Crazy Life

                              

Everyone has a set of circumstances that makes their life unique.

Some of mine are:

• I'm married to a Bread delivery man who has crazy hours that change frequently
• I live on a mountaintop in Washington State that gets a lot of snow and -0 degree temps.
• I help run a small retreat center where the work is never done
• I have wood heat
• I have too many animals
  
• 
  

Those factors combine to make some humorous trains of thought that could be considered ludicrous when uttered by a “normal” person! (where do they live anyhow?!..Those elusive normal people!) They also create some pretty cool perks or some just plain weird situations!

Here are a few examples:

• Looking at the thermometer that says 18degrees and thinking... “Awesome! It didn't get cold out after all!” What??!

• Waking up in the middle of the night to a weird noise, taking 5 full minutes before figuring out that it is the dog barfing in the other room...by that time it is too late, you don't care anymore...and you seriously consider falling back asleep...( after all its not going ANYWHERE!)

• Realizing that it is NEVER "too late” to do anything! Make Bread at 1AM; do a laundry marathon at 3AM, What's wrong with painting the house at 2AM?!

• Looking out the front window and doing a double take at what the dogs dragged up from the woods... “What? NO way! Oh my gosh! Its a Moose leg!!

• Getting to sled down to the horses twice a day to feed in the winter.

• Getting up at 7am and feeling guilty for sleeping in “Soo late” Seriously?!

• Having a contest to see how long you can go without letting the fire go out because you discovered too late that you only have 1 match left. (Last month we did 3 weeks in a row and then I distractedly let it go out out three times in 1 day...lol)

• Wondering if you will freak out guests if you drive up to the cabins at 3AM and continue your construction project in the cabin next to theirs... “After all I've got the energy now, it will have evaporated by morning!!! ...They'll never hear me if they are sleeping like normal people should be! How loud can hammers be anyhow?”

• Waking up in the dark with your heart in your throat to what sounds like a gunshot... only to realize it is your metal roof cooling down from the heat of the day...Fat chance of getting back to sleep!

• Wondering if the guests can hear the Techno music that is blaring in your house in an attempt to get yourself moving.

• Loosing sleep during summer, nighttime thunderstorms so you can watch for lightening strikes and forest fires on your property.

• Waking up to peculiar noises coming from your sloping roof, slow scraping, and then a whOOOOSH and THUD... The first clue that we got substantial snow during the night!

• Looking at the Mountain Dew in the cabinet in the morning and somehow talking yourself into believing that it is a GREAT breakfast choice! After all GREEN stuff is supposed to be good for you!

• Seeing Moose in your driveway

• Smelling a Bear when you do the chores in the morning

• Hearing coyotes several times during the night (and your own dogs who are sure your hearing is defective and that you can't hear the coyotes with out them adding to the din!)\

• Winning the contest of seeing the very first Buttercup peeking though the snow!

• Finding out a guest almost hit a deer with their car...in your driveway.

• Having mountaintop picnics on sunny afternoons!

• Justifying watching “one more” design show on TV by calling it “work” Hey! We Have to get inspiration somewhere for decorating cabins!! 
  

Now you can laugh with me at the craziness! (:

Something Different

LeRoy as a Kitten

I was talking to Jay a few days ago when I mentioned that I missed writing. Although I'm not particularly good at it, it can be enjoyable and relaxing for me. He suggested “ You could write more on the blog, if you want. You know, you should share the funny stories you tell me when I get home from work....You could write about what makes your life different and crazy....”

Well, I think that could be fun! Maybe I will try a few posts and see how I like it!

I think I will start by introducing a subject that I have many many stories about.

Our cat, LeRoy. His name is said many, many times over at our house in the course of a day. And it is said something like this “LEEROYYYYYY!!” I am sure that if I keep this blogging up, you like me, will become very familiar with this cry of desperation, horror, hilarity and ONCE in awhile, fondness.

Leroy ended up becoming part of our family due to the kindness of my husband.

Months before LeRoy came to live with us I had wanted to get a kitten, after my own cat who I brought from Kansas had disappeared. Together we had gone to the animal shelter to adopt one but the shelter didn't have any kittens. Just teenage cats. I didn't want to refuse a kitty a home because it didn't fit my criteria – so of course I brought one home! ( I named her Jinx – and I'll tell her story in another post!)

What I didn't know, was that Jay felt badly that I didn't end up getting “my kitten”. So, Jay brought home a little kitten as a surprise for me one winter day. The little guy was orange and white, scrawny, and very sick,. He was so congested he could barely breathe yet somehow was managing to purr his heart out. “I picked the sickest one” said Jay, “I didn't figure anyone else would take a sick kitten and I wanted to make sure he got taken care of.” (I love that man!) Anyhow, there was this cute, smelly, kitten who was acting like he was our best friend, purring, rubbing against us and sneezing on us!

He was called “Kitten” for a long time. Jay and I simply could not come up with a name for him...he was too much of a character for any normal cat name!

Kitten was fast becoming a terror as he began feeling better. I've had many kittens in my life but none like this one. I would be washing the dishes and he would come over to me- if I did not immediately pay attention to him, he would leap onto my leg and begin to climb straight up...digging his pointy kitten claws into my leg as soon as he landed and continue climbing up one claw at a time. Or sometimes he would just hang where he landed – claws dug in so deeply that with gravity pulling him down he could not get them out and he had to be manually removed.

Kitten also could not grasp the fact that you could be unhappy with him. You could yelp from the pain he was causing you, yell at him, spray water at him and even give him a little spank while saying NO! very sharply. He just looked at you and purred louder. The only way we survived was by locking him in the bathroom for a while when we could not take another second of his “love”.

Kitten was also incredibly unclean! He would go outside and come back in with mud all over his legs. He lacked any desire to groom himself. One of the worst unclean acts he ever committed turned into a bad, bad day. Our dogs were being house trained and one of them had an accident, thankfully on our wood floor and not on the carpet. It was one of the worst smelling accidents imaginable! While I was retrieving the necessary tools for cleaning up the mess, Kitten discovered the smelly, runny substance. By the time I returned, the carnage was unbelievable. Kitten had jumped in it, played in it, gotten covered in it, and was tearing around the house, spreading the joy to whatever surface he touched.

That might have been the moment we realized that yelling “KITTEN!!!!” was not enough. We needed to be able to wail something that could voice our pain...something like “LEEROYYYYYY!!!!!!!”

Thankfully, LeRoy, has grown up a lot in the year and few months since we have owned him.

He has filled out into a beautiful, BIG cat. He has long hair and an incredibly long and poofy tail that looks as if he is in a constant state of shock.

He is now meticulously clean and we find ourselves yelling “LEEROYYYY!!!” from across the room at him when he insists on making a snack out of one of the burrs that he pulls out of his hair.

He still has very little concept of the fact that he ever does anything wrong. With his generous nature, he is sure the world loves him just as much as he loves everyone in the world.

He makes us laugh and drives us crazy. Well I must be crazy. What sane person would be writing a blog post while hiding in the bathroom from a certain cat who is scratching the paint off the door and crying his heart out?!

Excuse me while I just say“LEEEEROOOOOOYYYYY!!!!” (: