Smelly Kelly

I eat stinky stuff.

I come by it honestly - this is a family trait, and may be genetic. One of our family recipes, passed down from generation to generation, is literally a mixture of crushed, raw garlic and white vinegar. Growing up, there were more jars of pickled vegetables in the refrigerator than anything else. Sardines were eaten directly from the can and last week I caught my mother drinking the pickled herring juice directly from the jar.

We smell.

Santa Buddha

Down the street from our house is a Buddhist Temple. It's really a great set-up, especially for those houses directly next to the temple. I mean, what could be better than neighbors whose primary activities are meditating and seeking peace? The monks have taken over a corner lot and house, which appears to have been a private home at one point (including an attached RV garage, but I'm guessing the monks aren't tooling around in a Westphalia.)

HailNo Does Thanksgiving

250 million year old wood

We decided to do something a little different this year for Thanksgiving. Since we had just seen family in Texas for the cutest, smartest baby's first birthday, and since we're heading back to Hand Land for Christmas, we decided to do our own thing for Thanksgiving.

Our own thing generally involves remote corners of the world.

We considered camping, but two things happened. 1) It blizzarded, and there wasn't really a good path for getting the pop-up out of the garage where we are storing it (read: really big drift in the way.) 2) where we were thinking about going had a change in the weather and got really cold. So, we packed up our camp stove, grill, picnic basket, food, hiking gear and boots, and headed to Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, sleeping in a motel instead of the pop-up.

The Petrified Forest is awesome.

When Rabbits Attack

WARNING: This post contains graphic fictional and non-fictional representations of animal violence. No, not violence against animals, animals committing atrocities.

Eric and I took a walk around the back lot this weekend, and realized...

We may be dealing with rabbits like this:

I'm not kidding.

Better Things to Do

1930's remnants

In my last blog, I mentioned having better things to do than sanitize the casa. Like going to California. Going to California is better than house cleaning.

California has provided not one but two mini-vacations for us this fall, and they turned out to be perfectly timed, before and after this whole moving houses thing we keep doing. Eric had a lot of business in the Golden State this year, and I was able to meet up with him for weekend adventures, thanks to some great Southwest sales and the fact that its only a 2 hour flight from DEN to LAX!

Confession

I am a dirty, filthy pig.

Selectively.

If you came over to my house last night for our annual Christmas Vacation party (and braved the weather, because we ALWAYS seem to pick terrible weather days for our annual extravaganza) I hope what you saw was a clean house.

It wasn't necessarily that way until, oh say, an hour before you showed up.

Harvey

I'm behind on blogging, as it happens. There are so many things to catch up on, and a couple of blogs on current events that won't make it to daylight (go ahead and assume you know which events I'm talking about and what teeth-gnashing stand I'm making).

However, I feel there is one thing we need to discuss, right away, and that, my friends, is the current state of wildlife around the new place. I know, this is neither the most relevant or political of topics, but perhaps we just need a moment away from all of that to focus.

Focus on the animals.

The Long Winter

We might be living in successive Laura Ingalls Wilder novels.

Seriously! First, we moved into the House in the Big Woods. Then, we moved to the House on the Prairie. Now... well, darn it! We just stepped into the novel, The Long Winter!

House on the Prairie

We moved to Kansas... well, not really, but it feels like this new place is WAY out there on the prairie. Now, in reality, it only takes me about 5 minutes longer to get to work than it took me at the last place, but the difference in perception is staggering. As you go east of the major road on the east side of town, the world flattens out and opens up to large prairie spaces. This flat expanse makes everything seem much further away than it is. This landscape is about the direct opposite of the last house, with the mountains and the trees. Here, it is exceedingly flat, and while there are a number of trees on this 5-acre property, they are spread out and planted as landscaping instead of naturally occurring. It is the very essence of prairie, down to the open field of cows behind the property line.

Roid Rage

So, one little thing that I forgot to mention about our move week, and I share this with permission. As you may know, we are apparently incapable of just doing one thing at a time. So, while I was having my teeth ground away, poor Eric was in with the orthopedist, seeing about a long-standing pain he has had in his shoulder (most likely from the years and years of football). The orthopedist gave him a steroid shot in the area of the pain and told him to come back in two weeks if things didn't improve.

Well.

