Oregon Living 2021 – Blog #13 – Happy Birthday! & Trying to Get a Vaccine Shot!

 

Friday, February 19^th., 2021……  More stormy weather around these parts. We have been lucky in the valley not to get the really colder winds which have caused some serious snow in the higher elevations. Even with the cold temps and all of the rain, our daffodils are starting to bloom! 

Portland has had some power loss this past week or so. I am fortunate here that our block has all underground wiring. There is a power line out across the road but I don’t know if that’s us or not. My power company is even different from my sister’s and she’s only a few miles away.  As I said, Portland got hit pretty hard but nothing has hit Lebanon and the surrounding areas that has caused too much damage. I’m sure glad I’m not in Texas right now. Lydia’s sister Judy and her family live just outside of Tyler and they got hit pretty hard.  It’s kind of comical to see all of the wind turbos and the solar panels all frozen up, especially since we are now heading to reliance for that kind of power in our grids since fossil fuel production has stopped in the US!  I expect to see $4.00 gas prices hit sooner than later, and that’s hard knowing we had it under $2.00 in some places!  Fingers crossed.  Ok, enough political rhetoric.

I ended up hanging around the house again today, simply because I got lazy. I have also been trying to get more info on Oregon vaccine schedules. My age group is eligible on Monday and they said we could go online and try to schedule as early as today. No such luck. The bad weather has limited the national vaccine supplies and we are hit here as well. No news on when that will get resolved. Meanwhile, I have to just ride it out.   

Saturday, February 20^th., 2021…… Happy Birthday Rylee! She is 3 today. I guess I should quit referring to her as a puppy, but she still reminds me of one!  She’s a goofball but has turned out to be a great companion for me these days. I talk to her (and Lydia) a lot! She makes my day right now! I headed off to Walmart after our walk and picked up a few things. Of course, I had to get her a new toy!

After playing she likes to get up on the couch and take a snooze!

 

I watched the Nascar Xfinity race and then later the supercross race. For dinner, I had bought a box of panko shrimp and tried those with a salad. Excellent!  I think I will also be making more tomorrow!    

Sunday, February 21^st., 2021……  Another laid back day. I don’t think I went out at all. Nope. Just hung around the house and watched the Nascar Cup Road Course race at Daytona. In the next few weeks F1 and Indy cars will begin plus Mecum and Barrett Jackson auctions will happen so that all will keep my recorder busy!  I did do some laundry and then went on to the JC Penney website and ordered some more underwear.  Dinner was again a salad and shrimp. I did find a recipe on facebook that I want to try so I saved it. Sounds like Lydia huh! This one is for scalloped potatoes from scratch which I know can make!        

Monday, February 22^nd., 2021…… I had a tough time sleeping the last few nights. So, today I was dragging a bit. I still got up at my usual time (7:00am) and got going. I checked the covid websites because today 70 and older are now eligible. But finding anything is almost impossible. They have a shortage plus Oregon is way behind the nation.  I read we are in the bottom third for vaccinations. The only thing going right now in the whole state is in the eastern part, which would be a 200+ mile one-way trip. They have vaccines only because people here are not willing to drive over the snowy Cascades!  Me included!  But I’m not overly concerned and will just keep trying and wait it out. 

I decided to drive over to Central Bark this morning and order another load of gravel for my carport area. I took the old receipt with me and they honored the discounted price. They even said they could do an immediate delivery so the guy practically followed me home!

 

I will wait until tomorrow and have Kirk, Carter, and Justin help me spread this load around. That should do it, I hope! The rest of the day was spent working on my layout for the back porch/patio area. I measured the existing deck and used the quad pad and laid out the new area. I have some work to do on it and some tweaking but the next step is to get Tim and Dana here to give me a bid. I don’t expect they will be able to get to me before summer but I will know soon what it will cost and when they can get to it.

Later, I went to Hangry Solutions (a local food truck here) to pick up a burger and fries for dinner. But they were closed so I went to Taco Bell instead. When I got back, I got a callback from the hotline number for vaccinations. The lady was really nice and said that there were no appointments at this time due to delays in getting in shipments of the vaccine. I was put on a wait list and could expect an email as early as tomorrow. Yeah, right!  Tv until bedtime, which was early tonight! Hopefully, I will be able to sleep!