Our Christmas Lights

Over the weekend and then again today we put up the Christmas Lights.  It has been real cold out and then we have had fog set in as well.  Right now it is 34 degrees out.  I think it reached a high of 35 degrees today. The weekend was not much warmer.  This year we had a couple tenants that volunteered to help put up th elights and they have had a blast!   For the one tenant it is the first time he has ever put up Christmas lights.   He is fun to watch because he is just like a kid with a new toy.  Anyway I thought I would post some pictures so you can see how they look.

Fog, Fog, and more Fog

I cannot believe how foggy it has been this last week.  It has started to set in at about 6:00 every evening and hangs around until at least 9 or 10 the following morning.  Some days it just stays foggy all day long.   Maybe they should have named this area sleepy hollow :).   It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is tomorrow.  To me it seems like it should be about June or July.  Everything has just sort of snuck up on me this year.  I have only managed to get a couple of things done this year that I wanted to.  And here we are staring at the end of the year. Don't get me wrong I am very thankful for so many things.  Especially for my family.  They have brought a whole new meaning to my life.  I am glad that we were able to fly back and see them this year.   And I am looking forward to when we will be able to do it again. I am also thankful that I am able to be here for my Mom.  She turns 75 in just a few days and has started to enter that difficult stage of her life.   She tends to get frustrated more easily these days and although she is not having quite as many issues with her memory since the surgery.  It is still noticable. Thank god the tenants are understanding and help her to work through it.  Of course it could be that they are just as forgetful and do not realize that she told them the same thing just 10 minutes prior.  Either way it is good to be able to have her living so close that I can keep on eye on her and try to make sure she has what she needs. 

Bundt Dutch Apple Cake

Laurie found this recipe on allrecipes.com

Bundt Dutch Apple Cake

3 apples - peeled, cored, and cut into thin wedges

5 tablespoons white sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

2 cups white sugar

4 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

2/3 cup fresh orange juice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan.  In a medium bowl, combine the apples, 5 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon. Set aside.

2. Sift together the flour and baking powder; set aside.  In a large bowl, mix together the eggs and sugar.  Stir in the oil, vanilla and orange juice, mixing until blended.  Make a well in center of the dry ingredients and pour in the orange juice mixture.  Stir just until combined.

3. Layer batter and apple mixture in the prepared pan, beginning and ending with the batter.  Bake in the preheated oven for 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.  Allow to cool.

Interesting Weater

It never ceases to amaze me the beauty that surounds us here in Grants Pass.  Yesterday morning when I went over to unlocck the rec room ( about 7:30am) I was greeted with the amazing sight above.  The pictures don't do it justice.  It was totally amazing!  The Mountain you see in the picture was poking its head up through the only opening in the sky.  Everything else was shrouded in fog.   The mountain is known as  "Picket" mountain and is just to the south of us.   10 minutes after these photos were taken it disappeared back into the fog.  An hour later all the fog lifted and everything was normal again.  It never fails to amaze me.

We have already had some freezing weather here,  enough to make the ground crunchy when you walk across it.  Today it was a cold crispness to the air that means snow.  Laurie looked at me like I had lost my marbles when I told her that I could smell the snow.  At that point it was raining pretty good with a slight breeze.  A few minutes later the rain slowed to just a drizzle and the clouds that were hiding the mountain tops cleared and sure enough the mountain tops were white with fresh snow.  Laurie gave me another strange look like she thought I was totally whacko.  Guess I am just a bit more tuned into my senses than she is.... 

   The weather advisory for this area is from 2 to 4 inches of snow this weekend.  As far as I know if we get any down here it will just be a light dusting.  Who knows what this crazy weather is going to do.  Could be an interesting winter.

Sammy

I was at my desk trying to get some paperwork done when Sammy decided that I needed to pay attention to her.   She would not move until I spent 10 minutes or so petting her. Then she was happy and away she went.  It is amazing how an animal that has no voice can speak so loudly and clearly.  They can tell you exactly what they want and when they want it.

Grandma's Cookies

A couple of days ago the house was filled with this wonder aroma.  I love the smell of fresh baked cookies.  Laurie made oatmeal, raisin, chocolate chip cookies.  And yes she made them from scratch.  They did not come out of a box.  I have no idea who ate most of them.  I think it was a toss-up.  

