Oregon Living 2024 – Blog #41 – A Nice Party Night and Square Dancing Starts Again!

 

Sunday, October 6^th., 2024……  Mary, Heather, and Charleigh were up early this morning. Cathye made breakfast and we each ate on our own. Except for Mary, who left to go visit her son, Justin. They went to Kevin’s for breakfast.  We all had no plans for today so after Mary got back home, we all just hung around the house. Justin came by as well. Charleigh had given her aunt Cathye one of her glass blowing pieces. It was really cool!

I spent some time trying to get the blog caught up, so I was in my room pretty much the whole day. I watched the Nascar race while I worked. We had to leave for class at 6:00pm so the kids packed up and left before that for their drive back to Seattle. I think Mary has a late flight out tonight so they were in no hurry. We cleaned up and then headed off to class and then to the Pizza Hut after that.     

Monday, October 7^th., 2024…… Today was gym day and then breakfast at Kevin’s. We had the dogs walked and fed and then headed out. I had another bylaws meeting this afternoon so I left Cat and went to that. Afterward, we had pulled pork sandwiches for dinner and then watched Dancing With the Stars before hitting the hot tub before bed.   

Tuesday, October 8^th., 2024…… The weather has really been nice so far this week. We’ve had temps in the mid-70s. It was nice for our walk this morning.

Cathye has a sleep study consult appointment this morning in Albany. Because she may run late, I needed to stay back so I could go on to our workshop to hand out the new badges. On the way, I stopped by Harbor Freight to pick up some more sanding discs for the bartop. At the workshop, I handed out, and collected, for the new badges and took orders for more. They really liked them! After the workshop, we stopped by Walmart to pick up a few things.

Wednesday, October 9^th., 2024……  We didn’t have anything on our agenda today, so after walking and feeding the girls, we left to take the 27-mile backroads drive up to Stayton to have breakfast. We like the drive and also like to go to the Covered Bridge Café when we are in the area. It was as good as usual. When we got back, we worked a little around the yard. Cathye’s goal is to get all of the flowers and shrubs deadheaded or pruned back. She needs to coordinate with our landscaper to see his schedule. By agreement, he comes and goes on his own schedule to work the allotted hours we prepaid him for. Problem is he doesn’t always come when we need something cleaned up. She is looking at another service but we will get our hours out of him first.  My main project now is to sand down the bartop. The epoxy we poured last month was a big miss! It has tons of bubbles and washed out areas so I have to start from scratch! The orbital sander doesn’t work too well since the epoxy is pretty thick. So, I switched to my belt sander. It works well, but takes time to get through all of the thick resin coating. I work on it until the sander gets too hot, then I quit for a while. I’m about a ¼ done so far!     

Thursday, October 10^th., 2024……  Another quiet day here. The weather is all over the place. The nights are down in the 40s and the days can get to the 70s. Most days have been overcast in the mornings with sunny skies later in the day. Light rain showers come and go once or twice each week. We were up and out later than usual this morning. It seems that we are sleeping in longer and longer each day. Maybe it’s the change of seasons! Yeah, let’s go with that! We walked the dogs and then went to the gym and then to Kristi's for breakfast. I waited until it warmed up a bit outside and then worked some more on the sanding project. I am now about ½ done! I had to change out the belt on the sander twice, but I am making good progress now. 

Tv tonight was The Masked Singer that we had taped. Neither of us knows any of the new age singers these days, but it is still fun to watch!

Friday, October 11^th., 2024…… Yep, slept in again this morning! We walked and fed the fur babies then ate leftovers from yesterday. There are two clubs dancing tonight and tomorrow. We are choosing to go to the one tomorrow so Cat invited Mike and Cheryl and Frank and Marianne over for dessert and to play 2500. It’s our new favorite game! I got the task of dessert and chose to make my ice cream sandwich dessert. I chose to use cut-up bananas this time. Never tried that before! When I went to Walmart to get everything, I also found caramel topping so I put that on too!  It goes into the freezer and then we brought it out and they scarfed it up! Frank and Cathye won the two games of 2500 but we all enjoyed the evening. While we were playing cards, I kept track of game 5 of the Dodgers and Padres playoff. Yaay! We won!  Next up are the Mets!  

Before everyone left, we headed out to the front yard to see if we could see the Northern Lights. Cheryl got some great pics early this morning...

When we went out, we could see a little of it and the phone picked up just a bit more, but we have trees and houses directly north of us, and it was early so it wasn't nearly as nice....

Saturday, October 12^th., 2024…… Tonight was the Sweet Home Club dance. We worked some more around the house. I sanded and then helped Cathye take out her cherry tomato plant, which was about done for the season. We took extra time to check each branch and also combed through the dirt, hoping that she had lost her ring while picking tomatoes last week. No luck. We each took breaks and watched some of our taped programs. Later, it was time to clean up and get dressed for the dance. Sweet Home is about 15 miles from us, up hwy 20 towards the Cascades. We go there a lot and the drive up the Santiam River is really pretty. The dance we fun. We get an average of 2-3 squares at the Club dances around this area, and since the Squarenaders have just recently started hosting dances again, the 2 ½ squares wasn’t too bad. Shaun called and that made it fun as well. Back home and instead of hitting the spa, we (ok, Cat) chose to watch the Golden Bachelorette. We each have our favorite guys that we hope get her attention. They are all still in it.