Your source for news in Hot Springs County
Your source for news in Hot Springs County
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After asking around amongst friends and acquaintances, it appears that April 1st is not a common or even uncommon date upon which to celebrate Easter. The irony of having the greatest day of Christianity on April Fools Day is not lost on skeptics who take great pleasure in pointing out that irony to the discomfort to those of us who value to the utmost the person and position of Jesus Christ. Churches around the world will be crowded, though less so than I remember as a child, with "once a year" visitors who recognize the preeminence of the cen...
As we go through life there are often certain times or certain images that stick in our memories. As we approach Easter this Sunday, I look back on all the Easters I spent growing up here in Thermopolis and have to laugh at a few of those memories. As an only child, for some reason my family thought it would be cute for my mother and I to have matching outfits every Easter, and to be honest, sometimes it was OK. I vividly remember one Easter, I was probably four or five-years old, when mom and I...
Being a good Irish girl, my ancestral time for drinking and frivolity arrives this weekend. It is accompanied by corned beef and cabbage along with Irish soda bread. And yes, I may imbibe in a Bailey’s Irish float or two. One side of my family is Irish, the other side Scottish, so cabbage in all its possible forms was a staple in our house and I truly do love the sound of Scottish bagpipes. They will bring tears to my eyes every time. I think one of the funniest stories my grandmother ever told...
Can you feel it? Spring gets closer every day, and we’ve almost got another Wyoming winter in the books. But as spring acts as time of awakening for Mother Nature, take as a chance to open your own eyes to problems you might otherwise pass by. Our state is facing some drastic budgetary cuts, particularly with regard to our schools. That means budgets have to be cut at the local level as well, and our students are having to pay the penalties. Sure, there’s plenty of great things happening in the...
Just like everyone else, sometimes my mornings don’t start out the greatest. Maybe I forgot to set the timer on the coffee pot or I woke up later than usual, you know, the kinds of things that make you grumpy right off the bat. I have to say, though, regardless of how my morning starts, somewhere around 7:45 I always have a smile on my face. I don’t know who she is, I don’t know her name, but she is there on the corner by the church, Monday through Friday, rain, snow or sunshine, helping our s...
Thanks to this past weekend, I can now add “mount a microwave above a range” to my resumé, though it’s also painfully obvious — extremely so — that I won’t be signing up with any home renovation companies in the foreseeable future. Since the snow and cold were keeping my family and the visiting in-laws from doing much outside, we decided to take on some indoor projects to get them out of the way. For my wife and mother-in-law, it was getting their taxes filed. For me and my father-in-la...
So here we are, one of my favorite days of the year – the day after Valentine’s Day. Yes, if you know me, I’m very much a salty, spicy, chips eating kind of girl, but I must confess, I am sometimes a closet chocolate eater. Hence, today is one of the best as everything Valentine’s related has gone into the discount bin and just before closing you may find me at the store sifting through the leftover goodies that other girls in town did not get from their special someone. Milk chocolate is, of...
It’s time for the greeting card companies, chocolatiers and florists to really get busy, as Valentine’s Day is just a week away. Whatever your plans for Feb. 14, there’s no doubt that February brings with it the feeling of love in the air. Though you might feel pressured into buying something traditional for your special someone, whether it be jewelry, flowers, tasty treats or hand tools, keep in mind there’s alternatives as well. I’m not saying don’t buy the love of your life something,...
I have an arrangement with my landlord. I am going to die in this house...because I detest moving. He’s OK with that. We all go through life gathering this and that, not really thinking about all the items we have picked up along the way. That is until we decide to move. While its amazing the things I have found during this latest moving adventure, it is even more amazing to realize the places I’ve been, the connections with family and friends, old photos and assorted trinkets I’ve found. Every...
As any parent knows, one of the responsibilities that comes with having children is making sure visits from the Tooth Fairy happen. That little pixie had already visited my five-year-old twice, but I guess he wanted another chance to try and spot her so after a bit of amateur dental surgery he successfully removed his latest loose tooth. Now, in the past, the Tooth Fairy has left coins, but this time she decided to go with paper money. She didn’t know Mike is a big fan of shows and movies w...
An interesting question came up recently about the weather in Thermopolis. “Did we have more snow when you were a kid than we have now?” I would have to say yes, even taking into consideration that I’m taller than I was as a kid (OK, not by much), I remember huge amounts of snow. For us, snow generally started at Halloween requiring us to have costumes several sizes larger in order to fit over our snow suits. It stayed, sometimes until Easter. I even remember a snow storm in June during Wildc...
We’re a couple weeks into 2018, a time where I’ve typically reneged on a couple of those resolutions I made in the late hours of Dec. 31. This year, I decided to try a new tactic. Rather than just give up after the first couple failures, I’m looking at the bigger picture and reminding myself that there’s still 354 days to make my goals. While that seems like a long time, I also know those days are already passing quickly and I’ve got to keep my eye on that end goal. But, in looking ahead to...
We’ve been seeing some frigid temperatures each morning and of course, no one wants to get into a cold car, but starting it up and letting it idle may not be the best idea. According to Popular Mechanics, starting your vehicle in the cold and letting it idle may actually be damaging your engine. Internal combustion engines use pistons to compress a mixture of air and vaporized fuel within a cylinder. That mixture is then ignited to create a little controlled explosion that powers your engine. W...
