Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
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While most people spent Thanksgiving worrying about overcooking the gravy or forgetting the rolls in the oven, I spent mine on my knees praying to the culinary gods that my turkey wouldn't explode. Yes, explode. Not because that's a normal concern, but because I've seen National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and if you think I'm above imagining my bird turning into a puff of Thanksgiving confetti, you're wrong. In that movie, Cousin Eddie's wife's turkey is cut into at the...
This year, I’m hosting my first Thanksgiving at my own house, meaning chaos, smoke alarms, and the very real possibility that someone will eat all the stuffing before dinner. And yet, as I run through my mental checklist of mashed potatoes, gravy, and rolls, my mind drifts to the seats I wish were filled. Not just family, but friends from a Thanksgiving many years ago, far from home in Sierra Vista, Arizona, Fort Huachuca, Advanced Individual Training (AIT). I was 20 years old and facing my first holiday without my family. T...
I always thought Thanksgiving was supposed to be cozy, heartwarming, and vaguely magical. I did not realize it involved a 14.5-pound turkey that outweighs my Wiener dog, Winnie, and roughly the same amount of panic I feel every time I try to cook anything larger than a frozen pizza. This week, I officially embarked on my first at-home Thanksgiving in my very own tiny house. Just me, the turkey, and enough sides to feed a small army — or at least seven or eight humans who may or may not comfortably fit in my living room. I...
This week, I checked a couple of things off my personal “life challenge” list — and lived to tell the tale. I finished my 12-week gym program (yes, the one where I discovered muscles I didn’t know existed), and I attended the Veterans Day assembly in Davenport. One of those accomplishments comes with sore quads, the other with a lump in your throat. Both came with lessons I’ll carry forward. Even though I’m still in the National Guard and not technically a veteran, Veterans Day always makes me stop and think about the people...
You know what's scarier than Halloween on a Friday night? Having National Guard duty the day after. While everyone else was sleeping off sugar comas or regrettable costume choices, I was living the true soldier's nightmare: clerical work. Yes, the "hurry up and wait" game was in full swing - times ten. Thrilling? Not even close. My highlight was probably refilling my pen ink. But before duty called, Halloween itself went off without a hitch. It was my first one in my own...
Well, folks, I did it. I finally took a vacation day. Singular. One day. And I used it to go visit my family on the west side - my brother, sister-in-law, nephew, stepdad and mom. You know, the usual suspects. It wasn't too wild of a trip: stop in Lacey - check. Stop in Tacoma - check. Fresh seafood - check, check, check. I'm sorry, but when you've spent enough time eating "crab" that's actually just dyed perch, you develop a moral obligation to find the real thing. But this...
Odessa had two special visitors this week - Madison Wade, reporter for King 5's Unsolved Northwest, and Joseph Huerta, an Emmy Award-winning photojournalist who somehow managed to make our small-town office look cinematic. Now, I went to school to be behind the camera, not in front of one. But apparently, the universe decided it was time for me to face my greatest fear - being on television. I always figured if I were on TV, it would be for something like winning a Jet Ski...
Ahhh, October — the month when the air smells faintly of cinnamon and chaos, and the world collectively agrees that it’s finally time to start pretending our front porches are haunted. It’s my favorite month of the year and the glorious start of a new season — arguably the best season (sorry, summer). Halloween has always had my heart. Maybe it’s the spooky atmosphere, maybe it’s my lifelong love of horror movies — the classics, the campy ones, the meta ones like Scream — or maybe it’s just my inner child thriving on excus...
Harrington Fall Fest brought the usual: food, friends, laughter, and enough pumpkin spice to put a scarecrow into a sugar coma. But this year also brought something new-your local newspaper mascot and part-time diva, Winnie the weiner dog, scored her first athletic medal. Bronze, baby. The 5K Fun Run kicked off at 9 a.m., and while I was still shaking off Deutschesfest laryngitis, Winnie was in prime form. The crowd was packed, and while I was just another runner pinning on a...
There are two kinds of weekends: the kind where you sip coffee on the porch and listen to birds chirp, and the kind where a deer body-slams your Jeep before sunrise. I had the second kind. At 4 a.m. Saturday, I was up, bright-eyed, and determined. The plan: take my best furry friend, Winnie the Ween, and enter my first-ever car show in Rockford. I had visions of polished chrome, impressed onlookers, maybe even a ribbon. Instead, God apparently said, You wanted adventure? Buckl...
This week, Winnie and I set out with a simple goal: catch dinner. And catch dinner we did. But while I was proud of the smallmouth bass we landed, Winnie had a different mission - showering our finned friends with kisses. You'd have thought that crappie was her high school sweetheart, or at the very least, on a third date. Our haul wasn't just limited to the two decent bass we brought home; we reeled in a whole chorus line of smaller fish, enough to make any angler smile. For...
If you've ever stepped on a gym scale and heard it sigh, you know the feeling. My first weigh-in for this 12-week program was Aug. 4, and I approached it like I did basic training back in 2023-straight-backed, eyes forward and praying it wouldn't yell at me. It all started with a simple question. I asked Barb Badgley-our town's resident fitness superhero and retired bodybuilder-if she knew anyone who could help me get back into shape. Instead of giving me a name, she said,...
The fable says "slow and steady wins the race." That may be true for tortoises, but no one ever tested the theory on an 11-pound wiener dog with stubby legs and an inflated sense of athletic ability. This Labor Day weekend, Winnie - my miniature dachshund - and I found out the hard way. We'd just wrapped our August challenge of running at least a mile a day and walking an average of closer to five. That means we walked and ran more than 150 miles - basically a cross-country...
This past week, America grieved twice. Thursday marked the somber anniversary of 9/11, a day of collective memory and sorrow. The day before, we lost activist Charlie Kirk to an assassin - a man who claimed Kirk was a fascist but, in taking his life, became the very thing he condemned: a silencer of voices, a taker of speech. No matter what you believe, this assassination will live in infamy among my generation. Maybe there were things I didn't fully agree with, but Charlie...
This weekend's National Guard duty handed me a new challenge: the M2 .50 caliber machine gun. Or, as I like to call it, "the gun that grows you chest hair on contact." Seriously, this thing isn't so much a weapon as it is a personality test. The second you touch it, you're expected to sprout a beard, start driving a lifted truck, and casually refer to deer season as "harvest." Clearly, the M2 was not designed with women - or anyone under 200 pounds - in mind. The first...
There are certain weekends in small towns where it feels like the whole world gathers in one place. For Odessa, that weekend is Deutschesfest. And let me tell you, I came away with a full heart, a full stomach, and absolutely no voice. The first thing that struck me wasn't the food (though trust me, we'll get to that). It was the sheer joy of it all-the laughter spilling across Main Street, the families bundled together on hay bales, the sound of polka drifting out of the...
