Springtime Updates

Click here to have a look at the house I lived in the first 4 years of my life.

A few more images from our time taking care of Wiley. Gracie is indeed getting to be an old dog. This little dog kicked Gracie's butt going up to the top of Spencer Butte. He literally ran circles around all of us.


And at the top of the Butte. Wiley was feeling the heat (look at that tongue!) but it didn't slow him down...


And living room life. They would frequently bark at random times, but I think in this particular instance we were mean and said in a loud excited voice, "They're heerre!" (Which always gets Gracie up and to the door), so that we could see them stand like this for a cute picture...


I guess the real big news update is that we got our car back! About two weeks ago actually. Got a call one afternoon from the police department saying they had found our car. Ironically it was parked just two houses up from my friend’s new house. Apparently it was left there, and the owners of the house called the police to tell them an unknown car was parked outside their house for an extended period of time. Luckily I was home to go get it as they would have towed it at our expense if we couldn’t get there in time. Keith was at work, but my nice neighbor drove me over. The car is in fine shape, just missing a few things – the radio, all four speakers, the floor mats, a blanket, our repair manual,all of Keith’s tools, jumper cable. what did they leave? The garbage, our soccer ball, the spare tire, and half a key stuck in the ignition. Nice to have it back. We’ll miss having a radio for a while, but at least it’s not at risk for being stolen again as there is nothing left to take. But just in case....we did add comprehensive to the insurance.

This is what our front yard looked like about 2 weeks ago. The previous tenant planted this clover as a cover crop with the intent of doing a garden out there. When the red bloomed it became quite the attraction and more than once I'd look out the window and see people crouched down taking pictures of it. Now that the flowers are gone, it looks like dying weeds. Nice. We have dug out a few patches where I have since planted some tomato plants and zucchini. There is nice southern exposure here, so assuming passer-bys don't pick too many of them, we should get some nice results.


In the meantime, Keith bought this:

He started looking at them after the Honda was stolen. He got this for a great price.....but it doesn't run.

Keith took a weekend and met some old friends in Portland and took an attempt at Mt Hood. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and they had to turn back after getting about half way. Too bad, but good for them for acknowledging Mother Nature.


Yesterday with temps reaching the mid to high 80's and us both with a day off, we took off for a much needed day out of the city and into the woods for a little hiking. We ended up going to Falls Creek which is just about 30 minutes away with a nice river side trail and virtual solitude as it is the middle of the week. We did about seven miles following the river, where Gracie spent every opportunity she could laying in the water and searching for that elusive perfect rock. Keith and I took a quick dip as well - the water was quite cold, but it sure was refreshing.

The beginning of the trail:


Lots of nice old growth (plenty still standing as well). This one is well over 300 years..


The swimming hole at our turnaround and lunch spot. Gracie was in heaven, but my goodness she was sore when we got home. The poor thing could barely get herself up off the floor.


I'll end with the Dog Story of the week:
Two blocks down from our house is a great organic market where we regularly buy granola, milk that comes in refillable containers and as of late in the evenings while I am slaving away at work, Keith and Gracie walk down there and Keith gets himself a cookie, and Gracie gets a biscuit. So now every time we go to the store, Gracie expects a treat. Frequently she gets one, and even when she doesn’t, she is soooo happy to be there, because, oh.... the potential. So the other day while I was at work, Keith left the house for about 10 minutes to help our neighbors out with something, leaving Gracie in the backyard. The gate between our yard and our neighbor’s was left open and apparently his gate to the outside was left open, because promptly after Gracie heard Keith leave in the car, she walked herself down the street and to the store. Where she happily hung out at the entrance (not going inside mind you) sniffing everyone’s hands as they came out of the store. Keith eventually figured out she was gone (it took him a while to realize that she hadn’t come in to say hello), got on his bike and rode toward the store where he found her perfectly content. We laugh at the image of her trotting down the sidewalk all by herself with her crab-like crooked walk, but at the same time are horrified at what could have happened (seeing as she is not too perceptive about cars and their danger).

Cars and Dogs

You know how dogs can sense emotions? Gracie has developed a new reaction to my temper tantrums. About a week ago, I was borrowing a friend's carpet cleaner. After refilling the water and trying to reassemble the compartments, something got stuck and I couldn't get it back together. So I started yelling at it. And hitting it. And carrying on as neither of those actions made the machine go back together. Gracie started to get real concerned, and came up to me and nuzzled her head in my hands, getting in my face. As I continued to curse the machine, she gave up, walked herself into the office, and curled up as far under our desk as she could get herself and stared at me through her sorrowful, beautiful brown eyes. I cracked up. She did this again the other day after I woke up to a note outside the bedroom door that read:

"Hey. Guess what? Our car was stolen. Call me when you get up."

