Sunday, June 05, 2011

Summertime is coming! Finally!

The weather in Oregon has felt like March/April until just this last weekend.  It has finally gotten warm enough to get out in the yard.  I am hoping my tomato plants will take off, now that I put them outside, finally.  I already managed to overwater one of the Roma plants while they were waiting in the kitchen for the weather to get warm.  Oh well.

This is our last week of school.  Both Trevor & Diana have finals this week, and Connor & I will be done on Thursday.  He & I will do Extended School Year starting after the 4th of July, but until then, we're completely open.  I think he intends to jump a lot on the trampoline.  I intend to reclaim my house.  I get it into great shape for the Open House at Christmas, and it just declines from there.  Obviously, the main household needs are met (meals, laundry, dishes), but other things kind of grow (papers, recycling stuff, things that need sewing/fixing).  While the living room & kitchen stay relatively clear and 'company friendly,' the bedrooms & laundry room tend to get less tidy.

So over the next couple of weeks after school is out, I will be picking something and tackling it until it's done to my satisfaction.  If I can keep on track, I may even attack some of the boxes in storage under the house :)  I'll only do a few hours a day - because there's still my family, the yard, and fruit-picking season is rapidly approaching.

Diana will stay in Eugene during the summer, although I expect her to come home here & there for visits.  She needs to earn money for her term in Japan in the fall.  Trevor needs to find work to start paying down his debt from college.  If he doesn't get a paying job, he will be working for me in the yard.  For free (well, room & board).  But as that's what he's done the last few years, I'm really pushing for a paying job!!!

We also recently bought a tent trailer for a fantastic deal, which is currently with Lee's niece, Karrie in Medford. After our nephew Tony's wedding on July 3rd, we'll be bringing the trailer home to stay.  We need to create a pad in the back for storage.  That's more Lee's thing than mine.  I'm excited to have our own trailer.  Connor will probably be using it all summer just in the backyard, and anyone visiting or passing through will be able to camp in the backyard for free again (like Carolyn & her family!).  This one actually has a lot more amenities than the one we borrowed last year - lights, heating & such, for instance.  We just need to get our truck's electrical hook-up fixed, and we'll be able to do short camping trips with Connor.  Lucky for us, a 15-minute drive already gets you to river-front campsites in our area :)  There's closer sites, but camping at the fairgrounds isn't really my idea of "camping."  :)

There's no one really playing the fair this year that I know anyway - I don't know if I'll go to a country singer concert with a friend or not.  I *will* be doing as many Music On The Half Shell concerts as I can.  Those are free and always entertaining.  There will also be Movies in the Park coming up to do with Connor.  And three weddings to attend this year.  We'll be going to Canada in August, when Lee has earned his Costco vacation time :)

5 comments:

Unknown said...

My year is on July 20th. A great year as well.

Rocky said...

Hopefully, this means that we can see you guys now, we MISS you.

Also, until Trevor finds a "real" job, we'd love to hire him for some (ok, lots) yard work here. Pay by the job, flexible hours. Pretty much as much work as he wants.

Tina said...

Hey Rocky! We definitely need to get together again. We are really trying to do something with the yard & will want to USE it with friends ;)

I'll let Trevor know about the work :) He's been doing some work for a teacher I worked with as well, but she's waaaay over in the Melrose area & he can bike over to you guys :)

Thanks!!

Rocky said...

So now that school is out what's the best way to contact Trevor so we can put him to work? Apparently Sue has quite a list ;)

Tina said...

We're dropping off stuff to the UCC financial aid office for Fall term today & then he's filling out some applications. When we get home, I'll have him call you :)