All's Well That Doesn't End

Phew. We made it.

On Thursday, October 29, 2015 we moved from the Not-So-Little House in the Big Woods to the Not-So-Little House on the Prairie. No kidding, I'm pretty sure you can see Kansas from the backyard, but more on that house in another post. Time to end this chapter.

Dental Angst

I regret to inform the dental community that my feelings haven't changed. I am trying, but I basically still don't like your profession, and have serious doubts about the scientific basis for what you do, especially since your basic instruments haven't changed since, generously, the early 1800's, with the possible exception that you now use sedation instead of whiskey.

A Pause

One week from today, we move out. There's more to the end of this chapter of this house, but I want to take a minute and step away from all that. There is another side to this story, this home, that I want to share because I am reminded of it daily.

The Inevitable, Maybe

It happened.

You knew it was going to at some point, right?

Executive-Level Run Ins

So, my office is rather large. As the global headquarters for an organization that works in 26 countries, and partners with an additional 12 for fundraising, there are a lot of people in my office. Not terribly many in my department, but in the building as a whole, there are something like 900. Now, you corporate types might not feel like that's a terribly big office, but for us non-profiteers, its enormous. I'm more likely to meet someone outside of work and talk with them for several minutes before realizing that we actually "work together" because they are on a different floor and I've never seen them before. It happens.

In the Mountains, with Elk

Part way up Deer Mounain, looking at Longs Peak

Fall is definitely my favorite season. It likely stems from those high school cross country days, when I felt totally in my element, running under the changing leaves at Stoney Creek and getting up way to early every Saturday morning to take the yellow school bus to yet another invitational. Or maybe its that now, as an adult, I find most holidays totally overblown, commercial endeavors (even though I love decorating for Christmas), and falls stands without major holiday (remember, I grew up in Michigan, where Thanksgiving was already winter, calendar be damned,) especially September. Any way you cut it, I love fall. And no matter the time of year, I love being outside.

So camping in Rocky Mountain National Park in fall? Yea, definitely that.

The Passing of Kinky Friedman

So, as I alluded to in my last post, the passing of Kinky Friedman is an ongoing saga. Most recently, it took a literal turn.

Say Nothing at All

In my last post, I talked about the Z Family visit to Colorado. There was one thing I didn't mention in that post. The entire week, there was a epic battle happening between the Zolman's and the Kelly's, a stand-off really, where nothing ever actually said out loud.

It was the battle of Kinky Friedman.

Latergram or How I Spent Someone Else's Summer Vacation

For a couple of months now, I have been threatening promising to share about the time this summer when the Zolman family came on summer vacation to visit us.

Background: The Z family lived down the street from us when we lived in our second house in Indiana. Eric and Chad coached together at Homestead High School, and Chris and I, along with the other coaches' wives, sat in the stands on Friday nights and attempted to watch the games while analyzing where on the happy/unhappy/somewhat nuclear scale our husbands were on at the moment and generally trying to ignore parents in the stands making unkind remarks about the coaches. Seriously, parents are awful. Take note, all parents of football players: with very, VERY few exceptions, your child is not a future D1 and/or professional football player. At 5 foot 3, 110 pounds soaking-wet with slippery fingers and a 5:1 40-time, your child does NOT meet the exception criteria. Shut up, be glad he's on the team, and stop complaining about playing time/your kid could do it better/if the coach would only x,y, or z. You're wrong, and yes, I can hear you in the stands. Also, your roots are showing.

What a Pisser

I got home last night to find...

Showing Oddities

All in all, the process of living in someone else's house that is for sale has not been horrible. We are fortunate that we are not inundated with showings - on average, one every other day, but considering that we sometimes have 2 or 3 showings on a weekend day, in reality it isn't that frequent. During the week showings are usually during the day, which doesn't bother me at all. They are a little more inconvenient for Eric, since he works mostly from home, but he's learning to manage, and pops over to a coffee shop, and has even come to my office a couple of times to get some work done on days when there are longer/multiple showings (and considering that my cube is surrounded by empties like the last beer in a six-pack right now, there's plenty of space for him to work.) For the few showings that we have in the evening, we generally time our workout/running schedule around them. Only once did I get stuck down in the meadow after a run when a showing ran over their allotted time. Lastly, keeping the house clean and picked up all the time to be in "show ready" condition has become part of our routine.

