On my self imposed two week stay-at-home retreat to write I’ve been compelled and inspired to work through a book by Joyce Y. Li called Reimagine Your Retirement. Joyce provides a downloadable workbook so I’ve been faithfully answering the questions after a completed read chapter. I’ve a long ways until finished and the material is giving me plenty to think and write about even though it wasn’t what I had originally set out to do. Check out her blog at http://www.fullnessoflife.com/blog
In the midst of contemplation of retirement years and what may be produced from/by/out of me beyond sitting around on a couch wondering what to do, I’ve been busy in the think, pray, plan, dream stage and playing (of course) Pickleball plus doing my training runs – have finally been able to get back to running again after an ankle injury, via Kintec run clinic (working up to a 5km run – plenty for ole me).
Then I escaped the self imposed pressure to write and had a great day trip across the border from Canada into the U.S…and me being me, with a lousy sense of direction I headed off after a morning cruise through Birch Bay, near Blaine which is near the border, to go and have lunch in Lyndon. It is a pretty simple drive but I managed to turn it into a major scenic tour seeing several sides of outlying areas of Lyndon a couple of times as I drove in wide circles but not actually get to the heart of where I wanted to be for well, a lot longer than had been anticipated.
I had printed myself some directions (because I know me), tried to follow the verbal and hand pointing by two local teens and then finally when I was on the correct street but heading totally in the opposite way, a kind postal employee set me on the right path.
I had a lovely lunch….considered calling it a day but no, I was on a mission – avoiding writing.
On route to my next location sleepy eyes encouraged me to pull into a rest area and take a nap. Really, I did this. It reminded me of our family of four many years ago and travel trips back and forth from Canada to California, how we’d slide into a rest stop and sleep for a short while before continuing.
The rest of the late afternoon and into the evening was happily ‘spent’ leaving cash in several stores in an Outlet Mall.
I even did a return trek to one of the stores to reconsider – well, truthfully, to purchase another item. However, in between the first and second in store adventure I bought dinner, had it placed in a to-go container, put in a bag and carefully balanced it in the middle.
Why I did not stop long enough to sit and eat baffles me.
In all my excitement of getting that last item of clothing, I noticed my food container had tipped. I tried leveling it again, while lugging my other two bags, get money out and keep up the ongoing conversation with my now two customer representative friends. We’d had a lot to converse about on the first trip in to the store so we carried on the chat when they saw me come in again.
I plunked the food bag on the counter, other bags on the floor, my purse on the counter, then noticed and casually mentioned, “Oh, my dinner is leaking” as I spotted wet red stuff in first one location all over the food bag, and then another location, all down the front counter wall, and another, inside my other bags of brand new clothing – one of them being a white collared polo shirt for my husband.
I heard my mouth talking and wished I’d shut up but on I blabbered, “Oh, and it’s tomato sauce too – I will have to wash that right away,” all of us knowing I am hours from home. The sauce will be well set by then.
Out come the wipes, with repeated swipes down the wall and over the counter where my food had been, was given new bags for all my other purchases – the soiled white shirt placed carefully in its own spot so as not to contaminate anything else, all the while chatting with the lovely ladies who went beyond their call of duty for the day. Pretty sure they wanted me out of their store with my meal before I caused any more damage with my wild flinging of food.
After quickly stuffing dinner into me, what was left of it, I drove off toward home, literally into the sunset quite smug with myself, for my day of adventure and the success of no writing.
Living in Truth 