Friday, January 02, 2009
#
OK, here's our goal for the month of January, just to see if we can:
Jim & I will only eat out at restaurants no more than twice per week.
Go!
(Or, um, Stay! would be more accurate.)
I've been planning to do a “Best of Stef 2008” list, a la Jessi, but my memory's no good, and I want to sit down & look at pictures & blog posts to help me remember. Plus, I just love doing that anyway. :-) So perhaps this weekend I'll put something together. I know you're eagerly anticipating its creation.
Here's a photo to tide ya over:
Saturday, December 27, 2008
#
On the day after Christmas, we went snowshoeing for the first time! Jim, Chester & I drove to Mt. Hood with our friends Peter & Amy and their dog, Max. We hit the trail at Trillium Lake, snowshoeing down the road to the lake, and then breaking a trail all the way around (and occasionally on) the frozen lake.
It was a lot of work! But very fun, and great to be spending time with friends and with dogs. The lake & forest were beautiful. I didn't realize that snowshoeing was so hard- especially when the snow is several feet deep & there's no trail blazed for you. But it was such a cool way to be experiencing the outdoors.
Here's Amy & I making snow angels, and Max watching. It took, um, a LOT of effort to get back up!
Chester had fun for awhile- he romped all over the place, getting himself nearly stuck chest-deep in snow on several occasions. I think by the time we got to the end of the road and arrived at the lake, he had already started to wear himself out. Which was too bad, because we had 3 more hours ahead of us! He did great though. Unfortunately, as he tromped through the snow, his long fur would gather up little snowballs, and they would get bigger and bigger, until he was pretty much entirely encased in heavy, wet snow. But he's a trooper & kept up with us.
On the car ride home, his fur started melting, and he began to shiver. He was so tired, that I just wrapped a blanket around him, and he slept that way the entire 2 hour drive back home. It was adorable. :)
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
#
It's been snowing here for more than a week!
Where did the front steps go??? This is a shot from Monday morning.
Just like most Oregon weather, this one has been a tad weird. We got a bunch of light, fluffy, wonderful snow on Saturday. Then overnight, everything froze into solid bricks of snow-ice. Which made all of the poor plants and trees lean waaaay over....
Here's a very tall lilac bowed over to the ground:
That afternoon, the temperature rose just enough to break some of the ice chunks free, so there was ice falling all over. And the weight of the ice made tree branches fall, too. So all evening and overnight on Sunday we kept hearing outside our windows “Pop” of the ice breaking, “Crack” of the limbs snapping, “Wooosh” of limbs falling through the snow-laden trees, and “THUMP” of them hitting the snowy ground. It was a lot nervewracking.
Here's the most damage that happened at our house:
That's half of a huge tree in our front yard, laying across the sidewalk and the road (At this point, a neighbor had cut off the huge branch blocking the road). Poor tree.
Yesterday- on Monday - it snowed again, ALL DAY! Big white fluffy flakes. It was crazy & fun to watch. I made it into work for a couple of hours, but came home just cuz. :-) That afternoon, Jim got out the chainsaw & cut up that tree, and I helped haul all the pieces onto the lawn. I also cleared off the front & back steps. We don't have a snow shovel (duh!), but after trying most of the tools in the garage, the magic-snow-dominating-tool is: The Garden Hoe! It scooped off the snow, it busted through the ice, it made a nice level surface. I'm shocked that it's not sold as a snow tool!
Other interesting tales from Oregon's record-breaking, never before seen, exclusive, nobody has ever seen snow before ARCTIC BLAST:
-We took our Audi up to the dealership in Portland last Monday to get some recall repairs made. Of course they found some extra things to fix (gee, thanks!), and then the weather prevented us from getting back up there, and then the weather closed the freeway to the dealership yesterday. It's open today, so we're going to try to go up there. But in the meantime, we've been driving an Audi Q7, a superduper luxury SUV that I totally love. Heated seats (for everyone!), parking camera (that freaks out when icecicles are hanging over it, hee!), 2 gigantic sunroofs, awesome controls, super cool looking. Sigh. Oh well. Our car is pretty good too, I guess.
