Birthday Eggstravaganza

My mom-in-law's birthday is on April 8th, Trin's birthday is on the 11th, my dad's is on the 13th, and my dad-in-law's is on the 30th. So April is basically Christmastime, Round 2. Because of all these April birthdays, it's not uncommon for us to have a birthday land on Easter. 

In this case, Trin's birthday fell yesterday, the day before Easter. Celebrating was a little trickier this year due to the lockdown, and the fact that we were snowed in until yesterday morning so unable to get food/cake until an hour before her celebration. We decided to have a small birthday get-together with our Sheltering-In buddies (aka: My sister's family). My parents decided to come too, but vowed to maintain their social distance. This worked out really well for the first hour or so until they got buzzed and all caution flew out the window.

All in all Trin's birthday was a blast. I mean, a literal blast. In addition to playing Exploding Kittens, my brother in-law Jeremy was itching to try out a small, real-life cannon he had built that week, so we fired it once or twice.

Okay, it was six times. (Maybe seven). But that was only because Jeremy wasn't satisfied with the loudness of the blast. Apparently it wasn't boomy enough. So the boys kept adding more gun powder and more compression. More compression = dish towels and hamburger buns, by the way. The final time we fired the cannon, it was ear-splitting--the kind of noise that slams against your chest and rattles your inner core. We all went running and shrieking into the house, yelling "We are soooo busted!" totally convinced that the sheriff would be pulling up any second.

We dubbed it "Trinity's Birthday Boom." Good times.

That night we came home for Round 2 of Trin's birthday with Teri and Carey. Teri made an amazing chocolate cake from scratch topped with beautiful amethyst gemstones carved from sugar. She needs to be on one of those baking shows on Food Network. Anyway, they both did a great job of social distancing in the beginning too...even keeping their face masks on. But as the evening progressed, everyone got a little more comfortable--or less conscientious, and the masks came off. Today, as we celebrated Easter, social distancing sort of went out the window. We did our Easter Eggstravaganza, which is basically a tournament of egg-games, including the Egg Roll Off, Egg Drop, Egg Derby, and Egg Shoot Off. It was so much fun. Teri obliterated us. She won last year too, so that's two years in a row now that she gets to flaunt the ever-coveted Easter Eggstravaganza trophy.

(Yeah, I hear it. We're ridiculous).

After the egg tournament, we had our normal Easter egg hunt. The snow afforded a lot more hiding places and as I type this we are still missing six eggs.

Merry--er--Happy Easter!

We Wish You a Merry Power Outage

This is my third winter here in Twin Peaks, and there are three big things I've learned:

1. The first two winters were a joke.
2. You need a generator to live up here.
3. Or...you must enjoy reenacting primordial days of lighting candles and stoking fires for warmth to live up here.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, we got hammered with snow, and our mountain lost power for four days. This week, we got hammered with more snow and lost power for two more days.

Our local tavern, the Bearclaw, is usually dead in the middle of the day. But here it was yesterday afternoon, day two of the outage:

The Bearclaw doesn't have some big awesome generator, but they do have a small one in which they're able to plug in a few things...enough to entice mountain folks to seek refuge there.

That being said, we actually have a generator. Our property came with one, and it's amazing. It runs on natural gas and turns on automatically during an outage, powering everything on our property. So we pretty much live like kings during a power outage (though we do look like assholes when our Christmas lights are blazing National-Lampoon-style against the pitch-black canvas of our street). The problem is during outages we have no WiFi, and spotty cell service at best, which is why we went to the Bearclaw. Boredom of course, but more than that, the community up here relies on each other for information during storms--we have what we call "Rim pages" on Facebook for this very reason--so you feel cut-off from everyone when you have no WiFi, and start craving interactions with others going through similar issues.

I have to admit, the Bearclaw yesterday was spirit-lifting. The atmosphere was warm and festive, with all of these bedraggled mountain peeps gathered together, making the best of the situation.

