I should have taken another picture yesterday, as the tomato plants are even larger. This is from July 6th. We have two zucchini plants so both households have zucchini. We’ve had cukes from the garden, first standard cukes and now lemon cukes. I planted mostly cherry tomatoes, which have a lot of blooms but are just now starting to show small green tomatoes. I would have liked a different variety of plants but went with whatever I could find. We have plans to expand the garden and put in corn next year.

I got a copy of Bird Woman’s Garden and it is interesting. They handle their corn differently than the Pawnees did (and The Lost Universe is an excellent description of the Pawnee lifestyle.) We don’t live in a good area for corn, but I think we can go with some of the Painted Mountain variations. And I still want to grow melons. We will need to get a system in place to pump up river water for irrigation. The folks at the river have been hand watering this and doing a great job, but we can’t expand the garden if we hand water. It’s so nice to grow food again.

Well we have hit that yearly milestone. We paid property taxes on both places. We can finally start to focus on other projects (like painting the trailer interior.) The little garden is starting to go.

This was taken a couple of weeks after it was planted. I’ll try and do an update this week. We are almost to the point of having zucchini. Tomatoes will take awhile longer. We did get a nice rain this week and are supposed to have a few hot days next week. I still have a lot of stuff here in town that needs to be transplanted at the river.

I didn’t make Black Sheep this year. The van was badly overheating. We had to replace the hose, radiator, thermostat and water pump before it was fixed. Now the transmission is unhappy. We will start trying to come up with a pickup for the replacement.

I’ll have the Fourth off, but will likely work on Labor Day. I will need some vacation time before we get to that. I would really like a few days of doing nothing.

So we are focused on the river again. We are still trying to pull together tax money, somehow. We have to have it paid on both places by the end of June. Once again, we are trying to sell off enough stuff to pull this off. The good news is that I convinced Lon to switch to Directv (instead of the $90 a month Comcast charged) and we switched to a different cell phone plan. We still have Quinn’s ex-girlfriend on the plan, but she pays her own way. Comcast jacked up the price of the internet service, but told me I could call in after a month and try to reduce it. The internet service is good, but I do dislike Comcast. I think we went through five DVRs in the time we were with them. If you have standard def tv, they give you these old wornout DVRs. Directv gives you a new one. And Lon really likes to watch You Tube videos on the tv.

The next thing, once the taxes are done, is to start physically moving to the river. The place is run down, but it’s clean again. It will need work, especially before winter. But, when we are there, we will be able to rent out the house. That will help us finally get ahead of the taxes and give us some breathing room. It also means less mischief at the river. I have had so many things stolen or ruined.

Did not have any comments at work on my skirt other than a woman co-worker saying I looked pretty. I have two training sessions coming up, so I’ve got to finish up those skirts this weekend. It’s time for some new things anyway. We will likely be headed to Tacoma on Memorial Day.

Let’s see. I have another G5 Mac, an all in one this time. We had a power outage that blew out the video card. I didn’t know how badly it was damaged and my only other computer is that G4 ibook. It’s just not trustworthy. The new Mac led me to a Mac repairguy that keeps old Macs running. He’ll be a good resource. I was able to just replace the video card and get my original G5 going again. I’m going to use it as a server for now and can use it for work if needed.

I still don’t know if I’ll get a garden in this  year. I am going to try and use that raised bed at the river and plant a few things. Just gotta clear out the weeds and plant. That will be another bonus about the move. I can garden there and we will probably put in goats again. And I will not be in the same living space with the parrots, so my lungs might actually heal up. Loretta loves it down there.

I have a minor dilemma next week. I have to go to the office. I’ve been wearing my skirts long enough that I don’t feel that comfortable in pants any more. But, that’s what I used to wear to work. And since I’ve been taking a round of steroids again, I’ve gained weight. I’m trying to work up the courage to wear what I normally wear. I have some new tops. I’d like to finish those skirts I cut out. This isn’t something I should hesitate about, but we’re talking about the geek world here. I have a few days to think it over.

I’m not sure how that notebooks post got stuck in Drafts. I didn’t write it today. So it’s time for a real update!

