Our camping trip ended early last Thursday. We had rain every day we were there but the last night was storm after storm after storm, which turned the soft dirt roads back to our campsite into deceptive mud pits. Luckily we had been monitoring the weather and had packed up and headed to gravel just before the sky broke. I don’t have any great pictures to share because I was trying some new settings on my camera that didn’t work out. This picture was taken on the way back to camp the evening we called it quits. It was taken from inside the truck because I’m terrified of lightning. I’m…

On Friday we leave to go camping! The plan is to take a week of vacation every year around this time and camp somewhere. This year we’re going to Wyoming. Next year? Probably the same place. I love Wyoming. I love that at times the air itself smells like sage and I especially love the red dirt. In fact, there is a half-gallon mason jar full of red Wyoming dirt sitting on our bedside table as a bookend. The other bookend is an old pickle jar full of beach rocks from Rhode Island. We planned for this particular week because historical averages showed minimal rainfall and where we like to…

When we improved our diet by cutting out all processed foods and/or anything with ingredients that could easily be confused for cleaning products (Butylated hydroxytoluene anyone?), we immediately noticed a huge improvement in how we felt. We were eating what we were supposed to be eating and our bodies were happy. I had more energy, I felt better about myself, and I had a much shinier coat. Wait, what? We made the decision that if we were eating better and feeling better, we should offer the dogs that same chance. There was nothing wrong with the food they had, we weren’t feeding them the bottom brand and meat was the first ingredient, but the…

When Brian stops anywhere he will always text, asking if there’s anything I want. My reply is usually, “Yes, horsies!” Sometimes it’s “Yes, his irks,” because the more predictive my phone gets, the lazier I get. Sometimes I don’t even look at the screen, I just tap around near where I believe the letters are and hope for the best. We have a rule against correcting auto-corrects though, so whatever comes out has to stay, which is how things like “You ruined of schillings with trucks to stop it!” and “You’re so graphic with the teddy grahams,” get captured and sent to the whole family. Today Brian surprised me with a couple his irks. When I…