I ate a personal sized watermelon

Last weekend we went and picked up some fruit and vegies from a local produce stand thing. They had these tiny little watermelons that are like a personal sized watermellon. It’s roughly the size of a cantaloupe. So after a small dinner tonight I cut off one end of the watermelon and dug into it with a spoon. I have to say, it’s a very convenient way to eat a watermelon. I ended up with a giant watermelon cup kind of thing. I think all watermelons should come in this size.

The only thing I wish I could get here (in terms of watermelon) is an orange watermelon.

I haven’t had one of these since I was very young but I have a memory of them being very sweet and tasty. Jess had never even heard of an orange watermelon when I mentioned it to her. I’m hoping we can find one when we go to Arkansas at the end of the month.

Who’d have thought I’d ever have a post about watermelon? When I think of watermelon I can’t help but think of Ralphie May’s comedy routine that mentions watermelong gum. Honestly I don’t know why watermelon makes me think of this bit… I mean, he just mentions watermelon gum in passing but when I think watermelon, I think cuba divin’. Here, watch…

Cracks me up.

Anyway, I’ve had a busy week. Boss guy has been on vacation so I’ve been running things. It’s gone super smoothly which is nice. I’ve also written both editorials for the week. They are HERE and HERE. My parents could use a little reading of the second one as they keep sending me politically themed emails disparaging one of the Presidential candidates with stuff that’s totally false… That’s ok though, I still love them.

Sick kitten

We’ve had a sick little kitten the past few days. AJ spent Saturday throwing up every few hours and sleeping. It was rough on us, his parents. We called the vet and they said that if he keeps throwing up we’d have to take him in. Fortunately he stopped barfing. He was still exhausted though. He’s been slowly getting better and today he was close to back to normal but he’s still pretty worn out.

He’s also graduated to not being locked up in the office at night. Since he’s been sick it hasn’t been much of a problem yet. Maybe he’ll get into a routine of sleeping at night and not keeping us up all night. It’s a big step cause we’ve been keeping him in a room away from us so we’d be able to sleep through the night. So far Aspen the other cat has been the only difficulty. She’s not a huge fan of AJ’s yet.

Personally, I’m just glad little AJ is feeling better. I was worried about the little guy because he was so exhausted/lifeless when he was sick. Now he’s getting back to the little spaz we know and love.

A real vacation this time…

Well I haven’t posted in a while and it’s because I’ve been on a real vacation. No phone calls from work this time and I didn’t stay home. Jess and I headed up to Flathead Lake for a little family get-away with her family. It was awesome. I got photos this time!

We went up the first night to Whitefish Mountain Resort. I didn’t get pictures here. I was too enthralled by the area. Jess and I really liked it and decided we’d put it in the plans to move there in a few years. The area fits us a bit better than where we’re at now. It’s gorgeous, it’s close to skiing and a lake. It’s just awesome. We’ll probably move to the Kalispell area which is half way between the skiing and the lake. Cool little town. Bigger than where we’re at now but not as big as Missoula. Perfect balance.

After that we headed to the lake house with Jess’ fam. The first day we got there and just sort of settled in. Again, no pictures cause I was trying to relax and unwind.

The second day we went to the boat races at one end of the lake! It was like NASCAR on water. Seriously. It was loud and crazy. Hot too. But I did manage to get a couple shots this time.

Fun huh? The boats were really fast. No boat crashes so it wasn’t TOTALLY like NASCAR. The races are really quick too. Only like five laps or something so they’re over in a matter of minutes. It was relatively entertaining though.

The next day we spent on the lake in a boat the in-laws rented for the day. It was a lot of fun and we got some video (but no photos). I didn’t take the camera on the boat. The sun kind of got to me that day though and I ended up taking a break in the afternoon. I crashed in the house and didn’t move for a couple hours. There was a lot of water activity for the day. I was looking forward to trying to wakeboard as it’s the only water sport that interests me. Unfortunately, the board we had didn’t have easily adjustable bindings so I didn’t get to give it a shot.

That brings us to the final day. I have lots of photos for this one!

We went to Glacier National Park. It’s AWESOME. Totally beautiful. Unbelievable really. We had no idea it was so big though so we didn’t get to see nearly as much as we wanted to. We’ve already started planning another trip up there in the fall to check it all out again. We figure we need a couple days at least.

Anyway, let’s start with a sweet waterfall…

Pretty huh? And these things were all over the place. I’ve never seen so many waterfalls in one place before. Even Hawaii couldn’t compare. Plus, this was all glacial melt water so it was this crazy aqua blue color. (Except when it was going over the falls, then it was white.

Here’s another one!

Right next to this waterfall was a goat. Actually, he was right behind me when I was taking this photo. He was crazy looking! It was the only wildlife I got to see that I hadn’t seen before.

Cool huh? He’s pretty badass if you ask me. Three horns!

We also hiked in a bit to find this waterfall…

It was way back up in the woods and we had to walk along this raised wooden platform the whole way. It was like half a mile in. Totally cool. It was super pretty and if I could have stayed longer I totally would have.

We couldn’t though so we started our hike back out. We ran across this crazy tree and I made Jess get in it so I could take a picture of her.

She, of course, wouldn’t let me get away without getting in the tree myself. So here’s my photo.

There were also all these little squirrel things all over the place. So I took a photo of one.

And finally, at one of the many stops we made there was this crazy ram sitting out by the little pull-out parking lot. It seriously looked like he was working there. He would walk around, stop, pose, eat something then move to a new spot and start again. Not afraid of anyone. It was unreal.

