tamara b

Springtime, longer days and a longer list of things to do.

Office work seems to be slowing enough for me to catch my breath and perhaps even catch up on things. At the same time, field work will be picking up about now. It was so much easier to stay late and finish things up but I find that hard to do now that I’m married. Today I was out in the field for the first time in ages. It was so nice to walk around, lay a contour line and get away from the desk. I’m sure my legs will disagree later tonight when they get sore. Well spring is finally here and I’m loving the warm weather. Up in the 50’s today with a light breeze, it’s so nice. I’ve really been enjoying work and the people at my office lately. Being involved with things on the state and national level has made work even more interesting. I was recently chosen as the Midwest regional representative within the Hispanic NRCS employee program. I look forward to serving in that capacity and attending the training conference this summer in Sacramento CA.

Besides work, so much is happening at home. Mom and Ralph arrived Monday night and I’m excited to have them here. I’ve been trying to recruit people to Iowa for quite some time and mom and Ralph made a wise decision! My hope and prayer is that Ryan and I can adjust to having some family local. That he doesn’t feel neglected or left out - that I remember to focus on him.

Friday was Ryan’s birthday. We went to dinner and then watched the HS boys basketball championships. His school won and it was fun for him to recognize the players who were itty bitty last time he saw them. Saturday, our friend Jill drove up to celebrate Ryan’s birthday with us. We had a good time of eating, chatting about old times and playing a domino game called Mexican Train. Other than that, we’ve worked a little cleaning in the basement and Ryan is working to set up shop down there. He has quite a collection of tools now to play with. The newest includes a nice shop vac that he bought with his birthday money.

Besides that, other excitement includes our female cat, Wicket, who recently has a fetish with toilet paper and Kleenex. She’ll attack the Kleenex box and tear that all up. This morning Ryan found his toilet paper all torn up. Both cats usually go to the basement or stay in our bedroom throughout the night. This morning was a good reminder of why. We recently got our taxes back from the lawyer. He made a minor error by forgetting the charitable givings line item in there. That affected our return by almost double. Good thing Ryan caught it. We plan to pay off our bed with our return and hope to have enough left over to replace our stove. Other news is that we still have Promise. And since it has warmed up I’ve been so tempted to ride her. She’s such a pretty horse and looks great out in my pasture but the plan is to sell her. We’ll see what happens!

Okay so that’s enough of my thoughts for now. Gotta go