Our new house is bigger....

so we need to fill the extra space, don't we? We are trying to simplify and shed our pack rat tendencies, so no, not more stuff. Hmm. Too soon for another child and that is such a long wait... I GOT IT! We'll get a dog!
No, that's not how it happened. Pete, my father in law, found a puppy in a crate outside the doors when he was coming to get Donna, my mother in law, from work. The note asked to give her a good home. I see why they did, she's sweet, loving, good with the kids and pretty as a picture. She appears to be a blonde border collie, 4 months old. They were all set to keep her til they found that the place they are buying doesn't allow dogs taller than 15 inches in the park. She is nearly that already.
This leads to Mike and the boys and I welcoming a new family member. She'll be a great companion for our 5 year old D'Oji since Foxy is nearing 17 this year and is too tired to play often times. She'll be great for the boys as well and the IL's will have a great excuse to visit, though Donna says we'll be fostering, not adopting. Sure, fostering for 15 years or so, but still... lol.
Mom, this means you will have a darling new grand-dog to pamper when you get here so prepare yourself for puppy loves.
This isn't her because I forgot my camera, but other than her fur being slightly paler and she is somewhat younger, this is what she looks like. Isn't she a little beauty?

Musings on weather differences between Talent and La Pine

Last winter, white was all I could see for MILES. Literally. I never dealt with snow as a child, not unless we drove up to Mt Ashland for an afternoon of sledding.
My street -

From snow day

My back porch last winter.


It seem to me that the lovely, peaceful, even inspiring winter days are in December. They can be totally silent and white, every flaw and bump are smoothed over in white. It looks clean, pristine, untouched.
By the end of February here, it's as though Winter has suddenly realized Spring is trying to sneak it's way in and fights back violently. Stiff winds are bending the giant pines, whipping pellets of snow around in frenzied flurries, and forcing a chill into any opening of your clothes, no matter how small and seemingly well covered.
I grew up in the Rogue Valley, where winter is wet and dropping below 20 degrees is unusual and even exciting. Snow falls are a thing of wonder there. The soil is black, fertile, and thick like clay and things are always growing. Even if you want them to die.
Now I live in High Desert, 200 miles further north and I am fascinated by the differences. It's cooler here in the summer, has the shortest growing period of any place south of Alaska and the soil is more like the beach. It brings to mind the differences of my childhood home and my hew home in La Pine.
In Talent, I used to watch for the beautiful blooming of the orchards in spring, I remember the smoke from the heaters under the trees and the sounds of the wind machines being started up. Here, Spring doesn't make itself known til much later and it's not unusual to see a snowfall as late as the beginning of June. Oh yes, last year and the year before - JUNE.
The wildlife are different as well. Back home, I saw swallows and scrub jays everywhere, even the occasional gull, some cranes living in the marshy areas around the ponds, possum and racoons near the many creeks and small farms around the outer edges of town. Coyotes yipping at night in the hills to the south end of the valley, deer eating early buds and flower bulbs.

Here, I see deer as well, lots of them, along with some elk. But I have also seen foxes, bold, scolding silver squirrels as large as a housecat, heard mountain lions and coyotes, and spotted this weird critter called a rock chuck. I have yet to see any swallows, but I've seen masses of tittering finches and graceful doves, as well as quail by the dozens.
The flowering plants and greenery may be more rare here, but the colors are amazing, so many shades of red, blue, yellow and white, some determined and hardy bushes and flowers growing right out of volcanic rock... amazing to me.
Don't get me wrong. I will always long for the black soil and wild growth of greenery everywhere. Nothing takes my breath away quite as much as standing in acres of pear orchards among the blowing petals or picking elderberries or murels among the ferns in the mountains, standing on the soft, spongy loam in a deep green forest, breathing in the mixed scents of fresh water, pine, oak, and fertile earth.
But our home now holds a special place in my heart. I've come to love the cool breezes off the river in the middle of the summer heat, the long sunny days, the dry heat, the suddeness with which life springs up after a rain. Unless I'm are in Bend, the feeling here has always been so free and roomy to me, and even in Bend there are parks and playgrounds everywhere and even the malls are outdoor and open-air.
My heart will always belong to my beloved Rogue Valley, but I have learned to love the high desert as well and I am very happy here.
Here is a picture of Talent taken by a paraglider ( I found it on a blog)

And a pear orchard in bloom

Near my home in La Pine, of the Deschutes river fog. I drive through there every time I come home and I found this gorgeous picture on a blog as well.

Deschutes in color


And just in case you forget I live in a desert after all, here are more blog-discovered pictures. This is Fort Rock here in La Pine.

