Sunday, July 7
You have heard about this day’s activities in last week’s blog, but when we finally did publish the blog for the first week of July at 11:00 p.m. We were awaiting completion of photos and videos for July 4. Now we can add both of those links, as promised, because permission was granted! 
Amy with Weston ^^^^^ Brothers – Weston & Owen
Amy’s Face-painting July 4, 2019 in Kittitas, WA
The fellow having his face painted above is the younger brother. Amy (the painter) got my video and pictures to the family, as she knows them, and asked for permission to publish here.
Next is the longest video, below the progress pictures:
Amy Face-painting Ellie (Butterfly Mask)
Monday, July 8
I was up at 4:30 a.m. to feed Woody and put the male cats out—Rascal out the back patio door & Czar out front with Woody. Never saw Sue. I went back to bed and slept in until 8:15 a.m. John was up earlier to check out the details on a camera we are buying to replace my old one that quit after a couple minutes recording Friday.
At 9:00 a.m. he left for Yakima to get the ignition switch on his Crosstrek fixed. I’m staying home today to work on paying bills, processing photos from 7/4 and 7/5, for addition to this week’s blog.
Reached John by phone a couple times when he left. His car is fixed, and he was coming home through Ellensburg to pick up our medications from two different pharmacies and also to get some fried chicken for lunch, picking up Robada apricots from the Selah orchard of Jen, legal assistant at our estate lawyer’s office in EBRG.
I have been trying to pay bills this morning: (one Cascade F&A) I cannot reach until tomorrow; talked to the Yakima Memorial Heart Center about an invoice to John for an Extremity Study back on 4-30-19, just now coming through, with no explanation of why it’s coming from there or for what it involves, except it was for him. My guess is his deductible on Medicare was not yet paid when that was sent, but the woman I spoke with (named Nancy) said it was done incorrectly and so she is “billing it up.” I guess that means rebilling Medicare. NO CLUE, but while she said for me to toss the receipt, I wrote all my notes on it for the next billing statement, in case I need to know what I was told.
Another necessity was to pay a balance on both our mouths’ dental work in May. Total charges for both of us were $1105.40 after insurance payments in June. I had already paid $500 toward the bill. Best not to have dental work done, so brush, clean, fluoride, and stay away from the need to manage cavities.
Continued working on photos from AAC. I also tried on more clothes today for sorting ones to keep, share, or donate tomorrow morning to the Ellensburg Community Clothing Center.
I also sent an updated reminder to the retired geographers about plans for our monthly Emeritus meeting that will celebrate the eldest’s birthday. Mary Ann is bringing a cake and we have a bottle of fizzy fruit drink, Apple/Mango.
Tuesday, July 9
I contacted Cascade Foot and Ankle via the local number which rings through to their Yakima office where the accountant is housed. It was about my recent bill for $9.19 for John. Found out we must pay it next Monday. John’s deductible was not yet paid up. Now it is. I had to call Kaiser Permanente (secondary medical insurance) to verify that was what happened.
I went for my fasting blood draw and for other things in town. I got there a little after 9:00 and went inside for a long wait until my time to check in. Checked in, and went back to the lab, for another long wait. While waiting, I walked down to the Cardio Pulmonary office where I asked some questions about my upcoming PFT test (to learn the details of having my new cardiologist send the required referral).
I asked for the last date I had one done at the end of 2018. It was November. So, when I see Dr. Dave Krueger in October, I can have him send the referral then. I need to call Medical Records to see if they will ship the PFT from 2018 to him now. Today I had the blood draws he requested, to be done 2 weeks after I saw him. I had them send the results to him and also to my PCP. I have to call his nurse for the results I think he said, but I have access to the results on the Portal for our local KVH hospital, and my PCP triage nurse will be sending me the results printed by postal mail. Their printouts are more instructively organized than the ones I have access to.
