Almost Gypsy Soul

While the initial thought behind sequestration was to make it so horrible and detrimental to our economy that it would force Democrats and Republicans to work together to come up with a compromise to avoid a fiscal cliff, by decreasing the budget and decreasing our debt. Unfortunately, sequestration isn't bad enough for Congress to be able to work together, not to say that sequestration might not be bad enough for the rest of Americans who aren't in Washington. Click here for a rundown on sequestration. How is sequestration going to affect you and your state? Click here for fact sheets published by the White House on sequestration effects for each state. Click on your state for even more details. CNN has an article that explains sequestration , but to be sure there will be many, many more effects if sequestration is allowed to occur. There will be effects that no one talks about and there will be effects that no one has thought of. Sequestration isn't the only fi...

[Linking up with Jamie at  This Kind of Love for What I'm Loving Wednesday!] One kind word can warm three winter months. ~Japanese Proverb I'm LOVING..........Winter I love winter! but I hate shoveling snow. As it snowed around here (finally AND 2 days in a row!), I thought about my hatred for shoveling snow....I think if it were either light before I went to work or after I got home, maybe shoveling wouldn't be so bad. So snow and winter go hand-in-hand, how can I love winter if I don't like shoveling snow?   Playing in it of course! Christmas markets, throwing snowballs, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, sleigh rides, hot tubbing, cabins and fireplaces, hot snock-o-late, big snowflakes, crisp untouched fields blanketed in fresh snow. It's a clean slate and I love it! Have a great winter and enjoy all it has to offer! Here is a picture I took a while back my way home from snowboarding at Beaver Mountain, Utah (a great little ski area btw). This is...

I'm sure that all of you remember the "fiscal cliff" and "sequestration" that was looming over the US economy back at the first of the year. A last minute deal "saved" us all......sorta. At FSA, we have been operating on a continuing resolution, meaning we have no budget. We have had additional cuts implemented, hiring freezes etc. As "sequestration" once again looms over us, less than 5 days away we are looking at furloughs....aka mandatory leave without pay. Each day I struggle to find something good about my job, something good about what I do each and every day and everyday I find it harder and harder. After talking to a few of my producers last week, my hope is renewed. Someone DOES appreciate us, appreciates what we do. We make a difference in their lives when they are struggling just as much as everyone else in the working class, if not more. To hear them say THANK YOU and genuinely mean it....means the world to me and it makes...

Oregon Trail, California Trail, Mormon Trail, Overland Trail, Cherokee Trail, Pony Express Trail, 1861 transcontinental telegraph line, Overland Express stage line and the 1868 transcontinental railroad, they all lead to Rock Springs, Wyoming. I moved to Rock Springs, Wyoming in May of 2009. I had never heard anything good about Rock Springs with many referring to it as the "armpit of America." I'm here to tell you that it just isn't true (the armpit is Rawlins). When you get off the pavement, Sweetwater County has so much history, beauty and wonder to show off. Welcome to Sweetwater series, I'll focus on one unique thing about Sweetwater County (I'll probably throw in some Sublette County too since that is my area for work) in each post of the series. This one is a little sneak peek of some of the things that are up for blogging in the future. This post has a few shots that I have taken around the county while doing field work for my place of employm...

A beautiful sunny morning we pull up the ski lodge. I jump out chompin' at the bit to jump on the slopes. I decided to take a quick run while people were getting rentals and such lined out. About 3/4 of the way down I come off a 20 foot 360 jump, hit the ground and bust my binding. :( Hey, its my story I'll tell it how I want! Ok so I'm not really sure what exactly happened, but I think cartwheels might have taken place, under the lift, less than 100 yards from the lift house, but the busted binding part.....that is definitely true! My beautiful Burton bindings.....still on my foot, not attached to my board. Oh the shame as I unstrap and head towards the lodge.......walking........on the ski trail. :( Lucky for me no one in my group saw the crash. I envision that it looked something like this, with less snowy fluff because I'm here to tell you the broken binding crash hurt a lot worse than this one pictured below.  Now the best part, I emailed Burton and expla...

We have new paint, trim, carpet and hardware in this room. It flooded in the Swimming Pool installation project of 2011 so some things were dried out and upgraded at that time. The color scheme in this room is a metallic copper accent wall with cream colored walls and snowy white trim. Accent colors are found on the bed, curtains and refurbished dress all decked out in sage green. If you come and visit me, this is where you will get to stay. Fancy huh!?

My friend Football Fan over at Figuring Out the Plot had gotten this from a friend on Facebook, but she recreated hers on her blog to which I was the 5th comment (so I get a prize sometime this year!) and I get to pay it forward! And lets be honest....who doesn't love getting real live mail that isn't a bill so lets blow up my email with comments today! 2013 Inspirational Pay It Forward:  The first five people to comment on this status & re-post, will receive in the next calendar year, an "inspirational" gift or surprise from me...you never know what you will get! If you're 1 of my 5 lucky friends, I'll need your address if I don't already have. The catch is that you have to be willing to post on your page and do the same for others (creative, inspirational (like me) or whatever is authentically you)! Let the posting begin! I've been in the crafting mood lately and I'm addicted to Pinterest so I'm pretty sure that you will get ...

