Oregon Living 2018 – Blog #106 – Pulling Weeds and Playing in the Pool

 

Saturday, August 11th, 2018……  Rylee is sleeping later now. It was after 6:00am when she wanted up on the bed. Nice for us!  Today we had nothing planned. So, we did some yard work. I hate pulling weeds – that’s why we have Kirk!   But today I went out to the back porch area flowerbed and dug down to loosen up the individual weeds so Lydia could come behind me and finish digging them out. Before she came out, I did go back and get the bigger ones pulled and filled up and dumped our trash bin. She has a little stool so she moves along pretty quickly and she got all of that one area completed in an hour or so, not counting a break for lunch! I went out and picked up all the tools and cleaned up so she was done for the day. We’ll do the other side of the porch another time. Later, I went out and picked up KFC for dinner. Then it was tv until bedtime.

      

Sunday, August 12th, 2018……  Again, we got to sleep in til after 6:00!  This morning it was 6:30am. Yaay!   I only had plans today to water the grapes/apples/blueberries and that won’t happen until later in the evening, so this was a lazy Sunday.  I think I will mow again tomorrow so we don’t have to worry about it when Mike and Cheri get here. We dumped and refilled the pool again. She was in and out of the pool several times so the white terror got her ‘water fix’ again today. I watched my games and races and Lydia caught up on some of her taped programs so pretty much that was it for us today.     

Oregon Living 2018 – Blog #105 – A Brake Job and Planning for Company

  

Thursday, August 9th, 2018……  Lydia and Penny went off this morning to play pickle ball again. I decided to make my ‘run’ to the two Habitat For Humanity stores in Albany and Corvallis. I also needed to go back to Kmart to return a sprinkler that didn’t work. No problem – Habitat had four that I picked up! I also got another 5-gallon gas can for the mowers. Total was $6.50.  Once I got back, it was time to help the hot dog cool off. Lydia had left to meet up with Penny. They were going to drop off Sis’s car for some brake work. I emptied the pool and cleaned it and refilled it. This is the part Rylee likes! She attacks the water coming from the hose and I can shoot it out up to 40 feet so she gets to run and the water and then hop in and out of the pool. 

Once dried off, she gets to come back in the house for r and r with me. The girls got back and later Lydia fixed dinner and we settled in for the night.    

      

Friday, August 10th, 2018……  Lydia’s friend, Linda, had sent Lydia a text about her block yard sale that was today so we decided to go this morning. It was also a chance to head over afterward to Shirley May’s for breakfast. After a few miscues, we found the right place and got parked. They didn’t have too much stuff and we bought some storage bins and a few other things. I kicked myself later for not looking more carefully at a backpack sprayer system and a pretty decent looking gas string trimmer. I’m thinking I could have bundled those two and got a good price. Oh well!  While we were at breakfast, sis got a call that her car was done so we left for Albany to get it. While at breakfast, I also called my garage door guy and the lady told me that he would call later in the day to set up a day/time. We got home and did a few chores around the house and then rested for the afternoon. I am trying to keep up on the LL regionals plus the Tour of Utah (cycling) so I stayed in for most of the day.  Loren called me back and we set up the work on the garage door for Tuesday afternoon. We also have been talking with our friends, Mike and Cheri, who are traveling in their rv. They are planning on coming by here on their way home.  Looks like they will be here either Tuesday or Wednesday. No problem – we’re ready.

Oregon Living 2018 – Blog #104 – Loose Dog and BBQ

  

Tuesday, August 7th, 2018……  I got to sleep in this morning!  Rylee wanted up on the bed around 4:00am but went back to sleep and didn’t wake us up until after 6:00am! Lydia got up with her and let her out and fed her and then came back to bed. Rylee came back to bed too and went back to sleep as well. Later, once we got all of our morning routines completed, Lydia went off to go play pickle ball and Kirk and Caleb came over to do some work on the flowerbeds. I spent some time on the bills and then worked on power washing a couple more squares on the front walk. Since the weather is warming up, it was a good day to do that. I also went out and adjusted the timers in the flowerbeds since I had them off for the work today. I went out later to check to see if the timers shut off and let Rylee walk with me. She saw our neighbor, Paul (Ollie’s dad) out so she beelined across the street to go play. I had to track her down and, since she ran over there on her own, I wouldn’t let them bring Ollie out to play. She had to ‘get home now’!  But later in the evening, since it was super hot today, we let her play in her pool before toweling her off and bringing her in. We settled in and watched tv and stayed in the cool house until bedtime.       

