2/2/13 - A New Year Begins in Our New Home

This post has been delayed by two things: the busy-ness of December, colds and flu  in January.  Now we are hale and hearty again but I have some catching up to do.

During a trip to Seattle in December to visit Adina's parents, we dropped in at Salt Water State Park, a lovely rustic park in the middle of the city.  Although it was cold (well, in the 40's), we enjoyed some beach time there.

This park is on Puget Sound, now called the Salish Sea.  It is salt water, sure enough, but is protected by the towering Olympic Mountains so its waves are small.  Still, these ducks had their work cut out for them riding the swells of the Salish Sea.


Ducks riding the waves on the Salish Sea
Salt Water State Park, De Moines WA

Driftwood comes to all the beaches on the Pacific Ocean, on the Straits of San Juan de Fuca and on the Salish Sea.  The law prohibits hauling driftwood away from state parks so Salt Water Park is one of the places where it piles up.


Driftwood and picnic tables

 Adina's sister, Barbara, and our neice Ying came for Christmas.  Late in December, we took them to Long Beach, that marvelous 30 miles of beach.  It is so wide and flat that people drive on it like a road.  Traffic isn't very heavy in winter and this sea gull rested among the ruts as if it expected cars to drive around it or stay away.


Sea gulls stand like this when they are getting ready to lie down in the sand for a siesta
note the ruts in the sand

 

Ying, a long distance runner, pelted down the beach for a run of several miles.  The weather was cold and the wind fierce but we had a great time.  Adina, Barbara and I ambled along, snapping pictures and visiting. 

It rained a bit as storm clouds roiled across the huge sky.  Now and then a bit of blue would peek through.  Presently, a rainbow blessed us, it's treasure safe beneath the waves.

A rainbow ending out in the waves. 
Waves drop piles of foam on the beach as they recede.

The waves don't look too big but they were about 6 feet high and when they broke, they spread out far across the beach.  When they recede, they made tide tracks in the sand.  Every foot of the beach was covered by different patterns made by the endlessly creative ocean. 

Tide tracks in the sand

January was a lost month.  It's the month when we have winter here.  It snowed a couple of times, maybe 1/2" at most but people got excited about it.  We were both sick for a while.  Adina went back to WI for a couple of weeks to her favorite retreat center. 

On February 1st, spring began, though not officially.  The grass has stayed green all winter and so have the evergreen trees and many of the bushes.  That makes the the brown trunks and the bare branches of the deciduous trees easier to bear.

Today, Adina and I explored Salmon Creek Park for the first time, a spot not far from our home.  We hiked along the greenway about a mile and wandered around the pond.  The deciduous trees are still brown and bare except for the odd bud.  The fir, spruce and cedar keep their deep green and remind us that spring will come again.

Adina and an evergreen, green grass and jacket unzipped
a beautiful day

Along Salmon Creek, the county has made a great effort to construct a safe habitat for salmon and other creatures.  Signs asked that people stay on the path.  It was interesting to see their efforts.

Our walk today was refreshing - temperatures in the comfortable 50's and bright sun in the sky.  At the pond, several families were enjoying picnics.  Every fishing dock was occupied.  Some of these folks were serious fishers, each with lots of gear boxes and several rods. 

The feathered denizens of the park paid no attention to the humans playing in their home.  A couple of loons swam the pond, the distinctive way they hold their heads advertising their identity.  I've seen loons many times but today was the first time I ever saw one sitting on a post.


Folks fishing from the dock on the left.
A loon perches on the post on the right.

A couple of mallards came waddling up to us, begging half-heartedly, not really expecting much of us.  When they understood that we weren't going to feed them, they posed so I could take their picture.

"Be sure to get my best side."

We haven't seen any flowers blooming yet but the world seems to be standing on tiptoe, ready and waiting.  Many bushes are budding and so are a few trees.  Oh, we could still have a little snow as late as March, but this really is the beginning of spring.  On our walk I saw this beautiful bush or maybe it was a little tree.

 That brings me up to date except for one more item.  Last May I published a book about Vikings with some of my own memoir thrown in.  The book is called "The Viking Beneath My Skin" (345 pages).  It's the size of a table book.

No, I don't think I was a Viking in a former life but I got interested in reading about them.  My research about the Viking Age made me aware of how our culture is strongly influenced by this ancient culture. 


The book is about Vikings. 
"A legacy quilt book" is a series of books in my memoirs.

Whether you have a Viking ancestor or not (and many of us don't realize that we have one), your life is impacted by the Vikings.  I had a lot of fun writing it and people who have read it have enjoyed reading it.

Then in December, I published another book, "People I Never Knew - An Anthology of Short Stories" (197 pages).  This book is 8 1/2 x 5."

Although there are two books in the picture, the anthology is only one volume.

I'm excited about this book, so different from my other books.  This is my first foray into the world of fiction.  People who have read it have loved it and have asked me when I'm going to publish another short story anthology.  Well, not for a while.

If you are interested in more information about either of these books, email me for a list of these and other books I've written and I'll send you a price list. 

I guess this is a bit of a plug but I did want you all to know what I've been working on, now that I've become a writer.  Besides, I'm having such a good time doing it.

Now that we're past the busy-ness of the holidays and the mollycoddles of January, I'll blog more often as we continue to explore our new home.  There are several parks that beckon us, all different and we look forward to checking out a number mountain campgrounds when the weather warms just a wee bit more. 

As always, we welcome comments -- also news of what you are doing now and what you look forward to in this new year.     
 

 
 

11/23/12 -- We are at Home at Last

Welcome to my new blog.  Glad you have joined us.

Adina and I arrived at our new home early in October and began the monumental task of unpacking.  We dived in and packing material flew everywhere.  Our furniture was already in place, thanks to our granddaughter, Kelsey, who met our moving van while we were somewhere en route between Wisconsin and Washington State. 

A surprise came a week later when I had gall bladder surgery.  I hadn't had any warning signs.  I got wonderful care at Legacy Hospital in Salmon Creek.  Complications kept me down for most of the month.  Adina was a brick, an advocate.  She made many trips to the hospital.  After I got out, we both rested from our ordeals.

Now we are healthy again.  Our house is mostly put together.  We still have some of the smaller pictures to hang and we want to go through the 1800+ pictures I took on our cross-country journey and choose some of them to hang.  That may not happen until after the first of the year as I have another project that is taking my time now.

The gas man came and turned on our gas fireplace so we are enjoying its cheerful warmth.  We placed our pioneer woman in front of it next to a hunk of obsidian and a bit of driftwood, our minimalist display honoring the women of the west.
 

I picked the pioneer woman up in a gallery in Jackson Hole, WY years ago.  I wandered into the gallery looking for black and white photographs of the west.  Other statues dotted the space but they didn't interest me.  Then I saw the pioneer woman.  I asked about her and found that the price was way out of my reach.  As I turned to go, the proprietor said, "If you like her, I have one in the back room where I keep my seconds."  I followed her and found my pioneer woman with a small chip in the back of the base.  I could afford her and when I left the store, she went with me.  When I got home, I mixed paint and touched up her ouch.  She traveled with us to WI and now she is back in WA, a most well traveled woman.

Over our fireplace in a place of honor, we hung our large picture, "Woman on a Horse" by Carol Grigg.  She has graced our living room for many years.

Thursday was Thanksgiving.  Our son and his wife, granddaughter and her fella came here for the feast.  We had a great time, lots of laughing and joking.  Pete found a football game on TV and that made most of us happy.  Our new dining room table was set and ready for our celebration, set with our best china and crystal.   

When we went to set out the feast, we had a couple of glitches.  Adina pulled the 20 lb turkey from the oven.  It had browned nicely and everyone drooled as they looked at it.  It probably looked like every other turkey, but this was special.  It was the first time Adina and I had cooked a turkey in 12 years.

Pete got his special carving knives out and prepared to carve the bird.  Kelsey and Omega were watching, ready to snag any bits that fell by the wayside.  Everything was coming together nicely. 

That put us all in the kitchen, laughing and talking.  Adina and Deb worked at the stove where Deb was making gravy.  We were all looking forward to this feast! 


Adina and Deb work on the gravy while Pete prepares to carve the turkey in the background

Pete began to carve the bird, made the first serious cut.  He called out, "this turkey isn't done!"  We were horrified.  We'd had that turkey in the oven for 5 hrs.  We were mystified, a mystery which Pete was eventually able to unravel.

We are still getting used to our new stove and Adina had cooked the turkey on broil instead of bake.  It was an easy mistake.  We had put Kelsey and Omega's beautiful green bean casserole and Adina's cornbread in above the turkey to broil and, oh yeah, we burned the top of both of them. 

We put the turkey back in to bake (on bake).  Then we sat down to a fabulous dinner (without the turkey).  There were too many dishes to mention but it was great.  We tidied up and sat down to watch the game, visit and eat Deb's pumpkin and apple pies.  And wait for the bird to bake.

A couple of hours later, we pulled the turkey out and Pete carved off most of the white meat.  We ate some, nibbling as he carved, then sent a lot of it home with the kids.  It was a great celebration, the first time we have shared a Thanksgiving meal in 12 years.  There's nothing like a loving family.

Sunday, we'll go to church.   We are enjoying our new church. It is less than a mile away but, now that the leaves are mostly off the trees, we can see it's swooping roof line at the top of the hill, peeking through the fir trees.  Our church has an outdoor labyrinth paved with stones to make it accessible.  

Today, we're going to strip the turkey carcass, boil it up and make turkey broth.  Later, we plan to go for a little walk later, just in the neighborhood.  It is good to be in a place where we can take walks outside all year round.  It's sunny today, the air all sweet and golden.  The temperature is nearly 50 and the sun gives off some real warmth.  About half the leaves are off the trees making it easier to see the fir and cedar that surrounds us.

Many of our days are grey. It's the Pacific Northwest, so we get a lot of rain, mostly in the form of mist. Some days we live in a cloud. This week we had a Wisconsin rain, that kind of pounding rain that keeps you inside. That cloud was probably lost, maybe made a wrong turn at the Rocky Mountains. Still, many days we see at least some time of sun.

Next week we'll go up to Seattle for five days. Adina has a nursing conference to to attend on one day,   It'll be the first time we've gotten up there to see Adina's parents since we arrived. We'll have a belated Thanksgiving feast and a good confab.

That's the news to date.

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