It all started with this..... And its grown into this (minus a couple dirty dishes in the dishwasher).........................   I've become obsessed. That trip to Germany got me hooked on the Polish pottery which I quickly figured out that I wouldn't be able to outfit my whole kitchen in it on my salary so now I'm on mission mis-matched pottery kitchen, piece by piece. Street fairs? I'm there. Antique stores? I'm there. Pottery wheel in the basement businesses? I'm there. My family did good at Christmas, I got several new pieces to add on to the work of art! AND.....the highlight of my week...... Colorado Transplant Friend asked me to go to a decorate/make your own pottery shop that is in Green River for my birthday! I am so excited to make my own pottery to add to my kitchen lineup, plus we always have a great time together. So what should it be? A plate? A bowl? or something else? Oh the decisions and lets pray that I'm feelin' the cre...

Not alot of time to blog today as I'm off as the co-planner of our first WY State Convention for quite some time. I get involved for the benefit of "free travel" and then I find myself becoming an active member of an association. Sometimes I wonder why I say 'yes' . So this morning I'm off to Lodges of the Bighorns for our WYASCOE State Convention between Buffalo and Ten Sleep, WY via Casper. I'm doing all the food shopping in Casper at Sam's before I head up the mountain. We have lots of fun activities planned for our group. Meetings, our National Association President will be joining us, our choice of activities (x-country skiing, snowmobiling, downhill skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, sitting by the warm fire, holding down the bar), Minute to Win It game night and a margarita contest. Please pray for our success in putting on our first convention and I'll see ya on Tuesday!

I hope that my soldier enjoys celebrating holidays well after the day that they actually occur as his Valentines Day care package is currently sitting on my kitchen counter....still not even boxed up! [In my defense, I did get them in the mail approximately one week ago, so they won't be a whole month late!] If I do say so myself though, he will be so excited about the yummy treats that he won't even remember that the Valentines Day box didn't make it in time for Valentines Day! I attempted made these cute little valentine pretzel buttons ,  made jars of cupid kisses , changed up at little bit. Mine had both M&Ms and pretzels in little ball jars, included the ingredients for one of my favorite childhood treats, graham cracker and frosting (with valentines sprinkles) sandwich cookies, some 2-in-1 men's shampoo and AXE that I had some really great coupons for. I also picked up another soldier. A friend that I met a while back was deployed about 5 months ago....

[Linking up with Jamie for What I'm Loving Wednesday] A few years back, OKTrailerPark Friend and Snowboard Friend and I went to Canyons in Utah for a girls weekend. We had a slope side condo, reduced price lift tickets, wine and the resort swimming pool. Now when we vacation we do it up right. We snowboarded and rode the alpine slide by day and by night we soaked in the pool, wore sweatpants, cooked dinner in our condo, played cards, drank wine and watched this YouTube video....over and over and over and over. the.best.ab.workout.ever. Whenever I'm having a sub-par day, I pull this video out. I mean I do have it favorited on my work computer even! If this video doesn't make you laugh, go to the emergency room NOW! Here is a little note from Ed and Ross's mom, who posted the video. As you can read Ed and Ross were best friends! PLEASE NOTE..... THESE CLIPS WERE TAKEN OVER A PERIOD OF 18 MONTHS.... ED WAS A VERY GOOD BOY MOST OF THE TIME.... I HAVE HOURS ...

After a week filled with sad and negative events, I once again began to question my life path. Where am I going? Am I being who I am supposed to be? Am I doing enough to help others? As I was stalking  reading other people's blogs yesterday, I found a post on the you version bible app for smartphones. Now I am one of those "weirdos" who bypassed the iPhone for the droid (which I love and would make the same choice again and again and again!), but I always wonder if they have that app for droid. Droid has it and its free! which is good because I don't even know how to pay for an app because I like free stuff. Anyway, through the you version Bible app you can sign up for various reading plans, which I did. I just started the ReThink Life: 40 Day Devotional. Not only will it get me to reading God's Word, but also will get me to thinking about different aspects of my life to make sure that I am making the most of the life that God as given me. Some of my favorite...

Can you do it? Can you pick 1 song.....only 1 and call it your favorite song? I think I can. I've been calling this 1 song my favorite for like 5 years now. It could change tomorrow, but I'm just not sure that it will. ever. forever-ever. All-time #1: Randy Rogers Band - This Time Around But then I decided to challenge myself. On a side note ....I had a friend once (we will call him Keith Stone for this story). Anyway I get a call one Sunday morning and Keith proceeded to tell me about the previous nights events in somewhere, Texas, it went something like this: Keith Stone: Hey bud. KS's friend: Hey what's up? Keith Stone: If you challenge yourself to drink 12 Keystone's that you found in your brother's girlfriends front yard while you drive around the loop (which takes 40 minutes), are you an alcoholic? KS's friend: Uh, yeah bud, that's a little alcoholic. KS's friend: You aren't still driving right now are you? Keith Stone...

