Picture of the Week


This is Shayne, my "pretty" grandson. Looks like Kevin did when he was little. (And I think I remember Mindy saying he looks like Shirley too) How can you go wrong with a combination like that?



Taken September 18, 2009 in my backyard. Another babysitting photo opportunity. Oh, and here's our smugmug site link again.

Picture of the Week


For this week I'm going back to a time this summer when I got to watch my youngest grandson, Hunter. I touched it up a little and this is what I ended up with:



I'll get a copy printed for you, Heather, I promise.

Healthcare - Yeah, Right


Wednesday Hunter began to show signs of being sick. He was lethargic and feverish. In the middle of the night he awoke with a croupy cough. Heather was wanting immediately to take him to the doctor (which, at that time, would mean emergency room) but he finally quieted and went to sleep. In the morning she got urgings to go ahead and get him to a doctor as soon as they were available. So she had Tony drive her to a walk-in clinic around noon. --

When the nurse started to take his vital statistics she had to do a double take when getting his temperature. 105.2º That can't be right, take it again - still 105.2º. The doctor at this point gave Hunter some fever reducer, wrote a note and sent them immediately to the hospital.--


So they got to the ER and the hospital did the usual triage check up. In spite of the fact that a doctor had sent them due to an unusually high fever (which had been artificially reduced with the use of drugs) they deemed him unworthy of any immediate attention. As a matter of fact, he kept getting bumped to the bottom of the list for 4 - 5 hours. He also has pink eye. Other patients getting called before Hunter were curious as to why the
obviously very sick toddler was being ignoring.--

Denny was finally told that they were #2 on the list. But the fever was coming back and patients were going back every 30 - 45 minutes. So they would have to sit in the waiting room for another 1 - 1 1/2 hours with a severely feverish boy. How high would the fever go this time? They gave up.--


They headed to a nearby urgent care clinic. Within 20 minutes Hunter was being checked out. His fever was currently back up to 104º. They did a culture but stated that most likely he had swine flu (the flu du jour), the lab was not open so they wouldn't have the results til later. The x-ray showed the beginning of pneumonia and of course, the pink eye.--


So by about 8:30 they were finally getting the prescriptions filled and heading home to allow the sick baby to go to bed.--


Why would the hospital ignore the doctor's note and concern about the severely high fever? Why would they allow a probably very contagious toddler to hang out in the waiting room for 4 - 5 hours to infect everyone coming in? This I don't understand.
--

Our healthcare system is a joke.

A New Feature!


As a photographer I enjoy viewing other photographers' blogs and websites.


Something I notice most like to do is post a "Picture of the Week".

So - without further ado -

My first Picture of the week:


This is one of the shots that I took yesterday on Queen Anne. I'll post a new shot each week if one is available and when I don't have a new shot I'll pull something from my archives. (this "thumbnail" is not the best quality, click on it to see the better quality shot)

I think while I'm at it I'll also post a link to our smugmug in these blogs, just to urge you to go take a look. Oh! And please feel free to make comments, on this blog and on anything in smugmug that you feel warrants a comment. Check back next week!

Photo Geeks Run Amok!


I promised Sarah an autumn photo shoot a couple weeks back and began to look around for what's out there to shoot.

One place I saw was Kerry Park on Queen Anne hill in Seattle. You get awesome shots of the "
World Famous Seattle Skyline" from this park so I've had a hankerin' to go!

But last weekend was rainy and miserable. So since this weekend was to be dry we set our sights on that there hill.

Sarah, in the meantime, got an invite to go with some friends from her dorm. So we all headed into the big city, but separately.


As we were navigating the Seattle streets I spotted the Olympic Sculpture Park, a newish attraction on the waterfront built in like 3 levels and part of the Seattle Art Museum.

We fed the parking meter (YOU try to figure out how to display that stupid new parking receipt the centralized meter feeds you!) and explored. We only planned to be there for 30 minutes originally but ended up staying for over an hour, it's 9 acres with all kinds of odd things to photograph.


On our way back to the car we took a side trip into the Old Spaghetti Factory to use the restroom and I found out Rick has never been there! And he considers himself a LOCAL?!?!


At last we found the Kerry Park we originally headed out to see. We texted Sarah that we were there so we could let them know how to get there, so they could meet us, but they were busy eating burgers at Dick's. So we got lots of shots, walked up and down the street getting all kind of interesting stuff, it's a very colorful old neighborhood. But it was breezy and COLD!


We decided to head to a nearby marina for some boat shots but had a hard time finding the right turn to take to actually get to the marina. So we opted to just head to Discovery Park in the Magnolia district since we were right there anyway.

We found a veteran's cemetery with all the little matching headstones in nearly symmetrical rows and autumn leaves strewn about (aboot, eh?).


We then drove up and down little streets to see what we could see and finally ended up at the Indian Center located in the park. The views of the Sound from that spot were not picture-worthy but we found interesting artwork inside the Cultural Center.


I was hoping to be able to get some shots of the lighthouse in that area but (1) it's under reconstruction and (2) it was like a 1.5 - 2 mile roundtrip hike.


Since we both had only had breakfast and it was now about 4 PM we started hunting for a food joint and ended up patronizing a little hole-in-the-wall in the Belltown area, the Frontier Room. The food was good, service was good, and they had free wifi. But the best thing about the whole place is actually their website -
check it out!