If you’re anything like me, for the last few weeks you’ve been going at full speed, wedging in everything you can, between shopping and concerts to family gatherings and parties with friends. It kind of reminds me of those nights when Cookie and Cupcake decide they’re going to fly through the house at full speed at 3 a.m., sounding more like a herd of elephants than the delicate kitties they are. It usually starts with a little boxing match at the top of the cat tree, then one of them leaps...
The final weeks of the year are finally here. If you’re on the ball, you’ve got those holiday presents all ready to go and under the tree, any travel plans set out, the halls decked and the menu planned. Or, if you’re more like me, you’re still scrambling to find those final perfect gifts, and wondering why you just didn’t decide to send gift cards and family pictures to everyone instead. And don’t even get me started on wrapping. It’ll be a Christmas miracle if I can locate all the spots I’v...
I am perpetually amazed at the talent that abounds in the children of Thermopolis. Not just amazed, but incredibly proud, too. All you have to do is attend a concert or a play or dance performance and you’ll know what I mean. Take our Drama Club, for example. These kids went to the state competition in Casper last weekend and rocked the boards. Not only did they present the best proscenium performance in the state, they brought home a majority of the All State titles, too. Reminds me of the i...
With the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having recently, it’s left plenty of opportunity for me to take the kiddos out and about. This past weekend, of course, we had to hit the downtown for their visit with Mr. and Mrs. Claus. The Clauses arrived in a spectacular fashion aboard a vehicle from the Hot Springs Volunteer Fire Department, lights flashing and an eager crowd waiting on the sidewalk to welcome them. Of course, the figure of Santa can be a bit overwhelming. My own kids shied beh...
Occasionally thoughts more profound than, “What’s for dinner?” and , “Are you washing clothes tomorrow?” cross my mind. I visualize happenings such as running into an acquaintance who asks, “What do you think about eternity?” or, “What are we going to do about the at-risk dams around the country?” It’s at times like these that I remove my glasses, making sure I point at least one bow at the person who would dare ask such a question on a nice fall day, and reply, “Now there’s a question for one to ponder.” I do that in hopes that by the time I w...
The other day while working out, my attention was suddenly focused on an oldie/goldie, “Donna”, that brought into my memory the picture of a lowly junior boy falling in love for the first time with a popular senior girl who miraculously made a place in her heart for him - me - if only temporarily. It’s strange how things were going on in the world that were even more important than that cataclysmic event. For example, at the same time there was a leader coming to the fore that was in the process of beginning the battle to overthrow an autho...
There are certain times of the year when one reflects on the past, and for me, Thanksgiving is one of those times. I remember, as a kid growing up in Thermopolis, that our house was where the whole family gathered for dinner. Aunts, uncles and cousins, my grandparents and my mother and I, all sitting together in the dining room, spilling over into the living room. Grandma was always up at the crack of dawn making her homemade dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls and getting the big bird in the oven....
“Yippy-ki-yay!” is currently my five-year-old favorite phrase to shout as we head out the door and load up to head to the school. I’m not sure if I was ever that excited to go to classes, but it makes me thankful that he has that enthusiasm. We’re currently in the season of Thanksgiving, though in recent years “Turkey Day” has taken somewhat of a backseat to its holiday neighbors Halloween and Christmas. Of course, there isn’t as much widespread production around Thanksgiving. Halloween has...
For as long as I can remember, Halloween has been my favorite holiday. Yes, even more than Christmas when I was growing up. It was mainly due to the amount of festivity that came with it. Sure, Christmas had presents, Thanksgiving had plenty of food — and both meant visits and mischief with a multitude of cousins. Even Independence Day provided me with liberty to experiment with small, and sometimes not so legal in Nebraska or elsewhere, pyrotechnics. But, Halloween bested them all. I think it w...
I absolutely love fall. Its like suddenly, you walk outside and there is a completely different scent in the air -- the scent of leaves getting ready to fall. Of course, that means pulling out the sweaters, but by three o'clock, you're so hot you wish you'd worn a t shirt instead. Folks are starting to fire up their wood stoves and fireplaces in the evenings, adding the scent of burning wood to air, too. Don't forget about pumpkin patches and the fun that can be had running through the field...
A friend of mine writing for the state paper concluded a litany of experiences growing up in the early days of the 20th century including the outhouse, lack of running water, coal burning stoves etc. He concluded with a comment that idealistic progressives would certainly eventually do us in as a civilization. Because that probably describes me, I got to thinking about whether those idealistic progressives have really had that much to do with the current condition of our beloved country, and I concluded that he was absolutely correct. Some...
The time has finally come when the temperature drops enough to make me think about stepping outside with a jacket, and once again I’ll be stubborn enough to keep it hanging on the rack for just a few days more. I like the fall because it gives a nice reprieve between the heat of summer and the chill of winter, a time where the weather is just perfect in my opinion. I also remember fondly waiting for my folks and older brothers to rake up the leaves in the yard. As I was still a bit small to b...
