Healing And Feeling Well

 I saw the Doc 3 days ago and she said I'm good to go and can return to work and I'll have no restrictions. My return date will be Sunday August 3, so I do have a little time before I have to go back. This gives me time to go a little yard work and this morning I cleaned out about 1/5 the chicken coop. That shits heavy and the shovel is heavy, and the manure cart has a flat so I couldn't fill it all the way. 

I can't eat anything like strawberries and beans (I have though) but I can begin to test other foods to see if my body will tolerate them. Last night I ate half a chicken thigh, no skin, some mashed taters and gravy and a bit of corn. I did get back pain, so I know I over did the fats, but dinner was yummy. Today I'll have another piece of chicken with lunch, probably with some sort of chicken soup. Chicken legs & thighs are considered a red meat so have a higher fat content. I'm sticking to a constant weight and am NOT going to let myself get fat again. I know now how to look for fats and I know I can get by with a proper portion size, I don't have to eat the whole thing in one setting.

One thing that HAS been bothering me is that my eyes feel like I've touched the lids with stinging nettles; I haven't but that's how they feel. I've taken Dayquil yesterday and today and that helps so it's just allergies. I dislike taking any drugs now, I read that they're all related to dementia so I'm just trying to stop that BS from happening to me. Lan doesn't need me to end up like his mom.

Joey has been losing weight and I'm sure it's because Amble isn't here. It took him about 5 days to get over her being gone in the first place. He's 29 years old; I don't want him to be skin & bones going into winter. Wifi is fat and limping but getting around well enough. Amble will be at Teresas in training till mid September and after that I'll have to start riding her myself to keep her going. I'll have to join the saddle club again so I can go over there to ride in their big arena. 

She's Moving!

I'm holding my breath & crossing my fingers, she said she's moving next week. I'll do whatever I can to help her on her way. I mean, I'm not co-signing or paying for anything, but I'll help her move her shit to her new residence.
Monday & Tuesday are the big days. yippee.
She's got 2 places, one is $800 for a bedroom in a shared home, the woman has a day care & kids are there all day and into the evening.
Second place is with a married couple and is a bit cheaper. She hasn't been to see it yet & isn't sure of the location.
I told her the handyman will be here February 3rd & she's got to be out before then.

SIR ELTON JOHN

SIR ELTON JOHN

He's been my one true teen heart throb my entire life 

and last night I was delighted to see him again, my third time, in concert.

Tacoma Dome, 

September 17, 2019

Seats 211 HH 5 & 6

(we were sitting straight across from the stage, a long way but it was perfect)

FAREWELL YELLOW BRICK ROAD TOUR

This street sign was outside, pretty cool.

Inside on the way to our seats

This one is pretty cool, Lan took it

Near the end

I absolutely LOVE the man

Trippin'

In 27 days we'll be at the airport, 

waiting to catch our flight to England.

Two Offers

Our home is officially on the market and today we made offers on two houses in Montana. 

The original one in St Regis that we both love and its perfect for what we want, 

and one in Plains that's close to what we want 

BUT its got a 24 unit storage facility that's part of the deal. 

That would make our house payment for us right there.

Our house & farm are on the MLS and 

FOR SALE

with an asking price of $629,950.00

Its a holiday weekend and its been on the MLS for 3 days and exactly ZERO people have come by to see it. That's a good thing because we're still completing projects.

We had never finished the stair treads with the hardwood flooring so realtor suggested I paint them, so I did, the turquoise you see here. It ties in with the color in the bathroom.

And this evening we're hanging up this sliding barn door Lan made for the downstairs bathroom. 

In this photo its just standing there, not complete. 

In about an hour its going to be FINISHED

and the white door should be gone.

We will save the white door for the future owners of the house 

in case they dislike the barn door and wish to remove it. 

That makes them total losers. 

I hope whoever gets the house and farm love it and continue to improve it.

I've been painting a lot, off white on a bunch of spots where there were either marks on the walls 

or entire places I hadn't finished before. 

I'm also busy painting the porch swing again, its hard to get something orange enough!

NO PHOTO!!

Lan removed a couple busted posts in the cross fence, removed a gate and built this new gate with electric fencing on the top. 

No more horses reaching over. 

Assholes.

I've been painting the metal on the pony cart. I know I'll never teach Gussy to pull it so I'm going to let it go for $500 to another gal. I'll include the leather and nylon harnesses and a whicker basket that I picked up somewhere along the way. I'll get better photos of it tomorrow, this morning I actually painted the arms and back supports. It looks good.

More Soren

Ain't gonna lie, I'm going to miss this guy.

We had a lot of fun riding bikes at Banner Forest.

The Bug Museum in Bremerton was a big hit.

This is what I liked, getting him to lick the salt block.

This is what Soren liked the most, leading Joey around while everyone else rode Mack.

This is pretty much a fake smile, he didn't enjoy this pony ride. Mack is huge though and its really high up there.

Soren goes home to his dad tomorrow. He has to fly alone to Alaska and live in a new house and go to a new school. He makes friends very easily and that's good.

I helped his mom pack his luggage, made sure he had all clean clothes and when we weighed his bag it was still good for another 11 lbs so we added some toys. 

His mom got him a cute little carry on bag so we put 1 change of clothes into that along with a bunch of grub to munch on and toys to play with.

Soren

Soren is 7 1/2 years old and he is staying here for the summer. 

He is my great nephew, grandson of my twin brother.

His mom has to work a lot so I get to spend massive amounts of time with him.

I'm trying to make this a memorable time and Lan & I both hope he leaves here happy and with great stories to tell. 

Here I had him help groom the horses. Every day he enjoys helping to turn the horses out to pasture and its now his job to turn the chickens out and give them their scratch.

Last week we went to Waterman Dock to look for the Orcas that were in the vicinity & while we didn't find them, he still made a monkey out of himself.

Soren likes Spiderman so when we went to the dollar store we picked up a Spiderman kite and he learned how to fly it. I should take him back down to the dock, it was perfectly windy there. Here, it would blow every different direction so he ended up running with it.

But it flies.

On Sunday, June 30, 2019

the might ferry M/V Hyak ran her last crossings Bremerton-Seattle so I made arrangements for us to go up into the wheelhouse and visit with Captain Steve. It was SO MUCH FUN and all of us got a chance to drive the ferry.

WE DROVE THE FERRY!!  

And Soren got to blow the horn.

This next photo is cool because just as Steve let go of the telegraph, Soren accidently moved it & a chime sounded, in the wheelhouse and in the engine room. We all gasped in surprise, Soren was scared & almost cried but Steve just communicated for them to disregard. Then we all laughed.

We got him a bike. 16" used, perfect. 

Lan built him a jump.

Then we got him a new bike and its perfecter.

Today he & I went out to Banner Forest and had a blast riding tails.

If we have enough warm sunny days, we can go for more rides in the 65 Mustang. 

We've got about 5-6 weeks until he goes back to Minnesota to live with dad for the school year. I wonder how many more really cool things we can do until then?

36 Hours To Montana

At 6pm June 27th, 2019 we headed out on a quickie trip to Montana to check out that house we like.

We stopped in Coeur d'Alene at midnight and with arrangements to meet the realtor at 1pm we had time for a side trip to Cataldo Mission. It was beautiful outside and inside the buildings

Some of these photos are from the two previous times we were there but I only took 153 this time so had to borrow.

This triangular shape building is technically a fruit cellar I think but for shits & giggles I call it the UNDER GROUND BUNKER.

 The owner used it for storing paint and it doesn't have built in shelves. I does have a drain in the floor but the floor is still damp/wet. 

Going down...

It was about 70* outside and a good 20* cooler inside

It measures approximately 8' X 8'. If we could find a way to get it dry inside, I think adding a bunk bed on the back wall and maybe a teensy chair & table + overhead bare bulb light would be fun. I think people would pay for spend the night there.

The Columbine & Iris along the front side of the house are beautiful

We took a hike up to the top of the ridge on the back of the property and kept finding jaw bones.

Not entire skeletons, just jaw bones.

Many, many jaw bones.

Like 50 jaw bones.

This awesome gate blocks the road so not just anyone can drive on it. It goes through our the property and winds up the hill to the ridge.

This is the view up there, pretty amazing.

We followed the road to its natural end, at our the neighbors house.

This is the view of the front pasture from his place.

And this is the view from the road at the corner down from the entry gate.

We took John Henry with us and she must have run about 10 miles. I know she went farther than I did and I got more than my 10,000 daily step goal.

She was one tuckered out girl.

We returned home Friday night just before midnight.

We are more than ever ready to move and have been packing more boxes. Lan thinks we're 2 weeks away from listing our house & making another offer to the owner.