Before I get started, what do you think of the new look? It’s simple, but different… I really enjoy it so far.

This is my menu for the week. The swap is being held at Asparagus Thin.

Chris is going to be out of town starting Tuesday or Wednesday, so this menu is tentative, and revolves around what he likes as a send off. Of course he’ll be camping, fishing, golfing, and eating steak every night while he is away (he’s going out of town to work a job, he’ll be back on the weekends and then gone again M-F), but I still feel like spoiling him some.

We both went to donate plasma today to try and get some extra money, but even though I passed the finger prick for the first time ever, which is cause for celebration because it means my body is starting to absorb nutrients again, I still have to get a doctor’s clearance to give because of past issues with anemia. Chris has been very patient with me finding a job, and I just want to give him a lot of props… he works hard. So this weeks menu has a lot of his favorite things on it.

In addition to trying to incorporate this weeks ingredient, which is onions… I also focused on using leftover ingredients as much as possible to help cut down on our grocery bill again this week.

On to the menu!

Saturday: Fajitas, and then we had smoked oysters, salmon, and ribs out with the neighbors.

Sunday: Grilled chicken & onions, crash hot potatoes, and cabbage. (Dinner= barbecued hamburgers)

Monday: Roast, carrots, onions, mashed potatoes, and gravy.

Tuesday: Chicken (leftover) and broccoli tacos, and refried beans.

Wednesday: BBQ roast (leftover) sandwiches, corn on the cob, broccoli salad.

Thursday: Taco soup with tortillas (leftover).

Friday: Hamburgers, home fries, and salad.

Saturday: Steak and eggs, with baked potatoes.

When we got home from church today Chris and I dug up the rest of the west wall, and south wall… tomorrow I’m going to finish fishing out the large rocks (the last tenant filled the beds in with rock, it has taken us quite a while to get it all up), and then sectioning off areas with small white rocks as borders.

I spent about two hours researching the seeds I had, and decided which ones to plant and where they would go… my herbs all died (save the basil and garlic chives) during the last heart wave, because I didn’t water them.. so I’m replanting them all in a raised half circle bed, and putting in veggies.

If you click the “Our Garden” sign below it will take you to a layout of the garden, including the apple trees (there are another few apple trees and possibly a pear tree down the hill on our land too - The landlady has an apple, a pear, and some chestnut trees. Plus her own tomatoes, herbs, and lilacs. I imagine we will be doing a lot of canning together, she knows how, I don’t.), and the succesful tomatoes and peas we planted a while back. Last night we realized peas were in and enjoyed a few of them. So delicious, I have 7 tomatoes between my 5 plants, and can’t wait to see more!

Later in the summer we’ll put in cabbage, carrots, broccoli, brussels sprouts, more peas, spinach, and collard greens along the east wall of the house, or in another part of the yard.

Chris and I had an argument the other day that resulted in a promise to spend more dedicated time with one another. We set aside 6pm to 7pm as “us” time, whether it be watching tv, working in the garden, or planning next weeks dinners. Hopefully this will ease the distance between us that comes from him watching television in the living room, and me playing on the computer or at my craft desk in the office.

So when he got off work today, well yesterday now, we went to the store for sugar and ice, then dropped that off at home, changed into tennis shoes, and decided to go for a walk. It took us some time to find just where we wanted to go, normally we go to Riverside State Park and walk around the swinging bridge crossing Bowl & Pitcher, if we want to get out, but that just didn’t sound fun today and it’s a decent drive. Instead we drove through town and found a park we didn’t know was there, and after tracing our way through Browne’s Addition, downtown, to our street, and back we finally settled on crossing Sandifur Memorial Bridge, which goes over the river and then winds up the hill towards part of an old railway structure that once was a bridge.

It wasn’t a long walk, and it was paved, which meant much less risk of falling, but it was uphill for the first half. I am not a decent judge of distance, but I’d say it was maybe a quarter of a mile up, and then a quarter of a mile down? It was hot, and poor Whiskey was pooped and ready to get his feet off the pavement about ¾’s of the way up. When we got all the way to the old railway part we turned around and instead of crossing the bridge back to the parking lot we slid down to the river so the puppy dunk his paws.

Whiskey’s not afraid of water, we found out. He plopped his whole body down in the water and laid still for a solid 10 minutes. It was adorable, and a total turn around from his behavior at the lake the other day. Of course while we were down there we saw a baby rattlesnake on the water, but it saw Whiskey and promptly changed course. That was a slightly scary moment for me, although eventually I got up the guts to remove my shoes and put my feet in the water. It felt so good to sit there on a rock and let my then tired feet rest in the cool waves. The area is clearly marked no swimming, but we found an nook that stilled the fast waters enough that feet in the water seemed safe enough.

I didn’t know where we were until we got home and googled the park. The bridge is a part of the Centennial Trail, which is 36 miles of paved trails. Unfortunately it’s not completely connected to the trail system, but it will be someday.  Chris and I decided to go back at least 3 times a week and walk at least that half a mile, if not every day, because it’s no hidden fact that we both desperately need the exercise, and so does the dog. Although now that I know what it is a part of, we may go investigate some other areas, or start the trail down at Riverfront Park instead.

In all honesty, I am glad we made this “discovery” today. First the park, which is much closer to the house than the one we normally go to, it’s also sort of hidden away so it’ll be less crowded… and then the bridge, and now the trail. Tomorrow I am going to drag Chris downtown to start the trail at Riverfront, and see how that goes. One of the things I have really missed about where I lived in Oregon was easy access to several different lakes, beaches, and rivers. Our experience with finding a place to swim at Silver Lake was so rotten I had given up on learning to love Spokane… but today (sorry, yesterday) refueled my fire. I can’t wait to explore further! Plus, I was so exhausted when we came home, I made dinner, and sat down with Chris to watch a movie and fell asleep. My sleeping pattern has been so neurotic lately, it takes me hours to fall asleep… just dozing off was nice.

It’s 11pm and still 80 degrees. Earlier it was 99, and oh my god, I am going to die because it’s supposed to get even hotter tomorrow. I know this winter I went on and on about how much I wanted the snow to be gone and summer to be here… but yikes, I didn’t remember what 100 + degrees felt like. The last time I lived somewhere it was consistently above 75, I was 12. At least it’s a dry heat, but damn… it’s still hot.

Chris and I went out to Silver Lake today to swim in hopes of taking advantage of the sunshine and it was awful. To start we couldn’t find anywhere to just swim, there were several places we could pay, but the swimming area was shallow, or they didn’t allow dogs, or it was just to expensive… seriously, if I wanted to pay $5 to swim, I’d go to the freaking pool. We ended up at a public boat launch, and I have a nasty blood blister on the bottom of my heel from wading in over the gravel.

Turns out Whiskey doesn’t care for the water, we tried several times.. Chris would swim him out and then letting him paddle in to me… which means I am shoulder to fingertip covered in welts and some blood scratches from his nails. Definitely need to get those clipped, trying to run them down with exercise isn’t working fast enough. Between all the boats, limited shore space, and awful weeds trying to pull me under, we gave up after about two hours and came home, changed, and went to the store for Kool-Aid. It’s not my cup of tea, but it’s something sweet and cold, and I have a pitcher on my desk right now so I can just keep refilling my glass.

After going to the store we stopped at a garage sale and I found some cute rubber stamps, two Pyrex dishes I’m going to use to store things in my craft room, and some bread tins for the kitchen. We got some fun things while we were in Montana last week too. Chris got a cowboy hat (he looks like a dork in it too!), I got some kitchen stuff, and a shelf for my craft room. During the week he built me a desk just for my crafting, and we painted a few of the things we had picked up. My office/craft room is coming together nicely…and sometime in the next few weeks the landlord is having new windows installed in our bedroom & bathroom, so we can leave those open without worrying about bugs.

This weekend we’re going to go buy an air conditioner, hopefully they won’t have sold out. Unfortunately it’s going on the opposite end of the house than my office, so I don’t know how much time I will be spending in here. I don’t have any crafty stuff to share today, hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to sit down and make another card.

We hit up a few yard sales again today with a portion of my birthday money. I had originally planned to save it all to buy stamping and card making supplies, but the need for instant gratification won out. Out to the streets we went. Fortunately it was already late and most of them had shut down for the day, so there were only a few left to pick from, which meant I spent less money! The trunk was full by 5pm, and I was down 19.25 from my wallet. Here’s what we got…

1st Sale: Total spent - $10.25
Griddle pan. (The one that came in our pan set has ridges and is very thin, this one is flat and nice and thick)
Red tea kettle that opens on top. (The one we got free last month only opens from the pour spout)
Fancy corkscrew. (Because the one we have isn’t very strong)
Smoothie blender (which works like a dream, we washed it up and put it to use with some strawberries and ice cream… I bet I could use it to puree veggies and sauces too!)
Printer. (I haven’t hooked this up to see if it works yet…)

2nd Sale: Total spent - $9.00
Cream colored crocheted afghan. (I love it, Chris says it’s ugly, but whatever… it’s beautiful!)
Bathroom sink and cabinet. (We’re going to paint it and replace the sink in the bathroom…it’s mounted to the wall and provides no storage.)
Paper towel holder.
Big flower pot. (Nothing I found at the local stores struck me… this one is plastic and green, but I just like it. I’ll be transplanting my herbs into it tomorrow)
Small painted terra cotta flower pot and tray. (I don’t know what to plant in this, maybe some more herbs, or lavender.)
Toaster.

Not a bad take, right? Especially considering earlier in the day we got an outside dog house, a cat scratching post, and a large water cooler for free for helping Chris’ Uncle move in next door. He’s most likely going to give us a good sized steel work table too, which will go in my office as a crafting table. I’m beginning to understand why people get addicted to yard sales. It’s an incredibly convenient way to shop. Chris and I have spent just under $150 (when you add in things we’ve found on Craigslist) and furnished the house. And when you get there late, they are wanting to be done, so they start giving you things for free… sometimes there is just a sign by the side of the road that says FREE. That’s always nice too, we got a queen sized comforter with matching shams and pillows, a rolling cart (we use it to hold laundry supplies), and books on the side of the road one day marked free.

We hit up 3 other sales today and didn’t find anything we needed at them. There was a cat kennel at the last one we went ran by, but they wanted $20 for it, and it was obviously used. Seeing as we paid $30 (or $40, I don’t remember) for Whiskey’s extra large basically brand new kennel, we just couldn’t spend that much on a small one for the cat. Oooh, that’s right, I didn’t tell you about the cat!

The night I got home Chris’ surprised me with a lovely gray tabby kitten that I named Huckleberry. It was a “welcome home” plus “Happy Birthday” gift. I was shocked, because he told me he’s allergic… but apparently he wanted to surprise me. And he did! She’s a cutie too. He also got me a patio set (a small round table and two chairs) that actually fits in our tiny kitchen, so now we eat at the table instead of the computer and television. We had pizza night (gluten free for me) and cherries for my birthday dinner. Oh, and he let me go see my Mom and sister for 9 days. A very long 9 days!

My Mom got me a pair of Birkenstocks, and let me eat her wonderful food (tomatoes, mushrooms, something other than mild cheddar cheese, fish, asparagus, rabbit, goose, clam chowder, seriously… we eat pretty simple so crashing at her house for 9 days was a blast) and lounge around watching 8 seasons of Charmed for over a week. While I was down there I went through a lot of my stuff and gave away 4 boxes of books… the local used store “bought” a few of them for in store credit… which I just put on my Mom’s account.. And then proceeded to spend more on used books than I had put on her account… so she let me used some of her in store credit too. I think I got 6 books? We had taco night (for my birthday meal) and watched several movies together.

My Grandparents sent me a nice card with some cash, as did my in-laws, and that’s what I used for garage saleing today. With the extra cash we stopped at the store and got ice-cream (oh my god, they had my favorite Haagen-Dazs that isn’t always on the shelf on sale!), strawberries, yogurt, and ice and went home to watch Atonement, eat steak, corn on the cob, asparagus, and baked potatoes… followed by smoothies! I tossed a chunk of a deliciously gooey huckleberry chocolate bar Donna sent me for my birthday (It came this morning by the way, Donna! It was scrumptious but sticky, so the rest of it is in the fridge at the moment) into the blender with mine and loved it.

Overall, despite my moaning earlier in the week, I had a good birthday… it was just spread over several days, which made it much sweeter in the end. Thanks everyone, for your wishes and support. <3

I can’t look at my FIL without thinking of my Dad. When I reached out to him for a hug, I remembered all those Saturday mornings they went golfing together… or the nights they’d drive us all the baseball park for a game. In a little while, I’ll be climbing into his van, for a long ride back down to Oregon, and dang it… I think I’m going to cry. Having my in-laws here seemed horrible, when I first thought of it, and now I’m glad. Chris’ parents are as welcoming and soft as I remembered, especially his dad.

I keep calling him Rodney, because I desperately want to call him Dad. I spent enough time at his house as a kid, he took care of me just like mine did.. And he was so close to mine…but I haven’t. I don’t know where that line is with in-laws? I know a lot of women who call their in-laws Mom and Dad, but I don’t want to push it… you know?

All of my stuff is packed (almost), I just have to put together some gluten free biscuit mix to take to my Mom’s… and I’m gone. For some reason I’m putting it off. I don’t want to leave Chris for a week…I don’t want to wave goodbye to my little house, annoying dog, and wonderful husband. Until this moment it wasn’t clear to me where home was. Part of me still wanted it to be my Mom’s house… but it’s here. I am going to miss it, all of it. But damn if vacation isn’t going to be wonderful.