I'll be home for Christmas

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks now, but I have been back on the east coast visiting friends and family for the holidays. I will be back in Montana on January 2, but until then I am enjoying visiting Virginia again. It has been a busy trip with a lot of mileage being rolled up on my folks' jeep! It has been great to see everyone back east and I hope to see a couple more friends before I leave and head back home to the prairie! I'll post some pictures from Virginia when I get back. Until then...

Frustration Averted!!!

My Christmas shopping is DONE!!! As of 10:00 this morning I completed the last of the shopping. Now comes the part where I have to figure out how to get everything into the luggage securely for the flight back to VA. This might be more difficult than the actual shopping! I do have an extremely large suitcase that I am using for this trip in an effort to pack everything carefully and hope that TSA will be gentle with my luggage. Can anyone out there order up good travel weather for Thursday? No delays and nice security people would be a plus as well!

Christmas Season Frustration

First off, I hate to shop. I like the idea of giving to people, but hate to deal with the crowds and commercialization of the holiday. Now, Saturday I really did not feel like going to Billings to shop, but Danielle wanted to take Macks (the dog) to have his picture with Santa Claus at PetSmart (I think that is a bit silly, but I agreed to take them). The plan was to load the dogs in the truck and be gone from Hardin around 8:00 am; at 8:30, Danielle is bringing the dogs out to the truck (we decided to take Maggie as well) and they see the neighbor dog outside and want to "say hello" and pull Danielle down in the yard and take off. Now the search for the dogs is on; twenty minutes later we flag down one of our friends who is a deputy here in town and she told us that she did see the dogs and that she had caught them and taken them to the pound (she didn't know that they were our dogs). So now I have criminal dogs; "Dog at Large" is the official charge. At 10:00 we finally leave for Billings; now I realize that Billings is the largest city in Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming, but does that have to mean that everyone from those three states have to descend upon Billings at the same time to shop? Traffic was a snarling mess. Macks did get his picture with Santa, and we did get to do a little shopping, but as we were trying to make our way out of the Wal-Mart parking lot (I HATE Wal-Mart, but that is a story for a different day) I had to navigate around a bone headed wreck. Apparently someone was tired of waiting in line and tried to beat a truck out of the parking lot; this did not end well for the car...or the truck...or anyone else who was trying to leave Wal-Mart. I think that I will complete my shopping from the safety of my desk chair!

Guess What

I just realized today that I will be traveling back east in two weeks! Wow, time really has flown by; it doesn't seem like that long ago that I was in VA in September. I guess with all that is going on here it just didn't occur to me that the trip was approaching that quickly. It will be good to spend the holidays with my family in VA. It still is a bit strange how my life has changed over the past two years...I could have never believed that I would be where I am today back in 2005.

Another development has been that I am trying out a new camera that I may buy. I am looking at a digital SLR and am enjoying using it...I haven't taken anthing of any aesthetic value yet, but I'm working on it.

I guess that I have to put some work related material in (does that make me a "work-a-holic"?) Next week is going to be a tad bit crazy with a conference on Tuesday and Wednesday and an all day program on Thursday, plus my part time gig; I may not be around too much next week.

Finally, I have mentioned in a couple of earlier posts that I am taking a financial class through the church entitled "Financial Peace University"; it ends this upcoming weekend and it has been wonderful. I would highly recommend it to anyone who, like me, may have made some bad decisions with money and credit and needs a good, sound, idiot-proof program to get out of debt and have real peace with money. It is not a "get rich quick" scheme, but rather a "get rich slow" plan. It is all really just common sense stuff, but the message is so encouraging and uplifting it just motivates you all the more. Check it out www.daveramsey.com

Entertaining Again...and enjoying it!

Here is the deal; I have to redecorate the outside of the house. Mother nature did a number on my outdoor decorations this week and now they are in the front yard rather than on the house...and of course now it is cold (currently 14 outside) so climbing up on the ladder again will not be the easy task it was the first time. I hope to have that done tomorrow morning prior to watching the ACC Championship Game and rooting for the Hokies to get revenge on the Eagles of BC!

Tonight I am going to a friends house for a surprise birthday party! That ought to be fun...and tasty; I heard that there is going to be Aces chicken there (only the best fried chicken north of the Mason Dixon Line!) We're supposed to park up by the car wash and walk down to their house (next block east), I may just walk from the office; it's not like this is a huge town so it's not too far.

I am hosting a Christmas party at my house on the 14th; having some friends over and having a good time...we'll see how it goes in the small house! I'll probably have to put the dogs outside; I'm sure that Maggie will love that! I don't know what to make for the party...any suggestions? I may do a brioche as a dessert and maybe a batch of lil' smokies...everyone likes lil' smokies right?

Speaking of pork products, I just put in for a hog from one of my ranchers. I am hoping to go out and help process the meat when they butcher...you just can't beat buying right off the farm; well, maybe growing it yourself (not an option for me since I live in town). That will mean that I have pheasant, pork, and deer to choose from...not to bad. I am also hoping to get some shell beans from this rancher; pintos to be exact. I do hope that they have some left. Maybe next year I can buy a little bit of malting barley from them and try my hand at home brewing. I've tried wine making and would like to try beer...we'll see.

I went over to the primary school today for Native American week. The Native American Club at the high school came over and did some native dances for the kids. Pictures can be found here.

Quick Trip

This was a good weekend! I went hunting on Friday; I didn't kill anything, but a bad day hunting is still better than a good day doing most anything else. I did see a couple of pheasants while we were out, but I did not have a clear shot at anything and I didn't want to pull a Dick Cheney on my hunting partner! Saturday I watched the VT/UVA game on television. Very good outcome...UVA lost. I then went down to Cody, WY for the evening; shopped at the Sierra Trading Post outlet store...very cool (and I HATE to shop) and ate a saloon in town. Sunday I got up and drove across the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway to Cooke City, MT (11 miles of the road was closed, but I made it just fine). Cooke City is at the end of the earth; there were a lot more snowmobiles in town than cars. After refueling in Cooke City, I drove through part of Yellowstone and up through Gardner, MT to Livingston and back home. All in all a good weekend. Pictures from the trip can be found here.

FIRST SNOW!!!

Yesterday, we got the first snow of the season!!! I usually don't like snow, but this is kind of nice...for now. I took a couple of pictures of the house decorated for Christmas during the snow storm. All said and done, we got around 4 inches. Not too bad!