A little bird chirped in my ear that there are more people than I had thought who check up on my blog. To my surprise and delight I thought...I should really do a better job of updating if people are actually reading. I know I say this every time, but I think if I write shorter entries, it won't be such an ordeal to update. I also won't have my mother asking for updates every time I talk to her on the phone while at the same time have Eric in the background screeching "I need an update, I need an update." So here is the quick and dirty of what is going on in our lives with pictures to go with it.

1. Our tomato plants are growing. We are on our second transplant and Eric has built a lovely greenhouse out of our old windows. Today was the first day we got to compare temps and it got up to 84 inside with only 55 outside. Garden plans continue to progress, get more complicate, and take more time and money. In the works we have tilling a plot, starting new seeds, maintaining greenhouse plants, and of course monitoring the perennial bulbs outside in the front yard that are peeking through. I am probably more excited about them than I should be, but it's the small stuff right? Check out the picture and help me guess what will be blooming. I am hoping for irises, iris', a bunch of iris?

2. Chops continues to grow. He is just over 20 lbs. We took him out into the field last weekend to kick up some birds and didn't find any. He sure does love to run though. Since the weather has been nice and Eric has been outside Chops has gotten to run all day long nonstop. It has worked out well to have him conk out at 5 and sleep through the night. I like that he still has some qualities that remind us he is a baby. Wish he could stay this size forever. His newest trick is to play dead. He does it most of the time, but sometimes gets dead position confused with roll over.

3. Eric starts his job next week. We have been through the ringer, but he will be starting as a personal banker with Wells Fargo. He is also excited about the opportunity to not only use his finance degree, but also his newly acquired insurance and investment licenses. There is a guy from Bismarck who travels to our area once a week to handle those things in Dickinson and it sounds like he will be training and helping Eric to get up and running here. My job is going well also. It has almost been a year and I recently got my first review and first raise. I have learned a great deal of patience and tact as well as how to be a good nose wiper, tantrum solver, social worker, behavior specialist, and psychiatrist all in one. Never learned all that in grad school.

4. House is still on hold and we are still procrastinating about the crown moulding. It WILL be done before the next demo though. We plan to start the back half of the house once the weather holds. Last year there was a snowstorm June 5th which seems to be a fluke occurrence but you never know. It hasn't been seriously discussed, but we may start demo in May sometime.
Eric says mid April.

5. Here is an event to add to the "Never Until ND" list of life experiences. Recently went to the local hardware store for dog supplies and heard some "peeping." After investigating I found live baby chicks and ducks for sale in large bins in the back of the store. You can just walk right back and pick them up and hold them. As you can imagine I spent a lot of time and Eric did a lot of coaxing to get me away from them. The next day I had to go back and take pictures, but it had gotten even better. They had gotten in American Pullet chickens that lay blue and green colored eggs. If only I had the means to raise chickens. How cool would multi-colored eggs be. It was very "animal, vegetable, miracle" of me, but realistically it just wouldn't work. It you didn't get the reference, look up the book title by Barbara Kingsolver. It was a great read. While we were there the lady supervising the bird operation started chatting with Eric about how she raises chucker partridge and is willing to sell them for training purposes. Sounds like we have fixed the issue of not kicking up birds in the field. Apparently there is some trap you can buy to release the birds as your dog approaches it so the dog can learn to jump up and grab the birds. Eric is pumped and I am wondering where to keep the birds, how to get them to the field (i.e. not in my car), and what we do with the dead/injured ones.

Think that is all for now, keep watching the blog and hold me to regular updates.