TRELLIS TIME

One year ago I asked for suggestions on FB for how to add some visual balance to the empty space on the left of the chimney. I decided I wanted to install a trellis and came up with a tentative plan, but just haven't gotten around to doing it. 

Last Friday we were in Medford and I shared my plan with Dad to get his input. He suggested an alternative plan that would be lighter and more stable, then offered to come up and do it for me. There's no way I'd turn down that offer! 

He e-mailed me that night with a list of measurements he needed, but we were out of town until Saturday night. I was mostly unplugged on Sunday and was away from home when I read his message, so I didn't get numbers to him until Monday. He built the trellis on Tuesday, then drove up yesterday to install it. Wasn't that kind of him?

Dad had Naomi and Tyler crunch some numbers with him soon after arriving, then we headed outside. 

We were mostly there for moral support and to pretend like we're useful, but we did hand him things as he needed them.

Here's what the finished job looks like today with some baby vines planted underneath. 

The kids and I had to leave for a while yesterday, so Dad finished installing the trellis while we were gone. It was a little jarring to come back and see something attached to the house. It's just so big. I'd given measurements that synced up with the window on the opposite side of the chimney, but didn't think about how the trellis would appear bigger because it's extended from the siding. It may take a little while to get used to, but I love it. I can't wait to see the wood weather a bit and become covered with beautiful flowers. I'll have to share a picture later in the summer when it's filled in and the roses on the opposite side have gotten bigger. As for now, I already have another wall that I'm thinking of adding a trellis to. 

OIL CHANGES AND FISH-SHAPED BEDS

I had to take my vehicle in for an oil change this morning and was mildly annoyed at the inconvenience of it. I just wasn't in the mood. Trying to make use of the time, I packed up my Bible, a devotional book I'm reading (from December because my plan to read a great Advent study that month didn't go the way I hoped), and a couple books for fun, then headed out.

As I found a seat in the waiting room, I noticed a woman sewing something and asked what she was making. My vehicle was done about 45 minutes later, about 5 of which I spent reading my Advent book, looking up the verse it focused on, and writing the verse down. The other 40 minutes were spent visiting with the lady.

We talked about our families, our faith (turns out we have that in common), and how cool it is that God made people with a variety of skills and personalities. We know how many kids (ours) and grandkids (hers) we have, how old we are, how long we've each been married, and which foreign countries we've visited family members in. We're basically oil change best friends. 

I also found out she makes something I have absolutely no use for and didn't even know existed.

Fish-shaped pet beds.

Seriously.

A cozy little place for your cat or small dog to sleep that requires them entering the mouth of a fish. Did you know such a thing existed? I didn't, wouldn't be in the market if I had, and am completely amused. 

I told her I was going to link her Etsy shop on my FB page and asked for a picture of her hands working on the pot holder she was making. (Which, of course, led to us talking about the appearance of our hands.)

So, yeah. That was my morning. An interaction that was exactly what I didn't know I needed and couldn't have happened without first doing something I didn't want to do. And an opportunity to let my friends who want a fish-shaped pet bed in their life know where to get one.

BARGAIN BUYS

Ten days ago I bought this table from Woodburn ReStore for three bucks. Originally $15, then $10, then $7, then $5, I'd seen it marked down to $3 a week earlier, but wasn't sure if I wanted to get it. It was still there when I went back, so loaded it up and brought it home. Near our fire pit, it will be put to good use as a s'mores station for people assembling their treats. 

Today I stopped by Ray of Hope and saw this pie pan. I adore white dishes, but almost never buy them because I don't like having a bunch of stuff that won't earn the space it takes. I already have deep dish stoneware pie pan, plus a couple shallow glass ones that Tim uses, so I didn't need this at all. But I made an impulse purchase and spent $.74 on it anyway. I love it! I'll use it for pies, but I also plan on using it as a serving platter for all sorts of other things. 

