Tag Archives: Marriage

A really scary story.

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It was a low and agonizing moan, a sort of desperate sound that no one wants to hear, especially at six in the morning when it should be dark and quiet in the loft where I had twenty-more-minutes before I had to get up.

Twenty more minutes and there it was again. It was coming from the kitchen.

“Ohhhh, noooooaaa. Noooooaaa. Lord. Why? Whhhhyyy?”

It was my husband. The only other living thing in this house that can form words and the only other living thing in this house that would attempt to stand upright and form them in the hour before the sun arrives.

I’d never heard this sound before. I searched my sleepy mind for what could possibly be wrong:

An work disaster email?

A giant dog poop?

A dishwasher/washing machine/sink explosion?

Maybe we left a door open and that damn squirrel set up shop in our cupboards? Or a turkey. A turkey could have gotten in. They’ve been knocking on our door all month.

Or an alien. Never rule out the aliens.

Or a robber. We were sleeping pretty hard up there, I mean, maybe we didn’t hear him.

Maybe he’s still down there.

Oh Lord, I haven’t heard another moan for a good three minutes. I could have a hostage situation on my hands.

Where’s the phone?

Where are my pants?

Where’s that baseball bat I don’t own?

I swung my legs over the bed and snuck toward the door of the bedroom, peeking my head out and over the loft to quietly assess the situation.

What I discovered was worse than anything I could have conjured up.
LOFT

No. We weren’t being robbed. There was no intruder, furry or feathered or otherwise.

Nothing was flooding or exploding or pooping.

No. No. No. No.

Husband.

Broke.

The.

Coffee. Pot.

The. coffee. pot. was. broken.

Thecoffeepotwasbroken!!!

Cracked.

Leaking.

Smashed.

B.R.O.K.E.N

BROKEN!

BRRROOOKEEENNNN!!!!!

coffee pot

I heard another groan. A similar low, agonizing growl, but this time it was coming from a wild haired, pants-less  woman leaning over the edge of the staircase clutching her heart with the realization that she had just become powerless against the perils of early morning at the ranch while staring at a horrified man in middle of his own stunning realization.

We looked at each other, my mouth agape and his forming the silent, whimpering words “I’m sorry. I’m so. so. sorry.”

At that moment we would have taken the alien.

You think I’m over-exaggerating. You say to me, no big deal. Just grab some coffee from a gas station or a coffee shop on your way to work and pick up a new pot on your way home. You’ll make it.

But I tell you you don’t understand.

The only thing worse than the absence of coffee in the wee and vulnerable morning  hours at the ranch is the absence of toilet paper in the middle of a vulnerable night. You know what I’m saying?

Because unless we want to disturb our neighbors’ early morning ritual, seriously, the closest cup of coffee is twenty-five miles away.

TWENTY-FIVE MILES!

That means we have to drive, groggy and impaired behind oil trucks, service pickups, moms in SUVs and school busses carrying precious cargo before we even had the chance to properly fuel our veins. And once we finally arrive at a gas station or a coffee shop we have to stand in line behind fifteen people who are buying gas or muffins or beef jerky or aspirin or TEA FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! WHO DRINKS TEA? WHAT’S EVEN IN TEA? LEAVES? SOGGY HERBS? I DON’T GET IT! TEA IS A NON-ESSENTAIL ITEM! THESE ARE NON-ESSENTIAL ITEMS!

NON. ESSENTIAL.

COFFEE DRINKERS UNITE! IT’S 7:30 AM AND WE HAVEN’T HAD A SIP.

IT’S 7:30 AM–WE’RE MOVING TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE!!!

See what I’m saying.

Without coffee the two of us become an environmental hazard.

It really was serious. But it wasn’t all my careless husband’s fault. I should have been prepared. When you live out here with the wild turkeys you shouldn’t leave yourself vulnerable to these disasters.

Before the fire hit the little ranch house and we moved to the new place I had three additional coffee sources on hand to sustain us through power outages, broken or faulty equipment and carelessness. No electricity? It’s fine, we have a propane stove and a camp percolator. Broken coffee pot? No big deal, there’s an extra downstairs.

Want to get fancy with the beans? Great! Let’s use the french press!

We were safe then. We were secure.

coffee

Then there was a fire and we got distracted with things like, you know, building shelter for our bodies and our earthly possessions, and some important things fell by the wayside.

Important things like backup coffee pots.

How could I be so negligent? How could I forget about the essentials? How could I be so ill prepared?

It doesn’t matter now. My lesson’s learned. Never again will I be left standing sleepy-eyed,  pants-less and horrified in my own home.

Never again will I put the lives of the innocent children in danger.

School Bus Stop Ahead

Never again will I allow a simple mistake like the slip of a hand leave me stranded and powerless in the face of an early morning and long work day.

Fed-Ex lady, I hope it doesn’t snow next week, because there’s going to be some big shipments coming in.

Because today I’m clearing out a space in the basement and Googling “Coffee Pots,” and, well, I guess I’ll be seeing you soon.

coffee

Peace, Love and, you guessed it, Coffee,

Jessie

Sunday Column: Holding on is the best part…

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Wedding
Last week Husband and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. I went to the new grocery store and picked up crab legs, opened a bottle of champagne and we sat at our kitchen table and looked out the window at the tall grass and the setting sun and remembered what it was like

To be 15 and at the movies together for the first time

To be 16 driving the backroads in his Thunderbird

To be 17 and making plans to leave this place

To be 18 and away from home together

To be 21 and uncertain about where to go from there

To be 23 and married under the oak tree at the ranch with nothing ahead of us but time and gravel roads and plans we started making when we were 15.

Wedding Tree

Today my dearly beloved is outside hammering and screwing a big deck to the side of our house so that we can spend the rest of our summers opening the sliding glass doors with a glass of wine, a plate of steaks, watermelon for cutting or corn for husking, a magazine, a guitar or a good book to accompany us while we look out over our little homestead under the big blue sky or setting sun.

My future with this man has not always been clear, but it has always held him close: in the hot summer sun wiping the sweat from his forehead as he measures and saws and plans, bundled up against the winter winds on his way to work, rolling out his mother’s noodle recipe on the kitchen counter, throwing a stick for our big brown dog, riding a good horse behind some good cows, rocking our children and next to me, no matter what, just near me.

And so I hold on. I’ve held on since we I was eleven years old sitting next to him in band class.

Coming Home: Loving the same man for more than half my life
by Jessie Veeder
8/18/13
Fargo Forum
www.inforum.com 

I hold on because it just keeps getting better.

Change the channel.

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Husband and I have knack for making life complicated. We’re accident prone, the two of us, together and separately. We both like to take the long way, the back roads, with the windows rolled down even if it’s raining a little.

We like to make things from scratch, like noodles and pies and soup, even if we don’t have a recipe or a professional at hand. We like to mix our drinks strong. We like to make big plans and then take our time getting there.

We like to do things ourselves. Like, you know, finishing houses.

I think we drive our families crazy.

We must. We drive ourselves crazy. I mean, we’ve only moved six times in the last six years of marriage. We’re only on our third major home renovation/construction.

We’re only, almost, almost, almost done.

railing 2

But not quite, despite the fact that it’s all we’ve been doing for the last two months: get up, clean up the dishes from the night before, get dressed, go to work, come home, put on work clothes, find a project, tile something, varnish something, sweep something, move something, put carpet on something, saw something, paint something, look at the clock and say “damn, it’s 10 already,” and then wonder out loud what to have for supper while you pour a bowl of cereal and pull the popsicles from the freezer.

Needless to say, we’re kind of tired. And between the dreary weather, our less than adequate diet, all the mud being tracked in on the floor and the saw dust in the air, I’m not surprised to find we’re slipping a bit.

laying carpetA few weeks ago Husband called me while I was on the road to a photo shoot. He had to tell me he just got out of the bathroom to discover that he had been walking around all day with a pair of my pink underwear shoved up the sleeve of his shirt, a result of a quick attempt at finishing the laundry.

I wondered out loud if they were my pretty pink underwear or my raggedy, embarrassing pink underwear.

He said it didn’t matter, his wife’s underwear up his sleeve at work was embarrassing, pretty or not.

And now I’ve gone and put it on the internet, which I guess, is probably even more embarrassing.

But whatever. It’s funny. I laughed hysterically at the thought. So did my friend in the passenger seat of the car as I relayed the sad story of what our lives have  become.

Now, I don’t know if I’ve shared this here or not, but in the time we’ve been living back at the ranch we’ve been approached by a few different production companies about following us around for a reality show. One in particular wanted to fly Husband to Georgia to try out for a deep fat frying cooking competition. They said they like how he looks and like what he deep fat fries.

What?

I guess that’s what happens when you put your life on the internet, but a reality show on the two of us is a ridiculous idea. We’re not as pretty as the Kardashians and we don’t have enough free time to manage as many redneck adventures as the guys on Duck Dynasty. The only thing that would be entertaining about following us around with a camera would be watching all the ways I manage to screw up during the day and hearing all of the one-liners Husband manages to deliver at my expense.

Cut to last Friday where a late and very sick Jessie attempts to make it to a doctors appointment in the pouring rain only to find that her way is blocked by a semi jack-knifed and stuck across her parents’ approach and the road leading to the highway, forcing her to turn around and brave the monsoon on ten miles of muddy, deteriorating, pot-holey, all around shitty road.

Listen to her cuss as she drives a little too fast and defies the ditch and her death.

See her wave her arms at the sky and plead for the rain to stop.

Watch as she explains the situation to the receptionist at the clinic right before she gets diagnosed with bronchitis and a sinus infection and heads out to the pharmacy to load up on $150 worth of medication. Notice that she didn’t pick up her inhaler thingy, but she won’t realize it until she gets home in the monsoon.

But before she can get home Jessie needs gas. Now watch her overflow her gas tank at the local Cenex in the pouring rain while a trucker at the neighboring pump munches on a candy bar and declares it six gallons of environmental hazard.

Watch her face clench as she contemplates calling him an environmental hazard.

Cut to Jessie at home attempting to make a rhubarb cake without a cake pan for a party starting in approximately 35 minutes. Listen as she sweetly asks her husband to go borrow one from her momma.

Now watch as she puts together a dip she’s made for years with cream cheese instead of sour cream. Now look at that, she just dropped an entire container of cherry tomatoes on the floor. She’s cleaning them up now as her husband walks in, but it looks like she missed a few hanging out in the bottom of the fridge. Hope she doesn’t close the…oh, look at that, she closed the door.

See the tomatoes squish.

Watch her fling her body face first on the bed as her husband tells her she needs to pay attention.

So that would be one episode.

Seriously.

I mean, if I had a dollar for every time my dearly beloved stood above me as I am sprawled out on the floor, shaking his head and wishing out loud that I would just “pay attention”, I would be rich enough to hire someone to finish building this house for crying out loud.

