Movie Madness

With the temps reaching 91 degrees yesterday, we decided it was a good day to go hit a couple of thrift shops to see what kind of treasures we could find. We found 4 Fireking coffee cups to add to our collection along with a computer book for Gene and a really cool tye-dye t-shirt for me.

The best deal we found was VHS movies 4 for $1!  There weren't many that we haven't already seen so we decided to pick some we haven't watched in a really long time. The beauty of getting older is that you can watch movies you've already seen and it's like you've never seen them before. 

The other item I bought is a foot bath. Probably everyone in the world has had one of these and taken it to the thrift store to get rid of it but I've been wanting one to soak my filthy dirty feet in at night. I've been going barefoot all summer and I'm certain my feet may be permanently dirty. I plugged it in last night outside while sitting  in my lounge chair reading a book and soaking up some sun.  What a life of leisure I've been living! 

So here are the movies we got, have you ever seen any of these?

Grease (Oh, I can hardly wait to plug it in!)

Good Will Hunting (I love Matt Damon in this)

The Sixth Sense (Gene has never seen this one ... so shhh ... don't give away the ending)

The Thomas Crown Affair (Pierce Brosnan is so good  hot in this film)

Contact (I love this sci-fi)

Along Came a Spider (great thriller)

The Mask of Zorro (Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones are great in this film)

Somewhere in Time (awesome romance movie ... I miss Christopher Reeves, don't you?)

Far and Away (Tom Cruise and Nichole Kidman ... what can I say?)

Scam (starring Christopher Walken and the chick who was the psychiatrist in "The Sopranos")

While we were at the Goodwill store in Richland, Gene found some Fireking cups that had no handles on them. He wasn't sure if he should get them, so he left them on the shelf and went looking for me in another part of the store. They were gone when we went back to find them. While at the checkout counter, a lady had picked them up to buy and she was telling the clerk that they were used on Navy ships way back in the day. The reason they had no handles is that it was far more convenient to store them on the racks.  Phooey. Sure wish we had those in our shopping cart.  You snooze, you lose when it comes to thrift shopping.

Okay, well, daylight is burning and I've got some movies to watch! Hope you have the most awesome day ever!

love, susan 

Sunshine

"Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine." ~ Anthony J. D'Angelo

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  I feel guilty for being so crabby.

The sun is poking through some gray haze and 91 degrees is the forecast for today.

I think I'll shake off the crabbiness ... and go do something nice for somebody.

love, susan

EARLY EVENING UPDATE: We went out and hit some thrift shops today but before we left, I found a turtle in my back yard. Weird. I didn't know we had turtles in this area. "Missy" was totally focused on it so I put up a little temporary fence to keep her away from the turtle.  When we got home from thrifting, the turtle was nowhere to be found.  I'm feeling much better this afternoon.   I've been trying to cut back on coffee and sugar ... and it definitely has an effect on my mood.  This too shall pass, undoubtedly.  

Deja Vu

What an amazing 4 days. As usual, each day was nothing like I could have ever planned. Living one day at a time always brings me the best gifts and surprises. The last few days have been a testimony to that. 

We traveled 300 miles on Wednesday to a campout that Gene has gone to for two decades and I have been to about six times. Because new people have joined the group, we couldn't find a camping site there so we went down the road to another camping area. It was noisy & dark and I felt like I was in prison there. While it was disappointing to not be able to camp where we wanted, it gave us an opportunity to get in the car and drive to some nearby places we never see while in Detroit Lake and I got some great photos. After the 2nd night of chaos at Cove Creek, we decided to move on and headed to the Ochoco National Forest. We had been there years ago, early in our relationship, and going there was exactly what we needed to do for us. 

When we arrived at the Ochoco campground, there was only one other camper so we had the entire place to ourselves, at least until after dark when all the  tired road travelers rolled in for the evening. We pitched the tent and let "Missy" run leash-free.  We hit the hay before the sun went down and used the opportunity to reminisce. As I was laying there next to Gene, the awesome feeling of deja vu overwhelmed me. We had been here before and it was magic to recapture that feeling.

When we woke up Saturday morning, I knew I couldn't sleep on that air mattress one more night but I wasn't ready to go home quite yet. So, we rolled up camp and headed down the road for a long, wonderful, awesome road trip home. We traveled through the John Day Fossil Beds to see the painted hills. I took quite a few nice photos and was thrilled to see this area with Gene because it was one of the few places we've gone together that he has not already seen. 

We stopped at the Sidewalk Cafe in Mitchell, Oregon, which is a little one-horse town. Gene motioned for us to sit up at the counter for breakfast and I got to watch the grandmotherly-looking cook put together potato salad for the dinner menu. Just as we were having the last bite of breakfast, a group of 9 bikers came in and almost filled the place to capacity. Gene learned they were all old friends who are now scattered across the United States who had come together for a couple of days of riding and friendship. While he was inside talking with the bikers, I went out to let "Missy" out of the car and started talking with two young women who had a dog with them. They were heading up to Kimberly, Oregon to do some cherry picking. As luck would have it, we ended up taking the road through Kimberly and were quite surprised to find this little oasis in the middle of some very dry area. Who knew?

I shot this photo of the billboard which stands in front of the city park in Mitchell. It was only 10:30 a.m. but people had started gathering at the city park to prepare for the big event to happen that evening.  Oh, how I wished we could have been there to see it!

From Mitchell, we traveled up some winding roads way less traveled but, oh, so beautiful.  We couldn't help but think that we will see these sites again but from behind the windshields of our motorcycles. We'll have to do an overnighter at one of the small-town motels, our favorite kind.

I had a lot of favorite moments during this trip but I'd have to say the most exciting, notable one was when I finally found a butterfly that would stay still long enough to let me photograph it. I got a couple of shots and then it happened. This bee landed on the flower with the butterfly. I quickly snapped the shot and thanked the universe for sending me down this road.

I had so many spiritual (if you will) moments that perhaps will not translate into words very well.  That's okay.  I know everyone has their own moments that defy explanation.

If I had to pinpoint one or two take-aways from this trip, it would be: go down a road you've never been before and always take time to listen to others.

Hotel Motel

Take Care With Your Life

I've spent a good part of yesterday afternoon and today getting ready for a 5-day camping trip. Mostly I've been baking. I made banana & zucchini bread yesterday along with a loaf of rye bread (which will be gone before today is over).  I placed the sweet breads in the freezer and will take them out in the morning just before we head out.  I also baked corn bread muffins and a big batch of Thai fried rice.  I bought a watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, apples and a couple of cans of beans along with some whole wheat tortillas to make burritos with. I cooked some extra chicken to put on the burritos or mix with the beans. We'll be drinking water instead of soda this year.  

The reason for the title of this post is that it's a saying my husband pulls out of his hat every once in a while. It has been going through my mind as I have been cooking today.  I could have gone to the store and bought bags of chips, hot dogs, and stuff for s'mores. If we had kids with us, that might have made more sense. But, we're not kids anymore and just because we're going out of town doesn't mean we should ditch our desire to eat better.  Although, a couple of times today I've thought about it.

We'll be meeting up with some awesome old friends and the most important thing we have in our camping arsenal is the coffee pot.  Whoever gets up first makes the coffee and it is totally proper camping etiquette to offer coffee to other early morning risers who may only have just their coffee cup with them.  We will certainly have enough sweet bread to share for a day or two.

We always have a big get together around the camp fire on Friday and Saturday night. Usually someone has a huge plate with cookies on it. I should get some made so I can contribute. The trouble is if I make them too soon, they'll never make it to Friday, much less Saturday.

Take care with your life.  It sounds kind of spiritual, doesn't it? This weekend is a spiritual getaway for me. Just writing this blog post is helping me adjust my attitude about the whole thing.  Take care with my life.  Whew.  I need it.

love, susan

 

I'm a Dog Magnet

Meet "Mya". She lives down the street from us. Her person is on vacation. I met Mya  for the first time early this morning as she was standing out in the street barking. I called her and she came right to me. The number on her tag came up as a South Dakota number and her owner said he's on vacation and she must have jumped the fence. He said he'd call his pet sitter and find out what the heck is going on. When he called back, he said he couldn't reach the sitter so I offered to let Mya stay the day with us since she is having such a good time and "Missy" adores her.

I don't care if her owner ever comes back. She belongs here where the fence is too tall to jump and she has a playmate.

I love, love, LOVE border collies! This is the second border collie I've found roaming the streets. Before I started this blog, I wrote a "note" on FB about a border collie we found roaming the streets one night downtown while we were at a concert. It was a weird reunion with his peeps as he had been stolen from them two years previous to us finding him. Border collies don't sit still very well.  I don't imagine Mya will be with us longer than today but if her owner never came back, she'd be mine.  I'll leave you with a few pics I shot this morning.

Don't you just love dogs?


love, susan

C'est la vie

Cat naps are not just for cats anymore.

There is a saying I'm terribly fond of ... "Make plans but don't plan the outcome."

