The Bullet We Thought We’d Dodged

I was so proud of myself for having not gotten COVID in our household for the past two years – but it finally happened.

Bryan had been feeling pretty crappy over the weekend but didn’t think anything of it. We even went to the movies on Monday (first time in over two years – we saw the new Avatar movie). By Tuesday he was down for the count though so on Wednesday I talked him in to taking a test.

Sure enough = positive

He is now sleeping on a pallet upstairs in his future pool room. Mother has been instructed to stay away from him. And since I have to work all day at “my office” I only need to worry about our dinners.

Hopefully we can contain it.

Christmas Pajamas

Each year, Bryan and I give each other a new pair of Pajamas on Christmas Eve, so that we can wear them Christmas Morning for opening gifts. I borrowed the idea from my sister Noel, who always used to do that for her kids.

It’s nothing fancy – but I love my new PJs from Victoria’s Secret. Mother got a set from Land’s End – dark blue and made of soft Tencel. Bryan’s is also from Land’s End, and I must say he looks quite handsome in his long-sleeved black t-shirt.

Penguins!

My annual review was the other day – although technically it can’t actually be called an annual since it was the first one I’d ever had. I suppose that speaks to their intentions, I guess. Anyway, in preparation for the review process, we were given some forms to fill out as well as a copy of the National Standard Pay Rates for people in our business. We were instructed to compare our own salary with what was listed, to see if we were being properly compensated.

I looked through the list and found three positions that could be used to describe what I do: Drafter, CAD Operator (Senior Level), or Designer (Architectural). Since my business card has me listed as a Senior CAD Designer, I went ahead with the middle choice. According to that – I am woefully underpaid.

During my actual review, my boss admitted to the shortage and said “I’ve never given such a substantial raise before, but we have to bring you up to standards!”  and not only that, but he made it retro-active to the beginning of 2022!

Hot Damn!!! I am now $8,000.00 (before taxes, of course) richer with a salary much higher than it was.

So of course, I immediately called Earthwatch and signed up for another expedition – this time I’ll be going to Argentina to work with Penguins!!!!

I’m so excited. I have a friend who lives in Buenos Aires, so I plan to stop in and visit her either before the expedition or on my way home, depending on our schedules.

In preparation for the trip, I have already signed up for Conversational Spanish lessons, and have plans to join a gym to get into better shape.

Lunch at Long Rifle Lodge

To celebrate the sale of my house in Anchorage, I took Mother & Bryan out to lunch at the Long Rifle Lodge. It’s a bit of a drive and the weather was not the greatest – but I just love that place, and I knew that Mother would enjoy going out there.

She was a little confused and kept thinking it was his birthday, but she really did have a good time remembering all her old stories from working out there all those years.

She ate an entire cup of chicken soup with wild rice & mushrooms. Bryan had a burrito with black beans & quinoa (seems I’m rubbing off on him finally) and I had a salmon burger with fries.

It was a fun day!

I sold my house!

For the past four years I’ve had my house in Anchorage rented out to various renters, with varying levels of success. However, once this latest renter moved out, I decided it was time to sell.

The renter’s last day was September 30. For the month of October, I hired a contractor to deal with all the repairs and maintenance issues. Finally, by November my house was ready to go on the market! Monday was the first scheduled Open House, and by Tuesday I had a full-price offer on the table!

With minimal fuss and only a few issues to work out with the potential buyers, I signed the final paperwork on December 7.

SOLD!

The money that I made from the deal has been used to pay off the house we’re currently living in – so we are now Mortgage Free!!

WooHoo!

Paint Night

It’s been a while since Bryan and I had a Date Night together, so when I saw this event on Facebook I went ahead and signed us up: Paint Night at the Headless Horseman (a pizzeria a the Sleepy Hallow Golf Course).

First of all, I did not know there was a golf course way out there in Wasilla. And it was way out there, too. Bryan’s phone kept telling us “at the next road, turn left (or right) and drive for another 5 miles”. We just kept driving, and driving, and driving – winding our way back into the woods for almost an hour! It sure was a beautiful setting once we finally got there, though. We’ll definitely have to go back one day in the summertime!

The Headless Horseman is a small building with maybe 6 tables. The pizza was okay – I personally did not like it, but Bryan loved it – so really it could go either way with you. The people running the place and hosting the paint night were wonderful: very nice and accommodating. Their whole concept behind the event was trying to find ways to keep their business going through the winter months. Let’s face it: not a lot of golfing happens in the winter months.

