We're home. Thanks to Marcia and Bill inviting us up to Weed, we discovered Lassen Volcanic Nat'l Park. More on our last morning with Marcia & Bill and the dogs, plus our trip home, tomorrow. We got home way later than anticipated and are beat, but I couldn't help but share the teaser pic Jeremy took this afternoon.

Monday and Tuesday of this week it was just under 100º in the valley.

Wednesday there was a storm, complete with thunder, lightning and rain (pounding rain .. rare here!)

Today on my way to work it was snowing. Not enough to accumulate down here (but it is, up in the mtns)

Welcome to the high desert. :)

My mood lately seems as volatile and shifting as our weather. Last night I was in SUCH a crabby mood. More crabby than I can remember in recent days. I'll spare you as to my epiphany of where the mood came from, but just to give you an idea, I had to actually force myself to go sit in the living room at one point so I didn't chuck a rolling pin through a window. It was just one of those kinds of nights.

But any time I'm in a mood like that, there's always Jeremy and the dogs there ... they pull me right out of it! Last night we prepared a lot of food for tonight's dinner, so that instead of being in the kitchen preparing, we could be sitting out with our guests, enjoying their company. When we cook, we dirty a LOT of dishes. Because much of our stuff anymore is made from scratch, there are myriad food processors, bowls, spoons, and lots of other dishes and containers and knives and such that just get completely wrecked. We're messy, and the mess spreads far and wide.

I was exhausted last night by the time we got done, and told Jeremy I'd get up early this morning to do the dishes. He had left work a little early yesterday, come home and taken a nap, because he'd been up late the night prior, working, up and out the door by 4 a.m., again, because of work, and he had to work again last night (a lot of the stuff has to be done during non-business hours). So when I went to bed at around 10, he stayed up to continue working. I vaguely remember hearing him come to bed at around 2 a.m. And then his alarm went off at about 5:45 and it was time for him to be up and off to work yet again. Ha. And _I_ am the one who's crabby, can you imagine?! If I had to keep that schedule, someone would die.

This morning when he kissed me goodbye he said, "Sleep in a little extra this morning. The dishes are all done." He stayed up last night and did them after he was done working. Unreal. Seriously. I'm just amazed by how lucky I am.

So, we're all ready for our guests tonight. The menu? Mediterranean. Hummus with pita chips, wine, greek salad, Moroccan chicken with couscous, spanakopita, more wine, and chocolate cake with very thin sugar cookies in the shapes of sea creatures from the Mediterranean. haha. I had to change my dessert at the last minute because of the STUPID recipe I was using. It was in a book of very fancy-shmancy recipes written by professional chefs. They had measurements like 9 oz sugar, 3 oz flour. Well, I assumed they were talking volume, so I put 1 1/8 cup sugar and 3/8 cups of flour. Obviously they were talking weight, not volume (who the hell writes recipes like that?!) and after sitting in the fridge overnight, as they directed, I had a separated, runny mess. And uh, yeah. That didn't help with the bad mood. :)

But anyway ... looking forward to tonight and I'm sure tomorrow's blog will be filled with lots of pics of a good time had by all!

Before I moved to NV, I never saw skies like these. I used to love watching storms roll in over Lake Superior when I was growing up, but somehow it was just ... different. Everything here seems just a little more 3-Dimensional. If someone were to use the phrase "valley of the Gods" ... I could picture it being this place.

That top shot (click the link for the full-sized image) was taken about 2 miles from where we currently live. Our house would be off to the left of where the image stops.

This next one was taken as you're coming into the Carson Valley from Carson City. I've lived here since 1996, and when I come over that hill and catch sight of this view it still seriously takes my breath away.

To watch a storm roll in over the Sierras (the mtn range on the right, almost obscured by snow/rain) is inspiring. It really gives you a sense of being overwhelmed and fairly powerless. It's humbling. And beautiful. Oh, and that little white oval? That's the location of our new house which, 2 weeks from today, we will hopefully be completely moved into. If Multiply is cooperating, you should be able to click on that photo to enlarge it.

We've started loading up a construction trailer with boxes of stuff. Today we also got to load on it a new (to us, anyway) couch and coffee table we found yesterday on Craig's List. It's the exact color and style we'd decided we wanted for the house, and when we went to see it, it was in waaay better shape (apparently only used in a seldom-used vacation home) than it looked in the photos. So, slipping and sliding on icy Tahoe roads in Jeremy's "1-wheel drive", we made our way up the hill this morning and picked up some living room seating, so that when people come over, we actually will have somewhere for them to sit, other than our one 3-person couch, one cushion of which Britley has tried to eat.

A pretty quiet weekend around here, though by reading some of your blogs I see it hasn't been the same everywhere. Glad I have you guys through which to live vicariously. I'm just gonna sit back and watch the storms roll right on by.

The Native American word for freezing fog, "pogonip" translates, literally, to "white death." It may sound scary but it is absolutely incredible to see.

I had mixed feelings this morning. Excited to see the first pogonip of the year, more excited because I just got a new macro lens last week, and horribly, horribly bummed because I had to go to work and not be out shooting

However, a strange twist of fate came my way and, after a semi-emergent call from our printer, I ended up having to run home to transfer some files anyway (our internet at home is much faster than that at work). On my way back to work, I made a few little stops. Hey, I then worked through lunch .. and I never take my alloted "15-minute breaks" during the day, so it's ok. :)

I don't have a whole lot of narration for the images (did I hear applause out there?) so I'm going to run them a bit differently than usual. Make sure to enlarge any you're interested in. I uploaded them fairly large. Ready? Here we go ...

This is the frost on my side mirror of my car this morning. Tint, I shot this specifically for you, so you could see the "crystal-like" patterns. :)

Ok, now, this one you really HAVE to enlarge! This is such a great example of pogonip on a barbed wire fence! I'm just thrilled to have been able to capture this.

I included a detail shot of it to the right. If you enlarge it you'll get an idea of what the shot looks like full-sized.

This new macro lens just rocks!

Oh, and while the pogonip looks very sharp and icy, it's actually extremely delicate and the moment you bump it, it collapses (she said, speaking from experience).






Just another example, where the barbed wire was tied to a metal post.

When I got home, there were dozens of these beautiful little songbirds hanging out in the tree in our front yard. Many of them were pecking the pogonip off the trees (guess it's a good source of water).

Ok, found it now, these are cedar waxwings.

Really gorgeous curious little birds, with a very tiny little strip of red peeking out from under the wing!

So there you have it .. that's been my January 14th so far! Some people may wake up and see a gray day like this and be disappointed, but I could not have been more thrilled with how my morning's gone!

I don't make new year's resolutions. I don't have a problem with people who do - I mean, whatever works for you, y'know? But it's just not for me. I won't ever change just because it's a new year. I have to have a bigger wake-up call, and then I just start the wheels in motion for the change I want to effect.

However, due to other circumstances, so far this year I've had lots of reason to take a look at my judgmental nature. Jeremy, ever the loving diplomat, says, "Yeah, you're pretty 'black and white', but you're usually pretty fair, as well." *smile* Well, he's biased and I want to be a better person.

I think maybe today I got a little bigger wake-up call. Nothing major .. just a little tap on the shoulder, reminding me not to jump to too many conclusions.

We went out for breakfast and then decided to drive up to Topaz Lake just to look at the scenery. It was the only part of the sky that had any blue.

In weather and with road conditions like this, you find that drivers run the gamut from those that are overly-cautious to those that drive like maniacs with no clue what it's like to try to stop on ice. For the last 2 days while we were driving around, I've been commenting on the people who felt the need to pass me in dangerous conditions, etc. We've watched people fishtail and spin, seen people in ditches. More than once I've commented on the "idiots" out there driving what I considered to be too fast for the conditions.

Well, meet one of the idiots.

About 2-3 miles out of town, we were driving along with no problems. There was some slushy stuff and you couldn't see the asphalt, but the roads didn't seem bad, really. There wasn't a curve in the road, no need to brake - nothing. We were just driving. All of a sudden, a little fishtailing and next thing I know we were heading into a spin, and also into the opposing lane of traffic. Luckily I know better than to hit the brakes, and I also to try to steer into the spin, if possible.


I was able to keep us out of a spin, but unable to keep us on the road. Thank goodness there was no oncoming traffic. We went across the road and into the ditch. As you can see by the pic on the right, we stopped just short of the fenceline. And yes, that bent-over roadside reflector was courtesy of our front bumper. We were lucky in a lot of ways. When I stopped shaking enough to feel like I could try to get out, with the help of Jeremy and 4WD low, we did indeed make it out. We backed right back out the way we'd come, got back on the road and pulled off on the next available road so that I could let my heart calm down a little and work on that shaking hands thing. We scrapped the idea of driving to Topaz (I'd have been a nervous wreck) and turned back around to head home (stopping briefly, of course, so I could take a couple pics).

We made our way home, slowly. :)

When we got here I took a quick closeup pic of the icicles before they completely disappeared, and now I think I'm going to do something safe like bake cookies or something. I think I should at least be able to do that without judging anyone else but me and my cookie-baking skills.

This was our house this morning. Saturday of "The 50 Year Storm" raging through the Sierras.

Look! We have icicles! We never have icicles. :) Although you might notice they are slanted a little to the right due to the heavy winds last night. haha.

So yep, this is our 650-square-foot house. You'll notice the blinds are up a bit on the window panel to the right. That's for Britley. She looooves to look out that window, so when we leave for the day (and often when we're home, too) we leave that window set up like that for her. This house was built in 1902 - I think it's pretty cute.

When I turned to the left, this was my view.

The main house you see on the right belongs to our friends Christi & Nathan. Christi and I worked together at my first job when I moved out here and we just remained friends. They actually own all this property and the house we rent. So, they're our neighbors, some of our best friends, and also our landlords. :)

In the background you see the Sierras with the next leg of the storm rolling in. And, in the foreground is our sagebrush in a severe state of shock.















So I stepped back to get a shot of the entire house, our cars, the yard .. to give you an idea of, well, I guess our most immediate living area. It's nice and quiet and, while small, it really works well for us.

To the right is the dog's pool (14' x 8' x 3' pond) ... guess there wasn't much swimming going on in it today. But Jaime, notice I employed something from your recent PP submission? I told you I loved that shadow from the trees in your shot .. I tried to do a similar thing here. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? ;)













And of course the dogs had a blast playing all morning. This is in our backyard, with Hot Springs Mountain in the background. And oops! The heavy wind + massive snow actually tipped the boat!

And now for the best parts! We drove up to Luther Pass, but had to turn around due to road conditions and weather. On our way out, we'd seen some hawks and another large bird (which flew away when we got close) gathered around some dead animal. We stopped for a shot on the way out, and also on the way back. Robin, here's where we need your help. Click on the images to enlarge them (I've included some detail shots here, too) - we're trying to figure out what they've got. My guess is a duck .. looks maybe like a mallard? What do you think?

The shot on the right is just a little closer crop to show you the absolutely incredible patterns on the underside of the red-tailed hawk. I am just in love with the raptors in this area. I was even lucky enough to get a catchlight in its eye! Just love it. And then on the way home...



Unreal! Couldn't believe it .. a golden eagle! Sitting right there, working on the kill. When we got too close, I guess he figured he'd had enough, so he just picked it up and went on his way. Take a look at the size of these feet and talons as compared to the wings on what we think is a duck! These birds are huge!

An exciting day. :) The rest of it was filled with the storm chasing us all over the valley, so no more photos, but that's ok. This was enough excitement for today. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Wheee!! Our "50 Year Storm" (they've been warning us allllll week) has finally arrived and it is way better than I ever anticipated! I was skeptical as to whether we'd even see ANY snow on the valley floor, much less the 6-9" they've been predicting. Well, gotta hand it to them this time .. it poured rain all day (last report I heard was that the mtns were getting 6"/hour of snow the whole day ... wow) and now it is dumping snow and it is BEAUTIFUL! I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve .. I can't wait to get up tomorrow and see what the world looks like. :) Guaranteed I will have lots of pics to post this weekend!

Yay, thank you snow fairy (or "Sharon", as I like to call her .. hehe)!

Above is our backyard as of 8:30 p.m. tonight. You can see, on the right, our swing, which has blown over so much in the wind we've just plain given up. In the back is the pump house, and then on the ground are our two 1/4 wine barrels, which were used for that photo of Dante at bathtime some of you may be familiar with (or, as Vikky's daughter calls it, "Doggy Doggy Quack Quack) :) Oh my goodness I think I'm actually giddy! It is always such a treat when the high desert gets snow like I remember back in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I love it, I love it, I love it!

Edited to add the 2nd picture ... figured I'd throw in one of the front yard, too. Our neighbors turned their Christmas lights back on when the snow started and I think it just looks so pretty.

Just a relatively short blog today (no, really).

Today I went with my friend Kathy for a first (and probably last) snowshoeing trip of 2007. I say probably last because Jeremy tried his hand (and poor, beaten body) at snowboarding last Friday and now believes he may have a very minor fractured rib (he's had cracked ones before and says this isn't quite as bad), so he'll be taking it a bit easy for a week or so. Besides, I'm back on deadline as of next Friday, so .. not much fun for me when it's "that time of the month" :)

But today was incredible. There wasn't enough snow to hit Big Meadow as we originally intended, so went up toward Kirkwood (big ski resort) and hit some of the trails there. I wanted to get out but wasn't really into breaking trail today, so this was a nice way to snowshoe about 3-5 miles and not kill ourselves.

It was my first time putting on my snow pants this season and I realized i could probably have fit two of me into them. haha. So, gonna hit those post-Christmas sales for a new pair that doesn't have my waistband up around my chest or my crotch down by my knees. The good side effect was that I was able to load up those pockets with batteries, mittens, lenses, etc.

Oh, and here's a pic of my friend Kathy. In case you can't tell us apart, I'm the one who does not weigh less than 100 lbs! *laugh*

We took the photo of her in this direction to show Coyote Ridge  behind her - she was up hiking that just a couple weeks ago! Insane, I tell you! She's one of the nicest people I've ever known, however, and is one of those "I'll give you the shirt off my back if you need it" types. I'm glad to know her and always have a good time out hiking with her, even if she can completely kick my ass. But I'm getting better at it! Being able to leave seven 5-pound bags of sugar's worth of weight behind this season is gonna help, big time!

At any rate, I'm really beat. Enjoying my warm slippers and some hot tea and going to rest my eyes just a little. Wanted to share some of today's amazing scenery with you, however. Just gorgeous. Hope everyone is having/has/had a fantastic Christmas. :)

And with it, a darned good day. I got to start out my morning by watching the storm roll over the mountains and through the valley. There were times when the wind was blowing so hard that the snow was nearly 100% horizontal ... gorgeous! And as quickly as it rolled in, the blue skies muscled those clouds right back out again.

It's ok with me that we didn't get much to stay here on the valley floor. There was enough to collect in the corners of my windows for a while, and the view from my office, as I ate my late breakfast of oatmeal, was phenomenal.

I can hardly wait to head up into the mountains with Jeremy this weekend to get some photos. Presuming he survives his first try at snowboarding tomorrow, that is. My fingers remain crossed!




In fact, I was so anxious to get out there and get shooting, that I drove out to the foothills at lunchtime. It was gorgeous, as I expected, but when I came across this, I just had to stop to get a photo. I was going to say, with the rim lighting, it looked like this horse was on fire. But then I realized how disgusting that sounds so, um, you get the idea, anyway. Definitely be sure to click on the photo to get a larger view .. just amazing looking.

Upon returning to the office I got some good news! Nevada Magazine will be using some of my photos for their Jan/Feb 08 issue. Yay! They wanted to let me know that some of them are going to be on the web only and that there is a different pricing structure for those, but in all honesty I'm just so excited about being published with them again, I don't much care about the pricing! However, it was really thoughtful of them to let me know. I've uploaded images into my Published folder here on Multiply, for anyone who cares to take a look.

