A Loving Wife

Some tidbits from last night.
******

Jared: You're not ornery tonight are you, Anne?

Anne: No, I'm just in one of those moods....[brief pause]... where I want to beat you.

******

a few minutes later

******

Jared: Would you mind if I turned on a show?

Anne: Not at all.

Jared: You wouldn't curse my name?

Anne: [with maybe a hint of sarcasm] Why on earth would I ever curse your name?

Jared: I ask myself that very question every day...

Anne: And have you ever taken a minute to try and answer that question?

Cause I think a whole lot of problems would be solved if you did.

Jared: [No response]

Five O'clock

I love storms. LOVE THEM. Well, I love watching them. And listening to them. Only occasionaly do I love being in them. One of my favorite memories growing up was when the power would go out and my parents would let us kids campout in the front room together. I always loved camping out with the fam listening to the wind, thunder, and lightning. Maybe that's why to this day I still get soooo excited when the power goes out. Fond memories :)

We had a nice wind storm three nights ago. The wind was blowing hard enough that it actually woke me up at four in the morning. I stayed in bed for awhile just listening to it. The sounds were so vivid it almost seemed like every window in the house was open! After about 30 minutes, my curiosity (and maybe my bladder a little bit) got the better of me so I got out of bed to look out the living room windows. I stepped out of the bedroom and glanced out the windows and then realized why the wind was so loud. The front door was wide open! Who knows how long it'd been that way but after quickly scanning the living room for wild animals I promptly shut the door and gave it an extra push for good measure. Then I very cautiously tip-toed to the bathroom hoping and praying that I didn't find any four-legged creatures on my way.

Jared was half-awake and totally hogging my half of the bed when I went back to our room. After accidentally knocking him in the head as I crawled back in bed, I told him what I'd discovered. And of course we then spent the next few minutes arguing trying to figure out who was the last one to use the front door. Cause details like that totally matter. We determined it was me....but I'm still pretty sure it was Jared's fault. Some how. It had to be, right?

It took us each a good 45 minutes to fall back to sleep after our little chat. I'm not sure what kept Jared up, but thoughts of what animals could potentially be lurking in the house is what kept me up. I just laid there watching the doorway waiting for a raccoon to jump in bed with us. When I finally did fall asleep, I had bad dreams that kept me tossing and turning for the next hour. The only one I still remember was about these five little stinkers.

Can I just say that little calves are the cutest stinking things ever? Well, next to little puppy dogs, of course. And that I can't wait to watch Jared and his brothers attempt to tackle and brand these little cuties in a couple months??

These cute little punks are in one of the fields Jared and I visit each morning to feed the cows. What's weird (to me, anyway... I'm still learning animal behaviors out here so maybe this is completely normal) is that they're always together. ALWAYS. From my limited experience, it seems like calves are usually more interested in hanging with their mom than with the other calves. But not these little guys and girls. I comment to Jared on how "they're just so stinking cute!" every time I see them. And the morning I took these pictures, I was especially happy to see them.

ALIVE.

You see, in my dream Jared's brother let a horrible awful cow hunter guy hunt in our fields. Why he did that is beyond me but I'm sure in the part of my dream that I don't remember, I exchanged strong words with him expressing my disapproval. After the first night of hunting, Jared and I went out to feed and found five mommy cows shot to death and each one of them had their little calf on the ground next to them with an arrow in their side. It was horrible!!! And even though it was just a dream, I'm still traumatized by it. I mean, who could kill a little calf??

And why in the CRAP did I have to dream about it??

When I was telling Jared about my dream that morning, I had to reenact my display of emotions so he could understand how distraught I was.

"He killed every single one of them!" I said in my loud ugly sobbing voice. "Why would he DO that??"

Thankfully, it was just a dream. And thankfully Jared's brother is very pro-cow-life and would probably use one of his many shotguns on anyone who was ever foolish enough to express that kind of hunting interest. And thankfully our five little friends were still playing happily together when we went to feed that morning. And thankfully I just made the most delicious oatmeal raisin cookies ever to comfort me whilst I relived my dream in this blog. What was 30 cookies is now down to 16. Not sure how that happened...but for some odd reason I currently feel the need to go put on my stretchy pants.