-Our power went out on Sunday afternoon. Of course that means no heat, either. We would've left the house, but Jim had just started a 2-hour bike riding session on his trainer in the living room. He was working out, so he stayed nice and toasty. I made phone calls, made plans, and bundled up. We finally packed up and were heading over to a sleepover at Sarah & Stuart & Pippen's (yay, sleepover!), when the lights poppped back on. Phew!
-My friend Stefanie's power went out (again) yesterday afternoon. They called around and made plans, and we were ready to have them come stay over with us: Stefanie & Aaron, 14-year-old Andrew, 1-year-old Alex, and Monty the dog. (Yay, sleepover!) As they were packing up, their lights popped back on. Phew!
-Sunday night, our lights kept flickering, so to be “safe,” I lit a candle in the kitchen. Around that time, Mozart decided she was ready for her dinner, so she hopped up on the kitchen island and walked back and forth meowing to tell me she wanted dinner. She turned around, and flung her tail right over the candle, so that the underside- closest to her body- caught on fire! There were flames on either side of her tail. I screamed and started slapping her, which made her fall off of the island, and when she hit the ground, the flames extinguished. Phew!
-And the most tragic part of all of this ~ well, I don't know if it's really more tragic than a cat on fire ~ is that we have to stay home for Christmas! We were planning to drive to Idaho to spend it with the family, including Gramma & Vern who are not in Arizona for the first time in many years. Joe & Rickey are there from Seattle, too. We were a little wary of the roads all week- did we really want to inch our way on snowy freeway all the way to Idaho? But the Oregon Department of Transportation made the decision for us, when they closed I-84 on Sunday & Monday. Fair enough, we'll stay home. So here we are, spending the holidays with our pets, which isn't really so bad either. (As long as we celebrate candle-free!)
-During our semi-snowbound existence, we've watched several movies: Saturday we trudged out with Sarah & Stuart to see “Slumdog Millionaire.“ It was so good! You should go see it! Sunday night, we paid for Xbox service to be upgraded, and we subscribed to Netflix (for, like, the fourth time) so we could watch movies instantly via the Xbox on the big TV. After all that, we couldn't find anything we wanted to watch. Eh. We ended up watched “The Three Amigos“ on cable. Hee. It was awesome, y'know, it its own way. :) Last night, we gave Netflix another shot and watced “The Motorcycle Diaries,“ which Chris* had told us about a long time ago. It, too, was incredible (incredible like “Slumdog,“ not like “Amigos“). It's the story of Che Guereva and how he came to believe what he did. Very good. I found out today that the local independent theater will soon be showing a new movie called “Che.“ Awesome, I'll be there!
(*Chris also told us about two other motorcycle-related movies that happen to just be incredible movies overall & you should watch them ASAP: “The World's Fastest Indian,“ and “Long Way 'Round,“ which I think actually aired as a series of British TV shows.)
-Guess what? It's still snowing!!!
Sunday, December 21, 2008
#
I was a little dissapointed yesterday afternoon when it started raining, and by this morning it had washed away all the snow & kept pouring. But finally this afternoon, it tried & tired & finally turned into snow! Then it kept snowing & snowing & snowing. There's a couple of inches on the ground & it's so gorgeous. :-)
We went to a movie when it started snowing (”Slumdog Millionaire” - very good!), and when we came out, we had snowball fights and hopped around in the snow. Then we had Indian food (y'know, cuz we just watched an Indian movie & are very susceptible to the power of suggestion). It snowed & snowed. We ran home & grabbed the dog, then went & played in the snow with Sarah & Stuart & Pippen, plus our other friends Amy & Peter. It was great! The dogs had a great time, we had a great time. I don't own any snow pants, so I didn't make a snow angel. But there were plenty of snowballs & running around like fools in an empty lot ~ a beautiful white field of snow.
It's stopped snowing, and now it's all kind of frozen. Our car was encased in a sheet of ice when we were ready to drive home. We had to yank open the doors. But all the windows - and the windshield- were solid ice. So we ran the heater & the windshield wipers, and took turns hacking away at it with the scraper. Finally made enough of a hole in the ice for Jim to see, and now we're home.
Thanks for the fun, Oregon!
