Out of the blue last year, I took a blog break. I honestly don’t know exactly why—burn out? I do know that something in particular happened around the time I stopped blogging—the Dobbs decision came down from the godawful Supreme Court and I was erupting with rage. Consumed with white hot fury. Mt. St. Tonya blew. Still blowing. I didn’t want my rage to be the constant theme of my blog, so I paused. For a whole year!
While I may continue to “vent” from time to time, I’m going to try to focus on lighter things. Probably somewhat boring things!
Some highlights (and lowlights) of the past year:
- A group of transient Orcas swam past us last summer (on the 4th of July), complete with a couple of babies! First time we’ve ever witnessed that since we bought the property in 2003. Grandson Quinn was the first to notice something from the deck: “Hey look! Dolphins!” We all looked and they were Orcas! We were all over the moon!
- John and I went to TriCities, SeaFair, and Mahogany/Merlot where he drove the 1979 Miss Squire Shop. (108° - 110° every one of the four days in TriCities. Never been so miserable in my life. Imagine porta-potties pushing 130° inside and what that entails…) There were a couple of exhibition runs that John ran side-by-side among the 4 pickle boats with Chip Hanauer driving the Miss Atlas Van Lines. It was all pretty heady stuff!
Oh, hey! It’s me!
- We hardly saw Nate at all in 2022, as he was on deployment for 9 months, then even when he was home, he was “underway” for much of that time. Shortly after he returned from deployment, he was promoted to Chief Petty Officer, which was a much bigger “thing” than I was aware of! Pretty much as high as an enlisted sailor can go in the ranks. We were invited to witness his capping/pinning ceremony on his ship in Everett:
- Nate and Sandra’s three-year stint in Everett was bittersweet, because Covid started almost immediately after they arrived, then multiple underways and deployment meant we couldn’t see each other much. But, we made the best of it, and we were fortunate to be able to celebrate Christmases together, even if those celebrations didn’t all exactly fall on Christmas. But those three years flew, and now they are stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. Quinn starts Kindergarten in the fall (his birthday was too late to meet the cutoff last year), and he’ll be six years old in September. (He’s also lost his first tooth!)
- And to bring this full circle, here are some photos taken THIS 4th of July when Helen came to visit!
This upcoming week will be stressful as John goes in for some major oral surgery. Soft foods stocked up? ✔️
Here’s hoping for a very positive outcome and a happy big smile.
Hitler did not operate the gas chambers himself. But he was responsible. Bin Laden did not fly the planes himself. But he was responsible. Trump did not storm the Capitol himself. But he was responsible. Justice matters. -Andrea Junker