Oddly enough, the paint instructions were on video! I had expected a live person, so it was strange to just watch a video. Our host would stop the video whenever we needed to catch up, and would rewind it occasionally so we could verify what step we’d missed or what color paint we were supposed to be using.

Painting really is not Bryan’s thing. He stresses out really easily if it doesn’t look just so, or if he can’t quite get the instructions. But he did really good – his painting turned out just as good (if not better) than mine! I am so thankful that he does things like this with me…

Paper Flowers

I got some new dies for myself a while ago and have been having so much fun with them. The company, Altenew, makes a whole line of flowers – which of course means that eventually I shall have to get them all.

Each flower is created using lots of layers and coordinating papers. They also have the leaves that go with each flower, so the end product is authentic and complete.

Cutting. Gluing. Assembling. It makes me happy!

Now I just need to create the cards for my flowers to go on!

Annual Christmas Project

Apparently, I’ve started a new tradition – one that I’m happy to continue hosting. This year’s Christmas Art Project was making an Advent Calendar with candy canes! Last year, we made ornaments out of Scrabble tiles.

I had some trouble with supplies this time. I didn’t want to use a wooden board for the base, so after much thought I ended up with a large piece of matt that is used to frame pictures.

The place I bought it at would not cut it for me (it’s a liability issue, supposedly) so my next hurdle was trying to figure out how to cut it. Thankfully Bryan has a 4-foot long straight edge, so I was able to reduce a 3’-0”x4’-0” piece of white matt down to (4) 18”x9” pieces. My intent was to glue two of them together, giving it more stability for the end product.

Once I had my pieces glued together, I then had to figure out how to deal with the holes we would need. There were several issues there: first – how big should the holes be? What is the circumference of a Candy Cane? Did you know there is no set standard for candy canes? Manufacturers can make any size they want, willy-nilly. I decided I’d go with a ¼” hole and just hope the candy canes would fit. My next hurdle on this issue was just how exactly was I to CUT the holes? I called on Bryan for this task, and he tried numerous different techniques. He finally ended up with a hammer & awl and spent a good half hour pounding away in his shop.

While he did that, I got my Big Shot out and cut letters for their names. I like to layer three die cuts on top of each other, giving the final product more umph, so also had to glue them all. And I didn’t know what color they’d choose, so I made each name twice – once red, and once green. That means… hmm… let’s do some math here… two names, two colors, three die cuts for each letter of their names… the total escapes me at the moment. Suffice to say, it was a lot of letters.

But – when the girls got here, we were ready to assemble our masterpieces! They did so good – I am so impressed with them! As it turns out, the candy canes that Heather got did NOT fit in the holes Bryan provided, so we had to come up with an alternative method of attaching them. Which made our little project that much harder to do! It lasted a good three hours instead of the one I had planned on.

Note to self: next year, provide snacks! Three hours is a long time for little girls to go without food – particularly when creating a Candy Cane Advent Calendar!

Thanksgiving Dinner

As mentioned earlier, Bryan was gone for Thanksgiving this year – so Mother and I went by ourselves up to my niece Katy’s house for our annual Big Thanksgiving Dinner with Family.

Katy’s house is brand new; built just for her & her husband on 10 acres up Lazy Mountain. She chose a very neutral color scheme to decorate her house, with lots of greys, blacks, and white. It truly looks beautiful.

She had at least 26 people over, plus two dogs and a cat who pretty much hid the entire time. The food was spread out on the counter, with everybody bringing dishes in to add to the bounty. Two turkeys and a ham formed the foundation of our feast, with all kinds of salads and desserts to supplement. You would think it was utter chaos – but Katy had things well under control, so we all felt right at home.

We all had a great time and were very well fed. As an added bonus, I even got to take one of the turkey carcasses home to make stock!

Flower Arranging

Bryan spent a week down in Washington visiting his daughters and mother, so I decided to do something “fun” just for myself while he was gone. For some reason, I ended up at a Flower Arranging class! Trust me, I suck at flower arranging.

The location was pretty cool, however. It was held at the Mountain Field Farm, just behind our house on Scott Road (in better weather, I could have walked to it). They had taken one of their old barns and completely renovated it to a venue where they can host weddings and other fancy functions. Upstairs was an apartment for the bride & groom to stay at, with a full kitchen and dining room downstairs. The living room had a nice stone hearth with a large fireplace and plenty of wood.

