My Adventures and Places Life Takes Me: Christmas Tree and Pillow Day

Saturday, December 3rd

This was the weekend Ben and I had planned on going over to Yakima to celebrate Willmarth's birthday and see Kevin play high school basketball but sadly, it didn't work out and there was a lot of snow on the passes. Probably just as well. Instead, I got up, put some clothes on, ate a light breakfast, started a load of laundry and waited until Fitzy told me she was on her way to the coffee shop, Cutter's, just down the street from our house. She had been in town over the past few weeks with Kelsey and her mom, Jean. Jean was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, found a hard battle over the past two years and sadly, lost that battle just after the Thanksgiving weekend. I wanted to meet up with her for a little bit just to see how she was doing. Ben decided to do a shift at the fire station. He wasn't that excited about missing pick out the Christmas tree, but I told him it was better than missing out on the rest of the busy month.

I drove over after receiving the text message, she treated me, I ordered a strawberry smoothy, she had a butterscotch scone with an oat milk something or other. I let her talk while I listened. I asked questions as she explained what happened over the last month or two. She said it has been the hardest thing she's had to deal with and was so exhausted she can't even see straight. She was surprised on how much paperwork she and Kelsey had to fill out over the past week or so. I told her if she needed anything just to let me know. I had recently lost my Grandpa Dennis and told her a little bit about how that was going. We also caught up on some other stuff as well.

Before we parted ways for a bit, I asked her if there was going to be a celebration for Jean and she said sometime in either January or February. I told her I would be there. I gave her a hug, we don't hug often, but I thought that this occasion was appropriate. She thanked me for the meet up and I thanked her back. I got into the Escape and went home.

I got the recycle ready and headed into Rainier to get the Christmas tree at Gerrit's Greens. This year they were open. They've been closed for almost three years to let their trees grow. I dropped off the recycle, picked up Mom and then Grandma Karen. We drove the short distance to Lynn and Greg's. We haven't seen them in about three years, so we were excited to visit with them. We parked the Escape and noticed there were a ton of people coming and going. It was very busy at Gerrit's Greens that afternoon.

We said hi to Lynn and Greg and they told us where the Doug Firs were since those were the trees, we typically brought home. I grabbed a saw, and we headed out to the northeast part of the tree farm. We looked at a few that fit our criteria but continued looking just in case we saw another one that was better. After about 15-20 minutes of looking, we found Grandma's and the one I liked. We cut down Grandma's tree first and then mine. We took some pictures because the setting was ideal due to the snow that was still on the ground.

We drug the trees over to the Escape and then spent some time visiting with Lynn and Greg near the fire. We paid, had some tiny candy canes and some hot chocolate. Lynn handed me a plastic bag with a toy Taz inside. She said she's been saving that for me for several years and came across it recently. I told her thanks.

I went over to the Escape, got out the step stool and the twine. I wish I would have taken my kayak racks off the top, but I didn't. It made it hard to put the trees on top of the Escape, but I prevailed. We thanked Greg and Lynn and told them we would see them later. We took Grandma and her tree back over to her house, unloaded it and helped her put the tree in the stand. I arranged my tree on top of the Escape better and then took Mom home. I loitered around for a bit and then met up with Dad at Grammie and Grandpa's house so I could look through some of the many packages of brand-new Christmas lights they had. I found a couple packs of them and took them home.

I headed back home; Doug helped me take the tree off the Escape and we set it in the garage to dry a little bit. I told Ben he could help me decorate it the next day. Earlier that day, Erika had asked me if I could stop by her house to check up on some Amazon packages she had ordered. She and Zac were in Vancouver for the weekend, and she didn't want them sitting on her porch all weekend out so they could be stolen. When I got there, they were still sitting on the front step. I unlocked the door and put the packages inside. I brought her some gift wrap from Grammie and Grandpa's house and a Baby Yoda advent calendar I had gotten for her as an early birthday gift. I left them by her tiny Christmas tree.

Afterwards, I went to Walmart, Dollar Tree, Winco, Fred Meyers, Safeway and back home again. I chatted on the phone with Ben, Mom, Bev, Erika and Trish. I showered, blogged for a while, wrapped some presents, decorated the house a little bit, did some laundry, made the bed and went to bed super late.

Sunday, December 4th

The next day I got up super late and I didn't have time to eat anything except for some yogurt. I did have time to move the laundry to the dryer and some stuff in the garage. I spent some time making sure I had everything for pillow making day at Nicole's house. Ben was up a lot over the course of the night so when he came home that morning, he fell asleep for a while. I told him where I was going and about when I would be back. He told me to have fun.

Mom and Rhonda met me at my house because they wanted to be a part of this craft day. We piled our stuff into Mom's Expedition because everything was already in there, it had the room and she needed to get gas while we were out. Of course, she made me drive.

We were a little bit late getting over to Nicole's house and lost our chance at the good parking spot on the street in front. It started snowing while gathering our supplies out of the Expedition. I always bring Fritos and cheese dip when I go over there because I know both of those are gluten free. We found a place to set our stuff down and ate snacks.

We all measured our fabric to the specifications -- we had to have Mom help us cut them since she was the expert and knew what she was doing. We all pinned our edges and then went over to the sewing machine station. There, we all had to have help sewing because most of us have never done machine sewing before. I've done some hand sewing but not machine. This took up the most time because we went about it slow and steady to avoid mistakes.

Once we all had a turn using the sewing machine, next came the stuffing. Nicole miscalculated how much we would need, and she and her mom went to JoAnne's really fast to go get some more. Meanwhile, we got to watch Lindsay struggle with Wes. He wanted to be held instead of sitting in his play pen. We kept telling her just to leave him in there to cry it out. She gave in and continued to hold him. Nicole and her mom came back shortly after, and we finished stuffing our pillows. Mine seemed lumpy but as we use it, it should flatten out. We finished our pillows by hand sewing the open edge.

Everyone got their pillows done and we took a couple of group pictures before cleaning up our spaces. They all turned out great and we had fun learning some new crafting skills. We thanked Nicole for hosting, and we took our stuff out to Mom's Expedition. It was still snowing.

We drove back to my house and stopped to get gas at the Arco on the way there. We got back to my place and Mom and Rhonda headed home. Ben was playing his video games and I watched the rest of the Seahawk/Rams game. We won that game 27-23.

A little while later, I asked Ben to help me bring the tree in so we could get it in the stand and decorate it. He criticized my cutting job and told me he needed to even out the bottom. This happens every year and we still don't have a proper saw. I remembered that Doug had a skill saw but of course it was over at Grammie and Grandpa's house because they were working on the pump house. Ughh lame. I told Ben let's go to Lowe's and get ourselves a hand saw. We found one that worked and now we have a saw and don't have to worry about it anymore when we come to this problem again in the future.

We came home, Ben trimmed the tree, we got it up in the stand and decorated it. We got the lights on it, the garland and sprinkled it with all of our ornaments. This year I was going to put my Cougar ornaments on my little Christmas tree that I purchased from Fred Meyer the previous year for $12. We ate done dinner, watched football and I decorated my Cougar tree while we did some laundry.