Which makes me realize there are three kinds of people who live in the mountains:

1. The ones who complain about everything.
2. The ones who get annoyed by the ones complaining about everything. (i.e. "Suck it up buttercup. You chose to live here.")
3. The ones who go to the bar and have a beer.

I've decided to be person #3. 

Here's a quick video of our last snow: Let it Snow

Here's Mr. Lump, our lazy snowman (built into the hillside by Trin and Elijah so he can look out over the street).

And here are the icicles growing from our roof. 

Anyone up for a good ole' throwback game of Frogger? You get to be the frog, but instead of dodging cars, you're dodging icy spears that could very well impale you. Fun for the whole family!

Hope your Christmas was wonderful and you have an amazing 2020.

Summer in the Hills

I doubt I'll be discussing summer, or hills. I just wanted a pretty post title.

Writing update. Here it is: Editing sucks and I quit.

Except for I'm not really quitting. But...arghhh. Black Lilies was finished at 102K. I've been going through and making cuts, and now I'm at 109K. See the problem? Any more cuts and I'm going to end up with something the size of Roots.

Change of subject. Hey, it just occurred to me that I live in the mountains (hills) and it's summer, so maybe I can make that post title work after all.

Summer. Summmeeeeeer.

Okay, I've been on summer break for a little over a week. It's been amazing with two little specks of not-amazing. The not-amazing specks include: 1) Said-editing issues above, and 2) Being hammered with a cold since the first day of break. Nothing that a little Ibuprofen can't help with, but it's still a bummer launching into summer as a stuffy ball of flem.

Aside from that, summer is wonderful so far! The weather has been gorgeous so we pretty much live outside, and every day is full of quaint little activities that make me feel like I'm living in a different era. Like, Trinity and I were invited to this sweet old lady's house yesterday for tea. Tea! Her name is Evelyn, and we met her at church. Her house is adorable; it looks like a little mountain cottage surrounded by a half acre of woods and lush vegetation. Tea time at Evelyn's is a legit event, complete with porcelain teapot, fancy cups/saucers, sugar and creamer dishes, and little cookies/pastries. When we finally left (after two hours), there was a white tailed deer chilling out in Evelyn's front yard. I mean, come on. It was too perfect. Pretty sure she planted that deer there just to make me swoon.

On Saturday (the day before tea) Teri and I, along with Elijah and Caleb (Trinity's boyfriend), walked to Alpine Camp to relax with some blended iced coffee and to play games. Afterwards, we rejoined the rest of our gang to decorate paper lanterns.

Trinity, Caleb, and Elijah coloring their lanterns

Later that night we all went to the Water Lantern Festival. This is our second year attending, and the releasing of the lanterns is breathtaking in person. They play beautiful music during the release, and it echoes across the lake. It's truly one of those "Damn I'm happy to be here on planet Earth" kind of moments.

 Trinity and Me

 Release of the Lanterns (ours are the colorful ones)

We also attended our town's annual Strawberry Festival earlier this week, where we enjoyed strawberry shortcake and freshly squeezed strawberry lemonade while taking in all of the different games and booths. I know, right? I can't even tell you if this is more or less quaint/cheesy than teatime at Evelyn's.

Besides all that, I've spent my days sprucing up the yard, reading the Little House on the Prairie series (I'm on a pioneer book kick right now--probably because my town has things like Strawberry Festivals and Evelyns inviting you over for tea), taking walks to the creek, playing Beat Saber with Elijah, and yelling at my manuscript.

I hope your summer is off to a good start. And maybe more 21st century than mine.

Happy New Year 2019

It's 2019! I want that year to sound like something special, but it really sounds so ordinary, no different than 2018, or 2017....one of those years that just blends. I think 2020 will feel more monumental. 

But still, we had a great new year. Just like we did last year, we went to a party at our local bowling alley. I guess that doesn't sound too exciting, but it's such a blast. There's unlimited food, drinks, chocolate fountain, bowling, and a DJ playing awesome music. Between friends and neighbors, Shannon ended up booking four lanes for all of us--21 people total. Our first game or two of bowling was taken more seriously, but toward 1:00 a.m., our bowling devolved to singing and dancing and gutter balls and total ridiculousness. Pretty sure the human body wasn't designed to bowl for more than two hours.

