LIST#1

(what I like to do for fun)

enjoyment, amusement, or lighthearted pleasure

• Basically, anything that makes me laugh. My favorite thing to laugh about is when I am with someone who is actually trying to be funny.  For fun I like to do things and be with people who I can laugh with.
• I like to shop with a buddy who I'm getting ready to prepare a meal with and I like cooking with a buddy - that's fun.
• I like to fly for fun.  I don't have a favorite plane, they are all good.  Flying as a passenger isn't fun, it's just boring.
• I like out of doors things like hiking, zip lining, horseback riding, kayaking.  I like those things in different ways (the speed of the experience is different for looking at things)but they're all good for fun in their own ways.
• Seeing my kids is almost always super fun for me.  I especially enjoy seeing them enjoying each other and their other special people.
• It's fun to jump on trampolines.  I also always have fun on or near water.
• It's starting to be fun to plan a train trip.  
• Anything that I get to get dressed up for (except funerals) is fun.
• Singing is fun.  Singing while laughing is really fun.
• It's always fun to watch cute kitten videos with V.
• Holidays are reliable fun times.
• Learning can be lots of fun.  I tend to think of it as a fun thing even though lots of routes to better understanding are not fun.
• Exploring - places, ideas, people, etc. is fun (at least initially).
• Shooting pool.  Playing silly board games.
• Pedicures are fun.
• Yoga.  Yoga is fun.
• Playing ... that's the word!  Any thing playful is fun.  I like to play.
• It's also fun to see the people I love having fun - that's probably the best fun.
• Watching live sporting events at the venue especially.
• Making lists like this seems like it's gonna be fun.  C invited me to do 52 lists with her this year.  This is list #1.

A rattlesnake on the walk today!

The righteousness of men should be treated with the same respect that one would accord to a rattlesnake. Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. ~D.D. Eisenhower

 growth

love/connection

or contribution?

Notes on the results @ http://www.lifecoachinginterventions.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Significance-of-Your-Most-Important-Needs.pdf

Hmmm - what to do?

Someone sent this today and it seemed like a thing to share.

I don't think about regrets very often.  Like this guy says, life doesn't come with do-overs.  Maybe there are a few along the way, but you can't count on them coming when you think you need them.

[This is the only regret that I can think of, I mean, regrettable choices have been made, but those aren't choices where I might have made a better choice with the information I had available at the time - running is different.  I regret that I didn't either keep up with or re-start a running routine.  It's advisable for me to begin running like I used to do (long distance running) now.  I'm a huge fan of well defined calf muscles though because  they are a sure sign of the ability to commit long term to something (and I think it's a healthy coping strategy).]

Having spent Saturday on a day trip with One,I would like to share this bit of our conversation:

I think it's an important thing in life to have "something you are intentionally doing".  (And I don't have that something figured out right now, but I'm working on it!)

I recently did the HUMAN NEEDS TEST and I think it's a pretty neat way to access what makes the most sense to "a person" as far as how one does life.  (I'll re-visit that later.)

If what you are intentionally doing supports your top two human needs it seems like you're going to "feel" good about how you spend your days.  Which is what I am trying to think about for myself lately.

When we moved away from the life I was comfortable with (back in 1989) "things" changed.  It was one of those life passages.  We are, well, I am (husband has transitioned nicely to what comes next for him) kinda stuck in my star gate.  I sense, or anticipate, that I'm getting close to what comes next ... the whats, because life is fuller than just one "what" ... for me.

I've noticed this lately (in light of the fact that we haven't found a house to buy yet) ... I wanted to bring my comfort zone with me ... that's doing what I do around the house (puttering and gardening) and flight instructing.  I thought I'd just keep on doing that over here.  I have decided not to continue flight instructing (at least for now).  Living in a rented house doesn't fit with my puttering and gardening.

When we made the huge transition before, it opened new possibilities up for me (and my family).  Good things happened that I was unable to envision at the beginning of that time.  I think that's got to be true now, during this major transition.  I want to "hold on to my old comfy stuff" but that keeps my hands too busy to embrace what's next.

Anyway - walk time now.

