The adventure begins

Saturday, 1:00a - we depart home for the beginning of the trip. Sandpoint depot is a historical antique dump. Probably built around the turn of the century complete original depot wood seating, white tiling, pulley-assisted casement windows. Various refurbishings evidenced from the 1970s we extremely dark paneling, surface mounted electrical outlets, and old apple computers.

As our train was scheduled to arrive at 2:47 and tickets advise to be at the station well in advance, we wait for over 2 hours. We do get the chance to talk to two gregarious gentlemen, John and his brother Len who is travelling back to Minnesota. The train finally arrives, and we are met by a tactiurn conductor who points at the coach car for Len, and assists us to the sleeper compartment. We collapse into the minute sleeper-roomette for some much needed rest. Our beds have been turned down with cookies on the pillows. I was apprehensive about the rolling and rocking, so Greg sleeps with me and we cuddle VERY closely in the bottom bunk.

Saturday morning, I roll out of the room, knocking shins and my head on anything & everything in the comartment...to stagger down the corridor at 5AM for bladder relief. I am confronted by Gul (pronounced gu-hl) the most attentive room attendant we have ever encountered. Of Pakistani descent, he has the most soothing voice, the whitest teeth, and the most upbeat attitude of anyone I have ever met. Gul proceeds with tidying our room as we breakfast on very yummy pancakes & sausage for me; oatmeal, croissant & fruit for Greg; Jena is the dining car supervisor. She is sweet. We return to an immaculate room with two seats facing each other. Our table is set with roses & carnations in a vase. Fresh champage in plastic footed cups and our gift box contains handcream, tea bags, foot powder, Dove chocolate, and candy. (after we leave, we feel like we have NOT tipped this wonderful gentleman enough-I AM writing to Amtrak to let them know of his Great service!)

We proceed to a lunch of chicken breast sandwiches, then onto the observation lounge. Upon our return to our room, finding Martinellis sparkling cider with snack bags. We volunteer for the wine & cheese tasting for the afternoon. Michael, another conductor, entertains with trivia and we sit across from an interesting older couple, we had lots of fun & laughs.
Napping in our room after the wine tasting, dinner brings an acquaintance with a young man who is coming from California to celebrate his girlfriend's 22nd birthday. She lives in North Dakota. How romantic.

Yes. Yes. I know. I have blown the diet completely.

I foreswear to exercise double time when we return home.

Greg starts in the top bunk, then we trade 1/2 way through the night. The train encounters the worst tracks of the trip thus far. Tipping, rocking, and rolling extensively we rise at 2AM to take a shower. Wow. Hot water, huge shower stalls and lovely sweet smelling soap.

At breakfast we encounter Dawn who is mid 40s and Nic, a college student working full time at "W" in Chicago and aspiring actor. He is in the coach section and has to pay for his meal. We hesitate, and should have told him we would pay for his breakfast. He reminds me so much of Matt, our daugher's husband. We spend the rest of the trip attempting to find him to give him one of our Champagne bottles, and our email address, but are unable to locate him. This young man will be one to watch. Probably the next Brad Pitt!

A telephone call from our friends indicates that Isabelle has taken over their spare bedroom bed.

A young girl in the Observation Lounge is playing guitar. She is very talented as we sit listening to her for about 30 minutes, we watch the beautiful scenery of the Mississippi River flow by outside. Complimenting the girl on her playing, we go thru to the diner car.

We encounter Dawn again at a very late lunch, and sit talking to her for over an hour.

People are interesting. One would never make this many contacts during a plane flight.

After taking a teary farewell to Gul, and departing the train, we experience motion sickness for hours. I still feel as if the train is rocking down the track.

Sunday 2:48p, we take a cab (driven by Houston H. Suggs, Jr...a very interesting gentleman. He has been sober for over 30 years. Friendly and knowledgeable about Milwaukee. Our 10 minute ride was a joy due to his conversation) to County Clare Inn, check in and wait for our room. We have a drink in the authetic Irish pub, wishing Matt & Kelsey could be there with us sharing a drink. We listen to the Ce (pronounced "k") Trio (minus 1 at home sick)...they play celtic flute & guitar. Beautiful music by two very young & talented men. We have appetizers called Dumpings...Irish brown bread which are filled with gorgonzola cheese. Yummy.

We enter our room at 5:00 and collapse upon the bed. I have DSL~yippee! Shower and HOUSE back to back episodes. Am in heaven. Download massive amounts of stuff, take a shower, and collapse into bed.

OMG. My feet are the size of baby elephants. Swollen up to massive size. Owie.

More later.

Boobs

Over at DigiShopTalk, Jen Caputo started a thread about the boob Layouts she had done. So I took up the challenge and had to scrap mine quickly before we left on our trip.

