Robert Burns, 1789

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth ;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Farewell to the mountains, high-cover’d with snow,
Farewell to the straths and green vallies below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.

The funniest thing to me about this whole process, up until today, was that name of them, but today, when I received the package in the mail, I burst out laughing.

I have been expecting a textbook I ordered off Amazon, so when I picked up the mail today and received this flat-rate box (the $10 size), I didn’t think anything of it except that it didn’t weigh much.

I was surprised, though, when I opened it, and this tiny little box was the only thing in it.  What a joke, and a huge waste of resources!

The actual product box was no more than 3″x3″, and was just floating around inside the big box.  Obviously it isn’t fragile at all, and doesn’t require careful packaging, but still . . .

I have to say that I have gotten ore than my fair share of giggles and laughs out of the footUndeez!

Reagan came up with the design for her structure all by herself, and the only help Nana gave her was to help her with the super-hot glue gun.  Reagan collected the twigs and cedar branches from the yard, and she found the cardboard, as well.

At first glance, I thought she “borrowed” one of these deer from our Christmas decorations.

After taking a closer look, however, I realized that she made this buck out of cardboard and sticks!  She did such a great job!

I am impressed!

Here, she is explaining all the different parts to me, and after she showed me this, she did tear up som strips of dark blue paper and added it to look like a stream running through the woods.

I really hope her teacher notices all the hard work and creativity Reagan put into this project – she has concentrated on it completely since she came home from school yesterday.

I’m a proud mommy!

I am taking a design class this term.  Our most recent assignment was to create a graphic/logo.  The project was called “Name Branding”.  It is a three part project – create a logo, make a 2-dimensional brochure, and create a 3-dimensional “product” to promote the product (ourselves).  This is the graphic I created for myself.

I am a nature girl at heart, and I’ve talked about it here many times, so that part of the graphic was pretty easy.  It’s pretty simple, but it works for this project.

One tradition that was born of all my dad’s do-it-yourself projects is one that most of us probably wish wasn’t a tradition, actually, we probably wish it didn’t exist at all. I don’t remember the actual incident that started it, but it started when my sister and I were quite young, and has continued at least annually ever since. The tradition? Well, that would be the one where my dad has a “minor” accident and ends up in the emergency room. There you have it, folks, our tradition is one of trips to the ER with my dad. I think the Grande Ronde Hospital should name its Emergency Department after him!

You have the simple injuries like hitting your knee with a chainsaw, to the more complicated ones like twisting your ankle chasing the cat in the yard resulting in such significant ligament and tendon damage you end up having surgery with a specialist in Vancouver. Let’s see, there was the year he broke his collarbone (two years in a row, actually) playing softball, one year he drilled his palm with a dove-tail drill bit, countless stitches, multiple bandages, and many braces.

The biggest one that is the most clear in my mind is the year he blew up the burning barrell and spent two weeks in the hospital in isolation with severe burns. That was the year that he tore the back porch off our house in La Grande to put an addition on. I remember all his friends coming over to work on the re-model while he was in the hospital and recovering. I think I was probably only 9 or 10, I don’t remember for sure.

Today, Dad was working in his shop, as usual, and he was working on the joiner.  I did ask what the joiner was, and I was given a brief lesson. A joiner is similar to a planer, but rather than make two surfaces of wood parallel like a planer, the joiner actually trims curves and warps off flat wood surfaces which can then be used in the planer to make a completely flat piece of wood to work with.

Anyway, back to the story.  Apparently his left pinky finger and the joiner decided to have a little disagreement.  Any guesses which one won?

Betts Gene Strikes Again!

As with any injury, the bandaging always makes it look way worse than it actually is.  He doesn’t have stitches, but has some sort of special gel-bandage to help it heal.  I do feel a *tad* guilty, though, because he’s been working on a project I asked him to make.  I thought at some point this whole “injuring yourself in the middle of a project” thing he has would get old and he would stop doing it, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to stop any time soon!

Anthony Lakes - Beautiful!

I kept up with skiing through college, and even a little bit after Emma was born.  The last time I went skiing, though, Emma, who is now 17, was only 2-year-old.  I do still have my skis and boots, but I know my boots don’t fit, so I haven’t gone skiing since.  Another reason I haven’t gone skiing is because of my “iffy” knees.  I just don’t trust them to withstand the pressure skiing would put on them.

Anthony Lakes has a fantastic program they run through several local schools.  Through Cove School, they offer two three-week sessions where the kids get their rental equipment, lift ticket, and a lesson for a discounted price.  Harley and Reagan signed up to learn how to snowboard, and today was their first day.  Some of the other schools provide bus transportation to ALSA, but Cove does not, so we drive up on our own.

