Another Sunday.

I feel particularly un-inspiring, or even interesting tonight.  I've spent the past two weeks trying to get the yard and flower gardens cleaned up and the grass reseeded and I am still not finished!  The list is growing shorter though, thank goodness.  I won't get back into the yard until Thursday and then only if it doesn't rain.  Well, I will have to water grass seeds and baby grass, some each day.

I want to begin deep cleaning this week, a bit at a time, and begin cleaning up the garage, rec room and laundry.  Spaces vacated in part or whole when Rob and Tanya moved out.  Big plans for those rooms!

I have made some hexie flowers and taken a few stitches in Bri's stocking.  But I still haven't turned on the machine!  I did begin to line up the pink squares only to discover I had cut the white pieces for the alternate blocks incorrectly.  I've started to re-cut them so perhaps I'll get some work done soon, I need to make my orange blocks as well, sigh.

With the return of cooler weather and all the yard work came the pain in my knees and hips so I'm back on Celebrex which is helping,  I can sleep most nights anyway!

One really odd thing is happening, the violets in my front lawn are blooming!  They usually only bloom in the early spring, what could this mean?  I'm hoping for a real winter this year to kill off the bugs and help the water table!

One year old!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful Quinn!  One year old today!

Empty Nest!

It's official,  I have joined the empty nesters!  My last son, Rob, and his girl Tanya moved into their own place on Sunday!  Rob was the one that left and came home, left and came home, but this time I think leaving will take!  I'm happy for them.  Everyone should get to grow up and live on their own.  I'm a little sad for me, a little happy too.  I have my whole house to myself-the last time I lived alone was 1976 and then I lived in my parents house (they were living in Colorado, the house I lived in was in Independence.)   This time I get to decided how to use the basement spaces and all that.  So that's exciting.  Also gets some more things off the "This must be done before I can sell this house" list.  I have lists for everything!

Although I have quite a bit of work ahead on the inside besides the basement (like a really good cleaning) I decided to concentrate on the lawn and gardens this week, and probably next as well.  The extreme heat and dryness of the past summer left me with a lawn of weeds and bare spots.  Although the bare spots are quickly being taken over by dandylions!  Today, I put the de-thatching blade on the mower and tore up the front yard but good!  Then I had to rake all that dead grass up and put it into bags for the trash folks.  I' m tired.  Tomorrow I will buy some top soil and a great deal of grass seed and Wednesday I will fill in holes and over seed it all then it will be water, water, water unless I get lucky and it rains.:)  Oh, and after all that I have to do the back, sigh.

Finally, fence!

When we moved into this house 12 years ago one of my conditions was to complete the fence.  The yard was fenced on three sides (by the neighbors some time ago) so all that was needed was to finish the house side.  Much discussion followed.  I insisted that I be able to let the dog(s) out from the house directly into the yard-no way did I want to walk outside at 6:30am in the pouring rain or freezing snow in my nightie to open a gate into the yard then repeat that when they wanted in!  All others did not want to gate the driveway!  Standstill. For 12 years.  This year, I decided it was going to be done and the simplest thing was to gate the driveway so----

It's finished!  Quinn is now safe in the yard (as long as both gates are closed) and Zoe, Coco and Mac can play safely when they visit.

Now it's on the the replacement of the deck!

Catch Up!

I've been home a couple, or three weeks now and I've done things like get the side window of the truck replaced (turns out the latch I broke getting in is integrated into the window so fixing it requires a new one!) While I was dealing with the glass folks I bought two pieces of table top glass, this had been on my list for 10 years maybe.  I didn't measure well enough for the one and it's not a great fit but it will protect my soft, pine, Daddy-made, kitchen table from any more dents! Te small one is to protect my Irish linen and lace tablecloth for my bedside table.  I think it took me one whole week to get my body functioning in the correct time zone and that was a blur.  I did contract with someone to finish fencing my yard.  That is proving somewhat of a problem, in spite of numerous calls to the company he has yet to show up.  He has until Friday or I'll look for someone else and get my deposit refunded.

I spent from last Thursday until Monday in Denver helping my brother celebrate his 60th birthday.  His wife Jessie put on a really nice party and I helped set up, decorate etc for that.  Saturday, I met a friend from the last time we lived there (92-93) for lunch and to catch up-that was very nice On Sunday he and the other members of Team Hickam rode in a bike ride to raise scholarship money for CU.  He rode 101 miles!  While he did that I took my rental up to Estes Park.  I feel like I grew up there, spent many summer vacations there and then my parents bought a summer home before they moved there.  I was in college for most of the actual living there but Larry and I were married there.  It's a tourist trap but it's my tourist trap.  Things had changed, yet there are about 10 businesses that have been there forever!  I had lunch at one of the restaurants I worked at during college vacations and talked to the owner-couldn't believe he was still working, he's older than I am.  Then drove through Rocky Mountain National Park and back to Denver.  I enjoyed my trip down memory lane!  We are thinking of organizing a "Family" vacation there next summer-some of the kids have never seen a 14,000ft peak.

I've only picked up a needle about three times since I left for the coast, haven't touched my machine at all.  But the weather is finally cooling off so I'll be back to high energy for the next few months.

I get Brayden and two of his friends off the bus one afternoon a week, continue to volunteer at the Historical Society and will begin volunteering at Brayden's school soon.  Live is getting busier and I am adding more physical activity to the mix.  Will be getting myself a good bike, maybe next year I can ride with Team Hickam (not 100 miles though, one of the shorter ones)!  Heading back into the gym more, getting the yard and gardens in shape-including adding a large vegetable garden and some fruit trees (inspired by Jim and Joanne).  I'll get more sewing done as well since it's getting darker and evenings are my prime stitching time!