In celebration of their continued life, these five little stinkers will now be the stars of the five o'clock spot on this clock that a good friend of mine gave us for our wedding.

It took me four months to finally hang it and so far it's taken me over two months to figure out what pictures to put in it. Jared and I finally decided to use pictures from the ranch but each picture has to represent the number in which it was placed. Hence, the five o'clock spot. One picture down, eleven to go.

Hopefully the remaining pictures won't come about by some bad dream I've had. I'm blaming the nightmare on the unease that the open door at 4am caused. I was talking to my friend and partner-in-crime, Emily, that night and told her about the open door ordeal and she asked if at any time I was worried that someone (not someTHING) was actually in the house. The sudden realization that that kind of thought had never even crossed my mind almost made me laugh! Had an open door been discovered in Salt Lake, that would have been my first and only concern! And I would have immediately retrieved my 9mm pistol and woken up my roommates to make sure they were safe and that the house was clear.

Orrrrr, maybe I would have locked myself in my bedroom and hid in my closet as I called my roommates on my cell phone to make sure they were ok.

I'd like to think I'd go with option A but who knows.

Either way, it's pretty amazing and pretty stinking crazy that I'm more concerned about getting attacked by an actual animal out here than a psycho human animal.

Just one of the many wonderful, and even surreal, differences between where I'm at now and where I was a year ago.

I love it.

Now if you'll excuse me, cookie #15 is calling my name.

Disconnected

Good news! I now have a working laptop and am no longer disconnected from the world! Yay!!! I returned my work laptop about a month ago and between now and maybe a day after my last post, both of my other laptops died on me. I'm guessing my old school one has a pretty serious virus, and my really old personal laptop stopped holding a charge cause something was wrong with the power cord. Thankfully, Jared knows how to fix pretty much EVERYTHING, so yesterday he spliced some wires (I think....) and got it working again!! Mostly. The problem is that the wires in the power cord are loose now and if a certain wire touches another certain wire, bad things will happen. So I'm being super careful to not let this thing budge until Jared brings in some electrical tape. Wish me luck.

First thing's first. I would just like to share with the world that I think I've been sick in one way or another five of the six months that I've lived in Wyoming. Infections, viruses, parasites... Who knew Wyoming required such a strong immune system?? Seriously. I no sooner got over the whole giardia fiasco when I got a stinking cold. The first week of sneezing and sniffles I swore it was just bad allergies. But then at the start of week two, I accepted the fact that I had a cold. When week three started, I thought the cold had passed and I was back to the really REALLY bad allergies again. But then Sunday night the sore throat came, and then Monday the 'I just want to die' phase came, and then after a basically sleepless night Monday night, I finally called a doctor and got me an appointment for yesterday afternoon. 

During the four hours between the phone call and the appointment, my ear started throbbing. Bad. It was the kind of pain where all I could do was hold my hand to my ear and force back the tears. Not fun. Ear aches and sore throats are horrible inventions. I hate them. I managed to hold myself together pretty well until Jared came in the room. Don't read into this too much, but just the site of him was enough for the tears to find their way out. He kept asking what he could do for me and I finally told him that having him around made me cry and could he please just stay in the other room.

I'm such a baby :)

When I finally got to the doctor's office, the nurse asked me if I'd had chills or felt feverish. I told her no. I actually did have chills, but it's winter. And Jared drags me out to work in the freezing cold shop. Every day. It's nice to get out of the house and all, but...it's just so dang cold!! So anyways, I told the nurse no, and then she took my temperature.

"104.5" she says in a slightly annoyed tone.

Oops.

I guess I haven't learned to distinguish between what a fever feels like and what "ugh, I just want to die" feels like. Silly me.

When the doc came in, he asked the usual questions including, "Are you allergic to anything?" I've decided that from now on, when anyone in the medical field asks me that question, I'm gonna say, "Yes, I'm allergic to WYOMING." I think I'm to the point where if I didn't love everything else about Wyoming, I'd be packing my bags and looking for a different state. Preferably one with smog and pollution everywhere cause those are two things my body can handle without any problems.

