Poco Mountain Girl

It’s been a while since I’ve shown my bloggy face in these parts, but we’re alive and well and loving our lengthy fall season. We’ve been seeing lots of moose strolling nonchalantly around, as if they belong here in the mountains or something.  David sighted this cute and cuddly bull moose (and got this awesome shot) Sunday morning after he took Caleb to work, and also spotted a cow a few days earlier.

Cash and I got our own moose fix when we dropped Zia off at school last week.  As we pulled out of the parking lot, a bull with a huge rack came lumbering along the road beside a line of parents in their cars.  The moose around here look so comical juxtaposed with civilization, as if they’ve been Photoshopped into the scene, and they don’t even seem to notice the humans at all.

Zia finished her 4-week dance class at school and had a recital Thursday evening.  It incorporated jazz, ballet, and hip-hop. The hip-hop was very funny, and the teacher was really energetic and good-natured, considering she is new to the mountains (and lack of oxygen) and very pregnant.

(Zia is in the middle in black.)

Sunday morning brought a white blanket to our land.  When we stepped outside, we realized it wasn’t snow (yayayyayay!!!) but hail.  A sigh of relief passed through us–winter hasn’t poked its hoary head out yet.  Compared to last year’s summer snow, we are having a very long, very awesome fall.  Someone from down below just complained to me about “a stretch of 90 degree days in September? I’m tired of sweating all day at work!”  My, what a terrible problem.

Our new counter tops are being installed Friday.  I am really excited about launching these motley slate-blue-rust laminate counters out the door.  Not that I’m complaining–they’ve been great–but I’m just really psyched about the black and white quartz and granite coming in, along with that nice big copper sink that’s been patiently waiting in the basement.

David has been working in the kitchen over the past weeks, pulling out the stove and cabinets to form a bigger island for the stove, tearing off trim and repainting exposed areas. I whittled the edges of a new 1″ x 4″ trim for the bathroom door to take the place of the old trim piece that had been notched to fit around the counter top.

I’m reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron again (and this time I’ll finish it ) and I just finished Letters to a Young Artist by the same author, a practical instruction manual for artists (in the form of personal letters from an old codger of an artist to a flippant young one) that is profound and beautifully simple all at once–such a good read.

Right now I’ve got two pumpkins in the oven–destined to become pie–a vanilla-clove candle burning in the kitchen, and the sun coming over the mountains in front of me.  My boy is calling me to help build his marble run, so I’d better go.

Hope you’re loving your fall as much as I’m loving mine.

Here is the latest work in my shop–a commissioned order for someone who wanted a bear totem to resemble this one.  I’ve loved making it over the past week and half, and now I’m about to send it out into the world.  Goodbye, little bear.

We’ve been having such a nice laid-back swing into fall. David had a week off work, and we spent time at the creek this weekend. Poor Caleb has a job now (actually it’s great for him) and is working weekends. We try not to have too much fun without him.

Cash and I have continued with our decluttering streak. This is the contents of the kids’ activity cabinet spread out on the dining room table. Needless to say, the cabinet has been a disaster for quite a while, but we pared down the contents nicely, and filled the recycle bin to overflowing.

Cash pulled this coloring book out of the pile. “Oh,” he said tenderly, “This is just how I looked when I was little.”

He has caught the decluttering bug, too. He randomly comes up to me and asks if we can “ordanize” something together. He ran off with a shoe box the other day and later I found his marble run blocks perfectly arranged inside, and the smaller parts divided up in his blue treasure chest. Two pieces didn’t fit the way he wanted, and he said we should throw them away, but I rescued them, hah.  I’m not that “ordanized.”

Zia and I made a plan to hit up some fall festivals, and today we all went to a ciderfest–all of us, that is, but Caleb, boo-hoo.  Besides a hand-cranked cider press, it featured free pony rides, a small bouncy house, a working blacksmith, and several booths, including face painting and balloons–where of course we squandered most of our money.

