Oregon Living 2024 – Blog #5 – A Birthday, a Family Meal and Another Dance

 

 

Monday, January 29^th., 2024……  HAPPY BIRTHDAY RANDY!  We woke up late this morning. It seems that since it’s dark at 7:00am, we tend to sleep in a lot!  Anyway, we got up and going and had the dogs walked and fed, then took off for our gym workout.  When we returned, Cat left to go over to Judy’s to work on one of her square dance skirts that she bought last weekend. It was one of the vintage items and needed a little help in the waist and she and Judy worked that out. Meanwhile, I called Randy to wish him a happy birthday. He was off work today so we talked a good while and got all caught up. Cathye got back and we worked on getting the ‘snow people’ down from around the house and boxed all of them and put them out with the Christmas stuff.  We got everything together and put back on the shelves and then we rested for the day. We had dinner and watched more mindless tv until bedtime.  While doing that, I had gone onto the Oregon Square dance Facebook page and found this pic. It is all of the kids that have recently graduated from classes around here.

None of our kids from class are in this picture. From what we see, it sure seems like they have a lot of fun!  

Tuesday, January 30^th., 2024…… The task today was to clean up the motorhome. We brought in the three throw rugs and vacuumed them. We are thinking about changing the rug currently in the motorhome living room area and moving the 5 x 7 rug on the back porch into there for more color and a little different look. We will need to wait though until we get a full day of sunshine before we run the carpet cleaner on it and can get it dry.  I got some of the other items straightened up in the coach. I have a few things on my to do list regarding the rv. I want to go down to Bish’s RV in Junction City and check into a new satellite dish and installation of that. Maybe tomorrow or Thursday. I also needed to call again about a mouthpiece for sleeping. I’m doing well but I promised Cathye that I would look into getting that done. It took a long time and after a few transfers, they said they would look into what they had suggested back in April and would call me back. What a messed up system!  We headed off to our senior center for our square dance workshop. Charlotte, our caller announced to the small group there today that she will be retiring after her next class is finished. She has been the Lebanon Square Circlers now for 30 plus years and she says it’s time. She will do the upcoming plus class (which I am going to with Lynn - more on that later) and then will just be a Club member.  

Wednesday, January 31^st., 2024…… The weather this week is what we would call nice. Temps in the 60s and for us that’s good this time of year!  Cathye has been anxious to rearrange the furniture in the living room, and today was the day!  It took a few minutes and some changes as we thought it through - but in the end, we both like it!

After that, we were pretty much done for the day. Dinner, tv, and spa and then bedtime.

Thursday, February 1^st., 2024…… This morning was another gym day. After walking the dogs, talking to the neighbors, and feeding the girls, we left for our workouts. After that, we stopped at Kristi’s for our usual breakfast. Then, after we got home and threw a load of laundry in, we took off for the afternoon. We drove down to Junction City to Bish’s RV Center. I talked to Deane at the parts desk about my satellite dish. When I asked her if I could just order a specific part for it, she called Winegard and they told her yes! It would be a week to receive. I said yes – order it!  I had been told that Winegard was no longer selling parts for the older dishes (I bought mine in 2012) and that I would need to replace the whole system. Current price is $2349.00, plus $500.00 for installation. With shipping, this part cost me $324.29. I would need to go to the service department and schedule an install. They said they could indeed install it and I made an appointment for next week. They get close to $200.00 an hour for labor but still, I am way ahead from having to buy and install a new dish!  Yaay! We left there and stopped at Dixie Creek Saloon in Tangent. Cathye had never been and I always have had a good meal when there. We both ordered burgers and fries but could only eat half. So we now have dinner figured out! Once we got back and let the girls out and got them fed, we relaxed. Neither of us was hungry until later when we heated up our leftovers. More tv and spa and bed.    

Friday, February 2^nd., 2024……  Slept in yet again! We got up and going and walked and fed the dogs then went out to work in the yard. I needed to do some r&r on the potting shed glass roof panels. They were installed when the house was new and are showing their age. Walt used 5 double pane windows, minus the frames. He laid them in and boarded over at the rafters, creating a hothouse type effect. It works well but over the years, the windows have lost their insulation and also began to slide out of their tracks. One window had slid down over 6 inches and that area was open to the weather!  Cathye asked me to look into fixing it. Cathye won’t let me on the roof so I made a plan and got material cut. I staged three ladders and went up on them to the point where I could remove all of the fasteners and screws that I could reach.  Corey and family were coming today. Corey is working for us and Vikki is bringing dinner to make here for everyone. The kids will hang around and use the spa.

I will use Corey to do the part from the roof. He got here with the family and we got started. It went amazingly quickly. Brandyn helped with debris on the ground and we managed to get the glass back in their tracks with no issues. Of course we were very careful because I didn’t want any breakage. Cathye came out and took a pic while we were working...

and one after the job was done....

 

Once that was done we cleaned up and he did some other chores for his grandma while I came in to watch tv and play with the great grandkids before dinner. Vikki was hard at work in the kitchen..

Corey’s friend Jacob and his family came over and ate with us. It was good to visit with them again and the meal was fantastic!

We had told them we needed to do all of this early because we had promised one of our Club members that we would go help them support a club over in Albany who is hosting a dance tonight. That club is hurting for attendees and we previously committed to that. The kids left and we changed and headed out. We timed it to be there for the beginning and we made it! The dance was fun!  Cathye is getting more comfortable with the calls and the speed now. She gets better and better each time out. They only had three squares but the hall is pretty small. She took one shot as we were getting in a square.

After the dance, we headed home and went straight to bed after a long busy day!     

Saturday, January 3^rd., 2024…… Our dance weekend continues. Tonight, we are driving up to Salem to another dance. But that’s pretty much all we have on this lazy Saturday. We cleaned up a bit from the chaos with the group from yesterday and then rested for the day. We were ready for the dance tonight since Daryl would be calling. Both Judy and Lynn passed on this one because we have our 75^th Anniversary dance going on Sunday afternoon. Of course we will be there as well!

Ok, it’s later now….  Like I said before – we had a very lazy day. So much that Cathye took a nap and I may have dozed off too!  Anyway, we both got even lazier and decided not to drive to Salem and back for the dance! I fed the dogs then went out and got Carl’s Jr while Cathye got started on the cake she volunteered to bake for the anniversary dance tomorrow. After all of that, we settled in and watched a few of our own taped shows then got together and watched some more. Spa and bed.