Our FIRST Wyoming Thanksgiving!

Hi everyone!  Well today is a new day and a start to a new week, specifically Thanksgiving week.  This will be our first Thanksgiving in Wyoming!!  And boy do we have so much to be thankful for! 

First some updates from the last week or so.  We are very warm and cozy here!  It finally warmed up a bit here and was in the 30s and 40s over the weekend.  Saturday we didn’t even start our wood stove up till about 4pm!!  And the only reason we did that was because we wanted to cook dinner and heat water up to wash some dishes.  We somehow managed to misplace our temperature gauge (or maybe I can blame this one on the cats!! Haha), so I don’t know exactly what the temperature was inside, but I’d guess about mid 60s which was very comfortable for us!  The insulation is doing so well!!  We couldn’t be more pleased with the investment we made in it. 

Last week was Scott’s first of work!  He really enjoys it.  He works in the parts department at our local John Deere dealership.  He said most of his day is stocking the shelves with new products, filling orders for farmers and for their mechanics/repair guys too. They also worked on inventory and sending out parts as well.  The best part to me is that when he comes home from work he isn’t exhausted tired like he was working concrete.  Before, he would come home, have just enough energy to eat dinner, then he’d go straight to bed.  That’s why I got in a funky routine of staying up so late because he’d be asleep really early (like 6pm sometimes!).  I guess that’s one thing I’m thankful for this week – Scott having a job that he enjoys and that isn’t so taxing on his body. 

And his work place has been so nice to him.  The store manager came in and told him one day that he needed to wear a John Deere hat to work (he was wearing a DeKalb (not sure if that’s the correct spelling) hat that my dad gave him).  So they told him to go pick out any hat from the store!!  Then, as they were doing inventory, they had left over 2013 John Deere collectible ornaments left and they also gave him one of those.  Also, I guess with employment, each year each of the employees gets a $200 allowance for purchasing company clothing that they where to work.  They said their budget allows for Scott to get $200 for 2014 and come January he’ll get another $200 allowance!  They sell anything from polo shirts, button down shirts, fleece jackets, durable vests, and even coats too.  And they are allowed to wear jeans and work boots to work too.  Scott’s been wearing jeans and he’s taken over my Danner work boots! (Yes! I have huge feet and he and I are the same size… I have to say it’s been nice because we can share shoes most of the time!)

Last week was a major change of pace for me!  It was the first week in a year that Scott was away working and not at home with me!  It was a nice change of pace though because I feel like I get way more accomplished on my own time.  When he’s here (and we aren’t building on the house), it’s easier just to relax, to hang out together, and lately that means curling up on the couch with a nice fire going watching Little House on the Prairie! But now I’m in a new routine.  In an effort to keep our house clean and organized (more so than I did in OH!!), I vacuum every other day, and on the off days I do the dishes (a chore all in itself!!).  Then each day I straighten up, and keep things pretty well organized. 

I’m also thrilled to have more time to sew!!  Last week I listed 3 new horsemanship shirts and a new vest.  One of the horsemanship shirts sold yesterday (yeah!!) and I’m working on some beautiful custom pieces over the next couple of months. 

If any of you follow the blog and want to see my latest creations, please check out my Pinterest board at this link

Or my KLS Designs photo albums here.  The photo album puts the latest pictures at the very bottom, so if you use Pinterest, that’s the best way to look as the most recent creations are at the top.

Also, another update for you –last week/weekend we received the new ‘topper’ for our wood stove.  It honestly looks like something from a UFO but it works wonders!!  Basically it’s a series of partial tubes, one smaller one inside a larger one.  This prevents too much air flow into the pipe which is the main cause of why we were smoked out a few times.  It works so well, that even today, when it’s quite windy out, I had no issues at all lighting the fire.

On Sunday we went into Cody to run some errands and we drove the Bronco!! If you didn’t read about it before, our neighbor boy sold his ’92 Ford Bronco to us.  Our main purpose is to have a backup vehicle with 4 wheel drive for Scott to drive to work.  We now have 3 vehicles  - the Chevy Impala, the Bronco, and Scott’s ’66 Ford Truck.  However I can’t drive his Ford truck – there are some ‘quirks’ to it and I’d just rather have Scott drive it.  So having the Bronco is also a backup for me so I have something to drive to town or to the mailbox. (Our mailbox is 2 miles from the house.  I may walk it come spring time, but right now I’d rather drive!)  Well, anyhow, it drove great for us!  But it’s got a rather large gas tank on it, which is good and bad, but boy was it expensive to fill up!! Gas here, yesterday, was $2.96/gallon when paying cash.

With it being Thanksgiving week I’d like to share some things that I’m especially thankful for!  This is our first Thanksgiving here in Wyoming and although we will miss our typical OH family Thanksgivings, we are excited to start new traditions here!  We have been invited to our neighbors for Thanksgiving!!  And I’d like to say that no matter where we’ve lived we’ve been so thankful for neighbors – and I have to say quite lucky because we’ve always had the best!!  Back in OH as I was growing up we had the best neighbors you could ask for – Ted and Mary Hickman!!!  Then when I lived with Scott, on either side of us we have wonderful neighbors – the Willis’s and the Reeds!! Now out here in WY, even though neighbors are scattered further apart, we still have so many we are thankful for – Gordy and Lori, Fred and Lisa, Joe and Helen, and Rich, Jackie, and Brian. 

We have something else we are particularly thankful for right now.  In a month or so, I’ll elaborate more, but it’s VERY exciting news.  I just don’t want to get ahead of myself yet, but I promise I’ll share with you all very soon!

I want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!!  We wish we could see our friends and family back in Ohio, but know that we will be spending it with our new family in Wyoming and we couldn’t be more thankful this year!