No, I haven't forgotten...


...that I have a blog. My life has just settled down so well into a fairly predictable routine that there's not much to write about. Life without the day-to-day inclusion of my kids and grandkids is much more interesting than living here. Life here has become so predictable that it could almost be described as boring. I know - bored?!?!?! in Hawaii?!?!?

Well, the house is finished. With the help of my fun buddy Robert we got all the drywall mudded taped and painted, moldings hung and walls sealed. The critter population inside the house has dropped to nearly zilch. Now I find myself having to be motivated to do more work since the necessities are done. Now I'm into the "projects". I just made some nest boxes under the house for the chickens to lay in should they decide to use them. I have to clean up the banana patch and do lots of other yard work (which is pretty grueling in the summer sun/heat). The folks want to continue on their raised garden project but the jungle has to be whacked back first.

I do have a nice social life, thankfully, since if I didn't I'd probably be pretty anxious to get home. But I have a single friend that shares my need for company. And then we have a few couples that always include us. At a recent time at a Mexican Train game at a posh hotel in Princeville one of the friends said that we're a clique. I guess that's about right. We do all associate with others too, though. I feel free to drop in on my friends, married or not, here on Kauai. The island lifestyle is much slower and relaxed so a drop in is usually welcome.

I don't have an income but my friends are all aware of my financial need and find little things for me to do for a few bucks here and there. I gave one some computer lessons. I do house-sitting. I sell my photos. Whatever.

A couple weeks back my 8th grand baby came into the world. Colson Thomas Vanderville was born to Dane and Chelsea in Arizona. Only the 2nd birth I missed, Shayne came early while I was visiting here 9 years ago. But Rach and I are planning a trip to see the new family member in October, already got tickets. I'll be visiting Auburn then so we'll just cram a quick trip in while I'm already there.

This week back home our family kitty of 17 years finally died. I'm sorry it fell on Keith's shoulders to take care of it. Thankfully I have 2 kids right on my street to go over and help him out. We're all gonna miss our sweet Cookie but she had a spoiled 18 years of life. I even held back from allowing any other cats into our home because of her tendency to be a victim. But now Keith is welcome to adopt a new kitty or two.

A fun thing I've been included in is being a tour guide and photographer for my friends' friends that come to visit. It seem I know our island better than my friends and enjoy the opportunity to shoot more of its beauty while I'm out on these ventures. Sometimes I get paid for my pictures of those friends. Something I could do as a business, hmmm.

My life is also involving spiritual activities moreso than it used to. That's a good thing. I'm getting out in service more, doing parts at meetings and helping with hall cleaning, etc. I even got on the list to do the cart work regularly! I get to sit beside a bike trail on the beach and smile and say hi to passers-by! What a workout!

It's not like nothing around here has happened. We lost a brother in March and he was put on ice til the family could all come over from Niihau about 3 weeks later. Then he was in an open casket. He looked awful. But Dad gave the talk and Eugene (the deceased's brother and dad's bible study) got to read out of the Hawaiian bible. There were so many pure Niihau Hawaiians, and they were like brick walls, they were huge! We had a new baby born, a newly married couple in the congregation and now have a new engaged couple. So lots of stuff going on but no one knows any of these people so the news in unimportant.

Mom's cat, Mr Cat I guess his name is, caught a bird recently and we all got on him, saved the bird and I thumped his nose. I think he now understands that we don't want those gifts any more. Instead now he's bringing in dead rats at night and leaving them in the middle of the kitchen floor. Dad then steps on them when he walks through the kitchen to go to the bathroom.

Mom got the cataracts removed from both eyes finally. She says she sees better than she's seen in years. When the latest eye heals she may not need glasses, at least not for now. Her health has sure turned for the better. Since their surgeries last fall they're both doing so well.

So I'll try to blog the big things. Maybe some interesting pictures. Maybe I'll make one about our beach antics. I actually got to try paddle boarding! I should share that! maybe...

Au Revoir Rachy Poo!

Well, another visitor has come and gone. This time it was Rach. We had a nice 10 days together, and we kept pretty busy.
She got in late Thursday night so we picked her up and went almost straight to bed. The next day we did our mandatory shopping for necessities and finally on Saturday we were able to go see some sights. So we headed north. Our first stop was in Princeville to check out the condition of Queen's Bath, since we had such a great time there on her last visit. Well, being winter, the water was way different and we had to stop before reaching sea level. No visit this time! But it's a nice hike with a couple water falls along the way.

Our next stop was at Hanalei. We headed out the pier to see if we could see any surfers out on the big(ish) waves. Well, we could see them but not enough to get any good shots. We drove to the opposite side of the bay and ate our lunch, it was a beautiful day! Next we stopped at Tunnels Beach and once again - NO SURFERS! (maybe the guy lied when he told me that was Tunnels!) But I wanted to get some shots of Bali Hai from that vantage point anyway. I have to go back and shoot a sunset there some day! We kept meandering and finally came to the end of the road - Ke'e Beach and walked down the beach some there, to be able to see the Na Pali Coast. Our day was completed by a get-together on our lanai with all my friends from the congregation. It was a nice gathering with lots of interesting, good food. So much so that no one wanted to leave. Then someone mentioned the Kapaa Art walk and we were all off once again! We made a quick run around and got to listen a while to our favorite on-island band, "Quake" at the Eastside Grill. Rach and I left early 'cause we'd had a very long day!

We spent a windy day wandering along the coconut coast in Kapaa and Waipouli. Since she'd already seen all the sights on her last visit we were able to slow down a bit and just take it easier. So we spent time just meandering and had lunch at the Olympic Cafe. We went to a thrift store and found a new dining set for the folks, Rach's gift, then to Home Depot for some new rug runners to go with the new furniture. We got some great deals and the kitchen looks so pretty! We spent mom and dad's shopping day doing up the kitchen to surprise them after we had a mediocre breakfast with a GREAT view at the Beachwalk in Kapaa. We had to recover the pads on the chairs, paint the table base and cut and edge the runners. We got done and about 1/2 hour later the folks showed up, it was a great surprise!

Last year I treated myself to a whale watching trip and determined that anyone who comes during whale time also needs to do so. So Rach and I splurged on that. Due to the winds and rough surf they chose to take off from a location much closer to home, Nawiliwili Harbor. We had a great time on the boat, saw lots of whales and spinner dolphins (they jump and spin like cheerleaders!). The captain was a local guy and had a more aggressive style of whale watching than the guy who drove the boat last year but it was such a party atmosphere no one could complain. I swear every person on that boat was sarcastic! Rach really let her hair down (like when she goes to baseball games) and had a blast! I don't think anyone noticed when they failed to serve us our champagne at sunset, we all had so many Mai Tai's! Maybe they decided we all had had enough alcohol, we didn't need champagne!

We spent a day on the south and west side. Although this island is small it has enough traffic to make the drive to the other side a real job. So we got kind of an earlier start and headed to Poipu. We saw the Spouting Horn (meh) and the public section of the McBryde National tropical botanical garden. I discovered a pretty orchid and cactus garden in Poipu when I was out with Mary so I took Rach there. I also discovered the Kauai Coffee plantation with Mary and took Rach there. It's a great new addition to my Kauai tour. We ate our lunch on the beach again and analyzed the Tommy Bahama beach chairs that all the rich tourists were using. I'm gonna have to get me one of those! We stopped at Salt Pond park, walked a little. We went to Glass beach so she could collect some glass sand for a coworker and saw a seal sunbathing. In Old Town Hanapepe we found a little hole-in-the-wall shave ice vendor selling old style shave ice (no ice cream and in a styro cup) and while Rach cooled herself with that we walked through town enjoying the art galleries from the outside.

We had planned to do something else, besides the whale watching and that something ended up being bike riding! But it was a VERY windy day and we realized we were maybe only be out for 10 minutes. I had a goal, I wanted to get up close and personal with the old "pineapple dump" so we headed that direction first. There's a nice bike path being made that will eventually reach from Anahola to the airport in Lihue. So we headed toward the pineapple dump which was uphill but down wind. I wanted to get the harder uphill part done while we were still energetic and fresh. We rode up that hill with no effort and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The views were spectacular! Then we turned around and headed down hill. I wondered why the down hill riders were pedaling when we were going up and I found out. Gravity was no match for the wind - we had to nearly stand and pedal to go DOWNHILL! It was crazy! We got back to the bike rental place, grabbed a bite (fish tacos at Al Pastor taco truck) and a quick visit across the street to the Kauai Craft Fair and was gonna go back on the trail for as long as we could stand it but Rach got to a point not too far and said it wasn't fun any more. It was just too hard. So we turned around and, now going WITH the wind, we barely had to pedal! It was so fun! We wish we cold have gotten a ride in someone's truck to the far end of the trail and just coasted back the whole way!

The folks like  to take visitors out to Duke's for dinner on their last night on island so we had that planned and forgot that it was Valentine's Day! So Duke's and every other restaurant that takes reservations was booked solid. We had to find a nice, first come, first served type of place. We ended up in Hanalei at the Dolphin restaurant, right on the Hanalei River. It was very nice, we all had something different, Dad had chicken, Rach had fish, Mom had veggies and I had sushi. Because it was her last day here we had to go buy some pineapples for Shirley. She found out you can take a box of pineapples on the plane and check them FOR FREE. So we bought 10 beautiful Maui Golds and packed them up and took them and Rach to the airport around 10:30 for her midnight flight home. She posted on facebook a screenshot of her phone weather report when she got there - 34º! As much as I love the seasons I can't really say that I miss the freezing weather - except maybe the hot tub that goes along with it!

Whoa!

A whole month without blogging! Well, it's mostly just day-to-day stuff going on so, yeah.

The work around the house is coming along nicely. The house is almost completely finished inside! Just gotta get a plumber in here somehow so that can get done and we can move on...

I have a nice group of crazies that I get to hang with at least one night a week. We have a moon party every full moon, so far the weather has cooperated. Once we had the event at one of their houses and it just wasn't the same. We're gonna stick with the beach for the moon risings. This time we had music, a fire pit and the usual finger food, wine and beer. There was a total of about 15 of us, including some visitors from the mainland.

The weather has been decently cool. I've even worked outside during the day without sweating! That's saying a lot! And last week the nights dropped into the upper 50s, we had to add another layer and warmer pjs to our sleep routine. we also had a couple storms that flew through. One lasted only a couple hours, while the folks were in town and I was home alone. Yeah, we had buckets of rain but it was the wind that was impressive! The gusts were downright scary!

The folks are all healed from their surgeries. They both accomplished what they were meant to. The only thing that didn't work out was that Dad managed to get shingles just as he was healing. That isn't going away as quickly as his recuperation went!

We sure have a lot of power outages here! 1/1 our power went out just after midnight and was out for about 5 hours while we slept. The strange thing was that the WHOLE island went out!

We had the best baby shower ever last weekend. It was mostly done by the dad and granddad! We played games but it wasn't the typical gaggy baby shower games. We all sat and ate and then our tables were our teams and we played games as teams. Our table came in 2nd nearly every time! We would win funny money and after the games were done we had (click the link!) an auction for prizes! That way we got what we wanted, not just what we won!

So now it's whale season, I only saw a splash so far. But Rach is coming in a month and we'll hopefully go on a whale watching trip! I hope it's as good as the one I did last year, that was superb!

At this rate I guess it's safe to say: "See you next month!"

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.