Ever Thankful

I wrote a bunch here, I poured my heart out then when I came back today and read it, it made little sense. So here's is a condensed version of what I was trying to express.

In the last 8 years we've been through hard times.
We have lost jobs, had hard feelings between family members, lived apart, been homeless, been without insurance or medical attention, been in debt. We have made such bad and ignorant choices that we had to file bankruptcy and start our lives over with little hope of ever owning a home and difficulty renting one as well. Our vehicle was repossessed. We've been without insurance while I was pregnant, told our child needed urgent dental care and been unable to do anything to help him. We've ended up owing thousands to medical offices. My license was stolen along with my purse and without those things I wasn't able to prove I existed and get replacements - then I hit a Porshe while pushing my car from traffic and ended up owing more money. We've found out that the the numbness in Mike's leg is due to a severed nerve, not just damage and is irepairable. And most recently we've watched people we care about lose job and homes to the state of the economy.
The day our youngest was born was also Mike's first day working at the City of Bend and that was where our lives took a turn for the better. Today he has wonderful insurance that allows us to take care of all of us, he's finally making enough money that we are comfortable, and we just started buying our first home.
What a long way we've come. It was a hard road and we're better people in nearly every way for it. There were times I didn't think we'd make it.
Every time I think of how far we've come and what a difference there is in our lives, I cry. I can't help it. When Mike spent that summer living in a campground so far away from us, if you had told me that in 4 years we would be buying a big, beautiful home and capable of paying all of our debts as they came instead of smothering underneath them, I would have screamed you out of my sight. I would never have hoped, I would never have let myself dream that it would really happen.

We bought a HOUSE!!!

We've tried before but we were inexperienced and fumbling so the seller got tired of us and sold to someone else. Hey, we got our earnest money back, so it all ended well, but we had a little taste of the possibilities and from then on planned someday to own our home.
Fast-forward a few years and a lot of learning from our mistakes. We are renting a lovely little acre about 30 miles from Bend and we love living out here. Quiet, peaceful, private and open. We tried like everything to buy this place, but it was a mobile to start with and though it's had a lot of work done to it, it's still a mobile, and one that is a year too old to get a loan for. So, e have to give up this place. We applied for a USDA rural loan and GOT IT!!! We got the news the night of Feb 12th, our anniversary of the first day we met. That night we looked at listings online - for hours. We had no real firm idea of what we wanted, so we put together a list, a mish-mash of what seemed nice. Our real estate broker was a little miffed at being overwhelmed with no clue as to what we wanted.
In the end, we put in an offer on a house we had seen before. By before, I mean we had looked at it over a year ago while I was still pregnant, peeking in windows only.
We had no hope of getting it, mind you, we just liked to look at houses. Always have, we did that on a couple of weekend drives while dating. Weird, I know.
We looked again by ourselves in the spring when the baby was a few months old, then this summer we drove by one more time. Each time the price had dropped.
We saw a house on the corner of our street that was perfect for us, we worked up the nerve to call a realtor to look and were told "We're sorry, there was an offer put in this morning by a serious buyer. But we can show you some other houses!"
Why not? We looked at 4 houses that day, one of them being the house we had peeked at so often. Oh, it was most definitely our house.
Over the next month we waited to hear back about the loan, but the woman supposed to be taking care of it was sick. She let a little pneumonia get in the way. (just kidding, she was great) We heard back, got over zealous in searching the listings and ended up asking if we could see The House one more time. We made the offer that afternoon.
I told Mike they would reject our offer and counter with $5000 more and he argued with me. You couldn't know that, he says.
His grandfather passed away during our wait to hear from the seller and Mike took the older two boys to California to attend the funeral. On his way down there he got the call we had been waiting for - the seller countered with $5000 more. Being the only one here, I signed the papers accepting the counter offer.I also ran around the house taking pictures of things the listing didn't show so that I could bombard friends and family with them.
In the end, the asking price had dropped over $130,000 from the original. We are so excited to get this place, it's 2048 sq feet, 2 story, 4 bed, 2 bath with a balcony on 1.02 acres with an attached double car garage and an un-attached double car garage. The land needs groomed some, fenced, and the balcony needs replaced, but the house inside has new carpet, linoleum, and paint.

Oh - SO HAPPY!

