I’ve been here and there an on the in-between but let me mention the important things:

1.  I switched thyroid medication in November.  I NEVER talk about my thyroid disease in this space because I have never wanted to market myself and my work with my disease.  However, let me say, I feel alive and awake and wildly vigorous for the first time in a handful of years.  I am naturally a tremendously energetic individual so I am not even remotely sure how to describe my current transformation or RESTORATION of self.  I feel so good.  I do not wish to discuss the specifics of my thyroid treatment or diagnosis in the comment section here so please don’t ask for specifics…just know that I am very well for the first time in a long while.  Boy howdy.  I am well.
2. Christmas and the new year brought a gaggle of friends to the strawbale house and it was a rich time that we cherished with all our hearts.  This house is remote.  We sold our home in Pocatello with the great regret of leaving our friends there.  We have seen SO much of our people though, since the end of the fire season, that I feel hyper-stimulated socially.  To boot, we have managed to lock ourselves into the neighbor-hub here on the Snake River and have been engaging fully with the locals.  They are a wonderful, eclectic mix of folk and we are blessed to be part of their realm.  This section of the Snake River has a rich bohemian history rooted in the rotation and habitation of a handful of famous artists and we also boast the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in all of Idaho.  It’s true!  I hope to see it in person some day but in the meanwhile, I have met the owner of the house and he is lovely and a writer and an architecture enthusiast and fascinating (from a distance), to boot.  I always want to know people immediately but I know that not everyone operates like me, with the immediacy of easy vulnerability and unguardedness so I try to rein myself in and offer myself in a more normal-rate-of-knowingness.  Man.  It’s a task.  I’m a beast.  I’m a beast of open-booked-ness.
3. I rode a Peruvian Paso horse today by the name of Fabrio.  He had a mane and forelock like an ocean and it was immediate love at first stride.  No one can comprehend how desperately I crave a horse of my own these days.  No one.  Not even Robert, who knows me best of all.  It’s a sharp ache in me.  We work on assuaging the issue on a regular basis, which is to say we keep our eyes and hearts open for the right horse, but it’s so hard to decide between breeds and I am a passionate believer in breeds.  I have bird dogs and have seen their instincts and bloodlines at work.  It’s a serious thing, a breed.  Not for fashion, but for life purpose and a blessed destiny and partnership with a human.  I believe in it.  I lean heavily towards the BLM Mustang but am terribly interested in gaited horses, as well.  Bottom line:  I want a horse I can ride immediately and grow into and with.  I want a sturdy horse.  I want a horse that can take me up mountains, ride me into my elk hunts, and be my good friend when Robert is away fighting fires.  It’s a lot to want but I know there is an animal out there that can fulfill my needs and that I can give back to, equally.  Oh, but how long, how long must I endure this waiting.
4. Lord, give me a horse.
5. We are listening to Neko Case on vinyl tonight and it is glorious.  Also, we have been listening to Jewel’s “Lullaby” album non-stop (which might be her most beautiful selection of songs of all time).  I must also mention Rose Cousins with whom I am utterly besotted.  If I did not mention her, it would be a true crime.  A true crime.
6. I continue reading my way through Hemingway which was a summertime goal, if you can recall, to make my way through his novels…it continues to be a great pleasure.
7. We’ve been on an old film kick here and it has been AMAZING!!!!!!!!  Well, there was Cleopatra with Liz taylor, then Suddenly, Last Summer, A Place in the Sun, River of No Return (with Marilyn) (oh my gosh, what a creature she is), The Moon-Spinners (with Hayley — who we LOVE)…………to say the least, I truly do adore the way people used to act.  I mean the overacting, the costumes, the makeup, the seamed tights, the ballgowns, the eyelashes, the enunciation, the suggested sex scenes that leave SO MUCH more to the imagination, the platinum hair…oh man, I want to dye my hair white right now.  When is the last time you watched old films?  They’re such a wonderful departure from current cinema which seems so redundant at times, replete with remakes and a complete lack of imagination.
8. We saw the new Star Wars and we loved it.  Have you seen it?  What did you think?
9. The spring is already beginning to shape up and by shape up I mean absolute insanity is about to break lose in my life with regards to shoot schedules, trips, Rob’s early season work in the southeast and studio work.  In the midst of all of that, I am trying to figure out new directions in work — my freelance photography continues to evolve and the month of January will bring on a bit of a re-branding campaign for The Noisy Plume.  I don’t know how to fit everything in so I just keep on doing the best I can.  I just keep on feeling it out, like I have been for nine years now.  I don’t know what else to do.  The learning curve with all of this is absolutely eternal.  I never wind up on top.  There’s always something new bearing down on me from around the next corner.  I don’t know what else to do but do my very best.  When I lay down to sleep at night, I let everything go…with a flutter of eyelashes and deep breaths and an arm wrapped around Robbie’s ribs.
10. January brings such cold, blue, clarity.  How the heck are you?