con·nois·seur a discerning judge of the best in any field:   as in a connoisseur of screw top wine (thats me!) I was never much of a wine dr ink er, but when I lived in Tennessee I had to learn because my job worked with many of the smaller family owned win eries throughout the state. Now by connoisseur, I mean that I pick my wine by how fun the names and/or labels are. Now my qualifications as a connoisseur: I visited seve ral win er ies while I lived in Tennessee. In the picture a bove you can see the first one that I went to . When I wa lked into the building they had a beautiful bar a rea for win e tastings. As I se ttled i n on a stool, the wine lady (technical term ) asked me what kind of wine I liked. I respon ded that I didn't really know so just start at the top of th e list and keep them coming until we get to the bottom. I could tell she wasn't real impressed, but she kept 'em coming! ps. can 't go wrong with Muscadine wine in TN! ...

Meet Mr. February of Far-away Friend! When I was 16 my best friend was Jen (no I was not best friends with myself). We were the Jens. We were asked to go along on a big July 4th trip to Grand Lake with some family friends to babysit. Cowboy Family's ranch is where we were going to spend the whole week. Babysitting in the mountains, campfires, a pool....what more could a girl ask for? Well Cowboy Dad and Cowboy Mom had, you guessed it.......3 Cowboys! I'd like to say I was the responsible 16 year old girl who went about my business and babysat all week....but I'd grow a Pinocchio nose. This week some of my favorite people and best friendships were etched in stone. Stretch is Cowboy #3's best friend and came over to spend the whole week with us. Stretch, Cowboy 1,2,3 and the Jens......... We high-jacked pitchers from the keg and took off on 4 wheelers for hours on end, we stayed up all night playing cards, we fished, we had boys against girls canoe races (you know ...

[Linking up with Jamie at This Kind of Love for What I'm Loving Wednesday ] I'm LOVING ....... these Super Bowl commercials. You might have to pause the awesome tunes to get the full effect of these commercials!   My first Dodge was a 1/64 scale red single cab Ram 2500. It sat on my dresser when I was 16. My second Dodge was a red single cab Ram 2500 circa 1994 and it still sits in my driveway. I love Dodge and I love this commercial. These are the people that makes the world go 'round. Thank God for farmers and ranchers. Ahh....freaking cute and I love how it shows how close man and animal really can be! Hands down, Dodge's God Made a Farmer nailed it, but Budweiser's Brotherhood commercial is running a photo finish second in my book.

If you can pin it, you can do it! If you know me at all you know I'm not a big fan of veggies. I'm getting better, but I need me some meat! That being said, I pinned this recipe from The Garden Grazer's blog and its a vegetarian recipe that is delicious! I did make a few adjustments.....like I have about 10 lbs of yellow onions from Little Sister's new job in Utah and I don't like olives so I didn't waste any money on those. And here is my masterpiece, but I will say that rolling corn tortillas is ridiculously impossible! Ingredients {For the sauce} 3 cups organic low sodium vegetable broth 1/4 cup tomato paste 1/4 cup all purpose flour 2 Tbsp. olive oil 2 tsp. cumin 1/4 tsp. garlic powder 1/4 tsp. onion powder 1/4 tsp. chili powder Salt/pepper {For the enchiladas} 15 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained 1 1/2 cups corn (I used frozen, thawed) 6 oz. fresh baby spinach 6 green onions, thinly sliced 1/3 cup cilantro, chopped 2 ts...

So I am not really sure how I get myself into these things....whenever I sit there and think....why did I volunteer for this I briefly leave this world and go to this...... No lie, my name is Jane in my other life. Anyway, I am co-planner for our WYASCOE State Convention for work. We have planned a weekend of meetings and skiing snowboarding and food (lots of food) and a margarita contest. Which I am planning on trying out this recipe or this one to win that challenge. We will be out at the small resort for the whole weekend so we need to have activities planned to keep everyone busy. In my mind I have really good, I mean REALLY good ideas, they just don't always go according to plan. So my fun people what are your thoughts on a Minute to Win It game night? Keep in mind we will have about 25 people aged 12 to retired there. My thought was to break up into teams and then have a person from each team compete in a challenge, then the team with the most points after a...

Are you ready to see what he has in store for your listening pleasure this month? A little note from the Music Man to rollout the February tunes for Almost Gypsy Soul. When the first of the month comes around, I don’t want you to think of anything else but coming to the “Almost Gypsy Soul” and see what is new on the playlist, that’s pretty much all you should be thinking about.   So, I will try not to disappoint.   This playlist has no direction, no inspiration, no nothing, I literally pulled up Itunes and started scrolling and where the cursor stopped that’s the song that ended up on this list. This is an experiment in procrastination, if it doesn’t work I promise I will put forth a smidge more effort next time, but for this month this is what you get.   Oh, yeah, songs, I should list the songs, here they are: “Gunpowder and Lead”, Miranda Lambert :   Don’t mess with is woman!! “ It’s hard to Kiss the Lips at Night…”   The Notoriou...