Oregon Living 2022 – Blog #6 – Invitations Mailed, a Dance Night & a New Bike!

 

Saturday, February 5^th., 2022……  Mornings are still super cold here!  But the good news is that the skies are clearer. At night we can see the stars. Forecast is for more clouds coming back in but easing up and warmer weather toward the end of next week. We walked and then fed the dogs and then went out to Kevin’s for breakfast.  Cathye did some more sorting from the boxes we got from the mobile home while I headed off to Costco to get a fluorescent light for the shed. It was pretty easy to install and I was done in a few minutes. I started work on more pegboard for the shop walls. Cathye has a collection of old tools that she was going to put on the wall in the shed in the mobile home, but I am planning on showing them off in the shop. I have a space that I cut pegboard for and it should work for everything in the collection. I also spent some time working on pegboard for the other wall in the shop. After a few hours, we were both done for the day. I spent some time later on Facebook Marketplace looking for an e bike. Since we have been to a few stores, and I have already tried out a few for sizing, I pretty much know what I want now. Problem is that bikes for my height are not readily available. Plus, if I find a used one on MP or on eBay, I am not comfortable buying sight unseen. Even though a lot of the ads are for bikes out of state i.e., Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, or Texas, I did find a few promising ones, one in Washington and one in California. I have inquiries in to each of those now and if they are still available, I will call Randy and have him check out the guy in Calif.    

Sunday, February 6^th., 2022……  Cathye headed off to church after we walked the girls and ate breakfast. I had nothing planned for today, but I did go out and work on the pegboard and finished that before relaxing for the rest of the day. We had previously moved everything out of the mobile but now we need to go put stuff back. We’ve sorted through the paint cans and I’ve grabbed what I wanted. The idea was to leave the new owner with remnants of the paint so they could do touchups, new deck coat, etc.    

Monday, February 7^th., 2022……  We are still struggling with the new park managers who are totally inept. They told Cathye, “They haven’t given us a fax machine yet so we can’t send off the new application for park approval!” She suggested going to the UPS store, literally down the street, and they said, “oh no, we need to use their machine and you just have to wait for that”.  These people can’t do anything.  Since then, Cathye was able to talk to the old park managers, who suggested that we/Aimee call the sister park in Salem and ask them for help or advice. Aimee got the number from Cathye, called, and within four hours we had park approval!  So, we are waiting for the new managers to get wind of that. Cathye already has told her off so we are glad to have this workaround completed!  So, our task for today was to head over to Albany and see Jamie and then go back and take all of the ‘staging’ out of the mobile. Aimee says the new owner wants to close on Friday!  Yaay!  Once we got through the house, we have now officially moved out!  So we only have to sort through the rest of the boxes here to keep, donate, or put in the yard sale pile.   

Tuesday, February 8^th., 2022……   HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBIN! We will be going to dinner with her and the group tomorrow but Cathye called to wish her a great day. Later, we met at Pizza Schmizza for lunch with Teri and Ron. Penny met us there too. Teri is Cathye’s friend from back in their work years, who does flowers for weddings, etc. She wanted to know more fine details and they got those worked out.  No luck on any of my e bike inquiries so far. I found one more but it was sold.       

Wednesday, February 9^th., 2022…… Cathye headed off to her Wednesday morning volunteer work at SHEM. I went the other way (Corvallis) for my acupuncture appointment. Still not able to see any results for my loss of smell, but she does wonders for my headaches and back pain!   After that session, I stopped and got breakfast on my way to Albany to pick up my new rifle, which they said had arrived!