      

Wednesday, August 8th, 2018……  Kirk brought the lawn tractor back yesterday. We had taken it into the shop for service (spark plug, oil change, filters, etc.). They said other than the routine maintenance it needed, it was in great shape. I went out to the shop and moved things around so I could park the truck in there. It’s been outside for the past few nights. I’m still having issues with the shop door and up until now have been able to get it closed. But today I gave up and left it open. Still waiting for the garage door guys to get to us…

I started watching the Little League Baseball Regionals on tv. The eight regionals are held this week and by Saturday, the US teams going to Williamsport, PA will be determined. I always enjoy watching these games to see who the stronger teams are. If you know me, you know I have a soft spot in my heart for little leaguers. I loved my years of coaching my boys and enjoyed our vacation trip to Williamsport back in 2012.  If you ever get a chance to go there, do it!     

I also spent some more time out power washing again today. I want to eventually do all of the concrete on the property but I think it will be a long time before I can accomplish that task. Today I only got one more square done - one more completes the front walkway. Next up is the back porch, then the back walkway, which is shorter but just as dingy.

I took Lydia out to dinner tonight, just to get out of the house for a while. She chose Oregon BBQ. This place is really a mobile food cart, looks like a tiny house, and is now sitting under a carport of an older business on Santiam Hwy. The two windows on the side are for drive up and pick up. She said the rest of the older building will eventually be refurbished for a seating area. We had never tried this place since we got up here. The food was excellent! Lydia had a brisket sandwich with potato salad and cole slaw. She said it all was really tasty, the cole slaw average. I had a duo plate with sausage, pulled pork, cole slaw and baked beans. I loved it all, including the cole slaw.  We will be going back again!       

Oregon Living 2018 – Blog #103 – Moving Furniture and Lydia’s Back!

 

Sunday, August 5th, 2018……  Penny brought Quincy over for her walk and for playtime with Rylee. Poor Rylee, she waits at the back door until Quincy finishes her poop/walk. Then I let her out to play and harass her.  Next on my list today was a trip to Albany. Lydia called me as I was just pulling into the Big Lots parking lot. I was there to meet my sister to load up her dresser and nightstands that had come in yesterday. Lydia said that the day was nice and everything went well. Later, she sent me a picture with her, Lyn and Sandie….

We got the furniture all set up in Penny’s guest room. I also hung a mirror and a star on her wall before heading back home. It was time to feed the puppy. Poor thing, she is so neglected!  But we had all afternoon together. Later, I left her in the house and went out and got the catcher hooked up on the tractor and made a few passes and got all of the excess grass clippings picked up. If I stay on top of the mowing, there is minimum excess grass to clean up. Meals have been easy these past few days. I have stocked up on stuff to fix so I ate and then fed super pooper. I also went out and honed down the inside of her new bone. It is a real bone and had rough areas on the inside that I took the Dremel to. Now I can spread some peanut butter inside for a treat now and then. Tonight was the first and she sure enjoyed that!  I emptied the pool the other day so I will go out later and fill that up for tomorrow. The weather had cooled off a bit the last several days but it’s getting warmer now again so she’ll enjoy that.         

      

Monday, August 6th, 2018……  I got up super early. I fed the dog and then took off. My sister is coming over later to let her out again and play with her a while.  Lydia’s flight gets in at 8:08am so I wanted to get going and try to avoid the rush hour traffic. It didn’t work but at least I planned ahead and was able to get there early enough to wait in the cell phone lot. She had carry-on luggage so I timed it to meet her at the curb and off we went. Neither of us ate as we had planned to stop and eat breakfast together. We headed back and stopped at Black Bear Diner and had a nice meal. Once we got home, we had nothing planned. Lydia needed some rest and I ended up taking a short nap too. Later, we decided to skip dinner and snack. Bedtime came early for both of us tonight.       

Oregon Living 2018 – Blog #102 – A Trip for Lydia and Yard Work for Me

 

Friday, August 3rd, 2018……  Today was get-away day for Lydia. She has a 4:50pm flight out this evening. This is her trip to Henderson NV for our friend, Lee’s, celebration of life. I have chosen to stay home and watch Rylee, plus the garage door guy is supposed to come on Saturday. Yes, I could reschedule and my sister could watch the dog, but we thought we’d just have one of us go, plus Lydia can visit with her girlfriends while she’s there. Sandie and Typhanie are driving in from California and are picking her up at the airport. They are sharing a hotel room so it works out for everyone.

