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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!

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Oregon Living 2019 – Blog #121 – Getting Ready for the Trip & a Quiet New Years Eve


 

Sunday, Dec 29th, 2019…… It was a good night for Lydia. She slept well. She has been taking only Tylenol now for the past couple of days. I slept well too. After we woke up, we hung out in bed for a bit and played with Rylee. Then I got up and showered and took her out. That was about 8:00am.  No rain but it’s coming later. Temp was 45º when I got back to the house. Not bad for December! I went out and got us breakfast/coffee/tea and after I ate, I went out and connected water to the coach and filled the fresh water tank. Then I came back in and got some of my clothes for the trip and brought those out. Oh Oh – a problem!  I left the water on too long and it overflowed!  I had a layer of water on the garage floor under and around the coach!  I had to move the motorhome out in order to sweep it all out. Once that was done, I went back to work on my clothes and checked things to see what we need to add and take out and/or exchange. We have all of the usual things in there already (band-aids, Tylenol, antihistamine, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste, etc. etc.) but some of it was outdated and needed to be replaced. I also had a drawer full of bottled water and Gatorade. We found both the water and Gatorade was two years old so we dumped everything. I came back in and spent some time watching football and logging in my 2020 bill spreadsheet.  I have each item listed with a running total to see what we spent for that item for the year. So, for 2019, I was pleasantly surprised that the utilities continued to be so low. I only have one ongoing payment (the motorhome). Lydia has one credit card. I think we will be getting money out from Bobby (our finance guy) next year to pay it down. We also would like to start on another project in 2020 – the back porch, but we’ll see.
Like I said, Lydia had a good night. She felt really good today but didn’t do too much. I got her meds out and she built up her box for the next two weeks. We still have to carry her plastic bin with everything but we have a spot in the rig for that anyway. I have mine ready to go as well. Tomorrow morning she goes in for scheduled labs and while we’re out, we may go on to shop for this week’s groceries plus some non-perishables for the mh.       
         
Monday, Dec 30th, 2019…… We both got up early this morning. While I took Rylee out and walked her, Lydia got up and got going. She can only have blood drawn 12 hours after her last meds. That was 9:00pm last night. So, we didn’t need to be at the hospital before 9:00am. We headed out and got the lab work done then went to Appletree for breakfast. Then it was over to Walmart for some groceries. Those all went into the rig. We rested up a bit, then I went out and checked out the water heater. I had turned it on electric this morning and the water was nice and hot. Then I switched over to diesel and it worked fine. The weather on the way down will be in the 40s at night so we also will need to run the heater(s). We hadn’t run any of these since we got here so I needed to make sure it all works. Everything checks out. UPS stopped by with her scooter!  I got it all assembled and she said she will be ok with it. Later, I took Lydia over to get her nails done and then went over to my sisters to help her put her Christmas decorations away. She came by later to drop off eggs and talk about New Year’s Eve and Day. We didn’t have lunch so we ate an early dinner and then watched tv until bedtime.     

Tuesday, Dec 31st, 2019…… Not much planned for today. Football and loading some more items into the rig. Rick and Janie are getting Lydia’s old laptop so I loaded that up in the mh. I also had to choose some of Rylee’s many toys to throw in as well. She followed me all the way, “Why are you taking them out of my house?” We will take both her beds – one in the rig and one in the car when we travel with her. Before all of that, I made us scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. Lydia got showered and dressed and spent most of the morning getting her clothes sorted out. I loaded up some stuff for the freezer and some for the pantry that we won’t need before then. We always have a last-minute laundry basket of stuff from the fridge (butter, milk, etc.) to load in so I got that ready to load up on Friday morning.
Sis came over for the day and night. Her neighborhood gets a little crazy on New Year’s Eve and Quincy gets really nervous. There will be a lot of noise going on there. In fact, our local Walmart has had a pretty big display rack of fireworks out for sale for some time now! I’m betting folks have stocked up. We don’t have the houses here so that helps.  Of course, here we will probably have the folks on the property behind us shooting their guns again this year! They have a wide-open area (away from us) that they shoot out into. When we first moved here and experienced that, we were nervous until we saw where their shots were going. Hey they are OreGUNions!  One good thing about today is that we are supposed to get some pretty steady rain later in the evening. Maybe that will help keep ‘em inside!
Ok, later in the day now - we are relaxing and watching tv. Lydia and Penny have planned out dinner for today and tomorrow. I don’t know what it is but I bet I’ll be cooking both days!
Turns out we had enchiladas, which came from a frozen package. Penny stopped and got refried beans and rice from Tony’s and we heated that up. It was all pretty good. And easy!
We ate and relaxed and I watched the ball drop in New York. We didn’t stay up but we toasted and celebrated early!  Happy New Year to you all. May 2020 bring us all good health, happiness, and peace.  

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