Our Montana “Farm House” (aka a Work in Progress)

We love where we live! Surrounded by hundreds of Ponderosa pine trees across our six acres, we wanted to make our “new” house our own when we moved in a few years back. Specifically, Lori wanted to create more of a farm house type of look and feel. Step by step (okay let’s call them baby steps), we’re slowly getting there. That means a lot of projects.

First up, we did some painting and replaced some of the old 1970s molding with newly stained cedar in the living room and dining room. (Okay, it’s actually advertised as cedar fencing at the home improvement store but it works and looks great.) There’s still a lot more to do from there. Then she told me what she had in mind for a sliding barn door. Now that was a fun project!

There are also a couple of decorative wood projects sprinkled throughout the house. She tells me what she wants and I do my best to deliver. One of them sits just above the front door. Measuring about two and a half feet in length and nine inches tall, the style is simple as is the look. I made it out of wood gathered from the family farm in southern Utah, created a frame and she painted it all.

Another project took quite a bit more precise work and a bit more improvisation, too. Basically, Lori wanted what looks to be a giant quilt square but she wanted it made out of wood. The goal was to hang it outside on our shed framed by a number of old tools my Holyoak ancestors used in the past. I came up with some measurements, created a pattern, bought some wood, got out the chop saw and got to work.

Measuring 27” x 27” and sitting within a homemade frame, it came together well. She then painted each individual piece to make it look like, well, a giant quilt square. In fact, it came out so well we just couldn’t hang it outside. It had to be inside. We found a place in the living room.

And then there's the makeover of a small bathroom located behind the kitchen. I went to town on a pallet-finding mission, loaded up my pickup with pallets twice and returned home with them. After using a sawzall to cut off the nails, we were ready to begin the transformation. I then did the measuring and sawing, and Lori did the layout. It was a fun, fun project to do together. Well, using a nail gun to put up the back wall was fun. I had some frustrating issues with the new plumbing after removing the old sink and replacing it with a new vanity, but in the end it looks great now.

Before                                                                                       After

The latest project was to refurbish my grandpa's old wood bin that was down in the basement of his farm house for many decades. I sanded it down to the original wood, applied some stain and it's now in its new home in my basement providing wood for the fireplace that warms our home.

Up next, we’re revamping what was a cramped, dark coat closet into something more open, visual and functional. Further down the road, we hope to replace the flooring and eventually (gasp) rip out and totally redo the kitchen. Until then, we’ll keep taking baby steps. 

I'm (Still) the Lucky One

I’m the lucky one and I know it. Those two words, “lucky one,” date back to the beginning of my marriage. The funny thing is I didn’t think it was very funny when it first happened but the more time passes, the more I just smile and fully accept that I am indeed the lucky one. Here’s how the story goes.

Way back on August 9, 1986, Lori and I tied the knot at the Los Angeles temple. That evening, we attended a wedding reception in Lancaster. Lori’s family moved to southern California in the summer prior to her senior year of high school so I was solidly in her territory, more than 1,300 miles from my home back in the Midwest. At the reception, it seemed like just about everyone who came through the reception line said something like this: “Lori is such a sweetheart. You’re so lucky.” Or “We really love Lori. You’re so lucky.” Or “I hope you know the type of girl you’re marrying. You’re so lucky.”

I didn’t disagree with anyone. I knew Lori. I knew she was abundantly kind and sweet, and beautiful to boot. The thing is I couldn’t wait to get back to my hometown where she could get a dose how lucky she was to marry me.

Soon after driving back to Kansas for our second wedding reception, we arrived home to find out that my long-time softball team had a game. While I was in the dugout and in the field, I saw her in the stands getting to know my friends and their family members. At one point, I saw that she was sitting next to and talking with my best friend’s mother. I was thinking to myself, “Finally! This is it! Now she’s finally getting a little bit of ‘you’re so lucky’ to be marrying Mark.”

After the game, my best friend’s mom came up to me and said something like, “I had a really good chat with Lori. She seems like such a sweet girl. You’re so lucky.” Ugh!

Fast forward to more than three decades later and telling that story to others only brings a smile to my face. Why? Because I believe it! I know it! I’m the lucky one!

Lori & the lucky guy

Empty Nesters!

April 16, 1988. That was the last time our nest was empty. Actually, it was still being built. The following day, April 17, 1988, Lori gave birth to Aubrey and our 17-month honeymoon came to an end as we added the first of our four kids to the nest.

Fast forward to June 2017. Lori and I returned home to an “empty” house from a great Alaskan cruise. While we were gone, the last of our children –now all married and on their own– moved out of the house. 

I’ve heard different things from empty nesters. Some say it’s too quiet. Others say they miss the day-to-day, face-to-face communication with their children. Others even say they cried when that last child left home for good.