For our class, they set up a long table and had a good 16 people lined up along it with all the flowers we’d be using in big tubs down the middle. It was crowded, but not horribly so. The girl leading the class took us step by step through the process, showing us how to snip the stems just right and helping us decide where to put them in the vase provided.

The end results were interesting. Each of us used the exact same flowers and had the exact same vase – and yet each creation was so different!

All in all, I had fun – but I can’t say I’d do it again. I really suck at flower arranging!

Weekend Get-Aways

We’ve had several of our weekend get-aways these past few months.

November took us out to Big Lake for a change. I found a sweet little Tiny House for rent that had a killer view of Denali and that whole mountain range. Sadly, the weather was not cooperating with us that weekend: the clouds moved in and covered up everything.

The house really was nice, though – even without the view. They had a small but well-stocked kitchen, so Bryan was able to cook some excellent meals for us. They provided a TV so I was able to make cards while watching our movies while Bryan worked on his computer stuff. We were even able to bring our kittens with us, which is always a plus.

Interestingly enough, we found out that the tiny house and the surrounding properties are owned by Martin Buser, four-time Iditarod champion! If it had been nicer weather, we could have walked down the road a ways and gotten a tour of his dog team – but as most of you locals know, Big Lake is really cold in the wintertime, so we opted to stay warm and cozy in our tiny house that weekend.

December took us back down to Girdwood. We had randomly picked a weekend based on our work schedule and other social commitments – and just happened to end up down there on Opening Day for the ski slopes! It has been a VERY snowy winter so far, so the slopes had plenty of powder – which of course meant that everybody and their brother were there to partake. Rather chaotic, but a good day’s skiing regardless.

This was our third time staying at the cabin we rented. It’s a cute little A-frame with an iron circular staircase leading up to a sleeping loft upstairs, a fully stocked kitchen, and a warm cozy fireplace. They even had a 4-foot circular dog’s bed that I drug out from storage and placed in front of the fireplace for the kittens to nap on, which they absolutely loved.

Our next three get-aways are going to be in Girdwood as well – each at a different location. Hopefully the skiing will be just as good each time!

Apologies

I’ve been remis in my blog-posting duties again. I just get lost in the time and forget to write things down!

I have some ideas on how to do better at updating my blog:

1. I keep a monthly to-do list, and will have UPDATE YOUR BLOG already written in for each month
2. I am looking in to perhaps buying a laptop I can take with me when I go places so I can write my posts immediately
1. But I need to find one that has a typewriter that I like and can comfortably use
2. I need to find a photo-transfer ap to get the pictures off my phone and onto my laptop right then
3. I will need to get myself a Hot-Spot so I have internet connection wherever I travel to.

Can you think of anything else that will help me keep to my Blog posting goals?

In the meantime, here follows several posts to get you all up to date on my life (such as it is).

The Butte Elementary Annual Pig Raffle

My nieces Tabitha and Kaylee both go to Butte Elementary, so when the annual raffle came up this year I of course had to buy 10 tickets. I told the girls I really wanted that pig, so they had to arrange things for me to ensure that I won it. They said they would do what they could.

Which actually turned out to be quite a bit – I didn’t win the pig, but I did win a prize! I got a Family Day Pass worth up to $200.00 for Skeetawk, the (relatively) new ski lodge up at Hatcher Pass!!

Bryan has been talking about wanting to check that out this season, so now he can go. Sadly we do not have a “family” to use the full potential of the prize, but I know my nephew Corbin loves to go snowboarding so perhaps Bryan could take Corbin one day and have some fun up on the slopes.

I’m pretty pleased with it all.

Spontaneity

We had a very un-planned date night last night – it was fun!

I had been going through my emails, deleting the junk and reading through the more important ones, when I came across an email from the Mat-SuTrails people. They had a couple Events listed at the bottom of their monthly newsletter, one of which caught my eye. It was a fundraiser for the Avalanche School here in the valley featuring a movie called “Anywhere From Here” being held at the Glenn Massey Theatre off Trunk Road.

We weren’t doing anything that night, so we decided to go check it out!

At the lobby, they had a silent auction going on – so we perused the tables and placed a few bids on things that Bryan thought he’d use if he actually won. The we headed on in to the theatre and took our seats. The theatre is actually really nice – plenty of seating, good lighting, nice acoustics. The perfect place for live performances and concerts and such. They have a huge drop-down screen, so we got to watch all that Extreme Skiing in larger-than-life color!

