An Eventful Day

I had enough happen today that I thought it would be a good time to catch up. Well...I guess it was only two eventful things that happened today but one of them was an adrenaline filled self-defense experience and the other covered me in dirt. But I'll get to all that later. 

The last week and a half was as nice as the previous few weeks before it. We spent an evening in Albuquerque at Marisa's house collaborating on the GIANT job we'll all be working on this weekend: renovating her kitchen. Tim built an amazing, inventive and beautiful 5' by 5' island. Over the course of 4 days her asbestos ceiling needs to be scraped (which is a job I am going to respectfully bow out of), a wall needs to be torn down (which I'd surely injure myself doing), the island needs to be reassembled (which Tim would never let me touch), new tile needs to be put in (which I don't know the first thing about) and the garden needs to be weeded and planted which (hooray!) I am more than happy to do single-handed. I got some practice planting a tree in the front yard and potting some flowers for the front of the guest house. It's been an impossibly long time since I'd left an area of earth prettier than it was when I found it and I'd forgotten how gratifying it is for me. I'm looking forward to doing more of it in the next few days.

Easter was great. Just the parents, the siblings, the significant others and Joanie. I made deviled eggs with duck eggs and decided they should never be eaten any other way. Drank Bloody Marys, ate lamb and potatoes, sat on the gazebo with Tim playing guitar and called it a really nice day. I missed my peeps (people, not marshmallows) but it was as nice an Easter as I could've hoped for.

I continue to learn new things about Espanola, NM. For instance, you may see a stray dog, stray horse, stray cows or stray human at any given time on the roads here. I have personally seen all of the above. Some instances are funnier than others. Cows were funny. Not funny is when said stray dogs come dangerously close to attacking you which is what happened to Tim and I today when we made the mistake of walking to the post office. The people who live across the street from the PO have SIX dogs, four of which ran across the street at us and got into snarling, barking, growling, hunched and ready to lunge attack mode. You're going to have to excuse my profanity a minute when I say those fucking dogs were serious and it scared the living shit out of us. I hid behind Tim the entire time. I've got 15 years of experience in what to do if someone attacks me or someone I love but I have almost no experience in what to do when insane furry creatures attack. Not that I'm opposed to kicking anything in the face. If it's violent, it's fair game far as I'm concerned. Thank god (and thank Tim) they backed off eventually. Ironically enough, it's totally safe to walk down into the wilderness of the mesa. You're only in danger if there might be stupid idiot people around cuz they might have stupid idiot animals. So...yeah. I'm going to go ahead and drive everywhere. I'm going to go to Lowe's and drive across the parking lot to the Wal-Mart. You think I'm kidding?

Here was the other excitement for the day - the dirty story, as it were. We bought 200 feet of weather-proof burial-safe ethernet cable, plugged it into the wireless hub in the Big House, dug a 6" track to bury it and put it through the window in the little house. I learned a couple things doing this. I learned (again) that I don't mind being covered in dirt. I learned that accessing the internet at your very own computer in your very own living quarters after 4 weeks without it can be embarrassingly exciting. I learned that as thankful as I am that my in-laws are extremely kind and accommodating, it's still really important to me to be as self-reliant as my situation allows.

All of it - planting trees, digging tracks for ethernet cables, even sweeping the floors - makes me excited for the day when I can do these things at my own place. We are heading to Durango again next Thursday to do some more looking, make some more phone calls, etc. Right now when I stop typing and look out the window I see 10 acres of beautiful wild land and it makes me that much more clear about what I want when I look out the windows of my future home. I'm excited for the endless possibilities of tomorrow and it's a great feeling.

Till next time, love you, miss you.

Last night's sunset....

I took this today. This is a pretty typical NM sky though I thought this one was extra awesome with the sun rays coming down.

My new potted flowers.