the twin fire & friday soap giveaway

Last weekend, parts of the city of Williams (aka "Gateway to the Grand Canyon") were evacuated due to a prescribed forest burn that got out of control. The Twin Fire was finally contained when it reached about 1,000 acres, but it was a little dicey there for a while. Part of the price of being surrounded by National Forest is the possibility of fire danger. On the way to son's soccer game in the Old Route 66 town of Seligman, we drove through this:

...and on the way home we drove through this:

I wish I'd had my camera with me when we were in town and saw the slurry bombers flying overhead and the helicopters sucking up water from the nearby reservoir to drop on the flames. The local Williams/Grand Canyon News had some good pictures of the choppers, though. At night, the smoke was thick and heavy in the air. This was the view from my front door:

...and this was the view from the back:

Those dastardly forest fires sure do pretty up the sky.

So, on to the Friday Soap Giveaway. Fall is here in all its glory, and I don't know about you, but around here at Writer/Rider central, preparations for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and various fall birthdays are in full swing. Seems like pumpkins, cranberries, warm spices and all things orange, black and purple are constantly on my mind lately. So, here's one of my top sellers being offered for the giveaway - Cranberry Fig:

Wanna join the ranks of previous soap winners whose mail smelled reeeeeealllly good the day their bars arrived? Simply leave a comment telling me what kinds of things you'd like to see more of here on the AWAAR blog. Remember, there need to be at least six comments from different readers in order for the bar to get sent.

Happy Friday!

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small things

Noting the crumpled state of her homework after school lately, I offered Daughter a deal: Come home with your homework nice and neat in its folder, and you'll get a special treat. I don't care if she's supposed to do this without being asked; I'm a huge fan of bribery. Alas, she proudly opened her backpack as soon as she got off the bus to show me how tidy everything was. So, she got her treat:

Wish I could say these peanut butter cookies were homemade, but no - store bought and pre-cut. All I had to do was bake 'em. My mom used to make the most AMAZING peanut butter cookies from scratch, and she'd always add a little design on each one with the tines of a fork. I'll have to get the recipe from her.

Today I paid a visit to my favorite local thrift store, where I found a cat carrier that would have come in very handy week-before-last when Rosa developed a post-spay UTI and had to go back to the vet. Now we have one just in case, and it only cost a few bucks! I picked up the chairs, too. We've been needing some extras for when company comes over, and the kids are looking forward to customizing these with some bright acrylic paints. That way, they can each have one for sitting and putting on their shoes in the morning, setting their backpacks on in the afternoon, etc. Plus, I think the chairs will make the foyer look very homey and folksy. I'll post a picture when they're done.

Let's see. I recently traded soap for some hollyhock seeds, so those will go in the ground this weekend. The neighbor who has the seeds is a master gardener, so I've also been hitting her up for advice on what kinds of trees to plant in front of the house and how to stop the local prairie dogs from feasting on the roots. I'll post a picture of the hollyhock experiment results next year. (I did mention that I have a black thumb, right?)

The new horse shelter is coming along, though there have been a few hold-ups between my contractor dealing with the county, footer cement that doesn't want to dry quickly enough, etc. I'm hoping most if not all of it will go up tomorrow.

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time to call the audiologist

boy (out of school for Presidents' Day): "Mom, can I please watch Star Wars?"

me: "In a little bit."

boy: "A little bit?"

me: "IN a little bit."

boy: "A little bit, or IN a little bit?"

me: "IN a little bit."

boy: "In a little bit?"

me: "Do I need to get your ears checked?"

boy: "What?"Follow @nicole_mcinnes

early harbingers of spring

This was the view from our kitchen window this morning It's finally warmed up enough to snow (night time temps were dipping well below zero earlier in the week), so now there's this vast and lovely white quilt outside. The roundpen in the foreground was built by my husband out of aspen poles that he cut and hauled from the north rim of the Grand Canyon years ago, and it's one of my favorite photography subjects.

Speaking of photography, I think I've changed my mind about the camera I want to buy now that my old trusty Kodak DX3900 is gasping for its last breath. For a while my mind was set on this one, but after some research, I've discovered that this one looks like a better value overall. Of course, it's a moot point until I actually have the money to buy it, but it's making me crazy not to have a good quality, reliable camera for capturing those fleeting kid moments.

And speaking of the man, today is his birthday, which means that for the next three months we are the same age (the downside, of course, being that for the next three months I don't get to sleep with a younger man). Dad's birthday also = the kids and I getting busy with art supplies - making cards and writing stories. The girl suprised me this week by not only making her first batch of cookies (I found her in the kitchen mixing up ingredients with the play cooking set she got from Grandpa and Granni for Christmas), but by writing her first book! She's a chip off the old block (if I had suspenders I'd hook my thumbs proudly in the straps).

The story is called "The Red Snake and the Evil Purple Scales, Written by Mr. Apple." There are no actual words, of course, but she tells the story the exact same way every time she "reads" the illustrations. I'm always relieved to hear that everything turns out well in the end for the red snake and his brothers and sisters, especially after that run-in with those awful scales (disguised as rocks), and the smoke that makes all the snake siblings run away. The whole ordeal those poor creatures go through reminds me a little of how this month has gone. But now the sun is starting to elbow those storm clouds aside, the Valentine chocolates are stacked high on grocery store shelves, and the Scottsdale Arabian Show is right around the corner. These are the signs I look for to tell me that, someday soon, this winter, too, shall pass.

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