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December 11, 2009

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

We were in town last weekend and left for home on Sunday. Dave had to pick up an electrical part at Eoff Electric and after that we decided to stop for breakfast. The first stop we made, one of our usual spots at Elmer's, the line was clear out the door! So then we went to another of our regular stops at Rose's and they had just lost their electricity. They said they'd feed us, but they weren't too sure what we'd get. We told them thanks anyway, maybe next time. We finally found a place at Lake Grove called Miller's Homestead Inn. We had to cram ourselves into the waiting room, but since it was almost lunchtime, we decided we had to wait anyway. They say the third time is a charm, but we were so hungry by then ANYTHING would have been good!

BRRRRR! It has really been cold down here at the coast this week. We have been below freezing for at least three days and nights and any of my plants that I didn't bring into the greenhouse have been frozen to death. I have been managing to keep the birds coming to the feeders. I even had a poor lonely hummingbird looking for something to eat and my hummingbird feeder was frozen solid! I have been bringing that feeder in at night so it would thaw out but within a couple of hours back outside, it is frozen again. Poor thing - it was like trying to suck sap out of a baseball bat! We also saw a flock of Robins who were devouring the berries off one of our trees and we thought we were going to have to issue them a citation for FUI (flying under the influence)! Those berries have been there fermenting for months!

We have a natural spring that runs out of a driveway just up the street and the water has been running down along the gutter on Highway 101 in front of our place. With all of this extremely cold weather, the water in the gutter has frozen solid and it looks like a skating rink out there. We can hear people hit their brakes too late and skid, and of course there are others who will hit the gas and see how far they can slide! I am surprised that we haven't had any accidents because that whole lane of the highway is affected.

The garden club had their annual Christmas party on Monday and everyone brought a gift to exchange and something for the potluck. We had about 35 members present and more food than we could possibly eat, but we managed. We picked numbers for the gift exchange and then everyone got to choose a gift. If you didn't like what you picked, you could "trade" with someone else. It's a lot of fun and it gets kind of rowdy. I scored with a couple of nice pairs of gardening gloves as my gift and those I can always use.

We've had the Christmas lights turned on for a week or so, but Dave got the last of them in place today, so this is the way the house looks now.

We ran up to Warrenton on Wednesday to take the car in for an oil change and checkup. We had to wait about an hour while they were servicing the car and something funny happened while we were sitting there. The chairs in the waiting room are pretty nice - big stuffed things with a nice soft cushion. The woman sitting in the chair next to us got up for a minute and then came back to sit down. She was a rather large woman and had trouble sitting again, so she finally just gave up and fell back into the chair. Now, I mentioned that these chairs had nice soft cushions and when she hit that cushion, it....how can I say this...the air inside escaped through the seam of the cushion. All at once. Loudly. She immediately turned several shade of red and compounded her embarrassment by announcing to those of us in waiting room, "That wasn't me! It was the chair!" We had a real hard time trying not to laugh out loud, so we hid behind our newspaper and snickered for quite a while! After we got the car, we went next door to Home Depot and then wandered across the highway to the new Costco that has just opened. It's twice the size of the old place and is real nice. We were just going in to check it out and ended up spending more money. We compensated for that by not having to eat lunch. We just ate our way through the various samples that they always provide at each aisle. Nothing cheap about us!

I also started back with my water aerobics class this week. I have been taking it pretty easy because of the surgery and have been anxious to get started again. Because of the cold weather, we only had five people the first day, but by the end of the week, we had a good dozen. There is only one more week before the Christmas break and I wanted to get in a few sessions before it ends. I have really missed everyone at the class and they were glad to see me again too.

It is time to start making some Christmas goodies so on Thursday I baked some pumpkin bread and pecan tassies. I am not done because I ran out of flour and stuff to make my spritz cookies. I will tackle that next week. I always like to give goodies away to the neighbors at Christmas time, and with the temperature still in the teens, it seemed like a good day to do some baking.

Dave was pretty busy all week. He finished building an electrical box for the city's Christmas decorations and arranged with the PUD to get it up on a power pole. So the village now has one more display than in the picture I posted last week. He has also been offering moral support for our friend Ray who has tackled the project of replacing the electrical panel in his house. Ray did all the work, but Dave went down there a couple of times to answer some questions. He also finished editing the Steam Gage and got it sent off to the publisher and then yesterday and today, he spent a lot of time up at City Hall. The city is hiring a couple of people and Dave is one of the city councilors that make up the selection committee.

We are going to a Christmas play tonight in Tillamook put on by TAPA, if we can beat the freezing rain that is predicted to come in sometime tonight. TAPA is a local theater group down there. It is called "Christmas Belles" and is supposed to be pretty funny. We also have a couple of Christmas parties this weekend. Our Park and Rec. committee is getting together on Saturday night and one of the Trail Blazer's TV announcers has invited us over on Sunday evening in Tualatin.