Three years ago, Mr. Pilver and I were gearing up to be under the same roof permanently.  Logistically, it made more sense for me to move from my home in Minnesota, to his in Washington State.  Both our families live here, Mr. Pilver’s job was here and salaries aside it was more of a career than my job at Hell’s Kitchen.  So I packed up my city life and drove half way across the country to dwell in a log house on many acres in the country.

I’m truly satisfied with the choice I made.  It’s not always easy.  Internet is terrible here,  there are no radio stations I can tune in to at my home, and it’s a fifteen minute drive the the nearest tiny town with not much more than a gas station,  tavern, and one of those grocery stores that carries the bare minimum of products so you don’t need to drive an additional half hour to buy milk.

I’m living my own version of the American dream.  Mr. Pilver’s version varies slightly from mine.  He wants to be a farmer.  That’s fine with me, farming is a great thing.  We farm produce like crazy.  We raise chickens for meat and eggs.  Recently we butchered a pig we raised and as much as you love that bacon you just had for breakfast, it is nothing compared to the freshly cured and smoked bacon I ate.  Nothing.  I truly wish I was not as bacon greedy as I now am, or I’d share with you.

So, as I was saying about Mr. Pilver, he wants to be a farmer.  He loves the idea of hard work and not punching a time clock and not sitting through another meeting.  I’ve always said, if he can find something that works, do it.   Be a farmer.  I’ll be a farmer with him.  We aren’t naive enough to just quit our jobs and go for it.  We do have two kids to take care of and a mortgage to pay.

Last night, I found Mr. Pilver scrolling through Craigslist, searching for sow pigs, trying to figure out a way to raise pigs and then I said it.  Raising one pig was fine, but dozens?  hundreds?

I DON’T WANT TO BE A PIG FARMER!

We had a serious discussion on the matter.  I kept going back to my whiny response, “BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE A PIG FARMER!’  I never thought I’d HAVE to say that.  I was having a heated exchange about whether or not we ought to try pig farming.  What in the world was going on?

*Sigh*   It’s probably not going to be the end of the topic.  And for the record, I have nothing against pig farming or farmers.  But after having one, and smelling him, I don’t want to multiply the odor by any amount.  One is a perfectly acceptable amount of pig to have near your house.  I do have to say, they are clean animals as the rumor suggests.  They eat like pigs, but do not live like them.  The giant hunk-a-ham made his bed every day, swear to god. After he ate out of the buckets of slop we fixed him, he moved them out of the way to the side of the pen.  Pigs are truly smart and remarkable animals.  But, I still don’t want to be a pig farmer.

Something happened on November 16th, 2012.  Something very exciting for me and very boring to you.  On November 16th, I had spent two years, nine months and one day at my current residence.  This is the longest I have lived anywhere since I was 15 years old.  For the past 18 years I have moved twenty times.  (I counted, it is exactly twenty times.)  So HOORAY for that record.

I haven’t been posting at all.  I got a job.  I think I am finally in the swing of my new schedule so I can post a bit more, and for that I am grateful.   I have taken a few pictures of what I have been doing in my absence.

I broke my toe.  Gross.

Here’s a picture of my kids looking cute in front of the snowman The Max built after the first snow.  You’re not thinking about my gross toe anymore.  Or you weren’t until I mentioned it again.

Max received a chemistry set as a present.   He has been testing the PH level of everything in the house.

Lucy turned a year old. And she shoved a little bit of cake in her face to celebrate the occasion.

Finally, I found this.  I bought it for my sister as a joke when she had a neck injury.  I came across it after never having given it to her.  Now I have nothing to use it for. It’s easy to assemble,  want it?

We’re so close to the presidential election.  Let’s not forget we are also close to an election for literally thousands of other things.  I love voting.  It is very satisfying knowing that how I feel about where I want  my country, state, and county to be heading is counted.  I absolutely consider it an obligation to read all the text in the voters pamphlets, do independent research, and ask advice of those who are more knowledgeable that I when I consider whom/what receives my vote.  If I don’t feel that I understand enough about an issue or race, I simply don’t vote on it.  I have turned in nearly blank ballots in the past, because I don’t want to make guesses on topics which I don’t feel comfortable making decisions.  I voted for friggin’ dohopoki in the 2008 presidential election because I had no faith that either candidate was better than the other.

