One year in our house

As we are no longer surrounded by big trees, we can see sunsets and sunrises

Pretty get-well roses a good friend gave me

our 70s themed place in Ashland Oregon. We were lucky to find a place with 2 bedrooms as I was too noisy to sleep with as I still had a cough

The blank slate our house was one year ago. Barely visible in the far right are those stupid candle sconces we just replaced

Time flies. The albatross is gone after much effort and a great loss of time and money. We had possession of this house a few days before we actually moved. We were greeted with a driveway we couldn't see as it was covered with 2 feet of snow, smoke alarms beeping and no heat. The latter two problems solved though it took awhile by replacing batteries. And with our very high ceilings, smoke detectors required a stool we didn't yet have. We are now paranoid that our heat will stop while we are gone just because a battery dies in the thermostat.

 

I am a fan of solar lights. Yes they could be tacky. I had my little patio at the old house bejeweled with all sorts of them so it looked like a mini-Vegas at night and completely surrounded by flowers in the day. I did put my yellow birds up in the tree in front of this house but very soon they stopped working. Stupid IKEA lights really don't last long. However I was too lazy to take them down. Imagine my surprise last night when I found lit yellow birds in my front tree. Well it is getting lighter, Steve said. They didn't work all summer when there was even more light. But what isn't working is all the electric lighting systems and we are powerless and too stupid to figure them all out. Too many systems in this house! We did have to hire someone to explain the sprinkler system.

 

I haven't bought many solar lights here as I assume there is some HOA rule concerning tackiness.

 

Slowly I am improving as there is much less swelling in my lip. Some of the scabs are falling off. I am still hesitant to go out in public though I walked around the neighborhood yesterday. Fortunately I was able to avoid people. No more taking that antibiotic! Yay! I still have to keep up eating the yogurt to avoid my flora or is it fauna from converting to C. diff. But as yogurt is about all I can shovel in my mouth, not a problem. No steak dinner tonight as a belated birthday present for Steve or he can go without me. Still can't chew.

 

A friend visited me briefly and brought beautiful roses to cheer me up so yay for that.

 

So I am settling in watching Downton Abbey episodes missed and The Theory of Everything. On the way back on the plane, I watched Spotlight. As the Boston Globe building was quite close to where Shanna lived, I kept seeing my old running path along the harbor passing through Carson's Beach. I would continue out to Castle Island running on a very narrow causeway surrounded by the sea with Loganbound jets barely clearing the space above. How powerful and corrupt the Catholic Church is! Suffer the little children, indeed! And although Cardinal Law was run out of town, the Church ended up promoting him in Rome! I also watched The Martian on the way out though I fell asleep in the middle. Not as engrossing.

 

More birds are returning to my feeders. Fortunately the squirrels haven't figured out we are back..yet. I didn't see the hummingbirds hoped for on the West Coast trip though we did see a few bald eagles. We tried to get my brother-in-law to stop for them but he found that a too ridiculous request. After much badgering, he agreed to stop for a possible eagle that Steve thought he saw but that turned out to be a crow. The others I saw were clearly eagles. I did see a Stellar jay, the clouds of plovers, pelicans and murres and some unusual (to Michigan) inland ducks. Puffins were out of season as were California whales though humpbacks were being spotted near my brother's. As they breach frequently, it would have been nice to see them ourselves. No tidepool creatures due to all of the storms. We saw plenty of sea lions and seals and looked for the otters that frequent Santa Cruz. I carefully scanned the kelp beds looking for signs of activity. If only we had signed up for our elephant seal mating trip! We would had to battle rush hour traffic and slog through sand for a long time but it was scheduled at the same time as my accident. Let's go back and select that fork!