Almost Gypsy Soul

When I started pushin' 30, it started pushin' back ......and I compiled this Dirty 30 list . I'm now a quarter of the way through my 30th 21st year. My progress report? Well I think I'm doing pretty good so far! 1. Hike a 14'er 2. Run the Tower Rock 10K 3. Buy the person behind me's meal 4. Lose 30 lbs (4/30) What was the moral of the story about the tortoise and the hare? 5. Save $6,000 What was the moral of the story about the tortoise and the hare?.....again. I've made my monthly savings goal 2 months (thank goodness for tax returns to keep me on track!) 6. Finish TurboFire It took me 8ish weeks to finish the first phase of the plan (for your reference Phase 1 is 4 weeks long). I'm doing much better in Phase 2 and have missed only 2 workouts total in Phase 2 (I'm just finishing up week 3)! And I've been running on my "rest" day. 7. Finish Chalean Extreme 8. Golf 3 new courses 9. Learn to wakeboard 10. Brice Can...

CARRY! On Monday my phone rang with an unknown number, I don't usually answer these, so I guess since I was really over the place of employment project I was working on I decided "what the hey" "Hello" "Is this Jennifer blah blah blah?" [ah, crap] (see here how I'm protecting my PII) "Yes, it is" "This is the Sheriff's Office, calling to tell you your concealed carry permit is in" "Great!, I'll be out to pick it up today!" And now, I am officially licensed to conceal carry......and put a rush on that Dirty 30 list item to find a pretty gun and a super cool shoulder sling! And yes, PII....that's what working for the federal government will do to your blog.

 [Linking up with Jamie for What I'm Loving Wednesday] I'm LOVING my Colorado Transplant Friend and pottery! My Colorado Transplant Friend gave me an awesome 30th birthday gift! We made our own pottery pieces at a cute little place called Pottery From the Heart over in Green River. At Pottery From the Heart you pick your own piece of raw pottery from their collection and then get your creative on and start painting. If you plan ahead you can order in pretty much any piece that you want to decorate. It was pretty hard to even decide what I wanted to make. I finally settled on a casserole dish (I know my OK boys are pretty surprised that I would choose something to do with a casserole, hey casseroles are good for the soul) and Katie chose a really big platter. We can't wait to have a get together to cook in our new dishes!   All finished and ready to be fired. We can pick up our finished pieces in 3-5 days and I.can't.wait. to see the finished product! ...

People are into new. People are into fancy. People are into gadgets and gizmos. People are into technology. Sometimes you just need old and functional.

Hands down the best chicken I have EVER had! I've made several recipes from Six Sisters and they are golden. They got this cooking thing DOWN! I managed to find this one on a post called 100 Healthy Dinner Recipes , so I'm just taking their word for it,  you should too. I mean seriously go to the grocery store right now ( even   especially if you have to leave work early). Amazingly enough, there is only 1 ingredient that I didn't have (molasses) so I mostly followed this recipe! Ingredients: 6 boneless/skinless chicken breasts 12 slices deli ham (thin) 6 slices canned pineapple 6 slices Swiss cheese 1/2 cup pineapple juice (I just used the juice drained from my canned pineapple) 4 Tbl. unsalted butter, melted 2 Tbl. BBQ seasoning 1 Tbl. plain yellow mustard 1 Tbl. honey 1 Tbl. molasses 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce 1 tsp chili powder Directions: Put a breast in a gallon zip-top bag and pound the thick end until the entire breast is uniform in thickness,...

Welcome to Soul Food Friday ! I will host a link up the 4th Friday of the month to which I am quite sure I will be the only one for quite a while, but maybe, just maybe others will want to share what sets them on fire. Anything that motivates you, speaks to you or generally gets you excited about life.....share it at Soul Food Friday ! (get your badge at the bottom of my page :)) Link up and make sure to visit other links to see what feeds our blogging friends souls. My Soul Food.............. Via Pinterest This picture just leaves me speechless. Speechless....not good for a blog right? But this picture really is worth a thousand words....maybe more. 

I don't really know how to write about this far-away friend and really do her justice. She is amazing, she is inspirational, she is brave, she is caring, she is my best friend. It doesn't matter if we talked yesterday, 2 weeks ago or a few months ago, we pick up where we left off and its like we never missed a day. We grew up a few miles from each other and in 6th grade we were exactly the same height and size. I grew and she didn't. We were a match on the volleyball court because we already knew what each other was thinking. She was a setter and I was a middle hitter....I say hitter because lets be honest in JH there just wasn't alot of blocking happening. She ran the point and I played inside the paint. We ran track together, we were in 4-H together, we ate fried spiders at Financial Friend's house together.....we could usually be found.....together. Military friend was always extremely self motivated (and still is) and can accomplish anything! Her fa...