Forgot to mention this yesterday - I went online last evening to register for my upcoming jury duty. Yes, I got chosen after only a year in Oregon! It’s pretty much the same here except you have a two-week window that you have to call in to see if they need you or not. I will know more soon about where I have to go.

We got on the road about noon, after feeding Rylee. The drive is about two hours but we wanted to stop and have linner before I dropped her off. We found Shari’s in Oregon City, and ate a nice meal. I got her to the airport shortly after that and then headed home. Actually, I made a detour. I wanted to go find the Portland International Raceway and cruise around it. Not much to see. I also planned to drive back past the Pittock Mansion. This is on our Oregon Fun Card, so admission is free for up to four people. I decided that since I was in rush hour, I would do that drive by on another trip. The Oregon Zoo is also on our card and we plan to go there too but I already know where that is.  I headed home and got stuck in the usual Wilsonville traffic zone.  Wilsonville is a fast growing upscale burb just south of Portland and for some reason (maybe too many folks exiting and entering) there is always congestion going both north and south on the I5 through there. I made the stop-and- go adventure through there and got home about 6:30pm. Penny had fed Rylee and played with her so I got a bit of rest when I got home. Later, we went out and butthead jumped in the pool and then got out and did the Rylee 500 around the yard. I ended up wiping her down twice before we came in for the night!  Lydia didn’t call so I texted her and she texted back that she got caught up in visiting and forgot to call. I didn’t sleep well so I took a couple of Tylenol PMs. I ended up staying up until about midnight. When I did come in, Rylee slept in her usual spot on the floor but got up on the bed with me around 3:45 or so when I got up to pee.              

Saturday, August 4th, 2018……   I had a few things on my plate today. After our usual pee, poop, walk, read the paper, shower, get dressed routine, I ate breakfast and went out and worked on the inside of the motorhome a bit. There were some things to be picked up and some things I needed in the house. After that I came in and rested for the morning and into the afternoon and caught up on my latest Mecum Auctions I had on tape. Lydia called and said they were getting ready to go to the celebration of life that the Hand family had planned.  Later, when it cooled off a bit, I went out and got the string trimmer and did all of the areas I can’t reach with the mower. After a brief break, I got the tractor out and mowed the yard. This time all I did was the yard – not the field - so I was done in less than an hour. Tomorrow I will use the catcher and get the excess grass picked up. That was it for the day. Lydia didn’t call me. I ended up going to bed early. I needed to catch up on my sleep from last night.     

Oregon Living 2018 – Blog #101 – More Power Washing, Shopping, and Dinner With Friends

Wednesday, August 1st, 2018……   This morning Rylee woke me up from a sound sleep. Dammit, that dog! I got up and let her out and fed her then went back to bed.  She’s then content to get up on the bed with us and snooze. I got up after about ½ hour and Lydia got up as well. Penny came by to walk Quincy and let Rylee harass her for a while outside. They really are getting along – it’s just that Quincy is an energizer puppy and Quincy’s batteries run at a different speed. But it’s fun. Rylee took a dip in the pool and we dried her off and they all came in to rest for a while.  After eating breakfast, I took off and went to Walmart and got the cleaning solution for the gutters. I chose Mr. Clean because it’s not too sudsy and it’s also not harmful to the plants. I put it into my Hudson sprayer and spritzed all of the front gutters. I let it soak and then hit it with the power washer. Wow, it worked well! The gutters are sparkling clean and good for another season now! I continued on with the walkway. Now this is another task altogether. Even though it’s not like working overhead, the sidewalks and driveways here have never been washed and it shows! The walks are roughed up for non-skid, so there are a lot of porous areas where the dirt is really embedded. It comes clean, but only with the wand being an inch or two from the cement so it’s slooowww going! I did about half of the walk today (with breaks in between) before Lydia told me to call it a day. More tomorrow. Meanwhile, she started in on her blueberry cobbler. She got it in the oven and was really upset when it came out. Even though we have a rather high end Dacor oven, she hates it!  The stovetop works fine but the oven gives her fits.  Even though she watches it, it manages to either underbake or overcook. This time the edges of the cobbler were extra crispy. But we cut that out and the rest was fine. Brian – if you’re reading this blog, please help! You and Jeff need to come up soon to visit and take a look at it for her!     