For those of you still living with ice and snow, this is what spring will look like:

I do love those tiny daffodils! The larger ones are starting to open up here as well. I will have to make an effort to spend more time outside this year and get the yard tidied up. It all needs work.

Time for the office cat’s nap:

I just have not had a lot to say lately. Christmas was okay, although I still have not been able to put up any decorations. We are trying to get back on Paleo. I’ve had another minor brush with Bird Fancier’s. I think the problem comes when the house gets shut up. We try and open windows for a little while every day, but it’s just not the same as having it open during warmer weather.

We had a problem with the Aqua Home. The back part sank, probably when the boat was being pumped out. It’s floating again and work continues to get it running. The engines have been turned over, so they should work. We just don’t have a lot of energy to devote to it. I hope that improves as we move into spring.

We had some actual snow over the weekend.

Life is starting to get back to normal and hopefully, I won’t be a stranger this long again.

It’s cold today. You can tell because there is sunlight coming through the office window. It’s below freezing, but not that bad during the day. The heater doesn’t work here in the office and so….

the office cat sits on my lap and is bundled up. She seems to always be cold. She’ll get on my lap in the morning and stay there until I make her come out with me during my lunch break.

And there are projects:

I have been carding some fiber. It’s nice stuff, but all of it is fiber that I find boring to spin. I’m hoping that it will be more fun when it’s combined. I have a bit more of it left to blend.

Not a lot of news here on the home front. We are trying to clean up the front yard, so have been hauling leaves to the dump. Yes, it would be nice to compost them, but I just am not set up for it. If we do not move to the river this year (and it’s starting to look that way) I am going to put in a garden this spring. I am tired of putting everything on hold for this imaginary move that never seems to happen. Oh, and we are trying to strike a deal with some folks to get the Aqua Home ready to sell. We will probably lose the dock and have no place for it. And, we’ll need the money for taxes, as always.

October 13th will be the five year anniversary of Jeffrey’s death. The 12th is the five year anniversary of Kate’s death, Lon’s wife. We are planning to do something to commemorate the anniversaries. It might be a trip up the Gorge, to the High Bridge, where I released his ashes. (Lon still has Kate’s ashes, so am not sure how we’ll commemorate that.)  I do catch myself at odd moments since the 1st, thinking back to those days and wondering if I could ever have imagined myself here in this place five years later. It was hard dealing with that first year and seemed so strange that I had two times when I felt disassociated. You always read about people that have those out of body experiences, but that’s the only time I’ve had that happen. At any rate, it will be a time for us to remember the loss of those two special people. We do have a happy life together now and a major part of that has been the shared experience of losing our spouses.

I haven’t posted here since August? Well, I guess most of the activity has been spinning. I went to Oregon Flock and Fiber but most of the action was at an alpaca farm, where I picked up a couple more Jenkins turkish spindles. I do have a few high whorl projects going, but most of my spinning right now is on turks. More about that over on Spindlitis.

I have wanted to do the Folkwear Walking Skirt for years. I finally managed to pick up the pattern and after several weeks, actually finished it. It is a brilliant pattern. The back is longer, so it hems up correctly. The front is flat. It fits well, even in the large sizes. And it is so comfortable. I am planning to do another one this weekend. I will also be tackling the Edwardian Underthings, as I need a petticoat with this skirt. In other sewing news, I sold my commercial sewing machine. I liked having it but realistically, I don’t have enough projects to justify it.

Lon picked up a lathe. We both like it. He was using it outside, then had to move it into the garage when the rain set in. He now has to clear out a trail in the garage to get to it. I think he has his support spindle design down. I’m just waiting to do the testing.

We’ve still not moved to the river. We have friends staying there to keep an eye on the place, which has helped. But it does not look like that is going to work out. I’d like to get in and weatherize the place. If it was up to me, we’d be done with the move long ago.

And, we had to put down Louie. He was such a sweet cat. His kidneys failed and there just wasn’t much else we could do.

Louie belonged to Jack Denne, one of the church members up in Stabler. When he passed on, Jeffrey and I took care of him and his brother at the Denne place. I wound up with both of them. The brother. Max, had to become an outside cat. Louie would do anything for attention. Unfortunately, I have two more cats that are in ill health. One of them, Pete, is another very special cat. It’s too bad that we lost our furry buddies, but that’s the way that it goes.