    The aroma of the cookies baking sure brought back a lot of memories for me.  Almost made me feel like a kid again.  Especially at this time of year.

Burr Cold!

It is actually beginning to feel like snow around here.  Although the thermometer says it is in the mid forty range it feels a lot colder.   The rain drops feel like they came straignt off an iceburg.   It amazes me how penetrating the cold is.  Guess I better think about digging out the long-johns.
   I am still having trouble getting used to the time change, This daylight savings time is for the birds. It has my internal clock all messed up.   I am finding myself waking up at 3:00 am almost every morning. Hope I can get myself figured out here soon because this is for the birds. 
  Mom is doing better.  We actually went to church this last Sunday and she insisted that we go out to breakfast afterwards.  It actually made for a nice day. I have noticed that she is having less trouble with her memory.  Although she is wanting the doctor to thin down her medications.  She told me that she has been on them forever and she just does not think they are all necessary.  I told her she needs to stay on them until she gets the doctors okay to discontinue any of them.  She has an appointment on Friday so we will see what happens.  At least she is no longer in pain and the tests came back that the cists were non cancerous. The doctor told me that the reason she was having so much trouble with her ovaries was because of scar tissue from a previous operation.  That operation was over 40 years ago.  The doctor told me that she is in pretty good shape for someone being 75 years old in a few weeks. 

Where does the time go?

It is hard for me to believe that this year is almost gone.  It seems like it just got started. Here it is almost Thanksgiving and before you know it Christmas.   I think it really started to set in the other day when I noticed a guy actually putting up Christmas lights on his house.  I found myself thinking how foolish it was for him to be doing this already.  Then I realized that in a week or so I need to start getting ours put up! 
This coming weekend I need to start pulling the boxes of lights out of storage and start checking them to make sure they are working.  That is always a big undertaking that I am glad when it is done.  I have started thinking about how to set the lights up this year.  I like to change them a little from year to year.  It gives the residents something to talk about and feel good about! 
   Laurie and I just celebrated our anniversary.  It is hard to believe that we have been together for 12 years now.
   This last week I had to make a trip to Eugene for a board meeting.  I think I shocked a few people when I officially resigned from doing the websites for the boards.  I have too many other things I am responsible for and I needed to get rid of something.  It was a volunteer type of thing.  I could not be paid for the work I did on the websites  because I was a board member.  But now the boards have enough funds that they are able to afford to pay for someone to run the websites.  So I stepped away from that set of responsibilities. 
   I am still a board member I just will not have to worry about the boards websites anymore.  I was asked to become part of the AHMA (Affordable Housing Management Association) Board of Directors effective on January 1, 2010.  I will be part of the Rural Development Education Steering Commitee.  In other words I will help make sure that the training we offer our members is actually relevant.  And help decide the types of training needed for this industry. 
  I will close this entry for now.  As like always the time just seems to slip by.  And I have a couple of other things I need to get done before I go to work this morning. So I better get to them.

Grandma's Cake

I don't know what got into Laurie tonight. She actually made a cake! :) I don't know why, but a cake is a cake!! and I plan on enjoying every bite of it!!  I could not believe my eyes when I saw she was baking :)  I has been awhile since she has done anything like this.  I love it.   She made a wonderful looking red velvet cake with white frosting. Yum!  

Oh, and the Ingredients follow:   She wanted me to be sure and make sure I posted the ingredients like Michelle does. I told her I would. So here they are:

Yep, the Dunkin Hines method!! 

Works for me!

Beautiful Colors

These pictures were taken by Laurie.  They are the trees that flank the driveway.  They are absoultely beautiful this time of year.  They are ash trees and here in a few weeks they will be completely bare.  So we enjoy the beauty while it lasts. 

The garage at the end of the drive way gives me a chuckle when I see it.  There is a garage band that practices there all the time.   AT this point I think they have learned one song. Or at least it is the only one they play!  You can hear them all over the property.  It can be a bit funny at times and annoying at others.  I can't wait until they figure out that there is more than one song and they need to learn them as well.  :)