2008 Blessings

December 18, 2008
Dear Friends and Families,
This is my best and worst of 2008: blessings and challenges. What are the ten best things that happened to you in the last year? Let me know.
1. Being married to Terry with whom I share so many things. This year, we found a new passion: geocaching. He loves it for the mapping adventure, and I love it for the chance to get out of town and into the wilderness of Moffat County.
2. My children always are a blessing. My middle son, Adam, is getting married in May to the divine Miss Rebecca. I love that girl! They’ll be married in Massachusetts so we will take ten days to visit the east coast. AJ is in LA working in the fashion industry, and Isaac is temporarily unemployed in Denver after a busy summer of landscape contracting.
3. Terry built me a greenhouse that is just wonderful. He finished it in October so I’ve only planted a few seeds of lettuce and spinach but can’t wait to see what I can do with it next year.
4. We traveled to Tucson (in March to see the Sonora Desert) and Taos (in July for a writing workshop for both us—I think Terry had more fun than I did). Both were wonderful driving adventures. We travel well together and saw beautiful country.
5. Terry retired from Trapper Mine this year, exactly 30 years to the day. After a month, he took a job as the Sportsman Information Specialist at the Chamber of Commerce. He works part time and loves it!! After all those year of working heavy equipment, he has a desk job that allows him to talk about his love of the outdoors.
6. I am teaching the best classes, ever. Oral History, English 121 (freshman English) and Memoirs. There are 19 students in the Memoir class, most over 70, and we have a great, helpful and healing time together. I’ll start other memoir classes in Baggs and Hayden in 2009.
7. I learned a lot about gardening in the dry West. Mostly I grew potatoes and carrots. The potatoes were the most fun; from cutting the seed potatoes apart, to watching their tough green stems emerging, to turning the black earth to reveal the round brown potatoes. I’ve had little bug holes and slugs and frost, and I still got some beautiful potatoes.
8. My little bookstore that I run with Caroline Dotson, is doing fine. We may never make a lot of money, but we are having a grand time.
9. Charlie the-cat-who-bites is still alive after being hit by a car. He had a broken leg and pelvis, and after five weeks in a splint, he is becoming his normal, biting, predatory self.
10. I live in Moffat County with some of the most spectacular landscape ever. Check my blog : http://bookladyincraig.blogspot.com/. For pictures look under Moffat County.
The challenges:
1. Sadie has cancer. It was diagnosed in January. She is still active, perky, prone to run off, and loves to sniff the cats. She is teaching me, as she has always taught me, about being alive. She does not know she has a terminal disease. She’s a dog; she wants to know what is for lunch and when are we taking a walk. Because she has challenges with her bowels, she has now become an outdoor dog, and the challenge is to keep her warm on the back porch.
2. We lost a source for our favorite brand of coffee (Zapatista), and it has taken almost three months to find a reasonable, if not good, substitute.
Enough news.
I love you,