Welcome MMX

The year 2010 has arrived! And I have been blessed to see it arrive. I am sure there will be wonderful new inventions this year. Like the Pocket Gardener, the Butter Stick, the Portable Office.....


...the New and Improved Mouse Trap... ... and there's always the Keyboard Waffle Maker. And to think I am here to witness it all.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!

Christmas is Coming!

Do I start most of my posts this way, "IT'S BEEN AGES SINCE I'VE WRITTEN!!"? Well, it has. I have been so busy. What an amazing man my husband is. Victor makes my would-be logistical nightmare, so easy. I leave the house to drive the pass to the Metropolis (so that I can work at the hospital), before any of the kids are awake. He gets them up, makes sure they are presentable for school, feeds them breakfast and then takes them to the bus stop.

He comes home for lunch and pops yummy dinners into the crockpot so it will be ready when the 9 of us all hit the house at 5. The kids know their assigned chores and everyone works together... with a minimal of grumbling. We do pay them for many of their chores; it seems the incentive brings that grumbling to a minimum.

Preparing for Christmas has been awesome. The kids wrote lists, then we made lists of what we were actually going to get them, and shopped together. We went to the Ski Swap at the Fair Grounds and outfitted 4 of the children with ski and snowboard equipment.

It's amazing the cost of ski equipment, so to be able to save money and purchase used equipment is fantastic. Now, we just need LOTS of fresh powder on the ski hills.

We actually attended the National Annual Event called BLACK FRIDAY! We got up at 4:00 a.m. and arrived at WalMart at 5 a.m. With list in hand and a map handed to us at the door, we were able to squeeze through the bumper-to-bumper crowds and find our treatures. Kayleigh went with us and was a huge help! Being 18, she had insight to teen clothing tastes that we lacked. Then the three of us went to the Cat Eye Cafe for brunch. It was lovely. I love that place. I've placed a link to their website if you click on their name. Check out the icon "The Way". It's a scream and is on the back of their menu. I don't know if any other Bozemanite can remember what this cafe used to be. It's on 28 N. Tracy. I think it was the old Pizza Oven when we were kids. And you will notice in that picture... there is a line. It is ALWAYS there. There is always a line waiting to get in, no matter the weather.

Well, it's time to wrap all the gifts. I can't wait for Christmas. I wish ALL my children and their families could be with us this year. Some day it will happen. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL and may God Bless you!

Ewwww, He Licked Me!

There are certain experiences in life that I didn't do when I was a teenager and one of those was sitting in the mall picture booth and taking those 4 wacky photos.

Victor and I were wandering around in the Idaho Falls Mall last weekend and after escaping the clutches of the Jewish woman at the kiosk selling Dead Seasalt Exfoliating Body Scrub, we climbed into the photo booth.Yes, he really licked me. Ewwwww.....

My husband is a wonderful man who totally treats me like a queen and serves his family unselfishly. Now that I am working and leaving the house before the kids are even up, he does it ALL. He wakes the kids, feeds them breakfast, hands them their sack lunches, signs permission slips and gets them to the bus stop.

At noon, he comes home for lunch to a quiet house, does the dishes and tidies the house. He also throws dinner in the crockpot and when I get home at 4:30, dinner is all ready and the house smells like heaven.

So, I am nominating him for Husband of the Year!

Piglet Flu

My PIGLETS have the FLU! I have been home from work with the kids because Meggie has the Swine Flu. I believe I caught the Swine Flu in 1976 and therefore will not catch it again. However, I have caught a "cold" (sniffles, body aches, headache, exhaustion). Could this still be part of it? I don't know.

Megan have had a high fever (103.9) that is impossible to bring down to normal even with medication. She also has a chest cold that I hope won't turn into bronchitis/pneumonia. You know, the Swine Flu has been hyped-up by the media/government to mammoth proportions, but I haven't found it to be any worse than other things the kids have caught. Actually, in my experience as a mother with 14 kids who have caught everything that has come along in the past 30 years, the Swine Flu has been one of the least severe of all their illnesses.

