A Busy Weekend

This past weekend was Thanksgiving. Scott had to work over the holiday weekend so I headed north by myself. The weather was a little tricky, but the extra drive time was worth it to be able to spend Thanksgiving with my family. My mother cooked a classic dinner on Thursday and later my sister’s family came over for dessert. It was an early to bed evening because Friday morning came early.

I picked Dawn up at 3:15am to catch the best of the holiday sales. After seeing the line outside Target, which I am not kidding, had at least two thousand people in it, we decided to skip Target and head to Fred Meyer. Thank goodness Starbucks was open early. We got a coffee and got in line, with the two other women in line. We had to wait about an hour for the store to open, but it was worth it.   We were the first ones in the store and ended up getting everything on our list. I can’t tell you any of the specifics in case you are one that we were shopping for.

We hit every store in Albany, including having a huge breakfast, before noon. Some people may think we are crazy to get up at that hour and stand in line for unbelievable amounts of time. Dawn and I don’t think so. There is something special about standing outside Fred Meyer at 4:00am with a Starbucks latte and your best friend. These are the moments we will talk about years later.

After taking a very long nap, I spent Friday night with my sister. We went to a movie theater in Albany call the Pix Theatre http://www.albanypix.com/. If you are ever in the Albany area, you have to check out this theatre. Not only did we get to see the new movie “Love and Other Drugs”, but we got to drink beer and wine during the movie!  Wow, wine and Jake Gyllenhaal's naked butt!

Saturday was my travel home day, but first I stopped off at Oregon State University to watch Cameron wrestle. In high school, Dawn and I participated in Mat Rally. In short, we managed the wrestling team. It’s been almost twenty years since I went to a wrestling meet. I forgot home much I love this sport. There were almost 1,000 wrestlers registered to participate and they had about 20 mats going at all times. There were little kids, big kids, boys, and girls. One of the best parts was that the OSU wrestling team acted as the referees for the matches. You could tell that the kids thought this was the coolest thing ever.

I have never seen Cameron wrestle before and I can’t believe how good he is!!! There were four wrestlers in his group so he wrestled three times. I was so impressed with Cameron’s skills. The lighting inside the facility was not the best, and I didn’t want to use my flash to distract anyone, so the pictures are a little blurry. Here are some from Cameron’s first match:

Cameron won this match by scoring the most points in the end.

The second match started before we could get to it, so I didn’t get to see the whole thing. Plus, Cameron beat his opponent by a “technical fall” which means he scored ten points more than his opponent so they called the match. Here are a couple of photos from that match:

Match number three didn’t last long and ended with Cameron pinning his opponent. Thers pictures pretty much tell the story of that match:

Three out of three!!! Wow! Thank you Cameron for inviting me to watch you wrestle. I hope I get the chance to see you again. Keep up the good work.

A Warm House

Our neck of the woods is experiencing the first round of winter cold weather, although winter won’t officially be here for almost another month. If this is a preview of what’s to come, it could be a long, cold winter.

The snow has been falling for a few days. Last night the temperature dropped to almost record levels. The airport registered -7. On the way to work, my car registered -2. I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen the negative mark on the temperature gauge before.

I wasn’t ready to leave my warm house this morning. It was the kind of day that said “stay inside, enjoy the snow from the warm couch!” Then reality spoke up and said “get your coat on and get to work before you are late!”

Driving to work this morning, I realized how thankful I am to have a warm house. There are too many people who don’t have that luxury. It’s not a luxury; it’s a necessity. We have been blessed in our lives to not be in the position to have to choose between life’s necessities. That is definitely something to be thankful for!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Family, friends, a warm house, a good job, and good health; these are a few of the things I am thankful for.

What are you thankful for?

My Best Friend

I believe that if you have one true friend in your life, you are a very rich person. People will come into your life at different times and stay for some period of time before moving on. You may or may not ever see these people again. You are who you are because of them.

But a true friend is the one who is there during the good times and the bad. The one who will tell you the truth, even when you don’t want to hear it. The one who will state the obvious, even when you refuse to see it. The one who will pick you up, dust you off, and help you find your way.

I have one true friend in my life. Dawn. Dawn and I met in middle school and quickly became friends. That was 25 years ago. We have been a part of each other’s lives through every major event. I can’t remember a time in my life without Dawn.