Tomorrow is SPECIAL

February 12, 2001 I was introduced to a new employee at work. He was polite, nice, really had a way with people without being schmalzty. This was a good thing since I worked the phone in the IT dept. of an ISP and he was a new tech.
That day I teased and tormented him unmercifully over the IM - why? Because he was too nice and I was in a mood. He was confused at first but then gave as good as he got and I admired that. We were instant friends. In May, my SIL walked with me to get coffee during a break at work one day and in the middle of crossing a busy street, asked me if there was anything between us. WTH? He was the first guy I really felt an uncomplicated friendship with so I hadn't even considered anything more. Turns out he was a little ahead of me there, lol. We went on an official "date" in the end of May and it didn't take long for me to realize I hadn't just found my best friend, I had been a little blind to the fact I had been falling in love. We were married July 20th that same year.
We now have three beautiful boys, ages 5, 3, and 1. I don't think I knew what real happiness was til I met Michael, he makes me believe I'm beautiful.
Mike, if you read this, I love you more with each passing year and I can't imagine life without you - I would never want to. Years, decades, forever.

Dentist talk - yet again.

So the quick review up to now ...
We took the older boys to see the dentist, a pediatric dentist who was reputed to be wonderful to the kids and not as wonderful to their parents, specifically in the pocket book.
Mick had a weak spot, no cavities. X-rays showed his adult teeth were just about perfectly aligned and spaced.
Mack had three teeth that didn't need work done and his adult teeth were already twisted and all of his teeth, baby and adult, were severely crowded.
Mase didn't HAVE teeth yet, so we waited.

The cost for Mack's bad teeth were in the thousands and because of his unpredictable nature and tendency to bite down on anything in his mouth plus the extensive nature of the work, the dentist required full anesthesia and a surgical room. This added to the cost greatly, and we didn't have it. We didn't even have enough to hold a date for the appointment because that was $500. Just to MAKE the appointment.
Our insurance paid 70% of it, but that wasn't nearly enough.

Til we raised the money, our hands were tied. Mike was helpful in mouthing off about pulling all of them... see, helpful right? ... but the best we could do was brush, floss and rinse every day.
Here is the part that's fairly new~
We went back for a check up on the 5th for the older boys and Mick had a cavity as well as two weak spots to watch. The cavity wasn't even from the weak spot the found the first time around! So much for brushing flossing and rinsing.
Mack now has not one single good tooth in his head. Nada. His front teeth have gotten bad enough that the dock suggested simply pulling them, but the rest have to be worked on - fillings, root canals and crowns galore. Then, in 2-3 years we'll have to start on orthodontics for him because of the crowing and twisting. This should have filled me with dread, but it didn't. Why? In the meantime, we got insurance in the form of a Beni-card.

For those that are as ignorant of this as I was, I'll explain. For one year the employer pulls an amount, designated by the employee, from each check and puts it in a special account accessible only by the Beni-card. It acts as a debit so you cannot overdraw. The employee can use the card to by health aids like vitamins, cold medicine, Aspirin, etc. as well as paying for doctor visits, Rx's, dental work, surgery, you name it. The employee can then use the card for up to the amount projected to go in the account for the ENTIRE YEAR.
Soooooo, we set an amount that allowed us to pay for Mack's surgery. Since we also had checkups last year, the regular insurance we still have pays 80% instead of 70% now. We'll be ok. We'll pay for a year, lol, but he'll get it done.
Things being the way they are, we set a tentative appointment for the 6th of March for Mack.
Mase had an appointment for the 10th since he has teeth now. this also wasn't a good appointment. He has "flawed shaping" to his enamel that causes ripples and bumps, primarily on the back of his teeth but on the front as well. These spots are bacteria catchers ad with his softened enamel already, they are going to be cavities. The Dr. wants him in every 2 months for floride and cleanings, hoping to stop the progress. If we can keep the cavities at bay for a year or two he can fill them, a year after that and he can pull them. Less trauma for baby and less pain (emotional and monetary) for Mom and Dad. Mase also has what the doc called "muscular bicuspids" and says they will interfere with spacing and be hard on the kids coming in. I knew they were going to be trouble, they came in like Mack's (long and painful) and they look just like Mike's... prominent and large. Again, talk of orthodontics when he's 6.
During Mase's appointment, Mick was taken back to get his tooth filled. He did BEAUTIFULLY. He wasn't scared of the dentist at all since he's never had anything but a cleaning and Mike says the worst it got was being unsure when they put the nose mask on him, his hands were gripping the chair hard. After the gas he was loopy and relaxed and didn't even feel the shot and kept trying to talk to the TV during the drilling, lol. He wasn't prepared for the numbness though, and when we were eating 4 hours later I asked him if it had feeling again. He was so hungry for solid food that he lied to me. I knew because of the blood trickling out the side of his mouth during our meal. Sigh.
Crowns and removals and braces, Oh my! I'm not looking forward to the years of work on the kids, but I am starting to be less fearful and more relieved. At least we have a way to get it done now. It was far worse watching the kids teeth going bad and knowing there wasn't a damned thing I could do.

