Way Behind

I'm sorry I don't have any photos for you on this post. I almost don't have anything to post at all since my life has been 99% work since our trip to Hawaii in May.

I did take a quick trip up to Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival last Saturday. It was crowded, but fun. My friends Linda, John and Darlene rode up with me and we stopped for lunch on the way. My sister, Dotty, came to the event and we had a nice, but short visit. I didn't buy much, but I spent a lot of money on Woollee Winders.

I pulled a fast one on Rocky the other day. My friend, Linda, just happens to be the wife of Ron Finley, the former head wrestling coach for the Ducks. Every time I mention Linda, Rocky has to tell me about what a good coach Ron was and how much respect he has for him. So Linda and I decided to go out for dinner one evening, but I couldn't tell Rocky about these plans because he would chicken out and come up with all kinds of reasons not to go. So Linda and I made a date for last Tuesday, 6:30 at PF Chang's.

The whole day I have my fingers crossed that I can get him there. He was stressing out about hunting preparations and we usually don't go out that early. I told he we had dinner reservations which caused a few swear words to fly. He had to wear a wrinkled shirt because it was already after six when he got dressed and asked if he looked alright. Somehow we made it out the door and got there right on time.

As we walked in there wasn't a hostess at the desk, but I saw Linda wave at us and start walking back to their table. Rocky just stands there and looks at me like I've turned purple. I told him to follow me, that I see somebody I know. He slowly starts to follow, but the further into the restaurant I get the more distance he put between us. Linda told me the next day that she thought he was going to bolt. He finally made it to the table and I introduced him to Ron and Linda; he did perk up a bit with, "Oh." He said hello, nice to meet you, and all that; but then I turned purple again when he saw me sliding into the booth. I said, "Look, they have menus for us and everything." Suddenly the lights came on and he said, "You guys planned this?" It was fun.

We had a nice dinner (PF Changs is pretty good) while Ron and Rocky talked about wrestling, hunting, and fishing. Even though he wouldn't admit it I could tell that Rocky was really enjoying himself. I tried to make him admit it in the car on the way home and all he would say is, "You know I don't like to be tricked." Bah, humbug, Rocky.

That's the extent of my excitement for the past month.

So Much To Do

First, here are a couple of sunsets from my patio:

I wish I would have taken an "After" photo of this one. The clouds were lit up for about 15 minutes and then all of a sudden it was like somebody shut the lights off and the clouds were all dark.

Well, August was a busy month for me. I did manage to take almost an entire week off work to attend a spinning workshop in Mt. Hood. I was looking so forward to it, partly because my friend Patty of Spor Farm (Shetland sheep) invited me to stay at her house in The Dalles where it is always hot in the summer and she has a pool. Well, it pretty much rained until the day before I left and by then the pool had cooled down.

I did get to have dinner with two of my brothers, Harley and John, before going out to Patty's. It was nice to see them.

Even though the swimming suit didn't get any use, I enjoyed myself at Patty's. She has the cutest little Shetland sheep, three llamas, two alpacas, two dogs, and lots of quail on her property. The day before I left Patty woke me up a little early so I could see and hear the elk. What a treat that was. This is the view from Patty's patio:

There is an orchard beyond the pool and back pasture, and then there is a creek between the orchard and the hills. The elk were down low on the hills. That evening after the workshop we watched the elk through binoculars for well over an hour. Patty estimated that there were 50-60 head.

The workshop we took was with Judith McKenzie; she is an amazing teacher and fascinating woman. I've been spinning for almost 20 years and I couldn't believe how much I learned in those four days with her; I didn't want it to end. I would say that she kicked up my spinning more than just a notch. For my spinning friends who read this, a workshop with Judith is a must! We learned the limits of our wheels and how to make our wheels work for us. I know my wheel had never had so many adjustments; I even used it's scotch tension for the first time and loved it. We made marled yarn, boucles, beaded yarn, fat yarn, thin yarn, worsted yarn, woolen yarn, frosted yarn, snub yarn; it was so much fun. I learned that most of what I knew was either wrong or only partly right; and she took the time to show us why on almost everything. It was one amazement after another for me. I can't wait to take another class with her.

