Oregon Living 2025 – Blog #16 – A Busy Week!

 

Sunday, April 27^th., 2025…… A pretty quiet day…. I was up and went out and got us breakfast and coffee. Cathye slept in so I fed the girls and had my breakfast. She was up and going soon after and ate and got ready and then left for church. “Be careful and watch for deer, dear!” Meanwhile, I worked on the blog and then settled in to watch tv. We thought about mowing later in the day, but the weather is not cooperating so we decided to wait and just relax for the day. I did check my text messages and opened up the original acknowledgement from Caliber Collision. It just acknowledged that they had received our car. Turns out there was an attachment in it that I had missed!  It was the estimate. Total was $13k. Wow!  

But we only have to pay the $250. Deductible. Estimated return date is 5/22, so it will be a while to gather parts and get in queue for the repair. Well, at least we have a date!

Monday, April 28^th., 2025…… The weather is great today, so we can mow!  We walked and fed the girls and then headed off to the gym, and then to Kevin’s for breakfast. When we got back home, we did some clean up around the yard to prep for mowing later. The grass was still a little too wet so I worked on removing the water spigot from the garage wall. This is the one I had capped off last week because the old cvpc lines were leaking. That left the spigot sticking out through the wall, doing nothing. Since we’ll be painting soon, I wanted to remove the spigot and cover and seal the hole so it can be painted later. I found some siding material that matched and cut it and screwed it over the hole and then removed the hole hanger and caulked those holes. Easy peazy…    

Later, we started in mowing. I set the blades on both mowers lower than the last time for the yard and attached the baggers. Cathye and I made several passes and runs to the grass dump pile out in the field before we were done. We took a break and relaxed on the deck for a while, then went back out to do the field. I lowered the blades on both mowers even lower and removed the baggers and, together, we got the field mowed pretty quickly. We didn’t ask Penny for help this time because she has Jody visiting from Utah. They did come by later to drop off some stuff for a future yard sale. As I mentioned before, we have tons of shelving along one wall in the rv garage and we can easily store items there as we want. Right now there is not enough stuff so we have no date set yet.

Later, we drove up to Salem to see the kids. Creed is doing well, but Caroline is having trouble breathing when she is feeding. So, they have a little tube in her for the time being. I think they said they will staying in the hospital for a few more days. Rest and tv for the evening.     

Tuesday, April 29^th., 2025…… Cathye’s sister, Mary, Is coming up from Tucson today. Her son Justin’s girlfriend is in the hospital with what they think is pancreatitis. We were up and walked the dogs and had breakfast. I had a 10:30am appointment for cleaning at the dentist today, so I headed off for that.  Amanda was home with a sick child, so Amy was called in. We hit it off quickly and I had a nice experience. She probably was told to just do a surface cleaning because it was relatively painless!  Later, Cathye went to Eugene to pick up Mary while I went on to the workshop. I got back home while they went straight  to the Lebanon hospital to check in with Justin and see Amy. Later, I met them at Pizza Schmizza for dinner. Mary will be staying both here and at Justin and Amy’s place. Not sure if they have a schedule. Later, we watched tv for a while then called it a night. 

Wednesday, April 30^th., 2025…… Today we get tires for Cat’s Tacoma. After checking several places, we found the tires we want for the best price, at Costco. I made an appointment for 10:00am when they open so we had breakfast and headed off for that. Mary will have the Honda to drive while she’s here and she left to go to the hospital. We shopped until they texted that it was ready. After we got home, Mary and Cathye took off to go up to Salem to see the littles.

 

When everyone got back home, Mary left to go stay at Justin's and we ate dinner and rested from the day. 

