Reboot

Boy ... Life just flies by doesn't it? This time next year we expect to be living at the beach. My husband has been looking at real-estate trends there for a few years now. I've been watching the weather on aeroweather ... it stays pretty pleasant there. We plan on renting a house for a year ... to see if it's really where we want to be. My husband is storm adverse ... hurricans you know. I'm not at all worried about that. I'm afraid it will be too quiet! There is a good bit of flying in that area, so that would be great for me. My husband does some cool stuff that he can do more of ... work wise ... and it doesn't insist on him being in the same place. Yesterday, he told me that we can spend the summer of 2013 in Alaska if I want to. He knows I do. He says we can go pretty much where ever in a few years. Our youngest child will start college in seven years. Seven years ... The days are long, but the years are short. Amazing. It seems strange to be looking at my house knowing that we may not live here after next summer. It changes how I spend my days ... like yard work for example ... I planned to build something this summer but now I won't. Instead, I'll take clippings from the gardenia bush I planted 15 years ago ... I'll get a few starts going for planting somewhere next. The rose vine ... I'm watching the bird activity there. They will be out of the nests pretty soon. I'd like to take the entire root ball ... probably transplant the rose vine this fall ... get it settled in to a large pot. I'll miss the day lilies ... maybe I'll take a few, probably better to find them in the nurseries over there.
I like bottle trees. Very Southern roots. My brother will weld one for me as soon as we buy a house over that way. I've shown him what I'd like for it to look like ... as big as a crepe myrtle tree ... Maybe fifteen foot high. It will need to be anchored in concrete. I am excited about helping create that. He is so particular that I will probably just get to hold the blow torch while he sips on a cold beer and what's that word ... cogitates! Oh that has me tickled here ... What a funny word. Our dad used to say that when he really meant "slacking".

What I'm thinking about lately ... Something like this Steinbeck thing:

"Now discontent nibbled at him - not painfully, but constantly.
Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there's time, the bastard Time. The end of life is now not so terribly far away - you can see it the way you see the finish line when you come into the stretch - and your mind says, 'Have I worked enough? Have I eaten enough? Have I loved enough?' All of these, of course, are the foundation of man's greatest curse, and perhaps his greatest glory. 'What has my life meant so far, and what can it mean in the time left to me' And now we're coming to the wicked, poisoned dart: 'What have I contributed in the Great Ledger? What am I worth?' And this isn't vanity or ambition. Men seem to be born w/ a debt they can never pay, no matter how hard they try. It piles up ahead of them. Man owes something to man. If he ignores the debt it poisons him, and if he tries to make payments the debt only increases, and the quality of his gift is the measure of the man."

I'm used to thinking about what I'm going to do next ... And, as I look at that bucket list, there's really nothing on there that really reminds me of me. Well, it totally does, but it totally doesn't too. Everything on that list is a "go there and look at this" kind of thing. It's pretty much a bucket full of ... Cogitating. The big challenge on that list is just finding someone to go with me. That's probably the problem I have with the bucket list ... It's hard to see the life that is lived during and between those potential flag posts. Where's the challenge? I think I am missing something here ... You know, you want to spend the moments of your life purposefully. Contributing. Hmmmm.