Lexie and Mommy at the dock at historic Newport.

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

Wow! What a stormy night. I'm here at work, late, the powers still out at our house since 9:00pm, Franks at home taking care of the house and the animals, Lexie is at Grama Betty's for the day.

The wind was amazing peaking out in gusts up to 60mph. We sat on the back porch, shelterd from the wind by the house, and protected from falling branches by the cover, and watched our three Ponderosa Pines and the neighbors evergreens, and the distant towering, leafless Oaks, dance and sway with each gust. The clouds were tinged salmon on the horizon. Brilliant flashes of blue light could be seen in any direction as you watched the horizon. After a particularly close transformer light up the sky, losing its hold to the wind, the neighboorhood one street over went dark. This was around 7:30pm. We watched the wind, and a movie until ours went out. Then I put on my Portland to Coast walk relay hat with the built in LED light for night walking, and searched out the Coleman Lantern, assembled it and lit it, found a spare box of duralogs burried in the garage, and pulled out the coleman stove and set it up on the back deck. Frank cooked us up some sausage, egg, and cheese burritos for dinner, we watched the tiny, tiny battery operated color tv a few times until it became unworthy of the time it took to replace the four double A batteries after about 7-10 minutes.

Word(s) of the day: PNEUMA.

Lexie log: I came up with my own childgrens story this morning on the way to work. Lexie was asking me about clouds, and what were they doing, which is a pretty routine question for her. I usually tell her how they work in a pretty dull fashion, but this morning as I was driving her to Grama Betty's, I told her the story of the Clouds day at work. She loved it so much she asked me to tell it to her again twice. Each time the story gained a couple additional characters and dialouge, and got better. The first thing she wanted to do when she got to Grama Betty's is to try and retell the story to her. So cute, I think I'll try to write it down.

Today I'm grateful for Lexie and Frank, Mom and Dad, the weather, the wind, hard working utility crews, coleman products, flashlights, fun with my daughter, storms, and life.

She dreams in color, she dreams in red...

I have a hard time believing in the year 2006 that movies like Shockwave (A.I. Assault) and Striking Range. Oh my!

Not the best time for blogging, having some issues, and not as cheerful and carefree as I could be. Please say a prayer for my family, please.


Word(s) of the day: WHITE LIGHT

Lexie log: I'm really hoping that we get to go to the beach this weekend. I think Lexie would have a blast with the indoor swimming pool, and going to the aquarium. Man, if we don't get to go this weekend, I'm going to try to get there as soon as possible. I want to get out and do more stuff with her. She is a star.

Today I'm grateful for Lexie, Mom and Dad, Grama Betty, prayer, tolerance, love, and life.

If you need me, let me know, I'll be around, If you've got no place to go...

This morning on the way to work, right after Sylvan hill, I hear a crash of metal and look in my rear view mirror just in time to see the pickup right behind me angle off into the other lane and it's left headlight go out. Didn't take me long to realize it had been rearended by the car behind it. I watched as the two cars pulled off to the side as I drove ahead puzzling over how I could have been so oblivious to coming so close to being rear ended. Thank heavens the truck turned his wheel, or he would have plowed into me. I hadn't stopped suddenly, my feet werent even on the breaks, so I was even more suprised by the whole thing.

Month end is pretty much over, just a few reports to update and spreadsheets to modify.

Word(s) of the day: AYUDA

Lexie log: I just lover her so much and I'm too emotional right now to type about how wonderful she is without bursting into tears, which isn't very appropriate at work, so...

Today I'm grateful for Lexie, Mom and Dad, friends, and life.

Noell, Noell, Noell, Noell....

I'm wearing sandals today. I smelled something odd, thought, "Oh, man! Do my feet stink???" Then realized it was just Karina making a pot of Hazelnut flavored coffee. Hmm.

I'm tired of Christmas music already.

I'm excited to be going on vacation soon.

Word(s) of the day: DEFLECTION

Lexie log: She's just cute as a button.

Today I'm grateful for Frank and Lexie, Mom and Dad, vacation, tape, color, socks, water, and life.

Do do doodle loodle ooo do do do, Do do doodle loodle ooo do do do

All that's going through my head this morning is the cirucus music, hence the musical title that most likely doesn't make any sense to anyone but me.

Word(s) of the day: BUGABOO

Lexie log: Happy birthday sweetheart! She had a fantastic birthday party at papa's pizza. Her best friend, Lucas, was there, she just adores him. She got all the toys she wanted, My Little Pony, and Power Rangers. While she was playing in the play room with Lucas, Sierra, and Tracy supervised my assembly of the Green, Red, Yellow, Blue and Pink Power Rangers into the amazing Megazord! What an accomplishment. Ages four and up...My rupaduppa! Emphasis on the "...and up" piece of that logic. The four year old can play with it after the "and ups" assemble the thing. It was really a blast. Lexie loved to say things like, "Thanks guys!" and she is very good at remembering aunt Patty's name. I wish we cold do it every other weekend. It made it all the tougher for me to leave this morning. She did super swiming on Sunday. It was lifejacket safety week. She even remembered/knew a couple techniques to pull people out of the pool from the last session and showed before even the teachers did. I was so impressed, I just beamed the whole time. She was so tired, but she listened so well and did so well, and had a great time doing it. -- Lexie just loves all our pets, but she has a special relationship with Chikita because Chikita is so lovey and talks so much. Lexie recently caught on to the fact that we call Chikita by singing the Do a Dear song. I found this out the other day when started trying to sing the song as she was looking around the house. It was one of the most precious moments I've had. I was sitting in bed and she was walking down the hall singing, "Do a Dear, a female dear..." Then the lyrics are a little shady after that point. So now Daddy is helping her learn the rest. She really really loves to sing, and dance. -- My ultimate most wonderful fantasy on this earth would be to be a stay at home mom. I wish I could do that more than anything in this world.

Today I'm grateful for Frank and Lexie, Mom and Dad, Karina's clothes gifts, MaryLue's chair gift, Time with my daughter, our pets, and life.