Run, Crystal, RUN!!!

There’s two things I know for sure about myself.

One, I am competitive. It’s not necessarily winning a trophy, per say, it’s more the thought that I know I’m the best.

Two, I don’t like to have to work at being the best. I get extremely frustrated at things that I’m not inherently good at. It’s really hard for me to keep going with something that I can’t be the best at in the first couple tries. I probably should work on that discipline issue….

But in the meantime, working out and running is the perfect thing for me! I’ve always liked to run, and with my long gangly giraffe legs it comes naturally to me. It’s also something I can compete in without having to put a whole lot of discipline into.

I started back running after baby # 3 came along and my body decided it didn’t need to bounce back to it’s previous shape like it did with the first two babies. I refuse to not have an (almost) perfect body (I should probably work on that vanity issue too…) so I workout and I run.

I decided that I’m going to sign up and run in the Jingle Bell 5K Run here in Dickinson. I’ve got 6 weeks to get to my goal. I looked it up, and last years winning time was 18 something. Granted….that was a teenage boy that got that time! The highest times in my age group for women was around 25 minutes so, of course, my goal is around 24 minutes! My treadmill run yesterday was 3.5K in 20 minutes, so it shouldn’t be too big of a stretch to reach my goal, or even better!

However, all my running thus far has either been indoors on a treadmill or outside in mild warm weather. This race is December 3rd. I’m not sure what December is like around here, but I’m pretty sure it’s not pleasant considering it‘s only October and already in the 40‘s! So I’m going to be researching cold weather running gear and start running outside at night to get used to it. THAT I think will be my biggest challenge!

I’m looking forward to running in my first race though! I think it will be enough challenge to push myself right to that point before it gets frustrating. But I can still win!

Wish me luck!

Deepest darkest place of my heart

I'm sure everyone has that place in their heart that is like the unreachable floor of an undiscovered lake. A place that no one else can reach, even with the brightest light. A dark and murky place filled with terrifying creatures lurking and waiting for the opportune moment to devour you, soul and all. A place that consumes you once you fall there, sucking you in like quick sand. A place where the blackness overcomes all happiness.

I didn't know I had that place, but I sure found it! And it was scary! I very literally felt like giving up.

I think so much happened all at once that it sent my sanity screaming for the hills! I went through a whirlwind pregnancy on my own, then moved hundreds of miles away from everything I know and love to the edge of the arctic tundra, or so it seemed with the endless cold, snow and gloomy rain. Somewhere in there I ended up with a nasty parasite that made me sicker than I have ever been in my life. The constant extreme fatigue, along with nursing a newborn and keeping up with two rowdy boys was more than I could handle. I like to think I'm a strong person, but I couldn't take it. I went into survival mode. I did the bare minimum to take care of my kids and I slept. And slept and slept. When I was awake I was mean. The smallest irritation got scathing words in return. I'm surprised my poor kids didn't run away! It was awful. I quit working out, I quit talking to friends and family for the most part, I quit baking, I quit eating in general (shocking, I know!) mostly out of necessity because I was so sick. I'm pretty sure I didn't do my hair or makeup for about a month. And most detrimental, I quit praying. Probably the biggest mistake I made but, like I said, it was a dark and scary place!

It truly was like the cliche of walking out of a cave into a bright sun shiny day when I snapped out of it. I laughed again, I ate (and ate and ate and ate!) again, I saw my kids' smiles again!

It was kind of like I was just GONE for a while. Like I walked through the door into my house after an extended leave and said "WHAT happened in here? Has no one cleaned this place in a MONTH? And why are these kids running around in their underwear?"! LOL!

It was awful, but I'm back. Back to my silly, chipper self. Thoroughly enjoying my beautiful and full of life kids, keeping up on laundry, blogging, taking pictures, Facebooking, talking to my BFF nine times a day, being a half way decent wife, and most importantly PRAYING!

And baking......yes, baking!! Stay tuned for banana bread and cheese cake pictures!

If I Had Only Known

This past year has been such a life changing one in so many ways and in so many different lives. A year ago on February 21st, I got one of the hardest phone calls I’ve ever had to deal with in my life. “Hardest” is putting it mildly. I cant even come up with a word for the heartache and despair I felt at hearing my best friend tell me “Makenna died this morning”. I’ll never forget the sound of her voice. It was strangled and tired….but calm. True to her matter-of-fact character, she spun the world upside down with a few right-to-the-point words.

Now a year has gone by. The thought of that phone call still makes my breath catch in my chest. Still gives me the panic feeling of “how do I fix it?”. Still aches in my heart in that place where only a mother can feel for another mother‘s child. I had so many fears for my friend. I was so afraid that her life was never going to be right again. That she’d never be “my” Jessica again. I pictured my best friend as a shell of a woman, heart broken, depressed and withdrawn. Lost. Gone.

