Powder River Threadworks: From Journalist to Blogger Snow Storm, Pacific City, Oregon

So, I was entering stuff in my 2012 journal and started thinking about blogging instead of journaling this year. So I Goggled around a bit and found this. Let's see how it goes.

Jan. 1, 2012

Happy New Year: Normally I start out my journal with a list of activities I completed the year before. As a quilter, completed projects of any sort are rare. So I like to see what I actually managed to complete during the year.

1. Completed another year of day care for my grand kids, Rosalee, age 8, and Derek, age 4.

2. Joined a neighborhood book club and completed these books:

a. The Hunger Games trilogy

b. The Jewel of Medina

c. The help

d. A Heart for Any Fate

e. Honolulu

f. We Need to Talk About Kevin

g. The Dove Keepers
h. Mrs. Pariquin's Island
3. Enjoyed the following activities:
a. Finishing several sewing and quilting projects.
b. Walking and bike riding and lost seven pounds.
c. Six weeks (one week at a time) stays at our second home at Cape Kiwanda in Pacific City, OR
d. Arranged two art gallery shows for husband, Walt, at Pacific City, OR and Lincoln City, OR
e. Displayed four quilts at gallery in Baker City, OR
f. Maintained a booth at Fleur de lis Antiques and Collectibles in Lacy, WA
g. Attended 6 family therapy sessions with daughter, son-in-law, and husband.
h. Displayed quilts in two shows in Lacey, WA and Aurora, OR
i. Bought and sold quilts and sewing related articles on eBay.
j. Went on 5 spring and summer RV camping trips with husband and grand kids.
k. Got both grand kids through two sessions of swimming lessons.
l. Attended a family reunion in Kings Valley, OR
m. Published two articles in the King Folk newsletter
n. With my cousins we opened a site on Ancestry.com called King Folk and entered data, pictures, and now have over 9,000 family members recorded.
o. Have had house guests living here since Halloween.
p. Participated in a Celebration of Life for my ex brother-in-law at Taft, OR
q. Visiting neighbors and taking many trips to the park with my grand kids.
r. Helped my granddaughter with two sessions of eye therapy.
s. Organized my parents photo collection on to Cd's.
Plans for 2012:
More of the same and looking forward to whatever comes down the line.

Whopper of a Storm

The first few weeks in Jan. brought some cold weather and small snow flurries. any accumulation quickly melted, which is very typical of winter here in the Puget Sound area. We began to hear news of a snow storm that would drop almost 12 inches of snow overnight, but everyone was skeptical. Our studded snow tires went on in Oct. so we thought we were prepared. We gave the snow blower away when we left Eastern Oregon two years ago, but still had a snow shovel. But, we neglected to take the canvas summer gazebo down. It was heavily anchored with large boulders to stay up through the gale-force wind storms we get here, but we did remark that we may need to get out and remove snow off the top.

Sunday, Jan. 15 We had 14 inches of snow fall overnight. Unbelievable. Everything stops here with that much snow as there are limited snow removing vehicles owned by the cities of Olympia and Lacey. Even if you dug your car or truck out....well, few vehicles could maneuver the streets.

So, you know what happened to the gazebo...

It was sort of fun shoveling the snow...

.......... but it snowed another two inches that day. It was more fun sledding.

Then we had trouble. Temperatures started to warm up and ice pellets started to fall and we had a

silver thaw

and a four day black out. We cooked on the grill outside on the ice-slick patio, put snow in the refrigerator, kept the freezer door shut, stored ice in the snow, had hot water but only heat from one gas fireplace and it was very dark when the sun went down.

Friday Jan. 20, 2001

Walt, Matt and I bailed the power outage and left for warmer climes. It was about thirty five miles of driving South on I-5 before we found any electricity and had our first hot meal in Centralia, WA. As we drove towards Oregon, the snow and ice quickly disappeared and we had a sunny drive to Pacific City where we have a beach cabin at Cape Kiwanda overllooking Haystack Rock and the Pacific Ocean.