Hello and welcome to Monthly Fuel, a newsletter for the day to day happenings, routines, inspirations, to - dos, good listens & reads that keep me going. Expect an update of what I’ve been up to, thinking on and an occasional vision board, accompanied by favorites from my monthly roll of film.
Published once a month.
The day to day
December is for nesting. The darker days and lack of snow force me into some much needed rest, making December the slowest and coziest month in our house. I tend to drink darker roasted coffee, sometimes with cream and lean into more analog activities; listening to records, reading by the fire, cooking, baking and handwriting cards to mail off for the holidays. For the first time ever, I didn’t go home for Christmas, so my mom came to me for a long weekend at the beginning of the month. She helped me decorate the house with handmade paper chains and felt bunting and foresaw the cutting of our Charlie Brown style Doug Fir. We went downtown for Missoula’s Christmas tree lighting and markets and just had the most wholesome time together. Wholesome - another word I’d use to describe the month of December.
I snuck away to a little cabin in the woods with 2 friends for the winter Solstice where we slept in, yapped and cheers’d Glögg G&Ts to the return of the light. I’m cherishing these female friendships of mine, something lacking in prior years of my life. It’s highly convenient to have a built-in partner in crime by marrying someone who loves almost all of the same activities as you, but I adore time well spent with the ladies in my life and hope to create more space for them in the next year.
It was just Ajax and I this Christmas Eve, drinking whiskey sours, playing cribbage and making dinner together (a rarity). We skinned up Snowbowl Christmas morning, early enough to get back to the house to host brunch with a few good friends before heading to the movie theater for the rest of the afternoon. The simplest, yet loveliest Christmas to date.
Another first (in four years) for the Ajax fam was foregoing a Snowbowl season pass. We opted for the Indy Pass this year, hopefully encouraging us to try other independently owned ski areas close to us and spend more time in the backcountry. We managed to squeeze 1 last ski day into 2025, using the Indy Pass at Silver Mountain, in Kellogg, ID. We stopped in the little town of Wallace on the way to ski and on the way back per my request. It’s the quirkiest little place just west of the MT border, nestled in a small mountain valley, underneath a giant bridge lifting I- 90 above the east side of town. I’m pretty sure the entire town is on the National Register of Historic Places which is probably the reason it’s maintained its charm. Allure aside, Wallace is most well known for its silver mining history.
There’s a decent food/bar scene and cheap hotels which put you within striking distance of 2 small ski resorts. The streets above are lined with a mix of darling and decrepit homes, linked by long stair cases connecting the residential hillside to the tiny town below. They call Wallace “The Center of the Universe” and it may as well be. Ajax and I once spent an entire weekend in Wallace and I wouldn’t mind doing it again.
Here’s to hoping I can hang on to the slower and simpler activities throughout this season. With January/February comes snow and with snow comes skiing; something that consumes any day we’re not at work, but every once in awhile I’ll forgo a seat on the chairlift for a seat indoors - book in one hand coffee in the other.
Vision board
Listen
We listen to way more vinyl in the winter. Spending more time inside allows us to do so and I love our small (but growing) record collection.
While in Wallace, we made a stop at North Idaho Trading Company. A store filled with all the guns, mounts and relics typical of a western antique store. Ajax admired the full cabinet of pre 1964 Winchester lever actions, while I picked my way through the most random assortment of cheaply priced records. I walked away with an $8 Ozark Mountain Daredevil’s album “It’ll Shine When It Shines.” The first 2 songs on the album are my favorite; “You Made It Right” and “Look Away.”
Read
I carried over The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie Jr. from last month so I thought I’d share a long time favorite Substack; TOGS. TOGS is a weekly publication written by 2 professional skiers, Kellyn Wilson and Hadley Hammer +new addition-North Bennet, who write and share about the intersection of outdoor activities and style. They’ve inspired me to dress in a way that fits my lifestyle, yet doesn’t compromise personal aesthetics. I’ve always found importance in showing up for yourself with the things that you wear. It’s a form of self expression, kinda like driving a cool car, it’s how you’re perceived by others out in the wild and actually, when you get down to it, it’s just an output for creativity. There’s no harm in that. TOGS has given me the freedom to care about clothes (in a sustainable way) and if that doesn’t excite you in the slightest- they also share gear & travel tips that are worth the read just the same.
Find
I bought myself a vintage Polaroid camera, after seeing one tossed around at a dinner party I attended. It was such a fun way to capture my time spent with those folks and created a thoughtful gift to give as we parted. I like how polaroids are similar to film in the way you have to slow down to compose your shot, but different in the way that you’re rewarded with a photo in a much quicker fashion. I’ll take one of each, thanks.
Working on
Japlanning; We’re heading to Japan for half of January. Even though we’ve had this trip on our mind for months, there’s plenty of kinks to iron out before we take off.
Coffee Roasting; I’ve been preparing the coffee shop that I roast for all month - roasting and packaging an absurd amount of beans so the show can go on without me, putting in 9 hours + each day, roasting my little heart out.
Landlording; Life has a way of all happening at once. At the beginning of the month the washing machine in our rental property went out and near the end of the month so did the electric heat. Fixing it requires a part that’ll take 8 weeks to get here. Those 8 weeks just happen to fall around a historically frigid time of year in MT. There’s a gas stove in the house that’s used to supplement the electric and will be enough to keep the pipes from freezing, but not quite enough to keep the place comfortable. Realizing not everyone is willing to live in mildly cold discomfort, like we have and still will, we gave our tenant the option to break the lease early or stay at a discounted rate. He chose to move out, so we’ll be back to paying the mortgage the house we’re not living in…
Caretaking; We’ve been talking about stepping down from our caretaking position for about a year now. We planned to tell the people we work for in late January and move out of our provided housing when our tenant’s lease was suppose to be up in May. Our tenant moving out early was the nudge we needed to tell the folks we work for sooner rather than later. Disappointing people is hard, but disappointing yourself is harder and we’re ready to not be caretakers or landlords. This may be a post on its own, but with all the negative lies positive; we’re one step closer to having less work, after work, and moving back into our little house on the Northside.
That’s all for December. Thanks for being patient it took some time to get my film developed. January’s will be up so soon.