I was excited until I found out that even for a rifle, there was a waiting period. Not so much like for a handgun, but they needed a review by a third party before they could release it and they were backed up (sound familiar these days!) and it would be at least a week before I can go back and get it. We needed to get the invitations in the mail took those to the post office. Cathye also headed off to go look at cakes. Someone told her Walmart did a great job with wedding cakes, and they were reasonable, so she wanted to ‘test drive’ one of the flavors. She chose a white cake, with raspberry filling. We had Robin’s birthday party set for today at 4:30pm at The Hickory Station in Albany, so we took it there to share and get everyone’s opinion. We all had a nice time. The Red Barn is a beer bar with an outside patio leased by several food carts. They built this just before covid hit so it was only open for a short time and Lydia and I hadn’t had a chance to go before she got sick. So, I was glad to experience it today!  I counted 11 food trucks!  There were 7 of us there for dinner, drinks, and dessert. We each chose our favorite cart and ordered. Afterward, we cut the cake and the review was positive. We still want to go get another flavor before deciding though. Fun day.   

Thursday, February 10^th., 2022…… Today was our day for massages!  Boy, these are looked forward to by both of us. Emily gives us each an hour, and will do any form of massage you want. She will also work on any problem areas.  I had her work on my neck, shoulders, and head. I feel it the next day but it’s so worth it!    

Friday, February 11^th., 2022…… A busy day today!  We had several things going. After walking the dogs and eating breakfast, first thing up was the housecleaning team came in at 9:00am. We stayed with them for a while, then scooted out of there so we could go meet the new owner of the mobile. Both Pat and her sister-in-law, were already there and we started in with some of the things Cathye wanted to point out (water shutoff, thermostat, icemaker, etc. We gave them all of the keys and then had to leave to drop me off at home so Cathye could head off to meet with her tax people. She was stressing out a little about all of her property and estate sale last year but came back home with a smile on her face! No worries!  We then headed off to Albany to go pick up her check at the escrow office, and then take it to the bank. We had time to come back home and rest up for a bit, feed the dogs, and change clothes because we were heading off to Silver Spur in Salem for a night of country western dancing! It was fun for both of us! 

I hadn’t been out c/w dancing for a long time (25 years) but still remembered a few of the couple’s dances. Of course, there are new line dances coming out every week, so we pretty much just watched the younger folks do those.  

We did get a teach on one called “Smoke Rings” aka Dancing in the Dark, done to Gary Allen’s Smoke Rings in the Dark. The guy wasn’t the best teacher and confused the whole floor but we were eventually able to pick it up and got it toward the end of the song. We waited for them to play it again later, but they didn’t before we left. But I found it online so we can watch and perfect it for next time. But that’s only one down and 100s more to go. We will go back soon though! We got back home and let the dogs out and crashed from the very busy day!   

Saturday, February 12^th., 2022……  Yesterday the weather was awesome, in the 70s!  And today started out cold as usual but with no clouds in the sky, it warmed up quickly and was a beautiful day! (We found out later that we broke a record high of 74 for this NW area for this day in history).  I heard back from both of the bike owners and set up a meeting for Randy and the guy down there. Pending that outcome, I was ready to drive up to Yacolt, WA (100mi) to look at the other one on Sunday. But Randy said “get the one you want Dad”, and that prompted me to call the Portland Pedego store to check to see if they had a 29” interceptor classic and they did!  So, we made the drive up there in the Acadia and took Jama. Rylee got a quiet day at home. It was a good thing we left her because, after a test drive, we bought the bike and it was available to take home today. She wouldn’t have fit back there with it!!  When we got back home, I got it unloaded and took a picture

and then took it for a spin. Man, this thing is sweet!  Plenty of power and it fits me perfectly. I did the right thing and messaged both of the other bike owners so they wouldn’t be holding it for me. We also plugged Cathye’s ebike in because her battery was down. Not sure if it will hold a charge properly since it’s now over 5 years old. We’ll see. She did spot a nice teal step thru Pedego and now she has her eye on a new one. We’ll see…     

Cathye heard back today from a Facebook friend who saw her last post about our dance night and shared that they do CW dancing and teaches at the Pine way Country Club on Tuesdays. It’s probably only 5 miles for our house, so we want to go there now and check it out.