Mountain Girl Silver: Custom Personalized Hand Stamped Sterling Silver Jewelry

outer space n’ other stuff…..

Erika — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:24:07 +0000

Do you ever sit there and stare into outer space when you’re zoning out….. you know…. .like that wide eyed blank stare where you’re just staring at something random, not really knowing what it is you’re staring at, but deep in a trance-y thought?? And you’re not really in deep thought, it’s just that your mind is taking a little break from being engaged and you’re like in la la land? I know you know what I’m talking about. And then someone says, “HEY!!”. “HEY!!! Yoo hoo. Earth to Erika…. “… Well, I was in one of those trances today and was outside at 6am listening to our neighbor’s dog up the street just barking it’s head off. They had this bright idea to go get a puppy for the kids about 5 months ago. So they did all their research and had this German Shepherd down in Sacramento, Calif about to have a litter of pups, and his brother is a breeder or something… So they fly down there to get this dog. And yes, we were all very excited for them because lets face it, puppies are super cute. It doesn’t matter what breed of dog it is, puppies are just cute!! Well, when they returned with this 8 week old puppy, we found out that it wasn’t allowed indoors. Not even in the garage. They created this chain link fence get-up outside the left side of their house, bought him a dog house, a super thin pad, and they keep him outside 24/7. And it was almost 2 degrees outside the day they brought him home for the first time. So anyways, long story short, now he’s what? 5 months old or so, and he barks ALL DAY LONG. And when I say “all day long” you might think, like every 10 mins, maybe 2 times an hour… NO…. I’m serious, he barks incessantly all day long. I’ve even taken videos of him barking but I don’t have the cajones to send it to her. Thing is…our daughters are like best friends. They play all the time. Ema is either always over here, or Maggie is always over there. And the kids aren’t even allowed to play with the dog because he’s not been socialized in any capacity and the minute they let him out, he’s knockin’ kids over, biting people, running off… They just weren’t cut out to be dog – owners and they somehow thought the kids wanted a dog. UGH… So this morning I got woken up by “Lucky”… (far cry) at 5:30am…. He was barking up a storm. And when something like that wakes you from a deep sleep, you get a little agro. So at 6am I shot her a text saying, “Do you hear Lucky barking? He’s been barking since 5am!! He barks all day long Oksana. Poor dog”… And she writes me back saying how he’s “not poor” and that there was a skunk in their yard last night because she could smell the residual odor and thats why he had been barking. Whatever.. Just an excuse. I wrote her back and told her “Well, just making you aware in case any other neighbors begin to complain about his barking.” There are about 6 dogs that live in a 100 yard radius from my back yard and Lucky is the only one that barks. He barks at his own farts. He barks at the wind. I think he barks just to bark quite frankly. He’s totally lonely, he never gets to play with other dogs, he’s not very leash-trained because they don’t spend any time with him. It’s like they just got the dog so they could say they were dog owners. And it really shouldn’t bother me as much as it does. I’m not even all that big of a dog person myself. We have Loosha, our weimaraner/lab mix, and she’s sweet as pie. She tries hard to be part of the pack. She’s a happy dog and we love her. And even tho’ I’m not a big dog fan, I would NEVER EVER leave her outside at night. I mean, at least they should be putting him in the garage for cryin outloud… especially when it gets so blasted cold here. I find myself hating the dog. Like I have little visions of seeing him get hit by a car…. I work from home all day, and so I get to hear him all day. Even tho’ they are like 4 houses away, we are all sort of on a corner of a culdesac so our backyards all come to one point and we can all see in each other’s yards. There are no fences. And I really shouldn’t hate the dog I know.. it’s not his fault. It’s their fault. And why I feel like it’s MY job to let them know that their dog is incredibly annoying is beyond me. It just bugs me. And when I get bugged I try to fix the problem. Unfortunately you can’t “fix” ignorance. Please Lord don’t let them be reading this blog. ;c(

Enough of Lucky…. he’s the reason I’m tired right now..

The sun is shining today. FINALLY!!! It’s been about 16 days of straight rain. When the sun comes out, us Oregonians are like little bugs, crawling out of the woodwork. Coming outside with our eyes squinted and our pale skin. I worked these last two days, so today is sort of a free-day for me. If I was smart, I’d load up my skis, pack a lunch and go hit the mountain for a few hours. But I’m really in one of those do-nothing moods. I hit yoga yesterday. I could go shopping, but don’t feel like it. I could go get the cars smogged, but don’t want to deal with that circus. I could organize my electrical cord drawer, but that’s just a rats nest. I should be outside enjoying the special sunshine, but that would require energy I don’t have at the moment. A nice brisk walk would perk me up, but then I’d have to put a bra on. So instead I sit here and write about all the things I SHOULD and COULD be doing. Got a severe case of the lazies indeed. THANKS LUCKY!!!!

Back to Bikram

Erika — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:51:11 +0000

I started doing Bikram yoga about a year ago now… and when I began going, in the back of my mind, I was hoping it wasn’t going to turn out like every other exercise regime I had started and quickly fizzle out. Not pertaining to all areas of my life, but I’m notorious for joining a gym and going for ohhhh twice and then completely forgetting about it. I had started a few hatha yoga classes when Anders was a baby… you know.. trying to be all super mom and getting out of the house in the evening when hubbs got home… but… like anything, I’d quit going. I REALLY wanted to love Bikram. I really wanted it to be my new thing. It was like I was vowing to myself that if I was gonna start going, then I was gonna take it seriously and make a 100% effort and not wuss out and quit going. I mean, I think even my husband was waiting for me to quit going one day….. But when you’re payin’ close to a hundy a month to have unlimited classes, it’s kind of stupid to just quit going… and even stupider when you’re so gung ho that you go ahead and buy the $900 annual unlimited membership as sort of a motivation to keep your butt in that hot room. But I could tell after my very first class that I had indeed….found my new thing. Now, I’m not gonna lie and say that I go every single day and I’m all hard core yogi material or anything. But I do try to maintain at least a 3 to 4 times a week attendance. There’s just something about it. And I’m sure it’s different for everyone. Everyone is in that room for the same reason, yet we are all in there for different reasons. Same reason being we want to do something good for our bodies…. different being, maybe someone is there because they want to heal their chronic back pain. Maybe someone is there because they are a runner and it’s one of their “off” days and they want to keep their joints healthy in between pounding miles on pavement. And as I sit here and really think about why it is that I go, I can’t really pin point it.

