Tag Archives: Love

If I weren’t these things…

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I sit on the love seat in the back room of my parent’s house. It’s 9:30 on a Wednesday evening. I’ve finished my slice of pizza. My mother brought it home from town. I’ve had my glass of wine and we’ve had our visit about the weather and the traffic and the pizza and the fact that my little sister is back home tonight on her pursuit for a job here.

My little sister might be moving back home.

I close my eyes at the thought as her shoulder touches my shoulder. This love seat is small, so my other shoulder is not free either. It’s smashed up against my husband’s leg as he leans back, sprawled out on the arm of this overstuffed piece of furniture.

The three of us, we are a sandwich, and I am the lettuce, the cheese, the pickle, mayo and turkey. They are the bread and we are everything you need for a good bite.

We close our eyes and listen to Pops blow the air from his lungs through the harmonica he wears around his neck. We hear a lonesome sound, one that is familiar and sad and haunting and beautiful and home. We lean in closer…to one another. To him.

We taste his words…

I live back in the woods you see 
My woman and the kids and the dogs and me...

We don’t say it, but it seems those words might have been written for this man sitting in front of us, his hair more silver than it was yesterday, his fingers callused, his voice ringing with those pieces of gravel that dug their way in from years of playing songs like this in bar rooms.

I’ve got a shotgun a rifle 
and a four wheel drive…

It’s quiet tonight. The dogs are asleep and the trucks have taken a different route or maybe they finally called it quits for the day.

I know the stars are out.

And a country boy can survive 
Country folks can survive…

In the kitchen the warm scent of brownies my mother is frosting fresh from the oven drifts back to us smooshed together, the sandwich, on the love seat. I can’t see her from my position as the lettuce, the cheese, the pickle and mayo and turkey, but I know my mother is sipping wine and running her long fingers along the pages of a new magazine.

We grow good ole tomatoes and homemade wine…


Everything I ever knew for certain is filling my lungs and my ears, touching my shoulders and swaying along to all of the things I am on the inside.

And a country boy can survive


I am his lungs and heart and pieces of his gravely voice.

I am her fingers and worries and holidays.

I am his goodnights and kisses. His battles and wishes.

I am her blood, her memories…her shoulder.

Country folks can survive…

We breathe in the air of this house, the air Pops uses to push through the next verse, and I think that if I were not these things,  I might not exist at all…

*Lyrics from “A Country Boy Can Survive” by Hank Williams Jr. 

Falling out of the sky…

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So you might have noticed there hasn’t been much news from the ranch lately and I have some explaining to do. See, in the last week the world has kept turning out here, the steers have been grazing, the trees have been budding, the crocuses have been blooming and the dogs have been running away…and so have we. All the way to South Padre Island to meet up with some of my favorite people on the planet.

Sometimes after months of dangling from ladders, chasing the damn dogs, climbing around in the hills, cooking casseroles, trudging through the mud in muck boots and  waiting for spring you just have to throw your hands in the air and go find a place where summer never leaves.

So we closed up the house and pointed our car toward the plane that would take us to South Padre Island, TX. A place where the ocean crashes on white sand,  the air is just the right type of damp, leaving my hair in that scary place between chia pet and Bride of Frankenstein, and our friends were waiting for us with open arms and giant glasses full of tequila.

I have been planning this trip for months, looking forward to the warm sunshine and an ocean swim, but mostly anxious to wrap my arms around this group of friends who squeezed their way into my heart six years ago with their crazy sense of humor, open-minds, open arms, and just the right amount of grace and intelligence mixed in with a willingness to look and act absolutely ridiculous for the sake of a good belly laugh.

The truth is, I could go anywhere with these people, we could do anything, from scaling the tallest mountains to grinding out paperwork in a cubicle, and we have always have fun…as long as someone has the sense to provide appropriate hats.

And on this agenda we would need them because our days were filled with things like ocean swimming,


cocktail sipping,


pool floating, hot tub soaking, fishing for our supper,

sunset sailing, beach walking…


lawn chair lounging,

 and skydiving.


Yup. You heard me.

Sky. Dive. Ing.

This landlocked woman from the prairie who gets woozy from looking over the edge of an anthill, who just a week ago was hyperventilating about her husband’s location on the top of a ladder signed up for an activity that sent me flinging my body out of a questionable airplane and plummeting to my inevitable death at 150 miles per hour strapped to a laid back man with bad-ass tattoos and even more bad-ass dreadlocks.

I don’t know what was going through my mind when I responded “Yes, Yes, Yes!” to my friend’s email request for company as he attempted this death-defying activity. I am not sure what compelled me to make the decision to be his companion on this adventure except I couldn’t think of anyone else I would rather jump out of an airplane with. This friend, he’s always made me feel like I could do anything. And I believe him.

So we greeted one another with hugs and tequila and made our plan to face death.

Friday at noon.

It only took a nod of my head to get husband on board with the idea. Skydiving? Why the hell not?

And so we were off. I contemplated my outfit carefully that morning, wondering what would look best on me as a flattened corpse on the beaches of the island. Wondering what would be less appetizing to the sharks if I were to land in the ocean. I chose a pair of blue shorts and an unassuming black tank top. A classic and easy look for someone looking death in the face, and all of the paperwork that goes with it.

It turns out though, that when you are harnessed up and huddled at the back of an airplane that reminds you of a really loud VW bus, the last thing you are thinking about is your wardrobe.

