Good News

Although the Thanksgiving weekend brought sadness with the loss of a family friend in a boating accident on the Willamette River(and they still haven't found his body) it also brought some good news. Our son and daughter-in-law announced that they are expecting. This will be their first child and our first grandchild. We're very excited and they've asked if I would help care for it when she returns to work. The baby is due in July and she'll have 3 months maternity leave. They live just half a mile from us so I'll get to be the hands on Grandma I've always hoped to be. I hope I'm up to the task energy wise. I was a young mom, but my kids are late having their kids so I'm going to be an older grandma. It's inspired me to start sewing and quilting again. I want to make lots of wonderful clothes and blankets and toys for this new little one. Of course, that means I have to get organized and clear out all the boxes and junk so I can even get into my sewing room to clean it up and do all that sewing.

Stormy

It was a wild ride home tonight, but not the worst I've been in.  I went into Portland this afternoon to take my cousin into the Doctor (it turns out she has walking pneumonia).  I then took her to the grocery store and pharmacy before finally getting her back home and then stopped by my brothers.  It was 6:30pm and dark when I headed home and the storm was hitting a little earlier then predicted.  It was already getting pretty windy and pouring rain, but my route wasn't too bad because at least all the lights were still working.  I could hear on the radio that several roads around the Portland area had lights out and trees falling.  They predict 60 mph winds through the night and the coast was already having 100 mph winds with 30 foot waves.  It's supposed to let up by morning. 

Having lived here all of my life I can say that it's pretty much normal to have this happen a couple of times each fall or winter.  Every few years we have one that's a doozy and causes a lot of damage.  November set a new record for rainfall.  The previous record was set back in 1942.  Needless to say the rivers are high and there's been some flooding.  Tillamook (along the coast) always seems to get the worst of it.  It's a low lying area and has a lot of dairies and they had quite a bit of flooding and lost some cows.

Oregon's terrain and winter weather is definitely demanding respect right now.  There are 3 experienced climbers missing on Mt. Hood and this latest storm is continuing to hamper rescue efforts.  A California family got lost on a forest road (wrong turn) while traveling through Oregon and got caught in a snow storm.  They had been missing for about 10 days before they were found and the father had tried to walk for help and died.  Two other families got stuck or lost while Christmas tree cutting and were found safe.  Last month a little boy went missing in the Crater Lake area just as the snows had started and I don't think they found him.  We don't like to hear it or think about it, but it happens every year just as the drowning's do in our lakes and rivers.

Thanksgiving weekend brought that home to our family and friends.  Our nephew bought his first house this summer and wanted to host the family get together.  His mom & dad and the rest of us brought the food and we had a good time.  He proudly showed off his home and his new fishing boat.  On Saturday my brother-in-law, nephew and two of their friends went fishing on the Willamette.  The boat capsized and they hung on to the little bit of hull showing above water.  The water was only 47 degrees and the river was running high, fast and full of debris.  My brother-in-laws best friend let go of the boat in an attempt to swim for shore and did not make it.  They still have not found his body.  The other three were rescued after about 30 minutes and my nephews core body temperature was 93 degrees.  They were all sent to the hospital and warmed up and checked out.  The friend that was lost was a great guy and very well liked.  He will be missed.

Painting

Last summer my husband and and a friend built us a new shed in the back yard and used the horizontal hardiplank siding that we're thinking of using on the house. The house was built in 1971 and has the vertical t-111 that was so popular in the seventies.

It's in desperate need of paint and the old aluminum windows need to be replaced as well. We can't afford to do the windows or replace the siding right now so we may have to just go ahead and paint it. What I'd like to do is make the windows bigger and put the horizontal siding on. It would give the house a whole new look.

In the meantime I've decided on the colors I want. We hadn't painted the shed yet so I've used that as a way to try out my colors to make sure I really like them. I picked a medium grayish blue for the siding, white for the trim and burgundy for the doors. With the shed getting full sun most of the day and me not being a morning person I wasn't getting very much done on it, but it's nearly done now. I have a little trimming to finish on the blue and some touch up on the white and now that the cooler weather has arrived it will be a race against the rain.

The house has a lot of brick across the front and it needs some repair, but I do want to keep it. I've always liked it and it's very unique. One of the bricks is light gray in color and the other is pink with burgundy flecks. I'm hoping it will look good against the darker blue. The current color is a lighter blue with no trim color and pink for the doors. Very much in need of repair and updating, but I'm sticking with my bent for color and in particular blue. I don't like the baby poop browns they're using on all the new housing and don't want my house to look like everybody else's anyway.

Big Bear sanded the front door for me and I put 2 coats of the burgundy on it with 2 more to go. It's darker than I originally wanted, but I think it'll work.

The rain arrived while I was painting the front door, but it's under a corner overhang so that was no problem. It was a problem for a poor honeybee though. I went back to my painting and he eventually dried off enough to take off.

Steve Irwin dead at 44

My sympthathies go out to his wife, children and close friends. They have lost someone they knew and loved deeply.

The world at large also mourns for we have lost a larger than life personality that deeply believed in what he was doing. His commitment and compassion for animals and the environment along with his hyperactive antics certainly made his documentaries entertaining to watch and made him a household name as "The Crocodile Hunter". He is probably Austraila's best known figure and will be sorely missed by all, but especially by those at the Austraila Zoo in Queensland.

He was filming a new documentary or series on deadly sea creatures when he was stung by a stingray. The news has said that the stingray's barb went into Steve's chest and his heart and that he probably died instantly. His friends and co-workers tried desperately to revive him, but to no avail. Yes, he took risks, but that's what you do when you live life large and believe in what you do. He accomplished a lot, we just wish he could have been around a little longer.

Miss Kitty is happy

D and K arrived home on Friday. Miss Kitty was hiding under the bed, but after a bit D managed to coax her out. Miss Kitty wanted D to pet her, then she wanted out, then she wanted back in to be petted, then she wanted out and so it went, back and forth. I think she just wanted to make sure the door still worked. ;-) On Saturday they took Big Bear and I out for a very nice dinner as a thank you for taking care of their place while they were gone.

We've had a very laid back weekend. Did a little bit of yard and garden stuff on Sunday afternoon. Gave the neighbor some tomatoes and they in turn gave us some apples (hopefully I'll get around to making a pie with them). Today Big Bear put new air filters on both vehicles and even washed them! I did some painting - I'm trying out some prospective house colors on the shed. I figured that painting the new shed with the colors I had picked out was a good way to make sure I liked them before buying enough to do the whole house. I'm happy with the blue (medium grayish blue) that I picked for the siding and the white for the trim, but am not happy with the color I picked for the doors. I wanted a burgandy and that's what it looked like on a small chip, but it's way to violet/magenta. Luckily I painted a bench on the patio first to try it out when I saw how magenta it was. Even though it darkened a lot once it was dry it's still not the color I was after. I'm going to have the store add some more black and brown to it and see if that does the trick.

Tomorrow I'm going over to a friends to help her tie some baby quilts that she donates to a hospital. Maybe I can actually remember to take the paint with me and get the color corrected.