Washington Coast 21012 Day 15 HOME!

I am anxious to be home and today will be very ambitious!  I have an 11 month old dog traveling with and we have 658 miles to go until we can sleep in our own beds.  On wait, Quinn has had her bed all along, I'm the one wishing for her own bed!  (Not to mention the fact that I don't have to make what seems like a hundred trips between car and hotel room with our junk!)  I didn't want to drive across Nebraska--so much corn! I wanted to drive across Kansas-I think I like that drive so much because I know where the best places to eat, get gas and stop to stretch legs are, although it is beautiful.  I asked Sam to pick the shortest way home instead of the quickest thinking we would angle off across Wyoming, Colorado and western Kansas until we hit I-70.  That's what I get for thinking.  After she had me get off, cross the road, then get back on I-80 TWICE I gave up and took I-80.  At least as far as Lincoln where I take a more direct route to the Missouri River and home.  We got home after dark, I don't usually drive after dark as the cataracts make seeing difficult but I was too close to stop.

I can't say enough how good Quinn was on this trip!  She mostly laid on the seat next to me-always had her butt up against my leg.  Sometimes, when she was getting tired of the truck she'd sit up and lay her head in the crook of my elbow giving me a very "Poor Puppy" look!  Sometimes she'd sit up and look out the windows, a few times she tried to sit on my lap (that one ended really quick-she's too big!)  She din't bark in hotels, even when I took a shower (she goes nuts when I take a shower at home), she happily walked and played where ever I could find a place even though she rarely got in her full 3 miles like she does at home.  She wasn't perfect but she was darn good!

I learn something on each of these trips so here's what I learned this time.  Driving vacations are not fun!  Especially if you are alone-sorry but as good as Quinn is she isn't much of a conversationalist and she can't help drive.  So, no more driving vacations.  I will drive no further than two days to a specific place where I can stay put for a week (or more).  To hit the west coast again, I'll fly and rent a car!

I also learned, not to leave the cell phone in the truck when I hit a beach!

I'm home and happy about it.

Washington Coast 2012 Day 14

After a really bad night of about 4 hours sleep (don't ask me, it just happens) We started out for the day.         Driving through a bit more of Utah and then Wyoming to Cheyenne.  It was brutal staying alert, and I'm sure all the other drivers were laughing at the crazy lady driving with a cold wash cloth on her head-but hey, it helped!  Just dunked it in the ice chest melt, wrung it out and stuck it atop my head-I don't know why it worked but it did.  After Quinn had a little romp in the dog park I hit up Outback for take out and while it cooked had a Jameson's and Gingerale.  (Fell in love with that in Ireland, still drinking it.)  Ate in the room took a short walk with Quinn and crashed.

Washington Coast 2012 Day 13

We were up and about early and headed east!  The only Stop we made was at Baker City to revisit the National Oregon Trail Interpretive Center .  Quinn and I had a walk on their paths around the hill.  The Center sits high on a hill and one can see the remains of the Oregon Trail from the top.  It's a very nice center and tells the local and national story quite well.  Actually tells the Independence story better than the Trails Museum here does, I think.  It helps that they had a big helping hand from the Bureau of Land Management, of course.  Like Lewis and Clark, all the trails centers tell the same story and after a while only the manner they each tell the story is interesting.  After purchasing a nice blue and white tea canister, some pencils and more patches (that's a total of 4) we are off again.  Ending the day in Odgen, UT.

Washington Coast Day 12

Sometime in the night I decided that I hadn't come this far to leave without time with the ocean.  I really wanted to see what Quinn would do!  So, after a stop at Target (I think there might be a theme here) for duct tape to hold the window with the broken latch in place and a few other things we left Washington State behind and headed for the town of Seaside, Oregon.  Having been there before I knew there was plenty of access to the beach.  All of Oregon's coast is public but you shouldn't walk across private property to get there so access points are important.  We arrived about 9 or 9:30 quickly found parking and walked to the beach.

Quinn loved it!  Take a look:

Just one of many holes she dug and then stuck her nose into!

The tide was out so there were lost of shells and sand dollars to look at and for Quinn to sniff!

Normally Quinn doesn't mind getting wet but she wasn't crazy about this water with the edge that kept coming closer!  She did get wet up to the knees a few times before she caught on then, just like a little kid, she would run up to the water's edge then crab walk, hop, etc back to escape!  Very funny to watch.

After a couple of hours the beach began to get crowded with people and dogs and the retractable leash got to be a problem (I don't trust her off leash in places she's never been but could run for miles!) so we headed to the truck.  The people on the beach were just a few of the folks in town!  They were driving around and around looking for parking spaces and when we hit the highway it was bumper to bumper, stop and go traffic for several miles in either direction!

I had planned (sort of) to head to Scio, OR next as my great-grandfather is buried there but that would have meant 2 days on two lane roads (slow, slow) and I just didn't have it in me.  (Besides, I'm planning to meet Jim and Joanne in Sisters next year for the Quilt Festival and it's not to far from there.  Oh, I'm flying and renting a car!  Jim wants to go to Scio  as well, I think, since it is his grandfather and he has other family buried there.)  I programmed Sam for HOME and let her lead the way.

We settled in for the night at Pendleton, OR (Yes, home of Pendleton Woolen Mills-no factory outlet, darn it)  Watched night fall on the prairie and horses being trained before we hit the sack.