Friday, December 19, 2008
#
I showed up at work today, like I did everyday this week (and like nobody else in my office did this week), and the entire building was locked up & closed for the day! Guess I'm taking a snow day. Fun!
The ground is covered, and it keeps coming down. I'll take the polar bear out for a walk in a bit, then curl up and read the last 100 pages of my Book Club book. The meeting is tonight, and I thought I would have to show up as The Girl Who Didn't Finish the Book. Hooray for snow!
Monday, December 15, 2008
#
Here's a photo for you to enjoy from Halloween-
It's Miss Scarlet, in the kitchen, with a candlestick - about to take out poor Miss Wasilla!
It snowed last night! In Salem! And it stuck! I'm excited, can you tell? Isn't it beautiful?
Here was the view out of my office window today. Isn't it sweet? That's a little village of eight cottages next door to my building. I was the only one who showed up to work today. So I stayed for awhile and then came home around 3. :-)
Mom & I took Chester on his first walk in the snow last night. He loved it! He was so excited. Do polar bears prance? Because that's kind of what he looked like, hopping around in the snow.
And here's my cute house last night, enjoying the snow.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
#
I'm very excited ~ we're going back to Bend in January. This time we're taking a bunch of friends and a bunch of dogs. We're staying in a really cute cottage, and we're going on a moonlight snowshoe tour! Won't that be awesome?
I ran across this photo of the only other time I went snowshoeing, in 2006. It was the time Joe & I kidnapped Jessi and drove her to McCall for her bachelorette party!
Lookit me go! Now, Jessi will demonstrate why it sucks not to have snowshoes:
And here's Jessi and Joe, being very weird, and making me laugh really hard:
Here's Joe, Jessi, Janeen & Kyle. It was a fun trip!
Thursday, December 04, 2008
#
If I were to pick just one photo to represent my summer, it would be this one:
My very first cherry tomato!
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
#
Oh hey, I forgot to tell you: I planted 3 blueberry plants in my garden! Send good thoughts & acidic soil my way! :-)
Monday, December 01, 2008
#
I don't think I ever shared pics of my Halloween costume from this year....
I was Miss Wasilla- aka Sarah Palin in her glory days as a beauty queen. Here I am fighting a vicious polar bear. I'm sorry you're unable to see my the tough snow boots I'm wearing beneath the dress. (Thanks to Jessi for both the dress AND the boots! I made the sash myself!)
I also don't have a photo of my dreamy husband, Todd Palin, all dressed up in his snowmobiling gear. We made quite the couple that night!
Monday, November 24, 2008
#
I'm not sure which is my favorite part of the holiday season:
Bing Crosby Christmas songs, or Elvis Christmas songs. Hmmm!
Of course, there's always the old standby: John Denver sings Christmas Carols with The Muppets!
I love this story about 4 jerks coming to Silverton to protest Stu, the cross-dressing mayor; and then 100 people in Silverton coming out to protest the protesters!
Stu is fun. He owns the cute little movie theater in downtown Silverton. And let me tell you, he looks great on “Rocky Horror Picture Show” night... :-)
Here's a story about his election.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
#
In September, our Seattle friends (Joe & Rickey; Jessi & Jerry) visited for the weekend. The first day, Joe, Rickey, Jessi & I went to Canby, Oregon, for the Flock & Fleece festival. Joe & Rickey like to crochet, and Jessi is slightly obsessed with knitting. So they were very excited to look at fancy yarns, and I was very excited to see fluffy barnyard animals!
The visit merely confirmed that Chester is half sheep. It's quite obvious. If I sheared him and spun his wool, I could sell it to people like Joe, Rickey & Jessi for lots of money. This is good to know. :-)
While we were at the festival, Jim was riding his bike around Salem. Where he got hit by a city bus. He's ok.
The next day, we did the Peach of a Century ride. We did the metric century option, 65 miles (100k). We had quite a group: Jessi & Jerry, Me & Jim, Shibley from Portland, Joe & Rickey (R's first big ride), Peter Crawford (his first big ride), and Stuart (like his 4th ride ever). It was a gorgeous day & we all had a lot of fun.
Here's a slideshow for your viewing pleasure: