When we left California three years ago we got rid of a ton of stuff. We purged. It felt great. What we decided to keep, we stored in a container on our property.
After living for three years in a relatively minimalist style, I am utterly shocked at some of the things that we opted to keep AFTER purging. Why so many bowls? FIVE cookie sheets? Enough bath towels to dry an elephant? Puh-leese! Time to purge again.
- My neck is killing me from working without a desk - looking down at the laptop is really not very ergonomic.
- There is a young man here digging post holes to repair the fence that was damaged when the tree fell on it last winter. I do not envy him. It’s like digging in concrete.
- The gopher population here has been reduced by at least a half dozen. Yes, I am ruthless, all in the name of summertime tomatoes.
- Brad is sad today, missing Hawaii. So am I.
- Listening to Hawaiian music doesn’t help. In fact, it makes it worse.
- New carpet is in - and it’s made of recycled soda bottles! How cool is that? Much cooler than our reduced bank account, for sure. There’s an expense we weren’t counting on.
- Can I continue to post to a blog called Paradise Found when I’m no longer in the stereotypical paradise? I’m thinking that paradise is portable, even if the palm trees are not.
- I’m hopeful that someday soon I’ll be able to formulate entire paragraphs again.
I’m sitting outside on my lanai patio with a cup of coffee as the sun rises over the Sierras - in my pajamas, no less. There’s an awful lot to be said for distant neighbors! We arrived home to damaged carpet and a BB gun hole in a large picture window, so we’re working out the details of replacing both, which essentially means that while we’re living here, we’re doing so with the bare minimum of furniture. Until after Memorial Day. One more chapter in this adventure of ours.
Surprisingly, the landscape around our patio has survived, if not thrived. A bit of care and water ought to fix that! We’re dealing with a population explosion of gophers and ants (both outside, thankfully), and an overabundance of weeds. Even so, we should have our garden in by next weekend at the latest. Have I mentioned that we haven’t STOPPED since we got here? And somewhere in there I need to get back to my writing gig!
