How I feel

Sorry to leave that post up for so long. Not exactly a warm and cheery greeting when you come here.

I haven't posted in a while because I fell out of the habit. Because I haven't been sure what to say. Because there is a lot to say, and nothing to say, at the same time.

My grandma is dying. My grandpa is... hanging in there, though he's not all there, you know? I drove over to see them over Veteran's Day weekend in a visit which was simultaneously too short and too long.

I developed a cold on Thursday afternoon, and spent Friday home on the couch. We had wonderful houseguests for the weekend. They were here for the annual rivalry football game. We had a lovely visit.

Thanksgiving is in two days, and we've been whipsawed back and forth about the plans. First we're hosting, then we're going to grandmas, then we're hosting, now we're going to my parents. Someone just make a damn plan and stick with it.

I seem to have become pretty crabby and morose as the days have gotten shorter. I'm short tempered, quick to say something biting, crabby, petulant. And this cold has kept me from the gym, my usual coping mechanism. So now I feel grumpy, crabby and fat.

Dusty's brother finally got engaged, and I'm so happy. For them, of course, but for me too. As Brian seemed to drag his feet, I started to worry about how I'd keep his girlfriend as a friend if they broke up. So yes, I'm selfish even in that aspect.

I mentioned to Dusty last night that between Veterans Day and New Years Day is hard for me. Lots to do, and sometimes nothing to do, all at once. Short days, snowy weather, the stress of holiday shopping, etc.

Man, this cold needs to clear so I can get back to the gym!

August 26 Friday Farming

Sigh. It's a Friday Farming post, as Friday is about over. I have photos for last week's Friday farming post, but never got around to actually posting them. Summer flies by so fast! 

August has been, well, rather stressful. Working to get all of the work items taken care of, personal items attended to, and trip thoughtfully planned before we leave has just been a lot of...work. It feels like Monday through Friday has been an absolute sprint. 

But in between all of the to-do lists, and the waking up at 5am with thoughts of things-to-do running through my head have been a couple of really good things. My friend Alli, the one of the the great hike, and who did the awesome pamphlet map for our wedding invites became engaged last weekend. I'm thrilled for them! But even better is that Alli and her almost fiancee Bill are visiting us for 'Cat-Griz weekend (rivalry weekend in college football, the weekend before Thanksgiving). I'm so excited to have them here! 

Along the wedding lines, I had a chance to loan out my wedding shoes to my "little sister" in the sorority, Jenni, who is doing her engagement photos next week, and getting married July 7, 2012. I'm so excited to get to pass along these great shoes which are apparently now not available. It makes me happy that Jenni will get such joy out of them too. 

And holy shit, did you know we're going to Europe?! Gah, I have so much to tell you :)

But let's focus on the purpose of tonight's post: Friday Farming. Because man, this yard/ garden is doing really well right now! Who in their right mind scheduled a major vacation in early September, just as all of the peppers and tomatoes were coming in? Oh... me.

First, Hydrangea. Specifically: twist and shout hydrangea. Makes me smile every time! 

Know what else makes me smile? Sunflowers, which FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY bloomed!

I mean seriously, I've only been waiting for this since, oh, March.

Um guys, I may have overplanted the garden. There are areas I can't really access because vines are going every which way and there is nowhere to step. Oops!

My gladiolus are blooming!

And the early girl tomatoes are ripening.

We've been consistiently picking early girl tomatoes off the vines for a few weeks now. They're delicious!

I think this pumpkin has evil plans. Plans to grow over the house and strangle us in our sleep. Seriously. This thing grows like 18" a day.

There is supposed to be a walkway in there, somewhere.

Winter squash!

Pumpkin! Question: I think I once read that after getting a pumpkin vine to set fruit, I should snap all of the other flowers off of the vine in order to direct all of the nutrients to the existing fruit and make it big? True? Not?

Zucchini! I see zuch bread, muffins, stir fry, etc. in our future. :)

Roma tomatoes! Wayyyyy bigger than last year's Roma's. I'm pretty certain they'll all ripen while we're in... Roma. Thankfully we have someone house/ dog sitting who can pick my tomatoes and save them for me to process.

Summer squash, some of it destined for our Saturday night pasta.

Glads!

Pepper!

More pepper!

Eggplant!

Spaghetti squash!

Sunflowers!

Gladiolus (apparently I'm really proud of these...)

Clematis on the top, sweet peas trellising up the bottom.

Front yard.

So I seriously thought these sweet peas weren't going to do much this year. They start so damn slow!

But clearly they come on late.

And man they smell good.

My Autumn Joy sedum is starting to turn pink. I think that means fall is around the corner...

Bell peppers!

Cherry Bomb bell peppers. So funny story. Wednesday night I was making salsa for an event on Thursday night, and I had a ripe Cherry bomb. I chopped it up, tossed it in the bowl. Then I chopped up a tomato and tossed it in the bowl, but a little into my mouth. HOT!!! Hot! WTF why is that tomato HOT! Ohh... these little suckers pack a punch!

Hungarian wax pepper.

Black-eyed Susans.

The herbs.

The mint (currently in my mojito).

My bee balm, which is getting powdery mildew from being directly sprayed by the water.

Bed along the driveway.

Snapdragon! Starting to bloom. Guys I grew this from seed!

Fern gully.

What's not shown: that I've harvested all of the garlic and it's in the coat closet drying. That we've got a pile of juliet tomatoes on our kitchen counter. That I'm seriously sad to be missing the best part of summer gardening while we're in Europe; everything is just about to start being prolific. That by the time we get back, it'll be well into fall. That I'm a bit scared/ intimidated by winter this year. That I want to plant evergreens by our front steps. That I can't wait to spend 17 days trapsing about with my husband.

Life, my friends, is good right now. Busy, incredibly busy, but good.

Flying

Man, last weekend rocked.

First there was a quick trip to Anaconda for my friend Ashley's birthday party. Ash was my "little sister" in AOII in college. It always amazes me how quickly I pick back up with any of those girls; and always wonderful to see Ashley. I stayed the night and we went for a quick walk around Anaconda before I left Saturday morning.

Fun history fact: you may have heard of the recent death of Hugette Clark, the mystery heiress to William A. Clark, one of Montana's "Copper Kings". Clark's main rival, when he was building his fortune a century ago, was Marcus Daly, who founded Anaconda as the company town for a smelting mill. History, it's all around you.

I stopped off in Butte on my way back to Bozeman, to quickly browse through the antique stores and see the finished Hennessey Market on East Granite Street in Uptown Butte. Now I know you're going to make fun of me, people who don't "get it" usually do, but I have a big crush on Butte, America..

Saturday afternoon I gardened in the heat, while DJ worked on landscaping stuff. Then we grabbed a quick dinner with Ali Judge, her son Cole and fiancee Jim. Ali, always rail-thin and willowy, looks pretty much exactly the same as she did when she got pregnant. Damn those girls and their lithe, athletic bodies. Good to see them, and meet the little man.

Sunday morning I went for a long bike ride, then showered and walked over to Allyson and Chris' for Allyson's 32nd birthday brunch. The day was capped when 3 year old Aiden Kutnz handed Allyson a larger jewelry case, totally fit for a necklace. Instead, Chris handed Allyson an engagement ring. I'm so genuinely excited for them!

Sunday afternoon was more gardening and generally putzing around in the heat. We ended a beautiful weekend with BBQ'd salmon, red potatoes and chives, bread and a salad. A quick walk and chuck-it playing made Harlow a Very Happy Dog.

Overall, about the best weekend I've had in a long, long time.

Engagement Evolution

I wore my engagement dress on Saturday to a function at AOII. It’s a white sundress that I had on when DJ told me we had to meet the contractor on site to discuss grading the lot asked me to marry him. I wrote this post about how we got engaged back in August.

Monday morning in the shower (best thinking place) I thought about all the ways our relationship has evolved since we got engaged. In many ways it hasn’t changed, which is awesome. I didn’t want, and I still don’t want, to change a darn thing about our relationship or DJ.

We still usually fall back to potty humor.

DJ still dances around and sings.

I still have way too many opinions.

We both still love my engagement ring. (LOVE the streamlined Art-Deco feel of it!)

What's not to like!?

Through building a house together we’ve figured out what subjects we communicate well on, and which we don’t. Surprisingly, a house we can build; a wedding seems to take many more intense conversations…

I would say we’re becoming less shy with each other. Neither of us is one to prance around naked, but I’m finding myself more and more comfortable to talk about the root of what’s bothering me than I was before. And that feels like a kind of nakedness.

Not a very flattering photo of me, but DJ is definately saying "pooooooooop" in this photo.

