The Problem With Pets

Last night Molly came to sit next to me after David had taken them out - what is THAT I asked David, he peered at her and didn't know either. She had a large lump on the right side of her face that had not been there before. It's too late for it to be an insect bite, I palpated it gently, it wasn't painful but was very hard. Molly looked at me curiously  as I continued to touch it, it was mobile.....it was very mobile and as I pushed it the "lump" slide along the side of her face. Then she chewed a couple of times and swallowed it, Molly had been pocketing a large piece of biscuit. She did not seem to be the least bit ashamed of herself for making us worry. The problem with the cat and dogs is it's sometimes difficult to tell if I should be worrying or not. 

Molly and Reuben are large hunting dogs with long skinny legs, they run at top speed most of the time and are always getting into something so minor injuries are par for the course. We keep dog aspirin on hand, since they're both very healthy they rarely take any medications so we've found it to be very effective. Molly sprained her leg a couple of weeks ago, two aspirin put her right. This morning she was not acting well, she refused to get up on the bed, she just seems off. So, do I worry? Is she really sick or injured or is it something that will pass? And of course she chooses Saturday to do this, of course. She does seem a little better and the other thing is it is hunting season around here she may very well be hearing the distant gunfire and that will make her act a bit squirrely. We are going to watch and wait - she's not off her food, she is going outside and at the moment seems a bit more like herself. 

And let's not forget about Bob. Since we've had her has always had a small bald area on her belly, it grows back, it's gone, etc.. but lately she has been losing hair and it's just weird. There's no rash, she not itching and it seems to be her coat, the short undercoat is intact. David is taking her to the vet next week - he's pretty annoyed about it but it's six of one and a half dozen of the other, isn't it? If we don't take her it will certainly get worse, if we do it will most likely be nothing. It would be nice if they could tell me not to worry about it or when they're truly sick. I really don't have too much to complain about, for the most part the three of them have been very healthy with some minor bumps in the road - can't ask anymore than that.  

Tradition

David called Ray yesterday - he was thinking about us too. For years since we lived closer to him we had spent every Thanksgiving in NJ. The day before we would hop in the car and make the trek to Kearney to visit, we were there so often we had a favorite hotel, restaurant, store. We went to the bar on the corner once, it was all the local men and it took me a few minutes to realize I was the only woman in the place. I had to laugh when the bartender came down to assure me she had spoken to the bar and no one was allowed to swear - I told her that was REALLY not necessary as I could probably out swear anyone in the bar. We ate Thanksgiving dinner almost exclusively at The Stack because they did a really stellar job of it. The staff knew us and knew Ray better, only once did we go somewhere else and we laughed about that for years. Our waiter was an alcoholic and had the shakes, getting our meals was a precarious thing as he jittered them down to us! He actually sat down at our table a few times next to Ray when he got too wobbly - we did tip well, you cannot pay enough for such a wonderful memory. After that we would spend a couple of days, we went to museums, restaurants, the bookstore was always popular. But Ray is no longer able to get out and we are too far in any case. 

For the past couple of years David and I have spent Thanksgiving on our own, it was not a sad thing. A lot of restaurants are open for the holiday so it was fun picking a new and different place to go. And now, we are here. Near family and friends - it's a whole new universe. We had Thanksgiving early on Whidbey Island as Jackson was shipping out - but over the years we've  found it's the celebration, not the date that's important - it was wonderful after all these years to be be able to drive to our destination and not have to spend a day recuperating from the trip and adjusting to the new time zone. And we got to keep celebrating! - last night we had Thanksgiving with Kim and Steve, her daughter Celia and son in law Gabe. We have not seen Celia in years so it was wonderful to see what an amazing young woman she's become.  And dinner - Kim could out cook Ramsey with her eyes shut, she made enough for about 30 people, on and on it went but so much fun. They have a fleet of tiny dogs bouncing around, we had a great time. I'm so glad we moved here and now we need to start getting ready for Christmas. 