So, I will just call his nurse, (think her name is Alma) to see if he had any comments that I do something differently. I may ask the nurse I know from my original cardiologist there, because I have her email address, and I know she will find out the email for me of Dr. Krueger’s nurse. Otherwise, it is an expensive landline long distance call.
I went by the Law Office for picking up apricots from the legal assistant, Jen, and while there, she gave me some Van Cherries (from a pollinator tree). John fixed me a cooler to carry.
From there by Exxon for gasoline. It was almost empty, taking 13.8 gallons at $2.97/gal. I thought that was the best price in town, only to drive by a 7-11 on my way home to see it was $2.96 there!! Happens too often. You cannot depend on Gasbuddy.com to have updated information.
I wrote a check for David Hazlett, our farrier, to trim Myst’s feet. He was coming after I had left.
I took out the macaroons to take along to go with the carrot cake being brought tomorrow, and realized too late tonight that I should have cut up some of the large Robada apricots and passed them around the table. Hindsight is always 20/20.
Fixed our birthday card for Dee Eberhart for his 95th tomorrow; I added two photos from the Nov, 2018, Veterans’ Day memorial celebration at the Senior Center, with 4 of their family members pictured.
Wednesday, July 10
Up early to leave at 8:25 a.m. for Hearthstone to set up the table for the meeting. When John and I arrived we had to rearrange the furniture that was set up for Bingo at 1:00 p.m. today. Scheduled to leave about 10:30 a.m., we promised to change our arrangement back to what they wanted. They provided coffee, hot water, and tea. I set up all the place-mats, plates, utensils, cups, and napkins. It was very festive. We had a great turnout: Jo & Ken Hammond, Dee Eberhart and his daughter Katie (from Bend, OR, with hubby Chuck), Mary Ann Macinko, with her homemade carrot cake, Lillian Brooks, Carla Kaatz, John & Nancy Hultquist, Jim & Diane Huckabay, with her Summer Intern Derek Craig (History major) working with the Kittitas County Genealogy Society, on the KCGS’s Obituary Report. Derek is going through old newspapers, gathering info from obituaries and death notices. He’s been through 1911-12, creating a database for putting on their web site, so that people can access such information. The website is https://kcgswa.org
Derek, John, Carla, Lillian, Chuck, Katie, Dee, Ken, Jo, Mary Ann, Jim, and Diane.
Chuck, Katie, and Dee Eberhart on his 95th birthday! You can see the Carrot Cake on Chuck’s and Dee’s plate, the remainder of the cake in front of him and the stack of BD cards people brought, on his right.
I took one very short (9 seconds) video of our singing Happy Birthday, because I didn’t hit the start button soon enough. Be sure to read the description with the video – and then click on the link to hear the short Happy Birthday song ending.
This was a birthday party at Hearthstone, where one of our retired members lives, and we meet monthly on the 2nd Wednesday of the month. This happened to fall on Dee’s birthday, and his daughter Katie and husband Chuck were up from Bend, OR. Mary Ann Macinko made Dee’s favorite cake. Everyone enjoyed it very much. We had a nice visit and heard about Carla Kaatz’s trip to 3 places in 3 different European countries: Vienna, Prague, and Budapest. Mary Ann Macinko mentioned her travels to Italy last year, briefly, and told us about her trip this year to Kodiak, Alaska. We had many other interesting conversations, as well.
Dee Eberhart 7-10-19 Happy Birthday Song – 95 yrs. young
We went to the Emeriti meeting in separate cars because I had to leave to go to the Food Bank Lunch music. We had a large turnout of players and singers and it was cool having one caregiver (Cathy) dancing around singing while pushing two different women who are wheelchair bound. They were smiling and singing along too. The last song we did today was I’ll Fly Away, and one of the wheelchair gals requests that all the time. The whole table where she sits was singing along.
