Doesn't Matter

 Back in March Chuck and I were planning to fly into Nashville, rent a convertible and cruise around Tennessee, Alabama, through Mississippi and into Louisiana.

Well, you know what happened to those plans. Like so many other people this year we had to cancel our vacation. I guess it is a first world problem.

 So when things began to open back up we decided to stay local and road trip it over to Eastern WA. Chuck rented our convertible, we reserved our hotel room and we started to pack. 

Then the car place called two days before we were to leave to tell us they actually didn't have any convertibles and would we like something else. Uh, no thank you.  😭 

The day before we left a reviewer posted on-line and said the hotel elevator was broken. Lovely.

We went anyway.

And had a fantastic time!!!

We drove north and just happened upon Diablo Lake. Never heard of it before but decided to stop. Oh my gosh the color of the water was spectacular! Of course we were in the Cascade Mountain Range so it was definitely glacier water but the color was stunning!

 

We stopped for lunch in the tiny town of Winthrop and then headed on to Wenatchee.

We checked into the hotel and got right back in the car again to meet up with Sharaya, Allie and Beth. They were meeting us in Yakima to see the Milky Way! We finally found a perfect spot at about 11pm and Sharaya pulled out the lawn chairs and blankets and we spent the next hour just looking up. I have never seen the Milky Way before! In pictures yes, but not like this! It was incredible and something I will never forget. Unfortunately your cell phone won't capture it and Sharaya even brought her SLR but that didn't do it either. This one's from google and looks identical to what we saw. We even saw 3 shooting stars!

 

 

Got to the hotel around 1am and just crashed! Come to find out the elevator wasn't broken (they had 3 of them) and in fact they were glass elevators with a view of the city!

 

 

We registered for the pool when we checked in, for a certain day and time and had it all to ourselves! (Course we're always conscience of covid so we ended up not putting our faces in the water but it was still nice and relaxing!)

 We went out to lunch, walked along the Columbia River, had sundaes at the cutest little soda shop... it was really fun!

While we were there we celebrated our 38th Anniversary. 

New Orleans, Louisiana? Or Wenatchee, Washington?

Doesn't matter as long as I'm with him. 

 

Saturday Snippets - Add More Things to the List

Beth and I had eye appointments yesterday and we found out she has Keratoconus in her right eye. It causes the cornea to become misshapen and thin. Plus she has Amblyopia, or Lazy Eye in her right eye. With Lazy Eye the brain and the eye don't work well together and after a while the brain just ignores the visual input of that eye. Her previous doctors have never mentioned any of this or tried to correct it! I can't imagine what her vision is like! So now we're going to see a specialist in a couple of weeks. 

Keratoconus

Amblyopia

 

 A friend called to tell me her son has melanoma and is going to have the same treatment as Chuck. We talked for about a half hour and thankfully I was able to give her some positive information. Things really have been going well for Chuck and when we hung up she wasn't as nervous as she was before.

 Chuck's sister R had back surgery a month or so ago and was released from rehab this week. The doctors say she can't live alone anymore so she asked if Diana could fly out and help her clean her house a little and help with PT. She basically wants to prove to the doctors that she can live alone. Diana rearranged work and was on a plane the next day. What Diana didn't realize was R has become a hoarder. Have you seen those shows on TV? Yep, just like that. Diana has discretely sent us some photos and oh my word. Poor Diana is trying her best to clean areas of this house in preparation for the nurse and PT on Monday. R is very strong willed and is refusing to let Diana toss anything out. There's no place for Diana to sit let alone sleep there. Thankfully she talked R into going to a hotel for a couple nights. I was up during the night last night, praying (and worrying, I'll admit it) about Diana's health and what she might come across. When I got up I texted her:

Do not go back into that house!

You need to book the hotel for quite a few days

When the nurse sees the house, she won't go in. 

 PT definitely won't happen. 

When they come to the door, explain the situation

After a lot of back and forth, Chuck got time off work, booked a flight and I was driving him to the airport at noon today. He's going there to help Diana stand up to R. (R doesn't know he's coming.) They've got to get R into assisted living even though she puts up a fight whenever Diana has brought it up. It's her doctor's orders! I don't know what our options are but I told Chuck they may have to give R an ultimatum and just say goodbye if she refuses. It breaks my heart to think she'd stay there when she can't walk (she had a severe stroke many years ago) and is recovering from surgery. It's really a sad situation. And if R does go to assisted living, we'll then have to try to get her house cleaned (Diana called a company and they told her it would be between $5000-$7000) and then try to sell it. It's going to be difficult no matter what happens there this weekend.

