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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!

Saturday, November 30, 2019

Oregon Living 2019 – Blog #111 – Our Unusual Thanksgiving Feast & Getting Ready for Christmas


Thursday, Nov 28th, 2019……  HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!  Hope everyone enjoys the holiday and finds many, many things to be thankful for this holiday. We were not going to do the traditional turkey this year. Since we had the nice meal at the senior center, we decided to have bbq ribs, scalloped potatoes, brussel sprouts, salad, and apple pie for dinner. Penny is coming over at noon to help us put everything together. The weather is still pretty cold up here. When I took Rylee out for our walk this morning, the sun was just coming up over the Cascades. It was 25º !!!  Cold enough to snow but the skies were bright blue.  There is no rain in the forecast and they say we will get have sun and all day with a high of 53º. Lydia took Tylenol pm last night but woke up early with pain enough to make her take one of her new pills. Actually, they were the same as what she already had from her Calif. doctors- hydrocodone acetaminophen. The old meds had expired and the one she took last night was enough for her to get some sleep. But she needed Tylenol when she got up. After the usual morning tasks, I spent time getting the ribs and potatoes out and prepped for the oven. Then I took down all of the fall decorations. We needed the dining room table so that helped. I have already gotten down all of the Christmas stuff. Lydia says that because we will be leaving for SoCal right after the holidays, she won’t be doing the decorating to the nines that we are used to seeing. I’m still doing the outside lights like last year. I already have the nails in so it should go up (and down) quickly. At noon, sis got here and we already had the ribs in the oven and cooking. These are the Costco packaged ribs and we have found that following the directions yields terrific results. Once we got the brussel sprouts and the scalloped potatoes done, we were ready and settled in for a nice meal.





  
Before we ate, we called Randy and Maryanne and then facetimed Jeff & Krista and the grandkids. Except for Krista, everyone seems to be doing well. J&K have a houseguest – one of the girl’s friends, who is having trouble at home and is staying with them now. They are not given any financial assistance so something has to give soon! Krista is still off work (three weeks) dealing with her illness (uti). Her mom came in from Indiana last week and will be there for a few more days. R&MA are doing well. They showed us – via their tablet - their house full of dogs and cats.  They have a tenant who rents a room with them so they had a quiet Thanksgiving at home. We discussed Christmas and hope to get together (via social media) then.         
After our meal and cleanup, I spent most of the day watching football and relaxing. The girls watched their own shows and the dogs napped. Later, after sis went home (she left Q for the night) we snacked and then I let Quincy out to pee and poop and took butthead out again for another walk before we relaxed and watched tv and finally called it a night.

Friday, Nov 29th, 2019……  Another freezing morning. It was 22º at 7:15am w/frost on the ground. Here’s a pic I took while on our walk….


And a couple from sis as she came back this morning to walk Quincy….


No plans for Black Friday shopping. We did that many years ago and choose not to fight the crowds – although Black Friday crowds here are about the same as a normal day of shopping down in SoCal! Still, we are using amazon and whatever.com for a lot of what we are buying. We have the same thing going with the kids as we did last year. Each of us buys something we want for ourselves and we will wrap them and put them under our trees – then on Christmas morning we facetime or marco polo or whatever with them and we open those gifts then. It’s really the same as asking for something and having it bought by them and brought over and put under the tree. Plus, it’s way better than gift cards! Anyway, we will be doing it again this year.
Lydia has been doing ok. She is not going out anywhere (except for doctor’s visits) because being on her feet causes swelling (and pain). The pain meds are working when she uses them but she’s trying to get by with Tylenol as much as she can. She’s really tired of just sitting around and wants to go out. We will probably head out later tonight to the fairgrounds. They have a drive-thru Christmas display that we heard is pretty good. I think we’ll plan on going to the show a couple of times as well. Maybe next week. We like the lounge chairs at the theater in Eugene and that will help her as Lydia did finally get her 'welcome' call from UHC. They will be getting her insurance card out to her in a few days. So we are now good to go for next tear!   Whew!
I spent most of the day bringing in all of the Christmas boxes and staged them on the back porch.  Before that, Lydia came out and we eliminated some of those that have items we won’t be putting out this year.  I was going to start on the outdoor lights but got lazy. Tomorrow. We had a late lunch today so when it came time for dinner, we each heated up a piece of the tri-tip and that was all we had. We fed Rylee and headed off to get sis and go over to Corvallis to the fairgrounds. The Pastega Family has been putting up a Christmas display for many years and they have combined with local businesses and it has moved to the fairgrounds where there is more room. They have canned food bins set out for donations for the local shelter. We thought they would have a bin for money donations but we saw nothing and no one was there. The road winds around and through the fairground exhibit buildings and they have done a nice job with themed vignettes with Christmas music to match. It was really fun and comfortable since we didn’t have to walk anywhere.










We got back home and Lydia put her feet up and watched tv and tried to rest before taking more pain meds and going to bed. She was sound asleep when I came in a bit later.         

Saturday, Nov 30th, 2019……  I had a few things to do today, which involved Birthdays & Christmas. We are sending a package off to the kids in Florida so I needed to get that ready. My sister has added a few things as well. This package includes birthday gifts for the girls who are turning 17 in Dec. Turns out Lydia had already taken care of the task of getting everything in and all of the cards signed as well and everything is ready to mail off on Monday. The second task was putting up the tree and getting the lights put up outside. I started on the tree, which is pre-lit. I think my sister will be coming over to assist decorating it this year since Lydia can’t stand on her feet too long right now. After setting up the tree, I brought in everything else and got it all out of the boxes and ready for Lydia to direct me as to where she wants it set out. Next up was the outdoor lights.  I rested and waited until the sun came out and it got a bit warmer. But it stayed cloudy and really didn’t warm up and was still super cold out on the front porch, which faces north and never gets any direct sunlight anyway. So, I decided to wait another day.  
I thought I might hear from Peterson Trucking today about the motorhome but the call didn’t come in. They said they would only have a skeleton crew working Saturday, so I wasn’t surprised.  I’m in no hurry so next week will be fine with me. I got my boat tags in the mail yesterday so I went out and put them on. Like car tags in Oregon, these are also good for two years. Not a bad deal!
So, most of the day was spent inside where it was nice and warm. I watched all of the college games – some really exciting, others not so much. I have one more race on tomorrow - an F1 season ending one. There are three more Mecum auction dates next Fri.-Sun. and I will have all of my scheduled shows for 2019 completed. Lately I have been stuck on watching MASH reruns. I think I have gone through over 65 shows since I started taping them. I know it ranks as one of the top five series I have enjoyed over the years.
We heated up leftovers again tonight. This time it was bbq ribs and brussel sprouts and scalloped potatoes and apple pie. We had cooked two full racks of ribs for Thanksgiving and even though my sister took some home to freeze, we still had a bunch and have frozen them in portion bags for whenever we want a quick meal. I let monkey butt out just before bedtime and we all headed off to bed.       

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