Ventana canyon in the morning

We are looking forward to a great afternoon on the golf course. I'm sure the canyon course will have some photo opportunity. It is 77 degrees today. We have escaped a very cold day in Minneapolis Minnesota. Life is very very good to us today!!

morning Tucson

This is for my mom and dad:

practice run of a way for you to see our video clips

life on standby

Today is another wonderful summer day. By the time I am off from work the shadows are getting long. I am tired and it is tough to find time to finish daily tasks. Our house is on the market and the market has stopped working. No one is even looking any longer. I guess we will have to take the house off of the market and just hunker down for a little longer. Work hard, save and wait. It's hard.



The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Each day is a gift with my body, my life, my love. Today I am blessed.


a poem

Otherwise
by Jane Kenyon

I got out of bed
On two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise.

I ate cereal,
sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach.
It might have been otherwise.

I took the dog uphill to the birch wood.
All morning I did the work I love.
At noon I lay down with my mate.
It might have been otherwise.

We ate dinner together at a table
with silver candlesticks.
It might have been otherwise.

I slept in a bed in a room with paintings
on the walls,
and planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

The waiting game

Well, here it is, almost February. Our house is still on the market. When we made our master plan were were going to leave in January. This is very confusing. Were we meant to stay longer for something? Maybe taxes. If the house sale is much later the whole complexion of our trip changes. We had originally planned our route according to weather in each location. Now I guess we can plan on going with the worst weather in each location, and falling dollar values. We can sit in the rain and eat expensive sour/ salty yak tea with curd. This is going to be awesome.

I don't really care where or when we go. We may end up being free from our erroneous plans. We may have been over planning our trip. Each day at home seems a gift now. We have grown to appreciate each day and every task. It's really interesting how knowing we are leaving helps us to enjoy what we do day to day.

Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you.
Fate is at your elbow;
Make yourself good
while life and power are still yours.

Book four, Meditations

Marcus Aurelius

Planning a World Trip

The sheer amount of considerations for a trip around the world are overwhelming. There is the route to plan, sites to see and also guessing the amount of time spent in each place. We have language barriers and no money. Not to mention the preparation of selling a home and all of our possessions. Of course selling our home has become a real challenge in this market. The day after we put it on the market Jumbo rates went up. Then the market took an unprecidented plunge like no other in our lifetime. Values are dropping faster than the dollar against the Euro. The economy is in the very unique and interesting position of being in a recession at the same time as inflation. I can tell you our house value is in recession.... however all of our other costs are in the inflation category. Every buyer has become an expert on homes. Our realtor never calls anymore. I suspect she may have gotten a second job!!
Jill my sister in law sent us a St Joseph statue that we can bury in the yard and then pray for a home sale. She wrote "if you believe it will happen". OOOKAYY. What the hell, why not. We look outside and have more snow now than in the last 7 years combined. Can we just toss him into a snow drift? Does it matter that he seems to be sinking and looking at us? What do we pray for? Do we pray he stops staring at us? That we can someday bury him? That a buyer will see him and feel sorry for us because we are good and faithful people? Hopefully a squirrel won't chew his head off.