Patty was kind enough to let me stay one more night so I could stop and visit with Harley and Nancy before heading home the next day. They took me to Nancy's store in downtown The Dalles, called Jitterbug. It is a cute little clothing store for women and children with a bridal shop section about to be open.

Now I've been home for a little over a week and don't feel like I've made any progress catching up. This three day weekend was full of activities. Saturday we went to the first Duck game of the year. We rode over in my in-laws' motor home. On the way we had to wait and watch a fight in the middle of an intersection. This big guy (about 6'4", 220#, about 40 yrs old) got mad when other cars wouldn't let him in the lane going to the parking so he pulls a cane with a metal head on it out of his car walks over where the the men start getting out of their cars because they know the guy is going to beat on their cars, and the guy starts swinging the cane as hard as he can at these guys' heads. Other men in nearby cars get out to help. One on them finally gets the cane away from him and he's still fighting as they try to take him to the ground and one the men whacked him in the head with the cane. They finally got him on the ground and he still tries kicking them in their crotches. Five or six men held him down while waiting for the police. An older couple were in his car that was blocking our lane of traffic and they finally moved the car out of the way. When we drove by we could see the pool of blood getting larger and larger under the guy's face. It was unbelievable, especially when you know that this happened around 3:00/3:15 and the game didn't start until 7:00; plenty of time to make the game.

We went onto our tailgate destination, set up, BBQ'd, ate, watched the ducks whomp on the Huskies, back to the tailgate, more BBQ, pack up, get home at about 12:30.

Sunday we went to Lloyd's 90th birthday party. Lloyd works at the shop, almost every day still, and is very much a part of the Dean family. He's a really nice man with a lot of knowledge. Rocky says he wishes he knew half of what Lloyd has forgotten. Happy Birthday, Lloyd.

Today ends this three day weekend with tomato canning. 40 pounds of tomatoes turned into 21 quarts today. Maybe I can rest next weekend.

Chicken of the Sea

This weekend is catch up from last weekend. Seems like we're catching up on more sleep than work though.

Last weekend started on Friday for us. Rocky left after work for the coast to go tuna fishing. I had a visitor that evening:

This little (about 1.5") bugger kept trying to come in through our glass door. I first heard it keep hitting the glass then I watched as s/he found the little hole at the threshold and made its way into our house. S/he stayed until I couldn't relax any more. S/he was put out on the patio never to be seen from again.

Saturday I got to stay home and work around the house in between calls from work.

Jill spent a good part of the day sun bathing:

Rocky made it home on Sunday with a huge cooler full of tuna and crabs. What we didn't eat of the crabs that day and the next ended up in the freezer. The tuna was a little more involved.

First, Rocky smoked it all for about an hour; this took two loads in the smoker. Then we started canning it. On Sunday we had two canners going at once and ran two full loads through them each. It takes about three and a half hours to process from the time you seal the lid on the canner until you can take the jars out. Don't forget that all those jars had to be washed, packed, and sealed first.

We had to take the day off work on Monday to run both canners two more times and this is what we ended up with:
17 half pints and 74 pints, plus four pints that didn't seal. Now, where to store it all.

Short on Time

This is a quickie since I don't seem to have much time these days.

There's never a dull moment in the Whitaker neighborhood where I work. there is a Dari Mart across the street from the shop and last Thursday if you were to drive by in the late morning you would have noticed crime scene tape and two policemen guarding a dead guy. Apparently he went in the Dari Mart that morning and not too long afterwards somebody noticed him face down dead between the newspaper recycle boxes and the phone booth. We think he was homeless man, but I haven't heard anymore on that or what killed him. We're guessing heart attack, stroke, or OD (we see a lot of drug deals and use behind the store). Whatever the cause, I'm just sorry that he had to die alone.

Nothing much to report from out little animal kingdom.

Work is getting smoother every day; I even had time to scrub the bathroom today. My first time to ever clean a urinal; thank you Playtex for rubber gloves.

