A Leap Day Update

Howdy everyone!  Happy Leap Day!!!!

OK, you can call me all sorts of bad names and pledge to never read our blog again.  I know, it has been weeks and weeks since my last entry, and for that I am sorry...sorry...sorry.  Even though we have been  very busy here in Oregon, I have no excuses.  The word "lazy" comes to mind however.

I'll get the Juanita medical report out of the way first.  She has had two more two-day chemotherapy treatments since I last wrote and is doing extremely well.  The last CT scan shows that the treatment has had the expected results and all of her lymph nodes are no longer indicated.

Wifey's side effects have been light to moderate and consist mostly of headaches and manageable fatigue for several days after each treatment.  The  last chemo will be in a couple of weeks and she will then go on a two year program of bi-monthly Rituxan maintenance sessions to extend the remission.  Although Rituxan has been one of the two drugs used during the previous treatments, the chemo drug Treanda will no longer be a part of the program and she should experience minimal side effects, if any.

As many of you have already heard, during the extended medical program, I have taken on many of the usual household tasks normally performed by Juanita.  My "Man Card" flew out the window back in October and I see little indication that I will be able to find or replace it anytime soon.  Wifey has become quite accustomed to me doing all the shopping, the vast majority of the cooking, most of the dog walking and all of the laundry duties.  Oh well.......

Which brings me to another subject.  I actually enjoy doing most of the cooking!  I had always done all the outdoor grilling and smoking but rarely ventured inside to use the cooktop or microwave/convection oven.  Well, that has most definitely changed.

Back in early November I found a wonderful San Francisco sourdough culture and have become a whirling dervish baker ever since.  In addition to fantastic pancakes from the culture, I have baked different types of bread, coffee cakes, gingerbread cake, buttermilk biscuits and muffins.  I buy flour by the truckload these days and often share the resulting baked goods with others in the RV park for fun.  I never saw this coming!!

Nothing beats sourdough pancakes!

Nice loaf!

Looks pretty good I think

Sourdough cranberry/walnut bread

In addition to all of the baking, I purchased a GoSun solar stove for cooking in all of the sunlight that we have along the southern Oregon coast.  Haha!!  Not now we don't!  But, during the rare sunny day this winter, I have been using that bright nearby star to make muffins, a beef stew and kielbasa on a bed of sauerkraut.  I can't wait for the long summer sunlight to do even more.

As noted above, the winter weather here has been mostly overcast and wet...very different from last year's mostly sunny January and February.  After over 33" of rain in December, we had somewhat over 18" in January and another 7" this month.  The wetter months of March and April are on the way.....  Temperatures have been mostly moderate with occasional dips into the upper 30's at night.  We saw a couple of sunny days last week that pushed towards 70 degrees.  Wow!

Juanita has stayed busy at the sewing machine and has a good number of quilts at difference stages of construction.  She will attend a four day long quilter retreat in Gold Beach, Oregon in early March.  While she quilts I keep busy on my many duties and have also been working on producing a series of video slideshows on YouTube that celebrate our upcoming tenth year anniversary of full time RV living.  I have three online now and hope to have more during the next several weeks.

Due to winter weather conditions, ground and aerial photography sessions are rare to nonexistent.  The Nikon, GoPro and DJI Phantom quadcopter are all ready to go when conditions permit.

I have been assigned a few duties around the RV park while the owners are away for several weeks of well earned vacation.  Having been retired for ten years now and not wanting to host or otherwise work, I won't call this a job...just assisting where I can..............

I plan to write another blog entry on March 11 to mark our ten terrific years if RV life.  I hope!