In August 1998 we caught a very bad flu. Michael (age 14) got it first, then 2 weeks later, the other 7 kids got it... all at once, for a WHOLE WEEK! Rachel, the oldest, was at college at UVSC so she missed all the fun. I just googled "flu in 1998" I found that there was a national outbreak of the Swine Flu that year. Hmmmmm.... perhaps that is why Matthew and Heather (who both caught that then, only had a mild colds this time).

FLU in 1998

The Piglet Infirmary set up in the livingroom -- 1998

Brooke (5) & Nathan (7)

Jessica (15) & Matthew (1)

Nicole (11)

Heather (3)

Brittany (9) & Nathan (7)

Employed in Greenland!

I haven't posted in a month! That's because I was finally hired on October 8th, after 5 months of interviewing, at the hospital over the Mountain Pass in the local Metropolis. It is a wonderful job, Mon-Fri 7:30 a.m. - 4 p.m., and I work with wonderful people. I am the new Office Manager of the Physical Therapy department. I was trained by the woman I was replacing. She had the good fortune of earning a promotion and moving to Radiology. She was a great trainer. She didn't micromanage and let me have "hand-on" immediately. She was patient and so was everyone else. She has moved on to her new position now and I am on my own.

I work in a full waiting room at a very fast-paced reception desk and live with a 2-monitor computer .....and work with a minimum of 8 different programs daily. My co-workers tell me that I am only about 1/4 trained, but it will come in the next 4 months of my probation. I schedule and register patients for Physical, Occupational and Speech Therapy. The Wound & Lymphedema Clinic shares the registration desk with us and I help manage them, as well. Many of the patients think that my most important job is keeping the coffee hot. :-)

My job is challenging, fulfilling and looks to be fun.

The Eternal Things

THE ETERNAL THINGS

In the hurried pace of life today

So much is missed along the way.

Take time to notice the wondrous things

Of God's creation, the eternal things.

In the quiet calm of the morning,

Take a look at the sky so blue.

Take a look at the world all around you,

Sprankled with fresh sparkling dew.

Take a look at this God given beauty

And start the day out right.

Listen to the music of the bird's morning song,

Feel the touch of the sun's golden light

Trees reaching so high toward the heavens,

Whispering leaves stirred by the cool gentle air.

Fill your heart with the calm of the morning.

These are moments beyond compare.

Start the day with a prayer of Thanksgiving

For God's handiwork of beauty sublime;

Pause to listen, observe and see

This wonderful world that is yours and mine.

---by Edna Ferguson

The word "sprankled" is her word. You must read this poem with a very southern accent.

Circa 1947. Edna Ferguson standing with Granddaughters:
Patricia (my Mom), Rozanne, and Janet

The above poem was written by my Great Grandmother Edna Lucille (Bell) Ferguson born Dec. 6, 1889 in Vernon, Wilbarger Co., Texas and died Aug. 19, 1992 in House, Quay, New Mexico. She was an accomplished oil painter. Her husband, Jesse Bernard Ferguson, died when she was 41 and she supported herself the rest of her life as a rancher in New Mexico. She loved cows! She lived past 102 years of age. I miss her so much! I loved my Great Grandmother Edna.

Delectable Mountains

My goal this morning is to clean and organize my closet. I will be a mountainous project as I store my photo albums, 42 years of journals, family genealogy records and antique quilts. It is a BIG closet. One of the quilts in my closet is a beautiful antique Victor bought me for $20 in a local shop. I just couldn't believe what a find it was! It is made using the Delectable Mountains quilt block. For a history of this quilt block click HERE.

