Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

I never realized how much my life was dictated by work. I guess I knew but just didn’t really take the time to think about it – I just kept going the way I had for so many years.

The alarm clock now goes off at 6:30 a.m. instead of 5 o’clock. Why even set an alarm you ask? Well it because Larry has to take his meds at 6:30 and we have already been known to oversleep past 6:30 a.m.. I was shocked the first time it happened!

Then it was a matter of establishing a new routine for the day. When we wake up, do we get right up as in the past or turn the radio on, turn over and listen to “The Wall Street Journal This Morning” radio program or get up? Getting up, showering and getting dressed has remained the same. But, then come the decisions about a new routine. Do I eat breakfast right away? Diet coke first? Check email before breakfast? Eat breakfast at the kitchen table or at my desk like I have done for so many years? Once the kitchen table was decided to be the appropriate place for breakfast we had to then make the decision of which morning news network to watch on TV. We gave them all a one day trial and picked NBC. One network was too “fluffy” on the news’ one was to hard-core; one was bland….. And the morning newspaper – read it with breakfast or later? And email – what if I had an important email and wouldn’t know it for another hour if I didn’t check email as soon as I got up? There must be something I should be doing instead of setting down at 2 p.m. and reading a book. Oh, I forgot, doesn’t the world end if we don’t eat lunch between 12 and 1 p.m.?

Retirement - Life's Chapter 3

Mr. Webster says that retire means to withdraw or retreat. He also defines freedom as independence or liberty.

We were on a hike today out in the Saguaro National Park and it finally dawned on me what retirement is really about. It is about freedom! Freedom from early alarm clocks; rushing through breakfast to get to work; dragging the briefcase back and forth to work and always having work in the back of your mind. It is also about doing things when you feel like it; reading a magazine the day you get it in the mail; forgetting to take a lunch break; being able to go for a hike in the middle of the day in the middle of the week and having a calendar that isn’t booked full. I’m starting my second week of not being employed for the first time in 27 years.

The feeling is new and I’m slowly feeling it out and adjusting to it.

Before (left) - After (right)

Backyard Make-Over

There were a lot of things we immediately liked about the house the first time we saw it. However, the landscaping was not one of them. We looked at each other and said "take it out"! Now I realize that to many people a yard of Oleander, Gardina bushes, Roses, etc would be wonderful. However, the Oleander reminded Larry of the freeways in California where Oleander is used in the medians; the rose bushes were many years old and had been neglected. They were very large but need a lot more TLC and work than I was willing to give them. Besides, roses are not easy to grow in the desert. The gardenia bush was huge and about half of it had to be kept cut away so you could walk up the sidewalk to the front door. Other assorted trees had been let go until there were a few stray limbs with leaves on them. So...for the last 3 months we have been spending weekends taking everything out by cutting it down and digging it out. I will gladly give him credit for doing the digging and at least half of the cutting. There are 2 really nice palm trees that had not been trimmed in years. The drip system worked but most of the water was coming from breaks instead of from the drip lines it was supposed to come out of. And oh yes, the rocks! I have never seen so many river rocks (1" - 3") in my life outside of a river. They were not just on the surface of the ground but were a foot down in the dirt. If I had a dollar for every shovel full of rocks we moved...

The palm trees have now been trimmed and look wonderful. The areas have been replanted with desert plants. The drip sysem has been replaced and the water comes out where it is supposed to now. About all that is left is the time to enjoy it.. And yes, the golfers put their 2 cents in on what we were doing...

Golfer Watching - Our Favorite Entertainment

One of Larry's wishes, when we were looking for a house to buy, was that it would be on a golf course and we were pleased to find one that met the requirment - along with 15 more requirments on the list. The house is not only on a golf course but the 18th tee is just on the other side of the 2' wall that surrounds our back yard. We are about 30-35 feet from the golfers when we are setting in our chairs on the patio. People pay for entertainment that is not nearly as good as the entertainment we have while watching the golfers that play through. Some are good and some are really, really, really bad. They are all sizes and shapes. There are business people and some who look like they came straight from Woodstock. Some are young and some are old, not just mature but old and can barely walk. One buy who has had many, many birthdays drives the cart up on the tee so he minimizes how far he has to walk. Then there are the very spry senior citizens who walk the course and carry their clubs. We have some interesting conversations with some and others pretend they don't see us. For a fun Sunday afternoon, get a cool drink, sunglasses, newspaper and retire to the patio for a fun, entertaining afternoon. Hard to beat and it's free!

