First, I hope everyone has arrived safely at your destination for this annual celebration and that you are close enough to see the pretty fireworks well, but not so close they hurt your ears and eyes. They can do that, you know. We stride for no injuries to, at, and from where ever you’re going.

Us? We’re not going anywhere except our porch. From it we can see tons of fireworks all across the horizon from Portland around to La Center, Washington. Admittedly, the displays are just teeny tiny little pops on the horizon, but we can see them. Then there are always the neighbors who pop off all manner of illegal fireworks in the neighbor hoods below us. So, it will be a festive evening of startling noises, bright flashes, and barking dogs.

Diane’s busy making potato salad for our 3-fer lunch with her Mom. I love it when she cooks pretty much anything. I especially love when she finds a good-looking recipe and ad libs the ingredients because she doesn’t have everything called for. It’s always excellent and a taste treat. My favorites, in case you’re wondering, are her meatloaf, sloppy joe, beef stew, pork chops, steaks, bacon, pancakes, eggs, cheese, milk, mashed potatoes, and crackers. There are more, but I’ve run out of nouns for the moment. All I ever make is chicken and noodles for the mashed potatoes, as you may have seen in previous blogs. Oh, yes! I make omelets, too. Actually, it’s only omelet because I always make one huge one that we cut in half – 6 eggs and two handfuls of grated cheese. Sometimes three.

I got to sleep in this morning because Diane got up with the dogs. They slept in, too. Probably because it was their first night without guests in the past three days. We had Ziva and Daisy while Jeff & Heather took the little girls to the beach for a couple of days. Tiana would have gone, too, but she’s at Kiawanis Camp on Mt. Hood this week. Fun for all.

The guest dogs were good as gold and they got along great with the normal residents, Ozzie and Panzee. They even shared the big dog food bowl and water. The cat ignored them, which was perfect, because the only cats they chase are the ones who run. Breezie knows the rules of survival. Plus, she has claws and they know it.

Yesterday Daniel, Jeran and I worked at getting the floor replaced in the bathroom we tore apart. The girls, Jennifer & Diane, made a trip to Lowe’s at Delta Park in Portland to get a new tub and linoleum for the floor. The next event is to put the tub in place they rearrange the plumbing because the new tub is about 4 inches taller than the old one. So, all the controls and exits need to be moved up the wall. It’s copper pipe so we’ll have fun with that. It requires a torch and I just love to do things that allow me to use my torch.

It’s almost time for my noon nap so I’m going to quit.

Again, everyone stay safe.