Lunch with Friends

Yesterday Michael and I met with an old friend from high school and his family and they took us out to lunch. When I was growing up in The Dalles, Terry lived right across the street from me. I think we first met in eighth grade when I began attending The Dalles Junior High--we were both in band! :) Terry said that he and Michael met in junior high too, but I don't remember that since I didn't officially meet Michael until our senior year of high school when we had a personal finance class together.

It had been a long time since we had all seen each other. Terry and his wife, Su Jin and their son Jaden (who is almost 10 now!) have lived in Albany for many years, and I don't get down that way as much as I would like. One of the last times we had seen each other was before Michael and I were married and we lived in our old apartment in Beaverton. I think Jaden was only 4 or 5 then! We had so much fun reminiscing yesterday and spending time together, that we all agreed we should make a point of trying extra hard to fit in a get-together with each other at least once a month--even if it is only meeting them in Tigard when they come up to shop at a specialty grocery store.

Once again, I was reminded of what a blessing it is to have good friends, and of how one's friends and family are the most important things in life.

A Bird in the House: Lucky Chucky

My parents are off on their 2-week road trip to Minnesota. They packed their car and trailer, loaded up their dog and headed out this morning. Since my mom is in her fifties and my dad is in his sixties and this is their first-ever trip of this nature, I am very proud of them.

Since I was about 7, our family has had animals. Over the years, my parents have owned 2 cats, 4 dogs and a bird. Wherever they go, their animals accompany them--even on camping trips. And the trailers my parents have owned have always been pretty small affairs, intended mostly for sleeping. On one memorable occasion about 6 years ago, chaos erupted in their tiny camper. The three of us humans were in there, both dogs were barking, the bird was squawking and I couldn't stop laughing at the comedy of the situation. Yes, my parents take their bird camping with them; he also rides in the car with a seat belt strapped around his cage, and he sleeps in their bedroom. Talk about a lucky bird. :)

Anyway, for this particular trip, my parents thought it might be better to leave Charlie with a sitter. I think they thought things might be just a little too crowded if they brought the bird, his cage and all his paraphernalia on their road trip adventure across America--with their dog, Sadie riding next to him and trying to eat him through his cage. So Michael and I volunteered to take him . . . keeping in mind the fact that Charlie would be sharing our house with Chloe, my "almost" 10-year-old cat.

Mom and Dad brought him over yesterday, along with both of his cages (he has a large "condo" cage on wheels and a smaller one that would be better for taking him upstairs with us, should we choose to put him in our bedroom at night. He was pretty quiet last night, being that he was probably in a little bit of a culture shock from being in a new environment. Besides that, he gets really quiet when it's dark--I think because he can't see where potential predators might be and he doesn't want to give away his position.

My mom and I were sitting downstairs last night after they had brought him over, and I was interested to see what Chloe would think of Charlie. I coaxed her downstairs (she is very shy when people come to our house and always runs upstairs to hide in my book room) and was surprised that she didn't seem to notice him. She definitely heard him tweeting, because she looked around for the source of the sound, but I don't think she connected it to the cage. And I am almost positive she didn't see him in there.

We tried to get Charlie to go into his smaller cage last night so we could take him to bed with us, but he would have none of it. So I double and then triple-checked the doors on his cage, to make sure he couldn't get them open and fly out onto the floor where Chloe would surely find him. I even turned his cage around so the door that has the loosest latch faced the wall--just in case he managed to get it open. It would be bad enough if Chloe got to him, but to have to tell my parents that their beloved (and I do mean beloved) bird was eaten by my cat on his first night at our house would have been unthinkable. So I made sure he was locked up tight and then went to bed. Chloe still didn't seem to realize he was there, although she did sniff at the legs of his cage a little and sniffed the air like she smelled "bird" (or some other tantalizing scent) but couldn't tell where it was coming from.

This morning when I opened the bedroom door, Chloe was lying there, waiting for me. I was glad to see that she hadn't brought me a "present" in the middle of the night and that Charlie must still be safe in his cage. Chloe followed me downstairs for her breakfast and when I took the towels off of Charlie's cage, he began to greet me with some fairly loud squawks. This time, Chloe took notice. She sat down in front of his cage, her gaze riveted to his figure on its perch. I don't think I've ever seen that kind of concentration from her. He got very quiet and turned his head so that one beady eye looked right at her. Her attention was glued to him for about 10 minutes and then she sauntered off. He looked a little shaken, and I talked to him soothingly, telling him not to worry, that I would not let her get him. Maybe she sent him a silent signal that said, "I'll leave you alone for now, bird. But watch yourself." :)

