I'll Fly Away

While were were on the Oregon Coast, we purchased a wind sculpture, a Wind Spinner, as the artist creator calls them. This is to be a memorial, placed in our garden, in remembrance of my mother and my uncle.


My aunt, Evelyn Freeman, is my mother's youngest sister.  Due to health issues she was unable to attend my mother's services last November.  In addition to dealing with her own progressing dementia, she has for many years been dealing with her husband's advanced Alzheimer's. Uncle Bill has been in a group home now for several years and no longer knows his wife or children.


Aunt Evelyn gave me some money for a memorial to honor my mother and her "Willie", who, while still living, is gone in the sense of the person he was.


My mother requested the song "I'll Fly Away" be sung at her services.  I think she saw her departure from this world like that, flying away.  Uncle Bill was in the Air Force for many years, and flying was a part of who he was, so I immediately thought of the wind sculptures I had seen in Garibaldi, Oregon.


This is the one we bought.

Today we set it up to see if we liked the placement just off the patio.

 In this location I can see it from the kitchen table where I sit for most meals, from the kitchen window over the sink where I spend a lot of time with food prep, and from my patio table.

I think this is where it will stay.  We will be doing some work at the base, either with plants or a pebble mosaic, and I will have a commemoration plaque made.


Watching this Wind Spinner is mesmerizing.  The patterns it makes are so beautiful.  Here is a sample.

Upgrading Technology

As my regular readers know, Tom recently purchased a Samsung Tablet/Reader.  He has been learning how to use it.  Since it has Android mobile smart phone technology, and we don't have smart phones, it is a challenge to be learning something completely new.


On the other hand, my new toy is very familiar.

 On Friday I purchased this 14 inch HP Pavilion with 8GB of power, loaded with the familiar Windows 7.  With camera card slot and a disc drive, it has full capacity to do whatever our desktop can do. 

After I bought it Friday I didn't even take it out of the box until Saturday afternoon, when we went over to Tad's house.  Tad is Jake's roommate, a longtime friend, and my Tech Guy.  He advised me on my purchase, and told me to let him do the set up. I was more than happy to follow his instructions.

So yesterday, while we watched the Sounders on his huge TV, Tad set up my new toy.  Her name is Hilda, and she is replacing my little Acer, Suzie.  Suzie was a sweetheart, and fun to carry around and use.  But as technology advanced, she just couldn't keep up.  I will be giving her to son-in-law Corey to modify and play with and it will probably go to one of the kids.

So this is Hilda's first post.  I am ready for my big road trip at the end of the month. I installed Google Chrome to use with Blogger.  And by the way, I see that Blogger made more changes while I was on the coast, so now I'm catching up on that new technology too.

Oh, and the Sounders beat Chicago 2-1!  Go Sounders!

Rockaway Getaway

We're back home now and quickly falling back into busy routines.  Tom went to Friday morning breakfast, but I stayed home because Irene is sick and I am her caretaker today.


Josy the cat is also glad to have us back so she can get back to her normal schedule of sleeping in out of the way places.


On Monday we drove from Seattle to Rockaway Beach on the Oregon Coast, stopping in Astoria on the way to say Hi to the sea lions.

 They seemed quite content in the sunshine.

 We always stop for the view on Neakanie Mountain.

 The cabin awaited us in sunshine.

 We unloaded our gear and took off to take advantage of the good weather.  Tillamook Bay and the jetty channel were calm.

 In Garibaldi it was warm and clear.

 One of my missions on this trip was to purchase a wind sculpture from an artisan in Garibaldi.  My aunt had given me some money for a memorial for my mother and her husband, my uncle, to be installed in our garden.  I though a wind sculpture would be perfect, and I knew just where to get one.

 I'll have a followup post when we get it installed.


When the rains came, Tom played with his new tablet and I spent a lot of time on trip planning.

 Tom figured out how to take pictures with his tablet.  Here is one result.

 On Thursday morning the sun came back as we packed up to start the trip back to Seattle.  It's good to have the sun back when you leave, because it assures that we will want to come back again.

 We stopped at the Antique Mall in Wheeler a favorite haunt of ours.

 We enjoyed the beach views near Cannon Beach.

 And we stopped back in Astoria to eat tuna fish and chips at the Bowpicker.

 Yum.

Now we'll be back on our healthy eating regimen.  


Tom's back, so it's time to go grocery shopping.

Rainy Days Are Expensive and Caloric

It was a rainy day at the beach.  We had to occupy ourselves indoors.

Tom had decided he wanted to buy a Tablet/Reader.  He had been studying them a bit.  He decided if he found one here in Oregon he wouldn't have to pay sales tax.  We checked at Fred Meyer and they had a Samsung on sale.

We went to the in-store Starbucks for coffee and use of their WiFi, fired up Suzie, who is v-e-r-y s-l-o-w these days.  She bogged down.

In the evening we went to dinner at a restaurant with WiFi and I was able to discover that CNET rated that Samsung Tablet as one of the top five.

Today we went back to FredMeyer and bought it, took it to the Starbucks coffee shop, where we had lattes, and got Tom's new toy up and running, sort of.

 We had shopping to do at the Tillamook Cheese Factory for Jill, and we were there at lunch time, so Tom had a fancy grilled cheese sandwich and I had an Udderly Chocolate hot fudge sundae.

 Back at the cabin I worked all afternoon on trip plans.  Without the distractions of home, I was finally able to map out the third leg of our New England trip, the New York State portion. Now we'll have to stage it out in days and see if we can fit it all in.


Tom played with his new toy, learning how to take photos, what all of the buttons and icons do, and so on.

This evening we went out to dinner at our favorite restaurant here on the coast and had razor clams.  Now we are back at the WiFi restaurant having dessert and coffee so that we can use the hook up to post (me) and play (Tom).


And the worst part is it's too stormy to walk it all off.

At The Sea

Hi. We're not home.

 We're here.  At the Rockaway Beach cabin.

Some sun, now some rain.  It doesn't matter.  We're on vacation for a few days.

Reeder Garden on Earth Day

What a morning!  The sun was shining through the new leaves of the red Japanese maple.  Sunlight and shadows played on the lawn.

Shade softened the colors of the tulips.

 The azalea bonsai has burst into bloom.

 Little things are blooming everywhere.

 As the sun moved through the day the tulips glowed in the full sun.

 Tom got another garden box ready for planting.

 Peas and radishes are up.

 I finished edging the lawn.  Tidy edges make everything look better.

 The trilliums have gone from white to purple.  Too soon they'll be done.

 Hostas and unfurling.

 On the front porch the Lewisia are blooming.

We spent much of the day working in the yard.  Now it's about time for some sitting on the patio.  The weather station says it's 74.


What a Happy Earth Day!