This Sounds like life to me dirty girl

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do." Goethe

 

In the new year I have been such a whirlwind of activity my friends are starting to stop just to "check on me." My Hon., and kids, are confused by my distracted, non-domestic (non-helpful) state. Also, with every untamed moment, I devour the words of wise and famous people who walked the line to their dream, before me, because it inspires me to fight another round.

I am vibrating like a chainsaw on idle, even while I sleep. It is exactly what this half raised WildNevadan girl-woman needed to get herself out of the fence to dance again.

I have found that when my spirits are down, it takes a calculated effort to bring myself back into balance. When I have a big or important goal in mind, I am the ponder the possibilities before I take any giant leaps of faith kind of girl.  Because from experience I know that the fall hurts like hell. Falling-- falling from grace, falling on your face, or falling short of success leads me to a place where I get less out of my life.

"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's cocming attractions." Albert Einstein.

Less out of life, is not good enough for me.

 

And because ideas go no where without action I decided to do. And, because I cannot get THERE, without  action, I had to get up out of that fence and dance. So, I'm here to let you know what I have been up to in such a whirl wind of activity... you know the back story.

There once was a Wild Wednesday, in which I remember I was trying to escape the dirty clothes pile that is like the song that never ends. It was, in fact the post to that brought forth Wild Wednesday. These Three Jeans and Old Biker Babes is "copied" from my old blog site and was much to do about getting out of the rut that is work and life with a little fun. My yucky work was always the laundry... 

 

Once upon a time there was a Wild Nevadan woman who hated her laundry. She would often fantasize about inventing contraptions that recycle clothing, or do all of the things in between washing and drying and folding and especially putting it away. Often she would dream she was at work at the local pharmacy, but instead of sorting pills in the glass box, she sorted laundry. She often writes on her blog about how she is haunted by the mound and believes it has babies while she is asleep at night.

A few months ago, the dream that I thought a nightmare, became an idea. I began to "do the math" on a laundry service. Crazy? Yes. Crazy-wild!

There was a lot of fantasizing in the beginning, like maybe this business could fund a freaking trip to the desert! The glass box is getting me nowhere! Or, maybe if I do enough laundry I can hire an employee and then bring my laundry to be done for free.

What a strange woman I am when I am without my desert wandering! I thought and thought on alternatives, but alas, somehow, this idea keeps with me, through summer and into fall. I was just at a total loss on what to call it.

I talked often with a good friend of mine, and one day he says, "Blondie's Laundry."

And I realized sometime later that night that I had been looking at the wrong page of my map book. The road I had thought I traveled to this point is but a memory. It was yesterday.  

If you haven't met Blondie before, you can meet her now. She was my Grammie. What a great lady. I have talked about her in this blog as many times as I have complained about my laundry. She never minded washing a few loads of laundry for me. She would turn my dirty rotten rags into fresh and tidy piles. It made me feel so good. So special. And part of a real, solid, I will do just about anything for family kind of place. And the world was less scary when I left her house because I was "presentable" again. She was a dirty girl's savior if ever there was one!

After U-hauling her washer and dryer out of her now empty house, and her washer and dryer became mine, I would often think about the times we sat on her bed and folded my sad looking lot of clothes, and she would politely bring up the rips and tears. She would mention that I was acting a little too rough for my gender.  

 

Being who I am I would argue with her. I was young. I was feisty. I would tell her, with huge pride in my heart, "Gram. I wasn't meant for sitting still. I was meant to work hard with my body. When I am done working I want to play just as hard. The best days are the ones when my clothes get gross. I guess I just like to get dirty. Maybe I am a boy."

 

She would say, "I know."

 

She never really minded that I like dirt under my feet, and finding beauty in what is weird. When I was young she probably thought it would pass. When I was in my 20s, and I burned pavement and dirt roads, sagebrush, and tires like they were Marlboro's, she probably worried a lot for me. But, she always supported my Wild Nevadan ways and was the first and most regular customer for my cards and pictures. I have learned from her that there is nothing parallel to having a relationship with somebody who recognizes who you are and finds good in those qualities, even if they do not align with their own beliefs or ideals.

 It is exactly the kind of business grandmothers should be in.  It is the type of behavior I emulate when I have mucked things up or found myself lost on the road to success.

 

One day I found myself in this hamster wheel. The one that is unfulfilled. The one that you can't even make yourself grateful for, now matter how many inspiring words you look up in a dictionary or quotes you can google. That's when you have to look at not only where you have been, and what you have learned, but what you want out of all this effort.

