Little Red and White Box missing.

My old friend, the Marlboro Man, is not visiting me anymore.  The countless hours we spent together riding around in my pick up are but smoky memories.  Those mornings with our coffee mugs in hand, shivering on the back porch are gone.  I am hopeful for the future and the recovery from this addiction and friend I have shouldered (or...lunged?) for twenty eight long years.  But there is definately some lamenting of past times lost.

I have very few cravings, actually.  I am fine at work.  It's a smoke free campus, anyway.  At home, I struggle with the normal time frames...after dinner, before bed, when I wake up.

I have changed my coffee habit around to fit into the newer tobacco free me.  I just bring my favorite cup with me to work and hold off on that first cup until after 8:00 a.m.  I do find myself snacking much more, but I have found ways to curb even that.  All in all, it is going well.  We shall see.  I am pretty obstinant and do not like the idea of something having that much control over me.  I will win.

This maligned weather

So, for the umteenth time this month, I awoke to grey skies.  Hmph!

I really need some sun.  I am starting to get all 'blah' like.

Evergreen goes down

So, I have taken the steps necessary to try and save what remains of my son's elementary school years.  I have requested an enrollment in Mt. Hall Elementary.  It will be a heck of a drive in the morning for my wife or I, and a long bus ride for the kid, but I won't have to worry about him falling behind in an already over crowded school.

I am furious, I am angry and I am disgusted.  Not even a symbolic gesture could be made.  Mr. Bertling voted to shutter Evergreen.  It was a done deal, everyone knew it.  Couldn't he have even mustered enough intestinal fortitude for the constituents he represents to cast a single vote against closing our little school?  We all knew when the Naples school was saved by the voters of the county that our school was going to close.  Most of us completely expect that Mt. Hall will not survive more than a year or two at the most.  We know this.  But does it have to be so bold and blatant that our children are not as important as the ones in Naples?  the Community already decided that, but couldn't our own school board rep have at least given us a swan song?

Flakeless in Moyie.

Okay, so does anyone else really really want snow to start collecting on the ground?  I am told I am all alone in this opinion that snow is awesome.  It is odd, really.  I don't ski, snowboard or play in the stuff, I just like to see it.  I think it makes the already wonderful and beautiful mountains even more beautiful.

I don't mind driving in it.  I have four wheel drive and just drop about ten MPH's off the gizmo on the dash and I seem to muddle around quite nicely.  My kids have stuff to put on to keep from getting hypothermia and I have a heater in my house and both the family rigs.

Here it is two weeks before the baby turns a full year old and we celebrate turkey and stuffin, and there is no white stuff on the ground down here.

I got all excited yesterday morning because it was coming down in fist sized flakes, but it turned to rain and washed away like my expectations.  I am ready for winter...bring it!

First Post to New Blog

This is the first post to my new blog.  I am going to try to get back into blogging again.  The political spectrum is changing in North Idaho and I am not a big fan of the changes.  So, basically, this blog will contain lots of political unhappiness and a mix of family stuff and whatever I see around the joint.