TEETH & HAIR

Tyler lost his last baby tooth yesterday, which prompted him to declare that he's a man now. I'm not so sure about that statement, but it is the first time in twenty years we haven't had any baby teeth in our household.

Tim wanted Naomi to give him a haircut, but she'd never done a fade before. She watched a brief tutorial on YouTube, then he talked her through the process. 

 

AUTUMN TRADITION

We really like our tradition of getting cider doughnuts from Bauman's on the first day of autumn, which happened yesterday. We don't mark the first day of other seasons, but maybe we should!

A LITTLE FAMILY TIME WITH TIM

Tim came home for a 24 hour visit this weekend. Much of the time was spent sleeping, going to church, and taking care of practical stuff, but we did squeeze in some time for fun. He and the kids spent a chunk of the afternoon playing several games, then he and I went out for burgers at Nancy Jo's on his way out of town. 

Just a few days shy of five months since this job assignment started, I'm struggling with it now. Although I'd never choose to live separately, I was fine with this temporary season right up until his last visit. Suddenly, I wasn't. It's hard.

I'm thankful he's employed, likes his job, and gets paid well. I'm thankful he has a good attitude about long hours and challenging living situations. I'm thankful that all assignments, but specifically the ones with hours or locations I'm not crazy about, are temporary. We'll survive and life goes on. And I'm not complaining about it anymore. 

COOKIES FOR FRIENDS

Some friends passed through town today with hopes of stopping by for a short visit with our family, so I baked cookies to send them off with. Once we realized it wasn't going to make sense for them to stop, we made a spontaneous switch to a quick meetup in a parking lot near the freeway to give them a bunch of cookies for the rest of their trip. Five minutes with friends isn't much, but it's definitely better than no time at all. And cookies are always a good thing!

FRIDAY WITH THE FAM

The kids and I made a spontaneous decision to spend the evening hanging out in our front yard. I pulled out snacks and we all played corn hole, ladder ball, tetherball, and Connect 4 while listening to music and watching a pretty sunset. 

And we tried doing headstands. Let the record state I did one, but it wasn't captured on camera and I fell every single other time tried. Of course. 

 

A STRAWBERRY GALETTE

One of my friends loves to cook and bake, whether following recipes or coming up with her own creations, and feeding people the delicious things she makes is one of her favorite things to do. Tonight she brought strawberry galettes, made with berries she'd picked the previous day, to another friend and I at church. They were still warm from the oven, so I had to take them out to our cars because it made our area of the room smell like an amazing bakery. Needless to say, that would have been a distraction during the service. The smell taunted me on the drive home and I cut into my galette about thirty seconds after I walked in the door. So delicious!

EVENING STROLL

It's been wonderful to have Tim home for a few days! Five nights, which means four full days of waking up and falling asleep in our home, has been a gift of normalcy after three months of him only being here for occasional, brief visits. Tonight we went on a spontaneous evening walk together, just enjoying the last bit of daylight, holding hands, and talking about life. 

SIBS IN BLACK

I walked upstairs at church tonight and saw all four little Ws together. And they were all dressed in black. So I made them pose. Which they thought was ridiculous. But I didn't care. The end.

Not the end.  They actually wear black a lot or always, depending on the kid, but it struck me as funny to see them all together that way. It's like a sibling uniform or something.

 

QUICK VISIT

Tim wasn't able to come home as planned over the weekend because the crew had to work on their day off, but he ended up getting yesterday off because of weather. He found out too late on Sunday to make it home that night, so he did a day trip yesterday. He ran some errands on his own, spent about four hours with the three of us that were home, and met up with Devon for dinner on his way out. I'm glad we got to see him for a bit!

A DECADE

 

Ten years ago I sat in our home and lit a candle. The candle was one I'd bought a couple weeks earlier as a way to hold onto hope that our housing situation was going to improve soon. We were living in an apartment that we'd moved into so that we could pay off school debt more quickly, one we later discovered had a major mold problem. 

