A Mānoa Girl's Bloggie

This evening Nolemana and I were driving west on Sunshine Valley Road and saw this nani sunset. I stopped the car along the road and snapped this photo. I love the contrast of the dark trees against the beautiful sky. I love living out in a semi-rural area where I can get shots like this without buildings being in the way.

It slowly faded as we were driving, but we gloried in it as long as it lasted. Mahalo ke Akua for the glorious colors in your paintbrush tonight!

Hootaw!!! What a way to start the next month of photos!!

I went to the post office today to pick up our mail, and just as I was leaving, I spotted a really cute elderly couple walking out…and she was wearing a fresh lei! Inside my heart leaped high with joy at the sight!

No shame, me. I walked up to her and asked if I could smell it… and she said, “Of course!” and I bent my head and drew in a deep breath of plumeria, tears coming to my eyes at the sight and scent of home.

The two of them were so cute; they asked me what kind of flowers they were, and I told them the purple ones were orchid and the yellow, plumeria. They told me that they’d bought it just before they boarded the plane from Honolulu to here. I thanked them and told them that I was born and raised there, and how much I miss the fragrances of home.

They were just getting into their pickup when I walked out of the building; he holding her car door open, the perfect gentleman. I then asked if it would be okay if I took a photo of the wahine’s lei, and she smiled broadly and said, “Absolutely!”

I’d just gotten a new phone yesterday and wasn’t even sure I knew how to take photos with it, but did manage to get a couple of photos of the lovely lei.

Then the husband asked me again where I was from, and began to tell me a story, of how, during the Korean War, he was in the Navy, and had the job of getting battleships out of their mothball status and ready for service, and that in all, he’d made seven trips across the Pacific Ocean during that time. It was fascinating to listen to him. I told him how during WWII my folks had watched the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and how, during my trips to California to visit my mother, I’d always see the Mothball Fleet in the Carquinez Strait.

What made this so special is that we used to have two lovely plumeria trees growing right outside my folks’ bedroom window. One was pink, and the other, yellow, and when they were blooming, their fragrance wafted in through the open windows.

So there we were, out in the Boring Post Office’s parking lot, sharing all kine stuff about Hawai’i and battleships and plumeria lei. As they got into their old blue pickup, I watched them drive away, and thanked ke Akua for allowing me to be there at that time and place, inhaling the fragrance of home and meeting those two wonderful people.

If I concentrate really hard, I can still smell the aroma of the lei, and my heart is happy.

Today I went into downtown Portland to Angelika’s Yarn Store to get some yarn for a chemo cap that I’m knitting for a friend. On my way back to the highway on my way home, I spotted the tram going up to OHSU.

“Cool!” I thought. “I know what I’m going to do for my photo of the day!” So I drove up and around a couple of streets in order to get a fairly good vantage point near where the tram went by overhead.

It took a few tries to get a photo I was satisfied with, and I absolutely loved that all the pigeons were part of it!

Today my Gathering group met out in daboonies of Beavercreek, in a cozy log home heated only by a woodstove. We girls gathered in the warm family room and were glad to be together.

Outside was a huge pile of logs that will eventually be cut up for firewood. This is often how wood is delivered here in Oregon; a log truck delivers the logs and eventually the homeowner will get out a log splitter and chainsaw and cut them up into firewood, giving the wood a year to cure.

I wish I’d been here to see the logs delivered!

Yippee! Today was a spinning day with a really good friend down in Canby. We each drive halfway and meet in a great coffee shop, set up our wheels, and spin away. I love these Tuesdays when I can just relax, create, and spend time with a special friend.

Look at the difference in Willamette Falls from the last time I was by there on January 8th:

When I first got to the coffee shop, I ordered a vanilla latté… loved the decoration on the top! The baristas were really happy to see us; they love looking over at us and seeing us spin, they said.

My friend and I set up our Ladybug wheels, and off we went!

Several people came over to talk to us; one woman had just started spinning but was at the “I’m scared and I don’t know what I’m doing” stage. We encouraged her and told her she’d be able to spin like we were before too much longer.

This is the result of about three hours worth of spinning. We stopped for lunch, of course, and sometimes to talk to people who came over. I love the colors in this fiber!

All together, it was a terrific day today! The more we spin, the more our friendship grows. We’re both enjoying our time together so much that we’re going to plan on monthly get-togethers. Win-win all around.

I got two brand-new pennies as change from the coffee shop, and thought it’d be a great idea to have them be my photo/s of the day today. They’re so new and so shiny, and I’ve never ever gotten pennies like this before.

I remember, small kid time, we used to use erasers to bring shine back into old pennies. I sure didn’t have to do that with these! They were minted in 2012 and I got excited about it.

I am easily entertained.

I may just keep them forever.

See how shiny?

And here’s a macro so you can really see the date.

They seem kinda special to me. Like I said, I’m easily entertained.

Don’t worry.. I haven’t forgotten about the road trip. Still working on photos for that!

Today I wanted to spin for awhile, so sat down at my wheel and began. But Little Miss Kalakoa decided she wanted to jump up on my lap.

First she walked across my legs.

Then she waved her tail up in my face.

Then she turned around to face me.

Then she walked back and forth across my legs again.

And finally, she settled down, checking out the yarn I was attempting to make, and there she stayed. This is the official photo of the day.

Today’s photo is of our brand-new driveway fence; this is a really big deal for us because the old one was broken and had a big puka in it. That was a huge big deal because right below the old fence is a very steep drop-off into the pasture. To turn around when we leave, we have to do a three-point turn, and I’ve had visions of backing up too far and plummeting backwards down that slope, wrecking my car, and ending up in pretty bad shape myself.

But now, thanks to Orvill Garren of GW Construction, we have a new fence, and unlike the old one, it perfectly matches the deck alongside the house and garage. And I feel a whale of a lot safer!

It was a cold, rainy, day today; the skies were gray, gray, gray. But I was extremely surprised with a glorious sunset tonight! I took several photos, and think this is the best. You can see the gray clouds, the blue sky, and the sunset.

A few minutes later I took another photo of the threatening rain clouds; if you look carefully you can see the fog hovering over the valley.

It was really foggy this morning; earlier we couldn’t even see the barn at the bottom of our pasture. It was about 9:00 a.m. when I took this one, and it was still 32 degrees outside. I had ice on my windshield when I left the house at 11 a.m. Later on the fog burned off, but it stayed fairly cold throughout the day.