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

I’m not even going to get into the lame-ness of the current weather here in Oregon. I’ll spare you how incredibly sick I am of the constant rain. I caught myself perusing the internet the other night for Hawaiian vacations. Even going as far as reserving flights and hotels. Just for the thrill of it. Having no intention on going, but just made me feel good to “book” the trip, minus the credit card. Pretty sad right?

My son Anders and I just flew to California last weekend for my cousin’s wedding. Just the two of us went. Hubby and Maggie stayed here and held down the homefront.. even tho’ I came home to a broken garbage disposal, a broken dishwasher, a burnt out electrical switch, feed-less chickens etc etc…   Can I not go away from here without everything falling apart?? Brother!!  Everything is fixed now. Eric thought that the scratch grains were the chicken feed. In other words, my chickens fed on candy for 4 days. Ate candy and drank mud for 4 days. I dunno.. it’s this weather. It’s really really really getting to me this year. Most of the time I can just see past it. Go on with my days and it doesn’t affect me. I’m pale man!! You look at the pictures of me and Anders at the wedding and you can totally tell we’re the Oregonians. All pastey white and sickly looking. ick.

We are also in the midst of trying to sell our other house. So don’t even get me started on the housing market and this crap economy. So the house doesn’t have a garage. Don’t people realize that when you don’t have a garage, you don’t collect needless crap? I have yet to drive down a residential street on a Saturday (when it’s sunny mind you) with people’s garage doors wide open, and see a garage that isn’t full of just pure crap. Garages are trash collectors. They turn you into a pack rat. Our new house has a two car garage,,, and I’m so thankful that it doesn’t face the street. It is a disgusting mess. These last couple weeks we’ve been entertaining prospective tenants. Handing out applications, going over there with 5 mins notice to show it to people. Funny story..   Yesterday I was over there showing it to this young couple. They had a small little girl,, maybe 3 years old, and the wife was obviously ready to have their 2nd child. So they walk around the house for awhile while I sat at the breakfast table facebooking on my iphone. And they get done going in and out of every bedroom several times. And the woman comes up to me and says,, “So what year was this house built?” I said, “We don’t really know the official year, but we know it was between 1900 and 1904.”  And then she looks back out at the view and then back at me and says, “So… are you guys…. like the original owners?”   I kind of looked away a little bit, as I couldn’t believe the question. Are we the original owners??  I felt like saying,, “Yep… and we built it with our bare hands!!” “Pretty cool huh? We did a good job right?”…..    So then…   it gets better. They are corralling their daughter as they were getting ready to leave and I asked them if they wanted to take home with them a rental application. And the guy says,, “Nah…. we’ve still got three months left on our current lease, and we’re just looking around West Linn, and wanted to see what the rental market was like on this side of town”……….   PAUSE WHEN AGITATED.   Didn’t he know that I had like one billion other things I could be doing?  I guess we should edit our craigslist ad at the end and say “SERIOUS INQUIRIES ONLY… NO LOOKEY-LOUS”

Bottom line.. is that we’ve either got to sell it or get it rented because pulling two mortgages is getting tricky. Our last tenants tore the ass-end out of the house. We could have it rented already, but we are being wayyyyy cautious and very picky this time around. Not just going to take the first foot through the door like we did last time. It was really fun scrubbing dog poop stains off my deck….  Who lets their dog crap on their deck anyways?? Ewwwwwww  Keith and Caroline… if you are reading this, I hope you bought your house that you moved into when you moved out of ours, as I wouldn’t wish you people as tenants to any other landlord in this entire universe. Thanks for leaving your dead Christmas tree in our yard full of ornaments and all the ash from the woodstove in the pea-gravel. And I think your dogs need a little less wet-food in their diet.

I’m just gonna quit writing now. This isn’t turning out to be a positive outlook sort of blog in any way,  shape or form. I just believe that when you’re full of yucky, you gotta get the yucky out. I’ll save the big news that my husband is getting shipped off to the BP oil spill for two months for next time.

It’s 6:05 on Saturday… the week is finally over. So many things happened this week that it’s hard to know where to start. I guess the most important thing to report is that all orders that came in up to the 3rd of May actually made it out by Wednesday. This Mother’s Day was nuts, and I’m finally (after 6 years) beginning to understand why Mother’s day rush is so much harder than Christmas. You see… people plan for Christmas. From Nov 15th or so, up until about Dec 15 is when the shopping season is. It’s a month long. So while we are consistently busy for a month, it’s bearable because it’s on an average. Whereas Mother’s Day….  people don’t plan for mother’s day.. they wait up until the few days, a week at most, to shop for it. Not ALL people, but most. But it’s cool, we roll with it…. I try not to get angry that everyone just thinks that the “please allow two weeks for your order” doesn’t apply to them. But whatever,,, it’s all good. Tell you what, my patience, altho’ tested daily, is so much more than it used to be. I celebrated 6 months sobriety last week….  6 months isn’t a very long time except in sobriety, pregnancy and jail I’d imagine..  It has gone fast, and I’m blessed by God, for this business, my family, and my friends and just an all around great life where I struggle everyday to find balance and composure.

