2026
I guess I'm losing steam on keeping my website up as I'm actually writing this first entry in mid April. So, let's see if I can go back and reconstruct the first 4 months of this year.
I guess my first battle of sorts was with Max. He seemed to me to be cold as I would often find him laying on one of the heating vents or in the sun. I saw these self-generating heating mats for pets where it is their own body heat that warms them up. So, I ordered two - one for Max and one for Maggie. Initially, they were having none of it! I did find Max would lie on one if I had it on my legs, but that wasn't really the idea. I bought some catnip spray and thought that might help. He was more interested in where it got on my bed blanket than on the pad. I tried putting in on one of the recliners that he often frequented because of the two black cushions on that. Nope. He just laid on the other recliner where they were. My poor cleaning lady, Kathy, spends almost as much time getting cat hair off the furniture as she does cleaning the rest of the house. So, we put a blanket over those two cushions and voila' he got on the heating pad! The next two weeks found him rotating between the back of the couch, the chair with the cushions and the heating pad. Sorry Kathy!
I guess the next thing of note is the Coos Singers concert on March 9th. We had it at Marshfield High School again and though attendance wasn't as large as the Christmas concert, there were probably well over 300 people there. We are separating from the college now as they couldn't provide us with a big enough rehearsal space. We're in the process of becoming a 501(c)(3) though it will probably take most of the year to put that into place.
I'm in the front row just to the right of the piano.
And next up is my birthday on March 11th. I've been at the Visitor Center almost a year now and have found that they celebrate everyone's birthday on the closest day you work to your birthday which for me was Monday, the 9th, so I was treated to a balloon, a song and a nice gift card to Starbuck's.
I brought the balloon home and a month later it's still flying high in my bedroom. Wonder how long it will last? LOL
The afternoon of my actual birthday on Wednesday I got to play bridge at a friend's house for the first Wednesday group that I'm in which this month had to be on the second Wednesday. It was a lovely way to spend my 76th.
I also had a lovely assortment of flowers in bloom at home and decided to take photos of everything. I'm amazed at how long the cacti have bloomed and I'm totally impressed by my amaryllis that have bloomed twice this spring.
The hyacinths were a birthday present from my cleaning lady. The orchid is the one I've been growing in water and the rest I've had a while, but they have just blown me away this year!
And the afternoon of April 12th was the Annual Spelling Bee to raise funds for the library. Janet and I participated in it twice and after she died, two friends, Stacy and Gail, invited me to join their team. Gail is an incredible speller. I call her a walking dictionary. We're won this contest at least 4 or 5 times since I've been with them and maybe more. Yesterday was a challenge though. We were down to two teams and neither of us could spell a number of words. You have to spell correctly the word the other team misses and then spell another correctly to win. We went through about 4 rounds of misses when finally we pulled it out. I should say Gail pulled it out. I write the word on the overhead, Stacy pronounces it and Gail is the one who gives it to me to write out. I spelled quite a few of the words correctly, but we would not even place if it was up to me.
So, here's the winning team: Gail on the left, Stacy in the middle and then me. I have no idea where I got that jacket, but it's perfect for this event. I'll put it in the closet now until next year.
The other photo is of two sisters who are the busy bees. They were making all kinds of signs and signals in the back as the teams progressed and when we were switching in and out they were dancing. They were hysterical!
On March 28th I participated in the No Kings rally here. There were over 3000 towns and cities participating and they think we had almost 1000 here. I think that may be high, but it was pretty well attended. I stayed on 101 South this time which wasn't as crowded. They say over 8 million participated across the country.