The last couple of days have not been what I would have planned but the outcome has been great.

We got up Friday morning and decided to take a motorcycle ride. We headed north and  rode through Yakima, heading towards Rimrock. I absolutely hate the road just this side of Yakima as it has little dips in the road that you can't see with your eyes but my tires pick up it up and I feel like my bike is wobbling. It's a dreadful feeling for me so once we got past Yakima we decided to take a different route home. We drove up towards Chinook Pass, which my husband tells me is at something like 4,000 feet.  I nearly froze to death before we decided to turn around and come home. On the trip home, we drove through Moxee, which has a 4-mile stretch of road under construction and far too many signs that say "MOTORCYCLISTS: USE EXTREME CAUTION" due to the chip sealing they are doing. There was a bit of gravel on the road which can be just like walking on marbles when you're on a motorcycle. I only took one photo while on that 235 mile bike trip. Although it was beautiful at our destination, my fingers were too frozen to hit the camera shudder.

Gene ... catching grasshoppers!

When got off our bikes to stretch, we discovered hundreds of grasshoppers in the dry patches along the highway. Gene caught one for me but I couldn't photograph it fast enough.  

So ... here comes the unplanned part. We had talked about going for another ride on Saturday morning but while Gene was down in the basement, he heard water spraying behind our downstairs shower stall. Long story short, the problem was with the kitchen faucet and it totally changed our plans in an instant. Gene spent all day putting in a new faucet and when he went to turn it on, it wasn't letting much water out. Seems with old pipes, some of the sediment breaks loose and gets caught in the new plumbing going into the faucet.  Blah, blah, blah. He ended up taking the faucet completely out this morning, we ran it back to Home Depot for a refund and he got a different kind of faucet (less beautiful but more functional) and all is well now.  (Note: Home Depot rocks. They did not give us a moment's grief for returning the faucet.)

While he was cussing and twisting the wrenches, I did a little badly needed weeding in the herb garden, mowed the lawn, read a little of my book, took a nap in the sun, called my dad, and took Missy for a walk. When he was done with the plumbing job, I made him a big breakfast and hugged him severely for the awesome job he did in my kitchen.

We're leaving sometime early next week for an annual camping trip with great friends in Oregon. Last year at this same time, we were all set to go camping and a week before the trip, Gene ended up in the hospital in an emergency situation and after much testing received a stent in his main right artery.  He was bummed we didn't get to make the camping trip ... I was grateful he was still alive!  No matter if something breaks or plans get waylaid, things can always be worse.

Life is good. I think we needed an unplanned slow-down. 

love, susan

P.S. Isn't my cat just the funniest looking creature you've ever seen? He always sleeps with his arm over his head like that. Just cracks me up!

Cockle Shells ... Really?

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells, and cockle shells,

And pretty maids all in a row.

This morning, I was reading the Wikipedia description of the above old English nursery rhyme. If you go the website, you'll find there is a bit of a twist on this little poem.  (See Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.)

So I stepped outside this morning to see what the temperature was like and spotted this bright yellow flower blooming in the herb garden. I have absolutely no idea what it is but I love the fact that they keep growing and blooming despite my lack of interest in gardening.  The herb garden is very interesting because it has different stages of growth. I noticed there is a big dead spot right in the middle of the garden now and the cause was quickly determined to be a sprinkler head that needs to be raised up. Too late for those poor herbs this year but it'll get fixed and provide plenty of hydration for next year's growing.

This year I planted a roma tomato plant in the Topsy Turvy. It's going like crazy and we'll be having some fresh salsa probably in another couple of weeks. This may all sound very boring to anyone reading but for me it's a huge thrill when I see the tomatoes forming since I have such a black thumb.

My petunias are looking a little dreadful but we had 97 degrees yesterday and it promises to be just as warm today. They can only take so much heat before they start to droop. 

We're heading out to do some camping early next week and will be gone for a week. I'm thinking of asking my neighbor if she'll shoot some water on my tomatoes and flowers while we're gone. I hate asking but they won't make it if they don't get water daily.

How's your garden growing? 

love, susan

 

What Would Pooh Do?

"Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering." 

                                    ~Winnie the Pooh~

I have been in a Winnie the Pooh kind of mood lately. I guess it's because I see there is a new Pooh movie coming to the theater on July 15th. I haven't been to an animated film at the cinema for a very long time but this movie may be one I'll go see. I love Pooh and I'm not ashamed to admit it. 

I love the above quote, although it's a hard one to live by sometimes. At the very high risk of being called lazy (mostly by the voice in my head), I have a hard time just doing nothing at times. It's a curse, I'm sure. I think Pooh is on to something.  Sometimes sitting still and doing nothing can be valuable.  I just haven't perfected it very well ... just yet.

I talked with my daughter-in-law on the phone yesterday for 41 minutes. What a treat!! She's off for the summer, just like me, and she said it took her a while to figure out what to do with her endless hours of time. She reads a lot and I told her I like to read too but for some reason can't seem to sit still long enough to get a book read. She said she makes herself read at least one chapter before bed. I can't read at night ... it puts me to sleep. Once I sit or lay down, it's over for me. So yesterday I decided to try reading just one chapter after I did a little yard work. It was a huge reward for me. It was so much fun that after I did that, I putz around the house some more and ended up reading another chapter. It was sort of like putting my toe in the water of nothingness. It wasn't bad.

 

As I sit here at the computer writing this, I have a to-do list nagging me. Oh, bother.

love, susan   

 

Glancing at the Map

I was reading one of my favorite blog My Healthy Eating Challenge posts today and I decided to copy her idea for my post today.  I have lived in five states plus visited quite a few but not all fifty.  I decided to try to just think of a few words that best describe my experience of those states I've lived in or visited.  If you are reading this, I invite you to copy this idea and let me know where I can read your post!

Alaska: cold but beautiful ~ I miss the clean air ~ lived there a good share of my life
California: I was born there ~ it's groovy, not like anyplace else, expensive
Washington: green and gorgeous ~ home to me now
Arizona:  lived there ~ sunny desert ~ I love the food there
Oregon: lived there ~ rainy & earth friendly ~ best strawberries and blackberries
Idaho: beautiful ~ who doesn't love potatoes?
Nevada: vast and dry ~ I love driving across the great basin
Utah: is my very favorite state!
Montana: lonely and beautiful ... big trees
Wyoming: boring ~ I hope I never have to drive through it again
Colorado: rugged
New Mexico: warm
Kansas: boring ~ corn fields as far as you can see ~ people are extra friendly there
Oklahoma: big storms
Texas: huge and kind of geographically boring
Missouri: humid ~ they have wonderful history there ~ loved visiting the Amish community
Ohio: I have no opinion on Ohio
West Virginia: friendly people ~ it is much more beautiful than I thought it would be
Kentucky: horses, green pastures
Tennessee: hot and humid
Louisiana: bugs, lots of bugs


Where have you been? What's your favorite state?


love, susan


 

Horsing Around

Meet Rosemary. She's a good friend of ours. She trains horses.  And people.

Yesterday we went for a short ride on our motorcycles. Leaving a little later in the day than normal, we found it to be a bit warm with our leathers on so we rode out to Rosemary's place in Finley aka fondly known as "Fintucky", to sit under a shade tree and watch her in action. It is horse heaven out there. 

Rosemary was busy in the ring helping one of her Sheriff's Posse friends, pictured here, train a young horse who will be riding in the 4th of July parade tomorrow. This horse has never rode in the parade. It was fascinating to watch the process.

See that yellow bag she is towing behind her? It's an empty dog food bag. It makes a little noise while it's being dragged and, of course, the horse thinks it's strange. The point is to get the horse to ignore the bag and keep riding with confidence. Also, the rider needs to feel confident that his horse will not rear up and run as that just won't work on parade day.

I watched as they went round and round the ring and there was a moment when the horse simply just dropped it's head and paid little attention to the bag.  Ah ... that's what they were shooting for.  Beautiful. I love that moment when you see an animal "get it". I've seen it many times with my dog.

There were lots of horses at Rosemary's yesterday. And, she has a donkey along with the coolest cattle dog named "Ontos". I don't know much about horses, but they all seem happy to be at her place and Rosemary seems happiest when she's on a horse.

Did you ever wonder what someone looks like who has a job they are happy at? You'd need to look no further than a horse trainer, me thinks.  Rosemary loves what she does. And, it shows.

While I was watching the training, Gene got to visit with Carl.  Carl had a notebook with photos of years and years of horse memories. He took Gene through the pictures and talked about the horses he had owned and rode. Carl is in his late 70's, might even be 80, and still rides. He's a tough old cowboy!

It was a great way to spend an afternoon.  Hope you enjoy the photos! The next time I'm at the parade, I will have a better appreciation for the horses and their riders.

"Ontos" the working dog!

Gene and Carl ~ talking about horses.

I already forgot this donkey's name. Isn't he so cute?

"Shenzi" all decked out and ready for the 4th of July.

What a fun day in Finley!

love, susan