Turning 30!

It’s my last few days of being a twenty something year old and I thought it’d be appropriate to do a farewell post to my twenties. It’s so weird thinking about turning 30. I’m not freaked out about it and in a way I actually look forward to being 30, although it’s still a little weird. There is a part of me that feels like turning 30 means I am really not a kid anymore. Honestly I still feel young and maybe that’s the secret to never getting old, always feeling young. I have to wonder if that feeling will ever stop or if one day you just wake up and feel old? There are times it still seems surreal that I am a married Mamma with a degree and a real job. Where did the last ten years go? And more importantly, would I do any of them over again? I remember when I turned 20 thinking how I wished I could go back to high school, back to the days of no or little responsibility. Yet now that I’m turning thirty I really don’t wish to go back to any of the last ten years. Each year was such a learning experience. Maybe that means I have few regrets. In ten years I’ve graduated college, gotten married, bought a crappy trailer and then a real house, found a cool job and had the most remarkable child ever. There’s really no reason to go back since it seems like I did everything that I had hoped to do before I was thirty. For this I am so thankful. What a ride and I can’t wait to see what the next ten years will bring. Here’s to hoping my thirties are as fulfilled and fantastic as my twenties! I post with optimism now, however, if in five years I’m bitching about grey hair and achy joints feel free to refer me to my 30^th birthday post for perspective!

Just a quick update – I finally got a stove ordered – yeah, and I finally have a working garage that I can park my car in!

Also, working on getting a new camera so hopefully I'll get some pictures up soon.

Venting

Seriously it is not easy to get things done in Butte. There’s just no sense of customer service in this town and it drives me crazy. Our latest venture into the annoyance that is Butte has come from attempting to purchase a wood insert with a blower for our fireplace. Apparently if we actually wanted a wood stove with a blower installed before next year we should have looked into getting one last January instead of at the end of August – who’d of thunk. So we went about three weeks ago to one of two wood stove insert retailers in this town and were told at the time that they needed to come and measure our fireplace before they could order a stove. They couldn’t measure the fireplace until three weeks later which happened to be on Monday. The dorks came, measured and left and the next day we got a quote in the mail with some random stove model on it. Come to find out it was a stove they had in stock that will heat a home 600 – 1200 square feet. I called the stove place and asked the lady WTF – but a little nicer than that and she said that they must of put that stove on there since it was one they had in stock. I went on to explain to the lady that our homes more like 2600 square feet and that stove just wouldn’t cut it so would it be possible to get the quote with another stove. She then proceeded to go into a long explanation about how some stoves aren’t coming in until next summer and that one brand could take a couple of weeks but she wasn’t sure. OK don’t you guys do this for a living and shouldn’t you know when you can get a damn stove in and if you don’t know make a phone call. So after the long drawn out explanation which I’m guessing was meant to discourage my further questioning on the problem, I said to the lady, “can you find out if we can get one of these stoves?” I had given her two stoves from two different manufacturers to check into. She than said she’d have to talk to the guy (I guess the guy that did our proposal) to see if the stoves would fit, even though Jeff took his own measurement so we knew they would, and that she might not be able to talk to him until tomorrow morning. This was yesterday at like nine a.m. So here I sit, no phone call from the stove place, no idea if we can even get a damn stove and I’m so ticked off that I’m beginning to wonder if it would be worth it to drive to Bozeman to see if a company there could help us out. And people wonder why Butte can’t keep business local it's like we're trying to get a diamond encrusted gold plated custom build stove from Venus!

The Kline’s had a very busy but fun weekend. Friday night we drove over to Seeley Lake and stayed the night at our friend Josh’s house. In the morning Avery got to see her first deer which was pretty cool. We saw a three point whitetail and a yearling both were like ten feet from the kitchen window.
Then we all drove to Missoula for the Griz’s homecoming game. Jeff went to the tailgates with Josh and I met up with my Mom and sister in law Dawn for a little pre-game shopping and Cold Stone Creamery fix. I found Avery a really cute toy box at TJ Max for a good price. We all met up at the game along with my bro Jess and dad. I think Avery enjoyed the game. She liked to clap her hands and look at the people. We only stayed until half time since the game didn’t start until 1 pm and that’s right about Avery’s usual nap time, plus is was really warm. So at the half Jeff, Avery and I took off to grab Staggering Ox and head out of town.