Little did I know, my fears were unwarranted. I underestimated the power and tenacity of my friend and, more importantly, I underestimated the incredible power and grace of our God.

I know that Makenna has changed so many lives in her short time on earth. I think I speak for all of Jessica’s close friends when I say that our momma bear instincts kicked in HARD. We could imagine, all to clearly, how we would crumble if we were in her shoes, and did everything we knew how to do to keep her on her feet and to keep Makenna’s smile alive and well in our world.

For me personally, it has strengthened my friendship with her. While I was busy trying to figure out how to “fix” her and help make her better, she was making some changes of her own and influencing my life in a way I never imagined. In the process of helping her, I filled a hole in my own life. I went to church in California with her family and to be quite honest, the only reason I went was because I thought, “Well how do I say no to THAT invitation without looking like an idiot?”! But it sparked a fire in me that had been smoldering for so long, just waiting for me to acknowledge it and breathe some life into it. Suddenly I realized what that hole in my life was and as soon as we got home to Idaho, we found our own church and found our God.

Jessica’s own faith has been growing exponentially in this last year too. For someone I expected to become a crazy and depressed cat lady, she sure showed me that I shouldn’t jump to conclusions! That’s not to say she hasn’t had her issues. It hasn’t been an easy road for her. She wont admit it, but she has incredible strength that has carried her away from what could have been a very dark future to a more focused and happy one and, on her way, her faith has been an inspiration to me to be more like her and grow in my own faith.

As much as my own faith has been growing and getting stronger by the day, I still struggle with the “what if” questions. Apparently, I have still not got it through my head that I don’t control much in this life and that some things I just need to give up to God. That I could have done something to change things. I could have been a better friend and persuaded her to make different decisions in the past I could have called her house that morning, just to say hi like I felt like doing and interrupted the path of that day.

After I’ve gone through my “what if” list, I get to my “if I had only known” list. If I had only known, I would have visited them when Mak was born and held that sweet baby that would eventually be my own daughters namesake.

When I get over that list, I look around and see all the many, many miracles and answered prayers around me.

So tomorrow I am taking my kids to the aquarium to see the stingrays that Makenna was so fond of. Instead of it being a sad and painful day, it will be a day to reflect on the memories of a little girl, the joy I see in my best friends life, and the saving grace we are so generously and undeservingly given.

Never a dull moment!

It's been an interesting day here at Camp Nelson.

It starts with the un-seasonably warm weather we've had the past couple of days. The 50 degree heat and rain melted the snow and turned my yard into a lake again. Granted, I'm happy with the warm weather, but the amount of water is CRAZY!

Lake Nelson

I'm thinking about stocking it with some bass!

Next thing I know, I look out the window and see horses that once were in the round corral happily munching on my hay stack. The same two horses that the neighbors had to wrangle up for me while I was at work a few weeks ago. Apparently one of them decided that 10am was WAY too late for breakfast and that the hay looked much greener on the other side of the fence and took out a few boards.

Horse-made gate

So I go out and wade through the swamp and put them in the other pasture that they had originally escaped from. What's especially irritating is that these two particular escapee horses are the ones that aren't even mine. They were supposed to be gone last weekend but, because of my lack of horsey transportation and cooperation from the guy they now belong to, I still have them.

STAY horsey!!!

When I got contained again, I notice that some of the wire on that pasture is really loose. The same section of fence I asked my husband to fix while he was home. But I digress.

I decided that, since it was so warm out and I was feeling good today, that I'd go fix the fence while the nice guys from the lumber company were stacking my firewood. It'd be nice to take advantage of the rare weather and get out and do something in the sun shine. However, have I ever mentioned how much I loathe, hate and abhor fence stretchers? We just don't see eye to eye. I ended up on my big ol' pregnant rear end in the mud because the stupid wire slipped out of the stupid stretcher. I'm sure it had absolutely NOTHING to do with the stupid operator, but that is completely besides the point. And do you see the color of the mud around here right now? And don't ask me why I was outside wearing my only pair of good jeans that fit me right now, instead of my holey work jeans. I don't have an answer for that. Now they are muddy. Keep reading to see why that is a BIG problem.


While I was outside frolicking in the mud, my boys were in the house playing. I knew they were in the toy room, and once they get playing in there they are content for an hour or so. But when I came in to check on them, I see Wade go flying into the bathroom and slam the door. He says he's washing his hands. I ask him why. He says because they are dirty. I said, I just bet they are!

When I finally open the door and make him show me what he needs to wash off his hands, I notice he's a little more colorful than usual.

This is my naughty face

Wade's story is, WES climbed up and got the finger paints out and opened them up and painted all over everything. Including the carpet, the stairs and WADE'S jeans and boots. I doubt his story but, upon questioning, Wes had no rebuttal. Just this silly face!

"Look what we did mom!"

Luckily, the paint is fairly washable and will probably come out of everything. Including Wes' clothes....

"Someone painted my butt mom!"

The problem with washing things like painted pajamas and muddy jeans right now is, I have no washing machine! The next step in today's adventure (after I put two naughty boys down for a nap, of course) was to have a plumber come out and figure out why my sink and washing machine aren't draining out. $120 bucks and some nasty black pipe-gunk later, the guy tells me that the pipe isn't clogged and that I probably need to dig up the leech field because it's a billion years old and most likely needs new perforated pipe and gravel. Fantastic. I'll just go grab my shovel....

So I still don't have a washer or kitchen sink, I still have mountains of dirty dishes and laundry including the stinky laundry that the boys created in our round of the stomach bug this week. I wont go into details of the epic nastiness of the laundry. Just take my word that it's really not something you want laying around your house. More like in a nuclear waste plant.

In the meantime, Chuck is all grouchy because he's irritated that he can't just fix it himself and calls a good friend of ours to come help me re-design how to run the pipes downstairs so that the washing machine and sink drain into the actual septic tank where the bathroom drains into which is functioning correctly.

For now.

I cant make any promises for tomorrow.

Right now, I'm going to go wash dishes in my tub.

Then children.

Then muddy dogs.

North Dakota, like it or not.

Our next big change will be moving halfway around the world to the arctic tundra of North Dakota. Ok……….fine………so it’s only a few states away. But one of those states is Montana and that’s a BIG state! 753 miles to be exact. And it’s actually just on the outskirts of the arctic tundra. But still.

I feel the need to explain this move. To justify it to everyone. So many people have had such negative reaction to it (including myself, at first) and I’m tired of trying to explain it.

I really hated the idea of moving when the idea was suggested. I was completely and entirely against it, said I wasn’t going to do it, that I was keeping my butt planted in Idaho. I fought it, made Chuck feel like crap about it, threw a Wade-worthy fit. But to be completely honest, my temper tantrum was mostly out of fear. I’ve moved away from home before, I’ve moved states away from everything I knew before, but this time it’s really scaring the crap out of me. I was so content with making this place “home”. My friends and family are close, I love the town, I love my church, I’m comfortable here. Recently though, the feeling of “home” is gone. Even though I have my boys and everything else I know here, without Daddy, it’s just a chunk of dirt. It’s lonely with no feeling of purpose. Everything is in limbo, like life is going on around us and we’re standing still, just waiting. As Chuck puts it, it doesn’t feel like home because “I have no one to argue with”. While, ironically, I cant argue with his logic, it is so much more than that. It’s impossible to freeze a family in time, but that’s what we’ve had to do. A marriage just doesn’t function correctly when you’re so far away from each other. This is the main reason our separation scares me more than I can explain. I’ve experienced, first hand unfortunately, what extended amounts of time away from each other can do to a marriage. It ain’t pretty.

Not to mention how hard it is on the kids. Just last night, Wade was talking to Chuck on the phone and I heard him say “Maybe tomorrow you can come to my house and play!”. As painful as that was for me to hear, I know it broke Chuck’s heart. And it’s just going to get harder when his baby girl is here.

And I cant leave out my own selfishness. As much as my husband gets on my nerves and annoys me to no end sometimes, he IS my other half. And while we definitely need our time apart from each other to keep from killing the other, I still NEED him. Next to me. With me.

Doing the chores. Haha!

Since last August when Chuck left for Montana, I knew in my heart that the possibility of moving would come up. Idaho just does not have the economy to keep someone with a career in construction employed year round. We simply cannot afford to live on unemployment six months out of the year. I don’t know how anyone can. So when he got this job in North Dakota knowing that they work FOR SURE through the winter every year, it was hard to argue with him when he started talking about getting ready to move. Especially since they hired him with the intention of using his knowledge and talent, considering a lot of companies just hire “bodies”. And the money is really REALLY hard to argue with. It’s more than we could ever dream of making here in Idaho. Job security and money to support a big family is all we really hope for. Just so happens that it’s not exactly located where we wanted it to be.

For a long time now, I’ve been praying about this situation. You would assume that I’d be praying to stay in Idaho, that somehow we could find a way to stay here, that some awesome job came up that he couldn’t pass up. But I don‘t. I pray that God would put us where we’re supposed to be, whether that be Idaho, North Dakota, or Africa. Whatever, just let me know what we’re supposed to do! Now, I don’t get stingray’s in the sky type of messages or anything, but I am starting to feel that we are supposed to move. That my fears are just that. Fear. Maybe I cant see clearly enough through my fear to see what might just be a really good thing for our family.