No more of this fresh air crap. Geez.

Three minute doctor visit results: fever, sinus infection, and an ear drum that was about to burst...which explained the pain and echoing in my ear. Go figure.

Poor Jared has had to deal with my constant complaining and nose blowing this whole time. If roles were reversed, I would have probably killed him by now. Patience and sympathy aren't very high on my list of good qualities. In fact, I kinda don't think they're on my list at all... Jared's been great though. And even when I'm at my worst and look as crappy as I feel, he always knows how to make me feel better.

Like the other night. When I was at death's door. And looked like this.

Despite the snot rag hanging about six inches out of my nose, the mascara blotches under my eyelids, and the messy hair, Jared still found the love and tenderness in his heart to sit down on the couch with me and say, "Honey..... Ugh. I can't look at you. Where's a blanket..." and then proceed to put a blanket over my face before he continued to speak.

Generally I would have been really upset over something like that. But then Jared took the above picture and showed it to me.

Ummmmm, ya. Can't really blame him, can I.

Compliments

Jared tried to compliment me the other day.

I don't remember what we were talking about, but I do remember his kind and loving words.

*******

J: You're tough as snot, and twice as icky.

A: *silently gives Jared "the look"*

J: Wait... I didn't mean that!

******

At least he tried, right??

Ranch Wanderings

I thought it'd be fun (for my Utah readers, at least) for me to start sharing more pics from around the ranch. So that's what this post is all about. I hope you enjoy!

This first pic is actually from a few weeks ago. Jared got home just after sunset and noticed an odd silhouette on the top of one of the haystacks.

Not sure how this guy got up there, but he did...

Hello, Mr. Porcupine!

This next pic is from New Year's Eve. Jared and his family built a pretty sweet cabin two summers ago, so for New Year's we all piled on the snowmobiles and headed up the mountain to spend a day at the cabin. After riding around the ranch with Jared on the 4wheeler and snowmobile these last couple weeks, I knew I needed to bundle up as much as I could to avoid a painfully freezing ride.

We all had a great time despite the crazy winds. And I was reminded yet again, that getting on the back of a snowmobile with Jared is a really bad idea. I don't think I've prayed so hard for my safety in all my life. Had there been a recording of our adventure, you would have heard something like, "oh crap....oh crap....oh crap....OH $#%!!!...holy cow...holy cow...yikes!!....I don't think you're making very wise choices!!....ahhhh!!!" the whole entire time.

Not that I'm a wimp or anything.

The next couple pics are from breaking ice. We noticed tons of beetles frozen in the ice at one of the holes we chopped out, and when we pulled the ice out, we noticed a bunch more beetles swimming around in the water. As Jared was watching them, he noticed even more creatures below the ice. I wouldn't have known what they were had Jared not told me. Salamanders - or mud puppies to be precise. There were at least a dozen of them right there at the hole. I asked Jared if we could take some home but I guess he didn't think I was serious.

And last but certainly not least, the rest of the pics are from my wanderings around the ranch yesterday afternoon. These are shots from up and down our lane. When I got back to the house, I noticed we had four visitors. I'm not really sure why, but they ran away when they saw me coming.
Bunch of chickens...errr....uhhh.....wait...

That's it. That's all I've got.

Laffy Taffy

Jared made the mistake of letting me go to the grocery store alone a week or two after Halloween. Grocery stores after any holiday are awesome places to be. Why? Discounted candy, of course. Jared had actually gone to the store a few days prior because I asked him to check out the leftover halloween candy and get me some if it was on sale. When he got home later that night, I asked him if he'd stopped at the store. He said that he had and there was a lot of Halloween candy left.

But he didn't get any.

"I didn't think it was a good idea" he told me.

Strike one.

So instead he bought himself some disgusting pumpkin eggnog.

Strike two.

And nothing else. Even though he KNOWS that he's only allowed to get such disgustingness if it accompanies some chocolate milk. For me.

Strike three.

