At last, a quiet afternoon for updating my blog. Ahh.
It may be trite to say, but life has been incredibly busy these past couple of months. Since the beginning of August I've gotten a wonderful new roommate, Elsa; started my second-to-last semester of grad school; worked WAY too much; thrown a kegger to celebrate three birthdays (mine and those of my friends Heather and Emily); gone out to eat a great number of times for various important occasions; spent a lovely weekend contra dancing up on Flathead Lake; hiked 14.5 miles while my friend Emily ran a 57K (because she is one of those crazy people who do such things); and played hostess to five nomadic friends on their way back from a summer in Alaska.
Of course there's more that I've done, but I think those are the activities that stand out. The past few weeks have just been GO GO GO!! with precious little time to breathe, much less post anything interesting on my blog.
Today is a rainy Sunday, the first long rain we've had in months. It came last night, and all through the night I could hear the steady gentle drip of rain on the roof, and this afternoon I am cuddled up on the couch with my fuzzy blanket, purring cat, and laptop, and am very content indeed. I may make meself a cup o' tea to increase the contentment level . . .
But before I do that, I will post pictures, since it seems that those are of most interest to my friends. Thanks to you all, by the way, who check my blog several times a week in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, I've managed to update it. Do not lose hope! I am here! I am well! I am posting!!
Fire season in Missoula: mid-July to end of August. Ugh. Here's smoke billowing up from a fire near Frenchtown in August:
It may be trite to say, but life has been incredibly busy these past couple of months. Since the beginning of August I've gotten a wonderful new roommate, Elsa; started my second-to-last semester of grad school; worked WAY too much; thrown a kegger to celebrate three birthdays (mine and those of my friends Heather and Emily); gone out to eat a great number of times for various important occasions; spent a lovely weekend contra dancing up on Flathead Lake; hiked 14.5 miles while my friend Emily ran a 57K (because she is one of those crazy people who do such things); and played hostess to five nomadic friends on their way back from a summer in Alaska.
Of course there's more that I've done, but I think those are the activities that stand out. The past few weeks have just been GO GO GO!! with precious little time to breathe, much less post anything interesting on my blog.
Today is a rainy Sunday, the first long rain we've had in months. It came last night, and all through the night I could hear the steady gentle drip of rain on the roof, and this afternoon I am cuddled up on the couch with my fuzzy blanket, purring cat, and laptop, and am very content indeed. I may make meself a cup o' tea to increase the contentment level . . .
But before I do that, I will post pictures, since it seems that those are of most interest to my friends. Thanks to you all, by the way, who check my blog several times a week in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, I've managed to update it. Do not lose hope! I am here! I am well! I am posting!!
Fire season in Missoula: mid-July to end of August. Ugh. Here's smoke billowing up from a fire near Frenchtown in August:
And the red sun rising over shadowed Mt. Sentinel:
My Big Step Into AdultHood (Or Something) For 2007:
(last year: full-size bed. This year: knife set. What comes next?)
What do you mean, this isn't what they're supposed to be used for?!
New addition to the household: Elsa's cat, Olive. She is very weird. She is convinced that she is always starving, and is working her hardest to convince us as well. She meows loudly in the morning and runs to her food dish when the first person emerges from her room, and keep meowing, loudly, until she is fed. She runs across the house like a cat possessed. She sits in the sunshine in a very ladylike manner. She is currently purring madly and sitting on my feet, utterly content. In short, she is a cat, and a marvelous one at that.
Below is Elsa, during our two-day preparation for our Luau Kegger Birthday Party. On the menu: 1 enormous bowl of guacamole, 1 gargantuan bag of tortilla chips, 4 pineapple boats full of fruit salad, 70ish shish kabobs, 3 cakes (carrot, coconut-lime, and chocolate raspberry), and 2 kegs (Bayern Amber and Big Sky Summer Honey). Talk about hours upon hours upon hours of prep time . . .
Heather, organizing the Luau Kegger Birthday Party playlist in the bathroom, because there was no other space in the house:
Emily, attempting to shrink the constantly-growing pile of dirty dishes:
Dave, mixing up his far-too-delectable punch (which, unfortunately, kept people from drinking as much out of the kegs as we'd hoped . . . ):
And me, carving out pineapple boats for our fruit salad:
Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the actual party, but since the prep time ended up being about 5 times as long as the party itself, I'm sure ya'll will be satisfied with the prep pictures I posted. At least, you'd darned well better be!
One of my delectable cakes, perhaps one of the best I've done, a Black Forest Blackberry Cake, with three layers separated by a decadent blackberry filling, slathered in chocolate icing, and topped off with homemade whipped cream and milk chocolate shavings. Magnifique!
Yay, a day spent with Amy Gesch-Woman, who was visiting her parents in Helena for a few days. So good to see her over the Labor Day weekend!
And then, my lovely contra dance weekend up on Flathead Lake. It was a sublimely beautiful few days, with dancing galore, gorgeous sunsets, night skies full of stars, and me making WAY too many pots of coffee for all the crazed caffeine addicts. Oh, well, the rest of the experience made up for that stress!
I just took pictures of scenery--sorry, no dancing pics! Someday I'll take my camera along to a contra dance . . .
Last weekend I went up the Swan Valley (finally, after two years!!) with my friends Emily and Lacey. While Emily busted her butt running for 10 hours and 9 minutes, Lacey and I slept in, ate breakfast at Brookies Cookies, a funky little cafe in Bigfork (in fact, it was the only breakfast place we could find in the entire town!), and hiked a mere 14.5 miles. Below, Lacey and Todd (Emily's hyperactive Australian Shepherd who herded us the entire day. Eep.):
Hall Lake, in a beautiful alpine valley. Unfortunately, these little alpine lakes are FREEZING. Lacey jumped in for 12.5 seconds, but I stuck with numbing only my feet and ankles rather than my entire body.
We decided to take a 3-mile detour to Six-Mile Peak, which turned out to rather painful on the way up, but the view was worth it! We could see plumes of smoke from various wildfires; perhaps sometime I'll go up on a clear spring day and see the landscape stretching out for miles.
HAD to take a victory picture at the top!
Emily sleeping in the backseat on the way home, using Todd as a pillow.
Insha'allah that will satisfy those of you faithful readers who have long been awaiting a new post . . . and insha'allah it will not be six weeks before I post again!
Love and salaam to all!!