A couple of our friends came over later in the morning, for breakfast and a movie and Charlie got really loud. But when Michael and I came back this afternoon from meeting some other friends for lunch, he was very quiet and just peeped at us a bit. I called my parents to see if they had made it to their first overnight stop yet (Spokane, WA), and to give them an update on Charlie. I held the phone up to his cage and turned the speakerphone on. That bird definitely knows who his mom and dad are! It was the funniest thing to watch Charlie start tweeting and "talking" to their voices coming over the phone--he looked right at the phone the whole time. It was very sweet. Who knew a bird could have so much personality? :)

So Charlie will be our companion for the next 2 weeks, and as I write this, he is sitting in his cage next to me, tweeting for all he is worth. Mom and Dad said he really likes to be around people (just not too many at one time or he gets overwhelmed), so hopefully, Michael and I will be good company for him too.

I just have to keep an eye on one little gray kitty . . .

Dinner, Friends and Fun

Sunday after we came back from Lincoln City, we had our good friends John, Amy, Connor and Kaiden over to our house for a BBQ. Amy brought a homemade pasta salad (with feta cheese and kalamata olives--YUM), watermelon and homemade french fries ala McMenamin's. Talk about good eats! We contributed the burgers and fixings, chips and grapes. It was nice to just sit on the back patio and relax in the warm weather. Luckily, we had a sprinkler nearby that everyone could cool off in between rounds of UNO. :)

After dinner, we all made our way up to the Cooper Mountain Nature Park (which is luckily and unbelievably close to both of our houses) for a short walk among the trees. It was dark when we left, but there was still time for a quick ice cream bar before bed. It was a wonderful end to a wonderful day spent with friends--and it reminded me that the best things in life don't cost anything more than gas and some groceries.

Lincoln City and the Sand Monster

Sunday was set to be sweltering in the city, and our friends Ken and Lindsey (and four-year-old Morgan) invited us to meet them at Lincoln City to play in the sand and surf. I was too excited to sleep and was up before 5 am. :) Michael wasn't quite as enthusiastic as I was; I'm sure he would have preferred to sleep in longer, but the beach was calling and his wife was ready to go! We stopped for gas and hit the road, taking "the back way" to Lincoln City, which to me means going through farm country through Newberg and McMinnville. It was a gorgeous drive with bright sunshine for most of the way. As we neared the coast, however, the sky turned white and the sun was nowhere to be found. While we waited for Lindsey, Ken and Morgan to meet us, Michael and I headed down to say hello to the ocean. It was downright cold and there was heavy fog to boot! It was quite a dramatic change from the sun and heat of the city. We bundled up in sweatshirts and I was wishing I had brought tennis shoes instead of my flip-flops as my feet were already getting cold and the day had hardly begun!

Happily, by the time Lindsey and Morgan arrived, it had begun to warm up and soon the exertion of building sand castles meant that I could shed my sweatshirt and stay comfortable. It remained foggy until we left around 3:30pm, but I liked it. I knew it had to be hot at home and I was happy to wade in the freezing ocean with Morgan. She and "Untle" Mikey (as she calls him), busily built sand castles (okay, Michael painstakingly built them), until the Sand Monster (aka Morgan) came and stomped them flat, then rolled on the place where they'd been for good measure. Untle Mikey's lower lip popped out to express his dismay, as Morgan giggled and danced around on the sand. I patted Michael on the back and said, "This is what it's like to have kids, honey." :)

Lindsey had the great idea of building a sand castle specifically for any Sand Monsters that might happen to show up and want to be stompers. Morgan called it a "Monster Castle" and that is what the four of us built. Then Morgan, Michael and I took great joy in destroying it with our feet. I laughed, saying that it sure took a lot less time to build than it did to stomp--about 3 seconds.

We played and played and laughed at the sheer joy on Morgan's face--it was hard not to feel like a four-year-old and I reveled in it. It was the first time in a long time that I skipped along the sand--and even galloped a little! Michael had a good time too. He was a willing playmate for Morgan and was game for anything she suggested. I love watching him with children; what an amazing father he will be.

After playing in the waves, looking for agates and skipping rocks until my feet turned red and Morgan began to shiver just the slightest bit, we packed up and headed to the local Subway for lunch. That veggie sandwich on flatbread tasted delicious and so did the potato chowder that Morgan shared with me. :)

After lunch we said goodbye and gave hugs and blew kisses, and headed home from our day at the beach. I for one, cannot wait to do it again.

Some Miscellaneous Fun Things

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had a lot of fun! I got 2 great birthday gifts that I have to show off . . . one is a lovely wind chime from my parents that has the most beautiful tones I have ever heard in a chime. There was some information on the chime tucked in the box that said it had been tuned to the Key of A. I never even thought for a moment that something like that could be done with wind chimes. The effect is very nice, let me tell you. I've been spending a lot of time sitting on the back porch in one of the Adirondack chairs and listening to the haphazard melody that the wind creates with the chime. Peaceful, very peaceful.

