Category Archives: Keri’s ramblings

To the hills!

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We’re off to Hermosa this weekend.  Will drive Matthew’s mom to Pierre on our way on Friday morning (she’s driving up and staying with us Thursday night), maybe have lunch with both his mom and dad, then off to Hermosa.  Probably catch a movie with dad Friday night, then off to Sturgis for the holiday and the family thing on Saturday.  Then back to home on Sunday.  Busy quick weekend, but I’m sure it’ll be fun.  There are several family members we haven’t seen in a while that I’m really looking forward to seeing this weekend.

And for the fun of it: two great pics of El.  The first is a girl who really likes hats (and shoes… she’s a girl’s girl!).  Don’t you wish you were that flexible?  And the second is a picture of the first time I’ve put her in pigtails.  We’ve done barrettes but they don’t stay more than a few minutes.  She wanted to take the “ties” outside on our walk and I told her the only way she could take them is if she let mommy put them in her hair… and she went for it!  (The stinker had a third hairtie I found out later, it’s hidden conveniently on her left thumb.)  Previously it’s been a dodge and run while mom tries to decide if pulled hair and tears is worth getting cute pigtails.

What I’m doing:

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Just an update on what is keeping me busy. 

I’m still working on getting a movie theater running in Wessington Springs, it’s a MUCH slower process than I’d anticipated.   Currently I’m trying to find a core group of dedicated people that can take some of the work and contribute to the idea bucket!

I haven’t done any writing for a while; I had been doing that in the morning before going to work but slacked off for a while and suddenly realized that I’m no longer late to work now that I’ve stopped.  So in interest of not driving my partners crazy, I’m going to put that on hold until I can find a better time to write.

I haven’t worked on geneology stuff in a while, it was easy to get pulled away from that.  I hope to start sporadically again sometime soon?

I’m still working out 5 days a week and (mostly) sticking to the body for life diet thing.  While I work out, I’ve been listening to Leviathan Chronicles (a wonderful audio drama) and Seventh Son (a podcast trilogy).  Highly recommend them.  Still listen to “I Should be Writing” too.

Old and new friends

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Matthew, El and I went to Mason City last weekend.  We had a great time and got to catch up with a bunch of residents as well as 2 couples we had gotten to know while we were in residency.  I have to admit I didn’t realize how much I missed everyone till we saw them all again!  All the kids are SOOO much bigger after a year.  I had forgotten that El wasn’t really fully walking yet when we moved and everyone kept commenting on how long her hair was.  It was fun to watch her play with the other kids and I realized that I really miss having that close knit community.  Made me sad when we had to go home!

We’re still hanging out with folks in town here, although we’ve gotten busy and haven’t had game night for several weeks (gotta get back to that, have to feed my need for games!)  We also are very excited that the son and daughter-in-law of one of my partners moved to town.  We share some interests and their daughter is El’s age (son is 4).  We hope to be able to hang out with them some more, and they’ve both voiced interest in helping out with my theater idea.  Hooray!

Happy anniversary…

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… to us!  Yay!  We made it 7 years and neither are feeling itchy yet!

Unfortunately I am on call tonight.  Fortunately my wonderful co-worker Terri is going to swap with me so I only have to be her backup tonight.  We can’t really run somewhere exciting, but we can at least go out to eat and maybe rent a movie or… whatever.  We’ll figure that out later!  Our real vacation will be this weekend.  We’re headed to Mason City Friday for a visit with friends before they all pick up and move to their new homes and practices.

Stupid elephants

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What do you do when there’s an elephant in your family?  You know the kind, the big huge hulking beast sitting in the middle of the living room that everyone does their best to walk around, talk over, and generally pretend isn’t there.  No, I’m not talking about a particular person, I’m talking about an attitude, an idea, a problem.  Most families have one (or more); things that they are uncomfortable talking about.  Often most of the individuals in the family agree that SOMETHING needs to be done, but no one will be the first to stand up and say: “Look!  This isn’t right.  This elephant is here, I actually see it and acknowledge that it is a problem!  Listen to me, I will no longer pretend all is ok, the status quo no longer needs to be followed!”