I can respect all those sentiments but put us in the category of high-fivers and fist-bumpers. We do miss our kids and grandkids but we can (and do) call, text, email, Snapchat or Facetime those who live a ways away. Heck, the lone local holdout is only a hearty softball throw away in the back pasture.

 

Homemade wooden "quilt" square

Being “home alone” as a couple is…well…fun! We are doing multiple house projects together and have many more to do as we repurpose our now empty nest. We can crank the classic rock (or country music in Lori’s case) and jokingly yell from one corner of the house to the other at any time of day or night without disturbing sleeping children or grandchildren. We can also just sit on the front porch or back deck and enjoy the serenity.

Yeah, I can get used to this.

Playtime in my revamped man cave

A Drawing of Jesus Was Actually Me

It wasn't too long ago that I sat in a small Mormon church house in tiny Plains, Montana. I was there to take part in an early morning pre-worship leadership meeting. I didn't really know any of the locals so I sat in the back, paid attention and took occasional notes when something caught my eye.

There, on the right-hand side of the room was a work of art. It looked mysteriously familiar for some reason or other (see photo to the right). It was a picture of Jesus holding a lily.

I thought, "Okay, there's that verse somewhere in the New Testament of the Bible. Maybe that's it." The actual scriptural reference is in Matthew 6:28 which states, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin."

But that wasn't it. It wasn't the head or the face either that caught my stare. It was the hands, the fingers, the arms, the body, the feet. It was the overall posture. It was so...so...familiar. Then it dawned on me. Though it was a drawing of Jesus Christ, it was actually me!

Here's the backstory. More than a decade earlier I received a phone call from a member of our shared Mormon congregation in Lolo, Montana. A friend named Jen asked for a favor. She was a talented artist who wanted to produce a new piece and needed some help. Specifically, she needed someone to pose while she worked. I worked a second-shift schedule so, even though I'd never been on the receiving end of such a request, my mornings were relatively open and I said, "Sure thing."

"Just wear a t-shirt, some shorts and bring a pair of sandals. I'll provide the rest," she said. "You'll be posing as Jesus."

Wait? What? Standing in for Jesus?

Sure enough, when I showed up Jen had me drape some cloth over my clothes so I wore a white robe. I already had the sandals on my feet and she provided me with a lily to hold. So I stood and she glanced and drew, glanced and drew and glanced and drew some more. After a while (I don't remember if it was just one morning or more than that), she said my part was finished. She thanked me and said I was good to go.

Some time later, she took a digital photo of her finalized drawing and forwarded it to me but I misplaced it during the process of replacing our old computer with a newer one. I never did see the finished product with my own eyes. That is, until that early Sunday morning meeting in the small Plains church house when the memories started to return.

Jen's mother had donated the artwork to the church. This time I wanted to capture and keep that memory so I took a photo of it with my phone.

Thanks Jen for asking me to pose as Jesus all those years ago. And thanks to her parents, too. We ended up buying Jen's childhood home.

Giving Up the Keys

Source: Dorothy Mangold

I am not a big fan of sitting in the passenger's seat. I'd rather drive.

When I started working as the new public relations director at the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in May of 2012, I was given the car keys to RMEF's social media channels. At the time, RMEF's Facebook page had somewhere in the neighborhood of 29,000 likes.

While I was a latecomer to the Facebook world (because my kids kept bugging me to get on board but I initially resisted), I eventually did have some success with it. Years ago when I worked in TV, we were urged as news anchors to create fan pages. Each of us were free to focus on whatever we wanted to. I chose to mostly avoid everyday news since our station, and so many other media outlets, did exactly that via social media. Instead. I chose to focus on the offbeat, quirky videos, fun photos and add a caption contests. You know, good upbeat news. But I also was hyper-focused on life-or-death happenings like wildfires and other events that threatened lives or property.

Marianne Solari Carroll

Back to RMEF, and what really helped my cause was the product. Who doesn't like a wild and majestic mammal like the elk? And what about where you find them? Elk live on some of the most stunningly beautiful landscapes of anywhere in the world. True, there were some social media marketing approaches that worked really well like posting daily "good morning" elk photos, add a caption contests with the winning comment receiving a knife or knife set, and of course publicizing RMEF projects to better further our conservation outreach.

Earlier in 2017, our Facebook page surpassed the half a million mark in "likes." We routinely reach more than one million people on a weekly basis. Our Instagram page, launched only a few years ago, now tops 90,000 followers and we now have more than one million page views on the RMEF YouTube Channel.

And then there's our blog, Elk Tracks, that we launched four months after my hiring date. It has more than 1.5 million page views. That number will continue to grow but the the number of posts will not. The 506th and final post explains why there won't be a 507th. RMEF just unveiled a new online, digital hub for all things elk and elk country. It's called the Elk Network and that's where I'll be focusing a great deal of my time alongside our new digital media director. Check it out!

So the bottom line is after more than four and a half years, I was asked to give up the keys to RMEF's social media outreach efforts. While I'm still intimately involved with everyday social media efforts, I'm now in the passenger's seat. And I gotta tell you that the view is still pretty good.

I Would Kill for a Bag of Doritos

I would kill for a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos. The only problem is I couldn't eat them if I had them. Oral surgery earlier this week saw to that. Now I'm on this diet of overly soft foods that, if I eat enough, sort of fill me up but certainly don't satisfy me.

Here's the deal. I got braces way back in my junior high school days. I distinctly remember my orthodontist lecturing me about the importance of brushing both my teeth and my gums to make sure they remain clean and healthy. I'm not saying I brushed my gums to death but I wasn't as gentle on them as I should've been.

Fast forward to a handful of decades later and I had recession that needed medical attention. My dentist kept telling me to get gum grafting done but I didn't have any pain. They never bothered me.

"Does cold water bother your teeth? Don't you have any sensitivity?" they asked year after year.

"No, I'm totally insensitive," I responded again and again.

Still, I finally realized I had to get this done because the pain would come one day. Or worse, maybe some of my teeth would just fall out. When I was a kid I'd watched both my grandpas deal with false teeth and I definitely don't want to go there.

I was given a pill to take prior to the gum grafting procedure that I was told knocks out 90 percent of patients. Well, count me among the "lucky" 10 percent, so I laid there in a quasi-loopy state as the needles came out and the shots went in followed by the scalpel and the removal of tissue from the roof of my mouth followed by transplanting it over three of my lower teeth. It didn't hurt but (not to get too graphic) I could feel the cuts being made and the stitches going in both the top of my mouth and over my teeth below. It was an eerie, icky kind of thing. Beforehand, the nurse did give me shades for my eyes and earphones to better dull my senses and so I didn't have to hear anything--other than the country music they played (ugh). Where's classic rock when you really, really need it?

Now I may sound like I'm complaining. I don't mean to do so (too much). I fully appreciate and applaud modern technology and the skills of a talented surgeon that make such procedures an in-and-out kind of deal. Heck, I walked in at 8:15 a.m. and my wife helped out to the car only some two and a half hours later.

The thing is, outside of routine checkups, I just don't like any kind of work on my teeth--AT ALL! It goes back to when I was about 10 or 11 years old. I visited the dentist to have a few baby teeth removed to clear the way for permanent teeth to follow. I was told it would be relatively quick and easy. The thing is one of them just didn't want to let go. It had some sort of stubborn root or something that snapped off so the dentist had to dig out. As I laid there, the procedure seemed to go on F-O-R-E-V-E-R! I was traumatized. I had other teeth pulled later in life, including four when I received braces in my early teens and wisdom teeth my senior  year of high school, but the mental scars were there. And with all that in mind, then came my most recent oral adventure.

Battered but not defeated

Right now, three days after the procedure, I look in the mirror and my face is still puffy and swollen. My wife commented that it has the shape of a woman's body. You know, kinda curvy but more slender in the middle than the top and bottom. Ice pack treatments applied multiple times a day aren't seeming to kick in and help that yet. And I've got purple and yellow bruising that's now seeping through and showing up on my face. I'm kinda afraid to see what the inside looks like but my mouth is still too sore to pry open and get an all-encompassing, panoramic view.

I also don't like the hazy, semi-thick-headed feeling of taking a cycle of medication. Good thing I'm done with most of that by the weekend. The doctor also told me not to talk because I need to heal. I get that because it hurts when I do. But what really bugs me is the pulsating that I feel in the top of my mouth when I'm really still--like when I'm sitting quietly or (worse) as I lay in bed at night trying to fall asleep. I always thought my heart was in my chest, not located immediately above the roof of my mouth. What's up with that slow beating sensation?

And that takes me back full circle to the food dilemma. I'm currently eating yogurt, soups, overcooked pasta, bread and milk, Chef Boyardee ravioli, graham crackers and milk, pulverized Ritz crackers sprinkled into soup and not gummed down with my tongue until everything is overly soggy--you get the idea. What I wouldn't give to open wide and take a massive bite out of a burger, an apple, corn on the cob, SweetTarts or Spree, a candy bar, french fries...you get the picture.

Oh yeah, the oral surgeon says my mouth won't fully heal for two to six months. I guess I'll have to stockpile my Doritos until then. Heavy, heavy sigh!