Wandering Re-Establishes the Original Harmony

“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony
which once existed between man and the universe”

– Anatole France

85 days to go – March 22, 2012

Waiting really is the pits. And that’s what we are doing.  With a little over a week to go before the inspection contingency expires we have been sort-of-waiting for the buyer to schedule their inspection, which means hanging near the phone and being in town.  Of course with us cat-sitting we wouldn’t be traveling too far, but it’s really about courtesy:  tell us what you want and when you want it so we can go about our life without waiting around for you to make up your mind about when to do your inspection, if you are going to do your inspection. [end of rant]

BUT….

The thing that makes waiting easier is…. get this…. NOT WAITING!

Which is to say, keeping your head filled with everything else in the world other than the thing you are are waiting for.  And that is what we have been doing.

Yesterday was another great day for weather, so we took advantage and got in a couple walks.

On the pet-sitting front, I’m always amazed at how much time we spend putzing around with the cat when she stays over.  Like babies — pets make fools out of us humans, even the adults.  Oh well, such a nice reason to act foolish.  Now, if the darned cat would be better about taking her oral meds….. But at least we aren’t torn to tatters.  And daughter and grandkid return home Friday and the Kat goes home with them then.  All we have to do is keep her alive for 48 more hours….. (just kidding Kathryn)

Medicare

Today is our day to make heads or tails out of Medicare — wish us luck.  But millions do it, so I’ll just knuckle under and make my wife do it. Sounds like a plan to me.  Not sure her take on the situ.

Groceries

On a boring home front, we’ve been trying to do grocery shopping just once a week.  Why is that news?  Well, because we have never, in 42+ years, ever, had a routine for much of anything other than Peggy going to work at Aurora.  My habits have been very un-habitual, and most of our life has been pretty spontaneous (which is another way of saying not habitual).  In the past we might go three times in a week or not go to the grocery for 3 weeks.  We don’t use a lot of processed foods.  We have always been careful about meat purchases, and freeze the great bargains.  We are past our child-raising years so we don’t use lots of milk.  We do eat a good deal of produce, but if we are feeling lazy we’ll resort to frozen produce.  It’s possible.

The stigma of being on a so-called “fixed” income has had us thinking about how we spend; but not in any kind of panic or need to cut back because retirement is hard.  But we are taking a look at how we live.  RV’ing will be different, specially when we boondock (stores may not always be convenient).  So, we thought it would be good to actually think about what we buy.

Most of the time I have shopped without a list; staples are easy to shop for — and if I’m almost out I buy one or two to replace what’s about to be missing.  And that’s the problem.  Journey has much less storage than our house and we don’t want to be hauling as much food around as we have stored in the house.  Thus the exercise in regular shopping, in actually thinking about how much we eat in a week, and what items those are.  It sounds boring, but it’s actually been interesting.

(I know, I’m easily amused.)

Taxes

Having gotten our taxes done yesterday I was prepared for a delay similar to last year in hearing that the efile was accepted.  Last year the Feds took 3 days to accept, and Wisconsin took 4 days.  Imagine my amazement when I had notice of acceptance from the Feds last night, and from the state today!

I don’t know if we filed at a time when not many people are filing, or if they have updated their processing, or what it might be, but that’s phenomenal.

As far as I’m concerned all this computer stuff is “MAGIC.”   I don’t know how it works, I don’t care, I used computers everyday and love the time they save but it’s all just MAGIC.

All in all, it wasn’t a big day.  That’s ok.  I don’t need big days.  I want to get back to working on some images before we take off and start taking a lot of new ones. And I’m still trying to figure out what I want to get rid of in the computer department.  I sure can’t take along my 2 30″ monitors!  But so far it’s just been in the back of my mind and I haven’t decided what to do.