That’s one way I could avoid falling into bucket of grout water.

Uff. Da. Our reality show would make you all feel better about your organized, saw dustless, home renovation-less,  mud-free, squished-tomato-free,underwear-up-your-sleeve-free life.

Some days I wish I could change the channel.

Horse frustration

Prom Day, thirteen years later…

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It’s prom season and on Saturday young couples in Boomtown spent the day dressing up, pinning on corsages, posing for photographs in front of the mantle, eating a fancy dinner, laughing and dancing the night away.

In honor of the season and happy memories, I’d like to take this moment to cue up a flashback:

Yes. There we are back in the year 2000, back before Garth Brooks retired, before bedazzled flip-flops were cool, every teenager on the planet owned a data plan and before I knew what I was getting myself into.

If only we could have seen into the future.

If only someone would have warned us that thirteen years later these gangly, innocent, teenagers who single-handedly kept Suave hair gel on the shelves and were so convinced they were in love would find themselves un-showered and un-filtered, wearing overalls and saggy work jeans, crammed ass to ass in an unfinished bathroom in an almost finished house arguing about what iPod mix to listen to while in the middle of another argument about how someone is hovering and someone else doesn’t understand the importance of cleaning the mortar off the trowel between tiling projects.

Thirteen years ago the plan would have been to get a job where you make enough money to hire someone to tile the damn bathroom.

Thirteen years ago we would have been listening to Garth Brooks and there would be no argument.

Thirteen years ago we would have been pretty excited about the whole iPod thing.

If only we would’ve known. Perhaps we could have avoided this situation all together. I could have suggested that my future husband, the one standing so coiffed, cute and confident next to that girl in the bedazzled flip-flops, just go ahead and become a trapper/mountain man like he dreamed of as a boy and I would just go on to marry a man who wears khakis and doesn’t own a table saw or a wet saw or a hand saw or any other kind of saw that would give him the idea that maybe, perhaps, he should build an entire bathroom from scratch, and then spend a good three to four days with his dearly beloved tiling the damn thing, from floor to ceiling.

I would have missed that mountain man, but as I pick the mortar from under my fingernails and behind my ears, I think maybe I could have gotten used to the khakis.

Why manicures don’t work on me…

I mean, did you know endless hours of mixing mortar, scraping it on the walls, cleaning it from the floors, accidentally splashing it into your eyeball and spraining your wrist while operating the high powered drill necessary to mix the stuff can turn you into the worst possible version of yourself?

Did you know that you can sprain your wrist operating a drill?

Me neither. But it’s true.

Turns out that forty-thousand trips up and down two flights of stairs to get to the wet saw does something weird to your right butt cheek too.

It’s true.

Just ask Husband.

Oh, now you might be thinking to yourself ,”Well, a couple that can survive building a house together can survive anything.” And the two of us might agree, but only under the condition that the house doesn’t have a single tile in it.

Because tiling sucks. It is hard and it is messy and it makes perfectly sweet and well-intentioned wives really mouthy and equally well-intentioned husbands really annoying.

And that, I fear, might be the only thing my dear husband and I agree on when it comes to the project that consumed our weekend.

But oh, I love this man, I do.

I love that he is capable and handy and looks good in those overalls. But our lives would be so much easier if he would just let me pick the soundtrack for the project.

And if he would stop with the suggestions on how I should hold the trowel, even if it might help me avoid getting so much mortar on my pants that not even tightening my belt can save him from the sight of my plumber’s crack.

I don’t need his suggestions. I mean, doesn’t twenty straight minutes of tiling make me an expert?

And don’t you think when your wife screams out in agony, drops the drill, grabs her wrist and falls to the floor that a husband should come running to her side and ask her what’s wrong instead of calmly assuming she’s overreacting to another injury, waiting for her wails to turn to whimpers before asking her sarcastically if she needs to go to the hospital?

I mean, that like, really hurt.

I’m ok. It’s fine. But still.

Somehow I don’t think Sunday morning motivational home construction pep talks that include promises of foot rubs,  negotiations on who will make the coffee and a vow not to get pissy with one another today is the future prom-goers in Boomtown imagined as they walked arm in arm with their dates at the grand march last Saturday.

But maybe it should be. I mean, if I have to tile a bathroom at least it’s a result of my own brilliant idea that our bathroom be covered in tiles.

And at least I get to do it with a man who’s willing to do what it takes to give me everything I want, even if it means spraining his right butt cheek from forty-seven thousand trips to the basement while putting up with the whining coming from his wife and the music on her iPod mix.

And if I have to tile a bathroom at least I get to do it with a boy who took me on a date to Bonanza when I had purple rubber bands on my braces and still thought I was presentable enough to pass as a prom date.

Which proves he has just the right amounts of delusion and optimism to survive a tiling project and, consequently, a marriage to me.

At least I hope so. I guess we’re not quite done yet…maybe it wouldn’t hurt to compromise a bit on the music selection…

Oh the price you pay for a pretty place to pee.

10 Painting Tips from a Woman who always learns everything the hard way and should have never picked up a paint brush in the first place…

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So I spent the weekend elbows-deep in the never ending, house finishing project. Funny how a task with the word “finish” in the title has become never-ending.

But we have a deadline, and deadlines have endings don’t they? Please, someone tell me this will end.

