About Shelly

This is the second of two blogs that I keep up. The first is what I call my “thought” blog and can be found at http://www.rashellbud.wordpress.com. It focuses on faith and inspiration, the experiences of supporting my mom through her journey with Lewy Body Dementia, and the crazy fun of teaching high school and middle school language arts.

In contrast, I started SmallStuffLiving almost a year ago, several months after returning “home” to the beloved rural area in Eastern Washington where I grew up. When I first left for the Seattle area to attend the University of Washington, I didn’t anticipate returning to live … not because I wanted to shake the dust off my feet or “get out of this no-where town” as many young people do … I just figured that season was over. I truly loved living on the “Coast” (as locals on the Eastside call anywhere west of the Cascades). But as our visits “home” became more and more frequent, it became apparent to My Guy and I that we were going to need to come back. Reason number one was Mom’s health.

“I don’t know what it is,” My Guy said to me one day as our car carried us down Snoqualmie Pass to the wide open spaces surrounding Ellensburg, “but every time we drive out of the mountains and into the desert, I feel light hearted … freer, somehow.”

This was a little shocking considering he often moaned that he didn’t think he could live away from the water and trees of the Puget Sound area. Yet, here we are … a mile from the Idaho Border on the edge of Whitman County, with hot and dry rolling hills to the south and lakes and pine trees to the north. About an hour to the closest shopping malls, chain restaurants, and movie theaters, we don’t know if we’ve ever been happier (as long as we don’t focus on the fact that one of our kids is still on the “Coast” and the other a three hour plane ride away.)

It’s been wild to settle into our little town of 800 or so people, where I am both an insider (earned from growing up 12 miles from here and that all the “old-timers” know my mom) and an outsider (nearly 40 years on the “Coast” earned me that label). This blog will capture the adventures of settling into an old house (for which we have only minimal ambitions for restoring since we’re not the fixer-up types), reclaiming a hundred year old yard that has been completely neglected and laid bare of all flowers, and reclaiming some land in my hometown where we hope to put a blueberry patch someday.

COVID-19 adjustments and my Mom’s sudden passing after a bad fall, have slowed plans for this blog a bit, but I’m ramping up for another go at it and am thrilled you found your way here.

Oh … one thing that will help you understand me. When I say “Town” I mean Spokane or any place that the rest of the world would call a city … because that’s what the locals say around here.

Cheers … and happy reading,

Shelly