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Click for Wheeler, Oregon Forecast

January 18, 2007

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Oh, it was so nice to be home all week. Since the Blazers are playing on the road for the next couple of weeks there hasn't been any reason to go into town but we have managed to keep ourselves pretty busy around here just the same.

On Saturday, we went to the annual town hall meeting of Wheeler. The Mayor of our little town gives a speech on all the things that happened over the past year and what is planned for this year. Most of the meeting was spent on updating everyone on the storm we had had in December and how we need to be more prepared. An emergency committee was selected to come up with a city plan and I was asked to join and of course, I couldn't say "no". I figured with the experience that I had had when I was on the safety committee when I worked, that I might be able to contribute something. Another topic of interest that was brought up was the Scovell Property where they want to develop it into a condo/commerical property on the waterfront. There has been a real battle going on about this subject for quite some time because so many people in town are against it. Since Dave's on the Planning Commission, he's right in the middle of that. The application will be up for approval and there will be public hearings sometime in February or March.

We had more rain at the beginning of the week, but finally that big shiny thing in the sky appeared. It was so nice to see the sun and to be able to get outside and do some yard work. I managed to collect all the yard debris from the December storm and Dave and I got the house gutters cleaned out so that they wouldn't overflow every time it rained. It was cold outside (our first clue was having to break the ice on the water in the gutters) but between the two of us - Dave climbing the ladder to gather guck and me dumping the bucket after it was full of guck - it took us about an hour to do both sides. Every time we do this job we keep thinking about that Leaf Guard gutter system and how we wouldn't have to do it anymore. They are pretty expensive but I don't know how many more years we will be able to climb up and down ladders!

We made a run into Astoria this week and saw the movie "Bucket List" with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. I highly recommend it. We don't see very many movies because there is usually nothing worth seeing but we did enjoy this one. While we were out and about, we stopped at Costco and Fred Meyer for a few items and then had dinner out. It was a very enjoyable time and we keep telling ourselves that we should do this more often.

I went with Dave to the local Rotary Club meeting on Wednesday. He had been talking with the guy who schedules their speakers about the Blazers, steamboating and other things we're involved in, and the guy thought it would make an interesting talk at their meeting. I went along to hold his hand and we ended up getting a free meal out of the deal! He did fine, and the time went quickly, so he actually had to cut his presentation short. The only problem was that his meal came just as they called on him to speak, and by the time he was done, it was cold!

After forming the emergency preparedness committee, we scheduled our first meeting for Thursday afternoon. I had it on my mental schedule for the day, but since I had time in the morning, I decided to wash all the windows on the outside of the house. Nothing like a little sunshine in January to show how dirty your windows are! I spent most of the morning and early afternoon doing that little chore and since I had the water hose out, I decided to wash the car too. As I was finishing that job, I suddenly remembered my meeting! I rushed into the house and found that I was already late! I did a super-fast change and ran a comb through my hair and raced up to city hall. They had started without me, but I didn't miss that much! I'm going to have to start tying a string around my finger or something!

Lara and Greg and girls will be down for this three-day weekend and it looks like the weather is going to be nice. This will probably be Lara's last get away before the baby comes in a couple of weeks and Greg is bringing his chainsaw and will finish cutting down the tree that fell during the storm. He also said he would help with a few other "to-dos" on my list.

Dave has to drive to Seattle on Friday. He'll spend the night up there and then attend a funeral and an NWSS board meeting on Saturday. He'll be back sometime Saturday night. I would go, but the family is coming down and it was something that we had planned a while back.

No pictures this week. It's hard to take interesting pictures of anything when we're just working around the house. Maybe next week!