When I am in that hot room, I push myself past crazy limits that I never even knew I had. I’ve always been very athletic and very agile. And when I find something I’m not 100% perfect at, then I’m going to work as hard as I possibly can to get perfect at it. And the thing with Bikram yoga is, you can push yourself as hard as you want to, but if you aren’t doing the poses correctly, then you’re not getting an ounce of benefit. I give 110% in each and every class. Even on days when I feel like dog doo doo, and swear I’m not gonna push myself too hard, I always end up forgetting that I wasn’t going to push myself, and go on ahead and push myself. It’s a challenge for me. It’s more of a challenge for me to NOT push myself to the point of hurting myself. It really is. There’s nothing more gratifying than holding Dandayamana-Dhanurasana ~ standing bow pose for the full hold time (which, I believe to be a full minute, but never really know).. I’ve only been able to hang in standing bow in the first set the entire hold time I think maybe a dozen times total. I usually fall out because I get distracted. Bikram yoga is very tough, yet very beneficial for people like me….. people with ADD. Or ADHD… or AADD… or whatever you wanna call it. I have a hard time focusing on one task. Bikram has helped me in so many ways, but especially with my focus ability… or focus inability rather. I find that after a full year now of going regularly, my focus is way different. I’m able to sit here and type out this blog post without getting up 20 times to go put the wash in the dryer, or to hop over to my email to check and see if so and so answered me. But you seriously can’t pull off many of the poses unless you have steadfast, unbreakable concentration. What I find really fascinating is that in between the standing series and the floor series, you’ve got 120 seconds of flat-on-your-back, no moving, no fidgeting time and it is a CHALLENGE to not move, or not let your mind wander during those two minutes. Again, major improvement in that regard. Another thing about Bikram…. is that your skin loses all those nasty ingrown bumps and whatnot everywhere. You know how in the winter months, wearing jeans and long pants, and dry skin, you get those bumps on the back of your thighs? Yah, those go away when you do Bikram yoga regularly. Your complexion changes. I’m not as quick to anger. I find myself taking huge deep breaths, just out of no where. You spend an hour and a 1/2″ of pure breathing….. and I mean…. all dirty air gone breathing. In fact, you don’t even want to try doing hot yoga unless you can learn to breathe. Breathing is the only thing that keeps me on my mat and not jumping up and running out of the room in a panic. When I first started going, there were times when (during the floor series) I honestly thought I was going to jump up and run out like a weirdo!! I was millimeters away from getting up and leaving so many times. But I remember the first class I went to, the instructor, Micah, in a calm sweet kind tone said, “If you feel very panicked and feel like leaving, just remember to BREATHE.”….. The one itty bitty bit of advice that I will never forget.

I sit here and think back to when I first began. How self conscious I was of my body. How I was more worried about those around me than looking at myself in the mirror. It was uncomfortable for me to look at myself in the mirror at first. I hated who I was. An addict… a recovering alcoholic… a recovering addict… ewwww. Often times I sat there and thought, “Oh dear Lord, WHY am I here?”… “Why should I even try to better myself with exercise?” “I’ll never be good enough or do well enough” “I’m just a junkie addict and a loser mom and a loser wife..”… You start nailing an extremely difficult yoga pose a few times a week, all the while staring in your own eyes for 90 mins, and you begin to love yourself. And I’m not saying that yoga is the reason I love myself today….. God is. But yoga has really empowered me to believe in myself again. Long gone are the days of being the star middle blocker on my high school volleyball team… long gone are the days where I broke the USCoast Guard boot camp base record for the 2 mile run…. Those days are over man. I’m a mother of 2, I’m 35 years old now… I’ve put my body through hell and back. Punished the body that God gave me. By the skin of my teeth am I alive even. Our bodies only last a little while you know? And it’s true… the older we get, that’s when we start to think about it. We lollygag and frolick in our youth like no biggie… do drugs, drink heavily, party… drive drunk… what have you… never seeing the bigger picture that our bodies are the only bodies we have. There are the few out there that avoid all the stupidity smartly, but we can’t just trade our bodies in for a new one when the old one runs out. We must nurture them, and take care of them. They get us from point A to point B.

I don’t know what it was that made me want to sit down and write this page out. Maybe it’s because I didn’t go to yoga today, it’s my day off from going and I noticed how excited I am about getting to go tomorrow. I’ve been toying with the idea of trying the 30 day challenge. Going for 30 days straight. With kids, it’s a hard commitment (or at least that’s my excuse) My fear is that at the end, I’d be so burnt out that I’d never want to go back. And I really love Bikram yoga. Don’t want it to be like a good song you hear on the radio. You hear it, you love it, so you buy the cd or the mp3 file and play it incessantly for a week and then you can’t stomach it when you hear it after awhile, changing the channel quickly. It is my hope that I never fall out of love with yoga. If you are considering trying it….. just go for it. Don’t be afraid that you’re gonna suck at it. From what I gather, it’s like the mysterious exercise. The one everyone knows about but never wants to try. And why?? Because of the heat? “Ohhh I don’t like the heat, I don’t think I could stand the heat? Ohhhh the heat…” wahhhh… Get your butt in there. You will be surprised at what it does not only to your body, but to your outlook on yourself, your outlook on LIFE!!! It’s a true motivator… It makes you want to be better. Do better. Eat better. Sleep better.

Through the Christmas rush with Mountain Girl Silver I wasn’t able to go for a month straight. Sure… I could’ve totally gone to the 8:15pm class… or the 6am class and be diligent about it. But stamping and processing orders took over my life for those 6 weeks. And boy howdy… not going sure started to affect me. I was irritable, wasn’t sleeping well, noticed my posture going downhill, short of breath just going up the stairs, bad appetite, BAD APPLE!!! Never again will I take a break from yoga that long. Because when I finally got back in the hot room, I was shocked at how much flexibility I had lost. I grew so frustrated during my first class back. Thought I was gonna DIE!! No bueno. But was equally surprised at how much quicker my flexibility came back. It wasn’t like I was starting out from the beginning like a year ago. Got right back into the groove.

So alls I’m saying is… give it a shot. I think you’re gonna find that you’re going to get a lot more out of Bikram yoga than you think you will. And there’s nothing to fear. After your first class you will be so proud of yourself, as you will feel like you just finished and completed the hardest workout you have ever done. No lie!!

SNOWPOCOLYPSE…. whatever…

Erika — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:56:30 +0000

Oh for cryin’ outloud…. I swear I wanna move to Anchorage. These last few days… since before the weekend actually, the weathermen and Mother Nature has been just TEASING us with snow. It’d start snowing, then it would stop. Snow, stop, snow for an hour, accumulate, stop, rain, melt, snow again, …… it was annoying. I sit here and just crave weather where it would literally just DUMP SO MUCH SNOW THAT THE CITY WOULD SHUT DOWN. It’s engrained in soul. That giddy feeling ya get when it begins to snow. Takes me back to pepsi slushies and pimped out snow forts in the forest as a child. Growing up in a place where snowing 5 feet in one night was nothin’. Memories of my dad actually waking up in the middle of the night, tromping down the hall to check the street for snow depth. Living on Edison property, and daddy being a campground foreman, he was responsible for the snow removal to all the different little areas that the company used throughout the winter. The substations, the service centers, the entrance to the campground. And I remember him getting all dressed and sorels on, packing his thermos, his igloo, and his pack(s) of Winstons and heading out to plow. He’d be gone for HOURS… I mean hours. Then…. the snow would get so deep on our roof that we had to get up on the house and squeegie the snow off so the roof didn’t cave in. All the while, the wood stove crankin’. Watching each piece of wood go in the cavity of the stove, recognizing the knot or the bark pattern from a piece that I KNOW I stacked that previous Fall. Growing up in the mountains, living in the snow, it ain’t for the weak. We just got hooked on a show on TV called “Alaska- The last Frontier”.. I think it’s on Discovery channel. Well anyways, it’s about this family that have been homesteaders there on a peninsula up in Northern Alaska. They don’t have electricity. Depend entirely on their own means for their food, heat, etc… Grow all their own vegetables, harvest them in the Fall and store them in their root cellars for the winter. They make 4 hour treks on snowmobiles in the middle of winter to go to lakes and stuff to CHAINSAW 3 foot deep holes in the ice so that they can have some fresh fish…. They go out and shoot rabbits. They fall trees and drag em’ around with their tractors when they are preparing their wood for the winter. And when their cows give birth in the dead of winter and the baby calf is flailing around in sub zero temps, they go out there and find them in the dead of night and bring them to shelter and get them nursing on their mothers.. I mean… really? Eric and I were watching it the other night, and the kids came into the living room and we told them that they should take a look and see what it’s like to live in the middle of Alaska in the winter. They were glued to the tv. I’d honestly love to try it before I die. Survive a year in Alaska, solely living off the land….. I really would. See if I could do it. I think it would be challenging as all get-out, but man…. what an experience that would be. Just wild. I dream of it snowing…. that’s the bottom line here. And yah, the snow is falling in the higher elevations and the mountain ski areas are getting some good freshie, which I’m eternally grateful for, but why can’t it just get a shade colder down here in the valley? I remember a couple years ago, probably about 4 years ago now, we got severely dumped on here in Portland. Like some crazy 5 feet of snow over Winter break. It was phenomenal. Etched in the bank. I visit that week in my memory quite often. If you are reading this and are from Portland Metro area… then I KNOW you must remember it. I also vividly remember that by that 9th day or whatever of my husband being home from work, I was actually out in the street chiseling the ice from his tires and shoveling out his car so he would leave the house and get back to work. The entire city was shut down man. It was cool…. That’s when we lived in our old house, had a wood stove. Miss that thing. And to think…the people we rent it out to now, they don’t even know how to use it… pffft….

But now the storm is passing, and it’s all turned to just rain. The wind is blowing pretty hard. I had to run up to the feed store this afternoon and pick up some more chopped straw for my hens coop. When it’s wet like this, they tend to spend the entire day in their coop, and well… we all know what that means. I feel all farmer-Joe’ish when I go in that store. When I know I’m going there, I even try to play the part a little more. Wear my boots instead of my Dansko’s. I grab my dirty jacket instead of my North Face fluffy one. You know… I wanna at least LOOK like I’m a farmer. Not some yup chick mom from Suburbia. ;c) Got my dog a new leash and collar today too. Oh the excitement. But I did stamp and ship out 47 orders in the last 24 hours, so ….. I enjoyed the January lull while it lasted. Business always dies down to almost NADA the week or so after Christmas. The first week or so of January, everyone is getting their credit card bills from December and doing the freak out and not spending money. But now that Feb – Valentine’s Day is around the corner, things are picking up. Time to get back into the groove.

And remember….. TAKE PICTURES OF YOUR MOUNTAIN GIRL SILVER jewelry and email me the pictures!!! I don’t know how I’m going to officially advertise the photo contest, but trust me, the winners are gonna get some serious credit towards the store. Don’t say “yay, that is a great idea, but I’m a bad photographer”… No…. you’re mistaken… you’re not a bad photographer. Take off your necklace, or throw the camera at your husband or wife or kids and tell em’ to snap a shot of you wearing your bling!! I’m serious as a heart attack here. Email me the jpeg’s to mountaingirlsilver@mac.com

HAPPY WINTER!!!!

Winter Break… Ahhhhhhhhh

Erika — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:40:54 +0000

Sooo…I’m sitting here in the early morning darkness and my family is sound asleep still. We are in Sun River, Oregon about to embark on our annual 3-day skiing marathon and I’m hoping that Mt. Bachelor got DUMPED on last night. It’s been a rather strange year in the way of precipitation, and the ski resorts in the pacific northwest are starving for good snow coverage. Personally, I’ve enjoyed the lack of rain, but realize when there is no rain, that means no snow. So every day after Christmas we decide to venture to eastern Oregon to ski as much as our tired holiday bodies allow. What we typically do is buy the 3 outta 5 day pass so that the kids can ski for free. You’ve got a 5 day window to use your three day passes. We decided to head up to the resort yesterday to get our tickets so that this morning we could just drive straight to the lower parking lot, strap on our skis and hit the lift. So we pull in yesterday, and as we began to don all our snow gear, some gal came up to our car. She said “Are you guys going skiing today?” and before I was about to tell her why we were really there, Maggie blurts out “Yah!!”. So the gal says that her daughter broke her arm skiing that morning and they were needing to leave.She wanted to see if we wanted their tickets. It was only about 11am, still 5 hours of skiing left on their two all day lift tickets. So I grabbed them from her, apologized for their awful circumstances, chatted briefly about how I paid it forward a couple months ago, and how it really DOES come back to you ultimately, and we went on our ways. It was such a blessing because once you start your ticket pass thingies, then you only have 3 days, so it was nice not to have to “burn” a day (so to speak) and it allowed Eric and Maggie to hit the slopes for a few hours while Anders and I played in the snow and I read my book. Eric later said it was really really a blessing because Maggie was able to oil her gears from last year. Guess she started out skiing a little rough, but by the end of the day, she was rippin’ turns and skiing with her poles. Good stuff. So lady, if you’re reading this, the Martensons thank you profusely an we prayed for your daughter last night before our meal and at bedtime. We hope her arm heals nicely and that she doesn’t have a fear of skiing in the future.
The week after Christmas is so nice for me. Working around the clock for four weeks prior to Christmas. Hitting that hammer and my workshop so hard from Thanksgiving to my holiday cutoff. I still haven’t stamped orders from the 18th on yet, and it’s starting to bug me…BIG TiME! But I figure, the people who placed their orders right before Christmas couldn’t possibly have needed them for Christmas, so I really take my time getting them done and enjoy my family and this annual family vacation. There’s just something about being in a cabin, with a roaring wood stove, close quarters, games, skiing, snow, a small market up the road…ahhh.. It takes me back to my hometown. This life was my life as a child. It’s funny to me when people laugh at the “I had to walk a mile in the snow to go to school” thing…because its really how it was for me and my sisters growing up. There in Shaver Lake, California, snowing 5 or 6 feet in a 12 hour stretch was the norm. Despite the fact that my elem school bus driver should’ve been paid hazardous pay, he managed to chain up our bus in under 10 mins, but there were still weeks we would have to miss school because of the snow. Shortly after I left for bootcamp after high school, my parents had had enough of the white stuff and moved down the mountain a few thousand feet. So when it came time to “come home” again, I got robbed of really “going home”… Thats not to say i dont understand my parent’s motives, I do, I get it. Sometimes when I go back to California, we’ll take a drive up the mountain, and in an instant, that nostalgic childhood feeling comes flooding back. My childhood is book-worthy. It really is. So when we come to Sun River and hit the slopes, and build fires, and barbecue in the snow, I feel like I’m at home. I wouldn’t trade this feeling for anything in the world. Work and Mountain Girl Silver quickly go on the back burner while I’m here. I’ve got a ton of phone calls to make, a ton of emails to answer, and several orders to stamp, but all I can wrap my head around is the God-given beauty around me this very moment…. The beauty of my childhood. So, if you’re reading this and you placed an order on the 18th of December and thereafter, or if you’ve called me or emailed me since Christmas, I’ll get to it…I promise. At this point it’s better for my artistry that I am able to walk away for a couple weeks. There towards the end I was on auto-pilot. So for right now I’m just gonna enjoy my supportive family and my freedom.
God Bless!!!!