Isabelle is staying with friends of ours. Bruce & Joanie own 3 greyhounds and 1 cock-a-poo terrier mix. After a while playing with the dogs, sniffing each others' butts, and running; Izzy sat staring at the door to leave. She almost body blocked us to exit with us, but we managed to escape. It is devastating without her. And it has only be about 5 hours.

We board the train at 2:47am and hopefully we can settle into our Room-ette and sleep. Bunk beds!

Probably be back by Thursday, November 2. Anybody want us to bring them something back from the mid-west United States?

Poor sick pumpkin

Our pumpkin is kinda sick. He vomited on the step. Poor pumpkin.

Fuddy Duddies (We Are Not)

We are not stick in the muds. We are not fuddy-duddies. We ain't old. Yep. We actually are getting out and doing things.

In the AM before the appointment at the Chiropractor's, we stopped and got a dozen donuts at "The Donut House" (which EVERYBODY says has the greatest donuts). Karen & Kevin just loved them when we shared. Yesterday PM in our search for a burrito, we ended up at Taco del Mar. Now I know that this does not the best thing for my diet & exercise program; but I only ate one bite of donut and 1/2 of my burrito.

When I got my nails done, I had them painted dark grey to match our new truck. *more info at a later date about the new truck!

Beware of Christmas Gifts From Me

On A Clear Day, You Can See Forever

I think that was a very romantic movie. Starring Barbra Streisand.


Romantic - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >


Shit hit the fan at DST & NDISB. We are all sworn to silence, but the impact is devastating. It is horrible to think that something like this could happen. But pathological liars will always be out there to prey upon those who have sympathy. The odd thing to think about is that these people who invent a fantasy world, actually believe it is real, and get very irritated, upset, & nasty when others doubt their word! The best offense is a good defense? Yeah. I hit that pin on the head with a baseball bat! It is VERY OFFENSIVE.

On the other hand, you have me. Whose life is an open book. Just look at my scrapping. You can trust that anything I say, will be the gosh honest truth. With a few embellishments thrown in to make it sound interesting and romantic. Otherwise, you would fall asleep at how BoRiNg my life actually is to live.

I still am using my elliptical. I might have dropped a pant size because my pants are much easier to zip. As I was squeezing myself into a size 5, I am more comfortable now. Have built up to 2 eight minute stretches at a power resistance of 5-6! So I am doing that twice a day!

Hubby is still off. Still in pain. Poor baby.

I ripped a toenail off while vacuuming yesterday, so I need to get my nails done. Am also thinking about having hair extensions put in for the Christmas party. I REALLY want to impress those pretentious bitches that I used to work with as they were being nasty behind my back when I was in pain at work. Yes, I am just as supercilious as they are... Silly, huh?

WHY do people always questions those with back pain? Don't they believe it is real? Just because blood is not spurting, or there are no existing bruises, or obvious malformation...I injured my ribs and tore the cartilage from my ribs about 3 years ago. Cartilage holds your ribs together. Just imagine not having that support. And that is the pain I endure daily! At this point in my life, I know it won't get better and I don't complain, but did they HAVE to be nasty about it?

Fraggle Rock

Remember the doozers?

I rolled out of bed this morning and IM'd my baby. We turned on the digi-cam then the kids got to talk to me in bed while I was still coughing. Greg had gone for lattes, and when he returned, the kids watched while Greg made Wiener Winks and I made his breakfast sandwich.

Our son was salivating while he watched Greg throw the dough in the air, roll it around the cheese and secure it around the wiener. K&M are going to Switzerland at Thanksgiving and we really will miss them through the holidays.

We are trying to plan to go continent hopping in the fall of 2007.

On Saturday, October 21, Greg worked down at the shop for a couple hours. I should say...he tried to work. But he didn't really do too much and came home after only a little while down there. I cleaned the house & vacuumed. (p-yuck). But the house looks nicer.

Today (Sunday), we picked up the stuff around the yard and secured the area for winter. Cold today...with frost on the deck and truck as Greg had forgotten to put his dually in the garage last night. Today was a balmy high of 60. I filled in the area with pea gravel where the guys had dug up our water-line; also tidied up my walkway.

I scrapped a bit. Greg forced himself onto the couch to relax.

Isabelle has a enormous beef bone that we got a while ago. Greg thawed it out and it is kept out on the deck. Izzy knows to whine, we let her out, then she comes right back in with the bone. After she is done chawing on it for a while, she goes to bed, and we return the bone outside. What a dog. She has also taken to sleeping with her bushings on her bed.

Doin A Cruise

My LO of my Blog banner. I was so happy with the way the design turned out, that I decided to immortalize it.

We picked up the Dually today after it had been detailed. Wow. I have never seen it so clean. We got pictures of it and will put it up on eBay to sell it.

Greg went to another chiropractor appointment today. Then did errands while I stayed at home and worked on LOs, washed my hair, did laundry and caught up on stuff.
Kelsey's "fuck-me boots" came in the mail today...well, we had to go to the post office to pick them up...but they did GET here. So I will send them to her on Monday. To quote my daughter from her last email...

