Mountain Girl Silver - Hand-Stamped Customized Silver Jewelry - Portland, Oregon

I am SUCH the sucky blogger lately.  I go through my weeks,, and if something interesting happens,, I make a mental note and say to myself, ” Self,,, you gotta blog about that!!”… but then the day progresses, live evolves, said “moment” is hours in the past, and I inevitably forget….  ick..

Basically this past two weeks has been like a huge blurrrr.  I have been painting…. and painting,…. and painting…. and painting….  and I LOATHE painting. Once when I was in the coast guard, I got reprimanded and my punishment was to paint the entire star deck of the ship…. yah… a 378′ ship……   it was awful.  I wonder if they ever found what I painted inside the PFD locker up there….. hmmmmmmm   I’m sure they did, the next time they ran a man-overboard drill.  I hope people laughed….  but by the time they found it (if they have),,, well.. I was lonnnggg gone. Anyways.. back to my point.  Just about done painting all the bedrooms. I realized the other day when I went over there that our bedroom definitely needs a second coat. Why is that lighter colors tend to need the second coats,, and the darker ones don’t…..    baffles me.   Got some furniture the other day found by way of the lovely Craigslist….  Umm……   the furniture is a whole nother story…..   I’m still in shock as the the TOTAL SCORE I made on several pieces.  I went to these people’s house, as they are moving to South Africa. Husband is from New Zealand… and ALLLL of the furniture in their house is from New Zealand. Unfortunate for them…. fortunate for ME…  they had to get rid of several pieces. So.. I went there just for the dining room table…. and left with the dining room table, a 6′ high book shelf, 2 antique dressers, a butcher block, a coffee table and a hallway table.  But you see…..   everything but the coffee table and the hallway table are made out of a wood called “RIMU” wood. It’s an endangered tree in New Zealand. You can not even find furniture here in the states made out of this beautiful beautiful wood. I guess the equivalent over here would be like…… ohhh… I dunno….. cherry or teak…   high end stuff.  Most solid-made furniture I’ve ever laid eyes on… and just gorgeous……     The move over to the new house has been very hard for me emotionally… so I’ve sort of been kicking and screaming about it…..   and I hate to sound superficial,, but the furniture I found …. honestly…. has made me want to move over there……

My husband’s friend, Mike Frawley and his wife, Tabitha and their two kids Kai and Tytan are in town this weekend. Mike is a helicopter pilot for the Coast Guard. They have been living in San Diego for the last 4 years, and now are making their way up to Sitka, AK. Talk about going from extreme to extreme!!   So they arrived Friday afternoon, and will be leaving tomorrow morning. I hate to see them go. Hubby gets so happy and in such a good frame of mind and spirit when he’s around one of “the boys” from the academy. The banter and the jokes, and the like are just fun!!!  We’ve eaten super well….  our kids are having the best time playing with each other…..  it’s all good. I hate to see them leave….

Anyways….  did get some stamping done yesterday, then assembled and shipped today. I LOVE going into a Monday morning with a fresh slate. I’ve got about an 80 disk order for a retailer in New Jersey to fill, and the few orders that have come in since yesterday….. but man….   only having roughly 100 disks to stamp… that’s caught up for me!!! ;c)   Seems like I’m always chasing the paper trail on the floor in my basement.

It’s beautiful weather here this weekend too……    80 degrees ……  just lovely….    I heart Oregon!!!

First of all…. my friend Betsy is on vay cay…..   and she’s like totally MIA… and like.. I miss her terribly. She’s not on facebook … she’s not at her email…  I HATE IT!!!  

As much as I love it when my friends and family go on vacation… like… for their well-being… I HATE it.. because they are gone….  not in touch…   blah..

So these last couple of days, my house has been a crazy, loud, banging, jack-hammery, pneumatic air-gunny place. We’re getting our siding replaced on this house, and it’s just uber annoying. And let me just tell you how efficient these guys are. They had 1/2 the siding torn off w/in the first 8 hours they were here…..   And now, they’ve got one whole side re-sided already with the new hardi-plank.  Good stuff.  HELLBERG CONSTRUCTION of portland,,,  wow… they get the job done….. F A S T …    feel free to send me an email with their contact info. It’s really rare to be passing along good constructin work (for me anyways) because all the construction we’ve done on this house has been a total nightmare… until now that is.  Super great guys… hard workers…. great service… good price….

That being said, and let me reiterate how LOUD my house has been, it’s been so hard to focus and work. I’ve stamped more daddy dog tags w/in the last week than I have in a year. Father’s Day IS THIS SUNDAY!!!  And if the UPS man doesn’t show up tomorrow then I’m going to be showing up first place at the finish line of  shit creek!!!  Maybe I’ll have to pull off the infamous breakfast in bed routine… I dunno….  

We’ve been working on the new house quite a bit lately. New carpet is in, flooring is down in the living room, Maggie’s room is painted, Anders’ room is 1/2 painted, living room is painted, washer/dryer is in, now we need to find a fridge….  The last few days I was totally consumed with the amount of noise radiating throughout the house and wasn’t able to focus on stamping, but today I just HAD to stamp… I mean.. I HAD to.. Getting three days behind is a deathwish.  So I did…    I sent the kids outside to deal with their boredom and down below I went. I politely asked the workers if they minded me leaving the slider down below open for air and my ipod cranked to the max. I don’t think they appreciated COLDPLAY blasting in their eardrums,, but it’s all I could do to get me in the mood to work. Here we are 7 hours later, and I’m caught up on EVERY LAST order w/ the exception of two of them. And those two just came in w/in the last 10 minutes. Typically there is a little lull in business after Mother’s Day, leading up to Father’s day… but we’ve been consistently busy since Christmas. Slight void in January/February because of the election and stuff…..    but swinging strong again.  I think I’ve got three or four more retailers onboard, and that’s always exciting. 

Must go check the fish in the oven. I think I’m in trouble for not doing much packing today, but he doesn’t realize just how much stamping I did. I think he thinks that I wave my magic wand and the stamping gets done, the house gets clean, etc……     nope… doesn’t work that way….

So the clock was tick tick ticking… and hubby had said he’d take the kids to Maggie’s end of the year party-thing over in Oregon City at her school. Thing started at 5:30pm, it was 5:35pm… I hate being late to places..  So I schlupp the kids in the van knowing that if we waited any longer, we were surely going to have to sit in traffic getting over there, and that makes me outraged..   It’s hot, real hot n’ muggy, I’m tired (which is why I didn’t want to go in the first place)  so I was a tad on the grouchy side..   We get there, and at that very moment the cotton wood trees began to bust along side the field. It looked like it was snowing…  cottonwood blooms getting into people’s food, faces…. etc…   not to mention we were all hot and sweaty.  The good thing, was that I saw many people there that I haven’t seen in a year because our kids are in different classes now…  

So right out of the gate, Maggie spots the face painting table. A million other things and she wants to get her face painted. The line was about 40 kids deep, so I knew I was in it for the long haul. But you see… she’s such a sweet heart and so patient, docile, and kind, that anytime a bratty kid cut in line in front of her, she wouldn’t even say a word. So there she stood…….FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF to get her face painted…   I mean,,, the director even started handing out popsicles to everyone over on the other side of the field and I said, “maggs… c’mon,,, mommy will paint your face later (lie lie lie) , let’s go get a popsicle and let’s get the heck out of here”…   no no no mommy.. no… I want to get my face painted like a kitty cat.  

Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep an eye on Anders, who clearly was having a good time just running around. He HAD to be the oldest kid there. A Marylhurst veteran, he got his cheeks pinched by a few of the teachers and parents. And he was wayyyy over on the other side by a dug-out fence on a baseball field. But I continued to stand with Maggie, and socialize… puttin on my happy face and just grinning and bearing it.  

So Maggie finally gets done…  you would’ve thought it was Christmas when she was sitting in that chair. She gets her face painted, and immediately I say,,, “Okay, c’mon Maggs, let’s go get brother so that we can get home and eat dinner.”  So we walk over to where Anders is hanging off the fence like a monkey with some other kid. But when we get over there, the other kid is crying and rubbing his eyes, and his dad is standing right there watching the evolution of events..  The kid was twice Anders size, but clearly 1/2 his age. Just a big big kid, but young.  And so I ask the kid, “What’s wrong sweetie, are you hurt?”  To which he replies, “No….  that kid (pointing at Anders) called me “DUMB CAT”…. (the kid, you see, had the same goofy cat face painting on his big kid face)   And so I had to put on my mom face, clearly being watched of my reaction by big kid dad standing there with his fists on his hips…  and I say, “Anders… did you call him Dumb Cat?”  And the look on Anders face was like (OH DEAR NO, I’M SOOO BUSTED NOW) his cheeks started to blush and he openly admitted he did indeed call the kid Dumb Cat, while out of the corner of his guilty eye, taking a gander at Big Kid Dad.   So I tell him to apologize….   He does…  and we walk off.  Big Kid Dad must’ve felt all good and warm and fuzzy inside… NOBODY CALLS MY KID DUMB CAT!! BE DAMNED WITH YOU!!!    So we are almost off the field and i say to Anders,, Dude.. you gotta stop the name calling m’kay?  It’s not good, and it hurts people’s feelings, and kids who name call usually end up in jail etc etc…. ” I was laying it on pretty thick. He got the idea…  as he was totally silent all the way home.

