A Post AT LAST

Okay, okay, I KNOW.

It's been a Very Long Time since I have updated my blog, and too many people refuse to cut me any more slack on this score.

So, family, Rachel, Jen: here you are. I hope the fact that I am blogging after a long hiatus fills all your hearts with joy. Yay!

And, of course, to make up for the lack of blogging, I will post dozens of pictures. It's the least I can do.

So, I woke up on the Monday before Thanksgiving (yes, we have to go back to Thanksgiving. I haven't blogged since then) to this:



8+ inches of gorgeous fluffy snow that floated straight down, piling up in deep drifts on branches, electric wires, cars, houses.


An absolutely perfect winter wonderland snowfall.






What else is there to do with such lovely snow except . . .



. . . go hunting? Oh, wait. No, I did not kill these deer. They were killed by my friend Peter, who then invited me over to enjoy some oven roasted stuffed deer hearts. Notice, the deer in this picture are lacking hearts. That's why they have large bloody gashes in their chests. Mmm, meat!

So some Missoula folk go hunting.

Midwestern folk, on the other hand . . .



. . . stay inside in their pajamas and make yummy food on Thanksgiving morning! Jen and Joe came to visit me for Thanksgiving, and we had a lovely four days together. Though we did very much enjoy cooking/baking and later devouring the fruits of our labors, I am enough of a Missoula girl after 2 1/2 years to take Jen and Joe to do what many other Missoula folk do . . .



. . . go cross-country skiing in the Rattlesnake Wilderness area.

The snow was perfect.

The sun was shining.

The cold winter wonderland days stretched on.

And I tried unsuccessfully to avoid skiing into trees and small shrubs.






I did successfully manage to look cute with my cross country skiing gear, though!



Jen and Joe succeeded in looking cute as well . . .






I do so like warm hats and fuzzy scarves.



Not to mention good friends.



And, of course, Montana.



(And having my own cross country skis, which I bought this weekend!)

December also brought fun things, though there were the not-so-fun things like final projects and presentations to prepare. Perhaps such things would not have been so not-so-fun had not I procrastinated most of the semester, but alas. Fortunately, Elsa procrastinated as well, so we spent a couple of long late nights sitting at opposite ends of the house, surrounded by papers and pieces of research, shouting encouragement to each other and occasionally meeting in the kitchen to do necessary tasks such as taking out the compost:



and drinking espressos made expertly by Elsa in the French press:



and making various kinds of food in the wee hours of the morning:



Happily, however, Elsa and I both finished the required projects, papers, and presentations, and managed to do them well. Ah, procrastination.

On December 15th, after enjoying our stress- (and schoolwork-) free existence, we decided to take a little tour of the local Humane Society. Just for fun. Just to see all the nice dogs and cats. Just to . . . LOOK.

53 minutes later I walked out of the Humane Society with a box that contained a 10-month old male black domestic shorthaired cat.



Elsa's cat, Olive, was not particularly impressed at first.



But everything's better after a meal . . .





Basil and Olive now get along quite swimmingly, though they have a tendency to tear through the apartment like wild pumas on the rampage, and get into places they're not supposed to, like the Recycling Cave of Death (where their food bag is located, though it is no longer located on the floor), and the kitchen table, the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, my favorite plant, and on top of the DVD player. And, of course, Basil loves to perch.



Other recent exciting additions to the household are Beth and Britta, two very good friends who have just moved to Missoula! They are in the process of finding an apartment and jobs, and are currently crashing in my living room.



It is so good to have them here! Yesterday we combed the sporting good stores of Missoula for cross country skis, finally hitting the jackpot at Sportsman's Surplus. We also combed the thrift stores for beds (and books . . . and clothes . . . right-o). Today we went to church, transported the bed from the thrift store to my storage shed thanks to Than and his truck, ate burritos at Taco del Sol, and went cross country skiing this afternoon. The past few days (not to mention the past few months) have been very full. So begins 2008!