Hi again. If you’re reading all of these you must be getting tired of the redundancy. All I have to say for that is, “too bad, I’m not stopping because I have things to say.“

Today I did another marathon stint with “Veronica Mars”. There were a couple of interruptions to deal with some computer stuff but I still got about 6-7 episodes in, You may find it interesting to learn that I totally forgot about the NCAA Football Championship game last night because I was watching Veronica. And, you know what? It was OK. I didn’t get upset because the game just wasn’t all that important to me. That, and it recorded. I watched a little of it tonight but didn’t find it interesting. So, I’m in bed now, waiting for the lights to go out.

Before getting in bed i offered Max a chance to go outside and he refused. He just laid down with his little nose sticking out the door while I went to the patio and called to him. He didn’t move a muscle. I can take a hint.

This morning I met up with Barb and Val at the US Bank to lend my masculine presence while so they could get some reports they needed for the annual meeting. I tried doing it from home but had issues. I’ve got info enough now that I should be able to get into the account.

I was supposed to do that today, but Veronica got in the way.

I’m still gathering documents I need to do the taxes. I suppose I should wait until the end of the month because that’s probably when they will show up in the mail. I guess I’m rushing it a little now that I’m on my own here. It was so easy when you were here. All I had to do was mention what I needed and you made it magically appear. You made doing taxes easy for me and I appreciate that.

I contacted Nelda and asked her for a date. After she laughed for a little while she said “sure”. We’re going to a Chinese place on Cornell next Friday/ Her son and daughter-in-law suggested it to her. Should be fun. We all got along so well and I don’t see that changing.

That’s about all there is in my little brain today. I’ll be alone all night because Lydia decided to work the night shift tonight for some reason. I think it might have something to do with Jared.

Now I must stop. But first, here’s a shot of the Winnebago crown at the Spaghetti Factory. I don’t remember sending it to you. If it’s a repeat, forgive me.

I will love you until the end of time.

Just Me.

Hi Today is the 3rd Sunday in January which means it’s family dinner day. That could be FDD, I suppose, right. I like acronyms. I made the main course as you may have suspected by my other post this day. In case you didn’t suspect, it was chicken and noodles.

After I got the noodles done, and cooked, I loaded the pot in your car and picked up Carolyn for all the festivities. We were a group of 14 and we had a good time. It would have been much better if you had been there, but that’s our new normal, “Have a good time without Diane” which is very hard to do. You are constantly on my mind so, in a manner of speaking, you are with me always. You always will be.

You will be happy to know that I cooked and deboned the chicken Saturday and hardly made a mess. Then, this morning, I made the noodles and managed to get flour in many places where it shouldn’t be. No problem. It will get cleaned up. Eventually.

We ate at Daniel and Jennie’s house. I made the noodles at home after church. Yes, I went to church. It was a lay service and there were 25 people there. That’s pretty good, don’t you think?

After lunch I returned home to take Max for his walk. He only got a short one this morning because I forgot to take a roll of bags to clean up after him. He was very accommodating about going home so soon, but I made it up to him after lunch.

When we got back home we sat like lumps and watched “Veronica Mars” until the bed called us.

Doesn’t sound busy, but it was a good day. Thank you for getting these 3rd Sunday gatherings going. They are important to all of us.

Love you.

I’m going off script here and decided to share my family’s favorite dish that I make, once in a while. I’m not incorporating this in my Letters to Diane because she’s seen me make it at least 100 times, so it’s nothing new. I think she liked it pretty much every time, too, or she said that so I’d keep on cooking. Either way, I’m OK with it.

So, Chicken & Noodles is a pretty basic dish made with raw eggs salt flour & water. Oh, and a well boiled chicken.

Let’s do the chicken first…

Unless you have them running around in the yard, go to your favorite grocery store and buy a whole chicken. Size doesn’t matter. Remove the chicken from its plastic bag and put it into a large pot of boiling water. Put a lid on the pot and forget about it for a couple of hours.

Then gather all the ingredients you’ll need for the noodles. While searching for mine I thought I might have to go to the store for flour. After digging around in the cupboards for a while a small container of flour revealed itself, saving me a trip.

I used to use a hard, roll up plastic Tupperware sheet to work the noodles into shape, but Diane got a silicon version which is way better.

Eggs – use as many as you want, depending on how large the crowd is that will eat the end product. I usually use 3, but this is for the extended family so I used 6. This doesn’t happen often because it makes a lot of noodles.

I used a medium bowl to get my eggs started.

What we’re going to do, if you’re making this for Sunday Dinner, is use a tool that allows you to beat the Hell out of the eggs. I use this device;

Sorry about the repeat egg photo. I showed up and I can’t make it go away, so just ignore it.

The first thing you must do is put a layer of salt open each egg so it looks a little like this:

Then you use the tool of choice to whip the eggs. After whipping them into a frenzy, start adding flour, if you have flour. If not, go get some. Starting this, when I couldn’t find my flour I was right on the edge of using pancake almond flour. I don’t know how that would have worked out, but feel free to experiment.

I don’t measure anything so have no idea how much flour I used. All I can tell you is that that container on the left was almost full when I started. I used that huge poon to add the flour.

I use a dinner fork to mix the flour into the beaten eggs and it works for me. You may wish to use something else.

Keep mixing in flour until you get tired then do it some more, until you can do this with it.

On your roll out sheet, put a bunch of flour into the center then put the mixture on top.

I never noticed the crack you can see here. Apparently we had an earth quack during this process and I missed it.

Then you get your handy roller and spread the mixture all over the sheet. When you see spots with no flour on it, add a spoonful and smear it around with your clean hand.

Now, when rolling out the noodle dough, look for this. It will pull back on itself about an inch which, in this case, I deemed to be appropriate for these noodles. It just looked and felt right.

Then I flip the sheet to put all that loose flour on top of the noodle dough. We’re going to use all of it.

Now that you have it rolled flat, it’s time to make it look like noodles. I generally use a pizza cutter to do that, but I’m going to show you a couple of ways that work.

Here’s the pizza cutter results:

Here’s what my Mom used to do … roll up the flat sheet of dough and slice each noodle at a time with a sharp knife.

Then you have to unravel the noodles. As you can see, using the roll and cut method, you can get some epic noodles to share.

After unraveling them, mix all of them with a generous dose of flour.

Then you take the noodles, one at a time, if you wish, and put them into the boiling pot of broth you made when you boiled the chicken. I’m not going to go through the process of removing all the skin, bones, and gristle from the broth because it’s pretty gross. And, you might like the extra challenge of separating the noodles from bones, etc, while you eat them. That’s not me. I take all that stuff out before the noodles are introduced to the pot.

After putting the noodles into the broth, go clean up your counter and add all the flour you can recover into the pot. You can see I missed with some of it, but that’s easily resolved by vacuuming the stove when I’m done.

Now you just let the pot boil for a couple of hours on Lo, or until the noodles are done to your satisfaction. When you’ve reached this point, get the chicken pieces you removed from the carcass and add it to the noodles. Since the chicken meat has already been cooked, all you need to do is warm it up in the broth, or you can let it simmer for a couple hours like I do.

At the dinner table we use a large gravy ladle to put the noodles over a pile of mashed potatoes. There is no green things in my broth but you can certainly add vegetables, if you wish. For me, I add a cube of butter to the potatoes on my plate, cover it with salt and pepper (you can skip the pepper, Terry), then smother the pile with noodles and gravy. If you used all your flour, the broth will be thick and you’ll understand why we use a gravy ladle.

That’s it.

I must end this with the caveat that we don’t eat this much starch often which makes it easy to pig out on it. Another good thing about this dinner treat, is that it lasts a while in the form of leftovers.

Enjoy. If any of you actually follow these instructions, I applaud your willingness to fill in the blanks with your imagination and ask that you share with us how things turned out.

Cheers

Hi. I’ve been fiddling with changing the title for these notes to you but had a hard time doing it. Until now. I like this title better. How about you?

Today I woke up again at 0530 so guess getting to bed around 2100 works for me. Although I had a short nap this afternoon I don’t think I’ll have trouble falling asleep. Even though I was awake, I didn’t hear Lydia leave for work. Usually I do when I’m awake but I’m hardly ever awake that early. She’s out of here before 0600. Max doesn’t even get up to say bye to her, she’s that quiet.