In other news, we are still trying to get things under control down at the river. We are planning to move there, but there is so much to do first and so many things here to deal with. It’s slow going. I have been spinning a lot these days. I actually have a few sewing projects to work on this weekend. It’s starting to feel a bit like fall, so there’s a real drive now to do some of this before the weather turns bad.

And I still haven’t posted those pictures from Black Sheep yet! I have finished Tour de Fleece for my first year, so I have been spinning almost daily. I’ve been carding a lot of wool too. I am still trying to sort out where to store all the fiber I’ve been going through. It’s been fairly hectic. I’ve had very little desire to can or garden this year. The back yard is a terrible mess. But I am feeling better. I talked with my doctor today and he said that we really are making progress. I feel more like normal. I have gained a lot of weight back, so I need to work on getting that in check. And I feel like it will be fall any day now.

Lon has been enjoying his lessons on wood turning. We have picked up a cheap lathe and are in the process of clearing out a place for him to work. We have been talking for years about setting up a small business. We are not that far off from retirement. At some point, I will not want to deal with supporting the latest version of Windows. I will want something else. So we are trying to sort out a few things that we can make that can be sold. Of course, if we have a lathe, I want spindles! Am looking forward to that part.

I do wish that we could make up our minds about whether or not we are moving to the river. It would be advantageous financially, as we could rent out this house. The trailer at the river is looking better than it has for years, but it is still a rundown double wide. The house is much nicer. We have talked about this for years and are no closer to moving than before. Change is always hard.

I finally got to go again! Normally our Messabout is on the Solstice, and that’s the same time as Black Sheep. My friend Ginger wanted to go, so I rode along. I’ll post most of the pictures over on the Spindlitis blog, since I took a lot of spindle pictures and maybe 50 pictures of sheep and goats.

I bought this:

Jenkins Lark spindle

And this:

Romney cross fleece

Believe me, there was a lot more things that I would have liked to bring home! I also got a new tea mug for Lon, but I’ve forgotten to take a picture of it. I had a good time and I think Ginger did too.

We may yet be moving down to the river. I’d pretty much given up on it, but it looks like things are aligning to make it happen. Financially, we really need to rent this house and pay some things off. We need to move beyond sweating the property taxes every year. And the house will be much easier to rent. So we will see how it goes. We are also planning to finish up the Aqua Home and put it up for sale. That’s another dream that didn’t work out.

Some pictures of the iBook:

It’s been holding a charge and I’ve ordered a hard drive. It is a major task to install a hard drive in this. I’ll have to strip it down completely. But I think I can do that and it looks like it will work as soon as I install the operating system.

My ThinkPad has been good to me, but it really does need some work. This will give me something else to use. I’d like to pick up a copy of Leopard and upgrade both my old Macs. I’ll upgrade the RAM in the iBook too, as soon as I know it’s working again. Old laptops can be very useful. If all else fails, they make good writing machines.

UPDATE:
I installed the hard drive and Tiger. It’s working BUT….it had a date/time issue then wouldn’t boot at all. I did a lot of research and found that there is an issue with the graphics chip in these. So I took out the battery and let it sit all week. Took it into the office today and plugged it into power. It booted up! I’ve read that the case flexes too much on these and causes the solder to break up under that chip. So I will be using this one only on a hard flat surface. Here’s a picture:

I was reading a book about interior decorating, Victorian style. They used a nice lace piece as a window edging. And I happen to have a bunch of crochet doilies and such that are not being used. So I started with this on the kitchen window. I just love it! My plan is to take several of the doilies and make an edging for some of the other windows. We don’t really use curtains here, so these really dress up the window.

And, for your cute kitten picture today, I give you Fanny:

She was sitting on the bed, taking a bath and started to fall asleep. I thought the back leg sticking up in the air was pretty funny.

Oh, and in further news, my lungs are clear again. I’m just about off the steroids and was able to walk up the stairs at the clinic today. I have one more follow up in a month. Now, don’t tell my doctor, but the birds are still in the house. I believe that the major HEPA filters we have going are keeping the air clean. I still can’t really be in the bird room. I don’t want to take that risk. But this is manageable.