HO to the HO

Erika — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:54:12 +0000

I totally shouldn’t be sitting here writing, but rather stamping. This time of year is pure MADNESS….. it’s like… I work at a good pace all year long, and then Christmas hits and it’s like WHOA NELLY… easy on the stopper now!! I think I have a piece of silver lodged under my right index fingernail, because every time it hits these keys, I want to cry. No pain no gain. A gal called yesterday as I was on my way home from Target, and wanted to let me know that I mis spelled her son’s name. It’s not BROOK, it’s BROCK, with a “C” she said… ugh…. I knew there was no way in the world I could get through this busy season without at least one error…. but she’s the only one to report one yet, so that’s a PLUS… All i have left to stamp are the orders that came in on the 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th… There have been a few that came in after midnight on the 13th that have some pretty good stories as to why they are late, so if I’m in a good mood when I’m about to lay down the hammer, I might tackle those as well. I’m literally on my knees that the United States Postal Service is on their toes this year. I mean, I know they are always on their toes from Thanksgiving to Christmas, but this year their services are running a little slower than normal… SOOOOO if I have all promised orders out by Monday, then I think I’m good to go. There’s nothing worse than shipping something out SIX DAYS before someone needs something, then on Christmas Eve getting a phone call wondering where their order is….. ugh…. makes me wanna strangle someone. Speaking of strangling someone… So I was at Target yesterday because we were out of detergent, hand soap, vitamins and these yummy fruit leather things that I hide in my workshop from the kids as a pick-me-up snack. And I only had about 47 mins before I had to be back home here to pick up Maggie and our neighbor kid, Kate from violin practice at 3:30pm…. You should’ve seen me man. I only had the handful of items to get, but I ended up ripping through that store like a tornado. Running over people’s toes, bashing into a row of barbies on an aisle end, sending about 12 of them flying through the air and landing with a crash. There was a Target employee about 5 feet from me re-stocking said Barbie display, and she just glared at me like I was the devil incarnate.. I said, “Ohhhh my gosh ma’am .. I am SOOO sorry,,, here, let me help you pick these up.” She said, “NO.. no no no.. don’t worry about it, you are clearly in a hurry, just let me get it!” And she wasn’t rude about it, but you could hear the disgust in her voice. I had made her already-monotonous job even more mundane ;c( I felt bad as I slowly unhooked my cart from the edge of the aisle. I mean, there were people everywhere. At 2:45pm on a Thursday afternoon no less. I was a weavin’ in and out of those aisles like a pro!! Picked up about 29 more items than I went there to get, and managed to get a few more Christmas gifts checked off my list that need to be shipped. I’m sure I’ll be meandering in the Fed Ex store like NEXT WEDNESDAY with my tail between my legs and a debit charge of $300 to get the boxes to their rightful destinations. I do it every year too!!! And every year I say to myself that I’m not going to wait till the last minute to get the boxes together. Having to go to that funeral the first week of December really threw me off tho’. But I wouldn’t have missed Aunt Linda’s memorial for the world. I keep reflecting on that trip….. It was so nice to be able to hang out with Uncle Rich and little Rich and David, his wife, Stacey and their daughter, Ella. It’s like I got to finally get acquainted with them… face to face… Aunt Linda would constantly keep me updated on all their happenings, as she was my very bestest pen pal in the whole wide world. So I’ve always known what was going on in their lives. But I had never been to Aunt Linda’s house before. And you know how you know someone, but have never been to their house? And you keep a mental image in your head of what their house may look like. Or when they refer to “sitting at my desk” in their letters or emails, you automatically make an image in your head of what that room or desk or computer looks like. I guess it’s human nature quite honestly… Well, when I walked into Aunt Linda and Uncle Rich’s house, it felt like I was walking into home. All these years of never having been there, only having the image in my head of what she described her life to be. The 12″ old farm house plank wooden floors in her kitchen. They live in an old old house out in the country in rural New Jersey…… just like what you would imagine…. And it was the holidays too. When I walked in there were flower arrangements everywhere, from people sending Aunt Linda flowers before she died. I spotted the vase of colorful gerberas sitting on the table where her hospital bed had been. They were a little droopy and on their way out, but they still sat there. And I looked at them and thought,,, man,,, she maybe didn’t get to see these ;c( … But the place was covered in flowers, and the food… my gosh the food that all their friends and neighbors continuously kept dropping off in droves. You’d have thought they were on a 5 minute interval schedule of food drop offs!! Halloween decorations still hung on the doors and on shelves. Aunt Linda loved to decorate for all the holidays, and she became too ill to switch out the halloween deco and put up Thanksgiving/Christmas… ;c( I got to meet their dear friends, Linda and Wes and their son. Not to mention the 100′s of people that Aunt Linda knew in that town. Everyone in Brookside, New Jersey knew Aunt Linda. She was the gem of that community. She still IS the gem of that community and I know not only will I miss her, but that whole town is gonna miss her. She was a first aid team squadron captain there in Brookside for many years, until she got sick and had to step down. The 100′s of medics and firefighters that loved her… all of them respected and adored her. It was a great trip for Eric and I despite the circumstances of having to go. All of Eric’s family lives either in the midwest or out on the East Coast, and I got to meet some for the first time, and again see a few. The memorial service was a celebration, not your typical funeral. There was just as much laughter as there were tears… She was near and dear to many.

ugh….. so sad…. now I’m in a depressed mood. This December has been chaotic for me. But what’s interesting is that even tho’ it’s been pure chaos and mad catching up with work, I’ve managed to feel the Christmas Spirit this year more than ever. I haven’t really had the ability to express it with decorating my house, or baking or wrapping gifts or any of that…. But it’s pretty thick in my heart this year. The reason we all celebrate Christmas.. The birth of Jesus. I’ve had to drop to my knees several times during this mad rush of orders. Just praying for His strength and wisdom and grace to get me through it. And He always prevails. Jesus always always prevails…. And on that note, as my UPS man, Sean pulls up in my driveway with more silver for me to stamp and chains to hang it on… I’ve got to go…. There is a light at the end of my tunnel and I WILL get to the other side.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FRIENDS!!!!!

Time runs out…..

Erika — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:28:58 +0000

Even as adults, when we go through life, day by day, month by month, year after year, we are always shown different ways of doing things, and lessons to be learned. I mean, think about it….. when someone dies, in your family, there’s no manual that tells you what you’re supposed to do, how to feel, how to act or NOT act. There’s no book out there that says,,”When your loved one dies, this is what you should do”. Funny thing is tho’, even if there was a stupid book like that, I’d probably burn it. I don’t really know where I’m going with this other than within the last few days, my husband’s Aunt Linda has deteriorated to the point where at any moment, she’s going to leave us. She’s going to die. Waiting for the text or call at any moment. Really makes for a sad atmosphere around the house the last few days. We got the call actually the day after thanksgiving. Aunt Linda has been battling lung cancer for the last two years. When she got diagnosed however, the doc told her that her life expectancy was a mere 10 months. She obviously wasn’t satisfied with that, and blew past that 10 month mark and then some. But here we are 2 years later, she’s dying, and I just have to sit back and shake my head watching how some of the family is reacting to it. As if it’s some big surprise that she’s dying! Rushing to get to her bed side to say goodbye. I didn’t feel the need to say goodbye to her, as she laid in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of her body all doped up on morphine. Aunt Linda and I are/were tight. She came to my wedding, and I saw her at her oldest son’s wedding… I’ve seen her face to face two times, that’s it…. That’s all it took for us to just bond… tightly… Was talking to my older sister today looking for advice whether or not I should go to the funeral. Logistically it’s a nightmare for both my husband and I to go. (Wondering if I’m even supposed to talk about someone’s funeral before they are officially passed away. ;c( Whatever… Anyways, so I was talking to Neen, wondering if not going to someone’s funeral is showing disrespect. By not going, am I saying to Aunt Linda that I didn’t care about her? Naturally, in my mind, I worry about what others might say if I don’t go. I know that if I do end up going, there’s no way I’m going to go peek in her casket at her lifeless body. I wasn’t even able to go to both of my Grandmother’s funerals for cryin’ outloud. My mom’s mom, when she died, I was enlisted in the Coast Guard and my command wouldn’t let me take leave. And when my dad’s mom passed away, I was 7 months pregnant with Maggs and was told by my doc I couldn’t fly. But really truly, I didn’t want to go to either of those funerals either. I have a mental image of my grandmas and now of Aunt Linda in my mind, and I think thats the image I want to keep forever of her. I could tell Aunt Linda anything. She knew all my dirt. I know a lot of her dirt too. She was always the one I turned to when I needed to vent. And when she became struck with cancer, I never once held back with my questions nor my disdain that she had the damned disease. I would always ask her how she was feeling, and what the cancer was doing to her outlook on life. I asked her things that probably a lot of people wish they could ask someone they know that’s dying…. but just never do. We had a candid letter writing relationship. I remember I actually decided to call her one day instead of emailing her. This was probably about 6 months ago. I needed to hear her voice, there had been too many emails unanswered and it worried me. It was right around the time she was diagnosed with the brain tumors. The moment we got on the line, she began to cough. And we’re not talking a cough where she was hacking up a lung or anything, but it was a cough that was between just about every sentence, every word. I felt guilty I had called and forced her to talk…. But she insisted that we finish the conversation. And we did. I told her I loved her… she told me she loved me…. and we went back to being pen pals. You honestly have never met a better gift-giver than Aunt Linda. She put thought into the things she would send us for the holidays and birthdays. She never missed a date, birthday or anniversary. Shoot… she even sent the kids cards for St. Patricks day and Halloween with a couple bucks in it. So very thoughtful… always reaching out to say how much she loved and adored us here in Oregon. And while the kids have never had the chance to meet her face to face, they know who she is and they know that she loves them.