The New Normal

The weather is still taking a bit to get used to - I'm not complaining about it by any means, but it is very different than the east coast. This time of year it snows a bit, a few storms here and there, temperatures are dropping so in my head it's winter. So far we stay in the 50's during the day, the 30's at night, sometimes there's frost in the morning. Sometimes. We've learned to turn the heat either off or at least down to 60 at night, there's nothing more fun than waking up at 1am gasping like a beached fish that sweats a lot. I'm still wearing what I consider my fall jacket, I washed my short winter coat but have not worn it once, the full length down parka remains packed. When  I ask about how the winters are here I get that everyone has heard it's going to "get really bad" but on closer inspection "really bad" is a  week or two of snow. A few inches. Maybe. 

We are stuck in the waiting for the other shoe to drop mode for now. Anyhooo, the floors came out great - we are beyond pleased with them, another thing to cross off the list. We are looking for kitchen cabinets now, carpeting for upstairs and I ordered a couple of 5 x 7 for the living room and entry. The house really looks like a house. We have been looking at the yard too, we've gotten most of the garbage gone - at least the larger piles and David's cleared so we can see the water from the back deck by the den now. The otters come back once in awhile but scare easily, I've also seen a white egret, a nutria, wood duck and a host of other wildlife behind the house. That the other thing - David is STILL mowing the lawn! 

We're meeting Kim and Steve in Astoria this afternoon, we're going to Rogue to drink beer and watch the sunset at dinner, I'm hoping we see some more sea lions this time as it's a little later in the year. We remember to bring out jackets now, it's warmest around 2 or 3 but as the sun dips, so does the temperature.  After Thanksgiving we're going to start getting the house ready for Christmas, I have to go through what we brought. We had cleaned out a lot of the old and broken stuff ( you know, you take it out, you say"this is broken!" and then you put it back) so I don't think we have too much stuff. I need to find more dishes as I can only have two guests at this point and we will be furnishing the guest room soon. We haunt the Facebook market  place and the estate sales - that I love! Here they have these estate sales where a company comes in and sells EVERYTHING, that's where I got my butcher block table so I try to keep an eye out for that. Well, I gotta get going, the sea lions are calling. 

The Finishing Touch

  

We are finally at the point where the floors can be done - they actually could have been done awhile ago but we've been putting it off due to the PITA factor. (Pain In The Ass). The main bedroom on the first floor we will be carpeting and then the stairs and part of the main floor will be carpet due to the severe damage to the floors but the den, kitchen and dining room need to be done.. We got a floor finisher that was coming around 9:30 -10 this morning and David would be dropping the dogs off at the kennel due to all the chemicals and plus you can't walk on the floors til they are dry.. i had decided to drive out to Vancouver for part of the day as there would not be much to do, .I'd go around 10 when everything was open and do some of the shopping, check out a yarn shop, etc...

We were sitting in bed drinking coffee and skimming Facebook, dogs were snoozing, Bob was spooning.....and David went flying out of bed like his hair was on fire and started running around the house - I queried why the sudden change of pace and he yelled IT'S  AFTER SIX OCLOCK. Apparently there had been an undisclosed change of plans and the floor guy was coming before 8am.  It was 6:30, I hopped in the shower while David started piling furniture in the kitchen, he was not going to have enough time to drive Frick and Frack to doggie daycare so I got recruited and at 6:45 am I was on my way to Longview.  Their was no point in coming back so I went on to Vancouver - Newsflash - there is not a whole hell of a lot to do in Vancouver at 8:20am but I found a Trader Joe's and got some shopping done. The cashier brightly asked me how my day was going - he's lucky biting is not publicly acceptable.  I drove over to the mall and sat in my car and read for half an hour or so, then they opened. I stopped by a few stores but didn't really buy anything, it's too close to the holidays for the good sales to be starting. Over to Costco to wait on line for gas - it's 50 cents less a gallon so yes, it's worth the wait, finished shopping and then off to the yarn store. 

It was a very decent one, good prices - I will be back. I started to meander my way back and saw a sign for an alpaca farm so off I went  - it was further than I thought it would be. She had some stuff I can buy anywhere but the alpaca was lovely, most of it was too thick for me to use but I did buy one small hand spun skein because it was so cool and it smelled so good. Back to home where the floors were getting done, he has one more day so we're all parked in the bedroom, Molly and Rueben have to spend another day at the doggie daycare but I don't think they really mind it so much. What's been done so far looks very good and its only one more day, but I cannot wait for it to be done. 