So then we headed home. There were plenty of other things to talk about but I didn’t get photos of all of them and I need to get to work… but that’s a nice quick overview of what we spent the last several days doing. Fun! I love vacation.

Happy Birthday Jessica!

My lovely wife turned the big 3-0 today. She’s all worried about being old but as I keep telling her, it’s not nearly as bad as it seems. It’s just hard to leave your wild 20’s behind. Not that the past few years have been all that wild. Still though, 30’s aren’t the end of the world. We’ll still do all the fun stuff we did before today.

So happy birthday Jess! Get down with your bad self!

I got Jess a couple cards for her birthday. I’m under orders to not do anything to embarrass her and I’ve lived up to the rules. Last weekend I took her shopping which is something she loves to do but doesn’t get to do nearly enough. So we went out and bought some new stuff for Jess and had a lovely dinner at an Asian place. Jess had a great time and has already worn half of what she bought. Today I took a card from my mom’s play book and took cupcakes to Jess’ work. Mom used to send me to school with cupcakes on my birthday so I’d have friends. So now Jess is sure to have friends! We’ve also ordered a cake from the amazing bakery in town. We’ll pick it up Friday for our weekend family get-away on Flathead Lake.

Happy birthday!!!

So many things, so little time

Sorry I haven’t been updating lately. It’s been super busy here and I’ve been going like crazy. Work has been nuts and I’ve been getting home exhausted.

Jess has a birthday coming up this next week. It’s a big one for her. The big 3-0. She’s freaking out because she thinks it means she’s old. I hit that momentous birthday a while ago and it was difficult I admit, but I haven’t really slowed down any so I guess it’s not that big of a deal. You’re only as old as you think you are and I still feel like I’m mid-20’s. So I’ll be going out later today to pick up some birthday stuff for Jess and making some arrangements for her birthday.

My folks were here last weekend. They came up and took a crazy trip around western Montana and parts of Canada. They just keep going and going and going… they barely slow down which makes it a little hard to keep them entertained in our small town. There really isn’t that much to do other than getting out and hiking and stuff. In terms of fun things to do around town, there just aren’t that many. We have a pretty slow lifestyle here. It was great to get to see them though. I miss my folks living up here and getting to spend some time with them is always great.

My boss/editor has been on vacation the past week. He left me with a ton of work to do and didn’t set me up to get it done easily. It was a pretty frustrating situation. I ended up working quite a bit this week, often working pretty late at night. Poor Jess didn’t see me much this week. I’m going to make it up to her this weekend though. I’ve got one more week of work and then I’ll be on vacation for a few days again. I need the break. The stress has been affecting my appetite (I don’t have one) and I’ve even been getting zits again. Unbelievable. My dream job has turned into a nightmare.

I had a long chat with my publisher about some of the stuff that went on and hopefully things will improve soon. She also gave me the go-ahead for some creative writing for our next special publication. It’s going to be pretty wacky.

I’ve written a couple of the past few editorials but they haven’t been anything special so I haven’t linked to them before now. Here they are. Click HERE and HERE.

The new kitten (AJ) and Aspen still aren’t buddies. The vet said we’re doing the right things and it’s just going to take some time. It can definitely be frustrating. AJ has adapted pretty well though. He’s such a happy kitten and he loves it here. He’s always playing. He’ll just run around the house for no apparent reason and eventually pass out for about an hour. Then he’s off playing again. He’s a total spaz and fun to watch. I just wish my princess (Aspen) would be happier about him being here.

The house is a mess. I’ve got a lot of cleaning to do today. We just haven’t had time or energy to deal with it. That means I’ve got to deal with it today so that we can get the place back to normal.

So that’s a bit of what’s been going on.

The spaz

This kitten we picked up is a total spaz. It’s almost midnight and he’s running around all over the place. Totally just full-on sprinting all over the living room. He even just attacked my hand while trying to type this. This would normally be cute but he just never slows down. Well, I shouldn’t say never, he takes 20 minute naps every couple hours but other than that, dang…

This is, of course, causing all kinds of problems with our older cat. Aspen, our older cat, currently hates the little guy. This is defeating the purpose of his presence in our abode. He was supposed to be her little buddy and one week after his arrival all she does is hiss at him and take swings at him. I keep hoping that they will somehow find a way to get along but the longer this goes on the more I wonder if it’s even possible.

I’d be doing fine with all this but work is causing all kinds of unnecessary stress. I’m having real problems with my boss and trying to figure out how to get through it all. He’s on vacation all week but even that is causing stress… and it really shouldn’t. If my cats could just get along my life would be so much easier.

Quick update

It’s been a hectic week, sort of. I’ve been pretty busy at work with plenty of things going on and Jess has been busy at work herself. We’ve also been working at night to get the cats adjusted to each other. We’re still not there yet. They’re about to get thrown together and told to just deal with each other cause this slow introduction thing is very difficult and time consuming.

My folks also flew up Monday morning and started a little road trip around western Montana and Canada. They’ll be rolling back into town sometime tomorrow. I’ve got work tomorrow so I probably won’t get to see them but Jess will probably get to see them for dinner. Then we’ll get to hang out with them all weekend before they head back to Colorado. It’s so good that they took a trip together and I’m glad they got to come see our little corner of the world. They also went up to Banff, Alberta, Canada which is where we honeymooned. They even stayed in the same hotel. So now they’ll know how great a week we had there.

I’m pretty much running things at the paper for the next week. Our editor is headed out of town for a little vacation. He’s been out the last few days too. Sick or something. He’s still “editing” from home but he’s not in the office so I’m answering questions and stuff as well as trying to get other publications lined up since they’re due in the next couple weeks. Makes for a stressful life.

That reminds me… it’s time for bed.