We'd picked up keys to a house, the first home we'd ever bought, a couple days earlier and our apartment was filled with friends who were helping us move. I was seven months pregnant with our fourth kid and, having done all the packing and cleaning on the front end, was fairly useless when it came to loading a truck. Everyone told me to head to the house and just relax. 

So I did. I drove to an empty house and lit that candle in stillness and gratitude.

This morning I'm sitting in that same house. Tim's gone for the day, fishing with a friend. One of our kids is an adult who's married and doesn't live with us anymore. The other three chose to pull an all-nighter together and are sleeping the day away. 

I'm enjoying an ordinary view on an ordinary day while being warmed by a fire in the wood stove. Sitting in stillness and gratitude once again.

NEW SPECS

Tyler got new glasses on Thursday, so we snapped a quick picture before heading in to get them. Why? Because both sides of his current frames had broken within a few days of each other, so he balanced the lenses on his nose just for a laugh. 

His new glasses have transition lenses, which he's super excited about because he's missed being able to wear sunglasses.

 

MOONCAKES

One of our neighbors came over to give us fresh snowy mooncakes with red bean paste filling tonight. None of us had ever had any type of mooncake before, so it was neat to try something from another culture. Some Ws weren't fans of the texture, but we all agreed they looked awesome. I'm grateful for generous neighbors. 

TWO TREATS

A friend who makes fantastic chocolate chip cookies gave our family a plate piled high with them on Sunday. 

A neighbor showed up at our door today with a fresh apple pie, which we ate in the front yard a few hours later. 

 Sweet food from sweet people.

HONEY SAMPLING

I stopped by Misty Meadows on my way back from Brookings on Saturday. I'd driven by many times before, but had never been in the store. It's a cool place! I bought a variety of items, including five different flavored honey sticks from a company I failed whose name I failed to make note of. Tonight, as part of Family Fun Friday, we did some honey sampling. Aren't the sticks pretty with the sun shining through them?

Each of us got a little bit of each flavor - root beer, blackberry, lemon, mango, and jalapeno.

Honey isn't the only thing I bought, though. We're now stocked up on a variety of condiments (and some chocolate for me). 

Misty Meadows (Bandon, OR)
* bleu cheese pecan balsamic vinaigrette
* chipotle lime grill marinade
* tayberry jam
* blackberry bbq sauce

Pistol River Mushroom Farm Inc. (Pistol River, OR) -
* mushroom cajun seasoning

Homemade by Dorothy (Boise, ID) -
* huckleberry lemon curd
* lemon curd

Big Daddy Mac's (Port Orford, OR) -
* everything sauce

Cape Cod Cranberry Candy (West Wareham, MA) -
* cranberry bog frogs
Sidenote: There are cranberry bogs in Bandon, so someone local needs to start making these!

I can't wait to try everything! 

FIRE PIT FUN

I was visiting friends a couple years ago and noticed the fire pit on their deck. It was simple, square, and on wheels. It was love at first sight. Or envy. Or both. They'd made it themselves, so I couldn't just head to a local store to get one of my own. I snapped a picture to show Tim and told him I wanted one at some point. He agreed, but we weren't ready yet. So we waited.

Quite a while ago, maybe a year, he asked our friends at CCR Custom Metals if they could make something like it. We love their metal work, but it's smaller scale things like lawn and garden signs, wall decor, address numbers, and Christmas ornaments. They said they were able to do it, but we still weren't ready yet. So we waited longer. 

Then we were ready. We kept the basic idea, changed a few details, and used our fire pit for the first time last night. I love it!! 

I forgot to take pictures when we got it on Saturday and it got sprayed by the sprinkler that night, so know the marks you see aren't workmanship problems. They're just water spots because I forgot to take pictures earlier and to move it before I went to bed. Oops. Anyway, here's our new fire pit.

Big enough for several people to gather around. Wheels so we can easily move it anywhere in our front or back yard. Locks on the wheels so it doesn't move when it shouldn't. Handles for convenience. Air vents along the lower edge of the sides. Drainage holes on the bottom. And Ws cut into two of the sides because it's ours. The Ws are my favorite part. Shocking, right? 

I thoroughly enjoyed sitting around the fire with my family last night! And I look forward to years and years and years of memories made with more family and lots of friends around that metal square. Hopefully those memories won't include more roasted marshmallow malfunctions like the one I had last night. Ha! 

TYLER STUDIED & CLEANED

Tyler opted to do some school reading outside today. Having the option to stretch out in the spring (and autumn) sun is one of my favorite perks of homeschooling!

Later, after being asked to pick up any trash in the van, he asked if he could vacuum it. I'll never turn that offer down! 

He has glasses and curly brown hair like Mom did, but I've never thought he looks like her. I still don't (mostly because I think he looks like one of Tim's sisters), but those traits and his head tilt in that picture reminded me so much of what turned out to be her last birthday picture.  

I sure wish the little Ws could have known their Grandma Barbara! 

ICE STORM DAMAGE, CLEAN UP, AND MOMENTS

We had a little bit of freezing rain on Thursday, February 11th, then got hit with a whole bunch more in an ice storm on Friday night, one week ago today. I stayed awake the whole night listening to trees splitting and branches crashing in our yard and all over our neighborhood. It was crazy! 

First, let's look at the damage. 

In the early hours of the storm when the first layer of shattered ice on the road lit up by the street light looked kinda pretty.

A big branch came down and blocked the road, so Silas and Devon headed out to move it. Two neighbors were in their yard and ran over to help. Then two guys who pulled up to our corner at that moment hopped out of their truck and joined in. This whole week has been filled with community members helping each other out and it's awesome.

Heavy equipment was rolling down our street through the storm, clearing branches and trees so vehicles could get through.

Here's a broad view of the front and side of our corner lot. 

Saturday morning from our driveway. The longest branch we found was 23 feet from tip to tip, but more like 24-25 if you measured along its curve (which we didn't bother to do).

Saturday morning from the sidewalk.

Saturday morning from the road in front of our home.

Saturday morning from the corner of our yard. The next picture is closer and a different angle of the branch on the fence.

Our new fence is now broken in. This is one of three branches that hit our living room and Naomi's room. You can also see the branch that hit the truck in the background. They finally got it cleared, then another huge one crashed on the cab after the gal got in to drive it away. She and I pulled that one into our yard and she drive to a safer spot. Minimal damage to her truck and none to Silas' car, which also had a branch land on it. So thankful!

Saturday morning from the street on the left side of our home.

Saturday morning from the right side of our home.

Saturday morning from the other side of the fence in the previous picture.

Saturday morning from the right side of our back yard. This is the tree you see behind the gate two pictures before this one.

Saturday morning from the back yard.

I think the rim of icicles around the trampoline looks cool!

Saturday morning from the back yard. Tim had to cut split branches from this tree.

Saturday morning from the left side of our back yard.

Saturday morning from the left side of our back yard. This huge branch is one of two that hit our bedroom. Part of the other can be seen at the top of the picture.

Back yard view of the four huge trees on the front and side of our home (and a photo bomb by a back yard tree on the left). They all snapped at the top, as seen in the following pictures. We'll have to bring the pros out to figure out if they'll stay strong or be susceptible to disease now that they basically have huge open wounds. If any of them fell in any direction, it would be disastrous. We'd want to remove them before that happened.

Back side tree. 

Middle side tree.

Front side tree. 

Front tree. I'll be really disappointed if this one has to come down because it provides a tremendous amount of shade for our front yard and home during hot summer afternoons. It has the least amount of damage, so we'll see what the pros say.

The next two pictures were taken after we cleaned up a bit, but they fit in with all the other damage pictures. The fence on the front left of our home took a beating.

