It's A Grand, Grand Day

Sometimes you just have days like this... all is well with the world !
(In spite of the fact I have had gremlins doing really weird things on my computer the past few days. Some of which have even stumped my live in "computer whiz.")

The sun is shining. I got in a little early for a haircut app't so walked the river walk awhile. The ships were gently moving up the river, the birds were on the pilings, the water was lapping along the shore. I love Astoria!
After my app't I stopped in for a latte at the little coffee shop next to the hair salon. It was funny as I was getting hair cut you can hear the coffee machines as they are right beside each other. I asked Vicki (my hair dresser) if that was the latte machine. She said "Oh no that is the Smoothie machine. The latte machine makes a clacking noise." She knows them all by heart.

After getting my latte, I walked over to get my coupon scanned at JoAnn's so I will continue to get their ads. Found a really cool plum basket for behind my chair for 1/2price (My old one is falling apart)and a really neat pkg of 12 x 12 paper with fall and Christmas paper that was way COOL.

On the way back to the car stopped to look in a window of a small little store on a side street to enjoy two large kittys both sleeping along the window glass. One big tabby up front with his fur pushed up against the window and on his tail again pushed up against the window another big black one end to end - both SOUND asleep. I couldn't go in to love them a bit as the store was closed but they made my heart happy!

My Weight Watcher lesson is done for this week. Always a good feeling to be prepared before the "day" of the meeting. It has been doing great this summer. We have averaged with both meetings about 90 members a week...usually around 50-55 first mtg and around 40 or so second meeting. Wondering what will happen in Sept when all our vacationers and our "I've blown it all summer and want to look nice for the holidays"
people come back. I challenged them all (baiting them with prizes along the way) to come 12 out of the 14 weeks before Labor Day and they seem to have taken the bait : )
But we still have LOTS of new people after school starts and the routine begins for everyone.

Our garage sale was a HUGE success last weekend! Had four of us with things in it and we ran two days putting out new things on the second day. One lady came by three times and bought each time. With all four of us we were about $10 shy of selling $900 worth of stuff! Not bad for things we wanted to get rid of, huh ! We met Kevin Pierce from J & S next door in Dairy Queen Sunday night and apologized for all the cars coming in and out and even parking in their lot. He just looked at me and said."Oh, we expect it at least once a year." They are such good neighbors.

Anyway Bob is filling in on the Light Ship with an unexpected shift this afternoon. Dinner will be as soon as he gets home as we have a concert tonight at the Liberty Theater here in Astoria. What better day could one ask for -
GOD IS GOOD !!
HUGS !!

What A Life !!

This must be how the other half lives !!
I'm sitting in the window overlooking the ocean with a cup of coffee while my favorite man snoozes... The room is quiet, the ocean waves crashing in on the sand, a mama deer with her fawn feeding below our fourth story room which looks up and down the beach. Our bed will be made by the maid, breakfast will be served when we go to the dining room....There is a boardwalk to the ocean, our room has a fireplace and we watched a gorgeous sunset from our window last night over the ocean!
We are at the Ocean Shores Resort as a freebie from Bob's 50th class reunion prize.
We drove up on Friday am, visited Pat and Lyle over lunch in Aberdeen then headed on up to Ocean Shores. Yesterday after my 30 minute (free) massage, we headed into town and played around. Visited the Interperative center, had huge ice cream cones at a little place called Murphy's which made us feel like we were back in the 50's, played 36 holes of miniature golf - meeting a really fun couple about our age that was playing right behind us that we visited with at each hole as we waited for the party ahead of us to finish each hole. Then came home to keep our reservations for dinner (free) in the resort dining room. Really a fun get away -
We will head home this afternoon and back to reality....
(Cathy, we are about ten miles from the house you were checking out as a potential Christmas setting if anyone is interested - so we plan on driving by just for fun since we are so close)
(Steve/Lorraine - We found a really cool campground (Ocean City State Park) with lots of trees and green grassy spots along the beach here in Ocean Shores with spots way large enough for our RV and several tents -will talk to you about it when we get home. Has potential unless you think it is too far away. Ocean Shores is about 45 minutes from Aberdeen)

Plan on a cemetary visit on our way home thru Aberdeen. Haven't made it up to check on things for awhile. More when we get home
Hugs to all

Want An Eyeball on The End of Your Finger?