No. As you stare into the face of the adventurous friend who got you into this predicament just moments before he launches his body out of the buzzing and bouncing aircraft, you wonder if maybe you should have peed first.

And as the VW plane reaches the inevitable 11,000 feet, you think about your husband who just moments before you was sent spirling through the air. You think how pissed you will be if he became a sand pancake…you wonder who will unclog the drain and finish fixing the deck…

then you think of how pissed his momma will be when you explain to her whose idea this was…

Your mind snaps back to your immediate situation when your instructor pulls you toward his lap, the plane bouncing well above the fluffy clouds. You notice that you can see the curvature of the earth. You think you might be able to see the ranch from here. You wonder if you’ve gone crazy. You remember that you belong down there, on the prairie, with the animals that graze the grass, the ones who don’t swim or fly or launch themselves out of the sky.

As your traveling companion latches up and secures your body to his own, connecting the two of you together by only a few, in your opinion, inadequate straps and hooks, the thought enters your mind that this man’s instructions to arch your back and lift your arms could be the last voice you will ever hear. Then you ask him if maybe you should have had dinner or coffee first…you know, to get to know one another…

But it’s too late, he laughs as the door of the plane flies open and a rush of air hits you like a slap across the face. He feels your body tense up and tremble as you watch your most adventurous and lovely friend swing his legs over the side of the plane and then drop out of sight.

You wonder if you’ll ever see him again.

You wonder if you ever told him that you liked his new haircut.

You hope he peed before he got in the plane.

You wish again, that you would have done the same…

Then suddenly the man who strapped himself to you is moving toward that very same door and you discover you are moving too. You think, “Wait, I don’t even know your last name!” but before you can ask what it is, or what his tattoos mean, or what his father does for a living, where he’s from, what is his favorite food, animal, plant, color, he is sitting in the doorway of the plane at 11,000 fricking feet above the tiny strip of island surrounded by ocean and really tall, sharp buildings and he is telling you to put your left leg out there on the ledge. And because you’re strapped to this man and your life is literally in his hands dangling out of an airplane you are compelled to listen. The air coming into the open door of the plane is so strong that you have to help your leg move with your hand.

You think about this for a second, about how the universe might be telling you something, that maybe, maybe…may…

And then…

I supposed you guessed the outcome, that I survived and so did my two companions. I have never been so happy to feel the sand between my toes, to hear the cheers of my best friends in the world screaming my name, to see the sparkling ocean and finally catch my damn breath already.

And I’ve never been in love with another man, but I think I might now be in love with this guy, the dreadlocked, tattooed, hero from South Padre Island that nearly killed me and saved my life all in the matter of ten minutes.

When they asked me about my favorite part of jumping out of a plane, I am pretty sure I said “when it was over.”

And then I breathed “I’m alive!” and ran into the arms of my friends, the friends who make me feel more alive in their presence, more capable, more free and loved and hilarious and beautiful than I will ever feel jumping from a plane.

But  I wouldn’t have anyone else there waiting for my crazy ass to touch down. And for them I would jump out of a plane, climb a cactus, sing in an opera, climb Mt. Everest, run a marathon, swim with the sharks, dance like Lady Gaga, backflip off a cliff, and grow wings and fly…because they make me believe it’s possible.

Peace and love from the solid ground of the ranch!

*All photos from Skydive South Padre Island. Thanks for the adventure guys! And thanks for bringing us safely to earth!

The boy on the hill…

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Most Sundays we get together with mom and pops for dinner. After a week of work and crazy schedules followed by a weekend of chores and projects or travel, one of us decides that someone should cook a decent meal, pour some wine in a glass and make us all sit down.

I admit, with the house and my weird schedule, it has been momma making the meals lately.

But it’s one of the things I think we both look forward to, and now that the sun stays out a little longer and there’s no snow in sight, I pull on my shoes, whistle for the dogs and follow the winding creek to my parent’s house over three big hills, nestled in the oak groves. Husband, usually busy putting in the last nail for the day, meets me over there in his pickup and soon we’re settled the kind of easy talk that comes only with the people you’re closest to.

We complement my mother’s cooking, tease her about her bottomless wine supply, talk about work and weather and my stupid dogs. Usually I whip out a story that requires use of an accent and pops laughs and squeezes his eyes tight as he throws his head back. It’s my favorite look on him for so many reasons…

But my favorite is when we start talking memories. It usually always comes to this, a story about my father’s childhood in the very spot we’re building a house. A revelation about how my mom was forced to run track by her cheerleading coach, so she did it…in ballet slippers. Husband’s confessions about the punishment dealt out after fighting with his brother that included holding hands with him on the couch for as long as his father saw fit.

There’s something about being a room with people who you know the best in this world, people who know you in the same way, and still being able to learn something about them. And it doesn’t matter if we’ve heard the same story a few times, there is always something to add, a question to ask that reveals more character, more memory, sheds a different light on this person.

Last night pops shared a story about his childhood that I’m sure I’ve heard before, possibly dozens of times. But it doesn’t matter, I could hear it a thousand times and be transported.

I want to exist in this story, in this ten minute vignette of my father at four years old that somehow sums up everything he became here on this landscape as a child, growing into a man with white hair and a wife who he transplanted from city sidewalks and dance studios to a house at the end of a dirt road in the coulee with party-line phones and a bull snake in the shed.