The movie was really good - all about Extreme Skiing. It mostly featured a 12-year-old boy, but also had others ranging from their 20s to their 30s. The skiing was just amazing. Honestly, I do not know how people do that. They helicopter up to the top of some really, REALLY big mountains and then strap little slats of wood onto their feet, balance themselves up on a knifes edge with a sheer drop off going straight down for miles and miles – and just jump off! Down they go! It was truly spectacular.

They had a lot of drone footage, so we got to see the skiers from all different angles as they flew down the mountains, in locations all over the world from Banff to Valdez to Switzerland to pretty much anywhere there is a mountain with snow on it. These people have no fear – or at least a very healthy respect for fear. There were some pretty colossal fails right alongside some epic – or “sic” as they would say – runs.

Bryan spent the whole night just wide-eyed and shaking his head. He skis, but has to fight his fear of heights the whole time. So you would definitely not find him up on a knives edge falling down off the mountains, no matter how “sic” the run might be!

All in all, it was a fabulous night out. We are now awaiting the phone call to announce Bryan as the winner of the items he bid on (not really).

The Fly-Way

They call it the Fly-way,

It is, in my humble opinion, the most confusing intersection in all of Alaska; maybe even in all of the U.S. Perhaps even in all of the World! But that’s probably reaching a bit high…

In the past if you wanted to drive from Anchorage to Palmer, you’d get on the Glenn Highway and just drive straight there. You might, if you were so inclined, turn of onto the Parks Highway and head West into Wasilla or Talkeetna. But either way, you’d head North on pretty much the only highway available to you. It was a no-brainer.

The railroad crossing at the Parks/Glenn intersection caused a lot of delays and traffic jams, plus just a general increase in population required an upgrade in that area. So some Civil Engineer somewhere got hair up his butt and somehow managed to sell the upper brass on this gem of an idea. It’s beyond weird, if you ask me, but he (or she) probably got a medal or commendation for the darned project.

The general idea is to allow the railroad to pass under the highway so that no one has to stop to allow the trains to go by. That is a good idea: I agree with that concept. 

But now, in order to go from Anchorage to Palmer on the Glenn highway – you must EXIT the Glenn highway, swing around to your left over the top of the railroad tracks, then swing back to your right and under the highway and merge back onto the Glenn to continue on your way.

If you’re confused and do NOT exit but stay ON the Glenn Highway, you will be routed up and over the train tracks and under and around the people who have exited the Glenn, and get merged into the Parks Highway, to where you are then headed West on your way to Wasilla and/or Talkeetna.

It makes my head hurt just trying to think about it.

And don’t even get me started on the round-about situation at the hospital up the road a ways!

Frozen Fingers

“Let’s go berry picking!” he said.

“It’ll be fun!” he said.

And honestly, it was fun. It was just really, really cold. It was so cold the berries were actually frozen on the bushes. Our poor fingers!

Bryan had gone up Buffalo Mine Road this past weekend on a hunting/hiking trip and found this huge field of High Bush Cranberries, so yesterday after work we bundled ourselves up in our winter gear and headed up about 35 miles north of Palmer. He’d originally planned to park the truck and hike in a bit, just like he’d done on that weekend – but there were enough berries just right off the side of the road we barely had to leave the ditch to fill our buckets.

Of course, about 10 minutes into our berry picking it started to snow. By the time our fingers were too cold to pick anymore it was a full-on blizzard, with big thick fluffy beautiful flakes! Thank goodness I have a brand new pair of snowpants and a nice warm thick sweater. The only thing that got cold was my hands!

We now have our own “secret” spot for next year, with potential for lots of High Bush Cranberries, Low Bush Cranberries, Blueberries, and probably even some Rose Hips, too.

Yay for harvesting berries!

So Much Stuff

The tenant in my house in Anchorage moved out on the 30^th so Bryan and I went in Saturday to inspect the place and see what needs to be done with it in order to sell the place. It was not nearly as bad as the last tenant, but not good either. The guy left a TON of stuff behind: closets full of clothing, the washer/dryer full of clothing, the garage full of junk, the back deck/yard full of junk (and poop everywhere).

I called my property manager who contacted the guy to make sure he had actually finished moving out and the guy apologized but said yes, anything left behind was left behind on purpose and could be thrown away at the dump.

Yeah, thanks a lot, dude.

