ROAD TRIP!

Hello all!

I know, I know, long time no see, but I notice, I am not the only absentee of late.  It's summer, everyone is busy or too hot to think, much less write.

We went on a road trip a couple of weeks ago.  Where, to where everyone in NM goes, Albuquerque.  I know someone out there is wondering why that isn't Santa Fe.  That is for two reasons, many natives think Santa Fe is where all the "real" aliens are and secondly because Albuquerque is the center of the universe, I mean state.  That is a bit of a joke, I used to hate how all the people I knew who lived in the big Q thought they were so much better than those of us who lived out in the sticks.

All kidding aside it was a great time, the hubby's mom wanted to watch the kids so we drove to Las Cruces and met her and picked up another friend and then headed up to Albuquerque, this effectively double the time our trip took, but it meant we had a great excuse to stop at one of our favorite road trip haunts, THE OWL in San Antonio, NM.  San Antonio is a one traffic sign town but they have great green chile burgers.  It was around that time I realized that this was our first road trip without children in the almost five years since Z joined us. While they have stayed over at grandma's house a few times, we hadn't left town.  Explains a lot, I know.

The guys had a big weekend planned of picking their fantasy football teams. The old college gang (from NMSU) was back together.  We were laughing because everyone is from Las Cruces, but most of the group lives in Albuquerque now, well except us down in that town between Roswell and Carlsbad. 

Since it was the big day, my friend and I slipped out to Borders to buy Harry Potter at midnight, although I was just tagging along, since I hadn't read book 6 yet.  So I bought that, the clerks thought I was a bit crazy.  However with a full day ahead of me to read, I was ready for book seven by the end of the day and bought it anyway.  I finished it before we got back to Las Cruces.  It is possible I called kept calling the guys stupid gits all weekend, pretending I was Hermonie. 

Before we headed back we stopped and had breakfast at the Frontier, an Albuquerque landmark. After a plate of huevos rancheros and a cinamon roll, I thought I would be sick from eating too much, but it was delicioso. Bonus, I didn't need to eat the rest of the day.

So to sum it up, I got to stay up until the wee hours of the morning cruising a bookstore, without children, sleep in, read, hang out with old friends and have a good gnosh. 

Somewhere in th last couple of weeks, has been vacation bible school, and the launch of my ebay store.  This week is the fair and more clean up to the "property"  Maybe I'll finally post pictures of the job ahead of us and you can  tell me how crazy we are.

Coming Home to Roost

I think I hinted or alluded to our newest family member in my last entry.

This is a true story by the way...

A couple of Sundays ago we went to visit some of my husband's family in Roswell. Yes that Roswell, you know the ones with the aliens, where I was born, not dropped off. We live about 45 miles or so from there.

Anyway, we are sitting out on the porch visiting and Max points and says "Bird" and it is not just any bird, but a chick. So the boys are playing with it and we end up playing with it for the rest of the afternoon. Sweet little thing, it flew up on my shoulder and snuggled before trying to eat my earrings. The boys found it bugs to eat, and we made it a little water dish. We made several attempts to find a neighbor who had chickens but we couldn't find one.

Z had started begging to take it home right away and since we couldn't find an owner, he rode home with us in a box. The chick was a bit noisy early on, not to sure about the car ride, so Z told it the three little pigs and then sang it Kumbaya. He reminded me on the way home that "We Don't Eat Pets."

My master plan was to eventually have some chickens around here, the plan has just been moved up a bit. We poked around the pasture and found a few chick supplies and materials to build a coop. I already have a a few more chickens promised to us after the fair. My aunt was a bit chagrined about us having a chicken as a pet when she came to visit this week. When she was a girl there were a lot of chickens around here, but they weren't pets. My grandfather, great-uncle and great grandfather ran a hatchery on the property for a long time. Most of the buildings are gone now, but a few of the nest boxes are still around. Even though this isn't my first go around raising chickens, we had a small flock when I was a kid, it is amazing how one small chick can make me feel so connected to my family's past.

So here are the pictures, and please bear in mind this young chick is just getting feathers so it looks a bit motley.

She will be back shortly,

Someone suggested it was time for an update.  I suppose it is.  Life has been busy around here of late.  We've had a family reunion, surgeries, babies being born, new pets.

Yet still I am not satisfied with my last post.  It keeps whirling around in my head, some days good and other days bad.  Did I say the right things?  Am I wrong about a few thing?

Not that anyone made me feel bad or anything, I appreciate all of your responses, I know religion is a sensitive issue, and since that is not what this blog is necessarily about, I appreciate your words.

I guess I am at a strange place right now.  I feel like I don't have a clear direction, and quite frankly I am overanalyzing everything.  "Let go and let God" comes to mind. In fact I think I need to go think about that for a while.

I do have a quite a few pictures of our new family member and I promise a real update soon.

 

Nora