We spent the week indoors due to the wildfire smoke that hung around all week long. While thankfully we were never in the 500+ AQI range as much of Oregon was, 200-300 was still pretty awful, and meant that the only time spent outdoors was spent in an N95 mask, and even then, I ended…
By the time this post gets published, we should be back fully immersed in smoky air, though we are the lucky ones. There are historic wildfires raging all up and down the west coast, including one less than forty miles from us. For the Puget Sound metro area, that is unprecedented by itself, and Washington,…
And like that, it's now September, though the weather isn't acting like it. We should hit eighty degrees today and the mid-eighties for the next week, which is considerably warmer than typical for our area. We only hit ninety degrees a couple of days this whole summer, so mid-eighties for a full week is really…
And with that, we are at the end of August. The weather has continued to stay mild, and the forecast is for more days of full sun and in the seventies. We *might* hit eighty degrees again this year, but we might not. Either way, I'm going to enjoy the sunshine while it lasts and…
I know that I said last week that August was dragging by, but now it feels like the past week disappeared without me even really knowing it happened. Lots of time out in the garden and quite a bit of work, but time passed in a blink. Perhaps my brain is simply fried from some…
I've talked to enough people to know that it's not just me, but August is a particularly hard month. In many ways, it feels emotionally more like March than June or July, except that we've been in it for that much longer. For us, at least, it feels like we are holding our breath for…
We've somehow ticked over into August, which means this past Tuesday was our state's primary elections. Washington is a 100% vote by mail state, which is completely awesome. I've actually never had to go down to a polling booth to vote. Of course, I waited too long to put it in the mail (no stamp…
It finally really feels like summer around here. After a cool and rainy May and June (and first part of July), the second half of the month has come in with a vengeance. Nothing like other parts of the country, but for the Pacific Northwest, it's been pretty consistently warm - in the mid to…
This has been a short "week" since my last update was on Monday after our week long camping trip above the Methow Valley. The week absolutely flew by, and it is somehow already Friday again. Time is strange right now - both so fast and so disjointed. A bit like time with a newborn, except…
We spent the past week dispersed camping in the Ponderosa pine forests of the North Cascades outside of Winthrop, so instead of publishing Friday's Frugal Five, it's out on Monday this time. It was our first real trip to the Methow Valley, and we fell in love. We returned home Saturday afternoon sweaty, dirty, and…