Driving Fuel - Missoula, Montana

"Heartbreak is good fuel for country songs. 
And cheating." 

-Miranda Lambert

Crisp Sunshine - Missoula, Montana

"As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness -- just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm."

- Laura Ingalls Wilder, Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom and Virtues (Writings to Young Women on Laura Ingalls Wilder #1)

Six and Snow - Corvallis, Montana

New snow.

I am again six years old.

The seduction of untrammeled snow is akin to the fresh possibility inherent in the first page of a brand new notebook - new horizons beckon!

All I Want For Christmas- Corvallis, Montana

All I want for Christmas is my two pyrohy...okay, it ended up being four. Let's just say it's been a very good Christmas, especially on the heels of being sick all week! 

Restless For - Missoula, Montana

"The restlessness and the longing, like the longing that is in the whistle of a faraway train. Except that the longing isn't really in the whistle—it is in you."

-Meindert DeJong, The Little Cow and the Turtle

Quiet - Missoula, Montana

"We must believe that there are places where tranquility exists and nature is given back her power to speak..."

- Nanette L. Avery

Baby It's Cold Outside - Missoula, Montana

Before the wind chill factor, we've warmed up to minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit (aka minus 22 Celsius) - but a scoop of Sweet Peaks' new Boozy Eggnog flavour will keep you warm. (And you thought we were done with Sweet Peaks until spring - hah! WE are made of sterner stuff!)  If you ever want to guiltlessly try every ice cream flavour on the Specialty board before selecting your scoop(s), I highly recommend borrowing a 9-year-old for your accomplice. (Yes, we really did this! Of course, law-abiding person that I am, I made her skip the Boozy Eggnog and Flathead Fireweed Cherry.)  Children are indeed a delight to spend time with - especially when you can sugar 'em up, then take'em back!

Awakening Snow - Missoula, Montana

"You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there - the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. 
The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, 
it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed."

-Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale