New House!

We've spent the last few days in a whirlwind of sorting, packing, loading, unloading, etc. We found a new 2 bedroom rental house that seems to fit our needs better. Geoff is showing off how large our kitchen is in the first photo (there definitely wasn't room for leg lifts in our last kitchen.) These last two pictures show the only thing I'd improve upon: our house is overtaken by wild foliage, nothing my mom can't handle on a weekend visit. We feel like we are living in a hotel now and especially appreciate our new home- but only because we lived in a tiny and cramped 1907 constructed house, complete with a cramped and moldy bathroom, and an awkward floor plan due to generations of weird updates and renovations. I'm glad we had that time in our last house so we can appreciate this new home so much more!

Dr. Kitty Williams, still going...

 The two lunatics I live with. They are looking kind of tough in this photo, but we took care of Asher's "no-hawk," as he called it, after Geoff and I were driving down the road and saw some squirrely-looking older boys with mohawks. We said to ourselves, "No, not our child! We don't want him to look that rebellious, annoying, and irksome." So we shaved it off and have our sweet little semi-toddler boy back.

 Jess, Asher and I went to the Animal Shelter today. While we couldn't take any pets home with us, we could at least love them for a minute or two.

 You might say Jess is a pet therapist of sorts. She's kind of a Dr. Kitty, if you know what I mean.  That has something to do with why we get along so well together!

 Can't you just see this little guy saying, "Take me home, I won't eat all your shoes and underwear. Really."

After visiting the shelter we watched some horses train at the nearby racetrack. Yee Haw!

Docent Erin

Bless her heart! While I was having the worst week of my life, feeling sick and terrible and could barely get myself out to Magna to work an Art Truck trip at an elementary school, Erin saved the day! She woke up at 6:30am with me, rode in my stinky truck, saved us when we were going down a dirt road with her GPS, and even gave some tours and discussed Utopia in depth with children. She was incredible. She is a woman of many talents.Thank you Erin!

Asher and Jessica: baking buddies

nine mile canyon

 Saturday night I went to pick up Geoffrey in Roosevelt where he had been working in the oil fields. On a whim we decided to do some impromptu camping in NineMile Canyon. It goes from near Roosevelt to Wellington. These are just a few of the petroglyphs we saw. They were so beautiful and I got the chills just thinking about the ancient highway that existed in the area with so many markings and messages written all over it. The first picture shows where we slept (basically in the road). Geoffrey, asleep still, yes he slept in boots and jeans and if you can't tell he basically pushed me off our palette made of a yoga mat and car sunscreen, so I slept in dirt (how could I complain? At least we were together. This working out of town stuff stinks!)   

changes....

I'm having a life crisis. No matter if it is hormone induced, it's still a crisis. My family, Geoff, and myself were getting tired of my constant crying and emotional downpours. I've concluded it's definitely the birth control and set about to change it. But even so, that didn't stop me from having a total breakdown yesterday: sobbing, yell-crying, and an inability to drive home to my house without having to stop while chanting the ABC's. I was a total wreck and am happy to say that today I feel a lot better. I cancelled my work today and am taking the day off to "take a chill pill."

 I've been reading some books about step-families. And from reading some stories of other women, I am happy to say it could be way worse. My step-kids are adorable and they love me. They aren't teenagers who ignore me, purposefully try to aggravate me, and I don't have a spouse who expects me to be perfect and love his kids exactly the way he does. That said, I had a great time taking Annika to tumbling class this week. She was a star! She has a natural ability for gymnastics. In the car ride over she kept asking me, "But I don't know how to do a somersault. Are they going to make me do a somersault?" She was definitely somersaulting by the time it was over, plus doing a back flip with the teacher's help. Asher, was watching the class and improvising his own moves: running and sliding into my leg, pointing his toes and twisting his body through the air, rolling on the floor.

Here is our cozy porch, the flowers were planted by Asher and myself. Annika and Asher planted squash and sunflowers in the seed starting kit, lower right side of the photo. 

 More step-mother thoughts: While I've been reading these books written by "experts" about step-families, they haven't really felt applicable to me and my own thoughts. I was reading this novel, Nightwoods. The main character has just inherited her neice and nephew, a set-of twins. They don't speak to her, and she's never been a parent before. She is trying to wrap her head around how they are all supposed to relate to each other. She says to herself, I don't expect myself to love them (which she inevitably does in time) I just have to be polite to them. She also calls herself "docent Luce." Her name is Luce, short for Lucinda, and she considers herself a docent for the kids, a teacher and one who guides them through this exhibit we call life. That spoke to me, I'm actually a docent for my job, and I know what that entails. I've been falsely thinking I'm supposed to immediately love Asher and Annika and be ready to jump in front of a train for them (like their Dad would). But really, I don't have to. If I ever get to the point that I feel that way, great. But it's not a requirement to being a good step-mom.

Loving you more

I'm doing an art experience with my pal, Emily Melander, from the Learning to Love You More project. Here is our first assignment: we photographed the sun. See her photo here!

here is a picture of the two of us (the theme is "curves"), taken while setting up Emily's beautiful MFA exhibit.