I decided that since I didn’t feel comfortable skiing anymore that I would sign up for lessons and learn right along with them.  We had an absolute blast!  Both girls figured out how to ride their boards pretty easily – it’s just the stopping they’re not quite used to yet.  After our lessons were over, we spent a few more hours playing and practicing what we learned.

Reagan was in a different lesson group than Harley and I, so I didn’t get very many pictures of her during lessons.  She seemed to have a hard time keeping her hat on straight, but she was always full of smiles and laughing whenever I ran across her.

Harley had a great time, too!  She has fantastic balance, and once standing up on her board, she was able to maneuver really well!  I kept hearing her laugh and laugh at herself showing off her “Ninja Gymnastics” when she fell.

And Mom?  How did she do?  Well, contrary to popular belief, she did not injure herself in some fantastically clumsy move, rather, she had a GREAT time!  I have never been able to skateboard, and I was amazed at how well I was able to stand on a snowboard.  I am not going to fib and say I didn’t fall very much – I fell A LOT, but I was able to get back up and keep going which is more than I could say for the first time I went skiing.

More random pictures from the day:

Harley during lessons.

Reagan during lessons.

Reagan during lessons.

Reagan getting into her bindings before she heads down the hill.

Harley - at the top of the hill ready to go!

Mom - at the top of the hill ready to go!

Harley - right after one of her stellar head over heels crashes!

Reagan "scooting" to the rope tow.

Mom & Reagan - at the top of the hill ready to go!

Mom having a blast!

So so so pretty today!

All three of us had such a good time today, and none of us can wait until next week when we get to to again!

I woke up this morning cranky because I had a dream I didn’t like and I didn’t sleep well – actually, I don’t think I’ve slept really well for nearly a month now.  So, I woke up crabby, and I hate it when that happens, so that just makes me crabbier.

The girls got ready for school and out of the house, and I was headed to class shortly thereafter.  When I got to La Grande, I parked on a street near campus and got into the back door to get my backpack out.

Yep, that picture above . . . that happened to me when I was getting out of my car this morning.  Twice.  As I was bent inside getting my backpack from the back seat, I got sprayed up the back, and as I turned around, I got it again up the front.  Great.  I headed to class soaked and freezing.

My ceramics class was the one bright spot of the day.  We are in the process of coil-building pots.  You know what I mean – long snakes wound up and around themselves until a pot is formed.  The difficult part is that we are required to replicate a Chinese or Japanese pot from roughly 6000 B.C.  Not only is replicating the measurements hard, but we also have to work the coils so our pots have smooth surfaces.  Today I finally had my pot looking the way it needs to beforeI build the neck and add the spout.  I did have to restart my pot once, and I’m amazed at how difficult it’s been to create.

My pot is actually about four inches taller than this now, and at the widest point, it’s about 13 inches.  I can’t wait to see it finished!

I get headaches occasionally, but they’re usually ont too bad.  From time to time, though, I get migraines that start small and end up taking over my brain for a day or two.  The best solution I have found for getting rid of them is usually a dark room and sleep.

Since I had class today, I couldn’t very well curl up into a ball and sleep, so I just had to tough it out.  It is better, but I am headed to bed with medicine soon!

To top it all off, I went to a visiting artist lecture tonight at EOU.  It was a photographer from Portland, and since I love photography, I thought I would really love listening to him talk.  He did have some really neat insight to self-portraiture, but I did not enjoy a lot of the style and/or subject (homoeroticism) of his photography, so I kind of feel like it was a waste of my time.

I did decide that since today was such a rough day that I was going to open a bottle of wine and drink it.  I’ve made it through one glass.

I am not sure I will make it through more than the one before I crash because I am so tired, but I feel better and a little more relaxed, so that’s what matters.

I am excited because today was my Friday, and I have a special snowboarding date with my youngest two daughters tomorrow on the mountain.  I can’t wait!

So, my dancer-girl, Harley, got to start dance again.

She is starting halfway through the year, so missed out on being part of any of the competitive groups (which is perfectly okay with me), and instead of taking tap and ballet, she is taking a combination jazz/hip-hop class.  Tonight was her first class, and she totally ROCKED!  It was so awesome to see the muscle memory from so many years ago come back to her, and she did really well picking up the moves and transitions quickly.

Tonight she danced in her socks because we weren’t exactly sure what type of shoes she needed (or if she would even like it), but we quickly found out.

She needs underwear.  For her feet.  Seriously.

These are the “shoes” I had to order for her.  They really are called foot undies . . . Capezio ® Unisex FootUndeez™  I have to say, I do like the price of these dance shoes compared to the lace-up tap shoes I’ve had to buy before.  I just think it’s funny that they really are called FootUndeez – I thought the girls were calling them that as a joke.  Harley’s comment was that, “They look like tightie whities for your toes.”

I am excited Harley is able to get back into something she loves so much, and I am excited to see her progress and learn!