Greetings from California…  Albany, to be exact, our new home for the next four (plus?) years.

First thoughts: love the neighborhood, love our little apartment, love the laid back, friendly vibe that seems to settle all around here, love that gardening seems to be the norm,  love the new spot for my disco ball that sends little beams of light all over the apartment everyday between 2:30 and 6-ish…

I have a serious back-log of images, I’ve decided to split them into three blogs; writing posts that span too much time, make me feel scattered. And, I know I’ve said this before, but one of the things I am going to try to be better at with this new life, regular posts. It helps me stay grounded and up-to-date. My hope is, now that J has a regular schedule, I will too, easier to fall into a rhythm with all aspects of our life… One more thing I love: our regular schedule (it may vary a bit, but compared to the last seven years, it’ll feel like “9 to 5”) we have a grocery shopping day, and a laundry day, and they are mostly always (so far) on the same day (but, not as each other)… I’m so happy!

Back to June…

This summer just flew by… life is flying by. I loved being near my family for an extended period of time, it made me a little sad though. I was happy to be around, but I still wish I could do more for them… help them more, love them more, have more patience. I felt more helpless sitting in the same room, than I did living 2000 miles away. I don’t know if I thought I’d be in Montana for two months and magically “fix” everything needed, but I left feeling a bit worthless.

This stuff… I used to walk on it when I was little, I loved the sound it made; It was like walking on glass (which I have done). Never a day goes by when I haven’t wondered how I lived to adulthood.

Pancakes and sausage in a Cook Car during Pioneer Days… brings me back to my childhood. When I was little I used to wash dishes out back of the Cook Cars, dressed as a prairie girl, bonnet and all… My sisters and cousins dressed in said prairie garb (pre-me). I loved this time of year, it was magical.

I used to hang out here a lot, my gramps was the blacksmith… I will never forget the smell.

Off to North Dakota to spend time with my bestie… She’s a good shit. I find great comfort in my 25+ year relationships, I never feel misunderstood, a feeling I seem to have a lot.

Yup, we all knew that was gonna be a mistake, but if he wouldn’t have ordered it, I would have…

We drove from ND back to Montana for King’s 20 year class reunion. We decided 20 years ago that I’d be her date. Twas glorious running into people I used to be young  with. I spent much more time with her class than I did my own, I looked at it as my reunion, I won’t go to mine… meh.

I love Dawnie Darling! She has always been such a cool lady… She let us stay in her camper the night of the reunion, we knew we would be too drunk to drive out to Luther… We are such adults now.

King and I in front of our old high school work place… It still remains both our favorite job.

Dawn’s house, our welcome beacon. If only we didn’t have to wake her up in the middle of the night because we were too uncoordinated/drunk to open the camper door…

I worked on the Fourth with this crew, Conrad and Deb’s final year of running the stand at the rodeo. Sigh… Alanna will just have to find another occasion for her yearly Sunkist…

I always feel summer goes downhill after the Fourth, plenty of hot weather and activities still going on, however, it just feels different from then on…

Now, I live in California, will the Fourth “feel” the same? Will I “feel” the seasons change, probably not in the way I’m hoping, but I’m looking forward to new feelings…

I’ll see you real soon, Loves… I’m going to try to post pictures of our apartment tonight or tomorrow, and then the other two posts…

Love and miss you all…