For those of you just joining us here at the ranch, (and there are a quite a few these days, thankyouverymuchforstoppingby!) Husband and I have been working on finishing a house that was delivered to us here in a little oak grove at the ranch last December.

We’re nearing the finish line, and if I wasn’t insane before, after fifty-five trips to the Menards 150 miles away to pick up things like doors, toilets, floors, lights, vents, electrical wires, cement, tile, nails, glue, the weird and delicious peanut-butter stuffed pretzels they have in the checkout aisle and the dreadful and marriage-testing trip for plumbing parts in torrential rains, lightning storms, forty-mile-an-hour winds, blinding blizzards and the most recent ice-covered roads

IMG_1418

I am definitely, fully, insane now.

Horse frustration

And insane is not the best quality to have when your house is covered in sheet rock dust, there’s an air compressor hose dangling from the loft right next to the 12 foot cedar boards leaned up your wall cutting your living space in half and you decide that while husband is working on building you a giant closet to make up for the months of chaos his handyman ideals have created,  you are quickly going to paint the laundry room/entry way.

IMG_1427

It shouldn’t take too long. It’s a small space. You’ll just need a little assistance in moving that washer and dryer full of clothes you forgot about out of the way…

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Now, I could tell you how the painting project went and you could draw your own lessons and conclusions from the series of events that unfolded, but I think I will save you the analyzation and just cut to the chase. Because I figure I have enough home improvement under my belt to offer some tips to those of you who are confident and delusional enough to think that putting new knobs on your cabinets, tiling the bathroom, or painting a damn wall for crying out loud is, like, just going to take a day or two.

“We’ll get this done in no time!” we tell ourselves…

Yes, I could write a book on the many reasons not to wear short-shorts while attempting a tiling project, how to get out of helping to lay a hardwood floor by hammering your thumbprint off and what not to say to your husband as he’s dangling off a ladder twenty feet in the air.

It would be a best seller for sure, but I don’t have the time today. Because today I have to finish the damn painting project I was supposed to finish yesterday afternoon.

So in an attempt to stay focused, I give you:

10 Painting Tips from a Woman who always learns everything the hard way and should have never picked up a paint brush in the first place:

IMG_1422

Tip #1: Finish your house before you move you, your husband, your two dogs and all your shit into it. And don’t add a cat to the mix.  But if you do, definitely don’t let that barn cat in too.

Tip #2: 7.5 minutes.

This is the time you will spend on your project before you convince yourself you need a Cheeto break.

Tip #3: You can try to fool yourself into thinking that painting a laundry room/entry way will be a quick and painless project, despite the thirty-seven angles, outlets, doorways, cabinets, utility sink with exposed plumbing, trim boards and mud splatters you have to work around. Approach the task with confidence, but assume it’s going to suck. This will save you the shock of postponing breakfast, lunch, dinner and the shower you meant to take before  meeting up with friends for a drink. Speaking of drinks…

Tip #4: Pour yourself one. And then put alcohol in it. Oh, and if you don’t particularly enjoy the taste of paint, use a cup with a lid.

Tip #5: Don’t wear your favorite Steve Earl t-shirt. No matter how carefully and quickly you think this project is going to go, you will get paint on that t-shirt you forgot you were wearing. You will grow tired and careless as you reach the end of your rope and you will let your guard down. You will lean into the wall while reaching for a final touch and you will get paint in places that will amuse your husband.

And your husband will express his amusement by pointing and laughing and shaking his head.

You too will shake your head while your entire body droops at the thought of throwing your favorite Steve Earl t-shirt into the pile with the other cute and innocent garments inadvertently turned into construction day clothes.

Tip #6: Make enough weird and agonizing noises (aka: grunting, moaning, saying “ohnoohnoohno” or “shit,” really loud, whining, weeping, or all around screeching) loud enough to catch the attention of your husband working with power tools on the second floor.

Follow those sounds with well-timed moments of silence and he will eventually find an excuse to come down stairs to see if you’re still alive…which brings me to what I think should be the next tip…

Tip #7: While he’s downstairs and you’re standing on the washing machine leaned over with your head dangerously close to getting stuck in that small gap between the cabinet and the wall, kindly ask him to re-dip your paintbrush and while he’s at it, refill your paint tray. If you’ve picked out the right painting pants and lean over at the right angle, your husband might suddenly become invested in the project, offering to pick up a paint brush to help go over the spots you’ve missed and, well, now you’ve got help.

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Tip #8: Be prepared to hate the color you chose. You will never want to see it again for as long as you live but you will vow that you will just close your eyes when you attempt to do laundry or put on your boots to walk out the door because no matter how much you hate this color and the fact that it is now likely going to be in your hair and on the back part of your elbow you can’t see or reach for a few days, you sure as hell are not going to paint this damn room again. Ever.

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And when your husband informs you that it will likely need another coat, take off that paint covered Steve Earl shirt before taking a running face plant to cry on the bed.

Tip #9: Sell your prized collection of Troll Dolls or Precious Moments collection, the pug or the cat or whatever it takes to be able to hire someone to paint whatever else needs to be painted for the rest of your life. But for the love of Lucchese, never, never, never sell your boot collection. If you remember anything, remember this.

Tip #10: Now, I’m not sure because I’ve never birthed anything, but I think painting and other home improvement projects might be like childbirth. Like, you might forget how painful it was while you happily thumb through Better Homes and Gardens and find that Martha Stewart has a really pretty shade of lavender that would look stunning in the sun room that you’ve been suggesting your husband build for you this summer.

