Jan's Journal

July 16, 2004

IT'S FRIDAY!! MY FAVORITE DAY!!

It's been another busy week for me again. I don't know about this retirement thing, I feel I have been working harder since I retired! What's with that?

I am still moving in and out with stuff. I clear a shelf with Dave's mom's stuff and put my stuff in its place. I feel if I do a couple of boxes a day, maybe I will be completely moved in by the year 2025! I did get the kitchen all done so now if I can find my bathroom towels, etc., I will move on to the next room. Between all of this, we managed to clear out most of the stuff we had stored in the front room down stairs so that we can start remodeling that room in August. We will make it into Dave's office with a Murphy bed so that we will have an extra place for guests.

Speaking of guests, we are starting to fill up our calendar. My sister and husband are coming from Arizona and are planning on being here the end of July. After they leave, we are having friends from Washington, D.C. come for a night, then the Steam Meet will start on August 13th and we have steam guests we have invited for that.

We also had my 83-year old mother down all last week. She doesn't get around very well because of an artificial knee, so we gave her our bedroom upstairs and we slept in the guest room downstairs during this time. She enjoyed herself and didn't want to leave. We assured her that we will try to have her down at least once a month for a week. It will give her something to look forward to and she isn't any trouble to have around. I just felt guilty because I was so busy trying to unpack that I really didn't get much time to visit with her. We did make it to Tillamook for the farmer's market on Saturday and a little shopping on the way back home while she was here.

We finally got the Captain Bell launched and tooted the steam whistle to let everyone in Wheeler know that the boat was in the water for the summer. Everyone came out of their homes and waved as we chugged by. After landing at Kahrs' dock, we had our traditional cheese, crackers and wine to celebrate her arrival. Des and Donna are kind enough to allow us to berth our steamboat at their dock all summer.

On Wednesday, we brought Grandma back home to the big city of Portland. Lara and Greg invited us to a concert on the river in Lake Oswego so we packed a picnic and went to that. It was really a lot of fun but it was really hot and crowded. We then spent the last couple of days running errands around town. We got the car's oil changed, made a "drug run" to Costco and then delivered the prescriptions to my Mom. We looked at furniture also. I want a side table to fit behind my couch in the living room and found the perfect one we liked but it came in this "distressed finish" that we weren't too keen about. We will keep looking. We went down to Salem to visit our financial advisor and then had dinner with our other daughter and son-in-law, Leslie and Jason. Leslie has been busy painting the inside of the house and it sure looks nice. They moved into this brand new house about 8 months ago and Leslie didn't like the color of the inside, especially the ceiling which was two-toned. So she has been redoing it ever since. The grandchildren were happy to see us as we brought root beer and ice cream to make floats.

This Saturday we have two weddings to attend. How often does that occur folks? One is in Hillsboro at 3:00 p.m. and the other one is in While Salmon, Washington (about 2 hours away) at 6:00 p.m. and of course we are attending both. Are we nuts or what??? After the wedding in White Salmon, we will stay in our motor home which we had kept in White Salmon after the family reunion last month and then bring the motor home back with us on Monday.

GIVE ME A BREAK!!

The only break I needed this week was to get away from all of the work at home!
The DSL line was installed at the house last week, but the modem wouldn't work for the installer, so we have an appointment to get all our computer stuff installed and overhauled on Wednesday. Hopefully, that means I'll be able to do this journal with pictures again by then!