Friday, February 25, 2011

Life (ours) Doesn’t have to Slow Down Unless We want it to

…it’s (almost) always a choice

We’ve been here in the vast Arizona desert for more than three weeks now. That’s good. We’ve become tan, rested, and done an amazing amount of necessary work. We’ve been busy 12 hours a day (including some time to drink wine, of course) but it seems mostly like fun.

We have chosen to stay busy in our physically and mentally declining years (our kids and grandkids would probably say something even stronger about the decline part). There will probably come a time when we have no choice but to slow down but we’ll put that on the back burner as long as possible.

This week we had visitors in the desert – Tom (co-author) and his family were here five days so we could work on the new book – but mostly we hiked and jeeped all over the desert and a good time was had by all. His kids loved the desert and particularly bumping around the dirt roads and trails in jeeps. Jeeping through the desert in the dark (with the headlights on, of course) was the most exciting.

Oh yeah, Tom and I signed a publishing contract and now have to deliver a completed manuscript by July 1st. That seems like a long time from now, but… how hard could it be (he innocently asked)?

Carol has been doing bookkeeping and taxes for a friend and now is doing ours and those of a couple of the kids.

And I picked up a couple of grad students – non-traditional, at-a-distance learners. I work with them on courses and research – all by email and websites. It only takes a few hours a week and I enjoy it.

axman

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