And ND cant be all THAT bad. Sure, they have miserable nasty winters (that, coming from a Utahn/Idahoan…..), sure, it’s middle of nowhere. But at least Dickinson is actually on the ND map. My little town here in Idaho isn’t! Lol!

So I’m starting to push the fear aside and concentrate on the great possibilities. Getting a little excited and maybe even starting to embrace it. It’s still small town living, so my boys will have the benefit of growing up “country”. It’s still got great hunting. Maybe even better hunting! (Other than the elk. We’ll still have to come to ID or MT for that! ;)) Dickinson actually sounds like a neat place to live from the research I've done. Now I am actually starting looking forward to exploring a new place. Making new friends, seeing new places.

So my house is going to be listed soon. We’ve found one in ND that we are looking into buying. It’s looking like it’s really going to happen. It will be our BIGGEST new thing for 2011!!

Merry Christmas to me!

Another little new change is our “new” truck. With baby #3 on the way, I had to start thinking about getting a new truck, because 3 carseats wont fit in the backseat of my Explorer. It’s the reason I got an SUV in the first place, so it’s annoying, but whatever. It’s also got something wrong in the front end of it that we assume is going to cost a good chunk of change to fix, and we dont really feel comfortable with me relying on it. So we thought about trading it in on a Suburban, or buying a smaller pickup for Chuck to drive so I could have the Duramax but we just couldn’t justify having another loan with a payment since my Explorer is paid off. I suggested that we get an older, single cab pickup for Chuck to drive instead. But when I said older I didn’t mean antique!!!! This is what he came home with.....



Don’t get me wrong. I truly love the old classic Fords. My dad always had classic Fords (well…..maybe they weren’t classics back then!). The first vehicle I owned in high school was a ‘70’s Ford. My blood runs blue, and always has! (Please don’t tell the Duramax that! I love her too!). But I had something a bit newer in mind for us. I tried to argue with him about it, but he had his heart set on it. Said that there isn’t anything on this truck he cant fix himself (meaning nothing computerized) and he can fix anything relatively inexpensively, which is true. So eventually I consented and he went down to B-Town, Utah on Christmas Day to go buy the new beast!

As much as I rolled my eyes, shook my head and poked fun at the truck (seriously, the hood doesn’t have all it‘s bolts to connect it to the truck!) inside I secretly was overjoyed! I miss my truck, and the rumble of that 390 pulling in the driveway brought back SO many fond memories! Sure, some of those memories involve being covered in grease, busted knuckles and more than a few four letter words, but they were good memories!

As soon as it was home, Chuck started mechanic-ing and I started laughing and tried to resist the urge to say “I told you so!“. Even though it’s in fairly good shape and runs really well, there was still a lot he needed to do to it to make it 700+ mile trip ready in the dead of winter.

But the truck did it’s job, it got him to ND and left the trusty Chevy with me and the boys. Maybe someday we’ll fully restore it and it will be my “grocery getter”!

Trip's new girlfriend!

Our first little change of the new year is the addition of our puppy Tia. She’s a full border collie like Trip, and a pretty cute little thing! Chuck traded some shoeing for her when he was in Montana to keep him company, but now that he’s working the insane hours he is, he doesn’t have the time for her. So guess who gets to take care of her now? That would be me. The caretaker of all of Chuck’s abandoned projects! But she’s fitting in quite nicely with the rest of the toddlers! Pees on stuff, chews on stuff, wakes me up in the middle of the night, needs constant attention, makes horrendous messes in a matter of seconds, picks on her brother, just like having another kid!



She really is a fun addition though. She seems to be really smart like Trip, and that’s a good sign. The last border collie puppy we had, Mocha, was an idiot so she only lasted a couple months here before I sold her to some unsuspecting sucker in Idaho Falls. Evil, I know. Tia, on the other hand, is almost too smart for her own good. She is (sorta) potty trained, but can tell when I’m ignoring her and pees on the floor with much spite. She knows that when Wes fusses at night momma is going to get up, and she usually beats me up the stairs to see what’s up. She has been incredibly spoiled by her Daddy (hence the name Tia=Princess) and thinks she is a lap dog and thinks she needs to be in my bed with me or on the couch with me or Wade all the time. But she also is picking up very quickly on the little bit of training I’ve done with her.


So sometime in the future, we’ll have border collie puppies from two really smart dogs! The plan is that the income from the puppies will make up for the absolutely ridiculously high priced dog food we have to feed Trip!

Happy New Year!!!!!

This New Years brings new change for my family. Sad change. Big change. Scary change. LOTS of change. Maybe even some spare change! Hopefully all GOOD change!

Instead of rambling on in a long post about all our many changes, I’m going to write a few shorter ones instead. Hopefully I wont completely confuse or bore people to death!

2011 is going to be a big year for us!!!