Thursday, May 1^st,, 2025……  I have been texting back and forth with all three of my paint bidders. I have already sent Trevor a text telling him I was going with another. His bid was the highest and he hadn’t yet factored in the caulking job. He did text back that it was already included but we never addressed his specifically caulking each and every vertical batten on the two garages! So I don’t think he understood the complexity and eventually his price would most likely increase (and he was already the highest). Travis, who did our neighbor’s house, had been back and forth with me about different paints. Seems he can get what I want (semi- gloss) but it would be higher by a significant number!  He and I went back and forth and I eventually got the impression that he was too busy to give me the response I wanted. He also said in a text that he wouldn’t be doing any of the wood repair and I would have to sub that out (extra cost to me!) before he started. Plus, he would have to put me on his calendar way out in September. So, I will wait one more day for a bit of info he said he would be checking on, and then I will make my decision. Meanwhile, Penny’s guy, Jose, has sent me his bid, which starts out as the lowest but he wants to do the front door as time and material which is unknown at this time. If we use him, Cathye and I have talked about doing some prep (sanding) on the door ahead of time to help with time costs.  All of this is a significant expensive and it's important to us and I want it done right and to my specs. So, we wait…

I also had a service call from Xfinity Comcast for today. They called and said they had some indicators that I had an issue with my service quality. When the guy showed up, he tracked it down to some corroded connectors at the box entering the house. He fixed that and also gave us a new more modern modem. We were good to go! Penny came by later with more stuff for the yard sale storage racks in our rv garage. She also brought over what was left of Jody’s wine, which was too sweet for her. So, Cat and I just drank it (from the bottle) while we were visiting out there with her!

Friday, May 2^nd., 2025…… The plan today is for Mary and Cathye to go back up to visit the babies. But they decided to wait another day until after the kids get home and settled in a day. Caroline is doing better. They have to both pass the car carrier test first. I didn’t know about this so this is what I researched: it is a procedure done in hospitals to ensure a baby can safely travel home in a car seat, especially for preterm babies or those with certain medical conditions (mostly respiratory). They monitor the baby’s vital signs while they are secured in their car seat for a specific period. Creed didn’t pass, so they are there for another day. We decided to head off to breakfast. I chose The Covered Bridge in Stayton. We wanted to have Mary try our favorite bacon place. She liked it!  On the way home, we hit several yard sales. I drove us home and they went on to another. This was one of Shawn’s estate sales. She said we need to go back on Sunday when everything is 50% off because they have some hall runners she liked. Also there were plenty of tools for me to look through.

Today was also Ted and Kay’s wedding. They had chosen a venue out of Sweet Home. Mary took the car and went back to Justin’s. We took the truck and headed off to the wedding. The problem happened when we drove down the driveway to the venue and saw no one there!  Cathye re-checked her invite and found it was the 3^rd.   We were a day early!   No worries, we’ll do it again tomorrow.  

Later, Corey came by. He was running errands and we had asked him earlier about our trailer ramps we think he borrowed. He said he remembered that they were still at his old place. So, he went by and got them and dropped them off here. I am thinking he enjoyed his time away from hospitals and people!     

Saturday, May 3^rd., 2025……  Creed passed his carseat test so the babies are home now!  Mary is still at Justin's. Turns out they took Amy back to the hospital last night and spent several hours in the er waiting room (hey, it’s a Friday night!). We didn’t know until this morning that they now think it’s a gall bladder problem. No word yet on anything as they are running more tests. For us, we are hanging around the house. We got some rain late last night but Cat is still wanting to do some planting. I stayed in and worked on my bills and my blog. We have to cut up tomatoes for ‘Taco Night’ at our Club dance. Mary came back and the three of us did that and then we cleaned up and changed. We are wearing the same clothes for both the wedding and the dance because we will only be home long enough to feed the dogs. We gave them a little snack before leaving for the day. The wedding was nice. Ted was the pastor who married us three years ago. Like us, he and long-time friend Kay, are going for a second chapter together. They make a great couple and we wish them the best!

We eventually had to leave to go to the dance. We stopped by the house and changed and fed the dogs first. We got there in time to help set up the room and the food. We are in charge of the kitchen tonight so we won’t dance as much as we want. But that’s ok, we are tired from the day anyway! The taco bar was a huge success. We had plenty of everything except shredded cheese, but all was good. Once the dance was over and we had the kitchen and hall cleaned up, we were ready to leave. Cathye was asked to drive Jo’s car home for her. She wasn’t feeling well and took some meds that made her groggy and had gotten a ride home earlier.  She lives on our way home. I followed Cat and we got her car parked in her driveway. Problem was the inside lights remained on in her car and we both tried but couldn’t turn them off! We tried calling her but only got voicemail so we know her battery will be dead tomorrow.  We headed home and let the girls out then for a bit then went straight to bed. It was a long day!