It is sticking . . .

If April showers bring May flowers, what do April snows bring? When I woke up it was raining with snow mixed in. Then snowing, sticking, and sprinkling the flowers with powdered sugar and now back to rain. Beautiful while it lasts.

Snowman Humor

No Fruit

As my hubby was getting ready to eat his cheerios this morning, he commented, “no fruit.” He has fruit every morning on his cereal. I chuckled. There are 28 jars of freshly canned peaches next to ripening peaches, but we froze the ripe ones last evening. The bananas range from ooh, brown ready for banana bread to green, but nothing in between. The last of the fresh blueberries I had mixed with the last of the mango and that is not a combination he enjoys. All the fruit in the house is either frozen, canned, ripening or overripe. Frozen strawberries were thawed and breakfast was redeemed.

Saving Money

It’s what we all are doing. Right? Finding ways to trim our budgets and save a few dollars. Therefore, I cut out the $10 off coupon from Safeway. It’s seems a simple task. Check the paper for the deals. Cut out a coupon or two and begin making a list. Add a few items that are special for a new recipe and head out to the store. All is well, until I am almost at my $50 threshold, the amount needed to spend to save the $10, when I realize I have my $1.49 milk coupon, but not my $10 off coupon. I remember exactly where it is on the dining room table. I leave a phone message for my husband who is out running and ask him to call me ASAP. Now what? Do I keep shopping and make it to $50 or do I wait and make sure Bob gets the message, calls and is willing to drive to the store with the coupon or do I leave my whole basket and drive home and get the coupon myself? Bob calls and is willing to drive down with the coupon. Whew! I think all is well. I am so wrong!

I am also trying to buy the “mix or match” items that will reduce to $4.99 each if I can find the right ones and if I buy three of them. The first item is obviously popular as the shelf is empty. The next one is confusing. The one advertised in the paper is listed for a higher price, but there’s another one with the $4.99 price. No problem, I can adjust. It is just paper towels. The dryer sheets are listed as advertised and I’ll just swap something else in for the first item.

At the check out stand, the food and other items are quickly scanned and double quick shoved into the bags. Dryer sheets in with loose produce, but I can pull that out at the car.

A crash sounds from the direction of the sweet young bagger girl. She says to the checker, “I dropped one of her bags on the floor and broke the eggs. What do I do?”

While asking this question she picks up the bags and drools the egg whites and yolks on my bag and then sets the oozing dozen on the counter. The checker instructs her to go get me a new dozen of eggs. As she leaves I ask the checker if she will know what to get me. The checker says she’s not sure. It is the bag girl’s second day on the job. When she returns she tosses (and I do mean tosses) the eggs into my bag. I cringe, thinking of the vegetables that have just been smashed, but realize it wasn’t that hard and so move toward the door. Just before exiting I think to check this dozen eggs and sure enough one is broken. I do a 180 with my cart and meet her as she is trying to find a mop. I show her the broken egg and she takes it to the back of the store and returns again. This time I open it in front of her to check for breakage and incredibly find another broken egg. She took that dozen to the back of the store and returned quickly with another dozen. It took four tries to get me one dozen intact eggs. But my shopping experience wasn’t over yet.

After I unloaded all my groceries into the car, I decided to check the receipt and make sure that the prices looked correct. One of my $4.99 items had rung up at $11.29. Oh, my! That meant the rest did not ring down to $4.99 either. I picked up the two that I thought were wrong and headed to customer service. The woman obviously thought I was trying to pull a fast one, until she and I both looked at the tag on the shelf and she agreed with me that it said $4.99. Now what? The tag might say it, but the computer was not going to ring it up. Truly I no longer care. Give me something else for the $4.99 price. Any old paper towel will do! I don’t know if you noticed, but I said I brought in two of the items. I needed all three items in order to return the originals and then ring up the new ones. I went out to the car, parked far at the end of the parking lot, to get the dryer sheets. All three were successfully returned. Two new items and the dryer sheets were then purchased. The three items all went down to $4.99 each and I saved a whopping $10.50 on those three items.

Total savings for the trip: $32.85! And I only spent $47.37. But is my time worth anything?

I do NOT love shopping.

