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February 2, 2007

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

HAPPY GROUND HOG DAY!!

I suppose because the weather has been so nice, that darn ground hog will see his shadow and we will have 6 more weeks of winter. I guess I really don't mind as long as it is sunny and clear out. Speaking of that, we couldn't have asked for nicer winter weather this week. It is a bit chilly outside with the east wind blowing, but the skies are clear and the sun is shining. We have had to deal with icy highways - not from rain or snow but from heavy frost. Dave had to drive into Portland for a game on Wednesday and reported frost so heavy it looked like snow! He was in 4-wheel drive most of the way, just to keep his footing. Still, it's been absolutely beautiful with blue, blue skies during the day and a million stars at night. While it's been cold at night, it has been pretty warm during the day. I don't know why, but for some reason, January in Oregon is one of the nicest months of the winter. We can have (and have had) ice and snow but when January gets here, we can get daytime temperatures up near 60. It's been that way all this week. I have also noticed the moon in the mornings and yesterday morning it was especially bright so I took a picture just before it was setting over Nehalem Bay.

We have been home most of this week, so we took advantage of the weather and worked out in the yard. We collected all the yard debris from the winter storms, loaded it onto the flatbed trailer and took it to the burn pile down at Kahrs'. As you can see from the picture, we had quite a few tree branches and limbs. I also did a little pruning while I was at it, so it wasn't all from the storms. This is just the beginning. I'll spend most of the spring and summer working on the "overgrowth" around here. I'm sure we'll be able to duplicate this picture several more times in the next few months!

We also got the postholes dug for the fence that had blown down in one of the storms. I did learn how to run a posthole digger, and I also learned that I never want to do that again! My arms were sore for days! We did that on Friday and we let the posts "settle in" for a couple of days before Dave got the old fence in place and attached to the new posts. Of course, the old fence didn't exactly match the new posts, so there was a little "exasperation" connected with the job. I did the smart thing and just stayed out of his way!! He got it done and it looks like it did before the wind knocked it down, so that's the important thing.

Over the past several weeks, I've been talking about our ongoing project that involves cleaning out the garage and moving Dave's dad's workshop out of there and up to the boat barn. From there, we're consolidating it with the stuff Dave brought from his old shop in Hillsboro, so there's a ton of junk stuff to cram in there! In order to get everything into the space where the shop is, we had to pile everything that had been in the shop space into the center bay of the boat barn. That meant getting the motorhome out of the center bay and stored elsewhere. It has taken a couple of months to get the shop in roughly the shape it's going to be in and so this week, we cleared out the center bay so that we could get the motorhome back in. It may take a year to get all the boxes of tools unpacked and in place, but at least we can get the doors closed! All in all, we got a lot accomplished this week.

We also gathered all our tax information up and will call our accountant and make an appointment to get that taken care of. Hopefully, before we leave for Arizona next Wednesday.

We reflected Wednesday on the third anniversary of Dave's mother's death. It doesn't seem to be getting any easier as time goes by and we all miss her very much. It is so hard to accept that she is gone from us. Her cheerful optimism, outgoing personality, generosity and beaming smile were cherished by her many friends and family. Though she is gone and will be greatly missed, she will always remain in our hearts and we are grateful for the life she led and the life she radiated to others.

We headed back into town today as Dave has to engineer a lacrosse broadcast tonight and then there is a Blazer game on Saturday night. We will head right back home on Sunday because we have to start packing for our trip to Arizona. We will leave the middle of next week, but have one more game to engineer on Tuesday night and we won't be coming home before we leave. I will try to post something from Arizona next week, but since we're going to be very busy, I'm making no guarantees. So if there's nothing here next week, don't worry, I'll catch up with everything when we get back.

Five days until we leave! (but who's counting?)