Smaller than a Dog

Since early on in our marriage, Eric and I have had a deal. Well, more like, Eric made the deal and decided that it was the deal. I somehow got sucked into it and well, that was that.

The deal is, if something shows up in our immediate vicinity and it is smaller than a dog, it's my responsibility to take care of. If like, a bear shows up, Eric will fight it. This did not become a real possibility until recently and yes, Eric used to use that as an example. He doesn't say that so much anymore. But hey, a deal's a deal.

I received a "smaller than a dog" call on Tuesday.

Hand Land

The radio silence on the blog you've been looking at for the past 14 days was a long-time-in-the-making trip back to Michigan, or, as I recently christened it, Hand Land. Oh, I know, its been known as the Mitten for longer than any of us can remember, but Eric is positive that no one before me has called it Hand Land. We're thinking about making t-shirts.

It Just Never Ends, Does It?

All night last night, a four-legged someone was having a dance party on the roof above the bedroom. This would, of course, be the same night that I had soaked every ear plug in the house in rubbing alcohol to sanitize them, and they blew up to the size of sausages (who knew??) and were unusable.

This morning?

Raccoon poo on the back porch. I looked out there at the pile of "something" I noticed... and sure enough.

I don't even understand how there can be so much poo in one place. How is this EVEN possible?

There are no words...

Bears and Mice and Poop, oh my!

This blog goes through seasons.  A couple years ago, I was writing a lot about food. Apparently, now I write a lot about poop. Sigh. I guess they're related, but one is definitely more appealing than the other, although according to my blog stats, the other gets more attention.

So Eric left Saturday morning. I took him to the airport, and then had a good 7 hours on my hands because Friday the realtor called and left a message saying that he had decided to have a 6 hour open house on Saturday. Because, you know, planning. Well, after I stopped swearing and calling that lazy, good for nothing realtor every unkind name in the book, I worked on a plan to go running in the mountains.

You Can't Make this $%!t Up

We talk about poop a lot in this house. Obviously. Because, as we all know at this point, poo, literally and metaphorically, keeps happening here.

You know where this is going, right?

So, a couple of weeks ago, the homeowner sent workers over to the house to, sadly, closed in the unique selling feature of the basement, turning that particular eye catcher into just a regular old closet.

Well, a closet with random pipes sticking out of the walls and floor, but since there's no lighting in this particular closet, you probably won't notice if you come to look.

Anyway, it took them a number of days to complete the framing, drywall, texture, and paint. During this time, there was frequent ins and outs of the our via the garage. Because closing doors is both difficult and inconvenient, the workers generally left the door into the house wide open.

Enter mouse.

That Time I Nearly Sunk the Tractor

I might just kind of suck at this caretaking thing. Or parts of it, at the very least.

So...

Eric left last Saturday for the East Coast to go direct a YFC Middle School Camp. Now, I like kids and I worked with kids and all that, but if you think for a hot minute that I'm going to go to freaking Baltimore and spend a week's worth of vacation in 90 degree heat and 90% humidity with a bunch of smelly junior high kids, you've obviously been smoking the legal stuff here in Colorado. And yes, junior high kids smell. Especially in 90 degree weather. It's just a fact. That man is a martyr. Also a fact.

So, Sunday I get out and make a valiant effort at mowing the meadow. Now, I've mentioned that it has rained here. A lot. Like A LOT. The pond has been flooded out and the meadow has been half under water since May, and its only recently gotten dry enough to actually contemplate mowing. However, the fact that we haven't been able to mow has not meant that the grass hasn't grown. It has, and I'm pretty sure that had Josie Zolman, one of the seven Zolmans that came to stay with us over the 4th of July (I know, I'll post about that!) had gone into the meadow, we would have lost her and had to call search and rescue.

New Kid on the Block



So, we have a new neighbor. And I have to admit, he's gotten under my skin a little bit. He showed up the night before the Zolman's arrived at our house (blog forthcoming, but we've had 2 weeks straight of company!), and has occasionally wandered through our backyard, uninvited, since then.

