Happily for our faithful readers (all 2 of you), this will be short this week. Last week’s blog was way too long, but I figured I had a lot to say. It’s been a slow week this week, because I have been resting up from my trip to Atlanta, and tying up loose ends here in WA. I’m still not done with unpacking even though I really didn’t have that much with me. I saved $40 by carrying on and not checking my luggage.
Sunday was spent in part with friends who are moving to Reno. We took some food into Ellensburg to share with them, us, and their worker bee friends and relative. We took pizza, pineapple salad, and lemonade. They all appreciated it very much. John also helped with loading a few boxes and drawers and pieces of furniture during some of the time we weren’t eating.
We also delivered some of our tulips to a friend from my exercise class who wanted to put flowers on her family’s graves, and didn’t have any blooming now. We are higher in elevation by almost 750 feet, so ours were still in bloom. Our lilacs are just starting this week. We have had lots of rain off and on recently, and that hampers John’s yard work and grows the grass even higher. He’s been spraying for weeds, and has to do it when the wind is not blowing or a rainstorm coming. That’s been a real challenge.
I also spent a lot of time early this week working on my pictures from the Atlanta trip, and getting them burned into a CD to send to the webmaster for our class web page. It is nfhs61.com. All the pictures from different photographers are not there yet.
Have also been emailing back and forth with classmates, while reminiscing about past Atlanta and our memories. After so many years, It’s been a lot of fun touching bases again with a number of friends from high school days, and before in Elementary school.
Monday (Memorial Day) and Tuesday we stayed home and didn’t go to town at all.
Wednesday, exercise class started up again and John went with me to town to run some errands and wait for me to finish. We left town for Yakima and Costco, because we needed some printer cartridges for John’s running off the KVTR newsletter this weekend. He has to have it in the mail by Saturday. Also, for the Geography Department’s end of the year award ceremony and pancake feed this coming Monday we bought large numbers of dinner plates, hot and cold beverage cups, napkins, and plastic forks, spoons, and knives.
Thursday started with my loading the dishwasher, and John hiding from the wind, in the lee of the house, 10 feet from the front door, trimming our Mountain Ash tree.
http://www.tree-pictures.com/mountain_ash_tree_pictures.html
It was quite bushy with many low suckers, so much so,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_shoot
that we couldn’t see the car, the pasture or anything past it, and it is about to bloom. Bees love this thing and John likes to remove all the lower limbs so the flowers – and bees – are above us and the dogs. John’s 37th principle of being a homeowner is to never plant anything that blooms between your front door and your car. A few years ago he removed a plant given to him as “bamboo” but was actually Japanese knotweed . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_knotweed
. . . an interesting plant that you are better off not having, especially right next to your front door.
The afternoon was playing at the nursing home where one member of our group (an accordionist) is recovering from hip replacement surgery. It was nice to have her wheeled in to sit and sing with us. She’s not yet up to playing her instrument.
Thursday night was a lecture on ‘”Ice Age Mega floods and the Landscape of Eastern Washington” by a professor from Arizona. It was one of the best presentations I have ever heard on the topic, and we have heard many.
http://www.iafi.org/floods.html
Friday was a special day at the Adult Activity Center. It’s the first day of the month, so we have a potluck and the theme this month is for Father’s Day. The music was music from the fifties. That’s pretty neat considering I just returned from my 50th high school reunion, where we were given a CD of hits from the 1950s. The center provided hamburgers and hot dogs, grilled over charcoal. Everyone attending brought a potluck item. I’m taking some of John’s pink apple sauce (color from the skins). Then in the late afternoon we are invited to another party, with the graduate students’ club, ERMA, (Environmental Resource Management Association). We also had grilled hamburgers (meat and veggie) and all the rest provided by the club, and it was a potluck. We took a large Lattice Apple Pie we bought at Costco and a colleague brought a fruit flavored cheesecake.
Except for a lot of yard work today before the party, John’s spending his time working on the newsletter for the KV trail riders club, which has to be in the mail by Saturday to get to people in time for next Thursday’s meeting.
Saturday is another party, a surprise 50th birthday party in the late afternoon. Supposed to be a lot of good food and fellowship there too. The morning was spent printing, folding, and mutilating the newsletter (complete with printer jams) for 46 copies, and then stamped and taped the edges. He might make it to the end of the driveway before pick-up. (He did). About the party–you have never seen so much food. There was food for 100 and about 50 came. We had homemade lasagna (to die for), ham, Teriyaki meat balls, a couple of salads, deviled eggs, much fresh fruit, rhubarb pie, and a huge birthday cake (about 3 X 4 feet) that had chocolate cake filled with strawberry filling, and white cake with the same, and a white frosting with chocolate bits.
Won’t need to eat supper for 3 days.
Came home to the a/c running. It comes on at a house hallway temp of 77. Don’t know how it got so hot – except we had all the windows closed and the sun was out. That’s been rare all spring and caught us off guard.
It’s now Sunday. John was expecting to work on the blog last evening but couldn’t find it and I went to sleep. I think I sent it to his computer!? Don’t know what happened to it. I’m resending, after reading through again for corrections. John is out now in the cool, non-sunny, non-windy morning, digging the last two post holes for the fence around his garden (to keep the deer out). He’ll be back in later to put this on the blog to get out to you all.
All our best regards,
Nancy and John
up on the Naneum Fan