A room with a view

Baby and I are visiting the lovely State of Alaska for a few weeks. We kissed the dog goodbye and headed to snow and beauty. THIS was the view out our room the first morning!

Which, hello, is the best view ever! Thank you JD and Caitlin for letting us stay with you, enjoy your amazing view and sharing your Life cereal. It's an awesome way to wake up.

Not only did the dog lick us goodbye as we left but the crocuses came out to bid their farewell. Look at all the color! This year all the colors shared the stage.

Remember that one Spring I complained about the crocuses making an appearance based on color. Only one color at a time decided to grace the yard. And I complained about it. Who in their right mind complains about flowers? No one, that's who. No one in their right mind complains about beauty in the world. That post now stands as testimony of my temporary bouts of not sane.

It's wonderful to live in such a beautiful world. Happy Easter everyone! Enjoy your beautiful Spring where ever you are.

Communication Breakdown

I bought a cell phone from an Iranian company here called ROSHAN and I'm pretty sure that means I am funding terrorism. They are cheap little phones and I bought a sim card and a 50 dollar pay-as-you-go calling card. I was told I could call home for about 25 cents a minute. Not too shabby. I called Valli and had a great conversation with almost no delay. But after ten minutes I had burned through my 50 bucks.

Hmm.

Maybe it's a little more than 25 cent a minute. But i found out that incoming calls are free. Valli bought an ATT intl. card that she discovered had an only slightly better rate of 2.50 a minute.

Getting closer.

Valli gets online and finds a company thats sells minutes at about 15-25 cent a minute. Perfect. She can use it to call me during her free times and it only costs us and time for the card. So we do that and the conversation goes something like this.

v: Hi!

d: What?

v: Hi, it's Valli.

d: Hello?

v: HI!

d: Hi.

v: What?

d: HI BACK!

v: oh. I got a calling card.

d: What?

v: Nevermind.

d: What?

v: What?

d: I CANT HEAR YOU!

v: WHAT? I CANT HEAR YOU!

~call dropped~

So we are still working on the whole cell phone thing. I suspect it might soon get scrapped as a failed experiment. But by golly, Harrells don't quit. Until we have wasted a pantload of time and money trying it out, anyway.

BUT I did get a personal dial-up subscription today for only 100 bucks a month. That ought to buy the Taliban a RPG or three. Thanks Iran. And Russia. And China. And Pakistan. And Columbia. Thanks for helping me keep the fight for Afghanistan going. And if I left any other countries out I'm sorry.

But if it means I can Skype its totally worth it. Right? And it means I can do my homework from my room. I just finished my first assignment, a Memo of Introduction for my business writing class. I also wrote this blog. So. Ya. Totally worth it.

Cilantro

Accepting your nominations for Worst Mother of the Year.

To solidify your vote I am going to let her play with the plastic bag next.

For anyone else in the running desiring to take the title here are my tips:
Turn your back long enough to write "dishwasher" on a note to yourself.
Leave a full garbage can at the floor level.
Place your child in a (bow leg inducing) walker.
Trim babies fingernails with a Bowie knife.

Hope these help your chances. Good luck. You'll need it if you want to beat me.

We like it Hot Hot Hot

Our heater/AC unit does not handle separation anxiety well. As a result it died a couple days before Dave deployed. Died, gave up the ghost, croaked, kicked the bucket, puffed it's last warm breath. Speaking of warm breath, JD, Caitlin, you are champs. Please visit again. Please. You won't see your breath in the house next time you come.

I am happy to announce we have replaced the wimpy unit with a pro. It was located quite a road trip away by Tennessee's standards. We actually left the Nashville mission! Now that's a trip. But I had my dutiful helper to keep me alert and assist in the heavy lifting.

We arrived at our destination to discover that our newish unit comes from the home town of Jack Daniels. Interestingly enough the guy we bought it from works for Jack Daniels. But, oh, that's just his day job. He's a bondsman as well. I wonder who his high school career counselor was?

To celebrate our warm house Squirt started rolling from her tummy to her back and then to her tummy. Again and again and again. She is noticing it's a little hard to roll when the mutt wants to join in. He has a thing for diapers. Unfortunately.