November 25, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving! This day has been an interesting mix of exciting and melancholy for me. I love traditions and the comforting consistency they bring, and my family has a wonderful Thanksgiving tradition. Every year for a very long time we've been going to Atlanta to my mom's parents and having the classic feast with a HUGE crowd of aunt, uncles, grandparents, great grandparents, great aunts and uncles and more first and second cousins than you can shake a stick at! This year, however, due to the fact that my sister Lauralee is working very hard to add another cousin to the mix any moment now (one week overdue and counting!!!), my immediate family canceled travel plans in order to be able to attend to the impending baby and new mother-to-be. So, for various and a sundry (sp?) reasons, I did not have a single sibling at my Thanksgiving meal today.

While it was sad to break from the tradition, it was exciting to try something all new. This year's crowd, held on my own stomping grounds, included my dad and grandparents (his parents), Joe's aunt and uncle and a whole family of local Floyd-ian friends. The food was just as delicious as ever, and the company was heart warming. We had at least three musicians in the bunch, so we ended with them passing the guitar around and sharing some songs with us all. Now everyone has gone home, and I have my own little cabin to return home to, with a fire crackling in the woodstove, and some of my favorite creatures on two and four legs waiting for me. I have oh so much to be thankful for. The refrain from one of the songs my dad sang has been a resounding echo in my head - "It is well, it is well with my soul."

Now Lauralee, start having that baby!!!!

November 19, 2010

I spent about an hour the other day on a blogpost, and in the end I abandoned it. In my mind it was going to be pretty funny, mostly about chickens, and slightly philosophical. Somehow it came out barely funny, mostly about people, and heavy on the philosophy. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

At the moment Joe and I are in Virginia Beach to attend his cousin's wedding. Every three to four years one of these dress-up events comes along and totally throws me for a loop. It's always the shoes that get me. I have my really nasty work boots, my decent pair of work boots, my nice pair of hiking boots and my rain boots. (That's maybe an exaggeration, but only a slight one.) After wrestling with the idea of going and buying a whole new outfit from the ground up, I remembered that many years ago my mother bought me a pair of nice, general purpose dress shoes. At the time I thought it a silly purchase, but she insisted that "You need at least one nice pair of shoes." She was right! I had to go dig them out of a plastic tote in our rickety little, mice infested storage shed, but they're still in great shape, and they still fit. That takes care of my outfit, however Joe is still convinced that he can find the perfect tie to go with his homemade duck/brush pants.

November 12, 2010

It's a Small World After All

Warning: The following story has been known to cause a certain Disney song to loop incessantly through one's subconscious.

Wednesday night, Joe and I met my parents in Christiansburg for dinner. After our meal, we were by the front entrance to the restaurant saying our goodbyes when a waitress came up to me and asked me where I got my hoodie. (There were a few moments of confusion because I thought she had asked me where I got my honey, the irony being that my parents were off to the beekeepers meeting. I wasn't sure if she had overheard our conversation and was interested in beekeeping or if she was looking to find herself a guy like Joe.) I was sporting a Wareing's Gym sweatshirt, and explained to her that my husband's family owned a gym in Virginia Beach. At that point, a guy sitting nearby at the bar spoke up and said "Hey man, we're kin!". The stranger's grandfather and Joe's grandfather were brothers, making them second cousins (trust me on this one)! He grew up in this area and still lives here, so we're looking forward to getting to know the local branch of the Wareing family.

We had a great time in Washington DC last week. Aside from being swept into the middle of a four-way girl fight in an inner city DC school, we mostly managed to stay out of trouble. :) Back home on the ranch, I'm finding myself in a weird state of limbo. I have this feeling like I'm an actor in a play that is between scenes or in the middle of a set change. I'm backstage, fiddling around, not quite sure what I should be doing until someone calls "Action!" again. I spent some time today dismantling the garden, pulling up frost bitten peppers and tomatoes. The garden paths were littered with tomatoes, ground cherries and peppers that had been rendered squishy and inedible by freezing temperatures, and this made for a VERY messy weedeating experience. I tried raking them up first, but overripe tomatoes don't rake very well. :(

The yurt project is still in motion, albeit slow motion. There are signs that we may resume activity soon. We've gotten a quote for the deck/platform materials, although we haven't actually placed the order yet. Now, if I could just find a way to switch Joe's attention from firewood to setting posts...