My pictures came out dark and blurry, so here are a few of Shan's:

 Shan & Jeremy (he's such a goofball!)

Me and Cass (my awesome niece), with Elijah & Dylan sort of in there too.

Trinity face-painting her boyfriend, Caleb

 Me, like, "Will you put the damn camera away?"

 Trinity & Caleb (they are so darn cute)

I have more but I don't want to violate friends'/neighbors' privacy by posting them. 

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Roasting Snowmen & Finding Pickles

This year was my favorite Christmas. But take that proclamation with a grain of salt because in the same way my favorite song in the whole wide world changes weekly, I always think this Christmas is the best.

But this one really was the best! Because we got a white Christmas. Growing up in the desert, snow on any day feels like a holiday. But snow on Christmas...holy crap. It feels like a miracle. I guess now that we live in the mountains, we can expect more white Christmases in the future. But based on the excited buzz from all the other mountain residents, I can tell snow on Christmas day is pretty rare, even for up here. So yeah, I might have been a little weepy about it. :P

Christmas was great in other ways too, besides the snow. Clint's parents spent the night on Christmas Eve. We did our normal pajama party with breakfast for dinner. But this year we played a new hilarious 'Build a Snowman' game with giant marshmallows. The roll of your dice determines which part you add to your snowman--eye, buttons, arm, etc. Clint kept putting body parts that didn't belong (I'll let you use your imagination on that one). Here's my guy, all adorable and un-obscene:

Later, when I won the game, in a show of good sportsmanship, Clint staked his snowman and roasted him in our fireplace. Then he ate him.

*Warning: The following images might be too graphic for younger viewers.

Okay, I might have had a bite of the fella too.  

We also played the most cutthroat gift-exchange game ever, one that makes the traditional White Elephant gift exchange seem polite. It would take too long to explain the rules here, but it was savage. And of course, as we do every year, we played 'Find the Pickle'. Here's some of us (our booties at least) searching for it.

Even George the dog had his nose in the tree, looking for that allusive pickle. Clint finally found it and won a frying pan.

Oh, and in the true tradition of Christmas, the boys ended up having a light saber battle on the patio.

On Christmas morning we woke up to snow! Oh yeah, I mentioned that already, didn't I. After oohing and ahhing over it, we ate breakfast with Teri and Carey and then opened up presents. Clint, the gift ninja, struck again. He built for me--from scratch--this hanging light fixture:

It's larger, prettier, and more rustic in person. I had NO idea I was getting this for Christmas, which Clint found amusing because apparently he and Elijah created quite a ruckus in the garage when they were whipping the wood beam with chains in order to distress it. (I can only imagine what our neighbors thought was going on).

Later that morning, we drove to my sister's house for Christmas with my side of the family, having to bulldoze our way through two unplowed roads. I'd like to say it was a chore, but we didn't care. Because...snow!

I was going to write more here about Christmas at my sis's, but I'm starting to lose steam. So I'll just sum it up by saying Shan's house was the usual craziness, with tons of delicious food, an entire fortress of presents, and lots of merriment.

That last part sounds cheesy, but it's allowed since this is a post about Christmas.

Bike Riding in Santa's Village

I have my second New Year's resolution! It's to go here at least once a month:

This is Santa's Village, and it's only ten minutes from my house. It's been around since I was a kid, but ironically my first time coming here wasn't until I was an adult. Specifically, last weekend. As you can see, it's pretty adorable and magical. My sis and I spent most of our time ice-skating and drinking the most delicious hot cider (spiked with Maker's Mark since I had a nasty cold and whiskey is my DayQuil). The kids meanwhile ran around climbing rock walls and doing who knows what else.