Thursday, August 2nd, 2018……  I decided that, today, instead of my normal walk up and back Oak Creek Way, that I would put Rylee in the car and take her to the new dog park in town.  It’s really the old dog park that they just renovated (benches, water fountains, etc.). It was empty all the time we were there so she didn’t get to play with any new friends. I’m not sure I liked it though. It seems that no one up here is caring enough to pick up after their dogs! There was dog crap everywhere! I picked up what I could but gave up after a bit. I put her back in the car and we went on to get breakfast and coffee/tea before going back home. Rylee went straight to the back yard and jumped in and sat in her pool! 

Later, (after toweling her off and letting her back in the house) we decided to take off and head to Corvallis (to the bank) and then on to Albany. We needed to go to Petco to get some more nylabones for Rylee. We found they now have softer teething ones that she really likes and she’s gnawed it down to the point we’re worried she’ll soon swallow it so we needed another one.  We bought two, plus another real bone (to fill with peanut butter for special treats. We also got a watering bowl that has a reservoir so we don’t have to fill it three times a day! We also stopped at Harbor Freight to get stuff I just had to have! Then we went to Big Lots to look at their recliners. I already have one from there in my room and I love it. My sister has two of the swivel recliners that are the perfect size for the motorhome so we ended up buying a couple of them.  They are now stored just outside the rig in the rv garage. We still need to have the house carpets cleaned and we want the motorhome done as well. We’ll wait until then before we put them in. We got all of our chores done and rested until it was time to go to Sweet Home to meet with Tim & Dana for dinner at Skyline. We forgot that this was the three-day weekend for the Oregon Jamboree, which is held in Sweet Home. It’s a really big event and they have some mega country stars appearing there. We had previously discussed the possibility of going but we just don’t want to fight the crowds. Plus, they only sell three-day passes and they are upwards of $338.00 just for general admission. So, we’ll pass! Tim and Dana live just up the hill from the site and they said it’s a drunk fest so they always go to the coast and spend the weekend there on their boat to get away from it all. Tonight, they had a free concert (one local band playing) so we expected the whole town to be busy but Skyline wasn’t. We had a nice dinner and a nice visit with them. They are planning on coming back over soon to see how monster puppy has grown.  They were there when we first brought Rylee home and she loves them like family - and they miss her too!  We got back and gave Rylee the first of her new bones and she immediately headed outside with it to lay in the shady grass and chew the ‘new’ out of it! 

Eventually, we got her back inside and settled in for the night.   

Oregon Living 2018 – Blog #100 – Labs and Blueberries

Monday, July 30th, 2018……   Wow, 100 posts so far this year!  This morning we got up to see a little cooler weather. Rylee sleeps better in the cooler air (she stays at the bedroom door where she gets the night air). I wasn’t surprised that Rylee waited until 5:30am to get us up! That was ok – I wanted to get up and going early. I had to go do my labs this morning. My physical isn’t until October but they wanted me in sooner than later. Also, they just received a request from my 90-day pharmacy for refills and he wants to make sure that I’m doing ok on the meds.  So, I got up and showered and dressed and took Rylee for her walk. The timing worked out. Right before I left, the girls came by to walk Quincy and to pick blueberries. Penny took some home so this is about half of them.

Later, I texted Dana. I need their garage door guy to come out and fix my shop door. It stops and goes up like there’s something in the way. I also wanted to set up a date to take her and Tim out to dinner as a thank you for doing our garage. We set it up for Thursday. Later still, Penny and Marlyn came over. Marlyn needed to print her boarding pass and after a visit, we all left to go to Sweet Home for a tour and then to Skyline Diner for dinner.   

Tuesday, July 31st, 2018……  Sis took Marlyn to the airport shuttle stop this morning in time for her ride to Portland and then home (Stanton). When she got home, Penny said she was done for the day - and rested from her time with her friend. I’m glad the weather was nice and that they got to go and see and do a bunch of things. Meanwhile, we ran some errands which included a stop in Albany at Costco to pick up some of our supplements. Can’t beat Costco prices! We did see a dining room set that we liked before that was marked down $100. Even though the price was extremely attractive, we decided to pass on it since it’s not exactly what we had in mind.  Hey, we want what we want!  We came back home and let Rylee out and then took off again, this time to Walmart. I did forget one of the things on my list – cleaner for the gutters. Maybe tomorrow.  We fed super pooper and went out in the backyard to play with her and let her run for a while. Plus, she took a dip in the pool!  We got her dried off then Lydia made dinner and we caught up on America’s Got Talent and then called it a night.