I had help with the hump (day)

Wednesday was wild. Ye Haw. Ain't it always? I made it over the hump I think. But, it is still a long time to bedtime. Was it just last week I posted a picture like this? I think it was.

I'm posting this new and almost identical one just for giggles. And so you know the wind is blowing again. If it ever died down.

I'm trying to convince myself it builds character. So if being slowly sand-blasted to death builds character then, hell, I'm all for it. Okay, not really. If I make it to 40 without looking like the Marlobro Man then I will be happy.

On a side note I adore the "wild" yellow roses in full bloom all around the old part of town. Especially, when they are but what's left of what once was an old miner's ramshackle cabin. (To think the treasures that might have been lost beneath those owie bushes and never retrieved!) Even though the scent has been wiped out by the Gail, the sunny little balls give me a tumbleweed tickle.

Wow. What a week. You won't believe this yarn. Especially after I swore off U-haling my ass around about six months ago. This past weekend it just so happened I was party to renting another Uhal. And loading and unloading. Whew. I wore myself out again, but I managed stay married.

Right now my kids have been fed and bathed but they are only half dressed and want to run around the house with a water gun that has been confiscated twice. I'm hiding in my office in the dark trying to get my blog. The laundry room is overfull and the dryer is buzzing for me to fluff or fold. Again.

All of this has my eyes wild open. I mean, it took every bit of sense in my head to make it to work today. I really wanted to call in sick, and slip off the pavement.

Alright. I had help getting through my hump day.

In my wild mind is a dream that has been there since it began to dance. Lately, my wild mind has been at work with a wild idea to get the ball rolling. Again.

Today, whenever I was overwhelmed I thought about this lovely little stack of paper work I also acquired this week. My wild mind has it set to fill them out and, one at a time if I must, send them off to the proper authorities with the fee associated.

It is but the beginning. Ha. But it is finially time to grow a business! My excitement abounds. I just might blow through every single caution cone my business partner lays in the road. 

So loves to you all this Wednesday and congrats on making it over that hump. P.S. Gale is the only way wind should be.
Goodnight ya'll, HjB.

Those allergic to dirt need not apply

I think life on a rural Nevada mine dump rocks.

I mean it in the most literal sense. If you grow up on a mine dump, you learn how to entertain yourself, with a rock if you must. If you stick around to make the mine dump your home, you find no shortage of rocks and dirt to move.

The experience of it can have two affects: it embodies empowerment (I moved a mountain today.), or a sense of slavery (More rocks? Seriously!).

Good thing a dirty girl has perspective.

In my short lifetime I have had my share of dirt and rock moving experiences. Oh buddy.

I would guesstimate that if you stacked all the rocks I have moved into one magnificent pile it would amount to a large mountain. And if you covered it with the poop I have moved it would be a three day hike to the top. Ha Ye.

It started with little projects like my Dad saying, “I need a hole dug right here by the time I get home from work tonight.” I would hack away at the rocky ground for what seemed like hours and never find a pipe. I would try to pry rocks out with the digging bar but then, it was way too heavy to maneuver.

And, when my Dad got home from work he would take two big scoops out of my hole and wa la, a pipe. I would pinch my eyebrows together in dismay.

“No worries girl, I only had to dig a little.” He would say.

When I was older, I remember covering a pipe that was as long as a football field with dirt. And afterwards I sat there on the ice chest and looked at that ditch with this idea that I was amazing. My Dad handed me a cold MGD and that first sip was like drinking sunshine in a bottle.

Empowered? Definitely. I have been good friends with my shovel ever since.

So, spring has sprung and the dirt and rock moving has begun. When I found my favorite spade shovel in the “man cave,” and my hands touched the wooden handle, I swear I had this little feeling of relief. It was like my hand said to the shovel, ‘Oh good, I didn’t lose you.’

Since then my little family has hauled no less than five truck-loads of cheat grass seed and old weeds to the dump; and stacked and moved rocks until every single one of us has a black spot on some finger or toe this season. It is good that none of us are allergic to dirt.

Confession: I still absolutely LOVE an ice cold MGD after a hard day mucking.

And, here’s to moving mountains and covering them with poop! I hope you have a wild Wednesday.