Helpful Stuff

On may way home the other day I happened to notice this car in front of me with a bunch of those ribbon for a cause magnets on it. I don't normally pay attention to bumper stickers, but all the ribbons lined up caught my attention and then I noticed a cute little pudgy cartoon fly sticker that just had the web address: Flylady.net. I was so intrigued by this that when I got home the first thing that I did was log on to check it out.

It happens to be a website for those of us who feel overwhelmed when it comes to housework and hope every day that we don't get surprise visitors we should invite in. I'm trying it out; I know it can't hurt. I just thought I'd share it with you.

The other helpful tip I haven't tried, but it's easy and cheap enough. I received an email of this lady's testimonial about putting a penny on a bee sting for 15 minutes right after the sting. Apparently her doctor told her about this when she had a reaction to a sting. The next time she didn't swell up and get infected like before. Too bad I didn't know about this last night when Rocky got stung.

Hot Weekend

Last weekend was fun filled with the Black Sheep Gathering. I didn't get out of my booth very much, but it was fun just the same. I had a chance to catch up with fiber friends and snoop in everybody's bags to see what they were buying.

This weekend started out with shearing our goats; they are so much happier. The rest of it has been spent trying to do stuff inside out of the heat. I never heard what the high was yesterday, but I know it was mid to high 90's. Last night was kind of fun. I opened the windows in the bedroom and could really hear the thunder storm pass over. After every clap of thunder the wild turkeys would gobble. Then at about three a.m. I had to get up and close the windows thanks to a skunk.

Looking into the near future I am excited about an upcoming workshop I've signed up for. Judith McKenzie is teaching a four day spinning and dying workshop in Mount Hood this August and my friend Patty of Sporfarm (she raises shetland sheep) offered to let me stay with her since she's signed up for it as well. I can't wait. I've never taken a formal spinning class and I hear that Judith's workshops are the best.

Now to get through another grueling work week; fortunately this one has a holiday in it.

Happy Fourth of July!

Catching Up

I am way behind with the blog. I'm blaming Eugene Electric for that. Our bookkeeper quit right after our Hawaii trip and since business has been so slow we've decided not to replace her for now. I've been training our parts runner (who kind of reminds me of Mr. Cunningham from Happy Days) to work in the office. Jack told him he had to start wearing skirts.

I took a rug weaving class with Jason Collingwood at Fiber in the Forest and learned how to do this:

This isn't my work, I took this photo to demonstrate how a temple is used (the brown thing holding the edges even). I haven't photographed mine yet. I'm planning to weave the rest of the warp off after the Blacksheep Gathering next weekend; I'll turn it into a loom bench cushion.

Fiber in the Forest is so much fun. It is heald at Camp Myrtlewood in Myrtle Point, OR. The camp is beautiful, and people are nice, and the workshops are a blast. This is what the shibori/indigo class did:

And the carding class:

I forgot to get a photo of the felting class; their stuff was pretty amazing too.

This must have been after Fiber in the Forest because it was next in my camera. This little fawn was playing with our cat, Blue. This has happened several times this spring. All the fawns around here this year have that hair loss disease so we're concerned they may not make it through the winter.

Last weekend I went to the Northwest Regional Spinning Assoc. Conference at Willamette University in Salem. It was a lot of fun, but so exhausting. I took a drop spindling class. In the evenings the gym stays open until 11:00 and people sit around spinning. That is where I met these two cuties. This one is a new wheel called a Pocket Wheel. They are hand made by a man in Bellingham, WA. I fell in love with it and already placed my order.

And this is an antique. I didn't get a chance to talk to the owner so I don't know anything about it, I just thought it was interesting with the two wheels.

You can see from the above photo that this was in a spinning circle. The gym was full of these; I wish I would have thought to get a photo when everybody was at their wheels.

On Saturday night they had a fashion show. People paraded around the gym showing off their handspun garments. It is always fun to see what people create.

Now I get one weekend at home which I will spend trying to get more fiber ready for the Blacksheep Gathering (my favorite event of the year since I get to sleep in my own bed).

Aloha!