So – Bryan spent a good 4-5 hours that evening loading up his truck and the trailer as well. He’ll have to go back in on Monday to finish up with another load or two, one to the dump and one to bring more stuff here to the house.

Today, we spent the whole day going through bags of clothing and suitcases of clothing and boxes of clothing and tote bags of clothing and backpacks of clothing. It’s amazing how much clothing we’ve gone through. Apparently the guy’s wife just up and left him. All her clothing is now in our house, and she was a cloths hound. All her baby girl’s clothing is here, too – and a very large portion of His clothing as well. Really makes you wonder what they’re all wearing right now!

Anyway, we have two very large garbage bags stuffed full of baby girl clothes that I plan to give to my niece. Two medium garbage bags of clothing that I think my nephew can wear. One large garbage bag stuffed full of clothing that will go to the goodwill. One tote full of really nice coats that I’ll give to my niece to see if any of her gang will wear. A huge box of miscellaneous shoes and boots that will go to goodwill. A huge bag of pillows, curtains, lap rugs, and various fabrics for goodwill. A tote full of hats, gloves, mittens, belts, caps, and whatnot for goodwill. And Both Bryan and I each got a nice coat out of the deal – and even Mother got one!

Bryan is in the garage dealing with the larger items, like the bicycles and coolers and grills and baby cribs and car seats and camp tents and stoves and cat trees and whatnot. One at a time, he’s taking pictures of them and posting them on Facebook Market Place to sell them. We figure the money we make off these items will go towards a really nice bottle (or three) of whiskey!

A couple items have been rather surprising. One box, maybe three foot square, full of nothing but make-up. I know make-up can be very expensive! That box must be thousands of dollars’ worth of make-up – some packages have never even been open. We plan on selling the whole box for $100.00 (OBO)… we’ll see if it goes…

Another surprise was opening up a suitcase and finding it full of Adult Toys  (and it was a very large suitcase) – a leather harness, at least 10 dildos of various shapes and sizes, but-plugs, anal rings, hand cuffs, muzzles, the whole she-bang. Hell, I don’t even know what half of those things are – or how you’re supposed to use them. And I really don’t know how we’re going to get rid of them. I’m pretty sure Facebook won’t allow us to sell that kind of stuff on their marketplace. Maybe we’ll try Craig’s List…

Interesting Business Names

Hats off to people who can come up with really catchy names for their businesses.

In Wasilla, a town next door to my hometown, there is The Happy Hooker – a towing company who’s towing trucks are all pink.

Right next door to them is a business called The Big Black Rubber. I honestly do not know what they are – but think maybe they are those rubber liner beds for pickups? I’m kind of afraid to ask…

Out near my doctor, I saw a pediatric dentist who named his company The Molar Bear. I thought that was quite catchy!

Closer to home, Bryan once thought to go into the real estate business a while back, so I came up with the name B-Real for him: a combination of his first initial and the first word in Real Estate. I even created a business card for him with bees and everything. It was quite clever, I thought.

For myself, if I ever decided to open a tea shop, I could name it Truth Teas. My logo would be a giant upper-case letter T with smaller lower-case letters “ruth” and “eas” stacked on top of each other beside it. Again, quite clever, I thought.

What funny/interesting business names have you seen out and about town?

My Favorite Mug

Back in September of the year 2000 I did a week-long hiking trip in the Smoky Mountain National Park. The company I went with was Country Walkers: they put us up in some really nice places, took us to numerous famous trails (I actually hiked on the Appalachian Trail for a little while!), and fed us at some really fancy restaurants.

One of the places we stayed at was The Swag, in North Carolina. Oh boy, what a fantastic place that was! And still is, I might add. I remember the drive up to the place was a long, winding road that switch-backed up the mountain. The main lodge is a beautiful, old, rustic looking building with numerous outbuildings surrounding gorgeous grounds.

Since I was traveling solo, I got a room all to myself. They put me in what they call Gail’s Room with a fireplace, a balcony overlooking the Smoky Mountains, and the tallest most comfortable feather bed! I had to have a little stepstool just to get into the bed and didn’t ever want to leave once I snuggled in under the hand-sewn quilt. They even provided a CD of relaxing music to listen to. My one complaint about that room was that I only got to stay there a couple days and had to leave during the day to go on our scheduled hikes.

I loved that place so much I bought myself a mug to remember them by and carried it all the way home. I have used that mug pretty much every day since then – until one day I noticed the crack.