I love the way he tells it, sitting at the end of the table, plate pushed forward, arms folded, coffee brewing for dessert. He looks to the ceiling as if up there he might catch a glimpse of that little boy, four-years-old with curly black hair riding bareback on a paint pony alongside his father. It’s fall or summer, he can’t remember. But I imagine the leaves were just starting to turn as the pair trotted out of the barnyard, the little boy on his father’s trail moving east toward the reservation where the cattle graze in the summer.


He’s not sure why his father took him along for an almost seven-mile-one-way cross-country trip. At four-years-old, he thinks now that it might have been a little extreme for such a youngster. But ask him then and it was all he wanted to do. Leave him behind? He would have tried to follow anyway.

The pastures out east, even today with an increase in activity, are some of the most isolated and untouched places out here. The rolling buttes rise and fall for miles between fences into creek bottoms with black mud and cattails, creeks that are difficult to cross with a horse, even in the late summer. The oak groves, bordered by thorny bull berry brush and thistle, begin to blend into one another and look the same. I’ve seen them play tricks on even the most familiar cowboy, getting him mixed up on what draw he’s in or where he is when he emerges from ducking and cutting through the narrow cattle trails along the banks.

So there he was, a little boy, clinging tight to that pony as it jumped over the creek and raced up the side hills to keep up with the big horse. And it was at the top of one of those rocky hills that his father told him to stay and wait.

“Don’t move,” his father said as he made plans to check the creek bottoms, to find cows that have been milling in there to stay cool and get away from the flies. “I will come back and get you.”

So on top of that hill sat my father on his pony. He shakes his head now and laughs as he tells it and we take a sip of our coffee, shift in our seats and imagine him as a little boy, wind flopping his hat and moving fluffy clouds that made shadows on the buttes.


He can’t remember if he was scared or nervous now. He searches for a recollection of that feeling in his coffee cup and then rests his chin on his fist. All he can remember is that he was told not to move and so he didn’t. He didn’t move as he scanned the hills and squinted into the oak trees for any sign that his father might be on his way back to him.

And while he was peering into the horizon, holding his breath and the reigns of his pony, someone did come over that hill. But it wasn’t his father in his saddle and cowboy hat, but a Native American girl with long black hair and legs dangling on each side of her bare backed horse under the late summer sky.

“Can you imagine what she thought,” my father chuckles at the memory of this girl, who he recalls was a teenager, but was probably only about ten or eleven years old, so young herself. “Here she found this little boy on a pony all by himself out there on the hill.”

He goes on then to tell us the part of the story we remember from last time it was told here at this kitchen table. He recalls how she asked him if he was ok and if he was lost. He told her that he wasn’t supposed to leave this spot. That his dad was coming back for him.

My father doesn’t remember many of the details of conversation, what she looked like, what they said, but he remembers she stayed with him, she stayed with that little boy with curly hair and a hat flopping in the prairie wind, on that hilltop, more than likely holding her breath and scanning the horizon for any sign of a cowboy coming back.

Now he pulls at his napkin and says though he doesn’t remember how long she sat with him, but when you’re four years old ten minutes can seem like hours. And I can relate, remembering my own time spent on hilltops waiting for this father of mine to come back for me. It could have been hours. It could have been minutes. But she stayed until that little boy had an escort through the valleys and over the creeks, back west to the barnyard and to his momma and big sister waiting with canned meat and biscuits and for a report of the day’s events.
And so he told it to his mother, the story about the girl. And for years to come around their dinner table this would be one of their family’s stories, one of the memories they would share over Sunday meals about a little boy who was my father who had found a girlfriend out east in the hilltop.
And as my father protested, they would throw back their heads and close their eyes and laugh…

The dangerous life of a Handyman’s wife…

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So we’re in the middle of finishing that house that came down the road to our little valley at the end of December. And by finishing, I mean, we’re the ones responsible for the little things…like a floor, doors, steps, a master bedroom/bathroom and, well, a ceiling…pretty much all the basics that one might need to actually LIVE in a house.

No big deal right? I mean, I should have known when I said “I do” to a man who was raised with a father who had a collection of lawnmowers/washers and dryers/stoves/boats/kitchen sinks in his back yard in case he needed a part for the one that was currently in use in the house.

I should have known when my own washing machine went out that the options were not “get a new one,” but “call dad and see if he has any extra motors laying around.”

He did.

Four of them.

And I think three of them might still be in the basement.

"You know, in case we need 'em"

 Anyway, that’s how things are around here. If you want something done and still want to be able to afford to buy Cheerios for breakfast, we do it ourselves.I’ve come to terms with this concept after completing a full out, strip down, shag carpet, hot-tub in the living room remodel that brought a 1974 Brady Bunch house up to the times of hardwood flooring and, well, no hot tubs in the living room. Yup, 200 hours of staining and varnishing, three hundred less brain cells and one head stuck in a ladder later, I was convinced.

I am the wife of a handyman. 

And this is our project...forever...

So I went into it with a combination of confidence and dread. I mean, I knew my love in a tool belt (and oh how I love him in a tool belt) could get us living in a beautiful home designed by our two brains. I knew that under his direction I would hand him tools, saw a few boards, make lumber-yard runs, choose the paint colors, try to avoid my thumbs with the hammer, deliver sandwiches and beer and keep the music on the iPod flowing with motivational tunes. I had that covered. There are some things I can handle.

And really, it has been going good so far. If you ask my brave and fearlessly confident husband, he’s got this under control. Take out the minor incident where my three-year-old niece came to visit, decided she had to try out our new potty and plopped a little poopie in our unplumbed bathroom, and I’d say it’s been down right Bob Vila-esque around here.

Don't worry, we're still friends...