We've had a busy couple of weeks, with our quick trip to Maui in the middle of it. We flew out of Portland on Wednesday morning so we drove up to spend the night with Tami on Tuesday night. It just happened to be Earth Day, and it just so happened that the Yarn Harlot was speaking in Portland that evening. Of course Rocky had no desire to go to that, but Tami was game and so we drug Rocky along so we could eat dinner right afterwards. We get there and there is a room full of about 400 knitters; if it hadn't been cold and rainy I think Rocky would have waited in the car. We were lucky enough to get three seats together in the last row. Blue Moon hosted the event and they started off with a raffle. They called about five tickets and mine just happened to be one of them; this is what I won (its Socks that Rock yarn):
Wednesday at the airport went pretty smooth once we found a parking spot, but things got a little crazy in Honolulu where we had to change flights. Hawaiian Air ended up cancelling two of their flights and combined them with a third. They got most of us on a 747 for the 20 minute flight to Maui. It was a bit chaotic but I think everybody eventually made it there.

Thursday we got up early since we were still on Pacific time and went for a walk on the sidewalk that runs along the beach in front of the hotels for about two miles. We rode the shuttle to the Cannery Mall where there is a Long's Drug Store because Rocky wanted to wear crew socks with shorts, but I wouldn't let him. Fortunately they had ankles socks.

Friday we went Ziplining. It was fun. The fun began with the van ride to the first line. They got us all geared up and we had to wear our helmets in the van. We all decided that that was the only place we really needed them.











There was one guy in the group who was more scared than Rocky, but he was good natured about it, especially after watching the little 12 year old girl zip. She had no fear. There was one line where the guide made her wear a weighted backpack because she wasn't heavy enough to make it clear across. Turned out that she still wasn't heavy enough. She almost made it and then she slid back toward the middle of the line. She just hung there while the guide on the other end got hooked up and shimmied out to pull her in. She said it was fun.






This is a bush outside our hotel room:

Saturday I decided that the sore throat from the day before wasn't just the Vog, I was sick. Rocky did a little snorkeling while I lazed around the resort.

Here is a sunset from our balcony:

Saturday we went to dinner and had our picture taken. The leis were from the day we arrived. I had put them in the refrigerator. I just plucked off the wilted flowers and they still looked fresh.

Sunday Rocky snorkeled some more, while I made a quick trip to town. I didn't feel like shopping, but I couldn't stand the thought of napping our last day in Maui away. We flew out at 8:00 that evening and arrived in Portland at 7:30 the next morning. We got home at about 11:00 am and went straight to bed.

Tuesday we worked in the barn between naps to prepare for shearing on Wednesday morning. Now it is Sunday, I'm almost caught up with laundry; I'm still sick, but I feel like I'm on the mend; Rocky's sick now; and I'm going to see Mamma Mia with Sandy and Aliya tonight.

Sunny Day

It got up to 82 degrees today! It was wonderful. Even though I had another sleepless night last night I spent most of today in the barn with no coat.

We're shearing on the 30th and in between here and there we are fortunate enough to spend a few short days in Hawaii for our anniversary. That means I begin cleaning the barn and getting prepared for the harvest now.

I begged, pleaded, gave an ultimatum and got Rocky to agree to taking a dance class with me. We're taking East Coast Swing. We've only had two classes so far and I'm having so much fun. Rocky pouted during the entire first class. He refused to admit that he enjoyed the second one, but he wasn't pouting and actually smiled a few times. I don't think you'll see either of us on Dancing With the Stars, but I think we'll have more fun when we're out where there is dancing.

Here's a kitty photo for you:

This is Blue. He takes relaxing seriously.

This and That

I forgot to mention that Rocky's sister bought us all tickets to Peru Negro. It was good, but would have been better if I knew Spanish. They dance and sang telling the story of the Peruvian Negros who were enslaved just like American Negros. The performers looked like they really loved what they were doing. The music was very interesting with the odd instruments, like jawbones, they used.

Now here we are at the end of March and we've been getting snow. Thursday and Saturday we had snow on the ground when we woke up in the morning. It all melted before noon, but then we had rain, rain mixed with snow, and hail. This is not normal for us this late in the year.

Here is a recipe that I often take to potlucks and get lots of compliments on. I got it off a package of asparagus from the grocery store.