 

Road Rage on Paper

I am not a road rager. I come from a family of fast drivers, lead-footers, and at least one family member (side-eye to you there, Dad) that has threatened to mount and RPG launcher onto the hood of the car. I married someone who is increasing impatient with left-lane drivers,  non-turn-signal-users, etc. However, I am not a road rager. Now, I won't say that I'm not above mentally commenting on the character of other drivers (Chris, you know what I'm talking about here) when they do something particularly moronic, but I don't generally act on my five-dollar-word descriptions.

Except maybe last Monday.

Move Yer A$$...

The weekend before July 4 was a movin' and groovin' one, that's for sure. I was up at 5am on Saturday morning, and out the door to climb the Incline. Sometimes you just know it's going to be a good day. I only had to make three catch-your-breath stops and PRed both up and down. Nice.

Headed to the farmer's market and then home to shower, change, and then Eric and I headed up to Denver to help a friend move.

The real action, however, was Sunday. Eric learned that Cripple Creek, a town about 2 hours away in the mountains, had what was called the "Donkey Derby Days" festival. Now, we're down for about anything called a festival, and have, in our past, attended such events as Apple Fest, Johnny Appleseed Fest (yes, different than apple fest), the Pickle Festival, Grabill Days, Greek Fest, River Fest, German Fest, the Peach Festival... well, you get the idea. Cripple Creek is an old mining town turned gambling hall town, with its own herd of semi-wild donkeys. These donkeys roam the streets of Cripple Creek, and are supposedly the descendants of donkeys used in the mines (which, by the way, is a horrible existence for donkeys!) People feed them, and they wander around at will. There's even a hotline you can call for the last known location of the donkeys. Anyway, Cripple Creek has a Donkey Derby Days festival, the funds from which go to support the ongoing care and occasional feeding of the donkeys (trust me though, they never go hungry.)

Wrong-Handed

I am left-handed. I am not the only left-handed person out there, but only about 10% of the population is left-handed, and we lefties live in a right-handed world.

I was born left-handed, but as recently as my dad's childhood (my dad is also left-handed) in the United States and today in some countries around the world, institutions would try to insist that lefties use their right hand, that people should deny that their dominant hand was counter to 90% of the rest of society's, and should learn to accept right-handedness.

Social Food Snark

Last weekend, we went out to dinner prior to the U2 concert in downtown Denver.

Here's the deal: we like to eat. We like good food. We like innovative and creative recipes. And, despite ALL my food weirdness with not eating badly raised/fed/cared for/processed animals and a general eschewing of eating chemicals and other things that can kill you, we don't consider ourselves overly stuffy when it comes to food. I read the menus and I make decisions. I don't ask the server where the food was sourced from, whether sustainable practices were used, or, as Eric would say, if the animal was hugged on a regular basis. I like reading these things on a menu and appreciate them when they are listed, but I find it kind of rude and pretentious to ask if its not there.

Personally Epic Weekend

Warning: This was an epic weekend where a lot happened and I am all amped about it. This will be a long post.

Have I mentioned that I have trouble doing just one thing at a time? Yea... well, sometimes that leads to a culmination of awesomeness. At least to me - you might not think this is awesome, but, then again, I don't know that there are that many people that share my opinion anyway!

FAQs on Storm Chasing, From a Spouse Perspective

Middle of nowhere South Dakota

Eric and his buddy, Keith, left yesterday for their annual "Chasecation," a storm-chasing adventure in which they will put an inordinate amount of miles on HailNo, spend lots of time looking a open fields, all with the goal of seeing some great storms. No, they don't know where they are going, and yes, I assume the interior of the Subi will smell bad when they return. Fortunately for the former, both are adept at reading radar, have the car wired to be able to receive instant radar updates, and have a high-power road mapping system that provides not only highway directions, but lesser known roads and trails as well.

Eric gets really excited about chasing, and posts his photos on Facebook. This inevitably attracts a wide variety of questions and comments, that, since Eric probably won't, I would like to take the opportunity to address in my own, slightly snarky and sarcastic manner.

Warning: If you are easily offended, don't read on, especially if you made one of these comments. For the rest of you, just assume I like you and this isn't personal.

That Anxious Feeling...

Post-race messiness

So, I'm not going to lie; I'm sitting here at work, and I shouldn't be on my blog, but I had to write this down to hopefully help with the anxiety I am currently feeling. I was sitting here, working away, when someone walked by with a banana. That's when I realized...

Somewhere in my house, there is a banana.

Build an Ark

It is the wettest May on RECORD here. Seriously, it rains like... well, like we are still living on Woodstream Drive in Indiana. It has rained nearly every day for the entire month. Lots. The trout pond in the meadow is now double the size it was dug out to be. The grass is super-long, but its too sodden to mow. As I type, it is pouring out, and... yep, add some pea-sized hail to that mix.

Good thing this house has two sump pumps, right? Even better, when they were rehabbing the basement after the unfortunate incident down there, they actually replaced the sump pumps as well.

Friday evening, we were sitting in the living room, watching television, when I pulled an Aunt Bethany.

Who are YOUR Neighbors?

 

Right after we moved in, Eric purchased a wildlife camera. This camera takes photos when it senses movement. As it turns out, our neighbors are not only nosy, they have an extreme sense on entitlement - they just walk all over the property! Check out the culprits:



 

Adventures with Subi, or HailNo in Texas

As you know, we spent Mother's Day weekend in Texas. We decided to drive, and we took off a bit early so we (read: Eric) could do some storm chasing on the way down (and I could nap in the car, wake up and look at clouds.)

Driving there also means driving back. We were on a timeline for driving back, since we both needed to be at work. We followed the GPS, and it (and the Waze app) both indicated that a slightly different route back to Colorado than we had taken out would be the fastest and most efficient. This involved a number of secondary roads, but in Texas, you can still drive highway speeds on them. So, no worries.

Until we came to a dead stop on a two lane road in the middle of nowhere, two miles outside the bustling metropolis of Channing, Texas. 

NOT the Mama

Today is Mother's Day (you'll have to take my word for it, since this post won't actually go up today.) We are in Texas (hence why I'm not posting today - never publicize you are out of town, even if the house you live in isn't your own.) Today, the cutest, smartest baby in Dallas was baptized and Eric and I are the godparents. We kind of lucked out getting the cutest AND the smartest, huh? Tess, the aforementioned future star of the universe, is my sister Colleen and brother-in-law Matt's daughter.

The Weird Woods

We live in the woods for right now. I totally dig it. In some ways, I feel like my whole life has prepped me to take this on (even though I know it's temporary, which is ok, because as a social worker, I would never be able to afford to live in a half million dollar home.) We live down the street from a Christian camp - Colleen and I both went to camp as kids. We have a well and a septic - my parents' house AND cottage both are on wells and septics (and my parents have a hot tub as a bonus kicker, so I actually know how to test pH). Not to mention that one time my parents septic backed up into the yard...

Even the pine trees around here remind me of the pine trees at the cottage. Granted, the mule deer are much bigger than the white-tail at the cottage, and the basement flooded and not the yard, but there are similarities.

However.

The Given-Up Homeowner

Truth: Every home I have purchased, at some point, I have cursed at the former homeowner.

Truth: I just became a former homeowner someone is now swearing at.

I am so not kidding you.

"Home-less" by Choice

We close on our house today.

Yesterday, as I was packing up for the day at work, I thought, "Maybe I should go by and walk through it one more time."

Then I thought, "Nah."

What the Crap Did We Sign Up For?

Last night I had a nightmare that the house we just moved into sold before we closed on the house we still currently own. I dreamed the owner of the home had somehow told us and I had to tell the caretaker organization, who didn't know. I told a person in the organization I had never met, and she was like, "ok, get out," and didn't have anywhere for us to go, and didn't care. She was just like "ok, get out," and I kept thinking "It's over before it ever even started and I don't even know you!"

Poop, on Balance

Since the poop-post, we've gotten a number of questions about "why we would put up with that (septic backflow in the basement of a rental, rodent remnants in the closet, cleaning the dirt build-up from a home that sat empty for a year, etc.)?"

The simplest answer is this: You can put up with a lot when you are paying dirt cheap rent.

Seriously.

Poo Geysers, or "The Definitive Reason to Never Eat Snow of Any Kind"

We started sleeping at the new place Thursday evening. As I mentioned, we got a foot of snow between Thursday and Friday. Saturday morning,  I was up early, scrubbing the kitchen (because, ewww, bachelor man lived alone in this house for two years then moved out and the house sat empty for a year.) Shar'Niese got up, and we were chatting in the kitchen before Eric and I took her to the airport. At some point, we heard a weird noise. I went to explore, and looked down the stairs into the basement. I saw sunlight reflecting off the floor back at me.

