Eight Months In.

So. We've  been here 8 months, 2/3rds of a year. We went through Summer, Fall, almost done with Winter and will be coming up on Spring soon. Winter was not as bad as everyone liked to think it was, I was regaled with tales of Snow, Ice and General Mayhem but...... we got a total of one inch. One. Inch. and it was actually total mayhem on that day, you would have thought we were on the brink of Armaggedon but then it melted the next morning and it was back to business. It's a little odd here because it never quite gets to the wintery bit of it, David has mowed the lawn all winter. Not a lot, but he did have to mow a few times in January and February, the daffodills bloomed in the beginning of Febrary too. We just got a lot of rain. Even that you get used to, the dogs sort of ignore it unless it's pouring and it usually isn't. 

We've had a large group of mallards move into the sluice behind the house which is an issue for Rueben. He's terrified of water and yet would like to flush the bananas out of them. So he spends a lot of time on the back deck pointing them in a serious manner. They got annoyed with him the other day and started quacking at him which made him point at them hard. I made him come in the house when I couldn't take it anymore. I'm still on hunt for sealions, the smelt have calmed down so they are not in the river anymore, but I can head out to Astoria if I need to visit with them. David continues to work on the Astoria house, he has the septic guy coming out to fix the tank and had the shingles delivered the other day, he's taken down walls as the house is going to be reconfigured. They had a fire years ago which took out the upper floor and when they rebuilt they made it a one story - the floor plan is awkward at best and wastes space so David has been busy moving bathrooms and bedrooms. The front door is back where it should be, it looks better already. 

My job.....is going. They lowered the age from senior citizen to 18, I know it's adults but there's a huge difference in the problems of a 70 year old as opposed to a 30 year old. It also means I'm dealing with drug addiction, alchoholism,neurological disorders (think MS, CP, etc....) I'm getting quite the education. But I still enjoy my job and very much enjoy not driving as much. In PA I averaged about 8 to 900 miles a week, here if I go over 250 it's a rare thing. Plus my job is less than 20 miles from my house, what a relief not to have 3 hours of driving to and from work!! Things are really settling down, even though David has put a hold on working on our house it's far enough along that it's not an issue. Everything works, well except the dishwasher and the shower but other than that systems are go!