When we got back to Butte, Grandma Lori and Grandpa Dave swung over and ended up spending the night. Avery was in prime form that night. Jeff put on some music and I think the kid danced for an hour straight. She’s really good at wiggling her hips and shoulders, it’s hilarious. On Sunday she was a little whiney so we took her outside where she danced and sung for like 20 minutes. I’m sure the neighbors were wondering why the small one was singing at the top of her lungs at like eight in the morning but hey whatever keeps her happy! Come to find out the older girls at daycare like to dance and sing to Hannah Montana outside and I’m guessing Avery thinks this is a lot of fun. Later in the day, our friend George drove over to help Jeff with some finishing touches on the garage – which is almost functional! Now I’m sitting here on Monday morning wondering where the weekend went and not feeling rested at all! Next weekend the plan is to stay a little closer to home and maybe relax a little

Apple Butter

I forgot to mention that I made apple butter from scratch this weekend and it was super yummy and really not that much work. My friend Courtney who is the canning queen got me motivated to try it. I remember as a kid my Mom making apple butter and how much I loved it. So I bought up like 8 pounds of different apples and attempted the task Friday night. It's really easy, you boil the apples in a little bit of apple juice until they're soft, then put them through a food mill. This basically makes apple sauce. Then the apple sauce goes into the crock pot with some spices and simmers for like 12 hours. Finally you can the stuff. I actually didn't have to can since I made a small batch and sent a few jars home with my Mom. For those of you who have ever thought of canning or even just making your own apple sauce or apple butter I urge you to try. The stuff you make tastes a thousand times better than the store bought. I'm thinking about making my own apple sauce in the coming months. Courtney turned me on to an awesome website that walks you through how to can or freeze just about anything. www.pickyourown.org/applebutter.htm this is the link to the apple butter link, but navigate the site, it's pretty cool.

31.5 inches and she's the boss!

What’s the deal with toddlers throwing tantrums at the most inopportune times like say at the grocery store. Attitude abounds in my small one and she’s very vocal about what she does and does not want to do. Lately she does not want to sit in carts at grocery stores. I blame her Dad for this since he was the one who first allowed the small one to “help” push the cart at Walmart when she got annoyed at sitting in it. Usually I try my best to run to the store on my lunch hour or right before I pick her up, however, yesterday I didn’t have time so I had to bring the munchkin with me. The little stinker threw a full blown tantrum when I tried to put her in the cart. We’re talking arched back and screaming. Since this was the first full blown tantrum I think I was in shock for a couple of minutes trying to decide what to do. So I finally said screw it and let her help me push and she still wined the entire time. A nice lady with an older child, who witnessed the whole thing and obviously felt for me, looked at Avery and said, “Why are you still crying, you won?” Summed it up pretty great I thought. Don’t ya just love it when they do this to you in public and make you feel like the world’s worst parent? When it was all said and done I managed to get about ½ of what was on my list and it took me about twice as long to get it. While I love Avery’s independence (I call it spiciness) it would be nice if she didn’t choose to make a stand in the middle of a crowded grocery store. I hate the fact that I caved but the question is, “Is there a way to get the kid to do what you want without getting child services called on you?” If any of you have pearls of wisdom, please share.

Kaput Camera!

It’s official, my camera is dead. The other weekend while fishing I dropped it in a creek and it didn’t recover. The bummer is that I had pictures of Stephanie’s wedding shower on it, but I’m hoping that this weekend I can dink around with the memory card and see if I can’t get those pics off of it. So until I buy a new camera I’m resorting to picture phone pictures. There hasn’t been a whole lot going on at the Kline household the last couple of weeks. Jeff’s been busy with school and work and I’ve been busy with work and Avery. But for lack of anything better to post here’s a cute pic of Avery I took this morning (with my phone). She didn’t want to sit still to let me take a picture since she was playing with her matchbox car – thus the look on her face.