Oh yeah, we actually started the day by running to an apartment to pick up a computer for Denny and Heather. So when we got home we not only had our pictures to share, upload and play with, we had a new computer to set up! Double fun! Where do we start?


I was so psyched about our fun day that I had a hard time going to sleep. What's that saying about simple pleasures?

Mission Accomplished


Well, our warm winter is under way - our wood stove is up and running!--


It took some time to get all the involved work done, there were many steps involved, but I'm now sitting here with my robe open to keep cool...--


Each step of this job and related jobs were tedious. It began with hauling the stove, chimney pipe and 2+ cords of firewood home. Then all that firewood had to be neatly stacked against the back of the shop. That was kinda fun. I stood at the pile and chucked the wood at Rick who stacked it. He's got a very persnickety nature (you'll see me describe him that way often, it's a very dominant trait in him) so he was best suited to do a good job of stacking. So you could say I was a wood chuck - and I chucked as much wood as this woodchuck could chuck!--


Rick has been concerned about the back of the shop and was trying to figure out a way to protect it, since someone in the past either didn't build eaves onto it or cut them off after building. Either way, the back of the shop had no protection from rain. So he opted to add a small roof as a 2fer - it'll protect the majority of the building and will also keep everything below it dry. Mainly our firewood.--

We pondered what to do for a hearth and finally came to the conclusion that a homemade one would be best. We chose the tile, slate, and when I went to buy it realized it would be too difficult to work with, mainly due to it's thickness variation. So I picked up a selection of tiles and brought them home to "try them on". Rick thinks we got the one I wanted - wrong. We got the one the majority wanted. It was about #3 on my list.--

Once that decision and purchase was made a tile saw was needed to move on, there were 6 cuts that needed to be made. So one beautiful Saturday (we had lots of those!) we got the saw and I did all the cuts right in the back of Rick's pickup.--

I was ready to start building the hearth finally and ended up coming down with a flu. I did my best, a small job every day, and got it completed that week anyway. Whew!--


We brought in the stove and did the figuring where it would sit, then where the pipe would have to go through the ceiling, avoiding the roof trusses. I cut the hole in the ceiling, built the box for the support for the chimney pipe (stove pipe and chimney pipe are not the same thing) and installed the transitional piece that was also the support. I had intended to do the stove pipe and Rick would do the chimney pipe but due to a lack of communication he ended up doing both. We learned from that, though, that we both need to communicate better and not assume (you all know how that saying goes about "assume").--

So the stove pipe was done and the chimney started to go up. Bad timing in a way. Rick was doing it after work and we just "fell back" last weekend which meant that he had one less hour of daylight each day. But he just kept plodding along, finally spending enough time up there by halogen light to get the job done on Wednesday, since the rain was supposed to start yesterday and continue for a number of days.--

Last night we lit our first fire. It is a very good quality stove, a Lopi, and burns beautifully. It looks like a gas fire, it burns so evenly! Denny and Heather came up for a little while and we all sat around in this end of the room by our computers, as usual. But this time it was a little more inviting!

Got a New Toaster!


So what? Who cares? Right?--

Well, this is no ordinary toaster - I can drive this one!--


Yes folks, Rick, Keith and I went all the way down to Vancouver yesterday to buy me a rolling toaster - a Scion xB, that is!--


Rick found this one on good old Craigslist (they really should change the name to that - "good old Craigslist"). Among the description items listed was a "reconstructed title". So he immediately decided against looking into it any further. Other than that it was perfect. I urged him to look into it further. It turns out that everything he was thinking a "reconstructed title" meant weren't true, not in this case anyway. This car had been rear ended, back quarter panel, door and bumper were damaged. The insurance company somehow ended up with it and it went to auction. Airbags were still intact and, as far as I know, there was no frame damage.--



It's very similar to my Camry, being made by Toyota also, so it feels very familiar, I can find controls easily. I used the cruise control half of the way home. But being a newer car it has some of the creature comforts that my 1990 car lacked.--


One of the cooler things it has is an auxiliary jack for the sound system (it's WAY more than just a radio) so I can plug my ipod into it and listen to
my music or my Watchtower and Awake articles.--

Yesterday I wasn't excited. I was happy, but not excited. I think I'm getting excited. I have a cool cultish car with everything I wanted in it and more!--


And, for once, I have the newest car in the family! Thanks again Ricky Baby!--

About Me

My photo
After 2 unsuccessful marriages I spent 12 years as a divorcee, only to fall prey to another man's wiles. We had a fun 5 years together and then he decided he wanted more freedom so once again I'm single.

So I'm freshly divorced at 57 and have 5 great kids and now 7 grandkids. My kids are still a major part of my life but I'm busy helping my aging parents on Kauai.

I've lived in California, Hawaii and Oklahoma before finally settling here in Washington. I love Washington and come back to visit family, friends and take care of my garden often but will be temporarily a resident of Kauai.

I've moved 30 times in my life (no, my parents weren't in the service, at least not since I was about 2) and finally planted roots when I got my little house that I've owned since '91.

My family are Jehovah's Witnesses, I've been one since '72.