So why have I spent that last month fighting off night terrors you ask? Well, I’ll tell ya. Some genius decided to build a house with 20 foot ceilings. And that genius, knowing full well who would be praying to Jesus, Mary and Joseph while trembling on an 8 foot ladder on top of 10 foot scaffolding with her arms above her head, fears heights the same way most people fear plummeting to a bone-crushing, back-breaking, neck-wrenching, bloody, mangled death.

Yup.

shit

That’s what I pictured each and every time I walked across that homemade scaffolding, boards creaking and bending, the sound of someone hyperventilating in my attempt to bring a nail-gun (the one I am always sure is going to go off randomly, shooting a 2 inch nail through the top of my foot without warning) to my dearly beloved who somehow thinks positioning his ladder on the tippy-toe edge of the ledge, standing at the very top rung and then leaning out into the abyss of death that is one day going to be our living room, is an acceptable risk to take just to ensure that a board is secure.

I scream “screw the board, save yourselves,” fling the nail gun and run to the corner of the house, the corner far away from any ledge and plummeting death.

It’s ridiculous, I’m aware. And I feel sorry for husband who is just trying to make our vision for a beautiful cedar ceiling a reality. I feel sorry for him because I come by it naturally. It’s a hereditary condition spawned from my roots of prairie people who passed up the terrifying mountains to come to live in houses with one floor, low ceilings and a basement.

One of the first Veeder ranch dwellings. You see where I'm coming from?

I feel sorry for him because the only help he’s had at his disposal for this sky-scaping, death-defying, circus-act of a job is the two prairie people with the worst case of vertigo in the family.

Yours truly, and her father.

Yup. Pops has it bad too, and frankly, I blame him for all of these undesirable qualities I’ve inherited. The big nose, the fuzzy hair, the tendency to ramble AND the crippling fear of high places. All him.

I might just blame my unhealthy obsession with four legged creatures on him too...

But the difference between Pops and me is this. I avoid, complain, sob, tremble, look away and repeatedly tell my significant other to “be careful, watch where you step, hold on, hold on, don’t lean…I’ve got the ladder…shit…don’t fall…don’t fall…don’t fall…you’re killing me…”

But Pops, he just sucks it up, wipes the sweat that forms uncontrollably on his brow, suffers in silence as his son in law dangles with one arm from the rafters while he leans over the ledge, and then goes home to have vivid nightmares about people falling off skyscrapers.

Which brings me to last weekend where, after weeks of this type of torture, the end of this dreaded ceiling project was in sight. I was feeling pretty good about the fact that we had managed to nail approximately thirty -thousand boards to the rafters without anyone losing a limb, shooting an eyeball with the nail gun, cutting a finger off, or, you know, plummeting to a gruesome death.

But we weren’t out of the woods yet. Nope. We still had one giant task that included raising and nailing a 15 foot beam to the very, tippy-top, peak of our the ceiling of our new home. This was to complete the job, make it look finished, give us a place to hang our chandelier and get us moving on to the next task that required shorter ladders.

So I suggested calling the National Guard.

Husband took the phone from my hand and told me to go find my pops.

I cried.

And then did what I was told, because in the end practicality always wins over drama in my life.

Although you would never guess it by the looks of this outfit...but that was in my pre-husband era...

I found Pops in the shop, on solid ground, working on his beloved 4-wheeler. He followed me to the house to find husband waiting for us on the damned, creaky scaffolding equipped with two ladders and a nail gun.

The task? Hold the beam up to the top of the 20 foot ceiling while husband climbs and dangles and runs and jumps and back flips to get the damn thing to hold.

I trembled and felt a little of that morning’s eggs hit my throat. I held my breath and as Pops held the beam on one ladder I stayed on the scaffolding holding a 10 foot 2×4 against the middle part of the beam.

And there we stood, the two of us conjuring up new nightmares and worst-case scenarios as my Bob Villa Ninja went from one near death position to the next. Pops told me not to watch as husband stretched his ladder across the stairway and stood with nothing but a thin board between him and a 15 foot fall.

So I didn’t watch. And neither did Pops.

We held it together, the two of us. We only hollered “be careful up there!” and “don’t fall!” like fifty-five times during the course of fifteen minutes (although I would have been more comfortable with a number in the hundreds.) And we thought we were out of the woods, everybody’s head in tact, when husband climbed down from the ladder and put his hands on his hips.

“Looks good,” he said.

“YES! IT DOES. GOOD WORK,” shrieked Pops and I.

“I just need to nail one more spot,” husband said scratching his head. “I wonder how the hell I’m going to get to it?”

We followed his eyes to where they rested on a piece of the beam that towered past the edge of the scaffolding, too high for a regular ladder to reach. 20 feet up there, un-reachable unless you had wings.

Pops used our best material to try and convince Husband that a nail in that particular location was not necessary. We suggested putting more nails in other places to make up for it. But Ninja Bob Villa wouldn’t have it and before we knew it he had his ladder on the ledge of the scaffolding, his feet on the top rung, his back bent at a 90 degree angle out over the stair case with a nail gun in his hand reaching for the ceiling.

And it seems we lost it.

I whimpered and squeezed back the tears as I grabbed the ladder. And while I was saying fifty prayers to Jesus, Pops threw down his tools and grabbed on to his son-in-law’s belt buckle as my husband leaned further back over the abyss.

“Son, if you fall it would be sure death,” my Pops declared.