Also this last week we moved the chickens from my living room to the chicken coop that we built in the backyard. Was just telling a friend yesterday how impulsive I am. I’ve always been impulsive. Buy the chickens and worry about the coop later… sheesh. DUMB!!  But, we did it. Over the course of the last 2 weekends we managed to put together thee coolest coop. And finally, I think it was on Wednesday, we put the birds to bed!!  You would walk into my living room and just be overcome by this green foggy cloud of chicken crap smell. And to make matters worse, at night, I’d leave their heat lamp on them so it would bake and bubble all the crap and the smell was just heinous by morning. I reached my limit the other day and frantically ran to the farm store, got my feeders and whatnots and stuck em in the coop. We still need to repair the north side wall and do some caulking here and there, but they are loving it out there. Totally loving it!!  I bought some lavender plants yesterday to plant in the ground around the coop. I got a book a couple weeks ago on raising chickens… the Storey’s guide to raising chickens and man…  you would be shocked at how much you really have to know about the little smelly suckers!! So now I’m an urban farmer. Oh… and I’ve been listening to country music…   I doubt I’ll start wearing Wranglers and spurs, but you never know…  I kinda wonder what my neighbors must be thinking. Trying to put myself in their shoes. Unless the coop starts really reeking, then I don’t think it’s going to bother them. I bet when they take a bite out of a fresh egg they will be thankful…. as they’re batting away horse flies from their dinners on the balcony….  egads.  In the picture here we’ve got Rusty (right) and Bruno (left) just watching the chickens in the dog crate as if it’s good cat porn. And now that we have them out in their coop, both of them just sit out there and run circles round and round the coop. I think they’re ticked that the hardware cloth has such small squares, as they can’t get their paws through it like they could with the dog crate. What I’m wondering really tho’, is what if they really did get ahold of one of the chickens. Would they kill it? Or would they just want to play? I think the older the chickens get, and the bigger they get, the cats may be a little more intimidated and may not view them as lunch. Guess we’ll see now won’t we?  I know for a FACT that if our dog, Loosha, who is 1/2 lab 1/2 weimaraner would behead and devour one if she were given the chance. I remember when we first got them as chicks, I took one out of the tub and was holding it close and called Loosha over to sniff it,,, yah… welll…. the sniff turned into a nip in a millisecond. She went right for the head with a quick snap. Bitch…

Today Anders, who is almost 9 (good night,, where have the years gone?) is in his first skateboarding competition. Some local skate store is sponsoring a competition just up the hill at the skate park. He’s sooooooo excited. A little nervous, and apprehensive, but pumped. I can’t believe how good he is really. I think back to when I was 9, and granted I lived way back in the woods, but I wasn’t good at anything like that ;c(  He’s a funny kid. He’s one of those kids that struggles with math and reading, but can skate like a punk and can sing you a song verbatim after only hearing it one time. His teacher keeps reassuring us that the lightbulb will just go on one day (hopefully soon)… I’m not worried about him tho’…  He’s a smart cookie. I hope he shreds it today. Can’t wait to see the look on his face when I tell him he has to wear his knee pads, his elbow pads and his wrist guards today for the competition… ha hahahahah  Such the fashion diva he has become….my gosh!!!  What is it with tight skinny jeans? I don’t get it. They’ve GOT to be hurting his little balls.  Funny story…  and he’d KILL me if he knew I was writing this to the general public….  But we were at Old Navy the other day and he was insistent on buying a pair of girl’s pants jeans.. claiming that they just “fit better” and are “tighter on my legs mom”..  So there we are, digging through the massive amount of jeans on the wall, and this 10 or 11 year old girl comes up to us and says,, “Ummm,,, just so you know,, those are GIRLS jeans, the boy’s jeans are over there.” Anders pupils became the size of olives and his face turned beet red. He stared at me in that moment as if saying to me “please get me out of this situation mom”.. To which I quickly said, “Oh.. we know.. we’re picking out jeans for his sister.” (lie lie lie)  And I could visibly see his shoulders come to rest. Poor kid.. he’s the skinniest kid you’ve ever seen!! I feel like feeding him sticks of butter with breaky. Again, I think back and remember my track coach yelling to me as I was speeding down the track , “GO STICK GO”…  beanpoles..

I say this every year tho’, on Mother’s day. I hope everyone who receives one of my necklaces for Mother’s day tomorrow cries tears of joy and happiness. I hope they have a beautiful day of doing nothing if they wish. I hope they have a beautiful day of gardening if they wish. I don’t really know what I’m going to be doing tomorrow other than decompress. I still have one more cuff to make today that is going to be picked up tonight sometime. And so help me God if I get a phone call today from some dude trying to get me to bail him out of the dog house that he will inevitably be in if he shows up to the party empty-handed. ha ha…  As much as I complain about those guys, I always, in the end, take pity on them and usually will bail them out. Afterall, it’s my job. And I love my job. I love Mountain Girl Silver……

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY PEOPLE!!