Marinated Asparagus

12 fresh asparagus spears
2 T olive oil
2 T cider vinegar
1/4 t salt
1 t honey
1 bay leaf

Steam asparagus until crisp tender, drain. Whisk together oil, vinegar, salt, and honey. Pour over asparagus and bay leaf in a shallow dish. Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

I usually make a large batch and use less oil than vinegar. I add cooked shrimp, zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, onion, baby corn, or anything else that seems like would be good in it.

Cool Stuff

Yesterday I went to the weaving guild meeting and learned some interesting stuff.

The presentation was given by Jennifer Moore who is a weaver and rug designer in Santa Fe, NM. She is a wonderful teacher; if you ever have the chance to take a class she's teaching it is worth every penny. (My favorite of hers is We All Look Up at the Same Moon.)


Her presentation to the guild was about math and art and how they often come together. She talked about the Golden Ratio (which included the Golden Rectangle and Golden Spiral) and Tessellations. You can get all kinds of ideas for projects with this knowledge.


We watched a good movie that was on Hallmark the other day: Iron Will. Rocky made fun of me when I turned it on, but he enjoyed it as much as I did.

I just had to share this cloud picture I took the other day:


It was like a blanket was being pulled over the earth.

Special Weekend

This weekend the Oregon Special Olympics held their basketball tournament in Springfield and my brother Kelly, who is from The Dalles, was in it. This is Kelly, with the white t-shirt under his jersey:

There was a guy there whom I wish I would have taken his picture. He was a small, white, young man with a Mohawk hair cut and he had 20-30 Special Olympic medals hanging around his neck. I dubbed him Mr. T of the Special Olympics.

Basketball in the Special Olympics is a bit different. They play four six minute quarters with a five minute half time. Nobody gets called for traveling or double dribble. Fouls don't get called very often unless one team is about to skunk the other, then the refs try to help even the odds a little. The refs often have to redirect players if they head for the wrong basket.

There are bumps and scrapes just like any other basketball game, but these players don't get mad, they always help each other up, make sure they're okay, and smile the whole time. They really know how to have a good time, win or lose.

Kelly's team was good enough to win the gold medal. They won all three of the games they played in.

I don't know if you can tell from this photo but the teams are really mixed with young, old, men, and women. All teams were like that. I saw a couple of teams that had what looked to be twelve year olds playing right along with the fifty year olds. It was neat to see them all have such a good time together.

The team didn't know it, but I had invited them to ride the bumper cars before heading home. Since it was a surprise I said goodbye to Kelly after his last game on Sunday, but arranged for the bus driver to follow me. The guy (Artie) sitting in the other front seat asked Bob (the bus driver) where he was going; he knew it wasn't the same way they went to the freeway the day before. Bob said, "I saw a pretty girl in this car so I'm going to follow her." Every time I turned, Bob turned. After a couple of turns Artie yelled to the back of the bus, "Hey everybody, Bob's chasing some woman."

I think everybody had a fun weekend; I know I did.

Billy the Kid

We have an angora goat named Silverado (Otto for short) who is about 14 years old and near the end of his life. I've been giving him extra feed and decided to give him a shot of vitamin A & D on Thursday after dosing our crias.

Well, Otto used to be the alpha goat, but since his health has been declining Billy (one of our pygoras) has assumed that position. I can usually do almost anything to Otto from over or through the fence because he loves attention; but this time, as I was petting Otto and getting him ready for his shot Billy had to come and see what he was missing out on therefore shoving Otto away; so, in the pen I go.

It took several shoos to get Billy to leave us alone; I gave Otto a good petting, gave him his shot, and warmed up his ears. Having that done I headed for the gate when I thought I should clean the hay out around their salt lick while I was in there. Just as I crouched down to go in the shelter, BAM. Billy butted me. I didn't even see it coming. Thankfully, since I was somewhat squatted, he got me in the thigh rather than the knee. I was knocked on my butt in the mud and he was standing right by me. All I could think to do was grab him by the horns and hang on so he couldn't butt me in the head and kill or paralyze me. Somehow I managed to get to my feet while holding his horns and yelled for Rocky to come help me so I could get out of the pen safely and hobble to the house.

This is me taking a photo of my own thigh; not an easy thing to do. This is looking down at the outside of my right leg. It is kind of hard to see the bruise closest to my knee in this photo, the two bruises angle toward each other just like the horns grow out of the goat's head. That side of my thigh is hourglass shaped if you look at the profile. Rocky just came in my office and says this picture doesn't do it justice.

It's feeling much better now, but I still have a slight limp. I never realized before how much my thighs jiggle when I walk. Pain shoots across my thigh with every step.

Next time I have to go in the goat pen I'll be packing a big stick.

A Party for Jim

Here are the photos I took at Jim's Celebration of Life:

These are two of my brother, Ed's sons: Brian and Ron. Jessie had already left the party. These are my niece and nephews. I think the girl in the white coat is the daughter of Bud or Jackie, but I'm not sure. I'll update this post when I find out. The two boys on the ends are Brandon and Dustin (two of Jim's sons), but I don't know which is which. The middle three are Alan's kids Vernon, Jenny, and Toby.

These are three of Alan's kids Vernon, Jenny, and Toby. Christopher couldn't get away from work to come down from Alaska.

I'm disappointed in this photo, I was hoping it would be good enough to blow up and hang on the wall. These are me and my brothers. Well, the guy on the far left is Alan, Ed, and Jim's brother, Bud (their sister, Jackie, had already left) and the rest are Gordon, Alan, me, Ed, and Dave. Alan just goosed me and tried to blame it on Ed.

This is Ed and his oldest son, Ron:

This is Gordon's son Travis and his family Christina and one month old Curtis:

This is Alan, Ed, and Jim's mom Laura and her husband Ned:

Here is Jenny and Brian:

Alan and Toby:

Ed and Alan. Ed just came from a month in Hawaii.

Gordon with his grandson, Curtis:

Me and Laura:

Laura with my cousins Sue Gimby and Karla Bradly:

It was really nice to see so much of my family, but sad that it took the loss of one to get us all together. Don't ever miss an opportunity to be with loved ones.

Life Sucks

My aunt Opal passed away a couple of weeks ago and her family made plans to have a family get together in her honor yesterday. My brother, Alan, decided to fly down from Alaska to attend the event. He flew into Portland on Thursday and our brother, Jim, drove up to get him and they spent the day doing some business in the Portland area. We had a dinner date with Chad and Aliya on Friday so Alan came to visit with us that afternoon and we made arrangements to meet and drive to the party together.

Saturday morning I was relaxing around the house, kind of looking forward to seeing my cousins and spending more time with Alan when he called. (He's staying at Jim's house in Cottage Grove while he's here.) He called to tell me that he couldn't make it to the party because he found Jim dead when he got up.


It didn't register at first. What was he saying? What did it mean?

I think Jim was in his mid fifties. He had been having some health problems being a newly diagnosed diabetic, but that was getting under control and he was feeling better.

Jim left Margo, four grown sons, a granddaughter, five brothers, two sisters, and his mother. We will miss him.

Another Rainy Day

It has poured rain nonstop today. Our pastures still have patches of snow and now there are little rivers running through them as well. It was kind of funny doing my chores this evening. I got an MP3 player for Christmas and I learned how to download podcasts from the Clark Howard Show into it, so I enjoy listening to that while in the barn. Well, during the podcast I listened to this evening Clark talked a lot about drout and ways to save water; it all seemed irrelevant considering all the water I was surrounded by at the time.

I did manage to get Rocky out of the house today; we went to the Eugene Boat & Sportsman Show and saw Pete Serafin’s Worldwide Expeditions Collection. It was pretty neat to see those mounts up close; Rocky was envious.

We watched one of my favorite movies the other night. If you haven't seen A Walk in the Clouds, it is a must see. I've seen it several times and enjoyed it just as much as the first time. I've added a movie to my list yet to see; The Bucket List. My friend Darlene told me about it. She said that she and her husband really enjoyed it and thought it was better than the ratings it received.

I think if the rain doesn't let up tomorrow I'll drive in to check out the new Wilco that opened on Friday. A person has to find excitement where ever she can.

Snail Mail

I received a letter from one of my brothers who lives in The Dalles the other day. Kelly is six years older than me and he is mentally retarded. His letters take a little deciphering, but I can always figure them out and I'm proud of him just for making the effort. This letter is a little exciting.

He wrote to let me know that he'll be coming to Springfield in March to play basketball in the Special Olympics. I've marked my calendar and I'm looking forward to both watching Kelly play ball and attending the Special Olympics for the first time. I think it will also be extra fun for Kelly to actually know somebody who will come and watch when he's playing in a city so far from home. He also wrote in his letter that he will be staying in a motel, they cover his meals, his coach is very nice, and he'll be wearing black sweat pants because they can't wear blue jeans to play basketball.

Snow Day

Today is our second snow day of the year; that's two more than we usually get. Between yesterday and today we have about eight inches; that's a lot for us. Last night we tested the new car in the snow by driving around the neighborhood a couple of times. It wasn't bad. Whenever we would start to slide (we had to make it slide by hitting the brakes too hard or accelerating too fast) the slippery light would come on and the wheels would do what they do to self correct. It made me feel that if I had to drive in the snow I would be okay.



Our animals aren't sure about the snow. We've never had this much snow since we started raising them. Some had never seen it before and others have never seen more than what can melt off in a day. They've been spending a lot of time in the barn and are quite tentative when they do venture out into the snow.



We received an early morning phone call yesterday from my cousin; Aunt Opal passed away in her sleep Saturday night. She was in her 80's and has been going down hill for a few years. She was the last of my dad's siblings and their spouses to pass.



On a brighter note, the pellet stove is finally working well. Last Wednesday the spinning guild was here and I had it going; by the time they left the house was starting to smoke up again. That evening Rocky removed the door, tightened the hinges and latch, put an extension on the intake pipe and ran it up the chimney, and then sealed off the open spaces of the chimney with insulation. Now the stove is working almost perfectly. It is so nice to wake up to a comfortable rather than down right cold bedroom.

Busy New Year

Of course the beginning of every year is busy with year end tax preparations, but we've also been busy with fun stuff.

On the 9th we went to Riverdance. It was an exciting production. I enjoyed it, Rocky didn't think it was worth the money. I kind of feel that way about fishing. A few years ago I got to see Lord of the Dance with my sister in Portland; I will admit I enjoyed it even more. It could be that I was just in awe since it was the first time I had ever been to a production like that, but in my mind it was a little bit more exciting than Riverdance. I do believe both were worth the time and money to see.


Yesterday was another busy day for us; I can't believe what we did. We bought this:
We decided it was time that I get a grown up car. Rocky hates my Mustang and I've been thinking that I could get something larger with as good if not better gas mileage. I had a Honda Element, Cr-V, or Toyota Rav 4 in mind, but this Toyota Highlander Hybrid was in the paper yesterday and the seller was motivated enough to give us a really good deal. We weren't even thinking about getting a Hybrid at the time so I went on line to see what other owners thought about theirs and the only negative comment I found was that the 3rd row seating is a joke; and it is, but that's not something we'll use anyway. Anyway, this Highlander gets 25-30 mpg and that's a lot better than the Mustang. I just can't believe that I'm going to be driving a luxury vehicle. I hope I deserve it.

Happy 2008!

We rung in the new year by snoring. We're a pretty lively couple, you see.

Highlights from 2007:

February: We discovered that Rocky had a tumor behind his left eye and had to have surgery at OHSU in Portland. During the pre-op preparations we found out that he also has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. The rest of the year we spent learning how to modify our diet and manage medications.

April: We celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary by doing nothing. Maybe this year will be different.

July: We took a trip to Alaska to visit my brothers Alan and Ed. We did a little fishing while we there. This is Ed (on the right) with his fish:

August: Rocky's daughter got married. (I don't have a photo of Aliya with Chad in my computer)

December: We celebrated the holidays once with my biological family and again with the Dean's. The month ended with a clogged plumbing system, malfunctioning water heater, and a new leak in the roof. It's a good thing we didn't have any New Year's party plans. We are ready to start a new month and a new year.