“And if either of you tell anyone that I grabbed your belt, I’ll kill you both…”

Well, I guess we all have to die someday…If you need me I’ll be around here somewhere…hiding from Pops.

Days spent like this…

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I have been hanging with Little Man a lot lately. We’ve been chillin’, drinking bottles of milk, throwing snack foods on the ground, giving the kitties kisses, watching Mickey Mouse, practicing our walking skills and pooping our pants…wait…that one is just him.

He is a blessing, a joy, a wonder of new accomplishments and experiences. He tests the limits of what he is made of about 64 times a day because  that’s what being a child is all about. Reaching, learning, climbing on the table when no one’s looking just to see if you can.

I wish I could be more like him.  He’s taught me so much already in his short little year-and-some-months life and the time I get to spend with him one-on-one opens my eyes to things I didn’t know about life before I met him.

Like a tiny kid in tiny Carharts might be on the top of the list titled “Cutest things in the world”

This is also on that list:

And, well, he stands alone pretty well on that list too.

I have also learned that cute can get into your cupboards, pull the lab’s tail, wake up at 3:30 am, throw his vegetables on the floor, then his fruit, then his sippy cup,  laugh hysterically about it…and then get you to laugh hysterically about it too…while you happily clean up the mess.

Because cute is cute, even when he’s the reason you went to work with mashed peas stuck to your butt.

In addition, in my previous life I did not pay adequate attention to The Disney Channel. And to that I would like to formally apologize to Walt Disney himself. And then I would like to thank him. Because Walt, The Disney Channel is a little gift from heaven. Because that’s where Mickey Mouse lives. And Little Man loves Mickey Mouse just enough for me to be able to have a moment to tame my hair and brush my teeth.

Macaroni and cheese is also a gift, especially when the vegetables, fruit and sippy cups fail.

So is the song “You are my Sunshine.” Works every time.

And you know what else I’ve learned during the time I’ve been spending with this little bundle of smiles and snorts and boogers?

Well, I’ll tell ya, days spent like this:

And this:

They are my favorite days.

Poop, peas, Mickey and tail pulling included.

Who woulda thought?

A little about Little Man

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12

Check out my date for the day:

Yup, he’s a handsome catch.

Don’t judge me ok. But when I get a chance to hang with my baby nephew, the first thing I do (after getting a smile and a hug) is dress him as a mini version of an adult character, like a cowboy or a hunter or an extreme athlete who wears Under Armor gear and then head outside.

Yeah, there may be some past evidence of this tendency….

Anyway, Little Man loves it outside. And with the unseasonably warm temperatures this week the little guy didn’t even need a puffy coat to enjoy the sunshine, barn animals and a big boy ride on the 4-wheeler.

Which reminds me, I need to get him a pair of goggles to go with that flapper hat. I think it would really complete the outfit don’t you?

Other than that, we’ve been busy you know. So busy that the kid is currently snoring, exhausted from a morning of growing teeth, making his aunt gag with the giant surprise he left in his pants: twice, and you know, working on the walking thing.

Yup, today Little Man discovered how to stand up without any aid from a piece of furniture and  propel himself forward on his feet. You know, a little thing we refer to as walking. And if I ever had doubt about why parents get so insane over things like children pooping on the potty and saying “DaDa” or “Shoe” (which not surprisingly, was my first word) I will never question it again.

Because when this little phenomenon occurred (one I have been nagging him about for months) this morning in my momma’s kitchen, I nearly spontaneously combusted with pride. When the reoccurring single step he usually takes from the standing position turned into two and then three, the look on that Little Man’s face was priceless. I screamed. I clapped. I did a back flip.

I called President Obama.

Hearing the commotion from shower stall, my momma came rushing in from the bathroom in her towel, and, well, she did the same thing, joining me in crazy company.

And then she called Oprah and asked her if she would like the exclusive interview with this wondrous kid.

It was magic.

And it hasn’t happened again for a good three hours, despite all of my coaxing.

Ah, well.

And ah, to be a toddler.

Watching Little Man discover the world, grab the cat by the tail, and snuggle into his gramma’s lap opens up a whole new world for us here on the ranch. One that has been plumb full of adult wisdom and responsibilities for years. But when Little Man comes down the road backward in his car seat and reaches his arms up to us, his way of asking to be pulled out, to be shown something, to be held and bounced and kissed and hugged, I cant help but wish I had still had some of those memories with me.


I wish I could recall what it was like to taste the world for the first time, or the adventure of never knowing if it’s milk or juice in that sippy cup. I wish I could remember that thrill of my first step and the faces that were there cheering me on. I wish I could reach back in the depths of my mind to hear the lullabies sung and the stories told, to hear my mother’s young voice, my grandmother’s whistle. I wish I could feel the thrill of being tossed in the air with full confidence that my grandfather would be there to catch me.

I wish he could remember how happy he is making everyone around here. How he melts his grandmother’s worries away as soon as she see’s his face. How he makes everything else in his grandfather’s world disappear when he see’s his toothy smile.

I wish he could remember how his aunt loses all inhibitions in attempts to make him laugh and  how everything’s right in his uncle’s world when he comes home from work and finds Little Man’s arms stretched out for a hug.

I know these particular events won’t stick in his little memory, but I know he will understand how important he is to our world.

Oh, and I will tell him.

Certain things.

Like how I did my first and only backflip when she saw him walk and how his gram called Oprah about the whole thing…

I probably won’t tell him about all the times he’s peed on me. Or how I repeatedly put his diapers on backwards.

Or how much he used to poop his pants.