You might be thinking I've lost my mind wanting to come here once a month in 2019. Adorable and magical is good and all, but why the heck would I want to visit a place replicating the North Pole in, say, July? But believe it or not, this place is actually open all year long, and that's because in summer the emphasis is on THIS:

Skypark! It's a bike park at Santa's Village with awesome trails for all levels of riders, ranging from beginning to expert. They have bikes to rent, or you can bring your own. Clint and I purchased mountain bikes last year and have been looking for some awesome trails around here, and I dare say it doesn't get better than this. The best part of it is the trails dump you out right into the village. Specifically, the bar (a very cute and quaint cottagy-looking bar). Which means I can finish my bike ride with a nice cold beer or refreshing margarita! 

This is heaven to me, guys.

Oh, the village also has rock climbing for the kids, zip-lining, and a rollerskating rink (that switches to ice-skating in winter). So we'll have all sorts of entertainment.

So here goes:

New Year's Resolution #2: 

I will get my lazy butt to Skypark once a month to enjoy fun, outdoorsy stuff with the fam. 

It seems weird that I have to make something fun into a resolution, but I kinda have to. This past year or so I've become a huge home-body. I'm exhausted from working all week so the temptation to spend my weekends as a hermit is hard to resist. 

To ensure I meet this resolution, Clint and I purchased our season passes last night. I can't wait for warmer weather! But cold weather is good too...that just means more ice-skating and spiked cider. 

Florida, Writing Lair, & Last 200 Words

It's hard to pause during summer to write about stuff, but I'll squeeze in some quick updates:

Florida: I was in Orlando, Florida last week for a conference. Clint brought the kids and we stayed in the Disney Coronado. They did all the touristy stuff while I did conferency stuff. Not an ideal vacation for me (insert pitiful woe-is-me music here), but I still did a lot of bonding with my coworkers, ate some good food, drank some great drinks, and attended at least a few sessions that reinvigorated me for the upcoming school year. Oh, and I got to go to Gatorland (and feed baby alligators!).



New Writing Lair: Aside from a few finishing touches like window trim and attic-access, my art/writing studio is finished! I have a little stereo in there now for music, cabinets with all of my drawing/painting supplies, my lounge area if I want to relax between writing sprints, my "fireplace" for cooler evenings...I even stocked it with wine for when I get writer's block (one bottle is leaning toward empty already). It's a good thing this space isn't equipped with a toilet and a fridge because at this point my belly and my bladder are the only two entities that can convince me to leave.

Driving Test: Trinity finally overcame her driving-anxiety and got her license today. It was her first time taking the test and you're allowed to miss fifteen points. She only missed one! I say this with excitement because back in the day I missed... well, let's just say a few more than one. ;)

I'm thinking this is enough updates for tonight? Here's the last 200 words for Black Lilies, chapter four. If it sounds familiar, it's because I actually posted this one in the past for reasons I can no longer remember. Anyway, it'll be the only 'last 200 words' that repeats.

 "I’ll tell you my name as soon as you tell me who you are, and what’s going on.” I crossed my arms and stepped back in a show of defiance. The assignment that was crumpled in my hand fell over my fingertips onto the linoleum floor. Moving quickly, I reached down to pick it up.
 “I’ve seen this stationery before” he said, leaning forward to look at my paper.
 “It’s not stationery, it’s just my assignment. It’s what I’m supposed to be working on right now, but I’ll get an ‘F’ now because of your impromptu performance of the Star Spangled Banner.”

 He squinted his eyes, examining it closer. “Let me see that.”

 Why would he want my paper? There was barely anything written on it. I shrugged. “Here.”

 I tried to hand it to him, but he didn’t move to take it. Instead, he tilted his head, as if trying to get a better view. He mouth gaped open before he quickly snapped it shut. His body seemed to freeze. “I know this writing.” He jerked back, his fists clenched at his side. “Tell me your name, clever girl.”

 I stood silent.

 “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re Aviva.”

 My mouth fell open, and he disappeared.

(206 words)

My Happy Place

I can't believe I'm posting this. It's still so surreal to me.

