Finding Our Common Ground

Let's face it..thinking about retirement when you have been married for 42 years is exciting and at the same time a little scary. Out of necessity, as we have earned a living and raised our family, we have spent a lot of waking hours alone or with other people or just doing our own thing, while waiting for the other one of us to get home. As we learn to do this "new dance" I am sure it will be plenty interesting.

Fortunately, Jim and I have many things we love to do together and two of them are traveling and taking photos. When I say traveling I mean everything from flying off to Europe to getting in the car after dinner and going for a ride around our local area. That is one of the things I dearly love about spring and summer; more daylight hours to do things like that in the evenings.

I have a feeling that as he quits work and has more discretionary time, one of the things we will do a lot of is photography. With digital cameras it's virtually free and I am sure we will be searching for lots of free things to enjoy then. I am happy there are a lot of them.

Here is one way that I know we will economize...We are not big restaurant people. Don't get me wrong, we enjoy eating out, especially at unique places with a nice atmosphere.

What I mean by that is that if we had to go out to eat every time we left the house at a formula type restaurant...we would soon tire of it as well as we would be wasting a lot of money.

So we like to save it for the special times but we love to tailgate picnic and explore. Packing a lunch is economical, faster, and you can make and take some great things that can be much more enjoyable and satisfying than stopping in a noisy restaurant. We both enjoy nature and also exploring little towns and looking at houses and big cities, especially San Francisco. We almost always eat out when we go to SF for the day and bring a picnic too!

When we go on long car trips requiring overnight accommodations we only eat out one meal a day. I guess what I am saying is that the things we do are not all about food which makes it easier and more economical to do more for less $.

So anyway, the other night we went to a favorite spot in our own area where the view is magnificent this time of year and took a few photos as the sun was setting. Here is what we saw.
I do love the fact that try as they will, conspiring men have not found a way to charge us for the free gifts of God to all his children regardless of their economic circumstances. It is a beautiful world and it belongs to all of us. This is one place we all can find our common ground. Doesn't that just bring you so much joy?


Oh, this trip did involve a little bit a food. A Mc D's soft ice cream cone. $1.09 each. Not a bad price, made from milk (3 Weight Watcher Points), and pretty tasty! These are the things I look forward to come July 1st!