After breakfast, I got Max in the truck and took him downtown for his first walk. It was another beautiful day, but still chilly. We got parked close to the theater then I discovered that I forgot his leash. So, we retracted the landing gear and headed home. On the way I stopped at the theater and got a tub of popcorn for supper.

Since Max was primed for a walk, I took him around our block and he seemed to be OK with that, but I felt bad that we didn’t get to see the river. Well, I did and he could have. All he had to do was look out his window instead of pouting.

As we went out for the walk, Paula and Rocky were going by so we walked together and chatted. Mike had surgery on his back so hasn’t been mobile for a while, and isn’t up to talking much. That’s why Paula was out and about.

For lunch I developed a craving for chicken. I considered Popeye’s but chose the Safeway deli. I had to go there anyway to shop for something things that were missing in the fridge. Apparently we ate a bunch of stuff lately.

From the deli I got their 4-piece special. I also got some yogurt. I seem to have acquired a taste for it. Tillamook, of course. I ate one of Lydia’s Chiboni (sp) yogurts and really had to work to finish it. It’s pretty horrible. The consistency is kinda like latex paint, maybe a little thicker. Not a fan.

Carolyn called to ask for help with the new sound bar. She has various complaints about the sound changing, like we used to do, so all she needs is an education on how to adjust it. Before that, I need to learn how to adjust it. So, she’s on my list for tomorrow.

Also on the list for tomorrow is chicken and noodles for Sunday dinner. It’s the third Sunday. Don’t forget. We’re eating somewhere between 2 and 3. I have no idea who’s making potatoes for this event. Maybe no one. Lydia is the only one I’ve mentioned it to. I will take the box of fake taters we have just in case.

Jennie was at our old High School in Scappoose for some reason and found these photos hanging in the cafeteria.

What a crew, right?

One more thing. Grace Novak passed away on Christmas Eve. Keep an eye out for her and tell her Hi.

Love you. Stay safe.

Howdy,

Hope you are getting along OK. I’m doing alright, but things could certainly be better. Like, you could be next to me, talking to me so I wouldn’t have to wear my little fingers out communicating with you this way. Actually, my fingers heal up pretty quickly, so it’s not a burden at all.

Yesterday I relinquished control of your Equinox at Emmert for a $70+ oil change. Actually, it was a little less than that because we get a Military Discount. That’s pretty handy.

After the oil change was done, Tom took me to a back room in the service area, and told me about all the other things that needed to be done. Like front and rear brakes, air filters, windshipperwiper blades,brake fluid, etc… The add-ons raised the price for releasing the car came to a little over $1600! Imagine my shocked surprise. I may have grabbed my heart at this point, but they didn’t make any efforts to have me looked at by a doctor, so I must have only thought I grabbed my chest.

Since there were 3 of them, and only one of me, my only option for a response was, “sure, go ahead and do all of it.” So, they got busy ordering parts and telling me I’d have to walk home because they were keeping the car until the work was done, and the bill paid.

Sounds really bad, right? Well, it really wasn’t. The work they identified consisted of things that needed to be done, and I knew it. So, they did it. Max and i just got home from picking it up. He was happy to get your car back because he loves hanging his head out the passenger window, something he can’t do in the truck.

Speaking of the truck … while waiting for your car and was talking with one of the sales people, who’s name I should remember, but can’t, and told her it would be interesting to know how much they would give me for the truck. I figure I don’t really need a truck since I have no plans to be driving all over the place, visiting campgrounds we’ve talked about because I won’t be doing that alone. If the truck goes, so does the trailer. While I’m at it, let’s toss the RV in there, too. I won’t need any of those things. That is, of course, not true if you could find a way to meet me at a campground of your choice. That would be pretty awesome.

I’m going to let that thought process simmer down a bit and talk a little about the walk about Max and I did downtown today.

First, I took the truck to the Kozy for coffee this morning and had a nice visit with Jeff and Larry. I left Max at home. I brought him back after coffee for our walk about. It was either that or he was going to bite me without warning for no reason. So, as soon as I returned home, we got in the truck and headed for town.

Instead of driving to the end of the paved road, like I’ve been doing, I stopped just across from the court house square on 1st Street. Doing that gave us more walking space, and provided some new delights to smell as we moved about. As you know, he’s all about the smells.

We went down and circled around Gracie’s then back up around the square, and back up to 1st Street. On the way we stopped at Wiggle Butz for a visit, and to let them know we were happy they were back. The last time we saw them they were in the process of boxing everything up to move. Turns out they just moved one space to the left.

A little further down the street, toward the parked truck, an item in one of the gift stores, “Spilt Ink Gallery”, caught my eye and drew us in to visit.

I talked with the person in charge at the time, and discovered that most of the items in the store were made by local, Columbia County artists. We love stores like that, right? Everything I saw was way better than the vast majority of gift shops we’ve visited in our travels. As it turns out, the clerk in the store is one of the owner. Her name is Diane. I knew there had to be something special that drew me into the store. Diane and her daughter, and granddaughter own the store. The granddaughter is a gifted artist and her art takes up a large amount of wall space. I made up my mind right then that I was going to go on a saving spree so I could bring some of it home. You should go there and have a look. I’m sure you will agree with me on the quality.

I didn’t get a chance to look at everything because Max was getting antsy and wanted to move along. So, my next trip there I’ll be dog-less. Please do not tell him about this plan.

So, I bid Diane adieu, and we went on our way. It was a very pleasant moment for me and I’m already looking forward to a return visit.

Shortly after we got home, Tom called to report the work was done on your car. So I put Max in his walk about gear and away we went. As we crossed Highway 30 by ACE, he kept dodging to the left because the was a dog walker crossing the street in the other crosswalk and Max apparently thought it would be fun to go visit. While tugging him back into our crosswalk, over and over, all the way across the highway, I wondered how he survived for 2 years on his own without getting run over. It was kind of like when he tried to jump out the passenger window in Bisbee, AZ to get the cat that crossed in front of us. Remember that? I think you do, because you almost dislocated your shoulder when you grabbed for him. He’s a silly critter.

I’m stopping now. I love you dearly, and miss having you around. Tell everyone hello for me. Here’s the view from the court house down town. It was a beautiful day. Reminded me of beautiful you.

Me

Good Evening on this wonderful Tuesday,

Wonderful is a subjective word for sure because I’ve been up since 0300. For some reason I woke up around 0230 and couldn’t go back to sleep. When i got tired of laying there, with no hope of going back to sleep, I got up and even took Max outside for a little relief. She was confused, I’m sure, because there are days when he doesn’t get a whiff of outdoors until 0900. She was pleased and he was a good dog and didn’t run away. He’s been known to do that, you may recall.

To while away the time, I found a book you left called “The Day I Died” and found it to be quite interesting. By 0600 I had it half gone and decided I should wake Lydia up so she wouldn’t be late to work. She’s usually gone by 0600 but this morning she was still zonked. I went in and poked my finger into her left arm and she assured me that she wasn’t working today because it’s Tuesday. I knew that. I have no idea why I was compelled to wake her. She went right back to sleep, though so I believe I was forgiven.

Then I made myself some coffee and breakfast (Jimmy Dean), ate it, and took a nap in my chair. Ai stayed there until Lydia appeared and reported that she was going somewhere. I actually have no idea what she said but it didn’t matter because I have ways of finding out where she is all the time. Just as she can find me any time she wants. I think she went to Safeway.

When she left, I took Max for his morning walk. Wee got back before Lydia and started our second nap off the day.

At some time before noon a guy showed up to fix the garage door openers. I’ve been fiddling with it for days and couldn’t get it to do anything. She came in and had it working perfect within 3 minutes. I won’t bore you with technical details. I was just glad he got it working so quickly. One more thing I didn’t have to worry about.

After lunch Lydia sat herself down at the table and started working on it. It was obvious that she was in for long haul and wouldn’t stop until it was done. So, I joined her and we got it finished pretty quickly. That was good because I had a lot of bills to collate and file away and a bare table made that easier.

As soon as I took this photo we tore it apart and returned it to the box. There are a few more puzzles to replace it. There’s one, I think, that has 2000 pieces. This one only had 1000.

Jeff stopped by for a while in the afternoon so we had a nice visit. Max loves it when he appears.

I’ve got to start working on our taxes soon. It will take some time for me to dig out all the donations we made last year because you always had them available for me. I might just have to make something up this year.

I’m running out of words for you so it’s time to stop. I think of you constantly and I long to hear your voice. Say Hello to everyone up there.

I Love you.

Jer

Hi Hon,

Today I was allowed to drive all the way to Costco to get “stuff” sand I didn’t run into anyone, or fall down. It was a successful trip. I actually did it for Jennie because she needed flour. So, I went. She also suggested that I get an Apple Watch because my Fitbit has refused to charge for the last month or so. I miss getting all that data it collects. I thought, what the heck, I needed something different to figure out. So, that’s what I did.

I also got bananas, Cheerios, and Jimmy Dean bowls. It was not a wasted trip for an expensive toy. I got food, too.

When I got home I immediately took Max for his second walk around the block then i spent the next 5 hours working on the watch. It’s supposed to be easy, but I managed to make it complicated to the point where I put it back in the box and planned a trip to an Apple Store so one of their geniuses could explain to me how simple it is to set up.

It didn’t stay in the box long because it was an unfinished challenge and I didn’t want the day to end in failure. I apparently figured out how to get it going before Lydia got home about 2030.

While messing with the watch, I washed my sheets and blanket. I got a whiff of the atmosphere under the blanket and figured you wouldn’t be happy with me. I will admit, however, that this is the first time I’ve washed them since you went away. You can imagine it was pretty ripe. I won’t go that long ever again. Promise.

With clean sheets, a shower is necessary, so that’s my next task.

The creek is a bit cranky.

Love you.

Sweet dreams.

Me

Dear Diane,

I remembered to go to Coffee @ The Kozy yesterday and was surprised to find 5 people at our table. There was Chuck, Jeff, Larry, Lonny, and Ingrid. Yes, the boss was there, too. Thankfully there was a spot next to Ingrid, so i took it. I learned a to of stuff about geology of the area where we reside. We talked about the Missoula Floods that created topography that’s now in place and I found it very interesting. Interesting to the point where I with I had paid ore attention in school about that stuff.

That’s the only thing on my calendar for yesterday so if something else happened, I’m not aware of it. I did manage to make it home where I parked myself in my chair to watch TV, and woke up around 1830. That reminded me that I was supposed to be at a spaghetti feed at 1700. Dang! I missed it. It was being held at the church. I haven’t heard anything abut it today, yet. I just hope they had a good turnout. It was a fund raiser for the B.O.B project at church.

Jennie sent me a text about this time asking me if I was watching ‘the game’. Thinking she meant the Ducks, I semi-panicked thinking I was missing it. A hasty search revealed that the Ducks weren’t playing until today. But, Miami and Old Miss were. So, I watched that one. It was a good one.

Now, about today. I got up at a reasonable time, about 0730, then hit the snooze button and woke up again at 0930. Max was a little antsy about getting outside so I took him for a quick walk in the yard then explained to him that I had to eat breakfast before a long walk. So, I ate and he retired his little self to my chair where he sat in a position that allowed him to stare at me the entire time. When I finally finished, he perked up, jumped down, and made it very clear that I has made him a promise, which I kept.

He knew it was going to be a good walk because we stopped by your car which meant we were heading to the river walk down town. He likes it down there. No many people go there so I was able to eat him run free for a one time. Another plus about going to a walking pals in the car is that I put his window down all the way so he can pretend he’s going 100 mph between lights and stop signs. So far he hasn’t made any attempts to jump out the window like he did in Bisbee, AZ many months ago. Since there haven’t been any cats running across the road he hasn’t felt a need to take that plunge again. Thankfully.

Max loves to watch Lydia eat. Actually, he loves to watch anyone eat, and he’s not even a tiny bit shy about doing it.

Well, the game is over and the Ducks lost 56-15 to Indiana. Ducks only lost 2 games all year and both were to the Hoosiers. Just wait till next year.

I’m not sure you were able to watch it, but had you been here you wouldn’t have liked it much. If you had been here I would have liked it a lot.

I miss you my Love.

Now it’s time to wind down.

G’nite.

Me

PS – When I took Max for his late walk this morning, this was our view. It’s nice on the river.