I'm moving! It has been my dream for years now to live in the mountains. Lucky for me this has been a shared dream; Clint has always wanted this too. We've done things in these last few years to make our lives in the desert more tolerable, like upgrading the interior of our home, putting in the pool, and so on, but in the end it all feels like putting lipstick on a pig. No matter how pretty we make this place, we still live in the desert, with scorching temperatures and blowing dust and people who simply don't take pride in their community. 

Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets over the work we've put into our house. The pool especially, because it has given us a reprieve from the oppressive desert heat for three summers now, and it's going to be a huge selling feature for our house. Likewise everything else we've added will increase our home's value. And honestly, we've had happy lives here. I grew up in the desert and it will always feel like home to me. But, for lack of a less corny way of saying it, my heart is happiest in the forest. I can't even describe the level of calm I feel when I'm nestled into trees. It's weird, right?...the different settings that bring serenity to different people? Your happy place might be the beach, the calming waves of the ocean. Or maybe it's open pastures...a rambling farm house with wide green spaces reaching for the horizon. In the same way, mine is the mountains, and no matter how much work I put into my current home, I just can't shake the desire for towering trees and fresh piney fragrances. So Clint and I decided to finally get serious about looking for a property up there (other factors played into this decision, but I'll just leave it at this for now). We ended up spending the first half of summer looking at land--even putting an offer on one parcel--thinking we'd build a home. But it turns out that the cost to build a home in the mountains is so astronomical that we'd be upside-down on our mortgage before we even moved into our new home. I always thought building a house was cheaper than buying, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

So after spending a month haggling and dreaming, we decided we just couldn't do it. This brought us to option #2, purchasing an already existing home. The tricky part of this plan is that mountain homes are...well, downright weird. Most are three stories with very compartmentalized rooms and bizarre floor plans. For example, one house we walked into had a front door that went straight into the kitchen. There was one other front door entrance on the lower level that went through the master bedroom. So for guests, I'd have a choice: Do I want them to see my dirty dishes or my dirty underwear? (Not that mine are dirty, of course, because anything coming out of me is pure sugar and sunshine). Hmmm. *scratches head*. Another house was loaded with mysterious stairs going into dark places with lots of crevices and crannies...it was like the Winchester House spawned an evil little lovechild. Some of the more "normal" floor plans in the mountains feature split levels, where you walk into a little platform and have to immediately decide whether you're going upstairs or down. I can't even entertain houses like this. It's like getting ready to enter an elevator and being greeted with, well, half the elevator. (I am the analogy queen!). 

No one is at fault for these bizarre floor plans, it's just that you're dealing with homes that are either built into the mountain or hanging off a cliff, so home-builders are forced to get super creative with their floor plans and utilize every bit of space they have available. And honestly, it turns out that looking at quirky mountain homes is a ton of fun. House hunting in the desert is pretty boring. "Here's another ranch...yep, another track home...oh look at that, another ranch...). But in the mountains, you never know what to expect when you walk through the front door. The exclamations from my kids ranged anywhere from "There's for sure a dead body buried over here" to "I call dibs on that dark basement room from the pits of hell!" (May have tweaked their wording a little). Needless to say, I made my peace with the fact that there was no way we were going to get a "normal" home. So our goal was simply to find as close to normal as possible. 

Enter: This house. It was love at first sight.

Front patio

Side-view of house

Street-view - One driveway goes to the carport, the other to the garage

Street view #2

Carport

Side-view of garage and studio apartment

My future writing lair and art studio! Or as Clint calls it, my she-shed.

Two car garage (rare in the mountains) with studio apartment above.
Apartment has one bedroom, a kitchenette, and a bathroom.

So there you have it. I'm sure I'll be posting more in the coming weeks, if I have time to breathe. Everything is happening so fast. Clint and I will be scrambling this month to get our current house cleaned out, repairs made, etc., so we can put it on the market. I guess I'm supposed to be packing too, but I just can't. While I have no problem imagining moving into the new house, I can't picture myself moving out of this house. So I need to wait a little longer for all of this to sink in before I can get my butt packing.