Catching Up - Interlude

Before I continue with some more photos of the winter games, I have so many little catch-up things swirling around in my head. I simply must get them listed.

The biggest item is that I have a new job. I haven't been working since I quit my church secretary job up here and moved to take care of my mom. I did a little work at an urgent care center while in Phoenix but other than that, I haven't been seriously employed. Now I am. And it was a total God-thing. I'm working at a local crisis pregnancy clinic. It's a wonderful place! They do pregnancy tests, counseling, and have several courses in parenting that moms and dads can take to earn Mommy Dollars and Daddy Dollars. With these they can purchase diapers, baby clothes, maternity clothes, toys, strollers, and other baby stuff. And the parents are learning how to be good parents through it all. It's great. I have wanted a job that holds meaning to me. I've found it hard to work in jobs that are just jobs. So my prayer has been that God would provide a job for me in some kind of ministry, whether it be a church or something else. I ran into a friend at Wal-Mart 10 days ago and as we chatted the topic turned to the fact that I'm looking for a job with meaning. Her eyes lit up and she thought of the opening at the clinic. Here's the real God-thing about it: this friend is the founder and newly retired Executive Director of this ministry. Wow! It is so exciting to have this opportunity come right out of the blue, be standing there in Wal-Mart, and have her call the clinic in my presence and tell them she's sending me over for an application and that she highly recommends me. I know He has made this happen. I'm so thankful.

Other tidbits:

The other day I came home from town in the late afternoon. The sun was low and there was new white snow on the ground. Long yellowed grasses of winter were standing up above the snow, here and there. Everything was white and yellow. The afternoon sun shone on them adding even more golden color to the scene. And then I saw them. Half a dozen antelope grazed right up close to the fence. Their coloring so matched the white and yellow of the landscape that I almost didn't see them. Their golden tan and white markings blended in beautifully. It was a treat to see them so close and to see them so blended into their surroundings.

I've been working on my quilt again. I've sewn my squares into strips. I'm working on ironing the seams out flat before I sew the strips together. I plan on doing that this Friday, sunny skies permitting. I always wait for my schedule and sunny skies to cooperate with each other to use the iron; such is my life on solar, though I think our newly refurbished system would be fine. We're just always of a conserving mindset. Once I get the strips sewn together into a big rectangle, I'll take it in to the quilt store and make sure the fabrics I've selected for the borders are the best choices and go ahead and buy them. Can't wait.

The morning drive to my first day of work was blessed with a bald eagle sighting. There are a couple of dead trees close to town, "widow makers" as they're called because they will eventually come crashing down of their own accord and if a man happened to be nearby, his wife would end up a widow. That's a sad thought, eh? But these giants have been around for many years. On cold winter mornings you just might see a bald eagle sitting in the top. I enjoyed this sight often enough that I named the the trees The Eagle Trees. The Fisherman, however, calls them The Ghost Trees. It was fun seeing one as a special treat on my first day at the new job.

Then, today, Day Two of the new job, I saw the antelope again. This time they were at quite a distance but it's always fun to see them in this one pasture close to home. And on the way home I had an extra special wildlife sighting "gift". I saw three deer (I've only seen deer around here two other times), four elk, and then two little bunny rabbits -- all within a couple hundred feet of each other and even closer to home. I love seeing wildlife.

I did mounds and mounds, pounds and pounds of laundry last week. I did all our bedding plus all the camping bedding which I (shamefully) haven't gotten washed since we returned home from Alaska. It's just so dang cumbersome that every time I've gone to the laundromat with our normal wash loads, I just haven't been able to muster the energy to add all that bedding to it. Yes, I do all our laundry in town at the laundromat. We have a washer here but we've grown accustomed to being rather stingy with our water supply. We never did get ourselves a dryer and though we hang up most of our clothes to avoid shrinkage, I'm not real keen on hanging out every sock as well. Nor am I fond of crunchy socks and crunchy bath towels. So I go to the laundromat.  Anyway, I am happy to report I got 7 blankets, 3 comforters (2 of them down), and one stitched-together-combo blanket washed. The combo one is made of one sheet and two blankets sewn together. It's one of The Fisherman's concoctions to prevent his camping blankets from separating.

I have learned that the wonderfully soft micro-fleece blankets should not be put in the dryer. Since they're made of nylon, they melt. At least in the hot laundromat dryers anyway. When they melt, they turn crunchy. Not fond of crunchy you remember. So I dried what I could and brought the rest home to hang on the line.

I used to hate the smell of line dried clothes. I couldn't understand what everyone was talking about (TV commercials and all) with the smell of line dried laundry. I thought it was a bitter rank smell. Then, one day about two years ago I brought in the clothes and smelled that smell, and suddenly I liked it. Now I really like it and find myself smelling it just like in TV commercials. Go figure.

Well, that's about all I can manage for tonight. It's late and I have to work tomorrow (yeah! Thank You, God!) There might be more of these incidental tidbits of catch-up, but at this hour I certainly can't remember them, and my list is downstairs. So I'll bid you a good night until the next time. Night all.