I’ll tell you agin, if you really need a  sun room, sell your car so you can pay someone else to do it.

If you really like that lavender color, call me. I’ll read my tips out loud and with a stern and convincing tone that will help you with the whole clarity thing.

If you’ll excuse me, now that I’ve finished this, I’ve got to go and find about two or three other tasks to occupy my time while I procrastinate that second coat.

Happy Home Improving you crazies…

Not so sparkly love.

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There’s something about existing in nothing but white and brown for months on end that makes people around here head out to search for some color.

Some of them book a flight to Jamaica for sandy beaches, blue water and umbrella drinks, some head for the mountains so they might see the same white at a different height and some just step outside to see if the sunset is up for putting on a show tonight.

I think that’s why they put a holiday like Valentines Day in the middle of February, because we all need a little warming up by now, a little snuggle and a little smell of a rose to remind us that they are blooming somewhere.

Last night I played music for people out on dates at a fancy restaurant in the middle of the badlands. I sat at the front of the room and tried to pull out as many love songs as I could muster, wondering while I was singing Elvis’s “Fools Rush In” why I have a closet full of earth tones and black. I wondered why the only colorful thing I own is the pair red boots I wore with my wedding dress.

And my guitar strap with the little red birds.

I was glad I was wearing both as I finished up…”and I can’t help, falling in love with you…” and watched a couple hold hands and eat little pieces of lobster and steak off one another’s plates in a sea of men and women in their best clothes, dressed up right for a Thursday night.

I wished I had a sparkly pink shirt like the young woman toasting a glass of champagne with her husband or boyfriend at the table in front of me.

The night before I had warned Husband not to worry about Valentines Day this year.

“I won’t be home until well after midnight,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”

And he said “Ok.”

And that was fine. I’m not a fan of chocolate and where Husband works, there’s not a floral shop for miles. My Valentines Day gift to him was to let him off the hook.

His gift to me was his yearly rant about the holiday and why we have to designate a day to remember we love each other when he remembers he loves me everyday.

I know it’s coming, his little rant. And I know it will be followed directly by the “flowers are so predictable” speech.  I smile and remember the time he left a rose in my locker on a Valentines Day in 9th grade and I’m happy for the memory.

And happy for all the Valentines Days I’ve been able to share with with a cute and thoughtful boy who turned out to be a man who makes the coffee nice and strong, searches for his clothes in the early hours of the morning with a headlamp so he doesn’t wake me, knows his way around a kitchen, unclogs the clogs, fixes broken things and promises he will be there tonight when I sing again, no matter the hours and miles he has to put in at work today.

And I think that’s pretty nice, those little promises to make life a little nicer for one another.

It’s not always that way. Sometimes you just have to make a comment about the dirty dishes that have been piled up in the sink for days because of the silent protest you’ve made not to touch them just to see how long it will take for him to get fed up and put a few in the dishwasher already.

Sometimes you have to say something about the way his feet smell when he takes off his work boots because you fear the hidden toxins coming off of the green steam is killing the cat.

And sometimes he just has to ask what the hell is going on with your hair, because really, what the hell is going on with your hair.

But when you come in after midnight because you’ve been out singing to pretty people eating cheesecake and toasting to love to find the lights on and that smelly-footed man waiting up for you in the kitchen just to say hello and goodnight, somehow those dirty dishes don’t seem to catch your eye.

And it doesn’t matter that you’re not wearing that sparkly pink shirt you should have in your closet but you don’t.

Because in the glow of the kitchen light in the middle of a February night that was coating the world with snow and promising more white and cold, a stubborn, thoughtful, groggy man reminds you that love is never off the hook.

Especially on Valentines Day.

Some things I know for sure.

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Sometimes life is just so unexpected, like the thirteenth rock flying into my windshield on my way home from town.

Those uncertainties make me nervous–I come up with worst case scenarios. Like now, for example. I got home from work this evening to say hello to Husband who also just got home from work only to turn around and walk out the door to go back to work again. I don’t think it was an emergency, but it was something important that sent him out there in the dark on the same scary road that throws rocks at windshields unexpectedly.

I worry.

internet issues

So now I’m sitting here with the cat on my lap and the pug at my feet breaking all of the rules about pets on the furniture while I come up with a list of things I know for certain to help deal with that nagging little feeling of terror that at a moment it can all fall apart.

And that other worry about the aliens.

So here it is, my list of ten or eleven or twelve or however many things that I know for sure on a perfectly calm Thursday night in February.

  1. I will always worryHorse
  2. The pug, when left unattended and to his own devices, will always shit on the floor. Sometimes he will puke, but always he will shit.
  3. I could eat guacamole with every meal. I should have guacamole with every meal. Avocados are a vegetable.  It can’t possibly be a bad choice.(No photo available because I ate all the guacamole)
  4. A climb to a good hilltop cures me. Every time, it cures me.
  5. Spring will come. Spring always comes.
  6. I love him. I love him. I love him.

  7. It’s not the singing, it’s not the words, the guitar, the harmonies or the harmonica. It’s everything. Music. It’s just everything.

  8. One day I will have pigs, I don’t care what you say.(no photo available because I don’t have a pig. Yet.) 
  9. If you call me I will have to call you back, because I never put the phone back on the hook, therefore I can never find the phone when you call. It’s a sick cycle that I am unable to break.(no photo available because I can’t find the damn phone. Again.)
  10. This cat is crazy.
  11.  This puppy is cute.
  12. So is this kid.
  13. I am grateful every day to call this home.
  14. It will probably, most definitely, very likely, I mean, I’m pretty sure, almost positive  everything’s gonna turn out alright in the end.