It amazes me how little our looks change over the years. This was taken on the 4th of July in 1968.  That year trouble was brewing with North Korea, King and Kennedy were assassinated, Boeing launched the 747, and the American flag orbited our moon aboard the Apollo 8.  (BTW - Hidden Figures - the movie - rocked.)

My family was vacationing in Arizona.  I don't remember this, but the batch of pictures, received this week, show that we were camping out.  I do remember bears coming into our camp once and my dad scooping me up and rushing all of us into the fire engine red station wagon.  I remember them rummaging around our things and moving on - not even a twinkie crumb to be had around our area.  My dad was a stickler for a tidy campsite.  Arizona was one of my parent's favorite destinations and we spent a lot of time exploring the natural beauty of the State.  I'd love to go back to visit several of those places adding Roden Crater to the long list. 

I think it was at the Petrified forest where  a tree had fallen across a gorge ... I might have been six or so when I first read the sign there: Cowboys road their surefooted horses across this natural bridge.  Something like that.  Definitely surefooted (because I didn't know what that meant and had to ask), definitely cowboy on horse back.  I shivered at their confidence imagining the Lone Ranger and Tonto. 

The sign there says Sitgreaves National Forrest ... not near the Petrified Forest or The Grand Canyon where I first thought of being in an airplane.  I wasn't allowed to make the tourists flight with my older brother. I still remember my dad insisting that he would be allowed to go on that flight with our grandparents while my mother insisted I would not be.  I remember watching the plane get tiny.  

Blessed with lots of sweet memories and the wish to see many of those places all over again.  This time I'll probably make the flight! 

“I always wanted to make a light that looks like the light you see in your dream. Because the way that light infuses the dream, the way the atmosphere is colored, the way light rains off people with auras and things like that...We don't normally see light like that. But we all know it. So this is no unfamiliar territory - or not unfamiliar light. I like to have this kind of light that reminds us of this other place we know.”  Turrell

“I was maybe 5 or 6, and my grandmother would begin sitting me in the Quaker meeting house. I asked my grandmother, 'What am I supposed to do?' and she said, 'Just wait, we're going inside to greet the light.' I liked that—this idea to go inside to find that light within, literally as well as figuratively.”  Turrell

the dog update

My dog at about 8 weeks and 10 weeks later.  He'll triple his weigh before the year is over, weighing between 120 and 150 as an adult dog.  If ... !
He is an eating machine.
He is now, for the most part, "house trained".  I can't remember when he had his last accident, but I expect we haven't seen the last of those. He likes to try to empty out waste baskets in the house shredding paper towel and getting cotton balls stuck in his mouth.  He still can't grasp the fact that our shoes are not chew toys.  In the sense of understanding what is okay and what is not okay inside the house we have a ways to go.  Yesterday he began to pull the turquoise pipping away from one of the grey club chairs.  He stretches my patience ... .
He does love to go on walks and does a good job of behaving well on the leash.  Without a leash he loses his ability to hear well.  I really like that he looks up when airplanes pass overhead ... and birds. He is keenly aware of what is going on around him, which is great.  He will sit and lay down on request when properly bribed to do so.  He brings the ball back every time it is thrown.  I had forgotten how much work goes in to getting an animal trained.
It'll be worth all the effort.

On Tuesday he got in the river and found some crawdads ... and I'm guessing ate some ... major allergic reaction apparent a few hours later.  I thought it must be a bee sting because he is always looking for a bee to bother around the glass doors.  Husband sheepishly acknowledged that he saw the dog messing with the mudbugs.  Woke up the next morning with his snout back to normal, it had looked like a horse snout!  He was in the water "fishing" at every opportunity on the next walk.  I understand that allergic reactions become more severe with each exposure so I'm trying to nip his young pup and the river tendencies in the bud.

December 2016

bunny (or chinchilla) under an oil derrick in West Texas

Pretty ... this was on my FB feed this morning ... picture taken by a guy I guess I've known all my life.  He was one of Tommy's running buddies, my parents especially liked him.  Probably the only person currently on the planet (other than me) who knows my mom's potato salad was simply the best ever.

This little guy is at an oil rig near Pecos, Texas.  I love the light in this shot, the colors are so West Texas.  I also think it's really neat that these Hardhat/Boots guys have time to tend to a little bunny.