New Year’s Eve

2006 has been an interesting year. I haven’t done half the things I hoped to do during the year. I’ll have to priortize items I would like to accomplish during 2007.

Happy New Year 2007! 

Reading

Recently, I enjoyed reading The Sirens Of Titan by: Kurt Vonnegut. I won’t write a book report or summerize my opinion, other than to say, “if you enjoy Sci Fi, you may be surprised what was written in this novel in 1959!”

Life Expectancy by: Dean Koontz is a very suspenseful story, full of twists and turns, and the ending was a complete surprise.

Velocity by: Dean Koontz is a very fast moving thriller. There are a few twists and turns and your imagination will race along with the clock in this fast page turning story.

I’ve just started to read For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. I remember reading Hemingway in school and am looking forward to getting to know him all over again with this title, as well as several other selections he wrote.

Early in 2007, I plan to read Bleak House by: Charles Dickens, then pull the bookmark from where ever I am in War And Peace by: Leo Tolstoy, and begin reading it from the beginning. I started it in October 2003, so you can see how time flies.

Speaking of time flying; each time I visit a bookstore, I could fill a wheelbarrow with books and wish I purchased all of the books that caught my attention. As I get older, I realize there is only so many hours available each day to read. If you don’t manage your free time wisely, there are fewer hours than you think, especially if you like to browse the internet, watch TV, learn new computer software, spend time with hobbies.

How wisely do you manage your free time?

Surrounding Colors

Thanks for sharing your photo Prent!

Growing up on a Maryland dairy, I was surrounded by beautiful colors. Looking westward beyond the various broadleaf trees, you could see the smokey blue color of the Blue Ridge mountains. Our farmland was part of the rolling hills of the Piedmont Plateau. My dad rotated his crops annually, so there was a variety of colors between the crisp greens of spring plants and the golden browns and yellows of the autumn harvest. After the harvest, the naked fields on the rolling hills during winter were dressed in a white blanket of drifting snow.

Moving to the northwestern wilderness of Maine to a valley surrounded by tree covered mountains. Our backyard lake reflected the surrounding various colors of the mountains during spring, summer, and autumn each season. During the winter months the lake and the mountains were snow covered contrasting with the clear blue sky from horizon to horizon.

Prent, an old friend, sent me the photo above. He took it during Thanksgiving this year, knowing I would be familiar with hundreds of sunsets just like it, when the elements were photo perfect. I thought for a minute that I was standing on the shore of long ago.

Living on a dairy where plants grow well, as well as living in a forest, surrounded by clear blue lakes and streams, you become familiar with the surrounding colors. You can close your eyes and imagine a season and your mind fills the darkness with the correct colors you remember from your childhood walks along the lake, or a hike in the woods.

My wife and I are planning to relocate to New Mexico when we retire. We often wonder if we would miss the trees and the clear blue lakes and streams. Should we be safe and live by a lake in the mountains, or is there something else?

We can feel a pull toward the high desert, a land where the trees are sparse, and the red earth shows through the beautiful colors of plants that survive there. I could enjoy seeing these colorful earthtones the rest of my life.

We are concerned with water and will only live where there is enough for everyday needs, but the surrounding colors, high desert plants and animals, the bending light playing on the landscape, the mixture of the native american and the spanish american cultures, the bright blue skies, and the beauty of the red earth is a very forceful influence in decision where we want to go.

What do you think will draw you to the surroundings of your retirement?

two

Originally uploaded by atteancanoe.

well i figured we should sign up with flickr and get up to speed with them. so we will be working on this for a few days.