I'm very much looking forward to the 4-day weekend coming up, and being able to just kick back and relax, with no looming deadlines, to enjoy my time off with friends and family (primarily Jeremy and dogs!)

I hope you all have a wonderful day, weekend and Christmas next week. Hope that for you, as definitely for me, life is good. :)

It's the only word I can find to really describe today.

As some of you know, I had a photo shoot early this morning up in Tahoe. Chris (the guy in the white shirt) wanted some pics of his family to send back East for Christmas. It was kind of a rush job, as he contacted me early last week and, well, Christmas is fast approaching! We scheduled for this morning, and then the storm rolled into the Sierras. It was touch and go right up until about 6 a.m. this morning as to whether the weather would cooperate or not. As you can see ... it did! It not only cooperated, it stood right up and handed us a perfect morning for shooting. We were supposed to meet at 7 a.m., but any of you with kids (let alone THREE of them) know that that is kind of a pipe dream. We got to the spot at around 7:40 (after meeting them at 7-11 at about 7:30) and had a few issues with the sun being higher than I'd wanted, but all-in-all, I was pleased with the results. Unfortunately, it was only 19º and the wind was starting to pick up, and the little guy in the front wanted NO part of this photo shoot by about 8:10. There was no consoling this little popsickle, so the shoot ended way earlier than any of us anticipated. I'm hoping they find something amongst the proofs that they like, anyway.

And then we drove. From North Shore over to South Shore (Tahoe itself is, I believe, about a 77-mile drive all the way around) and the Taylor Creek area. I honestly felt like I'd stepped into some sort of winter fantasyland. I don't know that I can remember a more beautiful winter scene. If you click on the images, they'll open up a little larger.






























Then we took off on a little hike, from the spot pictured above, passing this spot on our way, and finally to about a mile in, where we reached the shoreline of the Lake. The snow was wet and really heavy with this storm (not common for our area) and had downed some trees, and bent many more over so that they blocked the path. We didn't care! It was incredible. Yep, cold, but we know how to layer. And who could resist this scenery?


We hung out at the Lake for a while, just shooting and enjoying ourselves. The snow had these wonderful patterns on it from the wind. It almost looks like desert sand, doesn't it? On our walk back to the car, I told Jeremy that the only problem I really have with a day like today is that I smile so much when I'm walking around, and it's so cold, that it makes my teeth ache! Haha. He said he was just thinking the same thing when he was walking along the shoreline. I guess if that's our biggest problem of the day, we're pretty lucky, huh?









After Taylor Creek, we headed to the overlook of Emerald Bay. Gorgeous (again), but coooold! We didn't stay there long. The wind was really kicking up now, and we were ready for lunch.

After warming up at the Fire & Ice Grill, we headed back to North Shore to take Mt. Rose Highway over the hill into Reno for a bit of shopping. Unfortunately the 2nd wave of the storm had rolled in, and we were only able to drive 15-25 mph for about 75% of the drive across. Wheee! Usually I am a white-knuckle driver in the mountain storms, but today everything just seemed too perfect, and the stress level was low.

We made it to Reno, did our shopping, then headed home. We made one more stop which will be a blog all of its own (I can almost guarantee you it will have you rolling when you read it and see the pics – it was an experience neither Jeremy nor I had ever come close to experiencing before and we're still laughing), but it will have to wait for a few days for something else to happen first. Cryptic, I know, but hey – it'll keep you checking back, right?

We had such an incredible day, I can hardly explain it in words. It was magical and I felt like a kid in a candy store, witnessing the aftermath to this storm! However, we were up at a little before 5 a.m. this morning and it's now almost midnight. Jeremy's in bed and Dante's snoring beside me, here on the couch. I'm off to dreamland, but hope you've all had as good a weekend as I've had. :)

I'm trying to work, I swear!

But I'm sitting here listening to my Christmas playlist on my ipod, and every time I look over at my dummy sheets (right there on my desk), I inevitably end up looking out beyond .. into the beautiful snow falling outside my window!