Frankly, I feel as though politics become more partisan and more disgusting the higher the office.  For whatever reason our country cannot break away from the extreme two party system.  I’m not telling you anything original here, I’m not a political genius by any means.  For the most part I desire to place my head into the sand because I do not see progress being made in the top office in our fantastic country.  All I see is what appears to be a sporting event where two sets of fans support their chosen team to the extent of backing even their worst players because they want their team to win the game. Barf.

In my state this year, we are given the privilege of voting on several issues including the legalization of marijuana, the right for same sex couples to marry, charter public schools, debt limits, taxes voted on by state government, and investments made by the University. I know how I feel about the social issues, but those that focus primarily on finances are not my forte.  At this point I don’t feel confidant enough to make a vote on them, though I am attempting to find out more so that I can possibly make a decision on these issues.

Let’s talk about the social issues.  First, pot.  Because I have two children, I do feel the need to say here, I don’t use marijuana, and while it remains to be illegal I will not.  I have, B.C. (before children)  I had enough sense to NOT use it after having kids (or rather after deciding to try and have children) because smoking pot was not nearly as important to me as being a parent who could not be arrested for partaking.  That being said, I really have no desire to use marijuana ever again.  However, everything I remember from trying the now illegal drug, makes me understand that the fact that it is illegal is absolutely silly.  The fact that our citizens are going to jail for pot is mind boggling.  I really want to vote “LEAGALIZE!”   At the same time, the way in which Washington state has written the law will make it very expensive to produce the product, and will take production out of the hands of the public and into the hands of big corporations.  It will be written much to the tune of tobacco, where as I would feel better if it were to be regulated as alcohol.  So I haven’t chosen my vote here.  I may just vote yay because I am unsure if it will pass at all, but I want to send a message that it ought to be looked at once again.

Next social issue, same sex marriage.  I was raised to believe that being gay was wrong, and gay and lesbian persons were off sinning because of their chosen lifestyle.  Then I met same sex couples.  These couples were doing the same exact things within their relationships that straight people were doing.   Still I  struggled with this issue for a long, long time.  It is very hard to abandon what you were taught would send you to the pits of hell and leave it because you understand that not all of the Bible ought to be taken literally.  If it was I would be with Satan after death because of the tasty bacon I ate yesterday and wore clothes made of two separate fabrics.  Beyond that, we are lucky to live in a nation where we have religious freedom.  I cannot find any reasoning out of religion that should prevent  two persons from marrying each other.  The argument in my voters pamphlet is that marriage is important because of reproduction, which would mean that any couple not reproducing ought not be married?  Same sex couples have marriages which they take very seriously.   They do that already, without a law allowing it.  I think it’s time we recognize those marriages and take the religion out of legal marriage.  If you want to belong to a religion that does not allow same sex marriage, do it.  If you want to be a member of a religion that does not allow interracial marriage, do that too.  If you want to be a member of a religion that allows consented polygamy, feel free.   Keep the government out of your marriage.

*Sigh*

I wrote this ramble because, frankly, I am tired of attempting to respond via social networking to the idiotic statements made by people.  I easily get sucked into discussions where people of the same mind frame spew blatant lies because they’re only fueled by those who agree with said lies.  I do love the system of democracy.  I do appreciate a great discussion where those involved share facts in order to come to the best possible solution and method.  But I am so ready to check out and tune out every time I hear someone repeating their chosen talking head in order to make an argument.  Seriously, ignore your parties platform and decide for yourself what you want for our country, states, counties and cities.  Don’t be a puppet.

I’m not a hoarder, but I did save too many clothes from my high school days.  I figure, if I’ve had them this long why toss ’em out now?  At first it was not intentional, because I did not save the best stuff.  But they were back in the bottom of closets and drawers for years or I have had them packed in boxes then went unopened from house to house in my couple dozen moves since high school.  I’m not going to wear the bulk of them, the stuff I do wear is just hanging out in my closet all non-nonchalant like they haven’t been around forever.  A couple days ago I was attempting to organize my world and came across several boxes labeled, “old clothes”.  Now I will show some of them to you.

If this ad campaign is lost on you watch this video:

Certainly in the 1990s and some would argue even today, Michael Jordan was THE athlete.  The only one that mattered and the one companies wanted in their ads.  I got this sweatshirt from the grocery store my family owned.  Often companies would give items like this to a manager of whatever department and unless someone else wanted the items or if they were to be given away as a prize, my sisters and I were given them.  I shared this sweatshirt with a cousin of mine.  We traded it back and forth for years.   Somehow I ended up with it in the end.  Your welcome MJ, I was your own personal billboard for many many years.

Speaking of the grocery store, here is one of my work shirts.  Bell’s Supermarket all the way!  I wore this while I rang up groceries, and swept floors and filled pop machines.  Filling pop machines was great in the summer and the worst punishment in the winter.  Sweeping floors was punishment year round.  I kinda miss grocery store work, it’s easy and relatively stress free.  Hmmm….new direction in my job search maybe.

MY SOFTBALL GARB! It’s a really old jersery and the ugliest coat ever made.  I really hated those coats.  I think my senior year we ordered new ones and I was very relieved not to have to wear the poofy mess again.

Confession:  I stole the shirt on the left.  I remember clearly that we hated our jerseys and decided to rummage through the old vintage uniforms that were hanging around the sports closet.  And, we took them.  I think we even wore them to a few games.  Sorry Mr. Gardner.  I’m not giving it back though.

This one is hilarious.  Remember Delia*s?   If you are female and between 28 and 38 you probably remember it very differently than it is today.  For most of the 90s, Delia*s was ONLY available through catalog order.  I saved most of my grocery store dollars and checked the mail every day waiting for those catalogs.  I’d carefully plan out what i was going to buy, fill out the order form, and wait very impatiently for my new treasures to arrive.  And being as we lived in boondocksville, Delia*s was vital to my wardrobe as there were no malls anywhere around us.  This is one of the outfits I waited for.  Ouch, it’s ugly.  We’ve got some pants large enough for three of me and a sweater that is alright, but not exactly flattering.  It gets worse.

I guess you can’t really tell from the photo, but the top of the pants is a good inch or two above my bellybutton.  Low rise jeans had not made much of an appearance at this time and we were all kinda sporting mom jeans.

Oh Lord look at that butt.  No wait, you can’t.  The pants are far too barrel shaped to see any curve whatsoever.

Here’s another item from Delia*s.  I bought this for a dance, one of those girl asks boy dances.  I didn’t really ask another boy so much as one of my friends had a friend who was visiting from out of town and she told me I should bring him.  I found a picture from said dance.

I’m honestly not embarrassed by the guy I went with, but I literally have not seen him since and I have no way of knowing if he would hate me posting his picture on my dumb blog.  Please note, I am obviously wearing nylons.  I’m much paler than that.

I’m going to skip the remnants of my obscenely large shoe collection that I still have.  Thanks for spending ten minutes looking at clothes I wore in the 90s and will never probably wear again!

Do you know me?  At all?  If so it should come to no surprise that I love the month of October and the band U2.  Tomorrow is October and they wrote a song titled just that.  Such a good song and such a tragic song if for no reason other than it ends way too soon, just on the brink of an epic ballad of sorts.  Sacrifice two minutes of your life and listen.

Bono, 1981

Also, this is from 1981.  Bono is just 21 years of age.  I know I am generic in saying their best work was their earliest, but golly gee, these boys are still college aged and so naive and they wrote this song and this album.  I’m never not going to be impressed by that.  This is the first cassette tape I ever bought, I am sure I have mentioned that at some point.  Still one of my favorites. And now I am going to lose some well deserved sleep and listen to the whole thing.  Night Pilver readers.

I’m Really really really trying to blog every day.  It’s a huge goal of mine.  I couldn’t think of anything exciting about my day, or anything noteworthy in my head to write about.  But take my morning and illustrate it with poorly done MS Paint images and suddenly I have a sure way to entertain the masses!

I have a baby.  She’s a bit over 10 months old, and she’s been a good baby.  But sleeping ALL the way through the night is not her strong suit.  Even if she’s only up for two minutes, she does wake up every night.  Not last night.  Last night she slept for TEN STRAIGHT HOURS.   As you can see, Mr Max, my eleven year old son, woke me up asking me to cook him breakfast.  I was so happy to do so, because for the first time in over a year, I slept for eight straight hours.

I don’t get this.  I’m not at all offended.  Most people in public refer to Lucy, my baby girl, as a boy.  Being as she is a baby, you really can’t tell the sex by looks alone.  But I almost always dress her in pink for outings, just so people do know she is indeed of the female race.  I went to the teeny grocery store nearest to our house, where I go quite often and the cashiers know me by name.  And the cashier knows my baby as a baby boy.  I’m seriously wondering how they  are going to behave when finally realize she’s a she and not a he.

Remember that chicken I showed you yesterday?  The one doing the can-can?   I baked that sucker last night.  Tonight I am going to make tacos with the leftovers.  So, I went to get some fresh cilantro.  They were out of cilantro.  I was sad.

Just to the left of the produce aka cilantro section of the teeny grocery store is the beer cooler.  I’d been planning on walking right past the temptation, as we are trying to save cash for vacations and Christmas.  There was nothing I could do to stop my hand from opening that glass door when I saw Jubelale from Deschutes Brewery sitting there all glorious.  Jubelale is not my most favorite winter beer, but it is the most reliable.  It’s only September and tonight I am going to watch the Cleveland Browns get creamed with a WINTER ale in my paw.  Seriously.  Winter beer, already.  YES.

I also bought a bag of Sun Chips to enjoy with my beer and football.  I caved to the crinkle of the chip bag shortly after we got home.  Lucy has been eating solids for about four months now, and I figured she could handle a Sun Chip.  Ugh.  I forget sometimes I cannot even handle corn chips, with their sharp edges stabbing through your throat tissue.  She screamed.  She choked.  She regurgitated.  She survived though.  And then she drank a full glass of water.

That was my morning.  I live a life of crazy I tell you.

I woke up this morning anxious to celebrate the season.  I waited until Lucy started her morning nap and realized nap time was not sufficient to take pictures, write and edit a decent blog.  So I put on a clean shirt and made a vlog.  It appears as though I am scowling throughout the video, and this is because I cannot see the screen of my laptop.  I’m actually in a great mood.  🙂

It’s finally happened.  The 1990s are back.  I always thought it would feel strange to see kids wearing styles that I wore and listening to the songs that I listened to on my Walkman while rollerblading and wearing at least one piece of flannel clothing.  It does.  I want to tell them they are doing it wrong.  I want to tell them to lose the smart phone and get a pager, or at least a Nokia so they can play snake.

Everyone remembers the early part of the decade was full of grunge and angst, the end bubbled over with boy bands and somewhere in the middle gangsta rap moved into the ‘burbs.  But there is so much more that will likely not surface to the youth of today.  There’s plenty of great music that was not incredibly popular, yes, but there is so much terrible, bizarre, and just plain strange music from the decade that you really have to hunt to find.  There are those songs we heard a few times, but never made it into a place where they will resurface to the masses.  Let’s look at those songs today.

7. North, East, South, West- Rick Wes

The song is cheesy, yes.  But the way in which he is clearly using the guitar as a dance partner and has no idea how to use it is why I chose this tune from 1990.  And I just love the clothes the back up singers/dancers are rockin’.

6.Mr. Personality- Gillette

I absolutely loathed this song, and pretty much all of this album.  I didn’t enjoy that the entire time I was listening to any of her music I wanted to hit her.  I’m not a violent person.  Looking back I find it hilarious that this was played ALL.THE.TIME.  (For a few short months, anyhow.)

5. New Age Girl- Dead Eye Dick

Chances are, you’ve heard this song.  But have you seen the video.  It’s not weird in a creepy or even creative sort of way, but it is weird.  What’s with the pumpkin heads when all I want to see this amazing girl your singing about?  This band also seems to gather every 1990’s grunge video cliche and use them right here.

4. Right Kind of Love- Jeremy Jordan

When I watch this video I feel like I am watching the high school kids in my neighborhood when I was 12 or 13.  I’m guessing my peers were not as polished, with every hair gelled just so, but the clothes and the sounds and the rebellious boys with not one but TWO little hoops hanging out of their ears…  My favorite part is just after 2:40 when the two love birds walk up to each other and drop their oversize coats off their shoulders to reveal their stunningly irresistible bodies.

3. Eiffel 65- Blue

How did I miss this?  I heard this song a million times and I never heard the intro-or saw the video.  I actually like it now.  Blue space creatures, bendy TVs, it’s all there.

2. The Bum Bum Song- Tom Green

What happened to this guy?  Last I know Drew Barrymore divorced him and…I don’t know.  But I did watch his show.  I remember he said made this song to prove that MTV would play anything.  And they did.

1. Losing You-Jan Terri

I have no idea what just happened.

There’s so much more I didn’t post ’cause I think we should do this again.  Until then happy Tuesday and happy anniversary to my parents tomorrow who have been married for 73 years!   No wait, typo, 37 years 🙂

The other day I ranted and raved about how far out the season of autumn is.  And it is.  But as POison says, every rose has it’s thorn.  Fall’s thorn is bugs.  Here in the country, we have bazillions of them.  Spiders are a really scarey problem, especially the black widows.  I cannot turn on anything with lights, such as the TV, my phone, or computer without moths freaking out at the chance to park their annoying butts on them.  And I am bulking up my shoulder muscle with my heavy duty fly swatter.  But also, we have fruit flies.

IN high school, I was in an AP science class called genetics.  We bred fruit flies.  We gassed them daily to study their eye color and wing structure.  But we never killed them.   With all this produce in the house from the garden, fruit flies are feasting and multiplying at a rediculous rate and I no longer have a desire to study the buggers.  Thankfully, yesterday, my fantastic neighbor shared with me a method of murdering fruit flies by the thousands.   I’m not kidding.  And it is SOOO easy.

Fruit Fly Massacre Ingredients:

One glass jar (Mayonnaise or spaghetti sauce sized)

Apple Cider Vinegar

Dish Soap

Sheet of Paper (I finally found a use for the Wal-Mart ad in the Sunday paper!)

Pour a couple inches of the apple cider vinegar into the bottom of the jar along with a couple squirts of dish soap.  Take the paper and make a funnel leading to the bottom of the jar.

Easy, huh?  Want to see dead bugs?

So THANK YOU neighbor of mine for showing me how to murder fruit flies.  And if anyone knows how to terminate large amounts of black widows, let me know 😉how to kill fruit flies how to kill fruit flies how to kill fruit flies how to kill fruit flies how to kill fruit flies how to kill fruit flies

It’s back!  It’s the school year!   It’s time for pumpkins and orange leaves and new jeans and strict bed times.  I’ve been absent for some time, mostly due to employment, but now I am going to take a genuine interest in writing blogs, as well as catching up on reading all the ones I have been missing.

The Max is in 5th grade.  He has decided he now requires combed hair and cool clothes.  Let’s take a look at where we were five years ago:

And this is the first day of school this year:

I guess I should have something next to him to show how he’s grown, like I did with my iPhone and the chili pepper in my garden.

I didn’t want to bend it, but that sucker’s a foot long and still growing!  We finally learned how to grow peppers, which is great because now I have thirty jars of home made salsa.

Our garden was pretty spectacular this year.  I was not round and pregnant, so I was able to put in a lot more hours.  We are in the process of harvesting hundreds (maybe thousands?) of pounds of produce to store for the year.  Our most giving crop has been the zucchini and summer squash.  I already have enough in the freezer to last two years and the darn stuff keeps coming.

Here’s my iPhone next to a pile that we are going to feed to the animals.  During the winter months, the chickens will lay if the are kept warm with a heat lamp.  But if they get fresh vegetation, the yolks are much darker (and tastier).

I won’t bore you with more photos of vegetables.  But it’s here.  My candles are burning, my oven is baking, and my TV plays football several times a week.  It’s fall!