OK, so I’m maybe being a little overly dramatic.  Something said or written by a particular family member to a different family member (yes, I was eavesdropping) was very hurtful and I for a moment was going to call or fire off an email to that first family member telling them exactly what I thought about them.  The second family member convinced me not to do that for at least a couple days (he or she does not realize how long I really can hold a grudge!).  Instead I decided to blog about it, but the problem is that the only folks who read my blog are family members.  So here I am, stuck.  Still, it did feel better even though no one (except maybe the second family member who convinced me not to alienate the first family member and possibly half of the family) really knows what I’m whining about.  Ah well, good quality whining does not really require that anyone else in the world understands why you’re unhappy.

New link

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Mom and Dad were out here this past weekend to visit.  I was on call, so unfortunately I was gone quite a bit of the time.  We did get a couple of pinochle games in, but the guys won all 3… we gals could just not get a good hand between us.  I also bent their ears about my theater idea and took them on a half walking/half driving tour of main street to look at the old buildings.  They agreed that the outside of the theater looked pretty rough, and unfortunately isn’t really a very interesting “historic” building anyway.  We also stopped at the little museum in town.  One of the ladies that volunteers there was a wealth of information and we really enjoyed that trip.  We bought the first of two books about the history of Jerauld county and Wessington Springs (goes to 1980, I’ll probably get the update 1980 to 2005 pretty soon).  It was a fascinating book, Dad had the thing almost read by the time they left.  Then yesterday at the regular SACC (Springs Area Community Club, aka the old Kiwanis club) meeting I talked a little about theater ideas and had quite a bit of interest (and a fair number of naysayers too).  I prodded Matthew into making me a website and he did:  it’s now at springscinema.com.

New dreams…

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I have a new ambition… or dream… or whatever you want to call it.  It’s not so much new, as something old that has a possible outlet.  I won’t say much else.  If I have piqued your interest, check out the new tab up above (Springs theater).

And all that family stuff

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Just in case you guys are wondering (especially after that last post of mine), yes, I am still working on geneology stuff.  My grandmother (dad’s side) gave me a binder which is basically about a zillion hours of her research on her and Grandpa’s ancestors.  I’ve been off and on plugging that info into my computer.  Not everything is going in, right now I’m doing direct line back and branching just for the last couple of generations, not all the “great great aunt matilda’s 12 kids and their families” and etc.  I’ve noticed that this stuff is kind of addicting and I’m really enjoying it.  One night 2 weeks ago I had intended to go to bed early (around 9 or so) and was still up at midnight plugging names and dates into my computer.  Can’t imagine why my eyes were burning!
I realize I could probably just borrow Grandma’s Family Tree Maker file and plug it into my own tree, but I’m learning so much about how the tree goes together and what crazy ancestors are back there by doing it myself.  Besides, her printout makes it really easy and fast to enter in just what I’m interested in.  And I have the binder in case I want to add more later or look someone else up!
As for the rest of the tree, I’m a little short on info.  My aunt Arlene did send me a file with some of my maternal grandmother’s side, but I don’t know that I have anything for maternal grandfather’s side or much for Matthew’s whole half of the family.  So far I haven’t finished with Grandma’s binder or even started on Arlene’s file, so I’m not out of things to do, but at some point I’ll have to prod my other family members for more info.
One thing that did set me back just a bit is that I installed the wrong program initially.  I had one old family tree program from my dad and an old one from Matthew’s mom.  At first I thought they were the same exact program under different packaging and installed one randomly.  Turns out after many flakey issues and the realization that a ten year old version was not going to work for me, that I’d picked the one that is no longer updated.  We bought a new version of Family Tree Maker (one of the 2 or 3 highest rated programs and also the one that my Grandma uses, albeit an older version) and I spent MANY hours trying to get my info transferred (through no fault of the new program, the old one was flakey and wouldn’t let me make a copy of the file or export to GEDCOM format).  Finally through a convoluted process using both programs installed on two different computers and a handy little flash drive the info transferred (with only a few errors and empty spaces, thank goodness I didn’t have a lot of info yet to review!)  After that mess I walked away from the whole project for about 3 weeks, but I’m back in full swing now!
Will probably get back to entering a few pieces of the puzzle this weekend.

I should be writing…

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I don’t know that I’ve actually posted this up here, but I’m trying to get back into writing.  Now, this blog has such a small following that everyone who reads it may already know that particular factoid, but just thought I should get it out here.  The internet being the way it is, there’s always a chance someone I know but don’t talk to regularly will stumble onto this website and see this post and think, “Huh, I didn’t know Keri writes!”  On the other hand, I may never get anything finished and out there for the world to see.
 
