That reminds me! Now that I have escaped the land of mouse infestation, I can have microwave rice bags again! (Totally easy to make your own, btw, you can use regular rice and a towel and some nice-smelling stuff and voila.) I couldn't before, because the mice ate the rice.

The SO is back in NM this week and is (when not teaching) getting the last of our junk out of the pink house. He says the place is already totally overrun. Blargh. I am so freaking glad to be out of there. I love my little duplex! It's so pretty and nice and in the pines and comfortable and has services and okay, it's much smaller than a 6-bedroom house, but so worth it!

We have a microwave. But I am a total kitchen appliance whore. I have a bread machine, sandwich toaster, electric grill, crockpot, blender, fondue pot, chopper do-hickey, etc., etc. that all see regular use.

For years I didn't have a microwave, on the principle of the thing, because that's how I grew up. And then I discovered that my parents (flush with college savings that I wasn't going to cost them, 'cause, eloped) bought a ton of electronics and a microwave as soon as I was out of the house. Now I have their old microwave.

I should get a new one, though, because it's huge and takes up a bunch of kitchen landscape.

about evangelical Christian environmentalists.

Yeah, this was a revolutionary point in my faith, when I went to a Christian music festival and discovered a bunch of freaks who passionately cared about both their faith and the environment. Then I found those who cared about Christ and about social justice, and my whole worldview shifted.

It's still the only place that I don't feel torn between my left-leaning secular friends and my right-leaning religious family.

Liese, where did you move? (I guess I skipped too much)

30 Rock is almost, but not quite doing it for me.

Mostly it's Alec Baldwin that's keeping me interested. Being a 1/2 hour show, it doesn't have to interest me for very long, and at the moment, all it has to compete with for me is a rerun of CSI.

Ha. I dunno if I really mentioned it here. I moved from NM to AZ. I'm in Wagon Wheel, AZ now, kind of east-central Arizona. It's just north of the Whiteriver Apache reservation, one of the places we work. So we're doing the same thing, just driving in the opposite direction.

Among other things, one of the schools in New Mexico lost their teacher so they didn't open this year. That put more of our opportunities here in Arizona instead of there. And of course our house situation there was getting less and less tenable.

The move took a while longer than we wanted, but we're so thrilled to be here. It's actually in a town; I get cable internet and trash pickup and working plumbing and everything.

That sounds great, Liese.

I agree about 30 rock, Sean. It gets one more shot, but that's it

You sound fabulously happy, Liese -- you'd mentioned moving, but I don't think I knew the details before now. Yay mod cons!

Liese - you could see Jaguars!

Okay, it's a long shot -- but they are the largest cats in the Western Hemisphere.

(I can't believe you didn't know that Theo.)

And I love the line about the jaguar scattering the dogs like quail.

I am happy.

Oddly enough, I was griping and snapping at the SO on the phone even this morning, but I got over the last hurdle of the move I was worried about (being without a car when he's in AZ teaching for a week each month) when I took the bus to buy tomatoes and grapefruit and sourdough bread today. It was easy and cheap and the stop is quite near the house and the Seabiscuit survived happily in his kennel (the duplex has a kennel! the landlady is a dog person!) while I was gone.

Since then I've been content and well-pleased with the move. Now to get my office to not be inhabited by dozens of boxes.

It's sad to leave the old place, we'd made lots of Navajo friends, but we think the decision is the right one. And we lived in this town briefly five years ago when we first started the traveling music school, so we have a support system here, and I'm sure we'll make more friends and get tied in soon. Finances will be tighter, but it's a good trade-off.

And we hope to buy land here and build a home we'd actually own over the next couple of years.

Which I'm sure will be stressful and difficult and wonderful and terrible, so I guess I'd better enjoy the happy while it lasts!

Liese - you could see Jaguars!

I totally could! The tall tall ponderosa pines here a big change from my juniper/pinon scrub I'm used to, and it means a whole different set of wildlife. The landlady is also a bird person, and she's got dozens of feeders and birdbaths out in the communal area, so that's already been fun seeing the slightly different wildbirds.

I sure am talky meat tonight. Must be not having the SO here.