WHOOOO HOOOOO! I want you to know I will be fulfilling a lifelong dream this weekend. Yes, it’s true. I’m taking myself on a ski trip to Timberline Lodge this Sunday-Tuesday!!

I remember one time when I was about - oh I don’t know - maybe 8 or 10 years old and my mom and dad took me and my brother to Timberline for an afternoon, probably in the summertime, and no doubt we were sneaking around in the part of the lodge that has the sign on the door that says “Guests Only,” and I happened to somehow catch a glance into one of the rooms that a maid was cleaning or something and I don’t even really remember anymore exactly what it looked like but I just remember it looked overwhelmingly cozy and intriguing in there with the log beds and the log-cabiny blankets and curtains and I made up my mind right then and there that SOMEDAY I was going to come to Timberline Lodge and spend the night and go skiing (that was before I even knew how to ski - not that I know now either LOL). And this weekend I’m finally doing it!! I’m so excited I can’t stand it. I’m even going to have a mug (or perhaps 2 or 3) of Timberline’s world famous hot chocolate! 

Now to find my skis and try and remember how to put them on…..

OK, so you’ve heard me talking about how I’m on eharmony.com now, right? I’m about 3 weeks into it, and having quite a bit of fun with it. Mostly I like answering all the little questions that your matches send you - they’re fun to answer. (I know, I’m a dork). So far they’ve sent me a TON of matches - I’ve met guys from Salem, Aloha, Vancouver, Portland, and Lincoln City, and even places like Texas and New York!
You know that movie “Love Potion Number 9″ with Sandra Bullock, where she plays the really super geeky scientist girl who has no social life whatsoever and then she takes the “Love Potion” and she goes home and checks her voicemail and it says, “You have 65 new messages”? THAT’S how I feel on eharmony! I checked my personal email today and I had 152 unread messages telling me about my new matches they found for me!!
No dates yet though….I don’t have time. I’m too busy sorting out my email.

So how did you survive the snow storm?! And the ice. And the power outages! What a Christmas!

At our house in the Gorge we were out of power for several days around Christmas, so we had to cook our entire Christmas dinner on our ancient antique wood cookstove, and oddly enough it tasted better than any Christmas dinner I remember having in a while! It must be that native Northwest Doug Fir wood flavor coming through! LOL

We had so much snow - the window in my bedroom looks out over the roof of the porch (normally about 2-3 ft below my window) and at one point the snow was up to about a foot or two ABOVE the bottom of the window pane!

It was a full week before I made it down into Portland, or even Gresham (or for that matter, even CORBETT) again! But I loved it - we played games and watched Christmas movies (with the help of our generator). I did have a stressful moment though, when I realized that I wasn’t going to make it into town to do my “last minute” Christmas shopping. However, I lucked out and was able to raid my “gift drawer” and pull off (fairly decent) gifts for everyone in my family without spending a dime! I think I’m going to start doing that every year, whether I’m snowed in or not. Haha.