So far in my life I’ve really only finished one or two stories.  The reason I can’t tell you if it’s one or two is because I just don’t remember with the first one if it ever got a final ending.  The other, however, I do remember.  It’s something I started writing when I was around 13 or so and by the time I hit about 18 I finally said “screw it” and slapped an ending on it.  I’ve read it once or twice since then, but no more recently than before my last two moves (so 5 years ago at the shortest).  I’ve never been completely satisfied with the story as a whole (partly because the majority of it was written in my 13 year old voice) and especially with the ending.  I just forced myself to end it because I wanted to prove to myself that I could finish something, but I don’t think I was really “feeling it” at the time.  Maybe if I go back now I could rewrite or edit it into something publishable, but I really don’t think so.  It would probably need a full rewrite and I’m not at that point in my writing “career”.
 
Right now I just need to write.  A lot.  And a lot more.  I am super rusty and probably don’t have any more skill than the average teen at writing fiction.  I just haven’t practiced and used that part of my brain in a long while.  Oh, sure, I’ve written a few things off and on since high school, but nothing I’ve gotten past a couple pages on, nothing I’ve come anywhere near finishing.  It’s always easy to start with a shiny new project, but slogging through till the finish is always a trick I have troubles with.
 
I shouldn’t say I’ve not finished anything since that one story long ago.  I have started writing again (hence this post), after spending many hours listening to a podcast called “I Should Be Writing”.  Mighty Mur Lafferty is my new favorite podcaster.  I had heard about her podcast several times and have really enjoyed listening to several of her stories played on EscapePod (a totally awesome scifi podcast) and finally decided to give her show a try.  After listening to 30 podcasts (about a year of her podcasting life) over the course of a month and a half, I finally decided to sit down and start writing again.
 
At first I just started typing.  The file I have started is not-so-creatively dubbed “new writing project” and is now just under 19,000 words.  I’m pretty sure it’s all crap, but it’s my crap and if I don’t get it out on the computer screen it’ll just sit in my head.  I’ve also worked on a couple other things (mostly when I’m feeling blocked on “new writing project” and need a break).  I finished a flash fiction piece and have been working on a short story that I think I could probably finish in the next week unless I’m working on my monolith.  Not sure what exactly I’m going to do with these, but at least I feel like I’m getting somewhere.
 
I’ll keep you updated.  Oh yeah, and I’ve promised myself that Macbook I’ve been drooling over for years (no, it’s not the same one I started drooling on, I want the new improved model).  My goal is 50,000 words, counting all of my fiction projects.  I’m just over halfway there….

Brilliance

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So, my baby girl learned at least three new words this weekend.  Or at least, she spoke 3 new ones… not that they’re entirely clear to anyone on the street.  I really do understand all those people that say about little kids that only their mothers (or fathers) can understand them for a while.  After all, who would know whether “Bah” means bottle or blanket or bear but the one who hears it daily?  (Elizabeth uses “Bah” usually for either blanket or bear, but sometimes it also means book).

Anyway, the new words.  So yesterday she used the word/syllable that sounds something like “Duay”.  Said it right after I said “Don’t pick that up, it’s dirty”.  Then she used the syllable several more times over the weekend when referring to a door.  So I’m all excited about that, and a while later we’re heading down the stairs (we stayed at Grandma and Grandpa O’s house) and I ask if she wants to sit with Papa (grandpa) and she says “Pop!”  This morning she used the same word to refer to our dogs (they’re both older dogs, but I still call them her “puppies”).  The third word was the most exciting for me.  She said blue.  Or rather “Boo”.  This is really my first indication that she understands colors.  We were reading a “learn your colors” book and turned to the blue page and I asked her what color cookie monster was and before I could tell her (keep in mind that’s probably the 15th time we read that book this weekend) she said “Boo!”  Maybe it’s luck or she can almost recite the book since we’ve read it so much, but she did call her blue blankie “boo” a little later (she has several favorite blankies, and currently the blue one is tops).  She also said “boo” when I was asking if she wanted to read a book (which is a switch from the usual “Bah”).

So if she said “duay”, “pop”, and “boo”, I guess that’s 3 words, but if I count them as “dirty”, “door”, “papa”, “puppy”, “blue” and “book” then it’s 6.  I’ll go with the latter and just say my baby’s brilliant!

I’ve decided that although my baby might not be more advanced than the average, I’m going to tell myself and her that she’s brilliant.  Besides, as mean and cruel as the world is, everyone should have at least one person that thinks they’re brilliant, beautiful and talented.  Isn’t that what moms are for?