Snow, snow, snow

Another two inches came down overnight and blanketed our street and the golf course greens!
We took off snow shoe-ing. Did you know it is hard to run in snowshoes, turn and smile before the self timer runs down? Any guesses on how many "takes" we had?

Fun framing with downed trees and snow covered branches.

The Best Toys

Some of the best toys are made from cardboard boxes.

12 days of snow

Twelve days of snow and below freezing temperatures have created beautiful icicles hanging all around our home. These, four deep icicles, are what I see out my kitchen window.

Twelve days of snow create many opportunities, daily, for shoveling snow. Bob has pathways to the hot tub, the bird feeder and out to the road. Our neighbor has been snow blowing our driveway.

Each day Bob has been knocking down the icicles on our front porch. And 24 hours later they are back again!

Our neighbor sent over this picture of our home. The view from their front porch.

Here's a view from our front porch.

Am I getting old?

Today, a big announcement was made at our church. Our new senior pastor was introduced. He is younger than me. I am thrilled that he will be our new pastor. He has been our associate pastor and his wife is a good friend of mine. He will lead our church well, but I have never had a senior pastor that is younger than me. I think this marks a new crossing over point in my life . . . crossing over to the older group.

I must be careful not to become the old lady at church who frowns and criticizes those younguns in funny clothes or crazy piercings or tatoos. The tats don't seem to bother me, although I have no interest in getting one. Most of the piercings don't bother me either. I almost got a nose stud at a few years ago. A couple of friends at work had them, but about that time I met the man who is now my husband and he didn't really like the idea. I just have to say, the nasal septum piercing, bull ring, is another story! The young girl I know with one has what looks like long thick staple ends hanging out of her nose. I just don't see the beauty in it and maybe that's the point. Maybe this particular bull ring is part of her expression of how she sees herself.

But the bigger point is what I need to learn from this. Am I critical of what is different than me? Have I become more critical of exteriors as I age? God, help me look at the heart as you do!

We Voted . . .

We voted today and we know no matter the outcome, the Lord reigns.

"Say among the nations, 'The Lord reigns.' The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the Lord, for he comes . . . "
Ps. 96:10-13a

Rejoice, be glad, resound, be jubilant, sing for joy . . . the trees of the forest will sing for joy . . . what a great picture that brings to mind.

The Lord does reign!

Spoiled

Yup, I am sure that I am spoiled! I have had all of these gift cards for several months and have not had a chance to spend them. What a problem! But all of these stores are at least an hour away. Some of cards are from birthdays, some are thank yous from friends and then two of them are from returns. You return a perfectly good, unused item to the store and they do not give you your money back, but give you a gift card.

This last Friday and Saturday, I went to Portland, with two goals. The first goal was to visit with my aunt who has ALS and the second goal was to shop, preferably at stores where I had gift cards. I must go into stores and just shop until I find something that I can use. Here’s the pile that I accumulated from gift card purchases.

Bob chose the cookbook for a healthy heart. I have new calendar for school, some new music, a pair of sandals, a fiction book, kitchen towels, a tablecloth, lotion, soaps and perfume. My new purse didn’t make the picture, but it is probably my favorite purchase. Only two gift cards left!

Sticky Fingers

Sticky fingers, dirty soles and blue tongues all add up to berry picking. We picked and froze about 20 pounds tonight. We are set for a winter of blueberry pancakes and berry cobbler!

Melon Salsa

Actually, it's Pork Medallions with Melon Salsa & Grilled Limes

I tried out a new recipe tonight and we thought it was delicious. It was the first time I prepared a pork tenderloin and the first time for making melon salsa. Bob grilled the pork tenderloin on the BBQ. The Caribbean sizzle was full of vitamins A and C and low in calories!

Dinner Outdoors

We enjoy sitting outside for meals anytime we can during the spring, summer and fall. It was in the upper 70s or low 80s tonight, shady and perfect for relaxing! I always wish I had my camera with me as a spectacular oriole or finch flies into the area. During the lunch hour we often see seven or more varieties of birds, including flickers.

