Fern Ridge Review
Creswell Chronicle
Sweet Lorane Community News
August 23, 2018
By Pat Edwards

Where did August go? Can anyone tell me how it rushed by so quickly? Kids are getting ready to head back to school, our coaching family members are already into daily doubles with their teams and the UO Ducks are talking about their first home game. Despite the heat during the day, I’ve been feeling a bit of fall in the air in the early mornings, too. I’m not looking forward to the winter rains, but a heavy rain right now would be nice to clear the air of the awful smoke we’ve been breathing and maybe turn the tide on the containment of so many wildfires burning throughout the west. It would be especially nice to be able to mow lawns again, too.

For our family, there’s a lot to look forward to this fall and winter… and spring. We have three great-grandbabies on the way—one in October, one in early December and the third in the spring. That is so exciting for all of us!

I’ve had a tradition of making felt Christmas stockings for each of our grandchildren and, now, great-grandchildren, so I really have my work cut out for me this year. I use the kits which force me to carefully follow directions—cutting out all sizes and colors of felt pieces, embroidering and sequining many of them, and then stuffing and appliqueing them in layers to make brightly-colored keepsake stockings. Because I usually only work on them in the evenings while keeping Jim company in the TV room, each one usually takes me about 3 months to complete. So, I’ve got to hustle this year. Fortunately, October’s is just about done.

Jim and I spent a really nice day at the coast this past week. We don’t frequently get out just to do something spontaneous without having a specific destination in mind. His mobility is such that he’s not comfortable walking on the beach or taking hikes on scenic trails, and he never wants to go shopping or to movies, so we’re a bit limited in what we can do for short “adventures.” Besides, Jim has always been a bit of a party-pooper when it comes to agreeing to do impromptu things that I consider fun. We usually end up at one of the nearby casinos to spend an hour or two, either leaving what we plan to spend or actually bringing home a bit more than we took.

Now that I’ve begun taking on most of our driving duties, though, I feel a bit liberated in where we go and what we do when we get there. This week, we sailed right on past Three Rivers and I headed for Driftwood Shores on Heceta Beach where we have stayed quite often in our younger years. Since neither of us had yet had lunch, so we stopped at the Surfside and sat, while waiting for our order, and watched the dozens of people on the beach… walking or playing fetch with their dogs, flying kites which seemed to be taking a lot of nose-dives that day, building sand castles and just enjoying a somewhat cool and windy day at the coast. The service that day was actually awful… long waits for food… but it gave us an opportunity to relax, talk and enjoy the two hours we were there.
Our next stop was going to be at Sand Dune Frontier to play some miniature golf or maybe even take a sand dune buggy ride, but we decided to leave those for our next trip when it was not quite so windy and a bit warmer.

Our short stay at Three Rivers on the way home lasted only about an hour and a half and we both were able to make the $20 that we had each decided to spend, grow considerably.

I loved the fact that multiple times—on the way home, that evening, and the next day—Jim mentioned over and over what a good time we had…

Smile!