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A Week in Photos: 2026, Part 11
March 18, 2026
Monday, March 9: The friends who were kind enough to let me stay in their guest bedroom for the weekend had to leave the house before I managed to get myself packed up. Their dog felt it necessary to come outside and supervise me loading the car. There’s an electric fence, so they said it was okay if he stayed out until they got back, but I worried about that, so tried to get the dog inside, but he wasn’t having it. After chasing him around the yard for a few minutes and trying to lure him in with a treat, I gave up and went inside myself. Took about three minutes for the dog to appear at the back door, curious about what I was doing. He came in, ate the treat that hadn’t enticed him in before, and I left feeling good that he wasn’t going to get dognapped or something else bad. Because there was 6 to 10 inches of daytime snow forecast for the main mountain pass between me and home (and more coming after that), I decided to drive the long way around through Portland, which meant several additional hours in the car but I saw no snow the whole way and got to enjoy driving along the Columbia River in mostly sunny conditions. I stopped for conveyor belt sushi at a place in Tacoma so that was a nice break from the road. I got back to the house a few hours before I headed out to pick up Mr. Karen from the hotel where the airport bus drops off.
Tuesday, March 10: Washington requires you to get a new drivers license within 30 days of moving to the state. The website that walks one through this process emphasizes making an appointment at one of the licensing offices. The first appointment I could find at the office closest to our new house was on April 24th, more than 60 days after our official move date. After refreshing the site a few times, I spotted one appointment this week at an office 60 miles away so grabbed that, kept refreshing and found another appointment for Mr. Karen at a different office about 20 miles north of a couple days later, then refreshed some more and was able to move his to the same day as mine. It was as bad as trying to get Lightning Lane spots at a Disney park. Ah well, at least I won’t have to do that again for years. After all that fussing around on the computer, I made a frozen pizza for dinner. The oven door doesn’t shut properly, but wedging the snow brush from the car under the handle takes care of that until we can get it fixed properly.
Wednesday, March 11: After working flawlessly since we’ve been here, the washing machine threw an error code. Fortunately, the fix we found on the internet (taking off the water supply lines, removing the filters, cleaning them, the putting everything back where it started) worked. Took the opportunity to clean the floors under the machine as that hadn’t been done in a while apparently. Then for added excitement to round out our day, we had our first power outage at the new house, courtesy of a wind storm. Mr. Karen was prepared with several flashlights and by a stroke of luck, I’d grabbed a box of candles to bring back on my last trip to Idaho, so we were fine for the few hours the lights were out. One wrinkle we weren’t used to not having had a well before: the pump is electric, so we had no water as well as no lights. Might have to get a backup generator or something if this happens a lot.
Thursday, March 12: Got up early and drove over an hour to get to my drivers license appointment, to find a nearly deserted waiting area and I didn’t even get a chance to sign in at the kiosk before the man behind the counter was calling me to just come up. Mr. Karen did get to use the kiosk to sign up for a walk in appointment, and he was called up just after I finished up. So much for having to have an appointment; too bad I stressed so much over it. He canceled his afternoon appointment at the other office and we went to brunch at a restaurant around the corner from the office. Browsed in a couple shops as well before we headed back towards home.
Friday, March 13: Another day of trying to get settled capped with a nice sunset view.
Saturday, March 14: Some trees down by the barn have started to bloom. Will be interested to see the place as spring starts springing.
Sunday, March 15: The mountains were out again. Cell phone pictures don’t do them justice.
On this date in 2016 through 2025: No journal entries
2015: Putting Myself Out to Pasture
2006 through 2014: No entries
2005: Birthday Girlzilla
2003 & 2004: No entries