WALK ON THE WILD SIDE. Went for a lovely wildflower walk last night with a small group exploring Rim Country; a 3000 acre nature conservancy near Billings.

Damage to Ponderosa Pines by porcupines.

Damage to trees by woodpeckers. One side is all brown where they have drilled all the bark off; the other has bark on it and is more grey toned.

Beautiful larkspur.

Fern with little flowers that for me, shall remain unnamed! There were many other varieties, including lots of primroses.

Sistahs. Had a great weekend. Marci flew in for Cinda's early bachelorette party. Had dinner at Enzo's then to a karoake bar for some singing; they continued on to more "festive" places and mom went home early. Good conversation, other family visits, just hanging out. Was nice to be together in a relaxed time.

FUEL. As I was driving to Bozeman the other day, I was so fueled by desire to see more of this great country of ours. It was a gorgeous day, lots of snow in the mountains (I need to start carrying my camera with me!). And speaking of fuel, my car got 44 mpg. Although small, light cars are not terrif in our winters, they sure save $$.

The trip to Boze was a success; I landed a job as the Executive Director of a Council on which I was previously a member. It is part-time with very flexible days/weeks of work time. Perfect fit for what I wanted; I will office from my home, and I can still do consulting/training on my own as well. Pay is fairly minimal, but enough to likely enable me to get into my own place later this fall. Start date maybe a month from now, and more about it later.

We have summer this weekend! And I get to spend the day with daughter and grandboys.

Yes, good things do come to those who wait! Ah, patience never was my virtue, but I'm working on it. (After 27 months in Morcco, you'd think I'd have it down pat!)

GETTING MY GAME BACK. Participated in the annual Women's Run yesterday, and my time was okay but much slower than the last one three years ago, so need to still ramp up the workouts a bit and get in shape to hike. Played cards last night, though, and I had a bit of luck and was more successful at that! Still seem to be struggling with lack of concrete goals and not doing well at taking it a day at a time. I was getting more accustomed to the "Inshallah" (if God wills it) culture than I realized!

Have work doing seminars for a medical facility this week as well as a job interview. Looking forward to seeing my daughter Cinda and her boys. And more sun is predicted for this week, hurray!

VARIETY AND VOLUNTEERING. Evidence of my change in lifestyle from Morocco. Last night I attended Artwalk in downtown Billings with several women friends. Today I am covering a booth all day for homeWORD (for whom I am the AmeriCorp volunteer) at the Sustainability Expo. homeWORD builds green housing for low-income people; most properties are in Missoula but they have two in Billings. Next week I will spend a morning assisting with packet pickups for the Women's Run (which I will walk in on May 9th) and an afternoon on the Women's Build Day for Habitat for Humanity, putting siding on a house. It's good that I can experience some degree of satisfaction from those activities because...

My first Financial Fitness class will be delayed as we don't have registrants. It's very hard to market this class, so my supervisor and I have appointments with several social service agencies to try to get some of their clients, who so desparately need the information/skills, to attend. Many lending institutions require people to attend the First Time Homebuyer class, so my co-worker is very busy with that, but no one, at this time, requires the more basic class, which most/all of the low-income first time homebeuyers really do need. I think one of the big problems now will be the time of year...who wants to sit in an evening class in the summer, especially this year, when good weather has been so delayed?! So, it is a bit discouraging but we'll continue to pursue it and hopefully can begin classes in a few weeks.