Family

Jackson will be going overseas again shortly so we headed out Thursday afternoon to catch the ferry to Oak Harbor - since we've made the  trip a few times it gets easier each time. From our house to the port is really only 3 and a half hours, but you have to be there about 45 minutes prior, then the there's the ferry ride, docking etc.... but all in all not an unpleasant way to spend an afternoon. There's a lovely little diner right before that we stop and have dinner at, the food is good and the prices are too. Since we're back on the water David enjoys eating fresh seafood again, he tries something different each time. I had posted on Facebook that we were going to be out there this weekend and my cousin's wife told me their son is on the base for training - yep, it's another Navy boy. I contacted Tom Jr and asked him to dinner Saturday which he accepted, since Jackson will not be here for Thanksgiving I was doing the meal ahead of time. 

We could see the ferry from the restaurant and as we were finishing up I noticed they had not started loading so we hot-footed it over there to see if we could take the 5:45 - they squeaked us in the corner, we arrived at Chez Lester at 6:30 instead of 7:30, just in time to be bad grandparents and upset bedtime. We've noticed since moving here there is a lot less fan fare, the hugs and kisses are not quite as Gone With The Wind level, but I love that they' re getting used to seeing us at least once a month, so wonderful! It was a short visit and Jackson took us to the NEX to do shopping, it's been a long time since I've cooked for a small crowd - I was doing the basic Thanksgiving dinner but we managed to fill up the cart. Saturday was cooking, it's made far more interesting with having a pair of 3 year old "helpers". It's like cooking with an Octopus, opening the refrigerator they're both in there getting all handsy with the yogurt and applesauce. David and Jackson went to pick up Tom, they took him to the NEX so he could see it and also to pick up some odds and ends for me. Tom has only been there for less than a week and is only there for training. Dinner was so much fun, we were a bit crowded but made it work. Delilah and Chloe loved having Tom over, Chloe was beside herself - she must've hugged and high fived him a dozen times, it was very cute and Tom is a very patient man. 

We were so happy to get to see Jackson a couple of times before he is leaving and to have Thanksgiving with family for the first time in years. Tom got returned to the barracks after dinner and then we took off this morning around 7:30am as I have to work tomorrow. The girls are a little sad to see us go but I think they understand they'll see us again soon, not in 6 or 7 months. We will be spending Thanksgiving with Kim,Stephen and they're family and then for Christmas - Brandi and the girls are coming HERE!! We will have Kim and Stephen over too, I can't wait. 

Opus

o·pus

/ˈōpəs/

noun

1. 1.

   MUSIC

   a separate composition or set of compositions by a particular composer, usually ordered by date of publication.

   "The Gambler was Prokofiev's sixth opera, despite its early opus number"
2. 2.

   any artistic work, especially one on a large scale.

   "he was writing an opus on Mexico"

So, finally.

 I got this shawl pattern called Lily of The Valley about a year ago from Ravelry - it's a Russian pattern which means it's wildly complicated. The first time I printed it out I freaked a little because I couldn't read it, then realized I had accidentally printed the Russian pattern, not the translation. Oops. It's all charts - about ten of them, hundreds of rows, the chart key for the different stitches  alone is 2 pages long with links to videos to show the harder stitches. It has videos, did you catch that? Videos.  The charts printed on regular size paper was really hard to  read, I rarely work by chart alone so that made it all the more difficult. Here's something you may not know - if you need something to be bigger you can bring it down to an office supply and have them enlarge it for you, it's not even that expensive. When I was in PA there was a shop near the office so I trotted down there to have them do that. 

The guy that did it found it challenging because the charts had to be enlarged evenly on 11 x 17 paper, he enjoyed the challenge and I enjoyed the results. And I had a couple more copies  made up for my knitting group. Step one. Then the yarn. I had bought undyed alpaca lace weight yarn and ordered the dye - it took me a few days to dye it, dry it and wind it. But it was perfect. I started knitting it and quickly discovered - the yarn was too thin. The entire pattern got lost and you couldn't even see it. So I took the yarn and made something else with it. I continued to look off and on, too thin, too thick, not enough. By that time we had decided to sell the house and I packed it away - off we went. Of course since it was packed last I didn't remember where it had been packed.I finally found it about two weeks ago and was back on looking for yarn

 

I had bought some but when I started knitting realized I was about 400 yards short, arrgh!! So I rummaged in my stash and found the perfect shade and plenty of yardage. So FINALLY, after a year I have started and I do think of it as my opus. It's the hardest lace shawl I've ever attempted but like anything else in life you can't keep doing the same thing over and over if you want to improve. I'm already halfway through the first chart, whether I'm doing a good job of it is up for debate, but I love a challenge. 