So as the clock ticks, I’ll sit here and wait. Aunt Linda is on my mind. I have this image in my head of her laying there in their family room there in New Jersey, skinny and frail, and totally not the person I remember her to be. Her soul is still in there tho’. And my heart aches for her husband, Uncle Rich and her two sons, David and Little Richard… and David’s wife, Stacey and their daughter, Ella. I wish I could scoop all of them up in my arms and take away that rigid grief… Death is imminent for all of us. Training ourselves to face death as a stage of living enables us to be a better person, a better friend to friends who may be facing death, and a better family member. Aunt Linda’s imminent passing has taught this family that it’s not good to wait till the last minute to say you love someone….. Just like I shared on my Facebook profile the other day… We are all that we have aside from God. If you love someone, tell them…. if you care about someone, show it. You’ll have a lifetime of regret if you don’t.

I love you Aunt Linda, we all do.
.

the unexpected……

Erika — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:51:05 +0000

So I’m just really bad at listening to voicemails sometimes. There will be like 5 or 6 in there in my voicemail box, and I know they are there, and I know I need to listen to them, but something always distracts me and I never get around to it. I mean,,, I DO get around to it, at least once a day anyway. So this morning I went out to breakfast with my hubby, and as I was leaving the place I decided to check my voicemail as my dog was scarfing down the remaining bacon slices from the styrofoam box I brought out to the car…. And I mean she was ripping the heck out of that box. I think she may have even eaten some bits of styrofoam. Anyways,,, so I get through the first two messages and then the third one came on and it was from a local gal here in the Portland area wanting to know if she could pay me to teach her how to stamp. I’ve NEVER had anyone ask me about that before. She said that she had been searching for classes all over the area and was unable to get into a class out in Beaverton that was only accepting 9 students. And here’s the thing…. I have NEVER taken a stamping class, so I wouldn’t even know what a stamping class would entail. I gotta say that it’s one of those things that you have to sort of learn on your own no matter how much knowledge an experienced stamper could possibly throw at you. It’s like learning how to type. It’s like learning how to ride a bike. You have to screw up a lot of material before you really have a handle on it. That and everyone who hand stamps really has their own sort of style. Some stampers are very eclectic and like their stuff askew and a little messy. Some stampers, like me, like to make my stuff nice and in line. Of course there are always slight variations in the final product,,,, but let’s just say I STRIVE for straight-ness. So I got home and called her back… She’s coming over tomorrow at 1pm to sit in my workshop and watch me stamp. I’ve never had anyone watch me stamp before. Even when my kids come barreling into my workshop, I’m always all “GET OUT OF HERE!!!!!” …. it breaks my groove. It breaks my concentration. I guess I’ll just let her watch me stamp and try to explain the method to my madness. She’s even offered to PAY ME to teach her….. So then the lightbulb went on in my head. I think I might just put an ad on Craigslist to see if there would be any interest at all in learning how to stamp from me. Wonder if anyone would call or email….. I just think this is funny. My ego was pretty large up until a couple years ago when I realized I wasn’t all that and a bag of chips. Sure, people would email me from time to time wondering what they needed to get started stamping,,,, but there was no way in the world I was going to direct them to my supplier’s websites… ha… I mean, at the time, I felt I had to hold my competitive position and not let anyone know any of my secrets. I’ve worked so hard to get where I am today. Trial and error is an understatement when it comes to hand stamping. You really have to screw up A LOT of metal before you have your method down to a science. But I’m excited for this girl to come over tomorrow. I wonder if I even have a sliver of “teacher” in my bones. I warned her how addictive stamping becomes….. She is eager to learn. And somehow all of a sudden I am eager to teach………. weird….. random phone calls are the best. They are the little messages from God that you don’t expect.

Anyways,,, gotta get back to the workshop… Got back from Mexico last weekend. Taking a vacation the day after your new website launches is a pretty funny idea. But I somehow just was able to let it all go and relax in Puerto Vallarta. We stayed at a great resort on the north end of the city wayyyy up in Nuevo Vallarta, just south of a little town called Bucerias. It was an eye-opening experience for my kids, as they had never been to Mexico. They had a blast…. little waterbabies that they are…. We all got to swim with the dolphins. I managed to somehow read FOUR WHOLE BOOKS…. FOUR BOOKS. And I LOATHE reading…. Used to anyways. It’s my newfound passion. Currently reading the 2nd book in the Hunger Games series “Catching Fire”. OHHHH and then recently I just got hooked on the whole stupid Twilight series. Forever and ever I avoided that thing like the plague. Stupid teeny bopper story of vampires… yah, real good fiction story there… But, I stand corrected. It is INDEED good. I’m not so Twihardish that I’ll be standing in line at midnight to see the new movie, but you can bet I’ll be going sometime the week after. Not proud… not proud. But back to what I was saying… I came home to a ton of orders to fill. I’m on a new promotion kick. Actually my new web developer, Brett, has had all these fabulous ideas to turn things around for Mountain Girl Silver. I’ll be honest, with the economy the way that it is, and the ebb and flowing cost of silver these days, I sort of felt this summer that it maybe was time to throw in the towel. My website (my old website) was having a lot of issues that couldn’t be fixed properly, and so after asking God to take over, He sent Brett into my life….. and well….. I feel like I have a new lease on Mountain Girl Silver. That fire inside that burned so bright long ago.. the one that began to fizzle out this summer…has been re-lit and sprayed with gasoline. So a big shout out to Brett at Virtus Designs LLC. I can’t thank you enough. You’ve been the gas on the fire!!

