Fall

Miss us?

Here's what we've been up to!

Starting 3rd grade...

Learning our best friend is in our class...

Attending the annual Pirate Party that Mommy's friend throws...


Snuggling babies...

Jumping in leaves...

Spending afternoons with friends...

Canning delicious applesauce...

EATING delicious applesauce...

Learning to ride a unicycle!

Trying new foods...

Looking at possible wedding venues...

Attending game nights with friends from church...

Playing with WORMS...

Making a worm farm...
Celebrating five year anniversaries!

Enjoying Mommy's favorite season... fall!

Zest

I’m loving life.

I wish summer would hurry up and BE SUMMER and I wish I had a working dryer, but other than that, I’m loving life.


The house is great. I can overlook the little annoying things, like the fact that the cupboard under the kitchen sink smells like you might think the space under the house would smell, because there is, in fact, a small space around a pipe that isn’t sealed so the air under the house comes into the cupboard.

Or the fact that the last guy who rented the place decided that he would be super helpful and replace all the pipes under the sinks, even though there was NOTHING wrong with the old ones, and the ones he used are these piece of crap plastic, bendy things and they all leak and we have to keep buckets under two sinks to catch the drips.

Or the fact that we have birds living in the space above the front porch and in a crevice by the back door. (And apparently nesting season isn’t over yet because they won’t leave so we can close off the areas.)

But these things are little and while they DO matter (I mean, we’ll need to fix the sinks), they don’t REALLY matter in the grand scheme of things. I don’t mind emptying a little bucket of water every few days. Because I’m loving spending every evening with my boys and I’m loving my pets and I’m loving the BIGness of the house and all the space we have to move around and play.


The dryer is another story.

When I moved in I had a washer and dryer. We got them hooked up and I ran a load through the washer. It stopped halfway through the cycle, full of water and soap and towels, and nothing that I did would make it finish the cycle. I ended up having to wring the towels out, put them in a bin and take them somewhere else to re-wash them and dry them.

The dryer didn’t work either. It would run fine, and it would get hot, but it wouldn’t dry the clothes.

So I bought a new set. I spent $175 on a pair that somebody on craigslist couldn’t take with them to their next apartment because they didn’t have washer/dryer hookups. It’s a great set – white, clean, big, working. The washing machine works GREAT. It’s quiet and it gets my clothes clean.

But the dryer? Not so much.

Turns out it’s not the dryer’s fault.

After much trial and error we had come to the conclusion that something in the exhaust pipe under the house must have disconnected. We took a leaf blower and stuck it down the vent but no air actually came out on the side of the house. It’s only about 12 feet away so something must have come undone for the air to not reach the outside. And now, because moisture has been sitting in the dryer duct for several days, everything is damp and smells like mildew. YUM.

Today, the husband of a friend of mine came over to crawl under the house and put in a new exhaust line.


He couldn't fit under the beams in the crawl space so he commissioned his skinny little brother to come over and crawl down there. After a few minutes of persuading and insisting that there were no mice under the house (which I'm not actually convinced of), he crawled down there, drug a section of flex-hose over to where it needed to be so we could reach it from above, and made twenty bucks.


(Now, mind you, this is after about two hours of peering and thinking and sticking our arms down holes to take pictures with the camera and more thinking...)


Of course right after this skinny little brother leaves, we discover that this section of pipe he has brought over to where it needs to be, is literally unraveling as we pull it through the hole in the floor. Who knows how long it's been down there. It's a piece of crap. We have to run a whole new pipe line down there but this little brother is the only one skinny enough to do it.

Tomorrow morning they'll be back. We're hoping to persuade him to crawl under there one more time and feed this GOOD QUALITY pipe to where it needs to be, so we can actually have a standard dryer exhaust line. There is one other added problem which is that the part of the current line that vents out of the house is fed through a piece of wood that is nailed in place under the house. So somehow we have to knock that down, but hopefully a kid on the other side of it with a hammer can get that done.

Oy.

We’ve fallen into a great routine, the boys and I. Jordan loves the house and loves spending lots of time there. I love being around to pack his lunch every day and kiss Steve hello when he gets home from work. And Jordan is simply loving summer camp and I love that he comes running at the end of every day, happy about everything he’s gotten to do.

I love walking down the hallway of the house to hear Jordan playing imaginatively in his room. Last night this happened and I stood outside his door, smiling and listening. I heard him say something about an experiment and teaching right from wrong. A second later the door opened and he saw me standing there and gave me a shy smile. He had his library book bag slug across his chest and the kitten under one arm. I asked him, “Teaching her right from wrong, huh?”


“Yep” he replied, and marched off to put her in the Kitty Jail. Later in the evening he wrote her a report card. She got an F in manners because she peed on the carpet (which she has never done before).


This kitten is so funny - she really doesn't like to be held but she will let Jordan tote her all over the house in things like book bags. Go figure.

I will definitely try to get a “Jordan-isms” post up soon because the kid is just cracking me up these days. Like the other night, when he asked me what was for dinner.

“Taco salad.”

“Oh,” he replied. “I’m not much of a taco salad kind of guy.”

But in the meantime, here are a couple of recent pictures I've snapped! I'm trying to get a bit more into photography this summer and I have a couple more fun ones to post soon.

(The downtown Albany bridge just before a downpour and just after the most vibrant rainbow I have ever seen.)

(Picking cherries at Dorothy's.)

(Petra's trip to work with me where she met all of my desk buddies.)

Where I've been

Well, there are some obvious answers as to where I've been...

I've been wanting to post photos of several activities over the last month but I hadn't taken any of them off of my camera yet. Then Doozie took a bunch of pictures of Dorothy on the day she passed away and I haven't even been able to put the card in my computer because I just wasn't ready to see them.

I'm still not ready but I made a folder buried at the bottom of my photo files and moved the pictures into the folder so I don't have to see them all the time. One of these days I will put them on a CD and save them as memories.

So jumping back a whole month... here is what I've been up to. :)

First, I did some experiments with my mad scientist.


Then, Stacy and Madre (and another old friend who happened to be in town for the weekend and is the one taking this picture) took me out to dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant. Delicious.

The weekend after my birthday Steve and I went to Portland for the MUCH anticipated Cirque du Soleil! This is the view from our room:

The big tent

Kooza!

The show was INCREDIBLE! I went with the intention of letting it take me away to another place and it totally did. I was mesmerized. I loved the entire thing. Over the course of the weekend we walked, rode Max, the streetcar and took a bicycle taxi. :)

And when we got back to our hotel we asked a lady at the front desk if she would take our photo. She happily obliged, then knelt down and took the picture looking up our noses. Um, thanks.

In the morning we decided to do the whole VooDoo Doughnut thing. We stood in line for 30 minutes and bought ourselves (and our friends back home) the most interesting doughnuts I have ever seen. And now I can say that I've had the experience.

The inside of that place is PINK!

Then we returned home and I spent some time snuggling with my boy.

After church on Mother's Day we went with my sister and her boyfriend to the Thyme Garden in Alsea and walked around in the beautiful gardens and took photos.


And visited with chickens.

I spent some time planting my own herbs and produce to enjoy later this summer.

And a couple of weeks ago we celebrated my cousin earning his Eagle rank in scouts and then debated long and hard over a very interesting croquet game.

And then it was time to say goodbye to Dorothy.

(I hope this photo doesn't bother anyone. This is the one picture I did want to get off of my camera because I find the daisy so sweet in her hand and I always loved her hands.)

Her memorial service was beautiful and we took this photo of her family afterwards. Her son and daughter-in-law are in the blue and green (tall and short) and her mom is the amazing looking 97 year old in the middle. Her three brothers are in the picture, her daughter Heather is behind Grandma, and Doozie (Heather's roommate) is on the far right.

Heather and I (I've officially gained another sister through all of this).

And my goofy, goofy dog, who moves to Portland tomorrow to live with Heather, Doozie and Blu.

What a handsome, funny boy. :)

(Diana, you will love this part.) I found out yesterday that this pretty girl will be mine in just a few short weeks! Oh my gosh, I can't wait.

And this brings us to today. Some good friends of ours had their first baby together this morning at 11:11! We were hoping to visit them tonight but Steve works until 7:30 and visiting hours end at 8 so it's just not feasible. We will go see them at home tomorrow afternoon and I can't wait to get my arms around this precious babe. Baby Boston Ryan.

Things have kind of ranged from both ends of the spectrum for me over the last week and a half but I'm in a good place. I've found that I CANNOT deal with sad things right now (like scenes in movies) but I know that's probably just in light of the last couple of weeks and will get better as time goes on.

A favorite cousin of mine comes to visit next weekend and I'm super excited about spending several days with her.

Work on the house is SUPPOSEDLY almost finished (tomorrow is the fourth deadline they have been given) and I will be spending my weekend over there painting. If I can crank out the rooms I'm hoping to tomorrow then I will just have the kitchen and family room left to do. Moving day is June 12th. (Kitten day is June 18th!!!!)

I'm hoping to be around a bit more now. :)

Wednesday - Dorothy's 66th birthday

I had intended for this to be a Wordless Wednesday post and a chance to finally share photos from Dorothy's birthday party. However, as I was posting the photos I realized that they really have a story behind them and since Dorothy is so dear to me, it's a story I want to share.

Dorothy is a watercolor artist and has become very good over the years. She still loves to paint and thankfully it is something that she is still able to do and still enjoys in short sessions. Since I have lived with her she has finished four pieces.

Heather and I had talked about what we could do for Dorothy's birthday that would be meaningful to her and came up with the idea to display her art and have a small artist's reception for her. We had originally wanted to display her artwork in the hallway of the hospital where she is very well known and respected, but that option didn't pan out for us. Instead, Heather and Dorothy's neighbor and dear friend Ellen contacted the owner of an art gallery here in town and he agreed to let us display Dorothy's art and hold a reception for her on the afternoon of her birthday.

We had wine and appetizers for everyone to enjoy:

My manager from work even came. :) He thinks very highly of Dorothy and it was fun to have him stop by.

The rainbow cake was (obviously) a SMASHING success. I actually got a bit tired of explaining how I had made it! Haha.

This is my favorite piece of Dorothy's and one she finished just recently for her mom's 96th birthday. It's one that I will eventually get a print of and hang in my own house. I believe she painted this from a photo that was taken in her neighbor's yard.

I am going to get a print of this photo and frame it, too. :)

Dorothy, Heather and I:

Dorothy, since living with you I have learned SO much and even though we have our hard days, this experience is not one that I would trade. You have helped me to become a better, more understanding, more patient person and have really enriched my life and the lives of people very close to me. Thank you for giving me this opportunity and for sharing your home and your family and friends with me. I love you very much!