 morning everybody. It's about 935 or so in the morning, Sunday. I think it's September 6th. Bob is headed out to the gym. I am not feeling still gym worthy, gym brave enough, whatever right now yet. So I'm going to go for a walk in the neighborhood. I do have a mask just in case, of course house keys and the things. So I'm going to go get some steps in and I'll be back. Vintage and artisan shop here in there occasionally, but that being said, we haven't been in since COVID started. So we were in now, they're open. You have to be socially distant. So yeah, so we were able to go in because even if we don't buy anything, which we didn't, we like walking around and going, oh, we have that. Oh, wait, we have that. Oh, wait. I remember that. I'm going to do anything that's too people-y. We're just going to go on a drive. We're going to drive down through McMinnville, probably stop at our favorite coffee place, a little rush coffee, like Mount Angel and just drive around and yeah, just do kind of the road trip thing in the car, the couch or at one of the desks upstairs in Mount Angel, Oregon, where we usually come for Oktoberfest once a year. This year it appears that they're having a virtual Oktoberfest. I'm not sure how that's going to work. There's not a lot open right now, which we kind of expected that things are only completely open for Oktoberfest, but we're going to go walk around and there's a few things open and we'll see what we find. We'll be back. Good morning, everybody. It's 10.05 a.m. Monday, September 7th. 7th? It's Labor Day. Labor Day. 7th. Anyway, we are in the car again, obviously. We're going to go do some walking around at the Portland Rose Garden and Japanese gardens, which are outside and are allowing people in. So we're going to go do that this morning just to get out of the house. We've had a couple of days of weirdness in the neighborhood. I was walking home the other day. I think I mentioned on the vlog already. And I was walking home the other day and some people walked out of the wetlands and woods, which is protected land and marked no trespassing. They just walked out of the woods and down the street, out of the neighborhood, which was strange. And then last night we had a young man in a car, whose name and license plate number we have, by the way, because he was just sitting on the street in the dark in front of our house asking questions he shouldn't have probably been asking if we're none of his business. And I probably answered too many of them. And that was weird. So I don't know what's going on, but, you know, it's the apocalypse. So who knows? Anyway, I let the neighborhood know on the bullet neighborhood bullet. Yeah, it's just odd. So hopefully no more oddities today. We just can go enjoy the afternoon and see some sights and find out. Alright, I'll be back. I had to figure out how to mute the TV because yeah, I don't usually run the TV remote controls of which we have one TV, four, like five. And I don't watch that much TV. But anyway, I just wanted to say here in Oregon, evidently, for the next 24 hours, we're having a historic wind event. The winds made in parts of Oregon get very, very windy, like up to 60 miles an hour. I'm hoping we don't get that. But right now it's not too bad. But we are getting and I can tell there is very strong winds in some areas is a lot of smoke. So very smoky out here. But there you go. Yeah, so let's hope no power poles go down or anything like that. But it started out as such a beautiful day at the Japanese Gardens and everything beautiful blue sky. Although it was warm. It was great. We had a great time. If you're watching this clip, you've seen the pictures and a little bit of video I got from there. But yeah, then now we have this. So, hey guys, it is Tuesday, September 8th, 158 p.m. Yes, I'm in the car. No, I don't normally go out at this time pre COVID. It was always too peoply for me during COVID. I have no idea. I never know what to expect. Anyway, I need some parts, art parts. So I'm gonna head over to Michael's some stuff that I'm just not okay with ordering. Sorry, it's a little bouncy. In the Portland, Oregon area of which I live, I don't live in Portland, but I live in the area. We are experiencing a historic windstorm and the air quality is okay today right now. But it hasn't been last night. It was really, really bad to the point where we not only had all the house shut up, but I had the little air filter. My mom sent me going all night long, which I don't normally do either. I'll link it below. I don't know if it helps a lot, but it seems to help a little bit. Usually in the summer, when it's nice out, we usually sleep with the bed and window open, but we didn't do that. The air quality was really, really bad. So anyway, there's a little bit of smoke still out. It looks like from the fires, I can see it in the sky. The sun's not setting and it's already kind of an orangey color. But that being said, the air quality according to all the weather people seems to be okay. I'm not having any trouble breathing, but I do have my asthma. I'm going to put on another one of the masks from my teespring shop. I think so far, the rainbow one is my favorite, although I like all of them. It doesn't look a good rainbow, right? So we're going to put this on. We're going to go into Michaels and get done what we need to and I'll be back. Okay guys, so we're going out for a pre-dinner walk. We have the time and Fred is off this week, so why not? The air quality is not too bad. It