Some memories are meant to be repressed.

Have a great weekend everyone. If you need me, I’ll be napping too.

Love,

Aunty Jessie

This year’s story…

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The year is winding down here and it is doing so quite nicely. This morning there is a little fog that has settled in over the barnyard, coating the grass and trees with a thin layer of frost. I am waiting for the sky to lighten a bit before taking a trip into town, just as all of us up here this December are waiting, holding our breath for the snow to fall as it inevitably will. And in the hustle and bustle of our lives, the taking down of Christmas decorations, the New Year’s plans, the gift returns and holiday cleanup, my hope for you is that you are giving yourself a  moment to close your eyes and reflect on a year that was no doubt filled with achievements, heartbreak, love found or lost, adventure…all the experiences that got us safely to the cusp of a new year, a little older, a little wiser, and hopefully, a little better in spite of all of those lessons.

Lessons like when delving into a full-blown, first time in the kitchen salsa caning project at 8 pm, make sure you have the proper ingredients (like jars) and the willpower and drive to follow through into the early morning hours. Or the other lesson learned early on in the year about how to ensure you don’t ever get a visit from the Schwan’s man again in your life followed by the an over the phone tutorial on how to pull the FedEx man in a FedEx van out of your snowed in driveway in the middle of winter, in the middle of nowhere. Both lessons resulting in getting our ice-cream and our packages in town.

Yes, there was the lesson learned about what happens when 150 cows throw a party on your lawn after a big summer rain storm, the one about how to sprain your ankle jumping off a horse, the realization that I just might be too soft to be an effective 4-H judge followed by the other realization that apparently husband collects coolers, microwaves, bed frames, dressers, ice skates, thousands of unidentifiable tractor and truck parts, old lunch boxes, swallow nests, spiders, deer antlers, gears, wire, Christmas wreaths, scrap wood, a jeep and a partridge in a pear tree and keeps them piled up in our garage….and that isn’t likely to change.

Ever.

And yes, I will always blame this on him. 

And then there was the blinding lesson the pug learned about messing with porcupines when you only weigh thirty-five pounds and a good portion of your smooshy face is actually covered in two buggy eyeballs, which resulted in the following lesson on how to get by with only one buggy eyeball. And after the three trips to the vet, the giant cone he was forced to wear and a few run-ins with the wall as he turned his head to look over his shoulder, the pug has pretty much been transformed this year into something that could be referred to now as “Bad Ass.”

Bad ass like husband running out the door in the middle of the night to save us all from the raccoon dangling off of the side of the deck with, umm, nothing but a gun in his hand and a mission in his groggy head. Turns out he got to learn the lesson about wearing clothes to bed in case of midnight varmint emergencies, well, twice.

Yes, some lessons catch us off guard and find us standing butt naked on the rail of the deck in the middle of the night with a shotgun in your hands and two full moons shining in the darkness…and then others roll into your lives quietly, like the herd of elk Pops and I snuck up on this spring, reminding us that life is magical and fragile and quite frankly a masterpiece.

A masterpiece that grows the raspberries in the east pasture and finds us riding our horses in the summer sun at just the right time to stumble upon them and indulge. It’s the kind of life that gives us voices and ambition to sing out loud next to people you respect and admire  and the ability to understand that it doesn’t matter where you are, in a barnyard, around a campfire, in a smoky bar somewhere, it’s the chance to blend voices, it’s the music in you that, when it finds its moment to be heard, is the true gift.

Like the gift I was given as I watched my husband walk across the pasture in the crisp spring evening at the end of the first pleasant day of one of the harshest winters of our lives. And as I watched him scratch the ears of his favorite horse from my perch in the passenger seat of the pickup I caught my breath in the realization that this is the life we were supposed to be living and that in this world full of snow storms and breakdowns and things that might never be fixed, I married the right man. And we are in the right place. 

And so here I sit in my husband’s favorite chair in my grandmother’s house on my family’s land on the edge of the badlands in North Dakota as the wind blows through the icy trees under an overcast sky. Here I sit with my coffee cup, taking a moment to reflect on a year that was observed just as much as it was lived. And if the words I scrounged up to describe the sound of a coyote howling across the landscape haven’t moved a soul, if the photos I snapped of the breathtaking sunsets were only seen with my eyes and the music I wrote of my home in the hills was only heard in my heart, today I can say with confidence something that may not have rung true a few years ago…it would be enough for me.

See, it hasn’t come easily, but as I walked out in the summer rain and bent down to snap a photo of a wildflower drenched in the season, as I laughed out loud at the antics of my pets, helped my husband in the kitchen, strummed my guitar, playing along with a song my father was singing or climbed on the back of a horse to show my friend around the ranch, I found myself becoming an a spectator, a witness to the life I was living. With my camera to my eye I noticed how the sky formed gorgeous silhouettes, how my father’s hands folded on the saddle horn while he counted the cattle, how my sister rides horse like she lives life…on a mission.

With the idea of passing on the story, I listened a little closer at how words rolled of tongues, paid attention to the heat of the sun, the bite of the wind, the way the snow crunched under our feet…

Yesterday a new friend exclaimed that one of the three things we have control of in our lives is our time. And I know sometimes it doesn’t feel this way, sometimes it feels time has a grip on us, it passes us by, it moves too quickly when we want it to stay and drags on the minutes while we wait to move on. But if we could give ourselves one gift this new year I think it would be this: to exist and move through our lives conscious of how we are spending our minutes, aware that they are with or without purpose. And then we should give ourselves a little bit more of it so that we might observe the moon as it rises big and bright over the horizon, kiss our husbands a little longer, let ourselves lie down in the spring grass, feel the warm sun and watch the clouds move with the wind, hold our children a little tighter and linger there to smell their clean hair, to feel their soft skin under our fingers so we can remember it well, that we can get to know it all… so that we might have it in us when we need it most.

So of all of the lessons learned this year, all of the things I’ve come to know and appreciate, one of my greatest gifts has been having your ear to listen, your eyes to see what I see, your words that relate to the chaos of life here in this space we share, to tell you these things and know that someone cares. Because the stories are there, boring or humorous, observational, poetic…everyone has them. But without you I may have never  told them…

And because of you I now know they are enough.

Happy New Year to you and all of those in your story!

A Very Veeder Christmas

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A very merry first day back to work after Christmas to you all. I hope you all had a lovely time working on polishing off those sugar cookies and have packed a turkey sandwich, a leftover noodle salad, a piece of prime rib, some chocolate kisses, peanut brittle and maybe a holiday orange or two to get you through a full day away from the kitchen.

We celebrated in Veeder style out here at the ranch beginning with mimosa and husband’s famous caramel rolls in the morning and ending with our first attempt at homemade pie for dessert.

Yup, I (helped) make this

And so I would like to present to you some of the highlights of our big day in my 2nd Annual Very Veeder Christmas Re-cap.  It must be done. Because, as always, it was a holiday to remember at the ranch, filled to the brim with traditions that have warmed our souls and lifted our spirits year after year…

Traditions like the holiday themed cheeseball:

I know it's hard to believe he's edible considering how absolutely life-like he is, but it's true. And he was delicious.

The “quick, take a picture of the cat under the tree with the presents isn’t that so cuuutteee oh my gaawwdddd” photo:

The beautiful tree:

The forced, awkward holiday photo shoot, under the direction of yours truly…which never works when she who is to be directed is my annoying, shutter happy little sister:

Let's do this people...

I hope that wasn’t as painful for you as it was for me.

Let’s cleanse our pallets now with an explosion of cute…


And one of our newest and most favorite traditions yet: watching Little Man take in the holiday while Pops follows him around helping him open presents, pry into the fourteen layers of plastic packaging then disappear in a full out investigative search in the garage for the appropriate sized batteries, assemble the toys and proceed with his instructional session with the one-year-old on how to scootch a toy truck along the floor while making “vrroommminnng” noises as the rest of the family watches in anticipation of Little Man following suit…

It must be a grandpa thing.

Awww. Christmas just isn’t Christmas without adorable little children playing at your feet and… well…the annual presentation of the pug in his Santa suit…

Load him up Cowboy

Don't look at me like that...this is your Christmas duty...

Ta Da!

Nothing spreads holiday cheer like the glare of hatred coming from the one-eyed pug who refuses to move on account of the outfit.

I’m not positive, but I think might be the only one in our family who finds this type of pet humiliation utterly hilarious….

bwahahahahaaa…(tap, tap, is this thing on?)

Yes, it was a holiday to remember at our house filled with love and laughter, snuggles and eating, just the right amount of humiliation and maybe one Christmas cookie dough fight. But in all of the familiarity of the season, there are some traditions that just couldn’t be fulfilled, and this year it was snow.

Ah well, I don’t hear anyone complaining really, considering last year at this time we were trudging our way through snow drifts up over our heads to get down the road to Mom’s and Pop’s for Christmas morning.

But the lack of snow isn’t the only thing that’s changed around here since we celebrated Christmas 2010…

What a difference a year makes!

Cheers to a wonderful new one ahead, filled with beautiful memories and at least one less than embarrassing photo to match.

Or, you know, you could just go with it…

Momma’s Mouth Watering Fudge-A Christmas Gift

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16

The Merriest Christmas to all of you. I hope you’re reading this and looking forward to a weekend filled with friends and family and laughter and delicious food. To honor your friendship and support I am giving you a gift that has been enjoyed by many families around the countryside here Christmas after Christmas, courtesy of my Momma. You remember her? My Momma, the woman who has Santa Clause’s cell phone number on speed dial and continues to make Christmas the most magical time of the year. Every year.

There she is, buried under presents and squished between a couple other holly, jolly family members...

And one of the ways she does this is by whipping up this recipe and distributing it in fancy little green and red containers adorned with bows to every person who has touched her family’s life or made her laugh or brought her a bottle of wine at the perfect moment a bottle of wine was necessary throughout the year.

Men drool over this. Women hide it in places their families won’t find it. Kids sneak pieces of this heartfelt delicacy while their parent’s have their backs turned. It’s a little bit of heaven in your mouth.

It’s my momma’s fudge..and I’m going to give you the recipe.  A recipe that is sure to put you on the top of the “Nice” list year after year.

Make this and even the family members who’ve disowned you will be knocking at your door, apologizing for their wrong doing with a bottle of champaign begging you to forgive them…and please, can I have a piece of that fudge.

It’s that easy.

Really.

I can even make  it…all by myself!

Here’s what you need:

  • 1 12 oz package semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 12 oz package milk chocolate chips
  • 3 teaspoons vanilla
  • 4 1/2 cups of sugar
  • 1 pound of butter (No worries, I’ll post my Momma’s instructional aerobic video after Christmas)
  • 1 can evaporated milk

Got it?

Ok, onward.