And I thought, "Did I just forget where I was going?"

Oh, no. better get busy!

And so I put on my work gloves. The ones my Hon. buys me. The ones he taught me how to wear and hang on for dear life with when there isn't anything but noose to hang onto, or the boat is about to capsize. And I jumped headfirst into a dream.

And my friends are stopping by to check on me because I finally managed to make laundry fun. And nobody can believe it is working, except me.

And now my wild Wednesday joke of  yesteryear, when and where nothing much changes around here in a week, and even the laundry pile looks the same, is now the biggest oxy-moron you ever met. But that's how naked stick bushes dance I guess.

So, here's the introduction to the latest and greatest thing to come from this wild mind of mine. Blondie's Laundry Service. We are Open 7 days a week, serving the Tonopah, NV area from my humble home, here on this mine dump. Service includes Free Pick up and Delivery. Please call or text us to schedule pick up. Our rates and current specials can be found on the Blondie's Laundry page, or by clicking this link. Blondie's Laundry Service.

It is going to be a whole hell of a lot more interesting for this blog than sourdough! And I am grateful again to have something to facilitate this most recent crash course in life; in how to turn laundry into a business; and pursuit of happiness. It has been more wild a ride than I can explain today. I hate to leave it out now, but soon I shall reflect on the fun and frighting things that happened this month in conjunction with the opening of this little business.

So far, it has been everything dreams are made of; every bit of rewarding, and scary, and exciting and exhausting as those words were ever meant, or how you wish to take them. Right now I must go, because there is much laundry and life to sort out.

Thanks for reading and sharing!
Loves,
HjB

It has fish

Old Man Winter put 20 pounds on my rump roast. I asked little of my body, except to fight off a fleet of renegade germs. Translation: This naked stick bush spent her winter chilling on some out of the way section of barb wire waiting for spring winds to blow her free.

Lucky for me I spent a good part of Friday forcing my chunky butt into physical labor. Boy, did I sweat. Meanwhile, I eagerly soaked up some of God's glorious sun rays (through two coats of SPF 50). Then, I drank about six quarts of water to flush out the toxic gunk that must have built up inside. One thing I have found, town life yields no shortage of the artificial...colors, flavors, preservatives, conversation...

After that, I felt so freaking good that I drank two beers and turned down an old dirt road. I put it into the universe I was ready to find this mysterious "nearby lake" the locals have been rumbling about. From my place, hung up in the fence, this Wild Nevadan girl-woman thought they must have gone crazy. How could I have not known such a place exists?

All I need is a reason to range off the beaten path with generalized accounts of an otherwise unknown destination.

Are you kidding? This what I live for!

How lucky we are to offer your thoughts to the universe and get back what we think?

The minute I let go of Old Man Winter, almost no effort was required for this old naked stick bush to find the lake these people speak of.

And, so I guess will continue to call it a lake, though it is only a lake by some kind of wild Nevadan standard. Perhaps it is because I found my own reason to be ready for more generalized exploration...

It has fish

Loves,

 HjB

Picking Yellowy-purpley wildflowers

My suitcase is unpacked, but it is still on the floor in my bedroom. My man asked, "What do you want me to do with this?"

"Just leave it there, I'm going to fill it up. I'm not done going yet," I said.

He rolled his eyes and asks, "Where?"

"I don't know!" I answer. In my mind, I have three to five places in mind, but being that I have chores to do and some logistics to work out, I don't share this information. 

It is Sunday, I hope he just gets us out of the house, and off the ranch for the day. I was elbow deep in breakfast dishes when he tells me he will watch the boys, if my sister and I want to go play.

Really? Yes, really. Alright. So I dress and SPF 50 myself and the kids, give about a handful of orders, grab the camera, the Map Book, my sister and her car.

So the sis asks, "Where?" Good question. I am still in shock I think.

Welcome to Ruby Valley and the Ruby Mountains.

Generally speaking, Ruby Valley it is a pretty, farmy-ranchy very rural valley in Northern Nevada, in Elko County. It's one of those places you don't know about unless you have reason to visit it--or a spirit that begs to find out where that road goes.

I have wandered this way before but I see on the map book that there is a sulfer hot springs way out there. I ask WjB, if she's game to blow about 100 miles and possibly not get where we are going. She is fine with it, and tells me to let her know when its time to stop and take pictures.

Next to this old building is another, less old, community center. Behind both buildings I spy an outhouse.

Why are old outhouses as fun as old buildings?

Oh, wait.

There is a His AND Hers

Anyhow, we finally made it to the end of the pavement. And to the place in the map book that says I need to pay attention for the sulpher hot springs. Nestled in the fields, hills and corrals and bunches of trees that belonged to somebody, was some white dirt. It probably had a sulpher hot springs down there. We did not see the road right to it. Of course. So we just kept going.

Until we found

And, 

Some purply-yellow wild flowers.

The best part about wandering with my wild Nevadan sister is that when I said it was okay to turn back around, she answers, "Oh, lets' keep going."

I don't need a whole lot of encouragement.

 The urge to keep going is as infectious as a fungus.

She climbed until she had the thought, I better find a place to turn around before I have to back down this hill. (She told me.) Plus, we found another man's junk to check out.

And,

Purpley-yellow wild flowers to pick.

I do know that these flowers are called Lupin. They are a common wild flower in both the mountains and valleys of Nevada in spring. They can be purple or yellow or purply-yellow (or is it yellowey-purple?).

I'm a bit of a flower child. These, and the Indian Paintbrush blooms, have been ALL my heart wanted to see these past couple months.

So, this past Sunday it was not important to know: where I was going; what it is supposed to be called; or what it was once used for.

All that was important was to stop and admire the beauty of it, while we traveled to and from it, and remember to look behind it...

What a great Sunday drive down an old dirt road and once upon a drive past a Humboldt access sign. Hope you enjoyed the pictures,

HjB

June 6, 2011

A Wild, Feathered Flock

There is a wild, feathered flock after my chicken food. Blackbirds, aren't exactly the headliners of the bird world. The headliners of the resident flock of blackbirds have to be these noisy, bright "yellow headed blackbirds."

The other day I was talking with a friend about what one of God's creatures we would like to come back as, if there is such a thing as reincarnation. We both decided we would be birds.

I am not the "flying" type. The cowgirl I worship the most is kind of like a bird in that she has a need to fly; a fascination for all things that fly; and a spirit that begs to soar across a big blue sky with no boundaries or roads to define her course.

I enjoy birds of every feather, in every season, but I cannot say I am like a bird in that there is any need for me to fly. However, in spring, when they return from distant lands to compete for mates and breed, I cannot help but admire them for their boisterous activity, bright colors and rainbow of sounds.

My attraction is not so much in their unique ability to fly or tweet. It is more that they are so driven by pure instinct. It would give me comfort to just "know" when it was time to move on for the season, or mate, or sing.

Also, it would be nice, if I was startled and had to fly, and my flock of feathered friends followed me, and it turned out to be a false alarm, there would be no harm done. It was all for survival. It is better to be safe than sorry. The moment would be instantly forgotten and everyone would just go back to eating.

I have always been an "early bird," in that I am up with the birds. Around here, the birds wake about fiveish, with great commotion. No place I have lived, even the woodlands in Oregon, could compare to the decibel of their rejoicing over the rising of the sun.

They flit and fly from tree to tree, and then to the chicken yard. The swallows scoop mud for their nests and catch bugs. The robins fight. The chick-a-dees say, "cheeeseee buurr geer." Woodpeckers knock, knock, knock at the trees.

 

 

Everybody is busy.

 

 

On some mornings, a pair of geese can be heard behind the house as they try to make lift off, in the still morning air. You cannot help but notice and maybe cross your fingers with hope when the two honking bombers take off--it is a wonder they can get going at all. Then, in the distance, and sometimes mixed with the sound of coyote singing, is the unique call of these long legged sand cranes.

  

Being from the high desert of Central Nevada, I have almost no experience with the "water" birds I see out in the fields. Because they are "new" to me, I am fascinated. Of course, the headliners in my wild, feathered, flock of friends is the eagles, owls and hawks. The birds of prey always steal the show from the black birds, robins, woodpeckers, geese, cranes and miscellaneous water birds.

 

Of course the whole point of my feathered friends spring activity is to mate, build a nest and hatch a clutch of babies. Actually, I think I am going to have to change my mind about what creature I would come back as, if I could be reincarnated. I do not think I have the fortitude to sit through a beautiful spring day, just to keep some eggs warm. Anyways, here is to their amazing effort and their cute little bird babies.

 

 

 

 

 

As always, thank you for hanging around,

and reading The Dancing Tumbleweed Blog. 

HjB

May 24, 2011