Life on the High Plains

This morning was our first frosty morning of the season which always makes for a beautiful sunrise.   I don't much care for cold weather, but mornings like this make the cold a little easier to tolerate. Happy Skywatch Friday!

Another whirlwind weekend is about to wrap up.  I don't think I know what it means to sit around the house and do nothing anymore.  Weekends are the fastest two days of the weeks.  It's always amazing to see just how much can be packed into a Saturday and Sunday.     Saturdays begin with my favorite activity of the week...my painting lessons, it's the one thing I do totally for myself.  I'm still working on my painting of the Lower Falls at Yellowstone.  This week I focused on the waterfall.  Next week I'll work on the river and then I think it will be about done.  With all the glass painting I've been doing the last few months, this painting has taken a backseat.   After painting class, Mary and Mr. Beans came over for a celebratory dinner in honor of Mr. Beans' great report from his parent-teacher conferences.  Mary and I also took time to get our glassware inventoried and packaged for transport to our first craft f...

A couple weeks ago we made a trip to New York to visit our daughter.  We flew into Buffalo and you can't go to Buffalo without a trip to Niagara Falls. It was stunning, majestic, wondrous, amazingly beautiful and every other awe-inspiring adjective you can come up with. The only place I'd ever been to in New York before this trip was the City.  I can't even tell you what a pleasant surprise it was to see other parts of the state.  I loved it, especially with all the Fall colors.  I think it would be a really nice place to live (at least until the snow starts flying). Happy Skywatch Friday!

I got something new at work today...something that will hopefully help with my back pain. A standing desk that can be raised or lowered so that I can spend less time on my rear end compressing those vertebrae and more time standing.  I'm really lucky to have a company that is willing to invest in the tools I need to be more comfortable at work. It raises and lowers really easy and accommodates my triple monitors.  The company that made it even has an app for the smartphone with a timer to remind me when it's time to stand (15 minutes every hour). Now if it only had a treadmill that I could walk on while standing then I could get thousands of extra steps per day.  Oh well, working in IT is pretty good for getting steps, I'm on the go all the time.  In fact it's only 10:30 a.m. and I have 8K steps already.  The time I spend sitting in my job is usually writing or updating policies and procedures and I try to avoid that as often as possible. Now the pr...

Yes, I know.  I am a blogging slacker.  Two plus weeks since my last blog. Lots of things have happened since then, I've lived in a hotel more than at home.  New York, Denver, Wichita.  So which story to tell first? The Rock and Roll 10K from last week! (Only because I can get to those pictures quickly.)   Mary and I decided to leave the boys behind (Irv was actually working, we weren't being mean.).  This meant a hassle, pout-free visit to Ikea.  It was wonderful being able to slowly walk the aisles and look at all the "stuff".  We didn't buy much, Mary was happiest about her rolling big plastic tub.  We have to get all our glassware from the truck to our display booth at the craft fairs so wheels is a great idea.     After shopping we headed over to one of my favorite Mexican restaurants--the Rio.  We loaded up on carbs and had a great dinner.  Then it was back to the hotel and in bed by 8:30....

It's that time of year again.  Football season.  The Family Fantasy Football League is still going after all these years. Two years ago I won the family trophy.  This year I tried to quit.  However, there has to be an even number of teams.  Guess what?  Only 9 teams at draft time so guess who gets to play for another year. Fantasy football is an incredible amount of work.  You have to make sure all your players are healthy and that they aren't on a bye.  Then you have to put the right players in to get the maximum amount of points.  I've had a couple really good weeks of over 100 points, but here's the standings. Not looking good. This week I'm playing Brian.  Right now he has an unfilled spot on his team--his defense is on a bye.  My best hope is that he's too busy in Korea to get his roster filled.  (Fingers crossed) The only good thing is that last week I was ninth, now I'm eighth.  Oh yes, the other reall...

 We had some very dramatic skies this week accompanied by some ferocious thunder and lightning.   As long as it's not snow, I'm good with it.   Do you enjoy watching the clouds as much as I do? I think they're quite amazing especially out here on the high plains of Colorado where you can see for miles and miles.   My mom and oldest daughter (aka Precious) used to sit and watch the clouds and discuss which cloud they were going to sit on when they went to heaven.  I miss my mom so much!  I think she probably chose a happy, fluffy, white cloud and not these angry storm clouds.   Happy Skywatch Friday!