When Russell got home on Tuesday night it was supposed to be for good. Some jerk named Randy called me on Wednesday and said that he needed to be at the shop at 6am the next morning. He went back to the Rattlesnake Complex fire. It's about 45 miles from Boise. These pictures are all of that fire. They don't expect to have it completely contained until October 15th so he will probably be gone for the entire two weeks... and he still has the camera.

This is a New England Turkey burger with the works. I don't know if you can really tell, but it's on an English muffin. I got the recipe from the Rachael Ray magazine website. I'm so glad that the weather has started cooling off - it puts me in a cooking new recipes kind of mood. Know what I mean? In the summer, you just want something easy, something familiar that you don't have to go back and forth to a recipe for. I do anyway...

How good does this look?

I should be studying right now. Really.

I did all my Saturday errands and two loads of laundry after work yesterday so that I could have today just for school. Well, it's after 2:30 and I still haven't even cracked my books. I'm going to pick up some prints from the camera shop and then that's it. School.

Russell is not on a fire. He is on standby. I don't think they'll be gone very long this time.

I took Otis out to play at the school and there were some other dogs there. Have you ever seen him do the thing where he punches with his nose? None of the other dogs wanted to play with him so he tries to make them mad by giving them a little push with his nose. It's pretty funny. All the other dog people were laughing.

I better get to it.

Okay, I am freezing! It is 47 degrees right now and I am seriously thinking about wearing my snow clothes to work. I turned on the heat last night. Don't you love the smell of the heat? It reminds me of the holidays. It is definitely fall in Boise now. This weekend I am going to go buy a Macintosh apple candle. Maybe I should buy a few long sleeve t-shirts, too...

Last time I talked to Russell he was on the south shore of Lake Tahoe. They are staying in a hotel this time, at least, they did last night. He still doesn't know where they are going. I looked up the fires in California and I think he's going to the Bassetts wildfire. It's not very big and half of it has been contained - I'm hoping that's the one. Cross your fingers, will ya?

So, Russell left this morning. He thinks he is headed for the California/Tahoe area but he isn't really sure. He was supposed to be at the shop at 5 am and we didn't even wake up until 5:20. They have to sign out all their fire gear and everything so it's not that big of a deal. I was just worried that he was going to have to drive. He called me this morning and reassured me that they were not going to make him drive. He got home on Friday night so he was home for 5 days. It was fun to have him home. Last night we made burgers and we put garlic in them - so good. After dinner we walked down the street to this little ice cream shop in Hyde Park. I had raspberry and Russell had a turtle sunday. If any of you guys come to visit us, I'll take you there. They had these homemade caramels that looked so good! They also have sliced caramel apples - genius.

Anyway, Russell took the digital camera this time so I probably won't have any pictures until he gets home - hopefully then we'll have some cool fire pictures to post...

Thank you, Dylan. For the rest of the week I am going to post an Intentionally Inflammatory statement everyday just to see what yawl (have I been in Idaho too long?) have to say.

Day #1: I'm sorry (no I'm not) but there is just not that big of a difference between HD or plasma or whatever and my regular old tv. Of course it looks good when you go to Costco, it's the warehouse lighting.

Say what you will.

So, last weekend I made my duvet cover. Next up, a bedskirt.

I was just thinking. Who made the first shake? This guy was so lazy that he didn't even want to waste the energy bringing a utensil from the ice cream bowl up to his mouth. He wanted to be able to eat ice cream through a straw and he figured it out. Genius. I am forever indebted to you Mr. Ice Cream Shake Inventor. Forever indebted.

Alexa sent me this awesome picture and I think it's fair game to post. I thought she said this is at the World Championships and she told me that she won weapons which, while I'm not totally sure what that means, sounds awesome.

I didn't think Russell was going to have any cell phone service on this fire but I talked to him tonight. He said that where he is, the fire is moving really slow. They don't have an expected containment date. Russell thinks he'll be there for the whole 14 days. At least they are only about 45 miles from Boise so he'll be home for sure after that. I found a website with an update.

http://www.inciweb.org/incident/439/

I feel like I got so much done today. I love feeling that way. Our apartment is all cleaned up, the laundry is all done (I had to go to the laundromat), my homework is done, my checkbook is even balanced. I have a test on Thursday so I still have some studying to do but everything else is done. I don't even have one errand to run on Monday. The day off and nothing to do - it's going to be great.

Russell was home for a couple of days this week. I dropped him off this morning and he is already working on the Rattlesnake Complex fire. It is close by Cascade which is not too too far away. I don't really know why but that makes me feel better. Anyway, I haven't found a good website for it yet but I guess this fire is over 24,000 acres. I'll post a link when I find a good one.

Our little apartment gets to be such a mess and that gets to driving me really crazy. I always have a hard time when it's back to school. I like everything to be all cleaned up before I feel like I can really concentrate on school stuff. Whatever, it might just be an excuse...

Some new neighbors moved in next door. I haven't seen them yet but I've heard them. Otis has too and I'm sure I don't have to explain when I say they have heard him as well. He runs up and down the hall like a maniac. You know how some parents can just completely ignore their children even after the childs reapeted attemps at getting some attention (Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad), I have gotten to that point with the barking. I don't even hear it and it's nice.

I love the fall. This week we had much cooler weather. We opened the windows and by the time we closed them our whole apartment smelled like the fall air. Do you know what I mean? It smells... cold. It is supposed to be hot again this weekend but the break was really nice.

Work is good, school so far is going well, hopefully this will be Russell's last fire and then we start househunting. Everything is good.