Now you know what I know, what do you know for sure? Let it fly party people, I promise it will make you feel better.

So many gifts.

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Last Christmas Husband and I were planning the arrival of our new home. Husband worked during the coldest weeks of the year alongside his dad, Pops and our neighbor hammering nails with gloved hands, storing the air-compressor inside the heated truck so it wouldn’t freeze, climbing ladders and creating the walls to a foundation that our house was scheduled to sit on as soon as it arrived from Wisconsin.

I remember wondering what it would look like, having only seen what was to be our forever home in my head or on a blue print. I remember worrying that we wouldn’t meet our deadline, wondering how a house can possibly travel all of those miles and wind up in a place along a gravel road where a house has never been before and offering the guys a couple shots of Peppermint Schnapps as a celebration that the first step was done.

It was cold and frosty and the deadline was approaching with each passing moment, but right on schedule our house came rolling slowly down the freshly laid road and we could do nothing more but stand out of the way and watch as the crane lifted it and placed it on the concrete and wooden walls that were so carefully constructed during the depth of winter and into some long nights.

I will never forget what it felt like witnessing our home arrive out of thin air. Husband and I watched in silence with our hands in our pockets before admitting we were chilled to the bones and moving into the heated pickup where we did more of the silence thing, more of the watching. And although we knew when the roof was on and the men were gone there would be more work to be done, we were choked up at the sight of the start of it all.

That was one year ago. It was our sixth Christmas together as husband and wife and we were watching our dreams come true.

One year and I’ll have to say, nail by nail, scary ladder project by scary ladder project, and day by day it has been a test of our skills and our patience and a wonderful hand-made spectacle to watch it all slowly come together.

Two weeks ago they came to pour concrete in that basement.

Last week Husband built us some stairs.

This week we will put rock on our fireplace…

and last weekend we brought our Christmas tree home.

I have to tell you when we made plans for this house we thought out our specific needs. We wanted a lofted bedroom, an open floor plan, a giant mud room and a hardwood floor.

And we wanted to create a perfect space for a big and beautiful Christmas tree.

Oh, we still have so much to do, and realistically we should have been doing it. We should have been wiring that basement, putting doors on the closets or picking out carpet for our master bedroom. I should have been wiping saw dust off of things or washing our socks, but after our breakfast was cleaned up and all our coffee was gone on Saturday morning, my husband and I looked at each other, pulled on our Carharts and went out to find the tree we’ve had in mind since the beginning of it all.

I don’t know how to explain the magic I feel every winter I’m lucky enough to trudge behind that man in the snow on a hunt for our tree. It’s like the world goes calm and quiet, the wind stops blowing and my toes and fingers warm up.

It’s my favorite moment of the season, finding myself alone out here on the snowy acres my family has kept for almost a hundred years alongside a man I have known since we were children, searching for a little piece of our world we can bring inside and give a new life.




I remember every Christmas tree we’ve had together. I remember the first year’s drive out into the east pasture with a pickup and a small puppy. I remember how my new husband drug it up the hill with a rope. I remember the sun going down and the tires spinning as we backed up off the hill and got stuck.

I remember the puppy puke and the laughter and thinking about the long, dark walk home.

I remember getting unstuck and falling in love again as we pulled that oversized tree through the door of our tiny house and found a spot for it. I remember how it smelled.

Fast forward to the second Christmas spent tucked between mountains in eastern Montana, so far away from the familiar but together in a small apartment on the edge of town. There was no extra money that year and no Christmas tree, just a pretty centerpiece sitting on our table as a reminder of the season before we packed up and headed toward home for the holiday.

The third tree was purchased in the dark in a parking lot in a town a little closer to home and brought back to a house we were tearing apart and putting back together, the first house we purchased together. The tree had long pine needles and it didn’t smell like cedar or anything really. There was a fight about candy canes and tinsel and I cried while I put up the lights. I was unhappy, I think…or lonesome or out of place and something about that tree reminded me. There was no tree in that house the next year and after that I vowed I would never cry over Christmas again.

And I never did. We pointed our car north toward the ranch and moved back into that little house where we brought our first cedar tree in from the cold and promised one another that each Christmas we would do the same, no matter what.

We put lights on one more cedar in that little house while we planned for our future. We bundled up against the elements and fulfilled our promise to one another, speaking quietly into the hills that hold us all so close together.

I want to stand on top of those hills and scream that I take none of this for granted.

I want to open my arms and praise this life and the family who helped build it.

I want to say it out loud as if saying it will protect me from all there is that could lift this feeling of peace from my heart and set it adrift.

But for today, for this Christmas season, I will hold that feeling close. I will sit beneathe the cedar tree standing ten feet tall under the roof of our new forever home, its branches heavy with bulbs and lights and Christmas spirit, and I will breathe in its scent be grateful for today, for this life while I’m here.

Because we are not promised anything on this earth but a chance.

And I have been given so many gifts.

A half-built house and how not to get unstuck

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Once upon a time in a land far away and frozen a cozy couple lived in a half-built cabin in the oak trees.

The couple loved the life they spent together surrounded by sawdust, pink sunrises, furry horses, cow plops and misbehaving dogs. On cold winter Saturdays they would spend the mornings drinking coffee and procrastinating the work they needed to get done. They refilled their mugs and fried some bacon while they ignored the unfinished steps, the untrimmed windows and the dangling loose wires. Saturdays were the best for waking up slowly.