In the evening we get the bigger animals. One day we had a raccoon come through and then a couple weeks ago we had a deer. That was a new one! Tonight it was just butterflies and baby quail! There were probably 27 or so of the fluffy handfuls. They are very skittery, so this is the best picture I have been able to get of them.

We are still enjoying roses too.

Friday Photos

The last Friday in May, Bob and I attended the Horizon Formal and I had the privilege of taking photos. Of the hundreds of photos that I took only a handful are without the gorgeous students and here are a few of those.

Mt Hood received eight more inches of snow last night. Is it summer yet?

The students had many pictures on this walking bridge!

a little atmosphere

Tuxedos strawberries were a favorite.

Wednesday nights

Wednesday nights a community group meets in our home and Bob usually leads the study. We just finished a year long study of John and this week started James. Bob sits in our new chair with his commentary and his Bible and we read and talk about a chapter.

We all chime in with what verse really spoke to us and why. We talk how to apply the truths.

Once in a while Bob really gets inspired.

WE COWER.

WE RUN FOR COVER.

Want to join our group? We were having a little too much fun last night!

Fly Fishing for Carp

My husband loves to fly fish. Last weekend was the first time he went fly fishing for carp and this is what he caught. These big ole fish put up a great fight, but are not good for much but crab bait.

Busy, Fun, Friends and Food

Thursday morning Becky stopped by after an all-night shift at her work. She slipped into one of our guest rooms and slept while I went to my friends’ home to help them with taxes. After a few hours I returned to make lunch for my husband and wake up our sleeping guest. Then Mythraie, our weekend guest arrived. We chatted for a while, changed sheets on the bed and sent Becky off east for her weekend plan. That was just the beginning of a crazy, but fun filled weekend.

Friday night 10 singles joined Bob and I for dinner. I was so thankful that Mythraie was here to help with the preparations. We dubbed her sous-chef and she washed and chopped most of the afternoon, while I ran around the house like crazy. Visualize random trips here to there, moving piles of mail, magazines, to do lists, and project piles, figuring out how to use the new ice tea maker, making ice tea with the new contraption, adding leaves to the table, finding more chairs, confirming people who are coming, asking about allergies and food preferences, among other details. Also, throw in conversations with Mythraie to catch up on her last six months. You get the picture.

We had a great time Friday night, but Bob was way outnumbered with the 11 women in the room. We all got to telling stories and Bob even told some BK (Before Kim) dating stories on himself. We laughed till our cheeks hurt.

Bob and I both had 8:00 commitments Saturday morning, but eventually we returned home so Bob could prepare our traditional blueberry pancake breakfast for Mythraie. It was the least we could do, after all her chopping and prep work. Saturday night we had the privilege of meeting Tracy’s husband, Dennis and enjoying dinner and conversations with them.

Then Sunday, after church, we invited a couple from our small group to join us for a casual lunch. We picked up pad thai from our favorite thai trailer and sat back and relaxed for the afternoon. Kicking back only lasted a short time. Then Mythraie headed back to Portland, I returned to my friends’ home to finish their taxes and Bob went out and edged the WHOLE yard!

I am officially canceling all obligations this morning. I am drinking coffee and answering a myriad of phone calls and playing catch up with all those piles that were “moved” on Friday. We served up 27 plates to guests from Thursday noon to Sunday noon. We connected with 19 different people. We slept well last night!

Three nights in a row . . .

Pulling me out of a deep sleep is the chunky roar of the orchard fans. For the last three nights, we have had below freezing temperatures causing alarms to ring in the valley. Jumping into action, the orchard owner or their field men light smudge pots and turn on the fans to raise the orchard temperatures by a few degrees. Protecting the unfurling buds is one step to ensure we will have pears, apples and cherries this season. If they sleep through these alarms they run the risk of losing their whole crop. Do they sleep at all when freezing temperatures are predicted or are they on edge all night anyway? Thankful for the warmer temperatures predicted, I am looking forward to a full night's sleep tonight.

Still snowing

A Spring retreat

Last week, I stepped into the brisk morning air to find some flowers on display. I found crocuses, daffodils, hyacinth, and heather all blooming.

The first day of spring:

Today we woke up to snow, yes, lots of snow.

March 20th

March 28th, Friday of Spring Break!