Is it Spring or Fall?

Cool nights…
Warn days…
Planting tomatoes, lettuce, spring flowers…
Getting the furnace checked out for the coming winter…
Grass is greening up and has dew on it in the mornings…
Butterflies and birds are everywhere…
People are starting to come out of their houses and are active during the day…

Having lived in “traditional climates” (Midwest, California, etc)and now having lived in the desert for a year, late October is when it is heard to know if it is spring or fall. All of the above are currently going on around us here in the desert. The nurseries are full of vegetables and what I think of as spring flowers but here they are planted in the fall. The summer is a memory with it’s 100+ days and now the weather becomes the ideal climate and what brings the snowbirds to the desert in droves. The butterflies and birds that are everywhere are those that have migrated from their summer residence up north to the sourth for the winter. Some will stay here all winter and others are just stopping on their way further south. So….if fall is spring then what is spring?

Patriach of the pueblo enjoying a Sunday afternoon in the sun.

Monsoons

You can't live in Arizona and not hear about "monsoons". People talk about them like they are some mysterious, alien that blows in for 3-4 months and then blows out until the next year. You can't really appreciate rain until you don't see a single drop for months! Then magic happens and it rains daily, or at least every few days for weeks along with thunder, lightening, high wind and flooding - just like in midwest. You don't just wake up one day and wonder if it is monsoon season. The TV stations, radio stations and news papers track them and there is not doubt when they have arrived - that's all you hear on the news. They have officially arrived when the dew point (whatever that is) had been 54 (something) for 3 consecutive days. This monsoon season was expecially wet as the usual rain fall is about 6.5 inches and we got 10.5 inches at the airport. Now, parts of town got several more inches but the airport measurement is all that matters... Since the rain is only for a few months a year, they don't build roads, etc for rain run-off with culverts, etc. The roads just have a dip in them and become impassable during the rain. Flooded streets around here are serious business. Rose Hill Wash runs through the golf course behind our house and normally just an low spot with a dry creek bed in areas. However, 2 days after we moved in there was a big rain and the dry, low spot became a raging river in just a matter of minutes. This picture was taken from our patio. The rain stops and within an hour the wash is dry again. The monsoons in southern Arizona is one of the seasons like spring or winter is in other places. Sure beats snow....

A Friend's Trip To Africa

Joe, a friend and former co-worker who lives in Nebraska, went to Africa for 2 weeks in late August on a church sponsored trip. Here are a couple of pictures he took while on the trip. I volunteered to create a presentation for him to use during his speaking engagements when he talks about the trip at churches and schools around his home town area. Joe kept a journal of the trip and did a good job - for a guy... The group included farmers, doctors, nurses, teachers, ministers, computer technician, general contractor, sales manager (Joe), loan manager, x-ray technician and business entrepreneur. The ages of the group ranged from 22 - 78. Part of the group was from Nebraska and the rest were from their sister church in Hawaii. After he got home, he sent me a CD with 3,141 pictures on it that I culled through to select the ones to use in the preventing presentation. The pictures are just incredible and don't need much text to tell the story since they speak for themselves. Besides the schools they visited, they also set up clinics in some of the villages where hundreds of people came for medical care. The group went on a safari before coming home. I have spent hours on the presentation and thoroughly enjoyed it. He is writing the text for it and the first presentation is at his church on Nov 12th.

The Joys of Home Ownership

Slowly but surely the stumps in the back yard are being dug out and Larry can now be considered an expert in stump removal. We knew there would be suprises when we bought a 25 year old house and yesterday during stump removal we found one... Once the tree was cut down, we could see wet dirt and a week later it was still wet - not good! Larry started digging yesterday morning and the bigger the hole, the faster it was filling with water. He uncovered the water line going to the sprinkler system, cleaned the dirt away, tapped the 25 year old rusted galvanized 3/4" pipe and it broke in half. Now the hole is really filling with water and we don't know where the main shut-off valve for the house is yet. But by the end of the day the shut-off valve has been found, the line is replaced, it works and now Larry qualifies as plumber in addition to " expert stump removal person". And when it is all done - you get to set and read the paper.