 2020 just keeps throwing us curve balls! 

I'm so glad the Lord is in control! He still has a plan for each one of us and is working even when we can't see it.

Thankful Thursday - Lopsided

Guess what day it is!

 

The other day I was looking through a photo album of a trip we took to Disneyland back in 2011 and when I saw this picture of Toon Town I thought, 'That's exactly how I feel!' 

Can anyone else relate? 

With everything that's been going on life just seems lopsided. My brain has been chaotic and it's hard to have a clear thought. And then I realized I might be grieving. The 5 stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I feel like I've been fighting mild depression the last couple of months, I'm kinda sad, I don't really want to do anything... I sincerely think we're all grieving in some way. Grieving the loss of our jobs, our schools, relationships, routines, vacations. We're grieving the loss of some of our freedoms, of the lives we've known. Grief is heavy and the hardest part is we don't know how much longer we have to carry it. This year has been hard!

But... in spite of all the loss and the hard stuff, if we really look for it, there's always something to be thankful for ~

A great weekend getaway

Finding a personal letter in the mailbox

Being under budget

Our 38th Anniversary this week

Family. Always Family

Positive outcomes

Finding the exact thing I needed at Office Max

Road trips

 "Your order has shipped!"

 

How are you doing with the pandemic?

Have you found something to be thankful for this week? 

Thankful Thursday - Success, Sunrises, Seeing

Need some good news?

Go to Knit by God's Hand to read more posts for Thankful Thursday!

This week:

Four infusions and Chuck still feels great!

Sitting outside to watch the sunrise

Time with family

Days and days of sunshine

A friend graduating after 18 months of rehab

Finding new trails to walk

Seeing old, familiar faces

No more political robocalls for a while!

Playing games with Allie

A new Cinnamon Roll Casserole recipe!

(Thanks to Libby at Beauty Without Within!)

What are you thankful for this week?

Not Another Manic Monday

Work has been very manageable lately. It's really been nice. Our custodians' job is two-fold. One is cleaning the building. And the other is event management. In July we had 600 hours of reserved events. Maybe the event was two hours long but they reserved the room for three hours. Back in February we had over 3000 reserved hours of events. Just for February. And that's been average for the last few years. So yeah, work has actually been fun lately! No stress, my boss is on vacation, woohoo!! 😁

After work today Beth and I went to Hobby Lobby. I was looking for a sign that says, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. It's from Joshua 24:15 and has to do with what our pastor preached yesterday. Well they only had one and it wasn't really my style so I'm gonna have to check on-line.

We stopped to get some pictures I had printed. Do you still print out photographs? Chuck says that I have way too many photos. I think he's crazy. 😊 I'm actually getting our Christmas cards ready. I always start early so I'm not too rushed come December. These are just some of the pictures we took at our photo shoot back in June.

Gotta have a Covid picture to represent 2020!

After dinner tonight I went out and watered the yard, both front and back. We don't have a sprinkler system, well we do, it's me. It was after 8:30 when I finished and the sun was going down so I sat outside for a while. It was so peaceful, the sky was beautiful. I daydreamed about creating a beach area in our back yard with sand, fire ring, beach chairs, hanging lights, sigh... do you daydream?

Our blackberries are starting to ripen!

The Morning Glories are closing up for the night so I will too.

Have a wonderful week!

Saturday Snippets - Totally Missed It

I came home from work on Tuesday and Chuck was cleaning out the garage and side yard! He had rented a truck and had already taken one load to the dump. I changed my clothes and went out to help. He got the side yard completely empty and we got about 2/3 of the garage cleaned and swept.

Sharaya and Allie came over for dinner on Wednesday and we played Mexican Train again. One of the reasons we love it so much is because we can all play it.

I completely missed Thankful Thursday. It was a long day at work for me because I redid a few things at my desk.

Earlier this year I had put up a taller wall to get some privacy between me and the front office. I had so much work and trying to help run the front office was just too much. It worked well for a while, then a couple months after I did this, Covid hit and we closed. Now all the reasons that caused me to put it up no longer exist.

I also needed more storage space. There was always stuff piled on my filing cabinet, I just didn't have the room to store everything.

Before

After

Now I can't wait to go back to work on Monday!

Beth and I took the ferry over to Kingston yesterday. This time we walked to the little shop and ordered ice cream. (We had crepes there when my sister was visiting.) It was so good on a hot day!

I took this hoping Mt Rainier would show up better. I've outlined it so you can get an idea of how big it is. The small shapes below it are the skyscrapers in downtown Seattle.

Have you been on any adventures lately?