As we were leaving, Cash spotted this truck. “That’s what I want for my birthday!” he gasped.

After the festival, we dropped Zia off for her very first sleepover at a friend’s birthday party. They have llamas, a pregnant donkey, a trampoline, and a zip line.

I was itching to try the zip line. Cash thought he would try it, too, until he climbed the tree stump to grab it and got a sudden reality check of how high he was, LOL–three feet off the ground. He couldn’t get down fast enough.

I did it instead. I really want my own zip line now.

Last I saw Zia she was screaming like a banshee and racing around the llamas with a crowd of little girls.  I doubt she’ll get any sleep, but I think it’ll be worth it.  It is a little quiet back at the house, though.

The aspens are in full color now, and the days swing from beating-down sunshine to splashes of crisp coldness. As much as we like going down to the valley and out to festivals (and zip-lining), my favorite time is always coming home. I love this time of year in the mountains, and I want to soak it up, breathe it in, and bask in it–and hope snow is a looooong time in coming.

Once upon a time there was an underwater castle. It had many mermaids living in it. They were happy there, but sometimes they were not. Sometimes there were underwater storms and underwater stampedes of sea animals! Lots of mermaids and mermen were hurt. Some even died. Soon they had to move. The place was not nearly as nice as the last place with stampedes of sea animals.

By Zia

I finished these two books last week. I have to say, they gave me a kick in the you-know-what. Even before reading them, though, I was somehow bitten by the decluttering bug.  I found these books at my local libraries, and they helped me on my way and offered some direction in my rabid cleaning frenzy.

The Joy of Less by Francine Jay is a thorough, room-by-room instructive by a minimalist. She has a fairly standard outlook on decluttering–little tips like getting rid of one thing a day, etc.  The book is inspiring, but also repetitive, and for me, it got a little old by the end. But if you like step-by-step instructions as you clean and organize, I could see this book being very helpful.

I really loved The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.  It is thought provoking and oh-so very Japanese. The author is interesting and I like her tone–steady and sensible–unlike The Joy of Less, where virtually every paragraph includes an exclamation mark. (I have a pet peeve with too many excited exclamation marks.)

I have to be truthful about The Life-Changing Magic and say some of the author’s views left me questioning her rational integrity. I mean, she talks to her house, to her clothes, to all her possessions–greeting them, thanking them, releasing them to a happy life as she passes them on to someone else. It’s a little strange, even for me. But it also made the book more interesting.

Kondo has a very positive, if somewhat ruthless, view of decluttering.  Instead of focusing on what to get rid of, she looks for what to keep–only those things, she says, that give you a “spark of joy.”

She also talks about the “magic” that happens when you declutter the right way, which should be done in one fell swoop–not a thing a day, not a room here or there, but a “tidying marathon”  (she says it usually takes around six months). She talks about the changes in your mindset when your cluttered house quickly becomes spacious, open, and clear even in the hidden places–a change, she says, that makes the difference in your thinking that allows your house to stay clean ever after, rather than eventually becoming cluttered again.  Which I know sounds a little ridiculous, but hey, I’m willing to give it a try.

And so far, it might actually be working for us. I have the main floor of our house about finished–living room, kitchen, laundry room, coat closet.  I’m talking every every book and magazine examined for its worth (and several boxes donated to the library), every kitchen drawer, cabinet, and cupboard pared down to minimum, every extra cup measure and spatula culled, all the expired non-perishables thrown away (that I didn’t think I had, LOL), my old Vitamix finally listed and sold (in a day!) and so on. Old jars I was saving for years, because you know–I might need them someday. We took boxes and boxes of stuff out the door to Goodwill and the trash–stuff I doubt we will ever miss.

It’s been really fun, and of course a lot of work. I love the way our house feels–even though most of it was “organized” and tucked away, getting rid of all that really makes a difference.  So much done, and still a lot more to go.