The Octopus's Garden

We have been here six months - half a year. Hard to believe! Around 7am this morning workers showed up to stand next to the crane that has been occupying our yard almost as long as we have. The guy that brush hogged our yard asked if he could keep it here "for a few days" - and we all know someone like him. They are always 2 hours late, if they show at all - they will leave things with you and then act a bit surprised that it bothers you - it doesn't bother them so it's mystifying. The fact that it might be a little annoying to the neighborhood to have heavy equipment running around at the crack of dawn on Sunday, well - but I'm glad it's finally going - I was beginning to figure out how I would be decorating it for the holidays. 

So we continue to work on the house - we're at the point where we can finally get the floors refinished, David is going to finish up (hopefully) sheet rocking, spackling and painting the bedroom upstairs so we can start to put together the guest room. David's done the electrical work in the kitchen but the rest of the house still needs done. Like most older home the outlets are few and far between which means we have little octupi sprouting all over the house. We have 3  power strips in the living room alone, I have a Jackyled device in the bedroom - every outlet and port on that  is filled for the tablets, watches, phones, ereaders, on and on. The chandelier in the dining room is interesting, sometimes it's bright, sometimes it's low lighting, you never know. But the fixtures in the entryway, outside and in the dining room are going to be replaced so for now we just deal with it. 

The only place where there's great outlets is the Serial Killer Basement. I'm sure I've talked about it before - we have a basement that was so well hidden  people that looked at this house didn't even know it HAD a basement. There was a false floor in the closet and when you pull it up there's a built in ladder. We usually hang on to the clothes bar to step on and then down you go. It's a pretty big size and you can stand up straight and walk around, it's very well poured and when we moved in the only place that did not smell of cat or was full of dead bugs. The one thing I noticed was all the outlets - David was surprised to see they are up to code, all of them. We thought because it was obviously added later - there's even a separate breaker switch for it - but then,.....I get it. 

It was added before pot became  legal - we have our very own secret grow room!! 

But since you can buy pot all over we are not growing anything so we use it to store attic stuff, etc... David accidentally cut up the floor (he thought it was left over wood) so he has to redo that. The last thing we need is a guest falling in the closet! I'll be glad when we get a little further  along and I can start putting things away instead of it all sitting in bins. This will be the first place in a long time that we will actually be unpacking in instead of taking out the basics. Can't wait!

Today Is Not Your Day.

So yesterday around dinner time the Secretary of the Water Association came by - yes, we have a water association. Around here it's common for a neighborhood to get their water from a natural spring or artisan well. The very upside is your water has no chemicals in it - it's so clear it puts bottled water to shame. It's pretty economic and it also limits the amount of houses they can build in an area. The downside was last night - the pipe had developed a major leak and they had patched it, but the repair would not be done til tomorrow. As a result the reservoir was down and the pump had lost it's prime, we were told we needed be very conservative and we might run out of water anyhow. This would have been better if I heard it before I decided to wash my car. And in hindsight we should have filled at least a couple of buckets and will be doing that in the future.  We tried to be Very Conservative but despite everything when I got up at 2am to pee - we had no water. In retrospect I panicked prematurely - I had us destitute by 3am since you cannot sell a house with no water, we went broke in my mind and I actually got up and took a shower at the gym at 4 am, unable to sleep. I was exhausted before the day started - and the water came back on at 6:30am. Apparently it is not a big deal. 