I’m also finding myself tempering my words, and choosing carefully how I say something and how my body language speaks for me. Thinking before speaking!? ME? No shit… maturity does happen, huh?

I’ve said before that if I could fast forward to next fall when we’re married, I would. And it leads me to wonder how else I will evolve in the next year. Pulling off such an increasingly large event requires a lot coordination, skill, tact and patience. Yeah… those last two? Not exactly adjectives often associate with Courtney.

I wonder how other people have changed through the process of becoming engaged and then getting married?

Another one bites the dust...

So, there is no really comfortable way to come out and say this, so I’ll just go straight to it: DJ asked me to marry him Friday afternoon :::smiles and blushes:::

We started ring hunting in March and wrapped it up in April. I started my initial ring search with the internet, because, hello Google images! I also became much more cognizant of my friends rings and rings I saw on other women. I wanted something more antique, yet sturdy enough to withstand my klutzy-ness. A friend of mine’s asscher cut diamond sparked my interest, but I wanted to try on all sorts of stuff before selecting a ring.

Oh, yes, by the way, I was involved in the ring selection. DJ wanted it to be a ring we both liked, and didn’t know where to begin so he asked me to participate.

I spent a few months perusing websites like www.antiqueengagementrings.com (still a favorite!) and Google imaging rings. When we went to try on rings, I insisted on purchasing a ring from a shop on Main Street instead of a mall chain. Call me a local-yokel, but I like to give the little shops business when I can (or DJ) can! Main Street shops keep our historic main streets alive :::ok, I’ll get off the soapbox now:::

We stumbled into, I’m not kidding you, “The Jewelry Studio”, (no, really, that is its name. Innovative, huh?) on Main Street on St. Patrick’s Day and were instantly drawn to some of the simpler pieces. The salesman we spoke to happened to also be the designer of those pieces and the owner of the store, and expressed enthusiasm for working with us. We left the first store with a good feeling, but I wanted to see what anyone else up and down the street had to offer.
Over the next two weekends we checked out the other stores, but kept coming back to the Jewelry Studio to look at the first ring again. By early April we were sold, and it was up to DJ to work with the jeweler to decide stone size and quality.

Then I looked at our summer calendar and realized that there wasn’t a free weekend between mid-May and Labor Day weekend and had a bit of a meltdown. When would DJ have time to propose!?

I’d like to think I kept my shit together getting through the summer lineup of events, which were very fun by the way! But every Sunday night I’d get a little bummed out about the lack of left hand shiny.

Once DJ’s condo sold two weeks ago, house stuff started falling together hot and heavy. We decided to build a house, which means (as you know) that as of August 31, when we close on the sale of the condo, we are homeless for three months. Ahh, the apartment living reprise. Hopefully they’ll start digging foundation for our house on September 1.

So last Friday DJ came into my office and mentioned that we needed to meet the builder on our lot to discuss grading. As a budding gardener, I’m concerned about long term landscaping, so was eager to meet the builder there. I left work a bit early, and met DJ out there at about 4:15pm. I should add that it was hot hot HOT. Like 92, which at this altitude and despite the lack of humidity is HOT. It feels like the sun is searing your skin instantly.

DJ beat me to the lot, and got out of his truck to walk around on it with me. We hiked around and I got annoyed with the contractor for being late (did I mention it was HOT!). DJ points to this brown box under a flowering weed and asks what it is, and I’m like “babe, its construction debris from when the built the house next door… now what would you say to a smaller deck and a larger lower patio; maybe in pavers?”

He’s like, “uhh… ok.” And we keep hiking around the lot. Finally we come back to about the same spot and he picks up what I think is a filter or some piece of rubbish and hands it to me, saying “I really think you should look at this”…

Dun dun dun, ENGAGEMENT! And fater about 5 minutes of hugging and kissing we went back to discussing lot grading. Yep. Because we are romantic. And practical.

The ring is an asscher cut. I have no idea what size it is, but it is perfect. It looks great on my little-smokey sausage fingers. I love the mirror within a mirror effect of an asscher and its symmetry. The band is platinum, and a more square shape, which is (for me) more comfortable than a round band. As DJ said in April when we finalized that this was the ring for me, “it’s basically sweatpants for your hand.”

I’m happy to say that it is comfortable enough for this no-jewelry-to-bed girl to have slept in since I received it. Now DJ just needs to insure it and we’re good to go!

I took the photos using the bouquet I caught at Katie’s wedding a week before DJ asked me to marry him. Nice aim Kate!