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Lebanon, Oregon, United States
We are Terry & Cathye Kinkelaar. If you've followed my blog in the past, you know that Lydia, my beautiful wife of 52 years, and I made the lifestyle choice to move to Oregon in 2017. You've seen my posts about losing her in May 2020 to cancer. Although I was left alone, I am pleased to say that I have found happiness again. In April 2021, I met Cathye, who also lost her longtime husband in 2020. Well, we fell in love and were married in April 2022. So, if folks are still interested, I will continue to post here as we move forward with our lives and adventures!

Friday, March 30, 2018

Oregon Living 2018 – Blog #44 – Home Projects, Shopping and Dinner Out



Wednesday, March 28th, 2018……  I got up and showered and then headed off to my sister’s to walk Quincy.  She hadn’t been out around her neighborhood for two weeks so she was excited and tried to pull me at the start.  No happening, sister! I got her settled down and we had a nice walk. We did the canal route today.  Boy, the water is high in it right now!  After I got back to her house, I took a few measurements and came home, stopping by Starbucks for coffee and tea. Then I set out to Home Depot to get cedar boards to patch the fence next to her house.  They have recently moved and sold their house and the old owner said we could go into the back yard and change out the fence boards. She also wanted me to put a grab bar in her shower to assist her in and out. It is timely now with her still at 80% after surgery plus she is still battling a bad knee.  I found what I needed and returned and got to work. Penny took off and Lydia met her at Safeway.  They both needed to shop and Lydia was there to help with heavy items. By the time she got back, I had most of the boards replaced and only had a few to finish up. I went to work on the grab bar.  This was challenging! The contractor installed one of those tiny one-piece fiberglass showers and it looks ok – just too tight for my tastes – but the problem is they did not complete any hardboard backing behind it at all!  Nothing to screw the bar into.  I ended up using toggle bolts and they only catch the fiberglass shell.  It’s firm and it will be ok for now as long as it’s only used for stability and not much else. She’s hoping to do a remodel in the master bath sooner than later, providing she chooses to stay there and not sell and relocate later down the road. I got all my work done and that was it for me for the day. After shopping Lydia went out and got her mani/pedi. I came home and rested until I had to go cook the taco shells for dinner.  I don’t mind doing this – it’s one of my favorite meals! After we got our plates fixed, we sat down and watched a few taped episodes of Guys Grocery Games and later, after dinner, we cleaned out the fridge and got the stuff dumped and the trash taken out to the street for tomorrow. Oh yeah, I texted Dana earlier today, saying how nice of a dry day it was and we had no concrete and that this is getting old!  She texted back saying that she was going to call me later today to tell me we are next up on their list and since we have rain in the forecast for Thursday and Friday, they should be here on Monday.  I’m cautiously optimistic!         

Thursday, March 29th, 2018……  I will be on dog walking patrol for some time since sis can’t have Quincy out pulling her on a leash.  So, I went over early this morning and got my doggie duties completed and returned home where Lydia was making omelets for breakfast.  I did stop and get coffee and her tea. After that, I went out and worked on a couple of projects. First up was the barbeque. We definitely brought our nice big stainless Jenn-Air barbeque up with us.  I wasn’t about to leave that in Long Beach!  It has been in the garage since we got up here. Problem was, it was plumbed in to use city gas, not propane tanks (different pressures and different regulators). I would have to run a gas line out to the back yard - or so I thought.  A week or so ago, I discovered a nice plumbed in gas line, complete with a shutoff valve, in a concealed panel under the back porch.  So, I dug the grill out and muscled it up onto the porch and got it where I wanted it. I need to run a pipe from the valve, under and along the length of the porch and connect it up. I made a quick trip to Ace Hardware and found they do not stock the quick release valves I need. Plus, they were a little high on the black gas pipe and the flex line I need for the transition.  So, I will wait and make a run to the Home Depot or Lowes to get what I need.  But having that gas line already in place saves me a lot of time and money!  Second project was building more shelving units in the garage part of the shop.  When I bought the racks from Costco last year, I ran them down one side, using one upright to tie in the next load beams.  Same as you see in Costco or other warehouse stores. That left three uprights with no beams left.  So, I’m building my own load beams with wood and metal.  I got that design figured out and will get materials later. Third project was getting water out to the spigot just out by the driveway. I finally found the shutoff valve (behind where the bbq was stored!) and saw that one of the lines was disconnected.  I will need to get that fixed before I can proceed.  Later, we went to Albany and to Costco.  We needed a few things for Carol’s visit and Lydia waited until we could go there and make one trip. Turns out we only got a few things and will wait until the first of the month to go back.  My sister wants to take us out to dinner tonight so we went and picked her up and headed to the Pointe just out of Sweet Home.  We had been there years earlier when we were rving up by Foster Lake.  The meal was really good




and the view of the lake is hard to beat. After dinner, we went back and dropped Penny off and came home and kicked back for the evening.     

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