Now that's not something you see every day!

Mike and the kids and I were all driving this afternoon, on our way to pick up makeup remover for me since the mascara I spoke of in my previous post turned out to be waterproof... as well as soap and witch hazel proof. Good side - it didn't leave funky black smears under my eyes upon waking. Bad side - it was still there the next morning despite three attempts to wash it off.
SO - off on a silly errand and chatting about nothing in particular on the way when I glance out the window to be what felt like face to face with a bald eagle. I have been driving and an eagle swooped down near our windshield so close that I could see the color of it's eyes, but today, the bald eagle was simply sitting on a low branch on the side of the road.
I was stunned at first, but recovered quickly and was able to make Mike understand what I had seen. He turned around as fast as he could and went back, but no bird. Well, we kind of expected him to have flown by then so I kept my camera out while Mike drover slowly back the direction we were originally headed, just in case. Right as I was giving up and about to put the camera away, I saw him again, this time in a very tall tree at least a half acre from the road.
Mike pulled to a sudden stop and I jumped out and jogged closer, stopping three times to get progressively closer pictures. Once he started getting a little nervous about my interest, I changed to video in hopes of seeing him take off. I was rewarded. The quality of my video is crappy because that's what happens to an amateur who's hiking blindly through underbrush after a week of rainy weather. For that I apologize, but it was so amazing to be this close to a bald eagle in the wild. I was giddy for at least an hour after.

New stuff

My trusty slide phone has been acting up and needed to be replaced. Since I've had it for going on two years now I was eligible for a free upgrade. Tonight I got a cute, thin little bar phone... it rang up as $226.95 Heart attack when I saw it, but Mike was standing there to reassure me with a litany of "free,free, free - don't panic".
We also replaced my poor dying pc. Mike fell in love with the tiny little laptops by Acer and tried to convince me it was a good substitute. Really big waste of breath as I know next to nothing about computers. I use www.surfthechannel.com and check my favorite forums,email and talk on IM.Of course, I can't forget surfing around looking at patterns and window shopping in general.

He tried to make it more desirable by touting the webcam ... I hate those things. Makes me nervous as can be. Paranoid reasoning, lol. You don't want me to explain. He stopped at Best Buy today to "look around" and found a similar computer for $100 less. Unlike the Acer, it had no webcam, an SSD and only came in white. I didn't give a hoot as you all know by now, so it was perfect for me. Called an Eee PC.
Tonight I came home with a new tiny itty bitty laptop of my very own, a tiny itty bitty phone of my very own, and replaced all of my make up, too.
Mike says I could put my entire life in my purse and it's true. I have a medium sized bag and I can fit my laptop, my phone, makeup, wallet, a diaper, and a travel wipes case in it.
Before you think that I spent a wad on makeup, I would like to say I wear very little of it and I make it last twice as long as it's supposed to. I wear eyeliner, mascara, foundation and lipgloss - when going out on the town. I was O-U-T out of the stuff I bought two years ago on sale. Thank goodness I wear mineral powder, right? Tonight I bought a foundation-blush-finishing powder collection from Physicians Formula, an under eye concealer for $1.50, and mascara for green eyes from CoverGirl. All of it is awesome and will last me years.Literally. My nearly 4 year old was just turned 18 months when I bought my last jar of powder.
I found a giant savings on a set of lotion and skin repair stuff called Skin Genesis a couple of weeks ago, too. I tried some from a sample I got in the mail and my skin felt sooo good I looked to buy a whole bottle and found it the cheapest at WalMart for $17.98 per bottle. Ouch. So I held off and a couple weeks after that I found it at Costco, only one set left. $23 for a full size bottle of lotion and serum as well as a little purse sized bottle of serum. STEAL!!
All I need is haircut and to drop 20 pounds, I'll be a whole freaking new person! I feel great, only 18 pounds to go for that goal, hahaha. Good luck, right? I love bad food. Sigh.. of course I do, I didn't get this fat off of lettuce and tofu.

Ooooh, more review love

I follow a review blog, Jamie's Precious Peas. I enjoy seeing the new products and sometimes entering a give-away. Today I entered because she was reviewing SassyBax. After getting married and having three kids, I am 30 pounds heavier and significantly... um... softer. I love products like this one and I am crossing my fingers and praying I win the Torso Trim.