Saturdays were the best for long breakfasts and watching the snow fall. If the cozy couple had their way they would spend every Saturday wrapped up in fluffy blankets and drowning things in syrup.

But they knew it couldn’t be. They also knew that as soon as they ran out of coffee, pulled on those coveralls and muck boots, wool caps and shoveling gloves, things had the potential to get slippery.

They did it anyway. Because the only way to get things finished was to start, even if it was nearly noon and they had to hitch up the horse trailer in a blizzard to make the 120 mile trip to the big town for lumber, tiles, decorative rocks, light bulbs, thirty seven socket fittings, plumping stuff, and a toilet.

So together they made a list with little boxes they could check off with the wife’s red pen and got to work.

The first task? Unhooking the pickup from the camper that for some reason was parked in the most inconvenient spot in the world and decidedly not moved in a more convenient season.

So the husband got to work scraping the windshield of his fancy, prized pickup outside while the wife stayed in the cabin for a bit to work on fitting her unruly hair underneath her cap and search for something presentable to wear for the trip to town.

Fifteen minutes into the hair-taming, clothes-searching extravaganza the husband opened the door of the unfinished cabin, letting the snow swoosh in with the wind as he stomped it off of his boots and declared he had a bit of an extravaganza of his own—the pickup was stuck in the frozen icy tundra of a landscape they called a front yard and he needed his wife’s help pull it out.

“It’s just a little stuck,” the husband reassured his kind-of frazzled looking wife. “It shouldn’t take much.”

Always willing to lend a hand or a scrawny arm, the wife quickly finished dressing, pulled another pair of pants over the ones she already had on (because that’s what you do in the frozen icy tundra) and followed her husband out the door and to the scene.

The husband laid out the plan nice and clear, aware that his wife often only hears about a quarter of the words that come out of his mouth.

He explained that she was going to be in charge of the stuck pickup that was attached to the stuck camper while he used an un-stuck pickup to pull the stuck pickup attached to the stuck camper out of its stuck situation.

He even turned the wheel in the direction the stuck pickup attached to the stuck camper needed to go once it was unstuck.

“All you have to do is press on the gas a bit until the tires spin and follow me out,” said the husband. “It shouldn’t take much.”

The wife understood that she needed to pay attention, but she was distracted. She worried about where she might have misplaced her favorite scarf, when she was going to find time to put up the Christmas tree, what type of tile to put in the bathroom and if this hat looked stupid with her wild hair escaping out by her ears.

She looked at her husband’s face as he gave her directions from outside of the stuck pickup attached to the stuck camper. She heard him say, “Press the gas” and admired the stubble on his perfectly square jawline as he reached over her bundled up body to turn the wheel. At times like these the wife thought her husband was the most handsome. She was happy to help. She was perfectly capable of this.

Press the gas.

Turn the wheel.

Follow him out.

She was thinking she would follow him anywhere as he bent over to attach the two vehicles together with a giant rope and walked toward the unstuck pickup and put it in drive.

The tires on the unstuck pickup spun as the rope tightened. The wife recalled her directions, pressed on the gas and turned the wheel, waiting for her brave and handsome husband to pull them out of this slippery situation so she could get out her red pen and check something off of their list already.

She was certain the wheels beneath her were giving it a go. She knew this truck had some oomph, but that pickup attached to the camper didn’t move an inch.

Geesh. It must be more stuck than her husband anticipated.

So the husband tried again, backing up and pulling the rope tight between them, this time kind of slipping sideways a bit as he gave it all he had.

The wife did the same, pressing on the gas pedal a bit more this time, revving the engine like she’s witnessed many a stuck man do in her lifetime. The approach was more vigorous, her confidence a bit shaken, but the outcome was the same.

She was really stuck.

The husband opened the door to his pickup and looked back at his wife, who peered at him from underneath a wool beanie behind the cracked windshield of his very prized and still just kinda stuck pickup, assessing the situation, appearing to have a few scenarios running through his problem-solving mind.

He shrugged his shoulders and got back in, shut the door and tried one last time.

He tugged and jerked on the other end of that giant rope. He kicked up snow and then ice and then earth with his tires. The wife pushed on the gas and pushed on the gas and pushed on the gas, using the only directions she was given and thinking that the next step was to get the damn tractor, wondering how the hell a man can get a pickup attached to a camper so unbelievably stuck out here. Wondering why in the hell they didn’t move this damn thing in the fall before the snow came. Wondering why her husband always procrastinates things like these, annoyed that it was taking so long, worried that they wouldn’t get to the lumber yard before it closed, wondering what the hell happened to her scarf and…

“Hey, heeeyyy! Heeeeyyyyyyy!” she heard her husband hollering from the open door of the unstuck pickup.

“Did you put the pickup in drive?”

The wife looked down, appalled at the accusation, but knowing it to be true as she found the little orange dot on the console pointing at “P.”

“P” for park.

“D” for drive.

The wife didn’t remember hearing that part of the instructions.

“Shit,” whispered the wife as she moved that orange dot to  “D” and pressed on the gas while the slack between the two vehicles tightened and moved them across the yard.

“Shit,” laughed the husband, shaking his head and unhooking the ropes.

“Shit,” said the wife again as she trudged back toward the unfinished cabin to look for her scarf and her red pen, thinking that Saturdays are the best for long breakfasts and watching the snow fall.