Oh no!!!

On impulse, I contacted them via email and told them my dilemma, asking if they might be able to send me a replacement. I’m not sure what I was expecting but was pleasantly surprised when they actually responded, saying they would love to be able to replace my mug.

I sent them a picture of the broken one and sat back to await their reply. A few days later I got an actual phone call from Sage, the person in charge of Guest Services. She was very friendly and told me all about the mugs they had available. She got my address and I gave her my credit card information. As happens so often to us up here in the northland, she thought AK stood for Arkansas – and was quite surprised to learn it was Alaska instead!

A week later, I got a box in the mail – My MUG!!!

It’s much bigger than my original mug, and I have to admit I don’t care for the new logo much – but I am so happy they sent me a replacement!

If you’re ever in the area  I can highly recommend them!

Indoor Swimming Pool

We got a notice from the City of Palmer last month alerting us to the fact that our water usage had gone way up for that month, indicating a possible leak somewhere. Sure enough, Bryan went down into the crawlspace and discovered our new indoor swimming pool.

Not really. But it was a leaky hot water heater, with a LOT of water where there should not be any.

Thankfully Paragon Mechanical came to our rescue, sending out one of their guys to help us almost the same day we called them.

Turns out the tank was fine – it was the connections that failed.

We took this opportunity to relocate the tank out of our crawlspace and into our garage, where it really should have been all along.

The guy was able to get the tank all fixed up and running in one day.

If you’re in the valley and need plumbing work done – we can highly recommend Paragon Mechanical.

Healy!

The Weekend Get-Away for July took us to Healy this time. We headed off after work on Thursday afternoon, so didn’t arrive until late that night. It’s quite a long drive but we love the area so thought it was worth going anyway.

The place we rented this time was a Yurt! Both Bryan and I stayed in yurts in Mongolia (they call them a Ger instead of a Yurt) and loved it. The gers in Mongolia were not nearly as nice as this place was, though! It was very well laid out, with plenty of space for us to work on our projects. It had a nice little kitchen with running water, a stove, and all the gadgets you could ever need. The outhouse was set back a ways from the yurt on a nice little pathway.

Just down the road there was a lake for Bryan to go fishing. He got his pole wet a couple times, not really catching anything but still having a good time enjoying the great outdoors.

There was a ranch nearby with big work horses – really amazing animals. They had covered wagons you could ride around in if you wanted to go sight-seeing. We did not do that, but we did go visit the horses each time we went out for a walk.

The 49^th State Brewery is one of Bryan’s favorites, so of course we had to have dinner there one night. They always have good food, and he got his growler filled with his favorite so had plenty of beer throughout the weekend. I just love the wall behind the bar: those are actual trees – not a wallpaper!

The weather wall all over the map: pouring down rain one day, then clear blue skies the next. All in all, we had a great time.

Riding Horses, Painting, and Drinking Wine

Last week, I decided I needed to do something for myself for a change, so ended up at a nearby ranch for a Ladies Retreat! That basically means that a bunch of ladies got together and rode horses for a while, then relocated to the nearby house to paint a picture, eat a bite of dinner, and drink lots of wine.

It was fun. I grew up with horses but had not been on one in a very long time. My recent trip down the Grand Canyon on a mule had reminded me of how much I enjoyed it. I will admit, however, that the horse they put me on was a bit much for me to handle. His name was Hootch (named after one of my favorite movies: Turner & Hootch) and he was a little pill to say the least. He knew right away that he could pretty much do anything he wanted to, and I could not make him behave.

And as luck would have it the weather turned sour on us that day: it was not raining, it was POURING! I discovered that my spiffy new hat is not waterproof, my rain pants eventually do let the water soak in, my 25-year-old raincoat no longer works very well, and I really REALLY should have been wearing my Xtra-Tuffs. I cannot believe how wet we all were – which may explain some of the attitude I was getting from Hootch.  

Once we’d all gotten thoroughly soaked, we headed inside to warm up and eat our dinner. Our host’s husband had been cooking Pulled Pork all day long, not exactly my kind of food – but I’m told it was very tasty. The wine table had pretty much any kind of wine you could think of – so we all got to sip while we painted our horse.

Desert was a chocolate brownie with clotted cream and caramel sauce! I decided it was totally worth breaking my gluten-free diet - since it was a special occasion and all that. It doesn't look like much, but it sure tasted good.