This is a picture I worked on, using Skitch.

I haven’t done a post in a long time about how I’m working digitally so I’ll add a couple more notes. I’m using two programs for personal finance. Balance is a check register. I’ve tried a lot of the more complicated programs like Mint, Pageonce, and Adaptu. I like just having this simple register for a running total. I also use Wally. Wally tracks daily spending based on category. You can scan receipts and it can also tag geo locations. It has one of the best interfaces I’ve seen in an app. I’m not budgeting just tracking. Evernote is where I’m keeping my digital stuff. I also have files in Dropbox and Ubuntu One. (The later is less useful since I stopped using Ubuntu. I use Crunch Bang Linux on the laptop now.). I am going to scan more things into Evernote. I especially need medical receipts for tax purposes. I picked up an Evernote Moleskine with three free months of Evernote Premium. I’ll probably keep paying for premium when I use that up. I also did Remember the Milk Premium. I’m not sure why I disliked it in the past but it seems like a good match for me now. I think it’s the iPhone app. I’ve been using Life Balance but the iPhone app just isn’t as good as the old Palm program was. I use the iPhone calendar app, saved to my Google Calendar for appointments.

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you’ll know that I enjoy messing around with organizational systems. Putting this together has been fun.

So the latest is that I’m doing much better on the meds. I saw my doctor yesterday and he is going to taper me off the steroids. The real test will be to see how I do once I’m off them. I’ll go in for another chest x-ray in 3 weeks. I am actually able to work on the house now and am finally getting things cleaned up. If my chest x-ray looks good, it will mean that the air filters are doing a good enough job that we don’t have to get rid of the birds, as long as Lon doesn’t come down with this. We are still trying to get air filters for the garage and bird room.

I picked up an ebook called “Paperless Home Management”. It’s fantastic! She uses Gmail, Evernote, and Remember the Milk to track everything in her life. I set up the system on my phone yesterday. I was trying to use the FlyLady routines to clean the house, when I got sick. It’s so nice to have them set up and actually be able to DO them. I also want to clean up the yard and get some sort of garden going. I used an app called Skitch, that saves stuff in Evernote. I took pictures of the front yard this morning and made notes of what I’d like to change. It really helps to look at this from a detached viewpoint.

Other than that, nothing really new. We still have a ton of work to do down at the river. I just wish we could be done with it. If it were up to me, I’d move out of this area all together. But it’s not my call. I at least want to make the house more comfortable. I’ve spent too long putting that on hold, figuring that we’d move to the river. I’m tired of waiting for something that doesn’t seem to happen. I want to work on where I live now.

I did not have to go in for the bronchoscopy, which makes me beyond happy. The bad news is that I do have bird fancier’s lung. We managed to find an Austin Air air purifier on craigslist. It makes a huge difference, so much that I was feeling almost normal yesterday. They are expensive units new and the filters cost around $200. It’s possible that having them will let us keep the birds. We are looking into purchasing another unit and I think we will also need one for the cockatoos in the garage. Since they finished with the testing, they have me back on steroids. They have helped every time I’ve had them, so I really feel like I may start to recover from this.

My experience with the refurb phone has not ended well. I went to call the pharmacy today and renew Lon’s prescriptions. When I went to key in the prescription number, I couldn’t get the “1” to work. After multiple tries, it would work but would put a space in front of it. I made two calls and just wasn’t able to get it to work. That’s not a good sign. Intermittent problems are hard to troubleshoot. So they are sending me a new 4S, and I will return the refurb. If I’m going to be in a contract for 2 years, the phone had better work. And I got to listen to Lon be the big snarly dog on the phone, when they wanted me to pay them $99 up front and wait to get my $50 refunded. They’ll put that charge on next months’ bill instead.

Quinn is having more trouble, which I won’t go into here. It’s all of his own making. He refuses to talk to Lon, which upsets Lon of course. If you are going to have an attitude and insist on doing things your own way, then you need to accept that you are responsible for the results. I’ve always valued my freedom and I prefer to stay away from cops and lawyers. Quinn doesn’t seem to value his freedom enough to change his behavior. I hope he grows in wisdom.

So this is my iPhone 3GS, in an Otterbox Defender case:

It’s been a good phone. I like iOS. It works well for me. I could easily use this phone for another year. My concern is that it took a dip into the river and over time, that is supposed to lead to corrosion. It’s been working well, but I’m concerned about it failing.

It’s upgrade time and I decided to go ahead and get a new phone. I have a theory that you should stay on the low end when upgrading Apple products. There’s no advantage to being on the bleeding edge. Apple products tend to work well for years beyond their supposed obsolescence. I have a custom cable that allows me to connect my iPhone to the Bose player. I would have needed a new cable to work with an iPhone 5. And, even with a discount, it would have cost me $199 to go with an iPhone5. What I wanted was an iPhone 4S. It’s close to the specs on the iPhone 5, yet uses the old 30 cable. It would give me retina display, a faster phone that works on the 4G network and a better camera. I waited and managed to find the 4S in a refurb. It saved me money and so far, it seems to work fine.

Here’s the new phone:

I know, you’ve seen a million of these white iPhones. Still, it’s new to me. I have another Otterbox Defender case on the way for the new phone. I’ve played a bit with Siri, but doubt I’ll use it much. Best of all, my old phone works for everything except calls and text messaging as long as I’m at home and on wifi. It will be my backup phone. AT&T charges $150 to replace an iphone, if you have their insurance. I’ve dropped the insurance since they went with that policy.

I’m scheduled for the bronchoscopy on Wednesday. I still haven’t heard the results on all the blood tests yet. I really do not want to have even a routine surgery like the bronchoscopy, but it doesn’t look like I have any options. This is so difficult to deal with. I am feeling stronger, as long as I don’t try and do anything. I went to the grocery store yesterday and used one of those electric carts. It turned out to be a good idea, as I wound up coughing a lot. And I’m sure I scared a few people with my driving! After we had the groceries put away, I was so tired that I crashed out in the bedroom. I didn’t have lunch or dinner. I’m better today, but am trying not to tackle too much. I have corned beef in the crock pot and did a couple of loads of laundry. I really hope I get some resolution on this soon. They won’t try to treat it until they know what it is. Meanwhile, I’m really limited in what I can do.

Lon is usually in good humor, which helps because I can really vary. We’ve both been pretty depressed this week. He had a tow truck come out and try to pull out one of the boats at the river. We’ve tried working on this one several times. They were able to move it a bit, but the strap around the front of the boat pulled through. The wood is really rotten. We will likely need to pay a diver again, to try and re-rig it, then pay the tow truck driver to come back out. It gets expensive.

Then there are property taxes. This is always a struggle and we never know how we are going to come up with them. I have to finish my taxes and try to get back money from Oregon, which will help pay the property taxes. Lon shut off Quinn’s phone. He has not been returning his calls. We’ve continued to pay for his cell phone and the only reason we do that is to be able to stay in contact with him. So he is going to need to get and pay for his own phone. I did go ahead and update my phone today. I like my iphone 3GS, but it’s getting slow and I’d like to tap into 4G network. I found a refurb at a decent price.

Then there’s my health. The lung specialist is waiting for blood test results but he thinks I have Bird Fancier’s disease. It’s an allergy to the dust off the bird feathers and the droppings. We will have to move the parrots out of the house to keep them and Lon will have to help minimize any dust from the birds. That means working on the shed to insulate it and sound proof it a bit. It takes time and money, but we have to clear the allergens out of the house for me to get well. If the blood test confirms the diagnosis, I’ll go back on steriods and I’ve felt good every time I’ve had those. If the blood test isn’t conclusive, I could be looking at a bronoscopy. I really do not want to have that. I promised Lon, before we got involved, that I would take care of his birds. Now, I’m in a situation where I put my health at risk just to be around them. I am really sad about it.

I still am not really up to doing much over the weekend. I spend a lot of time in the bedroom, which does get me away from the parrots. I just do not have the energy to do much and I start coughing when I try and do too much. I have been eating better this week, and have felt a bit better. I think, if we can get the bird room cleaned out this weekend, that I might get some of my energy back.

We do have lots of little yellow daffodils in the front yard, with other spring blooms getting close. The weather will start to warm up soon. And maybe some of the other depressing things will resolve themselves. It’s just the way it goes.