So we get home and I inform hubby that Anders got in trouble for calling some kid DUMB CAT, and then the reprimanding started all over again for poor Anders. Because even tho it was just Dumb Cat and not HEY ASSFACE…  you still have to treat it as the same… it’s the premise…  

So we eat, and then the kids get up in the tub and Maggie gets out after about 5 minutes, and I’m laying on our bed watching t.v. or something and I look up and her face painting is all gone…..  and I was like,, “Duuuude…  you waited 5 hours for that thing, and then you just washed it off??”  (sigh)  what a waste…    But I let it go, and she went downstairs with hubby and then I told Anders to get out of the tub (which takes about 8 or 9 “get out of the tub Anders, get out of the tub Anders” ’s    Kid is just in that frustrating 8 year old funk!!  So he gets out, grabs his towel, starts drying off and I say to him, “Are we gonna quit the name calling gig you got going on??”  To which he replies… “Mom…. I gotta tell you something..”  And this is how his story unfolded….  he says….. 

“Well… when I first got over to where all the kids were playing, I spotted the big kid with that goofy cat face painted on his face, because he was more my age. So I said, HEYYY KID…. you wanna play with me?  And then he just looked at me and hissed like a cat.  And then I said…  HEY WHISKERS…  you wanna play with me?  And he hissed at me again so I said forget it and started running the other direction… and then the kid RAN AFTER ME AND STARTED SCRATCHING MY BACK AND HISSING LIKE A CAT AND PULLING MY SHIRT DOWN IN THE BACK and choking me, and so I turned around and said,,, “HEY DUMBCAT!!!!!”     

So Anders didn’t even have to get passed the WHISKERS part and I was laughing so hard at the whole thing that I could barely breathe!!   Three things here…..    My 8 year old was cool enough to want to play with a large kid that had his face painted like a cat…   After being HISSED at, he then had the wit to say “Hey Whiskers”….  and then being hissed at AND scratched and chased by big oafy cat faced kid, he calls him DUMBCAT…      

My Anders…..   he’s…   he’s just the best.  Yah, he’s 8, he’s a smart ass, he can be a jerk to his sister, and clearly likes to name-call…  but man..   he’s just the best….   the best ever….    

The video below was taken about 30 mins after said bath… and after learning the whole story… I just couldn’t keep it together…  

I’m not a big T.V. watcher at all…  yah… I’ve got my favorite shows…. L O S T, Survivor, Grey’s, blah blah and don’t get me wrong they are good shows, but shortly after LOST was over this season, hubby and I found that OUT OF THE WILD/THE ALASKA EXPERIMENT was on the Discovery Channel. We watched last years season, but it was much different than what was advertised as the upcoming season. This year there were 9 total strangers, from all over the country, that were dropped lakeside in a remote part of Alaska, and w/ just the bare minimal essentials, had to somehow “make it out of the wild”. They didn’t know how long they were in for it. They didn’t know if it was going to be a week, a month, 3 months. But all of them were determined to make it as long as they could before reaching their breaking point. Each of them wore a GPS beaker sort of device, and if and when they reached their breaking point, then they had the option of pushing the button, and would be rescued (as an individual) w/in a short period of time. Right out of the gate w/in the first few days, 3 people quit. But as a group, the rest of them kept truckin’ on…… into and OUT of the wild . They trekked along a series of maps, and visited a series of cabins (8 total), them approaching each cabin was so breath-holding… just hoping.. HOPING that they’d find food of some sort in each cabin. They were given ammunition and guns to shoot game and food. But they weren’t given a morsel….. surviving in the wild was ultimately up to them. They ate squirrels, and ptarmigan, and porcupine, and duck, and fish.. and occasionally they found beans and I think rice in one of the cabins. In the wild of Alaska, it takes roughly 3000 calories for a human to be able to survive, and these folks only consumed a quarter of that EVERY THREE DAYS…….   I was amazed to see them function. Starvation was the demise of the big strong dude….  he just couldn’t hack the lack of calories. Each night as we watched, I’d get my bowl of Cheez-its and wasabi peas (my favorite t.v. snack) and just chow down, eating for them so to speak… wishing I could just throw cheezits at the t.v. and it would quench their hunger…  ha ha

But 1/2 way thru the season, I decided to search for a few of them on Facebook. I found Trish Bulinsky and Jake Nodar (two of my faves). And so being the avid fan that I am of the show, I decided to send Trish a necklace. She happened to be the only MOM of the remaining surviors, and any mom that can survive such a feat, deserved a free necklace. I’m so proud to say that Trish Bulinsky wears an MGS necklace!!! 

The re-runs will be airing throughout the summer……..  so be sure to start from the beginning. Just one of those shows that keeps you watching….   and you can’t wait for the next episode!!  It’s apparent from the photos that Trish and Jake post on their FB pages that they all still get together frequently and have made friends for life…….   And with the season finale just on Tuesday of this week, they’ve posted some pretty awesome behind-the-scenes photos…..  You’ve GOT to watch…..   !!!!

It baffles me that there are cat haters out there. Who could honestly, in their right mind, hate a cat??  You have NEVER seen a cuter thing than the new kitten we picked up last weekend. We’ve had him a full week now. Names were tossed around the first few days, but we have settled on RUSTY.  He’s a striped, orange manx. No tail, pink lips, pink nose, greatest demeanor, just chills with whatever the situation….    In fact, on our way down from Washington, there we were, FLYING down the freeway at 70 mph, and he was just meowing and meowing, totally miserable in the box and so I decided to get him out and set him on my lap. There he just looked around, sniffed my shirt, and fell fast asleep with his two front legs dangling off my left thigh……. as if to say…. “It’s cool,,, you saved me, I’m chill, I’m gonna take a nap now.”   Little did his little soul know, that the minute he stepped paw in this house, he was going to be sized up by Mobee, Trotter and Rocket-man.  Not to mention that we opted to take Loosha, our Weimrador, with us to go pick him up, and Loosha,,, uh,,,, shall we say, got totally ATTACKED by mama kitty when she made the stupid decision to jump out of the 1/2 way rolled down passenger window of our van to come “check things out”…..  D U M B!!  That mama kitty… I have never EVER seen a mama kitty so protective over her babies.  I mean…. she came out of a relaxed, chillin’ position under a shady rose bush, and when she saw Loosha, it was full on bee line attack. The last thing I remember (as it happened soooo fast) was seeing mama kitty with all fours attached to Loosha’s hindquarter. And Loosha running off, cat still attached.  But this was just after Josie (the owner) saying how Manx cats are sooooooooooooo not afraid of dogs and they will attack like a leopard…….   ummmm yah… proof WAS in the pudding.  Needless to say, Loosha had a new found respect for the felines………  ha ha….   

But Rusty….   a.k.a.   Wutt-tee, Wust-mesiter, Wus-Master, Sweet Widdle Won, Big Stuff, Honches Honches, is fitting in so nicely.  Took him to the vet on Tuesday tho’ to do the check up routine. I was certain beyond a doubt that he had ear mites.  Nope…. no ear mites,,, but 3.. yes THREE different types of parasites in his bowels and stomach. Fun times. So he’s on a serious regimen of meds. One of them is twice a day, one of them is for 15 days, the other two is for just five days…… and one of the medicines smells like dead fish. He gets wayyyy pissed when it’s medicine time… which reminds me…..    

Met with a contractor today at new house.  New workshop is going to be soooooo sweet.  Going to have a soffit above my work bench that will hold high-powered lighting AND speakers.  Two 4′ X 3′ windows to the outside world, and a nice little custom workbench for my drilling and buffing when I make my cuffs and drill my disks.  Waist high… perfect.  Then I asked him to come upstairs and look at the master bathroom to see if we had any options as to fixing the (I’m not kidding here)  5 foot high shower head.  I’m not a Roloff….   And the mere thought of the vision of hubby showering in there is just comical. Who puts shower heads a mere 5 feet off the base of the shower for cryin outloud??  Good grief!!!    He said that we could do the quick fix, and get some nifty little extension thing for the shower head for the time being….   but no….  by the end of the conversation, he was doing measurements for a custom slate shower, with two heads and lighting and a glass door…… the works…    I’m considering it an investment, because if we move over there and totally hate it, at least we’ll have one bathroom, the master bath, that is so pimped out,,,, and it’s going to be so pimped out that it just might sell the house by itself someday.  I’ve always wanted a super uber cool shower. And I don’t mean like the steam sideways jet shower thingies…   waste of water…   But just to have two shower heads….. AND a nice light in there.. with a big ol thick glass door that reminds you of walking into a refer…   I just might end up showering everyday…     s t i n k y…

Must run for now….   Taking the kids up to Clown Center to meet hubby up there so he can take them to see  the movie UP..  which I really really want to see, and have heard from numerous people that it makes you cry…  But I’m staring down the barrel of flying solo with the kids for the next three days (and the past ohhhh I dunno  57 days) w/out more than a 30 minute break from being “mommy”….   After a month of no break, I start to get really crabby,, and I’m pushing two months now.  UGLY is all I can say.   Scared to ribbons about the upcoming summer break…….  it S C A R E S  me… shuddering scared.  Also, MGS has been super busy. Graduations, weddings, teacher gifts, birthdays, not to mention FATHER’S day (June 21st this year)…   Dog tags up the ying yang…   I love stamping the dog tags tho’….     Anyways,,, on that note….  have a good week……  M E O W!!!