I had too much to do today so did not make my normal salad to take for my lunch. So today, I had spaghetti and meat with a helping of a mixed green salad (complete with Spinach) that I’m supposed to avoid because of its high Vitamin K effect on my blood thinner Coumadin, a bowl of fruit, and piece of peanut chocolate cake, with fruit punch.
Cut John’s hair this afternoon starting after 4:00. It looks pretty good, although he has a slight wing on the left. The haircut needed to be done sooner.
We had leftovers of Meatloaf from John’s homemade supper last night, ½ ear of corn, and a tomato (he bought some today), and we shared 3 apricots. Then for dessert, brownies and ice cream.
Thursday, July 11
Washington Trails will start a summer fund raiser, called Hike-A-Thon (in August). The idea is to support a friend, and for each mile the person hikes, you give money. I checked for Kara Chin’s email with details of her Hike-A-Thon plans. I found it and donated. We think John first met Kara in 2003.
Kara sets up a page using the name Unicorn Banana Slug: Kara’s cute campaign
See Kara and read about her (10th down) here: WTA Staff
[ Search via images for ‘banana slug washington’ to see the variety of this famous critter. It is also a very strange beast and you may, or not, want to follow up on this creature. ]
We had a good bunch at Meadows Place this afternoon for music. Folks playing included: Katie Eberhart (from Bend, OR, accordionist), Nancy, Charlie, Gerald, Marilyn & Maury, Evie, Dean, Amy, Anne, Minerva, Laura (bringing friend Karen for the audience).
We did not have a large audience, but they were coming and going and those who stayed were very grateful. The acoustics in the building and with the wooden floors in the dining room, it carries the sound down the hallways, and residents can hear our music from their rooms.
Needed to work on the new camera to charge its battery. That took a long while. I finally read through the buttons and description and have a pretty good idea of where everything is, but I do not have a complete understanding of the finer points of taking videos and stills. Apparently, I can take one type of video (not the Creative Video type), and as I’m recording the video, I can make still photos. That is really going to be neat for PowerPoint videos, to capture the speaker’s voice as well as taking individual photos on the fly. My first goal this afternoon was to install the lens cover with the prevent-loss strap connected to the camera. Battery has to be charged, also.
When I began disassembling the box of stuff that came today only a half hour before I arrived home about 4:15, I got out the camera, instruction manual, battery, 64 Gig storage card, and looked at the tripod and saw a mini tripod I did not expect to be in the mix. We ordered extra batteries with a charger, which we are scheduled to receive tomorrow in our regular postal mail. Finally, I realized after reading the manual that I could charge it through my external AC plug in electrical outlet or use the end of the adapter’s USB to plug into my laptop computer for charging. That’s a very nice option, and one I may well have had with my old Nikon, but never realized. So my new camera is sitting next to me on a table charging its battery. Once it is charged, and only then, can I experiment with taking photos and videos.
Friday, July 12 Our 50th anniversary!
We went today to a program with lunch at the AAC (Senior Center) for the going away party for our two AmeriCorps representatives for 10 months, and to celebrate our own anniversary, by trying out my new camera. Took photos and one video on the new camera, and will use the rest of the afternoon and evening to figure out how to transfer them to my laptop. It didn’t get figured out until tomorrow afternoon, as we were leaving for dinner at the Cottage Café.
Deborah Boudreau, Roxanne Laush, Katrina Douglas
Katrina Thanks AmeriCorps Reps 7-12-2019
Here is the link to the stills from today
We will include in this blog a photo of us on our anniversary day, taken at the Ellensburg Adult Activity Center (our Senior Center), with the first anniversary gift we received from our cousins in PA, Ethel, her daughter Pat, and husband Ken, who were married 7/8/67.
July 12, 2019. Foreground is the gold plated hanging heart, engraved with our names and July 12, 1969 on the back. Dahlias John grew. Background Aloha banner for upcoming Luau event. Thanks to David Douglas for taking this photo of us on our new camera.