Loves, HjB

On baking wild cake

Life has been a blur. Just like this picture. The earth is in the sky, and who knows where or when the particles will settle. The wind is, if anything, persistent. So here we are, wild as Wednesday. And it comes once a week. You know, it gives me a star to which to aim at.

So life is a blur and time marchy march. I am hectic and nuts. Life hands me wild moments all the day through. I bull doze through like this:

The most wild thing to happen to me this week is my wee Wild-Nevadan-in-Training has turned five. This was like graduation for me.

I remember those first days and months when I handled him so carefully. I remember when rogue germs terrified my every being. And, when I was driven to pack something into every single pocket of the diaper bag, no matter how short the errand.

Five years later my heart swells. It was a major accomplishement.

But, as you know, things went wild:

The fifth birthday came with the responsibility of baking a birthday cake and 25 cupcakes... Baking being outside my realm of talents, I bulldozed into the project with good intentions. I was pretending confidence, but worry sprinkles were floating in the air. Even in the begining it seemed a recipe for disaster.

Somehow I made it through the entire baking process without a mishap. And, the cupcakes turned out pretty good even after I frosted them.

While the cake was cooling and while the boys bathed I went to check on it and found the crust layer of the top partially gone.

Hm. It looked like somebody stuck a lid to the top of the cake and pulled it off and some of the warm cake stuck. It also looked like maybe the cat had come along and skimmed off a layer. About 1/3 of the surface area had been comprimised.
At this point, I have baked three boxes of cupcakes (with filling) and frosted 25 cupcakes and baked one cake, and I am not in the mood for any more of it. After I think about it for a while I decide I will just frost the living crap out of the birthday cake and pretend nothing happened. This is when, aparently, my Karma starts rolling.

So I frost and sparsely decorate the cake before anyone sees it; and because cake decorating is also outside my realm of talents I keep it simple. With little candies it says "5." Big woopie. And, as I finish it up I feel a little guilty about this little cover up I now have going. Well, then some motherly activity calls my attention away, and again I leave the cake unsupervised and uncovered on the counter.

Brilliance. These are the moments that make me feel proud I kept my son alive for five years and I deserve some kind of graduation recognition...but I digress.

Maybe 15 minutes later I remember the cake, and rush to the kitchen to find the cat in the actual act of  licking the frosting off the cake. Seriously?

I tuck that cake in the cold oven to protect it from the cat and kids while I am at work. I am trying to figure out what to do. So, I say nothing to the rest of the family. I mean, hell, if it is the same cat and the same kitty germs I already frosted then what is it going to hurt if the cat added a few more?

Sadly, that is not even the end of my Wild Wednesday story. When my Hon gives me a ride at lunch-time that day, he says he has run into trouble with the birthday cake. He tells me that he pre-heated the oven for a pizza. And, the rolling smoke alerted him to an almost-disaster. There is terror in my eyes.

"It's not too bad." he tells me.

When I get home I find the frosting is melted down into the sides of the cake dish. The five I was so careful with, now looks like a five in one of those Internet password protection prompts. It is smushy.

Now, this is where most mothers would dump the cake that cannot go right, and go down to the store and see if they can find a replacement cake for their five-year-old son. On that particular day I was a bit too busy. I was trying to catch the dust particles loose in the atmosphere. Mostly the ones that came with the birthday. The bubbles and water guns. And, there were no less than four water guns!

You probably already know what Heathen Heidi did with that cake. But, in my defense let me say maybe it was because they acted as if they could not hear me when I tried to herd their squirting bubble party to the out of doors? Or maybe it was because they did not say anything about the smelty cake, and I was too tired from catching dust particles to consider plan B.

Yes. I did it. I let them eat a piece of the kitty germified, smelty cake, after a hearty birthday song. Just like there was nothing wrong. Ha! So you also may have guessed there is just no birthday cake pictures this year!

Bad mom? Well, lets just say while time marchy marchy and my son grew from defensless infant to a sturdy five-year-old Wild-Nevadan-in-Training, this mom has evolved too. Into what I am not always sure. But, wild is Wednesday. Happy Hump Day.

Loves,
HjB