NEXT!

     It took more than just a week to get settled in here at our summer home at Juniper Ridge, altitude 6240'. Daughter Amy, husband Dan and son Caidan arrived on Thursday to stay with us for four days. Dan had a Triathlon race (bicycle, run and swim) on Saturday, he did well. Amy had her Triathlon on Sunday and placed advanced in her catagory. Hurrah for her.
     Dan fulfilled his goal of defeating his in-laws at Bocce, teamed with Amy; and Croquet, teamed with our Croquet instructor here at JR. Amy and myself went down in defeat from a last minute thrust by Dan that put us out on the end post.

    Granpa and Caidan went head to head in the first day. Mom and Dad got into it, after a bit, Caidan and I both backed out. We parted liking (loving) each other very much and both enjoyed the rest of their stay. Caidan learned about playing Croquet, Granpa learned about playing with Caidan.

    Here it is the ninth of June, later than I had hoped to get back to posting again. (This post probably will take a week to complete.) The forest at here is unusually green. The biting varmints are raging. I have about 5 or 6 Chigger bites on my ankles and numerous other bites on the rest of my body. Most everyone that ventures out into the forest has gotten the same. Some native, who lives here year round, said they got 90 inches of snow this last winter! That is a lot of water for the Arizona desert highland. Quite a few native flowers are blooming. MK's zero scape plants, that were a gift from Michael are doing very well. She has learned that introducing plants from a more temperate climate does not work very well. Most vegetables do not thrive, even so we still plant some squash for eating.

     As always the effort at organizing my day is very difficult. My purpose of finding what I want to do, what I need to do and what I really, really like to to do. The following are suggestions I found on the web that seem to synopsize how to do it:

• 1. Write down everything you enjoy spending your time on. Imagine you have a free week, with absolutely no chores, what exactly would you like to do with that day? Now imagine you have a free month, what would you like to do then? A free year?
• 2. Write down how you spend your day. Either make 7 columns, or use 7 pages. List each day, and write down in exact detail, how you utilize every hour of that day. Perhaps pay attention to your time for a week or two. Write it down. What do you do? What do you always make the time to do? What do you ignore?
• 3. Talk to your ideal self. Have a dialogue. What is your ideal self like? What does he/she know that you don't know? What experiences he/she had that you haven't had?
• 4. With your life as it is now, where do you see yourself in 5 years time? Where would you like to be?

This is going to take some time, so some things in my life are now at a halt until I find out where I am and where I am going. The first item is a work in progress as is the second, which I set up a 7 column table for each day of the week, with as many rows as it takes.

The rest . . . keep tuned, something might happen. In the meantime here is a new wild flower we have discovered in the forest. Very tiny and delicate. The coloring is so soft and soothing. What a wonderful creation of this volcanic desert land. Where the soil is sparse, mostly clay from the pumice of the ash and clinkers of eruptions from long ago.
     Does all this sound like something an 80+ person should do? I think so, I even thought about finishing my Master's degree on line, but it is not one of the items that fulfill Number 1. above. This not interest you? I can understand that: Who cares what an old f___ is doing in his 80's? Perhaps, but I have found out a lot of very interesting information about MYSELF by browsing the web blogs. There are several I have linked to the right. You can go to them if you wish by clicking on the link.


P.S. : NOTE: I also re-designed the look of the blog. What do you think?