You are the BEST mommy in the WORLD!

P.S. I am also the best MOMMY-In-Law in the whole world. I win, I win!

I also made a LO of a tongue-in-cheek acronymn that the hubby and I adopted about a certain outrageously ridiculous actor. After we had heard an on-air personality make a joke about him, we started talking about it...then came up with the list. We almost peed our pants it got so funny.

Will scrap more tomorrow, vacuum, and make bacon.

LYING

It is emotionally distressing when one finds that they have been lied to. Whether the liar be a spouse, significiant other, child, relative, friend, or acquaintance.

A certain trust is destroyed within and it takes a while for that emotion to grow.

When I picked up the phone late this afternoon, to my surprise I was talking to one of my Virtual friends. Theresa sounds totally different than I thought she would. But not in a bad way. She has a husky voice that reminds me of whisky and dark smoky bars. Her voice reminds me of a chanteuse singing atop a piano with a young piano player accompanying her.

Today we took the dually into have it detailed (massive accumulation of dog hair!). Then I chauffered Greg to his general medical doctor's appointment. It appears we have been referred to a neurosurgeon. Whether the outcome is injections, drainage, physical therapy or surgery it anybody's guess. Looks like we are in for the long haul.

It rained and *hailed* violently tonight. Quite chilly, but we still managed to do a walk with the dog around the property. Stars in the sky twinkled and the air was bracingly fresh.

Boo

60 shoppings days left to Christmas!

Are you ready?

On the 9th Greg went to visit his doctor at North Idaho Immediate Care.

The medico said he is off until further notice for his back injury.

A visit to the Chiropractor afterwards relieved a little of hubby's pain.

Monday, the hubby attempted to relax at home, but is "bored".

I told him be bored or be in a wheelchair for life. It his choice.

On Tuesday the 10th, after his Chiro appointment, we did some errands.

Got home late and both of us were exhausted.

I got Kelsey into digital scrapping and she is really GOING wild.

She is Awesome and has taken to it like a duck to water!

To keep my little baby warm over in that cold foreign land; i.e.-England...

I ordered the boots of her dreams. Cavalry by MIA.

Hopefully they get here before Winter!

Thursday the 12th, we ran into CDA and while I shopped at Lyle's, Greg stayed in the truck to call his dad.

We learned that Bert has a lump in her breast and will have a biopsy done to find out if it is cancerous.

We drove downtown to the Lake and picked up those WonderfuL hamburgers at Hudsons. Walked around the floating boardwalk, then ate our burgers at the picnic bench where we took Matt & Kelsey before they left for England.

On Friday the 13th, Joe made it out again with the backhoe (and Dave Graham) to backfill the hole by our home.

Discovered that the ACTUAL water leak was at the connection to the main. Traded the propane tanks from shop to the house and vice-versa.

This took most of the day as they were here when we returned from getting lattes and did not leave until 3:00.

I paper scrapped most of the day.

Saturday morning at 9:45 was Greg's MRI in Spokane.

We stopped afterwards for groceries then came directly home as Greg was in a lot of pain.

Matt had a birthday. He is now 22! Can You Believe It?

Udpate

Udpate=I am busy working on my recipes for Christmas gift giving.

Thursday the window washers came to clean. Our windows are fresh and bright again. It took them about 2 1/2 hours for the two guys to complete. Meanwhile, Izzy was growling and barking at the same time. I was amazed she was not hoarse (horse?) at the end of the day!

On Sunday the 8th, Leo's kids...Trace and Taylor came to pick up branches in our yard. It is an annual thing and they love to come over. Greg pays them, and I feed them. They had pastries in the morning, along with hot chocolate. Then I bagged up some trail mix for them to eat while they worked. For lunch, I made homemade chili with cheese & onions. Then their father came to pick them up at about 2:00. They will be back over next Sunday as there is still a bunch of stuff they need to clean up. This encounter gives Greg some 1/1 time with BOYS. Since we only had a girl, he interacts with others of his own kind!!!

Better Blogger

I will do better at blogging as I have had no enthusiasm to blog lately.

Last weekend, I got an Elliptical machine and have been devoting 1 hour on the bike and about 30 minutes on the elliptical. Hopefully, I will be in better condition by our Christmas party which always takes place at the first of December.

I have been working on altered art. Finished a paperbook scrap album for my daughter that was absolutely beautiful. Then I worked on one for NDISB. The picture at the left shows the final product. This will be a Christmas gift for a friend. I am also working on the annual scrap recipe books. More to come on those later.

I also purchased a tanning bed; my darling husband installed it in the basement and I can tan at my leisure now. No need to make an appointment around their schedule, run into town, and tan for 20 minutes, then come home again. Tan anytime I want now. 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes at night...20 minutes in the afternoon. Whatever. Now I will look like I have just gotten back from a vacation in the islands in the middle of winter!