Thinking she should still be sleeping.

Thinking that a half-finished house in a land far away and frozen might be good enough for the rest of her life if it meant she might ever hear the end of this.

Knowing that wasn’t likely.

Life and Waffles

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It’s not too often that the threat of a being snowed in at the ranch for a couple days doesn’t mess with a series of laid out plans to make the 30 miles drive to work, move some cows, see a concert, put on an event or catch a plane out of this arctic tundra.

For Little Sister the freezing rain and blowing snow turned a four and a half hour drive to the Black Hills in South Dakota into something more like ten.

For my parents on a mission to see Bruce Springsteen perform in Minneapolis last night, it meant leaving early and timing their departure so the storm followed them, ensuring they had a chance to miss the snow, but not The Boss.

There was no way they were missing The Boss.

For others it meant a day off work, a day in the ditch, or a night spent sleeping in a hotel room when all you really wanted was to be home with your family snuggled up on the couch with something cooking on the stove.

For us it meant lighting the fireplace, rounding up the power tools and getting some shit done around here.

But ever since the first snow flake fell a few weeks ago I’ve been starving. So in preparation for the storm and the scheduled house construction project I stopped by the grocery store on my way out of town on Thursday to stock up on the essentials I would need to finally make some of those mouth-watering recipes I’ve been scoping out on Pinterest since last December.

Because I had no weekend gambling or concert plans and I was alright with watching the storm settle in nicely over our little cabin in the oaks, as long as I had the necessary ingredients to feed us.

Because I’m starving.

So as the freezing rain coated my world with ice on Friday and dumped a pile of snow on the whole mess on Saturday morning, I pulled on my wool socks and rummaged around in my cupboards for the flour and sugar and other baking type things…because today was the day I was going to attempt these: Homemade cinnamon roll waffles

I’ve had my eye on these little breakfast shaped pieces of heaven since last winter’s recipe pinning marathon. So on Saturday, I was determined that they come to life in my kitchen.

Now, I have to tell you that I am not a cook. Or a baker. Or a domestic diva. But the thought of these waffles sitting on my breakfast table waiting for a hot, buttery cinnamon drizzle followed by a sweet and sugary cream cheese frosting must have provided me with a sort of Betty Crocker out-of-body-experience.

Nothing was going to stop me from serving these babies up hot to me and my Carpenter Cowboy–not an overflowing waffle iron, not a microwave butter explosion, not a kitchen prepped to be torn apart for the impending tile project and certainly not my lack of culinary skills. I was going to make these things.

From scratch.

And I was going to eat as many as I wanted.

Because it was a snow day and this is what you do on snow days.

And I was starving.

So I did. And I’m telling you here because I was so damn proud of myself, the same way I am when I manage to accomplish anything worth eating in the kitchen. And I was wishing someone, besides Husband, was snowed in in this house to help me eat them and tell me how ass-kickingly domestic I’ve become…because there is only so much cooking-compliment-fishing the man can handle, no matter how much he likes the waffles.

Because the man can make his own damn waffles, so he’s not that impressed.

But I was. So to go along with our crock pot roast dinner, I made this.

Hasselback Garlic Cheesy Bread

Yup.

Ok, so it doesn’t look as mouth-watering as the photo attached to the original recipe, but, c’mon, I made this from freakin’ scratch people. Me. I did that.

Home. Made. Bread.

And when I say homemade, I mean it. Yup, the successful homemade waffles gave me the little nudge of confidence necessary to tackle the things you need to make bread from scratch– like yeast and Husband’s Kitchenaid Mixer.

So as my dearly beloved braved the weather to work on shoveling and checking the horses and other man-type things, I was inside trying to figure out how the hell to use the mixer, waiting for the bread to rise, rolling it out, putting it on a pan and waiting for it to rise some more.  I concocted my own garlic butter, used that pastry brush thingy that I shoved in the back of my drawer and brushed the top of the loaves, baking them until they turned a perfect golden brown. And when Husband came in from the cold, there I stood covered in flour with hands on my hips, content and proud at my delicious accomplishment, wishing again, that someone else was there to taste it, because surely they wouldn’t believe me.

Or him.

I mean really, for all of the things my husband is to me, he seems to lacks the enthusiasm gene.

Anyway, the snow fell and the weekend moved from Saturday into Sunday and we worked on transforming this house into the home we dreamed of.

I stained doors and we put up the backsplash in the kitchen.


Husband made sawdust and I swept the floor,  poured us a couple cups of coffee and then a couple glasses of wine. I braved the weather to snap some photos and he laughed when I came in covered in snow with frozen fingers.

We didn’t look at the clock, we just paid attention to the way the light fought its way through the clouds and into the house that smelled like breakfast bacon and cedar.

I didn’t fix my hair or put on makeup and for two days the only other souls we encountered had four legs and fur and were sleeping on our floor.

This is the way I imagined our winters in this house. And it isn’t often that those imagined things play out the way you thought them up. Especially when it comes to cooking and home construction. And I don’t know why it happened to work out this particular weekend. I don’t know why I didn’t have plans to play music, or to catch a party or a concert or gamble down in Vegas, except that I didn’t.

And neither did Husband.

Because more than anything in the world I think the two of us, whether or not we will admit it, really only want to be here, eating each other’s cooking, cleaning up after one another, following our plans and building our life nail by nail, board by board and tile by tile.

From scratch.

Like the waffles, which turned out pretty good, against all odds.