After looking outside for proof, (Yep. Two cars gone and one person still in the house), and after calling the police and filing the report, I proceeded to stomp around the living room, cursing mean people and insurance policies. Gracie then proceeded to walk herself under the table (that I have set up in the living room in an attempt to get my photo albums caught up...yeah, how's that coming anyway?) and curled up in a little ball and looked at me again with those eyes. Again, I could do nothing but laugh. This is new behavior for her (curling up in tight balls under tables), but it works wonders on changing my mood. Dogs are the best.

So.....yeah. Our car was stolen. Pretty shitty. Taken right out from under our noses in the middle of the night. Not a shed of broken glass, not a sign or sound of a struggle. These were either professionals or it was one of those flukes where someone else has a key that works in our car. Of course it wasn't worth much, as we deliberately buy older cars, but still, I liked that little car, and it got amazing gas mileage (40+). Which is one of our theories as to why it was taken. Or it was just because it was a Honda Civic (one of the most commonly stolen cars), or it was due to the ever-present meth problem. Who knows. Our neighborhood isn't bad, but we are on the borderline of some more questionable areas. Still, this is Eugene, right? Just a bunch of free-love hippies? Apparently not. From other stories I heard at work, car, motorcycle and bike theft is all too common.

We are partly to blame as we parked it on the street instead of in our pseudo-driveway, but I wonder if that really would have mattered. It was probably just a matter of time. And of course we don't ever carry comprehensive/theft, so not a dime will be coming in the mail to us, except for that $16 reimbursement from Progressive for canceling the liability insurance on it. Yay. Now we are left with a gas guzzling Explorer with gas prices at their highest ever and Keith with a prospective job that involves lots of driving to Corvallis and Albany. Double yay. Have I gone on long enough? We've actually handled it well, as what really can you do? Hey, maybe the police will find it parked nicely somewhere all vacuumed and cleaned out. One can dream.

In other news, work has been fine. More good days than bad this last week, which is an improvement. And finally some feedback - they say I am "progressing as normal". Which translates into: "We can see you are struggling, and stressed and not as efficient as the other nurses, but that is what we expect." I went ahead and took it as a compliment.

Keith has been networking with the big foreclosure player in town and since we aren't having much luck at beating them at these auctions, he may be joining them. It's still in the works, but he plans to do a trial run in managing the Albany/Lebanon/Corvallis foreclosures. Which means we can no longer bid against these guys at the Lane County auctions, but it also presents some other opportunities for gaining property within the county by working with them. Long story short, we hope to have a fixer-upper of our own soon, we just need a little more patience.

Meanwhile some pictures....

Although it is raining cats and dogs right now and quite cold, a week ago, we had a real nice run of weather. I had the day off and Keith worked, so I took a little drive to look at a random house for sale, then stopped by one of our local buttes for a hike and a swim for Gracie in the river.

OK, so Gracie doesn't really swim anymore. But she does love getting in the water and doing this: Behold the anatomy of the rock search (do you want to borrow her for a while dad? She finds some real gems sometimes!):
First, she paws around looking for that perfect rock:


Then she goes in for the kill. Blowing bubbles out her nose and everything.


And then she proudly displays her catch:


After letting Gracie cool off in the river, we took a little walk among the many fine trails of Mt Pisgah, some of which they have actually made dog friendly and you can remove the leash (because we always leash our dog....wink, wink). I picked a different trail than normal that took me up a side hill, and at the top was rewarded with and surprised to find this:


View along the trail:


And finally, the new edition for the week, Mr Wiley. Our friends are out of town, so we get to dogsit Wiley for the week. He and Gracie spend most of the time minding their own business, but in this rare moment Gracie had her ball, and I swear, deliberately dropped it out of her mouth and rolled it towards Wiley as an offering of some sort. OK, OK, so maybe I spend too much time looking at and analyzing my and others' dogs. (And I'm a little embarrassed about that pile of mess in the background...).


Wiley is doing great. Pugs are hilarious. A little noisy at night with all the snoring, but we're working things out. The other thing these two do together is feed off each other with the barking. One hears something and barks, which causes the other to bark, which causes the other to bark, etc. This is happening right now....