But where is home? Home, the place I grew up is here…where I am right now. But home, the place where all my stuff is and where I want to establish myself is in Idaho. Seriously, I am loving my time at home. I’m enjoying spending time with Rider. I am glad I get to spend time with my parents. I’m looking forward to going to L.A. to visit Trish & Lily & Victor. But, working from a briefcase…and a not well-stocked briefcase, is a pain in the behind. It’s so frustrating. I wish I could really enjoy my time here…but I have so much work stuff I’m thinking about and it’s so difficult to work this way.

But, I do have some good news. I finally figured out how to upload pictures on here. LOL Not that I have any that I want to upload right this minute….but at least I know I can do it now.

So, tomorrow I have to figure out a solution to my problem with accessing one of my clients computers. I’ve been able to test it on other computer and there’s NO problem….but, of course, the ONE computer I need to access I can’t. So frustrating.

And now, just because I can, that’s a picture I took on my drive up to Idaho.

Till later…

Oh yeah, I remember. All it took was a flight back to California and I remember why I left. The people. I’m home for the holidays so updates will be less frequent. I did make it back, though…so I wanted to let you know.

So, I’ve decided I don’t like rain. This really isn’t a new realization, I just realized I REALLY don’t like rain. It warmed up here today…it’s 39 right now according to my computer weather thing. I had to run out this morning to get money for the shuttle. It was 34 and raining. Rain and snow make yuck. That’s it, yuck. Slushy, mucky, slippery puddles of YUCK.

But, then I realized (I’m really not as weather stupid as I may seem at times) that this will cause problems. See rain makes water…it’s not raining hard but hard enough to make puddles. It’s also warm enough to melt some of the thinner layers of snow. Well, tonight it’s going to cool down again (it’s not that warm out) which means all those puddles of water will turn to ice. OK, maybe it’s not such a bad thing that I’m flying back to California today.

Well, the shuttle will be here shortly to take me to the airport. So, see you in the warmer flip side.

Till later…

The last two days have been insanely crazy. Like banging my head against the wall crazy. So, let me let you in on what’s been happening.

Yesterday (Monday) we were expecting snow. Not a lot, just a light snow, but it was going to be my first. So, all day I ran up and down the stairs to keep checking. Of course, I found little excuses to run up and down the stairs but, honestly, I was just checking for snow. Finally at about 1:30 I ran outside to check the mail and what was hitting my face? A few small snowflakes. I was ecstatic! You would have thought I’d won the lottery I was so excited. I couldn’t sit still. Then, about 30 minutes later I ran upstairs again and it was snowing harder…hard enough now that you could actually SEE the snowflakes coming down. This went on for about an hour or so. We didn’t get enough snow on the ground to really get excited (although there is enough there already to keep me happy) but I did get to see my first snowfall. When it was coming down I started to actually worry…I thought I was going to have to shovel snow or something. So, it’s a good thing that we didn’t get any more.

So, it was my first full day working virtually. It went pretty well up until the time that my cell phone died and I realized I had no long distance service on the house phone. Right about then I sort of freaked out. I realized that I don’t know anyone locally. Everyone I know is long distance and my only way of talking to anyone was dead. Thank goodness for the internet. I had some great friends call me, one gave me a calling card number to use. I was rescued.

Finally, I decided I just needed to leave the basement and go upstairs for a while. I made dinner and when I was doing the dishes I noticed a shadow on the front lawn. (Well, it’s actually on the flat snow where the lawn would be if it weren’t covered in snow. LOL) I walked as slowly and quietly as I could to the front doors to look. Sure enough, there was a deer on the front lawn. To get a better look I turned off the front porch light — completely expecting her to run away, but she didn’t. After a couple minutes of watching her I decided to run downstairs and grab my camera. When I got back she was still there. I attempted to take a picture through the front door but it didn’t work, so I turned on the light — that didn’t work. Finally I prepped the camera and opened the door again, expecting her to run but she didn’t. I tried again with no luck. Then I turned on the porch lights still no luck. Finally I had the door open, the porch lights on and used the flash on my camera and was able to get a decent shot. Still my deer friend did not run away. It was getting cold so I shut the door and watched a little longer before she calmly walked away. I’m convinced that God sent that deer to me to remind me of one of the reasons I am glad I moved to Idaho.

Oh, and if you’re keeping tallys on my fire making attempts…failed again. Score is Lanel 1, Cold Fire 2.

So…then to today (Tuesday) DirecTv was scheduled to come between 8AM and noon to install the receivers. I can’t hear anyone at the door if I’m downstairs so promptly at 8AM I positioned myself upstairs within sight of the front door so I would not miss them when they came. At 9:30 the installation company called to tell me the installer had a long drive and was running a little bit late. I said no problem. So, I made myself comfortable for the wait. I was not going downstairs for anything because I did not want to miss this appointment. (I can only go so long with no Law & Order before I just go crazy.) Finally, at 1:30 I could not figure out where these people were. Running a little late is one thing, but this was ridiculous. I’m in Idaho now, and the natives are quite lax in their time schedules so I’m learning to be patient, but still…. So, I called the customer service number and they tell me that the guy sat in front of my house from 10:30AM until 11. He knocked repeated but there was no answer. I informed them that there was no way that could be the case. So, they read me the description of the house that he sat in front of. Garage door open, RV next to the house, he tagged the wood front door. OK, in case you don’t know, we don’t own an RV, our front doors are glass, and at this point I was staring at the CLOSED garage doors. I was not a happy person. I tried my darndest to keep my California attitude in check but today was the only day I could have the installation or I’d have to figure out rescheduling it for January. And, quite frankly, I wanted TV! So, they were able to find someone who could be to the house by 3:30. This kind man, Daryl, was here promptly at 3:30. When I didn’t answer his first knock (because a work emergency call came in that required me to run downstairs for a millisecond) he called the house phone (the same number the first installer had) and I was up there before he could finish stomping the snow from his shoes. By 6:30 I had the receivers hooked up and he was on his way apologizing for the problems earlier that morning and assuring me that the original installer was no longer employed by their company. (OK, I didn’t intend for him to get fired, but it was pretty obvious he didn’t do his job – and I was assured that this morning was just the last straw in a string of things that was pushing him out of his job.)

Tomorrow I leave to fly back to California for Christmas. As excited as I am to see the PEOPLE I’ll be seeing there I really am not looking forward to going back. It’s so quiet and peaceful here. After only a week and a half I’m already dreading the noise and traffic and crowds. I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like going back after I’ve been gone for longer.

Oh, and one other thing. FedEx is irritating me! They attempted to deliver a package to me last Friday. Supposedly I wasn’t here. I’m not sure if I really wasn’t here or if I was just downstairs and didn’t hear them, but either way I didn’t answer the door. I guess this package requires a signature. So, I got the little paper thingy and signed it and left it on the door Sunday night so it would be there for the Monday delivery. I didn’t want them to come before I got upstairs so that’s why I made sure to put it out on Sunday night. All day Monday I waited, no package. Finally, in the evening, I tracked the mystery package and it says “customer not available”. Not sure how I was not available, I left the signed thing on the door AND I was here all day running up and down the stairs every three minutes to look for falling snow. So, I left it out there for today. Again, all day I waited and no package. Finally, about 2 minutes ago I checked, and it says it was delivered at 2:47PM today. Uh, no it wasn’t. I’ve looked on the front porch. Been outside since that time, there is no package out there. So, I have a mystery package that was supposedly delivered to me but I didn’t get it. I don’t even know what’s in this package to know what to look for.

And now for the REALLY exciting news. I was a complete and total SUCCESS at building my fire today!!! In fact, I kept that baby burning hotly all day long. Score is now tied: Lanel 2, Cold Fire 2. No fire tomorrow so we’ll see how I do when I get back (after beeing gone for two weeks).

Till later…