It was a little late, but that is about par for the US government these days, they can't get anything done, much less on time. For my birthday, Congress and President Obama gave me and the rest of American sequestration , mandating billions in cuts, 85 billion to be split between defense and some domestic programs. So my birthday present from the President? Extra days off!!!!!!! Granted they are without pay and in fact, I get to pay them for furlough days by picking up the whole tab on heath insurance......but lets not think about that part, it depresses me. Let's focus on how important my birthday was that I got a present from the President of the United States . I didn't even know he knew where Wyoming is, much less who I am! Over the last 5 years, FSA has played the game, voluntarily and involuntarily cutting its budget nearly 30%. These cuts have come as no travel (for County Committee meetings or employees), little to no training on the programs that we admini...

Did I just hear that right? Lawmakers are looking an passing legislative restrictions on hairspray? Obviously claims against vehicles, factories and farting cows didn't work out....on to the next culprit of the demise of the world as we know it. The downlow on these awful, life threatening beauty products is astonishing . Music Man is what some would refer to as an encyclopedia of useless knowledge...which I am going to use today in this blog. So I guess it might be useful to some. I will not check the accuracy of his statements as I am not a real journalist, I can write whatever I want, but for the record, he is usually right (don't tell him I said that). He said that all of this research showing how bad CFCs and VOCs are for us is all government backed, but when you start to read some independent researchers work there may be a little more to the story...... gasp. Apparently, we might not really be in that bad of shape. For instance CO2 levels were 600 times what are ...

Some people know real famous people, like the ones you might see on tv, or on a stage, or in a mug shot . Sorry, that wasn't very nice. Anyway, I like to think that I have several people that I know in real life that should be famous because they are that nice, that giving and/or that awesome! As I'm writing this, I think this might become a "series".....hum....must make a special tag in case I decide to follow through on this. So here is my first famous person, although it would probably be most accurate to describe him as an acquaintance.....we drank beer together at calf fry and have a good mutual friend, so introducing my first famous person friend! Nick - he is going to be famous for hiking the Appalachian Trail! He will be starting his journey with his border collie, Gus on March 15, 2013 and will be on this adventure for approximately 5 months. Now the part that I am really excited about.......he has a blog so that someone who is a gypsy soul at h...

Remember back here when I said that I'm not sure why I say YES ? Well sometimes I can't even tell myself NO. So I am a pretty new blogger, but I quickly found out that I love link-ups! And I've been thinking "Self, you should start your own linkup" so I've been throwing around ideas for a while and I finally came up with Soul Food Friday! I will host a link up the 4th Friday of the month to which I am quite sure I will be the only one for quite a while, but maybe, just maybe others will want to share what feeds their soul. Anything that motivates you, speaks to you or generally gets you excited about life, share it on Soul Food Friday. I even made a spiffy badge for linkers to use :) You can get your code at the bottom of my page (and hopefully it actually works the way its supposed to....meaning I hope I made pirated borrowed the html code correctly)! While you are  there, grab the Almost Gypsy Soul button too! I hope you will join me for the...

Assistant Pack Leader was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma, a blood cancer in 2009. Throughout her treatments she recieved several blood transfusions and had a stem cell transplant. She was lucky enough that they could use her own stem cells for her transplant and she didn't have to matched with an outside donor. I already donate blood fairly regularly because I have good blood (O-) and good veins (it doesn't take me long to let a unit run out into their little bag). When she found out that she would be having a stem cell transplant and she didn't yet know if she would need a donor, I immediately started to prepare myself for getting tested to be a possible donor. After her transplant and some time had passed, I decided that I should look into donation for others if they should need it. I registered for 'Be the Match" the National Marrow Donor Program. I've been a member of the registry for about 2 years now and recently received an email asking me to ...

Peanut Butter Snickers kicks regular Snickers a**. There I said it and I stand by my statement, forever! All the great ingredients of a Snickers with the added smooth, creamy peanut butter. Ah-mazing! Plus they come in little squares to make it easier to save some for later (if you can really make yourself do that) or if you are a really good person I suppose you could share your wonderful 1.25 inches square, milk chocolate, nougat, peanut butter, caramel and peanut piece of heaven. Well I guess if you go with option B, then you must really like that person........a whole lot.

Just in case you missed them,  you can read about my fears of turning 30 here and you can read about Day 1 of 30 here . PAUSE: And a forgotten photo from Day 1, one that really shows my age and maturity.     PLAY: Day 2 brought us small town girls hitting the town with our wallets and doing some shopping. I did really good and didn't spend too much money.....thank you gift cards! Then we were off to Texas Roadhouse to eat my daily caloric intake in one sitting......and it was awesome. Think fried pickles, bloomin' onion, house salad with ranch, warm buttery rolls with cinnamon butter, medium-rare ribeye with loaded baked potato topped off with a blue dolphin (H2O). A day of snowboarding and a night of cards might have caught up with the old lady! Then the nice folks at TR sang to me and gave me an ice cream sundae! YEE-HAW! Its my birthday! Photo complements of Little Sister Then we headed into the City for main attraction......Micky & the Moto...

