Busy Week...

I am happy to say that this week has flown by in a flurry of fun activity!

John is on day 8 of hopefully 17 days in a row of work. He worked his normal 3 - 13 hour days, and then worked 4 - 7 to 8 hour days, and today starts his 3 - 13's again. Then he hopes to work 4 more 7-8 hour days followed by... yep, 3 -13's again! Then he plans to take 4 days off. I hope he survives! But he's kind of crazy that way. John gets home around noon on the "short" work days, so he's also managed to pack in maximum fun. In the form of... huckleberry picking! Everyone on this property has become obsessed with picking those little tiny berries. I opted to stay home on their first outing, but everyone came home so excited with their bounty, that they dragged me out with them the next day. And the next day. I didn't really want to go, but I must admit that it was really fun. And I happen to be rather good at picking huckleberries. Who knew! :-) I've decided that there must be some sort of personality profile that could be done based on how people pick huckleberries. I had less chance to observe Mike, Reni and Loretta, but noticed that they would pick a nice spot and set up. Then steadily pick away until they had exhausted the offerings on those plants. John was cracking me up! He would pick one berry and oooohhh and ahhhhh over the beauty of that one little berry. And he ate as much as he put in his bucket. John had exactly three purple fingers at the end of the day. (Ethan just followed his daddy around, close on John's heels, whacked things with his stick and climbed every available rock.) John also got distracted by the scenery - he would go off with Ethan and climb a ridge to see what there was to see. My style of picking is more what I would call "the ADD picker." I would find a bush laden with berries and start stripping it as fast as both hands could go! (Yes, I had 10 purple stained fingers at the end of the day!) But before I would finish with that plant, another would catch my eye - one with bigger and better berries. So I was off. I don't know that I ever finished picking one whole plant at a time, and I could rarely sit in one place for very long before I would catch sight of another plant. As for the beautiful views from that mountain... what views? All I saw were berries. I have taken some flack for all of the debris in my buckets (particularly from John and La, who apparently can manage to keep their buckets full of only berries). I smugly informed them that they would be thanking me come December when they were still enjoying all of the huckleberries. John's response? "Yes, and then we will thank Reni for all the time she spent cleaning the debris out of your bucket!" Well! So I did go back for more picking yesterday. Which is where I realized that in berry picking, along with everything else that I try to do in life, I have a real problem with repetition. (I mean, seriously, if I clean my house once, that should be it. For life. Been there. Done that. Moving on.) Thus begins, and ends my huckleberry picking career. I'll probably be ready to do it again next year. But today, Loretta and Reni are back at it. They took Ethan with them. Yay! So that leads me to my next project - the one that I plan to get into once I'm done writing this!

This past week when John was at work, I had a brilliant idea. Poor guy. When he got home, there was a ladder in the living room, the rug was rolled back, and I was painting gigantic leaves all over the walls. Well, if nothing else, John can't say that life at home is predictable! Fast forward 4 or 5 days... the rug is still rolled up, and the TV is pulled away from the wall and draped in a sheet (because that wall needed some leaves too!) and the ladder is still in the middle of the living room. Now see, this is why I didn't want to pick huckleberries. Oh well. It gives me a nice project today. I can't even begin to tell you how freeing it is to walk up to a blank wall and start painting things on it! It's just... exciting... exhilarating... and so very fun. Today when John gets home from work, he should find a beautiful new living room, a clean house (well, neat anyway), and dinner on the table! That's my plan, and I'm sticking to it. (I did, after all, resist another afternoon of berry picking!)

And then there's my flower garden! It's not so happy with me right now. I told you I have a black thumb. I have seriously been trying. (Although I have been wondering what got into me to think that I should even try such a thing. I have only just now started feeling comfortable with the feeding and watering of small children. What makes me think that I can also take on flowers? I must be mad!) First the pretty little plants went into shock, then it's been tricky trying to figure out when they need water... Yesterday my poor little flowers were so sad. I knew that they needed water, but our electricity went out all day, which meant NO WATER. By the time the power came back on in the evening, the poor babies were gasping and slumping. It was awful. They look much better today, and I'm hopeful that all but one will make it. I plan to keep babying the one along and see what I can do. But... we shall see...

So, that's my week. Pretty eventful for us! Thanks for keeping up with our silly little lives.