Christmas Goodies

Beautiful snowfall

Quality time spent at home

A Lovely Christmas!

I Should Count to Ten...

...before writing this. One, two, three, four, screw it.

Of the many, many reasons we love living in rural Montana, an ironic sense of the quaint ranks high. For example, we have high-speed DSL access and it's less expensive than we paid for regular DSL in Seattle, but there isn't a whole lot of local info to access.

We want to attend a Christmas Eve service. Not in the online version of the Daily Interlake newspaper (oh, bastion of reasonable editorial!), not in the Flathead Beacon, not in the Bigfork Eagle is there a calendar listing service times. So, okay, I went to the website of the church we visited last year.

Here's their monthly calendar.














Surprisingly, frustratingly, agnostic-inducingly empty, doncha think?







And they're not alone in having nothing scheduled for Christmas Eve or Christmas. I don't care if they're not up to snuff with flash and animated GIF's and weekly messages from pastor/priest and staff; some content would be helpful. As much as I loved Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean," I don't think a church should take the Isla de Muerta approach, where a service can only be found by those who already know when it is.

Yes, yes, I'll call around tomorrow and find out whose service is when....

In other news, it's gorgeous here, I'm having tremendous fun reading the "What Global Warming?" articles on the web, and feeling quite meteorologically lucky, compared with Spokane, Seattle, the Midwest, the East, etc.

This photo shows two of our five outside trees with lights. There's been no wind here, so the very powdery snow is still in the branches.

I hope to post again tomorrow and Christmas, but if I don't, peace and joy, Merry Christmas, safe travel, and blessings to you and yours. --Bob

A Winter Wonderland

Monique and I are back from Helena and a visit with my cousin Lynn and her family, and Hall with a visit to Monique's parents. A busy, fun weekend.

Along the way we stopped twice for eats, and in the spirit of Christmas, I'll be generous with the first review.

1. Safeway Deli, Polson. Oh my dear good god this was bad. You know the taste when you nibble a piece of synthetic leather utterly devoid of moisture? Warm it up and you got their fried chicken.

2. No Sweat Cafe, Helena. A Hippie hangout, with anti-social tendencies like a no cell phone rule, fair-trade coffee, and other weird stuff. Great food, the service is, shall we say, "casual", and lingering is encouraged. Buncha non fast-food hippies....

3. Muralt's Cafe, I-90 and Exit 96, Missoula. Outstanding. Good food, excellent fries (and I'm not a big fries guy), and friendly service.

Okay, enough with the silliness. Visiting the Bubbs was a blast, and seeing their spastic black lab Scout made it that much more fun. Very much in the "It's a Small World" vein, as we were just about to leave, the couple that occasionally helps clean Lynn & Shawn's house came over, and voila, it was Monique's music director from Flathead High. My dad and his Two Degrees of Separation theory would've loved it.

Hall was wonderful, and the food there is always good :). Not really having gotten into Montana college football too much (either for the Griz or the 'Cats), I was still interested in watching the National Championship game between Montana and Richmond. We all watched, and just like all those actors who don't win the award, "it's an honor just to be nominated." Well, the Griz should be proud they made it to the championship game... literally. Finding the stadium and getting their uniforms on was the high point of the evening. Richmond quickly, decisively, and inarguably destroyed them. It was over way before halftime, and Montana had no idea what was going on.

Unlike Seattle and Spokane, we've gotten moderate snow this weekend. On the left is a shot of steam coming off Flathead Lake, and on the right, our backyard with 7" of snow perched everywhere.

A Season of Plenty

Thanksgiving was, as is usual for the Blazek clan, plentiful. Carla had a dozen people for dinner, and everything was delicious. It was a good trip, and Spokane provided lots of snow!

Monique and I hadn't intended to do much Black Friday shopping, but maybe because we didn't feel pressure to be there right when stores opened, that's why we were out as long as we were. Yes it was nuts, but so am I, so it's a wash.

The lovely family pictured is enjoying a deer block from our local ranch supply store. After putting a couple treats right in front of the house, we decided to move them into the trees so the deer can feel more protected. They have nothing to fear from us (unless they go for buried bulbs and whatnot), but it's a bit disconcerting at night hearing animals pawing and chewing just outside the bedroom window. And since raccoons found and destroyed one of our bird feeders, it's just better to be a little more conscious of our outdoor food supplies.

Decorations are going up, the wood stove is running nearly every day, and this weekend we'll go tree hunting. I'm very nearly done shopping, so it's just down to cards and/or the Christmas/Epiphany/President's Day letter.

Given how little I've blogged about stuff this year, it should be a doozy.

Here's to warmth, love, security, deep sighs of contentment, and the settling in for winter. Peace!