was much, much, much worse last night, but it's pretty good today. We are still in the midst of the windstorm. They are staying out. It might last a few days. And yeah, there's tree branches and pine cones everywhere. Anyway, we're going to go walking. I got my errands done that I needed. If you guys are doing arts and crafts, like my, for instance, like my zombie dolls I've been making and you need interesting bits and parts for set dolls and you don't necessarily want to make everything. Now's the time to get interesting eyeballs, bags of bones, like all kinds of stuff like that, because hello Halloween. So anyway, use your coupons though. Alright, we're going to go walking. I'll see what I can see. I just want to show you this. So this is the sky facing that way in our neighborhood. Beautiful blue sky. The weather app says that the air quality is good. It's like a 16. Hang on. Yeah. That doesn't look like a 16 to me, but I guess we'll find out. I'll be back. Mad at me. Yes, we have my inhaler. We're taking precautions. That's behind me. Yeah, that doesn't look so good. I don't think so. But we're walking that way. We'll see. Or anybody asks. No, I don't have a mask on. There's literally nobody around. So it's the ultimate and not people. Really. So anyway, windy out. Very windy. 22 mile an hour winds. I think at the moment. Yeah, there's no way we're going to be hosting. No, there's like one guy up ahead like what 50 feet away. Yeah. So anyway, we'll be I don't want to catch any license plates. But yeah, look at this. It's just one neighborhood. And these are these are little branches. They're just everywhere. Hey, guys, it's just before noon on Wednesday. I think it's Wednesday, September 9. Yeah, I'm not sure how well you're going to be able to see that. Maybe I can back up a little bit. But yeah, that's not overcast clouds. You can see the orange, yellow, yellow, red haze. It's smoke from the Oregon fires. Although we're not super close to the fires. You can't avoid the smoke. Air quality is really bad. The wind has died down, thankfully. But yeah, our driveways. I don't even know if you can see that through the window screen, but our driveway is littered with pine cones and tree branches. This morning and despite the fact that it was, you know, eight o'clock in the morning, nine o'clock in the morning, it looked like it was like 730 at night outside. It's really dark. It affects me though. It's dark outside because of the smoke I have. I don't have all the lights on in here. It's supposed to be hot today. So that's the other thing. And you're advised not to turn on your furnace if it's pulling an air from outside. I need to see if ours will recirculate the inside air rather than pull it from outside. I don't know that our furnace will do that. Some do, evidently, but I don't think ours does. But anyway, fun times. All right. Yeah, the West Coast is on fire, including Oregon and Washington. Now not just California. Pray for rain soon with no lightning. That would be handy. All right. I'm gonna finish a couple projects. I'll be back. So we're outside. I probably shouldn't be, but I'm outside. We're not at level one yet, but we're right next door to Clackamas County, which is level one. And as the day goes on, let's see. I don't know if you can see it. There we go. It looks more like that. Yeah, there is a little bit of blue up there, but it's not a lot. So I think we're gonna go fill both cars up just in case if we do hit level one, we will pack important stuff. Thankfully, Bob and I have a suitcase horde because for whatever reason, we just like suitcases. So we're gonna just pick them all and we're gonna just fill them all up with baby pictures and the like if we have to and be ready. And if we hit level three, we'll pack both cars up and head to my mom and dads. So anyway, all right, we're gonna go get the cars filled up over everybody. It's Thursday morning, September. Holy cow. Something. I don't know. Hold on. 10th, September 10th. We're surrounded by wildfires. Nothing super close, but the sky still looks like that. Smokey, a bit orange, you know. Yeah, so because, you know, COVID wasn't enough. But despite the fact that, you know, we're watching for wildfire warnings and all of that jazz, nothing seems to be too close. But we're keeping an eye on it and we're prepared with a plan just in case. And if the second we hit level one, we'll be packing and all of that stuff. But we're not there yet. Anyway, despite all that, we're going home with life as much as normal as we can and Bob again is off all week. So now because of the wildfires, we can't go on day road trips anywhere. I'm thinking when we go to the grocery store, maybe later today or tomorrow, that we go to the one that's super close that I hate going to, which is Safeway, instead of driving all the way over to Fred's and not even taking a chance. But top of all of that, sorry, sidetracked. My parents are driving down to help finish the electrical work in the garage today. They were going to do it this weekend. But then dad said, wait, Bob's office week. I'm like, we're like, yeah, why don't you come down today? And the tree people for the woods next door to our house, it belongs to the local school system. Their guy was out months ago, like back in May or June. And he was taking care of something else. And I saw him and went out and talked to him about sort of a yearly, you know, look see at the woods since they're right next to my house. He said, yeah, we need to come out because the ivy growing up the trees is a problem. And I see a couple other issues with some trees that need trimming or removing and all that stuff. And I said, okay, when he he says, I don't know, look, my schedule will get out as soon as we can. Well, that was like back in May or June. I've been emailing and emailing. Finally, I emailed a couple days ago and I said, look, in light of the worldwide situation and the fact that all these wildfires are happening, can we get somebody to take care of the woods before they catch on fire and set my house on fire? So they're out today. So yeah, anyway, it's going to be one of those days, I think it's a crazy busy day. But I don't know what else you expect in the midst of an apocalypse, right? Hey guys, do you see that? Yeah. Conditions haven't changed too much since this morning, except you can now smell, definitely smell the burning wood. I definitely can't go outside not for long stretches. And not definitely not without a mask, even if I'm going into the garage and the doors are open. So I'm relegated to being inside the house for right now. We're not in stage one or anything evacuation. It's stage one, two and three and three is you got to get out like now you got like five minutes. So we're not in any of that. But we're keeping constant eye on it. We're 18 or 20 miles in one direction from I think in any direction from any of the fires. We are on in sort of one corner of Washington County, probably halfway between the Washington County fires and the Clackamas County fires, just FYI. So look up on the map. We're about halfway between. So we're safe for the moment. I did pack some art go bags. And so I don't have to think about that. If we do have to pack the cars. So if we reach level one, we're packing the cars. And we'll probably leave if it gets to two. We won't wait for three. We'll be leaving at one or two. And we'll head to my parents' house. Let's hope it doesn't get to that. But the cars are all gassed up and I'm ready to and we're ready to go. It won't take long to pack what we need to unplug all the computers. I'll grab a few art pieces off the wall just in case most of it's going to be left behind. So cross your fingers and save some prayers. I sound a little froggy. It's the smoke and air quality, even though I'm in the house. Anyway, I'm not going to probably get too much done today, although I'm going to sit and try and do some sketching right now. It's good for me to do some drawing and sketching. And yeah, so I did pack up some slow stitching stuff too to take with me just in case. You know, it is what it is, right? We'll see what happens. It's just stuff. So meanwhile, the husband got the rest of the parts for his garage that he wanted minus the feet for the one cabinet, which is still our tin yet. So he's out in the garage putting that up right now and playing in the garage. And my dad was here working on the electrical and getting the electrical finished out there for him. And I think also checking up on us to make sure we were okay. We are okay. My daughter is in California. Ironically enough, she's safe down there in California. They're, you know, they're in a safer position than we are. And Polyus is up here with the dog, Lily. So he's checking in constantly with us as we are with him. And the plan is that if we need to, all three of us will evacuate and we'll go up to my mom and dad. So I have a feeling I'm not getting much sleep again tonight. I didn't let to last night either. At least not until this is over and we get some rain or the tell me the fires are contained. No one in Clackamas County is not even contained. I don't believe I'll be back people. It's like 730 in the morning on Friday, September 11. Yeah, that's September 11. And we're going to remember the tragedy that happened today, years and years ago. Let's hope there's not another one anytime soon. Anyway, we have hold on. You see, you see what's on top of the fence out there, right? Right there. Rocky's just sitting there. So yeah, it's still smoky out. Of course. I think it's a bit less orange, though. Let me go to the front of the house. I haven't made coffee or anything. This is me walking around in my pajamas in the dark. Couldn't sleep anymore, I figured. I'll just get up. I got a little bit of sleep. I've checked on a few of the notifications and it seems like we're still good. Still safe. Still ashy outside and smoky. But you know, I'll keep you updated. I'm going to make some coffee. I'll be back. Hey guys, so we are slowly prepping today. Although the fire map was currently updated, it doesn't seem any closer or any worse than it was yesterday at this time, which is good news. One of the three big fires that are merging together is actually 5% contained, which is good news. I'm going to take that as a great news because yesterday, all three of them were 0% contained and they were all merging together. Two of the three have officially merged. It looks like on the map. The other one doesn't appear to have but I, you know, who knows what's going to happen. Anyway, let's hope they get some containment on all three of them soon because nobody's going to be able to relax until there's some containment. In the meantime, we are getting important papers and things we don't want to forget in a panic together. Pulled suitcases out of the closet and boxes and things like that. I'm going to grab a couple of bins and I'm going to grab something else from upstairs. I want to remember not to forget and I'm getting messages from my husband who went to the store for a couple of essentials to get us by for a couple of days and I'll answer those and then I'll be back. Everybody gets Saturday morning. I don't know what time it is. Nine something. Yeah, it's nine forty nine AM and we are continuing to sort of prep and get ready in case we need to leave. But at the moment, the current situation is that the winds have shifted. The air is more moist and humid. I guess good fire conditions. They're getting the fires under control or the front lines of the fires under control so they say that doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet but and supposedly there's some rain coming on Monday. The air quality is terrible. Hazardous to people like me so I'm not leaving now. Anytime soon. In the meantime, I'm gathering current completed projects that I don't. If we do have to leave in an emergency, I don't want to not take with me. And we're going to be getting um I'm my brain is all over the place. Can you tell? We're going to be getting permanent like clothing, go bags together, bug out bags that we will just leave packed with clothes we don't need. Um and either in this situation or future situations, if something happens, we'll just grab those bags and go. Um and I'm going to do the same thing with my art supplies. I'm going to make an art bug out like whether we're traveling or we have to leave the house in a hurry. I can just grab it go. Meanwhile, we put the corn bowls away because of things that were going on and the deer don't have any food so they're eating my bushes. What if I'm sighted towards the front door? I'm going to let them eat some breakfast and I'm going to take a shower and then I'm going to work on bags. I may pack the photo albums just in case. I think we decided last night the tax returns can burn because we do have a tax man if we needed to. He keeps copies and we could get copies from him. What a mess. Anyway, all right. We'll be back. Um so updates. Um I think I already said this morning um conditions seem to be improving but we are staying prepped and ready just in case. I'm going to close the closet door. Um I repacked my art go bags. I have two leather suitcases um and this is a big sack roots tote bag that I use when I'm traveling generally for art supplies. I don't bring all of them generally. I just pick one and bring that one and um the bigger one is full of art supplies and the smaller ones full of stitching supplies and the tote bag is full of current projects and there's enough room to throw my daily drawing bag on top if we need to pack and get out. Um I've also um put this where is it? Yeah, that plastic bin on my desk with essentials from the desk and if I have time for nothing else I have external hard drives. You can see them there. I'll be unplugging those and taking them with me. If I have enough time, of course, I'll unplug the Mac and take that with me but you know, we'll see. Um thank you to all of you who sent me so much embroidery floss and I did have an excess of floss. I had this extra box that was sitting on top of my thread cabinet. Um it still has some fibers in it. I'm going to take them out. The majority of the floss that you all sent that was in here is now in my stitching bag um and I'm not you know for now it's going to stay in there. There's things in there I don't need ready access to um but at the same time if I am traveling and want to take stitching or if I um in in this situation I'm in now then I can just take that with me and I have something to do on completely stressed out and bonkers right. So anyway, we are going to continue gathering a few things just in case and getting ready to pack things that um we would need in a hurry. We're going to pack a permanent clothing go bag which we always intended to do even back when we lived in California. We just never got around to it. This is a good opportunity presenting itself to finally get that done. So we are going to do exactly that and we are going to after lunch um pack some clothes that we're not going to miss and we're not going to need to use into permanent go bags and um get that done. Yeah so then we're as ready as we need to and lest we get that final word um where we need to start on plugging computers and stuff and loading cars so but the weather seems to have changed and shifted and although it's very smoky out we're anticipating rain on Monday and um they seem to have control of some of the big smaller fires and they're 70 percent or more controlled and the big fire they seem to be controlling the front line at least for the moment so can be an Oregon city or still in level two they haven't been advanced to level three and West Lynn and Lake Oswego are still in level one and we always said we wouldn't wait for our town to go to level one if because we're not far away from any of those cities if um their levels advanced we would start unplugging things and packing the car so anyway i am going to do something with this and then i'm gonna have some lunch and then i guess i'll start packing clothes joy anyway best be safe than sorry i guess right all right i'll be back probably in part because we live next to the woods but also because of the fires and the smoke um there's a lot of birds in our yard and they are actually using the water in the pond to bathe in and they are eating you know grubs or whatever in in the yard we always see birds in the yard but there's a lot of birds in the yard right now i'm guessing because of the smoke