Okay… okay… really going this time…. I’ve gotta go hit the post office, fed ex and starbuckies before I can even begin to tackle the rest of the load on the floor in my basement workshop. It’s already 12:39pm… where do these days go man??? Thanksgiving is next week. My gratitude list is pretty lengthy today….. it definitely is. Just stoked I managed to get the Martenson Christmas cards ordered last night. Typically I take about 3 days to methodically place the photos on the card in some sort of artsy fartsy fashion,,, but in order to take advantage of that shutterfly deal of 40% off yesterday, boy ,,, I had to boogie!! Threw that sucker together in under 30 mins baby!! Watch.. I bet I spelled our last name wrong.

BYE BYE…. Happy Thursday!!

My lil’ Angry Birds

Erika — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:45:20 +0000

One of my passions is coaching. Even in high school, I somehow managed the opportunity to coach younger girls in Club Volleyball…. I don’t know what it is. I was a jock… Sports were taken very seriously in the area I grew up. Elementary school even. And it’s just kinda stuck with me through the years. So when Anders started playing soccer in kindergarten, I signed up to coach. I coached him all the way through 4th grade until I realized it was no longer fun coaching my own son. He felt the rules didn’t apply to him and he didn’t have to take my instructions seriously. I also always felt I was a little more hard on him than the other boys on the team. So after 5 years of that, Maggie decided last year she wanted to play soccer. I figured coaching little girls would be so much easier……… umm…. WRONG!!!!!!!! Girls are opinionated. Girls are BOLD…. they speak up when they don’t like something. Especially kindergartners… They are a total clean slate. When you coach at the kinder/first grade level, you are literally teaching them EVERYTHING about the game. I’d say it’s more tough to coach a 1st grade girls soccer team than it is the USA Womens Soccer team. I do…. I honestly do!!! The league we play in really stresses that it’s not about winning, it’s not about being competitive… it’s about having fun. And while I agree, we live in a part of the country where soccer is taken VERY seriously. There’s no getting around it. This year, coaching Maggie’s 1st grade girls team has been a lot of fun. I just love watching a child go from knowing absolutely nothing about the game, to growing that competitive edge, honing skill, learning the game, learning team concept… essentially turning into a little athlete. It’s important I think. If you keep your kids interested in things, like sports, then they are far less likely to end up smoking dope and cutting class. There’s a thrill in sports. No matter who you are. We are human….. We were meant to be courageous….

Our team name is “The Angry Birds” this year. Last year it was something else, I can’t remember. When you give the girls, 1st grade girls, the opportunity to name their own team and collectively decide on a name, you get some doozies… The Purple Unicorns…. The Pink Glitter Cats…. The Rainbow Sun Fairies.. whatever…. This year we are the Angry birds ;c) My team has done so well this year. I have 5 out of 8 girls on my team this year that it was their very first year playing. So it’s been a little difficult to teach basic skill to the new girls, all the while, continuing to teach last years girls new tricks of the trade. We’ve found a good groove tho’. The season is coming to an end. We have our very last practice tonight. I get attached to my girls…. I tell you… And when soccer season is over, I will be sad. I love walking into the grocery store tho’, or into the library or the school and see girls that were on my soccer team or my softball team, and they know me,,, they love me…. and that is the best thing. Being a coach is the best thing…. I love every minute of it…. Every year tho’, at some point in the season, I’ll stomp and storm and declare “I’m not doing this again next year!!! I’m DONE COACHING!!!”….. And the following year, the email will come into my inbox “Sign up to coach soccer” “Sign up to coach softball”… and I’ll cave… I always do… I was meant to coach..

Happy Fall ;c)

Erika — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 17:22:46 +0000

So the other night, as I was cruising home from Albertsons, blowing through the neighborhoods (probably way to fast), I see ahead of me two huge piles of neatly raked leaves in the shoulder/gutter area of the street. They were maples… or oaks maybe.. I dunno. But I had this overwhelming urge to slam the peddle down and swerve and blow right through them, causing a HUGE leave storm. What is wrong with me???!!!???? I didn’t do it, but man….. that would’ve been sooooooo fun. Imagine the cackle of the mailman in “Funny Farm” with Chevy Chase… him running out in the road as the crazy mail man flings his mail out the window doing 60 past his country farm house… ha hahahahha…. I love that movie.

It’s been a trying month for me. The website was down for three weeks. What a nightmare that was. I still took orders via phone and email, which left me in front of my computer with my ear cocked to the side on my phone all day, but I had to do what I had to do…. and I THANK YOU ALL for being so patient and willing to work with me offline. Now it’s back up for online shopping again. And WHAT A RELIEF. When your lively-hood is threatened, it makes one a little freaked out and scared. I tried to keep it real during that three weeks, but I don’t think my husband was liking me very much towards the end there. When I ran out on the deck the other night and shouted at him over the railing, “HEY!!! Guess what??!!! My website is back up again!!!”… I think I saw him drop to his knees thanking the Lord. I know I sure was!!!

