rig

if only money grew on trees.

September 29, 2011 By lissa 4 Comments

This is Ashton. He is 8-years-old and loves to laugh. He likes fish and puffins, wrestling with his twin brother, and playing football and basketball. He also loves money. Like, a little obsessively. He can sit for hours and count pennies and tally coins. He once wanted to be a banker when he grows up, but then decided there was too much paperwork.

He has devoted three months of his time to raising money for charity: water. He hopes to bring in at least $600 to help purchase a drilling rig that can drill near 80 wells each YEAR in countries that so desperately need clean water.

A poem, by Ashton:

Can you help? Every penny counts. Just ask Ashton. Donate here. Or maybe you can help spread the word on Facebook and Twitter? Thank.You.

Linking up to You Capture! This week’s theme — green.

Filed Under: kids, my life Tagged With: Africa, Ashton, boys, charity: water, drilling, fundraising, kids, photos, poem, raising money, rig, twins, water well

insta*takes

August 9, 2011 By lissa 1 Comment

I seem to have missed last Friday’s instaFriday {friday, saturday, where did you go? sunday?}, so today you get insta*takes! I’ve got to show off all those lovely little instagram photos somehow, right?

Another week flew right by me, which means we are almost at the start of the school year.

That means: school clothes shopping… my daughter loves, but my wallet does not. Because every 7th grade girl must have this and this and NOBODY wears THOSE anymore. They are so last year.

Erin and Jaida came to visit and now that the girls are supersitters, we left them home with the young’uns and headed out for a wild night on the town filled with lavash and blackjack.

We burned off the calories once we got home by having an intense dance competition. I won, of course.

The next day, we took the girls to their much-anticipated week at summer camp. Of course, I made them pose for the obligatory photo outside of their cabin, because I pretend to be THAT MOM just to embarrass them.

While she was gone, the twins and I had some quality one-on-one time. It was spent playing games and reading in, you know, boxes. Only I couldn’t really squeeze my ass into a box.

Speaking of asses and things that don’t fit, I’ve been busy working on a super-secret project for my other site, The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans. The great unveiling will take place next week! SUSPENSE!

That new carpet we put in last week? Wet. Soaking wet. Because of this storm and lots of water in window wells, which leads to water in the basement:

Throw in a quick trip to the rig and the bunkhouse and there you have it, a week gone by in the blink of an eye.

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Filed Under: kids, my life, photos Tagged With: august, bunkhouse, daughter, friends, fun, instagram, kids, middle school, my life, rig, shopping, time flying by

in the eye of the beholder

April 30, 2011 By lissa 4 Comments

beauty can be found anywhere

what is beautiful in your life today?

Filed Under: north dakota, oilfield, photos Tagged With: drilling, north dakota, oil, oil industry, patterson 491, photos, rig

rig life [giveaway]

November 18, 2010 By lissa 13 Comments

**Update: Winner is Tirah!**

My husband is gone. A lot. We often drive to wherever he happens to be working and stay on location with him. We stay in a “shack”. They usually consist of a bedroom or two (we get really excited when it’s a 2-bedroom WITH bunk beds), a bathroom with washer and dryer, kitchen (again, excitement bubbles over when there is a dishwasher), living/dining area and an office for the husband. It has cable TV and (slooow) internet.

It’s kind of like a mini-vacation. I don’t really have to cook or clean, I do all our laundry before we leave so I don’t take home dirty clothes, and I get to catch up on my reading.


photo by Ashton

We come up with imaginative things to do (last weekend, we threw socks at each other and whoever missed the most times lost). We draw, play cards, and have Monopoly marathons (which I never win). We are game junkies.

I recently received the Cranium game Scribblish and figured what better time to break it out then at the rig.

The game is played by each person writing down a caption off their card, then drawing a picture to go along with it. The scrolls are mixed up, then each player gets a different one, looks at the drawing, and then writes their own caption and drawing based on that. This continues for four turns. At the end, you look at the last drawing on each scroll and try to guess which one was yours originally.

The twins are 7 and the recommended age is 8+, but they enjoyed it nonetheless. We did end up with a lot of “poop” and “fart” drawings, though. Imagine that. Boys.

Today, I have one Scribblish game to give away to one of you! To enter, just comment below telling me what your favorite game is!

Contest will run through Tuesday, November 18th at 11:59 p.m. Central. Winner will be randomly chosen and announced the following day. Good luck!

Disclosure: The Scribblish game, product information and additional game to give away were all given to you by Hasbro through MyBlogSpark.

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Filed Under: kids Tagged With: games, MyBlogSpark, rig, scribblish

missing.

September 9, 2010 By lissa 4 Comments

North Dakota can be pretty. In the summer.

My husband’s been away at work for over three weeks. We kind of miss him around here.

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Filed Under: north dakota, photos Tagged With: husband, north dakota, oil industry, rig

Lazy.

January 24, 2010 By lissa 4 Comments

First things first, remember this? I promised to give a $50 gift card to either Target.com or Amazon.com to one lucky person who donated to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society on my behalf through my Team in Training page! Those of you who didn’t donate, ~~go now, please?~~ you still can. Just sayin’.

The winner is Brooke!! Thank you to ALL who have donated thus far. I am keeping a running list of these awesome people on the sidebar, so check it out.

**Justin has given me his blessing to attend FitBloggin in Baltimore the weekend of March 19th. Now, I just need the price of plane tickets to fall, a sponsor, or a small miracle. Anyone have good tips on finding airfare deals?

**The twins started winter soccer in the dome a few weeks ago. We actually went at the wrong time the first day, so they played with the U8 (2nd graders) players. They chose to stay with the older kids for the duration of soccer instead of going to the easier level with kids their own age! They are small, but they love it.

**Bridger received more mail from NASA! He was beyond excited!

**Justin’s rig is slated to move to a new location, so he was able to come home and work from home for a few days. This is the first time he’s been home in a month! We are having a lazy Sunday and planning on watching some football! Go Colts! I’m even more excited because this means the Christmas tree will finally be put away. I didn’t know how to unhook all the lights and crap, and only discovered that I didn’t know this when I started taking it apart. It has been laying in my formal living room on the ground since. Ugh.

Happy Sunday!

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Filed Under: photos, random Tagged With: fitbloggin, plane tickets, rig, soccer, twins

Conveniently forgot to mention…

February 8, 2009 By lissa 8 Comments

My husband and I were sitting on the couch a minute ago, and he mentioned how we should move out-of-state. I have been on him about this subject for the last year. I would love, love to go back to Colorado. Anywhere. He told me to go look at the Baker Hughes Rig Count.

Somehow, he has just never mentioned to me that there is drilling north of Denver. Um, hello. Last time I checked it was all near the western side and by Rifle. When did this happen? And get this… he said he would move to a smaller town near Denver if he could get work in that area.

That’s all it takes to get me excited. ;o)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: moving, rig

Classy

November 12, 2008 By lissa 5 Comments

The roads were semi-clear on Saturday morning, so the kids and I headed out for a long weekend. I started the afternoon off at Euphoria Salon where my favorite hairstylist, Candace, rescued my roots. Nancy and my Dad watched the kids Saturday night so I could have a much-needed break from them.

I headed out with Erin to play bingo at the bar -we love our bingo!! Our friend Sarah joined us. I won $46, which split three ways = BIG MONEY! ;o) We played some blackjack after that and I am pretty sure we were the most obnoxious blackjack players ever… whooping and cheering every time we won a hand. That’s how we roll, we’re cool! We continued our night at the ‘Gon where we stuffed our drunken faces with greasy goodness. I managed to dump a pitcher of water all over our table. Oh, and did I mention I dropped my drink and broke the glass earlier in the night? Sweet.

Sunday morning, we woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Not really. Someone had the great idea that knoephla soup would cure our hangovers, so we called all the restaurants and cafes in town, but NOBODY HAD KNOEPHLA. Can you imagine?? How dare they. Instead, we had to settle for the smorg’ at Happy Joes. Nasty. I hate buffets. We were stylin’. I was wearing my sweatpants and brown boots and Erin was rocking in her sweats and stocking cap. Sarah looked pretty fancy next to us. ;o)

It was awesome to have a girls’ night… I really think I need to do that more often.

I picked up the kids (minus my daughter) and we headed out to the rig for a few days to visit with Justin. It was nice and relaxing. I love being out there and not having to worry about cleaning and cooking!

This one is for you honey… Look what was in our yard. Five of them. Don’t you dare think you are going to shoot my pet pheasants.

Filed Under: my life Tagged With: rig

Riggin’ It

October 24, 2008 By lissa 7 Comments

We’ve been spending the last few days with Justin out on the rig in the middle of nowhere. He’s been busy, but I managed to steal him away for a quick Photo-venture. ;o) I had a funny oilfield song for you to listen to as well, but this internet is dang slow out here. I will try and post it tomorrow!

Happy Weekend!

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: rig

Busted.

July 20, 2008 By lissa 6 Comments

We spent the weekend at the rig hanging out with Justin. For those of you who are wondering what the rig is and what they do, I am going to make my husband collaborate on a blog with me where we will explain what it is and what goes on later this week.

Yesterday, we went out to eat for lunch and while we were there a storm came through. It poured and poured and there was dime-sized hail. We later discovered that the roof of my Subaru was completely dented. ;o( And THEN, the same storm traveled to the SE, 250 miles away, and got my house. As far as I can see, the siding is damaged in a few spots and there are some shingles laying around the yard. There are a few dents here and there, but for the most part I think we lucked out since the hail was tennis ball-sized!!