  [Linking up with Sami @ Sami's Shenanigans for Weekend Shenanigans] If you didn't read about me thinking that 30 might suck , boy oh boy was I wrong! The weekend might have started off a little rough, but even I-80 in the winter couldn't ruin our fun! A week late, but hey I warned you I might need some extra recovery time since I'm 30, not to mention I had lots of people waiting on little ole' me to return and get to work for them! OKTrailerPark Friend and Mr. OKTrailerPark Friend (he might be getting his own name since I know him better now, we will see) were on their way to Wyoming when BAM, I-80 is closed from Cheyenne to Laramie. For anyone who lives in Wyoming or has been to Wyoming in the winter is not at all shocked by this. So they got one of the few hotel rooms left in Cheyenne, dropped a few bills at the western store and had a "down home" breakfast before heading on west the next day. Meanwhile, the rest of us, Little Sister, Little S...

Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book.  ~Author Unknown Ride, Cowboy, Ride is Baxter Black's newest book and a Christmas gift from Sister. Now look at him, of course he is an excellent writer, poet and cowboy humorist.....you can tell by the wicked awesome mustache! If you have ever read a Baxter Black book, this one will not disappoint. If you haven't read any of Black's work....get your rear on Amazon.com! This book gives us the lives of a rodeo cowboy, his rodeo cowboy/wannabe cowboy poet and lady bronc rider accused of trafficking endangered species bird feathers. Cooney Bedlam is infatuated with Pica, but can't seem to not make a complete fool of himself in front of her. When she is accused of trafficking bird feathers. Cooney and traveling partner Straight Line set out to save her reputation, prove Pica's innocence, win the National Finals Rodeo and of course......get the girl. A couple of my favorite li...

Something is wrong with us.....we have several winter days that are sunny, warm and beautiful, but we decide to head out to the desert when its snowing. But, hey at least the wind wasn't blowing! Winton is an old coal mining town (I thought camp might more accurately describe the area), but according to some sources the foundation and basement that can still be seen today is the remains of the Union Pacific store. Winton had a boarding house that 50 some miners that worked 6 mines in the area called home. Main street ran east-west in front of the UP store. The whole town consisted of the boarding house, a pool hall, doctor's office, elementary school, post office, bath house and the mine office. The brick wall is a retaining wall for the road up to Number 1 mine. We didn't venture around looking for the mines, but its pretty clear that is a popular spot for the youngsters of the county. Winton was abandoned in the 1950s.   And taking some time out to play with th...

This is pretty much the most amazing theme care packages ever (I might be a little biased, but lets just ignore that for now while I revel in my genius). I present to you..........  Y OU TOLD ME TO BRING STUFF. STUFF IS A VERY BROAD TERM. ~SI I covered the in side of the boxes with camo duck tape and filled it to the top with some wicked awesome goodies like "Duck Dynasty makes me HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY" ~Phil, Duck Dynasty Season 1 "If you put camouflage on anything it automatically makes it cool" ~Jace, camo cupcakes "Fear the Beard" costume beards "Help me! I falled and I dropped my tea" ~Si, tea bags "Eatin' squirrel brains is where you get your smarts" ~Miss Kay, "squirrel" summer sausage "If you are too busy to hunt ducks, then you are too busy" ~Jace, nerf guns with rubber duck targets "So now that I have my permit, I know I can't eat a donut and keep my hands at 10 & 2...

Hello constant reader (and listener), March brings the threat of warmer weather, longer days, and the birthday of a very special young [is he mocking me?] lady, Jen.   As the unofficial, or maybe official, musicologist (is that a word?) of the “ Almost Gypsy Soul ”, I have the privilege of contributing just a little piece of entertainment to the blogging world each month, and this month is specifically dedicated to Jen (as if any other month is different).   You see, Red Dirt comes west, just for Jen’s birthday (that’s what she says anyway) [its the honest truth!] this month and this playlist is Red Dirt [yahoo! my favorite!] heavy.   Micky and the Motorcars and Reckless Kelly [you know they came to town especially for MY birthday right?] are on their way to the City (Salt Lake City to us western Wyoming folk), so you will hear a lot of their music this month, I threw a bonus because there is a lot of good tunes that come from that region and its one of my favori...

Well crap! Its here, I'm officially 30. However, I'm going to try to stay positive so here is what I'm loving about turning 30. 1. My friends are here to celebrate with me. OKTrailerPark Friend and Mr. OKTrailerPark Friend drove up from Colorado for the weekend festivities! Plus Little Sister, Little Sister's Boyfriend and Music Man will be joining! all.weekend.long.   2. We are headed to the mountain today instead of the office. Bring on the brews, burgers and boards! YA-HOO! 3. Micky & the Motorcars AND Reckless Kelly are headed west to celebrate with me(presumably just because its my 30th birthday!, I'm important like that). 2 of the best bands.EVER. 4. I'll be swallowing turning 30 and washing it down with a feast from the Roadhouse! Medium rare ribeye, loaded baked potato, salad with ranch, buttery rolls with cinnamon butter PLUS a coupon for a free appetizer! Should I pick the onion blossom or fried pickles? I believe this meal alone wi...