Just got home last night from a weekend with Steve, Lorraine,Spencer and Riley camping at Stub Stewart State Park up near Vernonia. We tend to look for closer RV parks now with the cost of gas and this is one we had never been to before. It just opened a year ago so everything is nice and clean and new. Nice park! A little bare of trees right now on the RV field but they have planted some for future shade.
It does have beautiful forests all around and lots of trails although it was really to hot to do much hiking.
Saturday we drove in and did the town of Vernonia (in about ten minutes : ) It is a quaint little place but too small to have much to do. We hit a few antique shops and a pet store where a cute little bird pooped on Steve's arm but that pretty much covered the town experience.
We played games ... waited on Spencer to make the most possible points rearranging his cards : ) playing Quiddler, laughed together playing a game called "What Would You Rather Do?" What a riot! Can't remember for sure the first part of the question but it was - something like "Would you rather have white eyeballs or AN EYE BALL ON THE END OF YOUR FINGER. NOW this intrigued me! No question here. I want an eyeball on the end of my finger! JUST THINK OF THE POSSIBLILITIES HERE - with an eyeball on the end of your finger you could see around corners, look down the back of your neck if you had an itch, look in small places for a lost item, sneak a finger to the next page for an answer to a test and other numberous options. Why didn't God think of how convenient that could be !
Then we ended the last evening with S'Mores around the campfire. What more could you ask for on a camping trip. That's what memories are made of !! Fun Times Together.

Garage Sale Treasure

Forgot to tell you about my "cool find" at a recent garage sale. Judi and I went to one in Astoria that was several blocks long with sales on both sides of the street. Really cool as we just parked and did all the blocks at one shot.
Anyway I found a really cool metal lamp with a really pretty shade for the table beside my living room chair for $5 bucks. But when I got it home I couldn't find a switch anywhere even on the cord where I figured it must be but when I plugged it in to be sure it worked (which he promised me it did) I accidently bumped it AND IT CAME ON. Bumped it again and it got brighter and again - brighter still.
I have seen these but had no idea this was one of them. I LOVE IT ! He had two more there and if I had known they were so cool I would have picked up another one.

We had a blast that day. Hadn't been out garage saleing (how DO you spell that?)all year and just took off on a whim after going to a sale our Close to My Heart lady had at her house one Saturday morning. We just goofed around all morning and I found all kinds of little fun things without spending a whole lot of money.

Now we are in the middle of prepping for ours which will be July 25 -26. It is always a big job but a good feeling to get to downsize and sort things out. Always feel "so organized" when we are done.

Organization! I love it but don't do nearly as much as I wish I could. To many other things crowding in. "Clutter drives me up the wall" - Found a saying in a magazine the other day I am hoping to live by more and more. It said "IF IN DOUBT, DUMP IT
YOU WILL REVEL IN YOUR DECLUTTERED EXISTANCE AND HAVE FEWER ITEMS TO DUST."
I love this but I MUST tell you I had to move a whole pile of papers and books on my desk to find it under the glass where I tucked it so I wouldn't lose it before I could share it with you. OH DEAR - guess I certainly haven't reached my goal yet, huh!
Hugs to you all today!

The Great White Hunter

The Great White Hunters Greatest Fan

Winning The Mole War !

The other day we mentioned to Jackie we had a mole starting to invade our yard. She went home and told Chris and she said he got a smile on his face... Mike Seppa had just shown him the secret to catching the pesty little things. So when they came over to celebrate Jackie's birthday yesterday he brought his trap and set it. We had a BBQ
dinner, watched a movie, opened gifts, had dessert and they were getting ready to leave when Chris decided to check the trap. LO AND BEHOLD - one pesky little critter had met his match !

It was our Great White Hunter!
Thanks Chris !

Rebekah's Mom

I'm reading thru Genesis in my QT and there are so many tiny little things I miss that Scripture always has something new for me.
This am I was in chapter 24 and didn't get very far because I began to ponder the story of Abraham's servant and Rebekah. I've read it gobs of times but never really thought about Rebekah's Mom in this whole episode....
I was thinking of the picture on Cathy's blog yesterday of her hugging Savannah and her caption
"Love this gal." So Cathy how would you respond if a man rode up on a camel (oh, lets change that to drove up in a Camry instead of a camel) and told you God had told him to bring your daughter immediately to a foreign land to marry someone you'd never met. Rebekah's Mom at least tried to buy some time "Can't we wait 10 days or so"
Nope - Got to leave in the morning. And Rebekah was willing so off she went.
WOW - sometimes I often forget the little details of the stories behind the words in Scripture and the impact of those people that are affected by God's directions.

Like earlier in Genesis I read the account of God telling Abraham after all those years they were going to have a son. Amazing news !!! BUT note that when the two angels came to talk further about this (no time frame listed) Sarah was totally surprised. HE HADN'T EVEN TOLD HER ABOUT THIS AMAZING EVENT ABOUT TO HAPPEN (isn't that just like a man !!)
Oh yeah, honey, I forgot to mention that !

So many fun little details I often miss. Someday I will ask Abraham why he didn't tell her.
Maybe God told him not to but it isn't recorded if He did.

PS - It's Easy

Just challenged you all to comment on my last post.
Just so you don't have the excuse you don't know how
IT"S EASY !
Just type on "comment" on the bottom of the post. Type in the comment box
Check where it says NAME/URL any type in your name
Then publish.

Sometimes it will give you a silly little code thing to type "what you see"
but you can figure that out then just proceed from there.

COME ON = BE BRAVE
TAKE THAT FIRST BIG STEP ! TALK TO ME........

What Kind of an "Oholic Are You ?

Come on, I know all of you out there are some kind of an 'oholic - I know that isn't a real word but you have to fill in the first part. Hadn't really thought too much about this but when we were on vacation it sort of hit me. (Do you always take the pens from the motels ? --And the shampoo and lotion even if you don't use it. You should see all of the cute little different shaped bottles of shampoo I have under my sink.
Do you go to home shows just to see what kind of gimmicks they give away (with their name on it, of course) You know all of the little freebies that you probably never use....
Or can you never pass up a new bag or container (or whatever your 'ohlic is) of some kind at a garage sale. After all, it is only 50 cents and I just might need it sometime. Purses just jump off of the shelf into my cart at stores. They really need to train them to stay put when they display them. MY garage sales are usually full of ones that I found out I really didn't need. My sock drawers are FULL but then they have such cute sox now days and EVERYONE knows that your sox must match your shirt so it takes a lot of them. (And my scrapbook room - we won't even go there !!!)
But come on - be real and honest - you all have something you collect whether you need it or not. Come on - fess up. I rarely ever hear from any of you so BE BRAVE - BE BOLD - EXPOSE YOURSELVES - LEAVE ME A COMMENT. WOW, does that scare you.... I know some of you read my blog because I often hear "Oh I heard that because I read it on your blog.
SO I know you are there but lurking in the shadows. Cathy bribes people with prizes just to draw them out of the woodwork. I'm also too cheap to do that. Pretty sad, huh !
But back to addictions and and 'oholics guess we all have our odd little quirks in life.
But then, whatever, at least I'm not out there sitting in all those casinos we saw on vacation wasting my money. I'm just too cheap to give up the money in my hot little hand to try because I know those big fancy places are not built without lots of customer money... Face it - chances of a BIG win is pretty slim. And then if one does win, there is the greed of maybe I can get more and so go on until all you won is gone too. So whatever --- we all have our vices.
So I'm off today to the animal shelter to catch up on two missed weeks of being a "kittyoholic."
But that's a fun one I'm not giving up.