Crater Lake - 1990

We have traveled the country, and even been to Canada a few times. We have walked through Times Square at midnight; toured the White House; rode the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland over and over (because there was no line); drank beer at age 19 in a bar in Windsor, Canada; and even spent a romantic weekend in a cabin on a lake in the middle of nowhere Canada. Let me clarify that last one, it wasn’t romantic for the two of us, but Dawn stepped in at the last minute when my original date backed out.

Senior Year - 1992

We have spent a lot of time apart; but it never seems like it when we get together. We always seem to pick up right where we left off. We can go weeks without talking, but we never run out of things to talk about.

My wedding - 2004

Dawn stood beside me at my wedding (two actually). She took me in when my first marriage feel apart. She encouraged me to find that one thing in my life that made me happy. She supported me when I made the decision to get married again and move 250 miles away, even though it meant that we wouldn’t get to spend very much time together. She has made it a priority to come down and visit at least once a year.

A trip to Train Mountain - 2008

I am so very thankful for my one true friend. I can’t imagine my world without her.

The Movers

It has been a very hectic week at work.  Some early mornings and late nights.  The official move to the temporary building started today and hopefully will be finished tomorrow.  My body is sore from carrying heavy items up and down the stairs. (My body secretly feels good knowing that I have worked it harder than I normally do and that means that we don't have to spend our evenings with Ellie!) My body is dirty from 80 years of dust that seems to have settled on everything.  My body is tired from not sleeping at night thinking about the cool things we have found tucked way away in cupboards, cabinets, and cubby holes and what we could possibly find tomorrow.

Today, I am most thankful for the movers that we hired.  When they arrived this morning in their big truck, with their big moving equipment, I knew things were going to be ok.

Yes, by the way, it did decide to start snowing today and it's expected to continue throughout the weekend.  Now, where did I put that corkscrew?  I think it's time for a glass of wine.

The Boys

On a list of things that I am thankful for, these three boys would rank at the top.

Yesterday we attempted to take our annual family picture. We drove to Oakridge because it was a central place for us to all meet. Once we reached the top of the pass, it started to rain. It shouldn’t surprise me. It’s the rainy season on the west side.

We had to adapt and overcome this obstacle. We decided on a covered bridge in the town of Westfir. This allowed us a place with a little bit of shelter to stand under. There was also a covered picnic area that we used. It wasn’t the ideal, but we made it work.

I look at these pictures and I wonder when these boys became these men. When they first came into my life, they were 10 and 12. Now they are 20 and 22. I have watched them go through some pretty significant phases in their lives. I remember the days, early on, when they thought their dad knew everything in the world. Then we went through the phase where he was the stupidest person on earth. Now they are back around to thinking he might not be so stupid after all.

I can’t believe that they are productive members of society. Not that I didn’t think they wouldn’t be. It’s just that I can’t believe that they are at this point in their lives. They have full-time, adult jobs; they support themselves on their own; they call on a regular basis to check-in; they are even coming back around to having their annual picture taken.

I love them very much and I am so proud of the men they have grown into. I am so thankful that they are a part of my life!

To Be Part of History

Big changes are on the horizon at work. Change can be a scary thing. Change can be a good thing. Change is sometimes a way to clean out the old and start again new. What happens though when you don’t want to clean out the old and start again new?

I went to work today in this building.

Ok, it wasn’t actually this building. I mean it was this building, only 80 years later. Let me clarify. I work in a fire station that was built in 1931.

It’s no longer an “active” fire station, which means that we don’t have any responding apparatus that are housed there. It means we store all of the archives and old apparatus that is no longer needed. It means we are the collector of all the junk that nobody wants anymore.

We function day to day in rooms that were originally used for dorms, locker rooms, and day rooms.  Over the years we have put up partitians, walls, and file cabinets to section off office spaces.

About a year ago, we applied for a grant to seismically upgrade our building. Four months ago, we found out that we were awarded that grant for a total of $1.3 million dollars. In short, they will completely gut our building and reconstruct the entire inside to be more of an office building. This is bittersweet. I know that I have jokingly complained about having to sit in a hallway as an office, but deep down I know that I am sitting in a hallway that 20 years ago was the dorm room that my husband slept in when he first started at the City Fire Department.

Our building was never constructed to be an office building and we have done the best we can with the set up. Our drawings for the remodel are exciting. They include an elevator, a meeting room where we hold our own Board meetings, and an actual women’s bathroom that isn’t a converted broom closet. Actually, there are two women’s bathrooms, one on each floor!