Roxanne took the flowers so John has promised Katrina a new batch next week.
We came home to find flowers and two boxes of chocolates at our front door in a paper bag.
Left was what we found. Right John opened & photographed. The flowers are Flowering Kalanchoe, Dracaena, and some sort of miniature ivy. Attached to the Flowering Potted Plants was a special card to two lovebirds, with a nice note, signed, Caitlin & Rebekah. We also received some special cards from back in PA and OH, and are grateful for them. I received one on Facebook from a member of our musical group. I did not announce it on FB, but might a few days late. We received a bunch of emails. Thanks to all!
Saturday, July 13
Celebration continued for dinner tonight.
John, Nancy, Jack, Sharon at the Cottage Café, Cle Elum, WA
Slept in till 9:00 a.m. and spent the morning trying to figure out getting the images from the new camera to my laptop. I wasted tons of time yesterday trying, and finally found a Panasonic site late last night with access to register my camera and need to fill out the paperwork on the 3-year Warranty request. John helped me get the necessary paperwork for that. I needed the purchase receipt and the bar code/serial number on the box it arrived in. I had to upload images of those last two, along with filling in another bunch of information about the owner, address, email contact, and phone.
We both had a lot of computer correspondence to do before brunch, but then had a nice one of eggs, sausage, orange slices, and toast.
The Carpathian walnut trees got water today from the ditch. John moved it (the water) about every 7-10 minutes. There are 7 trees just east of the house. I worried with getting the photos and video off the camera. We were to leave for Cle Elum for dinner with Sharon and Jack Jenson. Finally, an hour before out-the-door time, I succeeded. While we were gone I left the computer running to send up a huge file (over a gigabyte) to YouTube, for the one video taken Friday. I must learn the best way to lower the megapixels and decrease the size of the videos, or I will never be able to record an hour lecture as I’m used to doing for music or for Geology lectures. I also must find a source in Ellensburg, where I can take my external drive and preferably connect through my laptop to use Fiber Optic cable instead of DSL. DSL is way too slow.
We made it to Cle Elum to the Cottage Café for dinner 20 minutes ahead of our meeting time of 6:00 p.m. and pulled in at the same time as Sharon and Jack. So, we walked in together. We had a nice visit and then ordered. We shared a bottle of Pinot Grigio, a white wine from the Veneto region of NE Italy. Dinner and wine, and a small potted rose bush, were compliments of the Jensens. We assumed this is to be appreciated now, as a house plant, and not likely to be winter hardy.
So, here you will see the meals close-up, and the flowers.
Top, Sharon’s salad & wine, John’s Black & Blue**, Middle, Nancy’s chicken mushroom soup, Sharon and Nancy both had Turkey platters, and bottom, Jack had Meatloaf platter.
**Salad with steak, black beans, and blue cheese dressing.
Enough food we brought half home.
Finally, the plant gifts.
Tiny, pretty roses and I didn’t get sharp focus. Tripod? (Nancy’s comment: I was reach up over my head and unable to focus or even see the view I was taking from above). I should have put it down on the ground to take the photo. Also, this shot of the pot of flowers from Caitlin and Rebekah was taken by John outside, and doesn’t show the Dracaena and Ivy very well, so look above to the day it arrived.
Sunday, July 14
We both slept in this morning, I relaxed a little longer than John because he beat me to bed last night.
We both started with a morning of correspondence and then he and Annie and the cats went out to walk. He watered onions. Some of the tops are starting to fall, but most are still growing. When 85-90% have fallen it will be harvest time.
We had a nice brunch, our usual, but with some apricots.
Each of us continued on our projects. I’ve interspersed telephone calls and emailing in with the blog creation.
Now John is back out feeding horses, and exercising the dog (& cat, who goes along, and sometimes with two other of the outside cats). He cut some brush along our north fence line.
Now breaking to spend time on the photos from this weekend, because I didn’t have enough time before needing to publish this.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan