Mount Saint Helens Twenty-seven years later

It is hard to believe that it has been twenty-seven years since Mt. Saint Helens erupted. I remember when I went off almost like it was yesterday, all the ash floating around for months. I remember cleaning it out of the gutters and having to change the air filters on the vehicles almost weekly.

Anyway, after getting up and having breakfast I read the paper, and then I went to Aaron ad Tami's to pick up my landscape rake because my neighbor wanted to borrow it to put in some lawn and needed it to level out the compost top soil mix that he had dropped off.

I took Kathleen's SUV because she had parked in the driveway and I would have had to play vehicle shuffle and that would have taken almost time as it did to use her vehicle. I could not stay at their house very long, as I needed to get back so that Kathleen could get to her class.

I did get a chance to say hi to Alexis and Becca for a little bit. I also got to see how their siding project was coming along. They have really done a nice job on their residing. As a side note, Aaron called me later this afternoon and said that they had completed the residing. Now they just need to spray paint it.

The mail still had not come yet so I decided to mow the lawn. Not only did I mow my front lawn, but I mowed the strip along the neighbor's driveway and the other neighbor's whole lawn. I was getting pretty worn out, so I decided to go to the back yard and do a little weeding around the rose tree. I had not done it since last year and the ground was pretty hard.

After finishing what I had planned on doing I decided that I had better mow the back lawn before I completely ran out of gas. By the time I finished I was really tired, so I went into the house and cleaned up. It was about 1400 so I decided that I better make myself some lunch.

I decided that I would have a salad for lunch as we were going out to dinner tonight with Andrea, Toni and Chucky. After lunch, I cleaned up all the dishes and put everything into the dishwasher and started it up. Then I took the arches that I bought yesterday and took them outside.

It took about forty-five minutes to put both of them together and I set them up in the garden, but the wind was blowing them over, so I just left them on their sides. I have some steel posts that I will be wiring them to, but Kathleen has not shared with me where she wants them.

Once that was home, I went into the house and took a shower in preparation for dinner. Kathleen called a little after 1700 and said that she wanted to stay a little longer and work on her project. Toni called a little after that and said that we would meet at Newport Bay at about 1800.

She called about an hour later and said that they would pick me up as she talked to Kathleen and she did not have time to pick me up, so Andrea and Toni picked me up. We got to the restaurant just as Kathleen drove up, and Chucky was already there.

I had a good salmon, asparagus and rice pilaf that was really good, I was so tired that I could hardly eat it...but I did. I cut it in half and so I will have it for dinner tomorrow. I was the only one to have rice; everyone else had potatoes of some sort or another. I would not normally have rice but a potato for now is something that I am not supposed to have.

This last week I have lost almost twenty-five pounds; I do not feel too badly having cut my calorie count by more than half. I am sure that I will not be able to keep this kind of weight lose up for the next couple of weeks, but even if I can lose ten pounds a week that would really be great.

I eventually would like to get down to about 180 pounds, so I still have quite a few pounds to go. I would be happy if next year at this time I am at that weight. Well, I think I have used all my words up for today, so I will just say good night.