I also got some very beautiful flowers for my birthday from my brother and sister-in-law and their kids. They all came to our house last Sunday for hamburgers, a spirited water fight, and a trip to my favorite nursery, Farmington Gardens. Christy and Jessica (my sister-in-law and niece) helped me arrange the flowers in some pots that I had available. I really like how they turned out--especially the trailing flowers--beautiful!

A couple of weeks ago I decided to use (finally!) the very cool garden stone-making kit that my mom got for me last year. It came with its own little packet of cement, tint for the cement, some rectangular plastic molds for the stones and stamps for all the letters of the alphabet as well as numbers and punctuation marks--everything I could possibly need to make some unique and beautiful stones! It took me a little while to figure out what I wanted to say, but I settled on some French words . . . mon petit jardin. It translates to "my little garden." And fittingly, I do have a very little garden this year--just my pots of flowers and the yellow volunteer pansies that decided to make a home amid our path of stepping stones.

Lastly, last week I tried my hand at making some blueberry scones for the very first time. I got a smokin' hot deal on blueberries at Fred Meyer, and wanted to make sure they did not go to waste. The recipe I found on the Internet was a low-calorie, low-fat recipe and I thought, "Hey, why not try it? If they're terrible, I'll never make them again." Well, they were not terrible. They were fantastic! :) They looked like little chocolate chip cookies, and I figured since they were small, I could eat more of them than I would if they were the normal scone size. I thought they were best fresh from the oven, when the juice from the blueberries was still hot and the berries themselves kind of burst in my mouth. Yum. Michael thought they were great too, and within only a couple of days, we were out! I made a double-batch the next time and those were wonderful too. I have the recipe posted on Facebook, in case anyone is interested. :)

Hello Again!!!!

Well, I have decided to take up our blog again--and I just noticed that oddly enough, it is exactly a year today since my last post. How strange is that?! I am already addicted to Facebook (as many of you know!), but it's not really set up in a format that is conducive to blogging. Besides that, I can't seem to convince Michael to set up a Facebook page. So perhaps this blog will do a good job of keeping you all up-to-date with what is happening in both of our lives.

Yesterday, we went to my parents' house and Michael helped my dad build a trellis for their front yard. They have a wisteria plant that has been in a pot for over a year and has just been waiting for the perfect structure to be built for it to grow on. The trellis turned out really great! Michael enjoyed having a project (it keeps his mind off of being unemployed), and my dad basically gave him free rein to do most of the work. Dad's arm has been bothering him, and he didn't want to get up on the ladder, so he was the project supervisor. :)

My mom had to work until 2:30pm, so I contented myself with reading one of her books while the guys went to Lowe's and dug holes for the trellis posts. After she was done, we went thrift store shopping! Of course I walked away with a few more books for my collection, but their prices were so great (under $2.00 for trade-size paperbacks), that I couldn't resist. Then we sat in the sun in lawn chairs as Michael and Dad finished up.

Dad made beef stir-fry with rice for dinner (which was restaurant-quality delicious!) and we had fresh melon for dessert along with the last of the blueberry scones I made. Mom thought the scones were especially good with a dollop of whip cream on them. She was right! We sat around and talked until about 9pm, then finally headed for home.

As we pulled into our driveway, I spotted the NASA space station sailing silently (and extremely brightly) overhead. Mom and Dad had told us that it was supposed to be visible around 9:45pm, and let me tell you that we completely lucked out at seeing it since it was moving so quickly. As I watched it, I tried to imagine the people up there, so far away, and it boggled my mind. It really is amazing that we have the technology to send people into space and bring them safely home again. It makes me wonder if regular citizens will be traveling and even living in space in my lifetime. How scary and utterly exciting at the same time!

Bye Bye Hot Tub!

We've been talking about it practically ever since we moved in (almost 4 years ago now), and we've finally done it. Well, Michael has finally done it. :) He cut up the hot tub and removed the part of the deck it was sitting on, so now we have room for a tool shed and also to expand our garden for next year. So exciting! He did the majority of the work in one day--while I was working at The Barefoot Sage--and had it all loaded up in the truck by the time I got home. Our biggest concern was how to get the thing out of our yard. It was an old hot tub that didn't work really well, so we figured that no one would want to come and haul it away. Michael called around and found out that a landfill in Hillsboro would actually accept it for $35 and be able to recycle some of the parts. Awesome!

So now it is gone and we're planning our next steps . . . who's in favor of a red tool shed shaped like a barn?