I have to quess about the quilt's age, but there are a few things that give me clues. The white fabric is called "Lawn", a very fine-weave cloth that used to be made out of linen but these days it's generally made out of cotton. The printed fabric looks to me to be a pre-civil war cloth of a blue and brown print. In the past, I was told, metal/iron was used in dying a fabric brown. Throughout the years, the water from washing this quilt literally RUSTED the fabric away. The batting is actually exposed, where the brown dye used to be and the only reason why this quilt has held together is because of the quilter's expert stitching, some of which is in a clam shell pattern. So beautiful! There is a nice surprise on a back corner of this quilt, the maker's signature patch. It reads "Hattie L. Woodhull. No. 8.". Did Hattie choose the Delectable Mountains block because she was impressed by the Great Rocky Mountains as she traveled by wagon train from Ohio to Montana?We do have some local Woodhull families and after talking with them, I discovered that Hattie was from the Ohio area, born in the 1850's. (It was the family that gave up the quilt!) I am guessing, but I believe the "No. 8" she wrote, meant her 8th quilt. Was the fabric older than she was? Often, women made quilts from fabric stashes passed down to them from their mothers/grandmothers. Or they made their quilts using fabric from worn dresses.

For the pattern to make this quilt go to Quilter's Cache: Delectable Mountains Quilt Block.

Here is a picture of a wall hanging I recently finished. I used the Rail Fence pattern to make this patriot quilt that I named "Southern Sympathy".

Unemployed in Greenland!

We all know that MONEY doesn't grow on trees. At least not the trees around here!

I know, I have whined about the tourists.... and now, I'd like them to return so our restaurant will go back to being open during the day. Park Place Tavern has gone to "winter hours" and are now only open for dinner. I had to quit because I don't want to work at night.

The truth is, I very much love being a stay-at-home Mother/Wife. However, I want to help with the finances in running our large family. Waitressing isn't really a career I want so this is a blessing and I am working on finding another job. At this moment I have an impending interview, Oct. 2nd, at the local hospital as an Office Manager for the PT & Rehab. department.

Since Money doesn't Grow on Trees, I need to help earn what our family manages to eat a lot of......

They also wear money.....

and it shelters us.

All joking aside, it's wonderful, that in the end... our home is really made of LOVE after all!

Waiting For da Bus

Another school year has begun.(L-R) Matthew will begin 6th grade, Heather will go to 8th grade, Rachael will go to 6th grade, Stacey will be an 8th grader and Megan, in the front will start 3rd grade today.

They are waiting at the bus stop for the School Bus. It's a nice day because school has started August 26th. The kids enjoy the bus because they meet friends and get to ride together.

His 12th Wish

MATTHEW JOSEPH is only about 3 in this picture. This is a boy who is serious about life, even play time. He is very organized, hard-working and motivated. It's been a total joy to be his mother!

When did he get to be 12? I'm sure I was there to witness it all, but the time has just flown by.
Here we are celebrating his birthday. He requested this cake. Wylie and Reed, two of his many friends, stayed overnight. They are inspecting the cake, which in the minds of young boys, is one of the most important parts of any party.

Now begins the debate over what to wish for when the candles are blown out.....

Victor lights the 12 candles....

And while the homefires are burning, Matthew, with a little help from his friends, makes his 12 year old wish. I wonder what it was........He won't tell!!!

Good Bye Tourists

Many businesses, here in my small town, depend upon the money they make during the summer tourist season, to survive the rest of the year. We can't avoid it, it is a necessary part of life living so close to Yellowstone National Park. We enjoy watching the tourists as they oooh and ahhh at the local scenery and "wild-livestock" (deer, moose, bison, wolves, etc...) that we have in abundance here. We see, through their eyes, what we get to take for granted.

Some of the tourists get so enthralled that they pack up and move here from their various Suburbias! Gasp!! But alas, they don't stay long, as our mild and beautiful summer turns into a nasty, harsh, dangerous and brutal winter --- that lasts 9 long months. My husband says that "our weather here, keeps the riff-raff out." Some of our tourists buy a summer home and stay for just the summer.