I had the yarn festival today in Long Beach which is why I wanted a shower - who wants to show up at the yarn show looking like a hot mess?  I  was looking forward to it because, well, yarn and because I enjoy exploring the area whenever I can. I met Kim and Stephen there, Kim does not like to drive over  the Astoria Bridge (AKA The Big Ass Bridge) - I find it thrilling - it's so stinking long, it just goes on and on and on. I stopped for coffee at a coffee stand, it was so good. It's probably good that I don't work there because I'd just shut the window and turn off the lights so I could drink it all myself. I digress. They held it in a hotel and it was.....ok. It's the first one ever so it was very small and most of it was roving, not really yarn. If we were spinners we would have been in heaven, but this?, not so much. We were in and out in under and hour and I bought nothing. Nada. Zippo. But we did get to got to Marsha's Free Museum and peep at Alligator Boy, so that was ok. On the way home I stopped at the beach and took pictures, by the side of the road, more than I 've taken in awhile. On the way home I went down a road I've been down and spotted a gravel road figuring it would take me closer to the water. Yeah, nope. 

At first it was fun, I love back roads and took a few pictures - according to my GPS the highway was right there so I wasn't worried. At first. But my GPS kept glitching, the road would be heading toward the main road and then would disappear. And there wasn't just one gravel road - there lots of them, splitting, winding up and down some were so covered with leaves it was hard to distinguish where the edge was. David called and was supportive but there was nothing he could do - I saw no one, no cars, no houses, no driveways, no paved roads. And of course the longer it goes on the more anxious you get and you're not sure if you passed that big stump on your way in - or you're driving in circles and you're just seeing it again. I finally saw another car and rolled down my window - are you lost too?  No, he smiled, just adventuring on the way home. Thank goodness for nice people and their moms! He waited for me to turn my car around and lead me out - there is no way  I could have done it myself, I was shocked at how far off course I had gotten. It took half an hour at least of winding roads, I had been heading completely the wrong way. When we got to the paved road he rolled down his window and and gave directions to the main and then thank goodness I recognized that building, that house, what  relief! The rest of the day has been uneventful, thank goodness! My feet are up and a movie from the 50's is playing, so glad to be home and at the end of this very long day. 

Slowing Down

We are now into our 5th month here, David continues to work on the house - he has added a sun room (well, that's what he calls it, he's fooling no one - it is an addition). But for the most part he's gotten most of the outside done except for the roof, the septic works well and we are still figuring out the heat. We had a heat pump put in and we are using the cadets (they look like space heaters in the walls) but we need to actually go through winter before we tweak anything. When we first arrived it was stinking hot and we were all we need central air right now, but everyone told us to wait and glad we did. We ended up with a dinky window AC unit for the bedroom and turned it on for a grand total of 3 days for about 8 hours, most days all we really used was a couple of fans on low. We might buy a generator as everything is electric here but once again  we have no idea if it will be necessary or not. We got a line of credit done the other day - we're nowhere near ready to find another house but we want  to have things in place if we decide to buy another property.

Property here is MUCH more expensive than in PA/WV but we are past the freak out level. And of course we've slowed down spending, when you move that is very rough, you feel like you're just shoveling money out the door. Every day is another never ending list - but what we end up spending is a fraction of what others spend so not so bad. And we have leisure time! That is one of the best things. I'm no longer putting in 10 to 12 hours a day 5 to 6 days a week. Work is only 30 minutes away and my clients are never any further than 45 minutes from the office. I can either work a regular 8 hour day or  4-10's and have Fridays off and weekends are REALLY off. No more catching up on work or trying to do a week's worth of food shopping, wash, etc... in one day. We lay in bed every night reading, David with his Spencer detective novels, me with the elves and dragons. We go out adventuring with Kim and Stephen, I knit all the time. Life is getting fun.

And seeing Jackson, Brandi and the girls - that is the best. We've been there four times since we moved here, we will be going before Thanksgiving so we can see Jackson before he goes, then we'll be spending Thanksgiving with Kim and Stephen - Christmas Brandi and the girls are coming HERE! Here, to my house to spend the holidays, I'm so excited I can't stand it! Of course we have to kennel the dogs, gas,etc... so it's not free but we can see them so much more often. People used to ask me why I didn't see them more than twice a year, the reason was every trip we took out here easily cost between $2500 to $3000 between the airfare, shuttle, kennel, etc... life is not perfect just because we moved, but it certainly is more enjoyable.