Riding the Debt Wagon

So I just did the Oprah debt thing.... made the charts a couple of months ago where you list all your bills, re-arrange them in order of highest interest rate, then put all your money towards that bill and pay the minimum on the others.
So far it is working, in the first 60 days, I have paid off 2 of the smaller credit card debts i owed.  Today i made the first larger payment towards a 13.33% card.  I need to call them to get the interest reduced as well.  All I can say is it feels really good to see this starting to work in only 2 months.
I'm a self employed maker of kaleidoscopes and jewelry, so as the winter months come round, there are usually long stretches of time between sales.  I'm vowing to ramp up my retail and etsy websites, and use an emailing service to keep in touch with my wholesale accounts.  In the past, I've spent a LOT of money to do trade shows, but for now I want to nurture the accounts I have.  At least until I can get my debt in manageable territory.  I love my work, but I have nothing to show for it but loads of debt....debt, debt, debt.... the key word that is undermining our whole society.... sigh... at least i finally posted, but see why i don't most days?  Extreme terror? Blindsiding depression?  Nah, just laziness and too much time reading what everyone else is putting out there!

How People go camping in Montana

For kicks and giggles, here is a photo of people who really know how to live!  We were on our way to a craft show in Bigfork Montana when we saw this crazy car full of stuff.  We thought it was po' folk moving but when my husband saw the photo he said "it's a truck driver going camping, see how he's tied everything down?"..... so I look at the ingeniousness of the treasures tied to this car.  I guess thats what you do when you wanna go camping and you don't have a pickup or van. (they WERE going camping )... notice Tigger and the bag of potato's tied onto the backpack, what a hoot!  I really think this is performance art, as they put on quite a show, there must've been 6 people taking pictures as soon as they pulled into the quik stop.  God Bless America!

Shooting up in Utah

Yesterday was a strange but fun kind of day.  We have a friend, Little Mary who is a retired military gal with 14 guns and a 160 acre parcel in the middle of Bumf*** Utah.  We decided to pack a picnic and go visit the place with her and our friend Dan.
The day was crystal clear and temps in the low 80's with a light breeze.  Couldn't have been nicer.  We brought my craft canopy for some shade and set up a day camp.
On one of my walks, I ran across a number of wee scurrying lizards.  Most of these guys were so quick you could just see a tail waving back and forth before they disappeared under a bush.  This one posed for me tho.

I think it's a dream of a lot of people to move out somewhere where there is nobody, but I can tell you after yesterday that this is just that kind of place and it's TOO isolated.  About 30 miles from a town with just a post office and 10 more miles down a dirt road.  I imagine the stars at night would be totally breathtaking tho.  I took a string of pictures to make a panorama shot, but each one looked about the same, so here is just one of the scenery.

As you can see, lots of stickery plants, sagebrush and these amazing salt flat areas of pure white.  We weren't too far from the famous Bonneville Salt Flats, at least when we left in the afternoon and headed south to the I80, I think that's what I saw off to the left, a miles long area of pure white in the middle of the desert.

As for wildlife, there were plenty of flies after our lunch, a beautiful white butterfly that liked the canopy, and this poor thing, beautiful in it's symmetry.  Actually, this isn't wild at all, but probably a sheep, as this is sheep country.

Shooting the guns was actually a lot of fun.  Mary is a kind teacher and helped me do whatever it is I needed to do  to get the gun to shoot.  I smacked a target on the second try which was exhilarating.  Won't say how many times it was before the second hit tho!  Here is Mary in her "Chuck the Rifleman" moment.

The last little gift of the day when we were looking for cactus to take home, was a Horny Toad that scurried across my path!  It's a miracle to see one of these little guys, unless you happen to live somewhere where they flourish.  I saw one when I was a kid, and now this one.  I stuck the camera as close to the sticker bush as I could, but he's so well camouflaged that you really only see him cause of the outline of his torso.