harvest

If there is some tactile memory that is my teenage years in Shelley, Idaho, it is of the spud harvest. I can still taste the sweet-dirt grit that soaks through all your clothes and your skin and hair every day of the harvest and into your dreams at night. Pulling boards, driving truck, dropping lines, but mostly picking on the combines, day after day, until all the potatoes are safely away before the frost.

"harvest"--rough cut from Idaho Falls Magazine on Vimeo.

the family adventure continues

My darling husband has gone off to work in various parts of the world again, now until Christmas pretty much. My job in the meantime is to hold the fort down, keep the home fires burning, leave the light on. You know, start the dishwasher and put the garbage out.

Life is good. All three girls are in school at the moment. Son is working up to it. Grandson is being mainstreamed. All progress, and all good.

I have been writing every chance I can get. Which makes for a poor social life, and sometimes, or more than sometimes, my family has to make their own dinner. Hope to have the first draft finished and reviewed by December. Taking it to conference in February - at least that is the plan.

Rick has been working non-stop, including weekends. Someone over in Portland has a really great new tiled bathroom and shower, and someone else has a really great shed that humans could probably comfortably live in. He can post here to clarify, but I believe his job now is to put a routered edge on some new laminate tabletops for some hotel television stands.

Next weekend, Becca, Kristen and I will be driving up to Seattle to visit some of the little sibs and all their new (and old) progeny, as well as Papa and Grandma, who are flying up from Utah for the weekend. A mini-family gathering: Papa, Grandma, Amy, Seth, Sam, Ellie, Jayne, Scott, Amy, Susanna and baby Andrew Golden. It should be an adventure.

Family always is.

Sherri

first snow on st helens

09-08-09 089
Originally uploaded by c.updegrave

I get thinking that I am too busy, and I usually always regret the two minutes it would have taken me to stop to take a breath and enjoy my life. Today I rushed out of my office and off to the dentist where I waited for 20 minutes in a closed waiting room next to a woman who kept sniffling. I should have stopped to take this photo myself because it is exactly what St Helens looked like from the parking lot at my school. I was lucky that someone else captured the first snow on the mountain.

Our weekend at Rainier was rained and snowed-out. Rick's climbs were canceled first, and then we polled the children about camping in the rain, the rain report increased, the snow level dropped, and we bailed on our plans. Next year.

Instead, Rick and I went and saw District 9. Good flick. Invokes thought. I was on edge for the entire movie - it's like that.

I am starting another round of writing class tomorrow evening. My goal is still to have the entire novel ready for submission by end of year. Spent much of the long weekend writing and revising.

But for tonight there is a pause in my headlong rush. Rick and I visited the local detox center and spent some time talking to some people there. People just like me. And time talking to my dear friend Ronnie - the girls fondly refer to him as their Mexican Godfather. It reminds me that my life is sometimes too amazing for words. My husband is the love of my life. I love all of my children and grandson - Trey, Nichole, Missy, Rebecca, Ryan and Kristen. All. And there are great miracles in my life every day.

Like seeing the first snow on Mt. St. Helens. Beautiful.

Sherri