Heather, Do What I Say, Not What I Do!

Yeah, ok, so I haven't posted anything in a week and a half. Sorry, it's just that SOOOOO much excitement has been going on here... *yawn*

So, briefly, what's been happening here the last couple weeks, in no particular order...

Finally planted some vegetables in the raised beds I built last year! One of them now contains cauliflower, green onions, leeks, artichoke, anaheim pepper, and a bunch of different kinds of tomatoes. The other one is planted to attract The Great Pumpkin come fall. It has 3 different pumpkin plants and some seeds for a 4th variety. And one butternut squash. Sure to be "The Most Sincere" pumpkin patch!!

Speaking of Pumpkins, we joined a local farm produce co-op thing (there's an actual name for it but I forget...), so we get a random box of whatever is being harvested that week on the farm. And The Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island is "our" farm! We got strawberries this week, which are FINALLY getting ripe. Usually the local strawberry season is done by now, but the weather is still like early May perhaps. Anyway, so far we've also got rhubarb, bok choy, salad greens, onions, broccoli, cabbage, and radishes from the farm.

Like I said, it's not particularly warm here yet, but at least the incessant rain has many more long pauses now. On the official first day of summer, it actually got up to 80 degrees!! That is the 3rd day so far this year that it hit 80. We've only had 12 days that hit 70. It's mostly about 65 and cloudy now. Anyway, with the decrease in rain, I've been getting out and doing much more exercise. Natalie and I have been walking up Mt. Tabor together 2 or 3 times a week. Nick and I went on a 15 mile bike ride on that glorious sunny first day of summer. (BTW, we actually saw a raccoon and a heron along the Springwater Trail bike path!) Stan and I have joined the Stumptown dragonboat team for the summer, and will be racing in Kent, Washington in a couple weeks. Ohhhhh I got spoiled being the tiller this season! I am NOT in good paddling shape! Also trying to get to yoga and pilates classes in the mornings still. Anyway, while I have lost about 8 pounds (combining work outs and Weight Watchers) I have gained a rather sore hip this week. :-(

I also have Nick working on house projects. He finished edging the planting area along the back wall with paving bricks, and is working a bit at a time on Heather's favorite project--beating dirt out of removed sod so it can go away in the yard debris recycling, YAY! :-)

Last weekend it did rain a lot on Saturday, and Stan decided to rearrange all the furniture! :-/ So now Heather's room is the tv room, (even from halfway around the world I'm bracing for the "WOT???????") and the living room is all twisted around. It all looks rather strange, especially as all the pictures are on the walls in rather odd places now. Don't want to rehang everything until we decide if it's actually staying this way for a while.

For Father's Day we hosted a brunch with all the kids currently in the country. Plus Alex's girlfriend Alix. (Who we hope will be "one of the kids" someday!) Maria made the most amazing cake!! She is quite artistic in many media! Stan really wanted to go to this automobile exhibit at the Portland Art Museum, but as it turned out, all the tickets were sold out. (It's a timed-entry affair.) So I guess they're going next Saturday. Oh, yeah, and Colleen is coming back from China on Friday next week! Once again, she actually arrives in Seattle before she leaves Beijing!

For the local wildlife report, it is crow fledging season, with the adults yelling and dive-bombing people, and many teenager crows flapping about being comically klutzy and disheveled and yelling "MEH" at people. We have this orange and white cat in the neighborhood that has taken to spending the morning sitting on our garden wall by the street. I keep suspecting Professor McGonagall is looking for someone. Maybe Jacob's destined for Hogwarts, lol!!! And one morning this week, when I hadn't seen Sophie for a while (our indoor cat), I heard banging and scratching on our front screen door. I went to tell Sophie to knock it off! She likes to hang out on the front porch and occasionally climb the screen. But she wasn't on the porch. So I looked outside to see what was making the noise, expecting to see Mr. T, the cat across the street. But NOOOOO, I look out and see SOPHIE sitting on our front steps yelling at me!! Not sure how she got out or how long she'd been outside....

Been reading the most fascinating book about the influenza epidemic of 1918. Picked it up because I'm trying to alternate "meaty" books with "junk food" ones. And it looked kinda interesting. And it was a dollar at the church book sale. Anyway, more about that later perhaps.

Today, tried to do my nails (FAIL!!), went to yoga, then Costco, then went and got my nails professionally done (keeps me from chewing on them), then to the nearby fruit & veggie stand, home for lunch (smoothie!!!), now blogging since I tell Heather I want to see hers twice a week and here it's been way longer than that for me, next up is walk to Fred Meyer for assorted items on the grocery list, then make dinner and a strawberry-rhubarb pie, then dragonboat practice! I told Nick we'd go on an overnight backpack hike tomorrow, so I better do some prep for that as well. Probably ought to water flowers, too. They've been predicting rain for 3 days straight, but there's only been clouds so far. Must run or the pie won't happen and Oregon strawberries, though way delicious, have a notoriously short shelf life! TTFN!