It's been a long three weeks. The first week was the Montana History trip. The second week was the Creston Auction. The third week (now) is a week of suffering through the worst cold I can ever remember having. My head is full of at least a gallon of snot, my ears are stuffed up, and I have a cough that won't quit. Oh, and I have laryngitis (dear Mom, please don't call me and ask how I am doing because I really can't talk—and stop worrying about me, I'll be fine). DD#1 is home from college on spring break and I just can't enjoy her visit as much as I would like because I feel so crummy. Blah.

To top it off, two dogs are in my office hunting mousies. I am glad they are on patrol, but we will have to get some traps set. I do not allow mousies in my house.

The Creston Auction is the annual fundraising event for our volunteer fire department. It's been held every year for the past 45 years, and our chief estimates it has raised over a million dollars for our department. I cannot adequately convey the scope of this event. A planning group of us begins meeting in January. Over 200 volunteers are required to make it all happen. Several thousand people will come through the auction grounds on the two days of the sale. It really is "the social event of the spring" here in western Montana.

I can't remember how long I've been involved in the auction. When the kids were little, I'd go for a few hours and help sell food in the concession stand. Eventually I got roped into helping set up for the food sales. When our PR person left, I inherited the PR job (or, as it's known in the fire service, Public Information Officer). A few years ago I became treasurer of the firefighters' association, which eventually led to me being in charge of all things monetary for the auction. Of all the auction jobs I have had, the job of Finance Section Chief is the one I enjoy the most. I don't think of it as being particularly stressful, but apparently the past couple of weeks have really taken it out of me and I fell victim to a stupid virus.

This year's auction was plagued by bad weather (snow, wind, rain, sleet—we had it all), so our attendance and sales were down. We still made a significant amount of money for the department, though.

This tent is where my kids spent most of the weekend. The youth group from our church comes and cooks brats and polish sausages. It's a great learning experience for the kids and they have a good time. My MIL spent most of her time at the fire hall helping to wash dishes.

I love that this is a family experience and I think it's one that my kids will remember fondly when they are grown up. The sense of community here is one of the things I dearly love about Montana.

The Flathead County Sheriff's Posse comes and patrols the grounds for us on horseback. (Note that this picture was taken during one of the rare five-minute periods when we actually had sunshine.)

Next week I need to get back to transcriptionist work. I've enjoyed the three-week hiatus, but there is a lot of classwork that still needs to be done. I am giving myself permission to be sick until Monday, though. Better to do that than to push to hard and end up even sicker.

And knitting . . . I took advantage of this time to make myself a very colorful scarf out of some recycled silk yarn from Nepal that I bought at Mountain Spun in Helena while on the Montana History trip. It's just a simple garter rib pattern and it's been great because I just haven't had the brainpower for anything more complicated. It'll be a wonderful scarf to wear with jeans and a T-shirt this summer (that's assuming we ever get summer). Next week I'd like to get started on a sweater out of that Pacific yarn I mentioned in the last post.

In the meantime, it's the couch and a lot of tea and chicken soup for me.