and they can't go far but that was so cute i actually caught it on camera so anyway i go upstairs and show my husband the pond is his baby pond is his baby so um that's cool maybe when he has a chance he should put some more water in it anyway still smoky outside fires don't seem to be advancing which is good news um pray for rain people the sooner the better in the meantime we're going to continue to get prepped some of what we're prepping is going to stay prepped permanently um just in case um you know we do live in an area of the country where fires and earthquakes are an issue so we should have like go bags ready to go all the time so we're going to do that so anyway i think that's it for the minute i'll be back right go clothing bag is packed um the little bit of memorabilia we know we don't want to forget is packed i.e photo albums um i see i see two more things i'm going to grab really quick that are out here um and then we're as packed as we can get without grabbing the computers so i'm going to grab this picture which i only have the one copy of it's not scanned or anything that's me sorry reflections let's see um there we go that's me with my three grandparents who were alive at the time of my high school graduation yeah so and that's not that's a film picture so and then this one brought bunny that rebecca made for me i think in kindergarten so we're gonna put both of those in one of the boxes in the front we have some wedding pictures of beca and poly is out here which are great but they're modern pictures and i know beca's got copies um digital copies on the internet somewhere safe so those i'm not worried about but these i'm going to put in one of the boxes of memorabilia all right hopefully we can put all this back in a few days but yeah what a mess all right i'll be back sunday morning i think it's still morning i don't know might it's around lunchtime so hey it's been a fun week kind of maybe it's been interesting that's for sure and it hasn't been boring um people was talking the other day about trying to turn this little salve tin that i had into a watercolor tin and when i first showed you all on social media that i was doing that i used some air dry clay to make this to fit in it don't like it it wasn't real happy with the way it turned out although it did work fine and it i think if you coat it with a good quality water resistant sealer it would work well for watercolors i just wasn't super happy with that i thought there was a lot of wasted space for one so i used some plastic and e6000 and it needs to have a couple more there's a couple spots i think that needs some more glue but i created this instead which i like much better i do really wish that i had a 3d printer because i think it would turn out much better but yeah that's it there is a couple places i can see that i need to add a little more glue and let it dry which is kind of one of the drawbacks of doing this kind of shape this way is i don't you it's going to take a long time to make sure you've gotten all the spots glued together so each little well is like what you know watertight but yeah um i don't know what i'll put in there but yeah it's cute um i may decorate it and take the labels off the outside and actually put a piece of artwork on the top and sell it in the etsy shop empty so i don't know i don't know yet um anyway and i'm working on the bowl the air the air dry clay bowl i just sewed the outside i need to turn it over and just sew the inside so i'll be working on that today but anyway i forgot to close the vlog last night so we're gonna do it now um it's been a crazy week um if you want to know exactly what's been going on with the crazy week and why it's been a crazy week i have a separate vlog for uh fire news i do live in oregon near the fires at the moment we're safe but yeah i live kind of much closer than uh is comfortable to some of the big major fires clackamas county fires particularly so anyway it's never boring around here that's for sure anyway um support the free content here on youtube and over in the facebook art groups if you can not only for me but all for your all your fellow creatives i know we'd all appreciate it especially in these trying stressful strange times um my links are in the link tree list of links down in the video description for the etsy shop and everything else and most creatives have their links in the video description so um check out their video descriptions and if you can't find any links to support them ask because they probably have something and maybe it's just they forgot to put it in there um don't forget to stay safe stay creative and stay healthy whether it's from covid or the fires that are all up and down the west coast um whatever it is please people stay safe and um you know what if we're lucky enough to be safe from all of that um despite covid let's help out our community and our fellow humans as we can bob and i are definitely planning on that as soon as we're out of the danger zone we're going to figure out how uh physically or financially or with goods or something that we can help out um yeah definitely i mean at the moment we're blessed and we're safe and lots of people have lost their homes their lives their family members like it's devastating and i don't think we know yet how devastating it's going to be especially on top of covid right anyway that's it for the moment don't forget to go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it right i'll see you later see you next week bye guys