The tourists are so funny. They take pictures of the craziest things. I once saw a tour bus full of Japanese, get out, line up and everyone took pictures of the McDonald's semi-truck unloading hamburgers and drink cups into the back of a McDonalds.

These are tourists taking pictures of a moose....

It is the typical scene on the road sides all through Yellowstone Park. The tourists get out, clog up the roads, and get extremely close to the wildlife. The Park Rangers try to direct traffic and yell at picture-snapping nuts who want to touch the bison. check out the link.This area really is a wonderful playground for fishing, boating, water skiing, hiking, geocaching, camping, and river-rafting. We are selling our boat this week and will be looking for a river-raft to buy instead. The rivers here are closer to us than the lakes. Victor took two of his kids on a two day float trip this past weekend. They fished and relaxed and found a small island to camp on over night. They had a blast!

This is a picture of the Yellowstone River as it runs through the Paradise Valley 5 miles from my home.

Other visitors to our fair town are Harley Davidson riders who come from all over the country to attend their annual convention in Sturgis, North Dakota. I'm not sure what goes on there, but many ride right through our town. They come singly, in pairs or in convoys! I have found them to be respectful and loud!

I'll tell you what I won't miss, is the endless parade of campers and mobile homes. Our town is small; we only have 3 stop lights and most of the year we don't need them. The campers/mohos clog up the streets and they get lost all the time.

Soon, my blog will begin complaining about the wind, snow and frigid temperatures and I will be reminiscing about the wonderful summer months. But for now.... I am looking forward to September, when most of the tourists will be home and we can enjoy the land we live in --- by ourselves. Am I wrong to not want to share?

Breast Cancer

August has been a hard month. My sister, Shawnae, was a good girl and went in for her first mammogram. After some toe-curling biopsies, she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. We don't have any cancer in our family so it was a huge shock. Shawnae has been amazingly strong and really taken charge of her health. I have seen her experience the 5 Stages of Grief beautifully:

• Denial - "this can't be happening to me"


• Anger - "why me?"


• Bargaining


• Depression - overwhelming feelings of hopelessness, frustration or bitterness


• Acceptance

One of the ways she has chosen to cope with her disease is to start a blog. I have a link on the right side of my blog where you can click to visit her blog. She has been an inspiration to me. I hope and pray that her surgery this Thursday will be successful and her lymph nodes will be clear of any cancer. I don't know if I can get off work that day to be at the hospital. I will try. I sure want to be there.

Bonfires and Hailies

The Summer of 2009 is drawing to a very wet, soggy end. I'm actually wondering if we ever really had a summer? It, perhaps instead, has been the longest Spring on record in Montana. Our hills and mountains are green, lush and beautiful, unusual for August. We even had HAIL twice this month. The circle in this picture is where a hail ball the size of a ping-pong ball hit and cleared out the rest of the little hailies. The kids collected some pong-hailies and froze them in the freezer.We will miss the activities of summer. The kids have spent their days walking or riding their bikes the 4 miles into town, then spending long hours at the Library or swimming at the City Pool, or floating the Yellowstone River. Megan was thrilled that we found Gluten-Free cones so she could enjoy a little taste of summer.....

A sign that summer is drawing to a close is witnessed in the hectic dash to the malls to dress children in the latest fads for the school hallways that have become the teen fashion show runways of our country. When did school become less about education and more about social experimentation? Our summer also contained sleepovers on the back deck that usually ended up moving into the livingroom because of rain.
Victor built a huge campfire pit. The kids christened it's maiden-burning on the last day of school by burning their school work and written reports. The bon-fire that was created from 9 months of math was glorious! And then they finished off the evening with SMORES!

June 7, 2009 - School work bonfire

Heather, Megan, Matthew, Rachael and Stacey eating Brooke's smore.

It seems that the first day of school ushers in Autumn and Summer is no more. For us, that means that the tourists go home, our town slows down to our backward-pace, the wind revs up and the deer clump-up in the fields and then lay down to "rest" on the shoulders of our roads. Autumn begins August 26th!