  • Butter an 8×12 baking dish
  • Bring sugar and evaporated milk to a boil, stirring constantly. Continue to stir and boil for 7 minutes.
  • Remove pot from heat and stir chocolate chips, vanilla and butter.

  • Stir until smooth and pour into the buttered baking dish
  • Refrigerate until set
  • Ask your hubby or the woman in your life with incredible strength to help you cut the fudge into squares
  • Serve up on a cute platter and stand back and smile as you experience that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with spreading holiday cheer.


If you’re looking for me and this fudge, we are more than likely shamefully hiding out somewhere.

Merry Christmas friends. Much love from our house to yours!

The list

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Christmas is right around the corner. Like, right there. I can see its sparkly ribbons and the ball on its Santa hat from here and I am finding myself a little anxious about the whole thing. I’m saying things like, I’m not ready! I have to bake something! I have to wrap the presents and find a Christmas tree and put up lights! It has to snoooowwwww! It hasn’t even really snowed yet!!!

I’ve been so wrapped up in other things this December, like planning the arrival and set-up of our new house, that Christmas and I haven’t been able to spend time together.

So this week I have  “Christmas” on my agenda. I’m not going to lie, I don’t like having to pencil it in. I much prefer when the season infiltrates into my life naturally. I like when the ground has just the right amount of sparkly snow and husband and I are able to go out and cut the tree together. I like when I have a weekend to put up the lights and replace my usual brown candles and wooden frames with red and green decorations and boughs of cedar.

I love it when the house smells like cedar. It’s one of my favorite things about Christmas at the ranch.

Last night when husband and I got in late from dinner at my big sister’s new house I walked through our entryway full of tools and living room piled to the ceiling with unwrapped presents and realized that, with Christmas just a few days away and husband working so hard on the new house, it isn’t likely we will have a tree this year. And it’s the last Christmas we’ll spend in this little house.

It made me a little sad as I crawled into bed, thinking about our first Christmas spent as a married couple in this house. I pulled  the covers up and closed my eyes to remember the first tree we cut together from the place. Our first tree as husband and wife….

We’d been married about four months and there was snow on the ground. We headed out the door in early December to drive the trail to the east pasture, the pasture on the edge of the badlands that grows the most Christmas type trees on the place,  our new puppy riding in the back of the pickup. We bumped and bounced along the rough and frozen path until we got to the top of the hill looking over one of our favorite spots. Deciding he had pushed his luck and the limits of his 4-wheel drive, we got out of the pickup to scope out the hills on foot, our little brown lab trailing in our footprints behind us.

It is one of my favorite memories, watching my new husband dressed in his wool cap and neckerchief, jeans and big boots, milling over the size and proportion of a cedar tree that we had spotted on the top of a hill together. I remember it being just before dark as the sun made its way down over the buttes as our new puppy and I watched eagerly as husband carefully sawed off the top of our chosen tree and drug it up the hill to the pickup.

We followed in his snowy footprints and walked together talking and laughing at how our puppy was jumping through the drifts, watching our breath puff in and out with our words. We reached our pickup as the sun was setting, loaded our puppy and the tree in the back and I plopped my snow-suited body down next to husband in the cab. He started the engine, put the vehicle in reverse, stepped on the gas and, well…we didn’t move..

Husband put in drive, stepped on the gas…and…ummm…we were not going that way either.

Reverse.

Drive.

Reverse.

Drive.

Stuck.

Husband got the shovel and I stepped out and sunk knee deep into the snow bank we decided to park in. I trudged around to the back of the pickup to check on the puppy who, in all of that back and forth, had lost his cookies all over in the box of the pickup…and if memory serves me right, it seemed he had indulged in a lot of cookies.

So there we were, my new husband and I, out on the prairie in the middle of winter at sunset, a good five hilly miles away from our little house with a Christmas tree and a sick puppy in the back of the pickup…two supplies we found are  pretty worthless in times like these.

But you know, I don’t remember feeling panicked or frustrated or upset in any way. I do remember being grossed out by the dog puke, but not enough to not laugh about it. I knew somewhere in that youthful and hopeful heart of mine that I married a man who was perfectly capable of getting us out of a jam like this and on down through the hills to help me drag that tree into the house and make it a Christmas to remember.

So I got behind the wheel as husband shoveled and instructed me on the technique of successfully rocking a pickup out of a snowbank that had us high-centered. He shoveled the snow, wet and sticky from the warmth of the now disappearing sun and I leaned my head out the window to hear his instructions to drive forward, then backward, then forward again.

And then, as the stars started showing their shiny faces one by one over the snowy hills, husband scootched me out of the driver’s seat to get behind the wheel, I grabbed the puppy and with one mighty rev my man drove us and our giant Christmas tree out of the snow bank and to the front door of our home in the barnyard.

I remember us laughing the entire way home with relief, thanking those stars above that we weren’t walking.

Thankful that we were there together in our own adventure…

Thankful for a Christmas together.

I fell asleep last night with this memory floating in the air above my bed, playing itself out for me. I woke up this morning while my husband of nearly five Christmases still lay sleeping beside me.

I wrapped my arms around him and lay there in that memory for another moment. And in the quiet of the farmhouse, in the still of the early morning before the sun appeared, I listened to my husband breathe.

I listened to him breathe, kissed his shoulder and rolled out of bed to find the list of things I have to do to prepare for Christmas this weekend.

And at the top, in front of wrapping presents, making fudge, cleaning the house, and writing cards I wrote in big, bold letters…

  1. “Find a Christmas Tree with Husband.”