He got the silent treatment that night. And the next morning. And when I had the chance to visit the grocery store a few days later, I bought me some chocolate milk. And four or five bags of clearance Halloween candy. I was grinning from ear to ear when I showed Jared what I'd done. He was less than impressed. I didn't care.

My primary class and I have thoroughly enjoyed my purchase over the last few weeks. Except for the Laffy Taffy. I made the mistake of bringing all the red and green ones to my class the week before Christmas. Not only did I have to listen to four nine and ten-year-olds chew on theirs, but I had to listen to lame joke after lame joke after lame joke. I decided right then and there that primary was not the time or place for chewy candy with jokes on it. So now Jared and I are working on the rest of the bag. I ate one yesterday morning and couldn't help but read the joke...

Q: What's a parasite?

A: Something you see in Paris.

Dear little Alfred C. from Des Moines, I must respectfully disagree. Unless, of course, Paris resembles what an emergency room at a Utah hospital might look like on Christmas Eve night. I've never been to Paris, so I don't know. I've seen pictures though, and I took first-year french three times in school, so I'm somewhat familiar...

Let's jump back to Halloween, give or take a week. We ran out of water so we had to pump water from the creek and leave a hose running into our cistern for about two days to fill it. Then Jared treated the water and after letting the treatment do its thing for about 24 hours, we had drinking water again.

Here's a pic of the pump house by the creek I took earlier this year when Jared was fixing the pump. The second picture is the hose thingy that actually gets the water. And the grey thing at the bottom of the third picture is the access door to our cistern. 

I thought the black tubing stuff was what gets the water from the cistern to our house, but Jared tells me it doesn't really have a function. The line pumping water to the house is underground. As you can tell, I don't really know much about the whole process. That's Jared's job. And he usually does a good job with it all.

Until this last refill.

Shortly after we refilled the cistern, my stomach started bothering me...to put it mildly. I thought it was my body's way of adjusting to the change in birth control I was using, so I didn't think too much of it. After three or four weeks, though, I was getting quite frustrated and wondered if something else might be the culprit. I started reading about gluten intolerance and the symptoms sounded very similar, so I started cutting back on bread and anything with flour in it. That definitely helped, but it was a miserable way to live. Bread, brownies, and cookies hold a very special place in my heart, and I didn't want to give them up! Sure you can buy and make gluten free goodies, but it's just not the same. And it requires so much more effort and planning! So I was kind of depressed for awhile. But then I realized that I was losing weight so maybe the diet change wasn't so bad after all :)

I accepted my fate and planned to stock up on all of the gluten free types of flour when we went to Utah for Christmas. Long story not so short, I didn't have to stock up on anything. Except bottled water. The day after we got to Utah my stomach got worse. And worse. And when Christmas Eve night rolled around, I was in the worst pain I've ever been in.

After spending some quality time in the fetal position in bed with tears streaming down my face, I finally agreed to let Jared take me to an instacare. We drove down to Bountiful only to find that the instacare was closed. The pain and nausea caught up to me at that point and well....let's just say that Jared and I were both very grateful that I'd thought to bring a garbage can along with us. Jared called my parents to find out what our other options were. My mom was worried that it might be my appendix so she directed Jared to the nearest hospital.

After a couple hours of tests, poking, and prodding in the emergency room, the doctor told me that my appendix was fine but that something was wrong with my colon so it wasn't processing food like it should. They gave me fluids to treat the dehydration and wrote me out a few prescriptions for waterborne parasites. He also told me I needed to go see a specialist as soon as I could. One of the prescriptions was for giardia, and the other was for something I can't remember. When I looked it up online, it said it was used to treat anthrax, among other things. Nice.

I'm pleased to report that after a week of drugs, the pain and about 90% of the discomfort is gone. And even better, I was able to make some bread this week and eat a whole bunch of it. And even more better, my ordeal has earned me a new nickname with Jared's brothers. No more "Big Haul" or "Annabanana" for me. Oh, no.

You may now refer to me as...

The Fever.

Short for beaver fever. Which is a phrase I'd never heard of.  Until now.

Oh, how lucky am I.