So my daughter, Maggie, (my baby) turned 7 years old on Saturday. That morning, she came into my office with her birthday card from me and Eric in her hands, saying “read this to me”….. So….I began reading it to her. It said how proud of her I am, and how special she is, and how kind she is, and how funny she is, and how God made her perfect in EVERY way, and that no matter how old she grows, she will always be my little girl….. etc…. and I look over to her and she’s got tears streaming down her face. For a 7 year old, the girl has such a tender heart. She just “gets it”. Then, later on in the afternoon, before we were headed to her soccer game, she was sitting there eating her sandwich at the table, and turns around and says “Mommy, I’m really happy that it’s my birthday and all, and I feel really special today, but I’d really rather stay a little girl forever. I don’t want to grow old.”….. then she started crying again, and then I started crying and told her that she’d be my baby forever, no matter how old she was. We had a moment… It was a beautiful moment. And, we were late to the soccer game… but we connected that afternoon. Life had got in the way the weeks leading up to her birthday, as it sometimes does. Sometimes when I’m going to bed at night, and I think about my kids, I can tell if there’s distance. If you’re a parent, you know what I’m talking about. And I’ve been feeling that distance from them. When I get neck deep in work stuff, I sometimes stray from my “engaged” mothering role. They understand it, but they don’t deserve it in the least. They know when I’m stressed out, they feed off my energy. They are the best things that have ever happened to me. My babies. I thank God every day for blessing me with my kids. I may not be in the running for “mother of the year” award every year, but they know I love them. They know they are the most important thing in my life…. they know…

The sky is blue today. That’s a good thing…. We are getting our family portraits taken today at a park in Lake Oswego, Oregon that is BLAZING with fall color. Now, this morning, I’ve got to get everyone’s clothes ready for it. I know for a FACT that Anders is going to argue with what I pick out for him. Shoot,,, I don’t even know what I’m going to wear for this shin-dig. I’m sure we’ll be all smiles tho’. Lots of good things happening in the Martenson household these days. Lots n’ lots. Lots to be grateful for. You know when you have those moments, those rare moments, when you’re so overcome with joy that you just well up with tears? Well, I had one of those moments the other day. Most of the time those moments are so fleeting. They come on quickly and go just as fast. This one has stayed around for a few days, and I’m hanging on to every last thread of it. I’ve come to the conclusion that prayer really does work. It does. Just when you think that whatever you’re praying for is never going to come, and asking God is just futile because it’s not in His plan, BAMMMMMMMMMM, something transpires and He answers. It’s 9 times outta 10 not the way you had envisioned, but it happens. Never ever give up hope. Be persistent. It will come…

Okay…. so I better cut this short so I can go get our clothes ready. I told the kids that there would be NO ARGUING with what I picked out for them to wear today for the photo shoot. And,,, today, I get to meet an old friend in downtown for lunch. Close to 7 years ago when I started this business, I was in a dire search for my cuff wire. I found a company in SoCal that made it custom for me. And when it comes to ordering it, all I have to do is blast an email to “my guy” and he knows exactly what I need. Well, after all these years, we are finally going to meet. Face to face. Putting a face to a name is so fun for me. Especially after all these years of sharing family stories…. the birth of his daughter who they never thought they were able to have…. vacations…. illnesses…. just life. I was telling someone the other day how I get emotionally connected with everyone in my circle. Even my business circle, which sometimes isn’t the wisest thing to do. But that’s just how I’m programmed. I’m just as close to my “wire guy” as I am to my kid’s teachers. I have to be close to everyone in my box. Life is just better that way. It is…..

structure….

Erika — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:31:06 +0000

If you have an iphone, you’ve gotta get the “Instagram” app… Then you can make your pictures look cool like this ======>

My whole attempt at trying to avoid my phone was just a total and epic FAIL… My dad just was here for a whole 7 days. He was fishing in Southern Oregon for a week or so with his buddies and instead of going home back down to California, he hopped a flight in Coos Bay to Portland and stayed here with us for 7 days. I often wonder what an outsider might think about our life here in West Linn…. Not just the life in West Linn, I mean like,, our life of getting them up and on the bus to school, I work all day, grocery store, soccer practice, kumon, games on the weekends, working out, weeding the garden, cleaning the house, feeding the chickens, walking the dog…. just all the things me and my family do on a daily/weekly basis. It’s gotta be nuts. I’m sure everyone has busy schedules and whatnot, and sometimes it’s just downright painful when you’ve got a kid who has to go to kumon after school, but by the time you get him back home from that, it’s time to gear-up the younger daughter in her soccer gear to head to soccer practice… I mean… when does one eat and take a leak???? Seriously…. I know I longed for the structure of the school year, but I think it was just an underlying yearning for Fall television honestly. By the time 7:30pm rolls around, and the kids are upstairs bathing and showering and getting into their pajamas, my brain is fried, I’m physically just dragging, and I’m praising God that I got through the day without any major hitches. Made it to every appointment or commitment and came out alive!!! My daddy said a couple times while he was here, “Gosh honey, I just don’t know how you do it!!”… and I’m like “do what?” and he said “you know… just go go go, and do do do, and you do it so well and you’re always happy and smiling”… and it dawned on me. These are the days of our lives. I know that my kids are going to be adults one day much sooner than I think. I look over at my neighbors kids and they’ve got a 16 year old that just got her first car and she drives to school and drives to practice and drives to see her boyfriend. Then I look at my kids knowing that one day they are going to be doing that and I just want to have a heart attack at the mere THOUGHT of my son in a driver seat of an automobile.

There’s no real point to this blog post. When I feel raw emotion, I feel like emoting and getting it out. Writing always seems to be the best way for me to do it health-ily. My dad was here in my life for 7 days, and now he’s not, and I feel like my left arm has been saw’d off. I regret all the years I was so rebellious. I regret all the times I bad mouthed him growing up. I didn’t want him to leave. And I know he didn’t want to leave because he kept saying he didn’t want to leave. If he didn’t have yet another fishing trip to go on this coming Sunday, he would’ve stayed another week. If I had my way, my parents would be my neighbors. Period. He and I share so many of the same interests. The love we both share for precious stones…. gosh… we must’ve looked at hundreds and hundreds of stones this week. Studying them, talking about how they are created in the earths surface. I learn something from that man every time I’m around him. He’s a plethora of knowledge…. sigh….

So anyways,, it’s Friday, and tomorrow is just packed with soccer. I heard it’s supposed to rain. Is the rain really starting already here in Oregon? I sure hope not. The community pool we are a part of closed the gates yesterday for the year……… reality check that Winter is on it’s merry way. Hey, the flipside is that we’re nearing skiing season. ;c) Just like that song by OneRepublic….. ”A good good life”… everytime I hear that song, it just makes me so so happy…httpv://youtube/jZhQOvvV45w?t=4m8s