The fence on the left only lost two boards and the tip of a third. Amazing, as this fence parallels a row of huge trees that dropped branches all night long on Friday and sporadically through Saturday.

Five huge branches hit our roof and the only damage was this punctured eave. So very thankful!

Next, lots of cleanup. 

The storm only lasted through Friday night, but ice-laden branches fell all throughout Saturday. They're super heavy and dangerous, so other than snapping the pictures above, we opted to stay inside. Sunday finally warmed up a little bit, so there was quite a bit of ice dropping from branches as it melted. We finally got to head out Monday morning to start cleaning up. We spent several hours on Monday and Tuesday turning a disaster zone into an organized disaster zone - cutting and stacking firewood, then making big piles of debris. 

Front yard firewood. 

More front yard firewood.

Front yard debris. This pile wrapped completely around the tree. 

Corner debris.

Side yard firewood.

Road side debris.

More road side debris. It's hard to tell in the picture, but these piles extend beyond the tree to the end of the fence line.

Back yard firewood. And, yes, this was posted earlier with all the damage pictures. It counts for both, so I'm putting it in both sections. 

Back yard debris.

More back yard firewood. 

More back yard debris.

And more back yard firewood.

And more back yard debris.

Even more back yard debris.

Tim cut broken branches off this tree as we cleaned up. We'll eventually have to decide whether to cut the other branches to even things out or take the whole tree down.

Some friends dropped off their burn barrel for us to borrow. So kind of them! We spent about 30 hours over four days constantly feeding it with debris. 

Finally, the moments. The context of most of these photos is that we were without power for almost exactly five days. 

Why use a regular flashlight to read in the dark if you can make one with Snap Circuits?

No power, no problem. Tim and Naomi cooked dinner outside two of our powerless nights.

Teaching math in the dark.

Ally, who's one of our nieces, needed a place to stay for a night. Our home may have been dark, but it was warm, so we got to see her for a quick visit.

A friend asked me to check on her in-laws, which turned into the in-laws spending about ten hours with us on Sunday because their home was 44 degrees and ours was warm. We visited, read, potlucked lunch and dinner, and played Uno to pass the time. They left some things at our house when they went home to sleep, but their power came on late that night and they walked back the following day to pick stuff up as we were starting to clean. We had friends, who just happened to drive by to check out our storm damage at the same time, snap a picture of Tim and I with Rich and Trudy, our power outage partners, before everyone went on their way and we got back to work.

Monday's teamwork involved Tyler and Naomi making lunch for everyone. 

Devon sawing a bunch of branches.

Tim using a chainsaw to cut limbs into firewood.

And me filling our yard debris bin (so I could jump in it, of course), stacking firewood, and making piles of debris.

Tuesday's teamwork involved Naomi stacking firewood and helping Tim deal with the branches that fell from our tree into the neighbor's yard.

Tim cutting more firewood and cutting broken limbs off one of our trees.

Devon hauling lots of big branches to be cut or piled and helping to deal with the debris that landed in our neighbor's yard.

Tyler cutting a bunch of branches and piling lots of debris.

Me stacking tons of firewood and piling even more debris. 

And Devon, the one who likes to climb, and Tim the one with the chainsaw, teaming up to remove broken branches from a tree.

Evidently Tyler enjoys jumping on branches as much as I do. 

That evening we headed over to our power outage partners' home to take hot showers, run some laundry, and potluck another meal together. Tyler and Trudy played cribbage. 

That's our laundry, but it's not our couch. So thankful for people to share resources with during the aftermath of the storm!

Tyler and Rich also played cribbage.

Wednesday night, about an hour short of five full days, our power came back on. 

The start of our second burn day. 

And the end of our second burn day. It was just a little muddy!

Being without power for five days was a bummer, but many were without for much longer. Having our week consumed with hours and hours and hours of dealing with the storm mess was inconvenient, but others had significant damage to their homes and can't live in them. We were always safe and warm, which I don't take for granted. And we have some firewood for next winter.