Oregon Living 2020 – Blog #46 – Saying Goodbye to Visiting Family & Keeping Busy

Tuesday, June 9^th, 2020……  Another travel day. Kyle was going home today. We had set a time for leaving but he was ready for breakfast so we got going early so we could stop again at Elmer’s for their German pancake.

Once we were on the road, we had plenty of time to take the scenic route to Portland (via hwy 99). I stopped at the overlook and we saw this…. 

This is Willamette Falls and has paper mills and a power plant surrounding to it. Really fascinating but a lot to take in and it was sprinkling. So, we headed on. I drove us around several of the ‘districts’ in the Portland area and we saw a lot before making our way to the terminal. We said our goodbyes and he is saying he is planning on bringing Tiffany and the family back up here next year. That will be fun. I drove back home through some pretty constant rain and then did some laundry and cleanup around the house before relaxing and fixing a sandwich and watching tv for a bit.  I want to go to the store but I will hold off on that for a while. It will be just for smaller items. There are tons of things in the freezer in the garage and I need to get through all of that first!  Tonight though, it was mac and cheese because Kyle left milk for that. I stayed up later than usual tonight – just wasn’t sleepy.

Wednesday, June 10^th, 2020……  Really quiet last night with no one else in the house. I woke up early and got Rylee out and walked and then fed. I have finished up all of the photo albums and now have to sort those that I pulled out by year.  The weather here is nice today but the grass is too wet to mow again. I heard from sis that Chuck is planning on coming over tomorrow to mow the ‘west 40’. Hopefully it will be drier by then.  Because the sun was out, I did another coat of primer on the trailer parts. I have decided to use marine paint because it’s cheaper than the bedliner paint (more on that later) but I’m waiting for Sherwin Williams to allow people in their stores again before I go and talk to them. I like their paint plus Jeff has a (nation-wide) account there and I can get his contractor discount.  I have a lot of lunchmeat left plus I had bought four loaves of sourdough bread (two in the freezer) so I am making some tasty sandwiches with that! I had one for lunch so when dinnertime came, I decided to just fix a chicken pot pie. Easy peasy.  Rylee and I settled in and watched Nascar and Motocross races until bedtime. Both of these entities are trying to get their season schedule in and are doing races on Sundays and Wednesdays. No problem here – I can keep up!       

     

Thursday, June 11^th, 2020……  Chuck showed up around 8:15am and we talked for a few minutes before he headed out to work on the field grass. He was asked by my sister if she could run the tractor around the field and so she came over to do that. She did a few laps and had a good time and did a pretty good job too!  No, Sis, I am NOT buying a big tractor!

After Chuck left, Penny stayed and we talked a bit. My mail came and I showed her the letter from my estate attorney, outlining the next steps. I will be calling him tomorrow so he can officially get started. She will be calling him too, because she needs to get her estate in order as well. I ate a late lunch so I skipped dinner and just had an orange and a banana and was good to go. With all of the racing I had taped, I am behind in my regular shows. With the summer fill-ins I am still trying to catch up!    

Friday, June 12^th, 2020……  This morning, after walking and feeding butthead, I took off to go get breakfast and then head on to Albany to Sherwin Williams and then to Lowes. At Sherwin Williams, I wanted to get a gallon of gray marine paint for the trailer and a quart of  navy blue for the fenders. They don’t sell the marine paint in quarts and it turns out that a gallon of marine paint is over $80.00! Wow!  I passed on the navy and will get spray paint at Lowes. But I got the Lazy Gray color-mixed in and used Jeff’s account plus they had brought out a can that was dented and offered that to me and the total charge was only $35.00. Whew!  Then I went over to Lowes and got the navy paint and the rest of my supplies so I think I’m good to go!  The bedliner paint that I had previously purchased for the trailer will now be used in the near future on the truck bed, which needs it again. The weather is again misting so I’m not painting anything today. So, I came in and worked on the photo sort and also on Frances’ request for copies of Lydia’s recipe files from her computer. I think I will go get some flash drives which will be easy to copy and mail.  The skies cleared up a bit later, so I went back out and worked on my outside storage bench that I had put together and sat out for my painting project. It needed to be leveled and I wanted to take care of that but before I could get going, it started raining again. I also need to add a plywood top before that job will be done. I had taken out a stuffed salmon from the freezer and made that with a baked potato and green beans for dinner. Funny, out in the freezer, I found that I must have 3-4 bags each of every package of frozen vegetables there are! But it won’t take long to make all of that go away!  After dinner, I took Rylee out for a run in the yard then settled in and watched tv until calling it a night. Still hard getting used to the quiet….