Which is a problem because the basement is carpeted, except for a non-carpeted spot that highlights the nonworking, not-hooked-up toilet sitting in a 6x6 space in the middle of the floor.

Oh. crap.

Literally.

Because We Can't Just Do ONE Thing...

Two Men and a Truck. Willing to move in slush.

We moved. Yesterday. Well, at least our furniture did. We moved some of our boxes and will move the rest on Sunday. Thank goodness for Two Men and a Truck. I would have been a very cranky, unhappy, and likely, in pain, camper without them. Plus I would have had to sell all our furniture because I can't pick most of it up, and I'm kind of done with the "killing our friends because we hauled a sideboard together" thing.

Last night, we got a foot of snow, and I discovered at 10:15pm that there is absolutely no water pressure in the bathroom shower (more on the house, the circumstances we find ourselves in, etc. in a later post). It would have been more effective to put my head in the sink.

Conundrums in the Rental Game

House on the market? Check.
Nearly instantaneous offer? Check.
Set a close date for 5 weeks after offer? Check.
Next place to go? ... ummm, well...

So, we obviously went under contract much faster than expected, which threw us headlong into the game of "Find a Rental." It's a little like Labyrinth, or Risk, but with more pitfalls.

It turns out, the rental game is nothing like the buying game. Like nothing.

DOM

DOM in realtor speak stands for "Days on Market."
Our house went on the market at approximately 10:30am on Wednesday.
We received an offer Thursday at 6pm.

DOM = 1

Closing April 30. Anyone free to move boxes?

Wonder where we're going to live???

The Unnecessary Drama of Setting Your House Up to Sell

We're selling the house. Wednesday. We are selling the house (or at least putting the sign in the yard) on Wednesday.

This was this fun idea a year ago, that we could sell this place, pay off all our student loan debt with the proceeds (because we're pretty sure our house has gone up in value since we bought it, between the upswing in the market and the amount of stuff we've done to it), rent for a little while, then buy some place with a little more space in between us and the neighbors. Since then, we've been heading in that direction.

I Got a Fever...

Hello, my name is Megan and it has been two weeks since I climbed the Incline.

I'm beginning to itch. Seriously, it's in my veins. If I wake up before the alarm, I look at the time and mentally calculate if I got up right then, would I have time to get up and down before I went to work.

Unfortunately, the answer has always been no.

Add to it, we're under a foot of snow that has stayed for a solid week here, and the temps have been really cold.

Oscar, or Maybe Felix?

Sunday is the Oscars. For the second year (in a row!), we actually tried to watch some of the movies that were nominated, and even watched a movie (The Grand Budapest Hotel) before the nominations came out. For people who don't watch a lot of movies, this is a significant accomplishment.

I think I like watching Oscar nominated movies. It kind of cuts through the garbage and puts a "this won't suck" stamp on the films. Maybe I should go back and watch nominees of years past... but that would probably cut into my Incline-climbing time, and that's just not acceptable.

Vegetable Eater

Well, at the beginning of the year, I decided to, at least temporarily, cut the cord (or maybe the better word is bridle? leash?) on digesting animals. If you've known me at all, you aren't really all that surprised... I stopped eating cows back in 1999 (France, mad cow... totally makes sense) and last year stopped with the chickens, then had difficulty swallowing turkey.

Gut Job Weekend

Photo of the half bath during our home inspection
before finalizing the puchase. Notice the tiny counted
cross-stitch on the wall and the overall beige palor.

How do YOU start a new year? Starting Friday, we gutted the half bath and laundry room.

To the right is a photo of this area of the house when we were going through the inspection process. Other than moving in, replacing the previous owner's washer/dryer with our own, and putting a much larger picture in the spot of the counted cross stitch on the wall, the bathroom has basically looked the same.

Notice the fantastic counter extension over the toilet. If you're wondering "why," the obvious answer is that, in the late 90's, it was positively unacceptable to place your Kleenex box on the back of the actual toilet.

The wall-to-wall mirror was an added bonus.