The past three weeks we have spent boxing up everything. There have been some interesting discoveries, like the 1964 Annual Report, which settles the rumor that has floated around for years about the station being haunted. According to the report, on April 12, 1964, John Mitchell, the Fire Inspector, died of a heart attack while on-duty at the station. Most of us have had at least one encounter with Mr. Mitchell.

How many men have slid down this pole?  I know a few of us have.  Thankfully, it will be incorporated into the new building.  Have you ever seen a door as tall as the door that is for the hose dryer tower?

We found this scratched into the concrete in the side bay.  We like to think it says "A-1, 9-11-1959"

The boxes are stacking up around the office.  Notice the rope to the right of the picture.  At one time, there was a fire in our station and these were installed shortly after as an exit option from the second floor.

Another good thing about this project is that we are required to convert the exterior of the building to the way it looked in 1931. The doors and windows that have been bricked in over the years will be replaced with original looking bay doors and windows.

This temporary move will be a test to our strength as a crew. We are used to having our space, to being spread out. By this time next week, we will all be smooshed together in pretty tight quarters. I figure I will either get nothing done for the next year because we will always be talking, or I will get a ton of work done because none of us are speaking to each other.

I am so thankful that I have got to spend the past almost five years in this building and the history it contains. It’s just a fraction of the time it has been there, and I am just one of the hundreds that have cycled through, but I am thankful to have been a part of the history. It’s exciting, it bittersweet, and it’s inevitable. I will keep you informed of the progress and will be sure to post more as the process goes along.

Thankful for Freedom

My town is home to the 173rd Fighter Wing of the Oregon Air National Guard.

If you don’t live here, you won’t understand what I am about to say. There is nothing like hearing the jets fly. Some of you stopped right after that sentence and thought back to a time when you were mesmerized by the sounds and sights of these jets.

This is part of our everyday life. I will never forget the time shortly after I moved here, that we came out of Wal-Mart and the jets were flying. There were five or six of them and they were taking off, landing, and taking off again. They were flying so low that you could literally see the pilot in the cockpit.

There are some days when the jets fly that it is so loud, you have to stop your conversation until they pass. You will never hear one of us complain. We know what that sound means. I know that it’s those times when I say a quiet thank you to those men and women who spend their life protecting ours.

A couple of years ago, we went out to the air show at Kingsley Field and the boys were lucky enough to climb up and sit in one of the jets. They got to talk to the pilots. I don’t know who was more excited, the kids or the adults.

To these men and women who have dedicated their lives to protect the people of America, I want to say thank you. I am so thankful to live in the land of the free and the home of brave. It would be easy to become complacent and forget about the sacrifices made by our soldiers, but not when you live here and are reminded in the coolest way possible!  Your sacrifice is not lost on the people of our town

Members of the 173rd Fighter Wing pose for a group photo in front of two F-15 Eagles Oct. 17, 2010 at Kingsley Field. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Jennifer Shirar, RELEASED)

Firefighters

I have no ambition in this world but one, and that is to be a fireman. The position may, in the eyes of some, appear to be a lowly one; but we who know the work which the fireman has to do believe that his is a noble calling. Our proudest moment is to save lives. Under the impulse of such thoughts, the nobility of the occupation thrills us and stimulates us to deeds of daring, even of supreme sacrifice.” Chief Edward F. Croker, FDNY (1899-1911)

This past weekend we went to a retirement party for one of the men that we worked with. He retired after 22+ years in the fire service. The turnout for his party was incredible. One can only hope that half that amount of people would show up if they threw a party in your honor.

It may sound cliché, but I am truly thankful for the job I get to do every day. To me, and my family, this is our life. We don’t go home from work and completely forget about work. The people I work with I consider part of my family.

Young and old, everyone turned out for Doug's big night.

This is a retiree, a 20 year firefighter, and our newest firefighter who hasn’t even been with us for a month.

Mick's party is the next one.

Toni is our current "Firefighter of the Year"

  Two retirees catching up

 Doug, the one in the middle, was the guest of honor

Lots of people stood up to tell a story.  This one brought most of us to tears, although you wouldn't know it by this picture.  It was moving to hear the "young" guys tell the "old" guys how much there mentorship means to them.

These eight guys all have one thing in common.  They all started back with the city had a fire department.  Later they would merge into the Fire District.  Four have already retired and the other four don't have much more time to go.  They were so excited to take this picture.

It's night like these that make me thankful that I spend my life with people who would make the ultimate sacrifice for a stranger.  Some days, some of the things these guys see and do puts the term "bad day at work" into perspective.