The photos don't do it justice. I feel like I'm sitting inside a huge snow globe with big beautiful flakes swirling all around. Cherie, you're right .. it IS magical! I don't think I was as in love with snow when I lived in Michigan, but there's just something really special about snow-covered sagebrush in the high desert. :)

Tomorrow when Jeremy and I head up for the photo shoot (which I hope is still on .. I haven't heard from the guy. He was supposed to call to give me the location to meet him, but I'm thinking he may not have been able to get anywhere with all the snow. I'll call tonight to see), we're bringing our snowshoes and gear with us. Yay!

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, with all your travel and parties and Christmas decorating and shopping ... it all sounds great!

Ok, so here I go. In for the big "Friday afternoon push". I promise, I'm really trying to work.

Today I woke up to the snow I so badly wanted (photo taken from inside our living room this morning). I know it's not a lot, but when you live in the high desert, you take what you can get.

Here's the better part – we still can't see the mountains! That means they are getting a LOT of snow! And that means my photo shoot up there tomorrow morning is SO gonna rock!

And here's the BEST part of all – the rottweiler from last night is fine!! I called at 9:55 and the dog's owner answered. He said they took him to a friend who's a vet last night and there are no broken bones. I would have felt much better had they actually gotten the dog x-rayed and scanned to make sure nothing internal was broken or busted up, but the guy told me that by this morning the dog had stopped limping altogether and was jumping and running in the snow, so I at least feel fairly confident that the dog really is ok.

I of course started crying right away again, but I'm sure that's just stress and the relief (and release) of such. I'm good now .. and getting excited for heading up into the mountains tomorrow morning. This weekend I'll be buying one of those big, messy bones, wrapping it with a ribbon and sending it, with a note, to the dog, via the shop. Anonymously, of course. I feel it's the least I can do for one night of fear, pain and suffering.

Thank you everyone, for all the supportive comments, here and elsewhere. This really was traumatic. For me it was like hitting a child. Of course, as my friend Rita says (she's a dog person, too .. some of you might remember a 360 blog about Britley getting a "welcome to your new home" package earlier this year .. that would be from Rita's dogs ;) ), hitting a dog is worse ... some kids you WANT to run over! Ha. What would I do without my friends and their comic relief?? And Rita, you can't feel that way anymore, now that you're a mommy to a kid with TWO legs. ;)

Anyway .. thank you. So much, everyone. A happy ending for today. :)

Yep, it's true. It's snow! Can't see much of it because the mountains are also covered in fog this morning, but I shot this out my back passenger window while in the Starbuck's drive-through. Still can't see the mountains right now, so I don't know how MUCH snow, but you can definitely see it on the mountainside below the fog line. I hope, hope, hope we have a great winter this year. Last year's snowshoeing really kinda sucked .. it'd be nice to have a good snow year to take the dogs out exploring. :)

Another example of a Sierra Storm. Notice the teeny, tiny buildings? Those would be warehouses (just to give an idea of scale). This is why, in this area, you can almost always see a storm coming a fair amount of time before it's reached you!

The cool thing about living in a valley nestled amongst huge mountain ranges, is that when a storm comes rolling in, you can really see it coming, and sometimes it looks downright sinister. This is a picture of the clouds remaining at the end of a snowstorm that rolled through here on Monday. It dumped a bit of snow in the valley (enough to make Tuesday morning's drive to work about 4x as long as it usually is) and that night, after Pilates, I drove up into the mtns to see if there were any good sunset pics. That was a bust, but on the way home, I noticed this sinister cloud climbing its way over the Sierra Nevadas on the right and creeping across the valley. This road is about a mile from my house and gives a really good idea of our "early warning system" :)

We got more snow last night than I thought we were going to get! Nearly a foot on the valley floor, which is rare. Of course the sun is out full force today, so it'll likely mostly melt by tonight, but I got up a bit early to clean off the car and such, and took an extra couple minutes to take pics of the dogs playing outside. They do love snow, that's for sure! The bottom of the photo is part of the view from my office. I have the only office on the 2nd story of our building, and it has three very large picture windows that look out at the snow-capped mountains. Go ahead and envy me .. it's ok. :) I'd envy me, too! It's gorgeous out there this morning!