading many of my design inspiration blogs, but I am still pinning plenty on Pinterest. It's addictive!

Here's my tiny house pinterest. You'll notice a lot of pallet-reincarnation, rustic spaces, upcycled goods, etc. Obviously we won't be incorporating all of these into our house, but they're just images I refer to when we're working on a project and/or wishlist items...

I've also been watching a lot of movies and reading (though less than usual since movies are easier distractions). 

Good DVDs as of late: Best of The Larry Sanders Show, Bored to Death (my favorite find of the year! Schwartzman, Galifianakis & Danson slay me), 50/50, Midnight in Paris... 

Good reads as of late: 1Q84, The Paris Wife, Memorial...more on my Shelfari

White all over

Early last week we got our first significant amount of snow for the season. It's mostly melted and mucky mud now, but it made everything nice and white for a few days.

We're still missing Keith. Not sure when he'll be home, maybe a couple of weeks. This weekend is his birthday, so we sent him some goodies in the mail. I made a mix CD that included the song "Stormy Weather" by Etta James. 

Don't know why /There's no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather /Since my man and I ain't together
Keeps raining all of the time

Oh yeah Life is bare / Gloom and misery everywhere
Stormy weather, stormy weather
And I just can't get my poor self together
Oh I'm weary all of the time /The time, so weary all of the time

When he went away / The blues walked in and met me
Oh yeah if he stays away / Old rocking chair's gonna get me
All I do is pray The Lord will let me / Walk in the sun once more

Oh I can't go on, can't go on, can't go on /Everything I have is gone
Stormy weather, stormy weather
Since my man and I, me and my daddy ain't together
Keeps raining all of the time / Oh, oh, keeps raining all of the time
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah raining all of the time
Stormy stormy /Stormy weather /Yea

My Daily Zen

(A warning: this is a dog post.)
Mornings are still too cool to get in any effective exercise for the doggies, so since Keith's been gone I've been taking extra-long lunches and the pups and I walk to the river and they wrestle and eat/smell various and sundry things and I enjoy the quiet and try not to think too much and just breathe deep. 

We're very lucky to live so close to a really great unofficial dog park.

The winter has been so mild so far. It's hard to believe this is January. There were three boats on the river today, fishing.

This is what distraction looks like, waiting for husbands to return.

Lazlo, Brown, Buster

Mia, Pia

Mixed Canine Arts

And...rest...with tongue, of course.

distraction

Keith's gone to work in Billings for a few (6?) weeks, so the doggies are helping me be distracted. Otherwise my heart starts to break a little. We're not good apart, but this is temporary (I have to keep telling myself).

Part of my distraction plan is making sure the dogs get enough exercise. They're used to Keith being home most of the day and their routine is now all up to me. So we're going for walks each morning. Good for everyone.

I am working almost 5 days a week since we have a big project at work and that helps me stay distracted, too. It's the nights and weekends that are hardest. 

Translation: We miss you, Keith!

It's 2012 now and how are we going to better and happier this year? Stop setting goals. Sounds strange, yes? It's more about opening yourself up to what you really want. "If you want to make your new year count, you’ll need to be intentional — not by setting goals, but by making space in your life for what really matters." How? Read it here. More on what this means to the tiny house occupants later...

here's to the good times, which are happening now

Over the river and through the woods... our Sanity Break 2011 happened Friday night (NYE eve) in good ol' Missoula. We love thee. Not much snow at the pass, around 4'. At the end of December...

We wandered around town during happy hour trying to decide which overcrowded restaurant we wanted to squeeze into/wait in line for a decided to ditch it for the Good Food Store where we bought delicious sandwiches and desserty things.

We found a decent deal on a nice room at good hotel and fell in a trance in front of the huge TV and under unlimited hot water.

The view was pretty good, too.

Of course no trip to Missoula is complete without at least a once-through at Home Resource. We debated about using one of these slabs (CHEAP!) for the outdoor kitchen counter, but found a great deal on some red formica instead. 12 bucks, baby!
 

Made it back to Idaho safe and brought the puppers a new bed. Everyone's ready for 2012.

Short days, long nights

We're hibernating. Cycling through the daylight pretty quickly, but soon it will be the shortest day of the year and then we'll start seeing more sun, incrementally and importantly. We're hanging on until then, watching more than our share of movies (including Ken Burns' series on WWII - fascinating and incredibly interesting), reading some great books (including 1Q84 thanks to our rad local library system) and finishing NYT crosswords (printed from here).

A couple of weeks ago we walked the dogs to the river and went the opposite direction from the island. Found a lot of mussel shells and some bones. Brought back some white rocks for my air plant garden. 

Finished one roll of slide film and started another at the beach, but who knows how long it will take to finish it. I have a cheap underwater camera to send to Yellowstone for developing (dogs in the river shots mostly) so I'll send the one roll off for slides along with it and be pleasantly surprised to see what's on it.

The condensation in the house is still an issue. We had a little petri dish-type situation on one of the large windows that catches a lot of dog breath. (Year-end bonus at work will probably fund the dehumidifier project. Yay.)

With the cold weather the dogs are content with short bursts of outdoor activities. They're hibernating, too. Mia's hibernation is a little more anxious than ours.

I have an itch to buy more film for my SX-70, especially since it looks like we'll be going to the hot springs before the end of the year. (As long as there's a cabin available.) Some b/w shots sure would look neat up there in the winter. I might be talking myself into it. 

This polaroid is from the first pack I shot with the SX-70 this summer and I was pretty upset when none of the first shots turned out like I wanted. I felt ripped off and frustrated. But I've had this sitting in a south-facing window watching it slowly change. It has a pocket of gold flaky parts in the purple-blue middle that are fascinating. 

Winter-time entertainment, watching polaroids get sunbleached.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have a lot to be thankful for: loving husband, loving dogs, loving family, food in the cupboard, a roof over my head, and transportation to get me to a job I really like. No room for complaining. 

Tiny house projects are on hold for financial reasons, but Keith decided to do something he's wanted to do for three years now and rotate the bed 90 degrees and put it under the window.

 

I had resisted this because I thought it would take up too much room that way, but it actually seems like there's more space now. He was right, I was wrong. Last night was the first sleep oriented North-South (he's also felt that our Feng Shui was off) and it did feel good. In all of our previous dwellings rearranging the furniture was a pastime/compulsion so there's no reason to think the tiny house won't be the same, just with fewer options.

We have a bookshelf/cabinet planned for the wall where the head of the bed used to be and probably some kind of padded headboard for the bed where it is now because a windowsill in the back of the brain while watching TV is just not that comfortable.

The humidity created by the propane heater is driving us crazy and while we're shopping around for and budgeting for a dehumidifer, Keith has created a DIY version that seems to be working quite well. 

Several of these cheesecloth + rock salt + Mason jar contraptions and a digital hydrometer/thermometer is helping us keep track. The weather prediction part of the thermometer predicted rain (inside the house) this weekend when the humidity reached 80%. Eek.

I'm traveling with my parents to southern Oregon (almost California, really) to celebrate my grandpa's 85th birthday with my mom's side of the family. The holidays are really not all that exciting/appealing to me, but I am going to try to keep on my social face and go with the flow. And it will be nice to see my grandpa, of course! Keith is staying home on dog duty and we're making the drive tomorrow morning, birthday dinner Friday night, and return drive Saturday. Fastest trip to almost-California ever. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Back to The Island

It's been about 10 months since our last visit to The Island. It was a cool windy day, any remaining leaves were blowing off the trees.

We're really lucky to be a short walk away from the river.

Everyone had a good time. Not much had changed, but there's still a lot of junk and trash out there. It was wonderful to get some exercise for us and the doggies.

 That's Keith putting the last piece of cedar up for the ceiling. We high-fived.

The dogs entertain themselves wrestling whenever the sun comes out. Mia loves having a sweatshirt on this time of year (really, she does) and Lazlo thinks it's a handle for him to get a better grip on her.

The hazelnuts are all over the ground on the southeast corner of my parents' property. The dogs promptly stole all of these, cracked them and ate the nuts.

We have a temporary outdoor kitchen set up now with the camp stove. We have barn wood to put on the cabinet (once the barn wood dries out after sitting out in the weather) and probably some corrugated tin. Not sure what we're going to do for a counter - probably a salvaged door or some other salvaged material we find. Keith makes his breakfast out at the house now - coffee and oatmeal - and we can have tea or hot chocolate at night.

We scored an empty Culligan bottle and Keith's looking for bomba that we bought in Mexico. If we can't find it we can get another one easily and then we'll have water in the tiny house (though no drain to the outside - that didn't happen and the ground is getting hard).

Keith got one last harvest off the tomatoes before the first frost last week. We made a batch of salsa over the weekend (7 quarts) and he made another batch yesterday with some smoked jalapenos we had saved from 2 years ago (another 7 quarts) and it was the best batch yet using this recipe, modified.

After the first frost last week Keith cut the grapes and we made grape juice - the easy way - to enjoy over the winter. If we don't drink it all before the snow flies! It's so good.

We canned 21 quarts on Saturday before we switched over to salsa making and my mom and Keith finished off the grapes this week with at least that many quarts.

We didn't have an extensive garden this year, mostly just peppers and tomatoes, but we did a lot with what we did have and didn't get overwhelmed with it being all labor-intensive. Win-win.