I started this thing in hopes of staying in touch with a few people and practicing my writing skills. Unfortunately I have failed on both accounts as I have allowed more than a year to pass since last posting anything.
Since moving back to New Mexico, I have been wrapped up a number of projects here around the house and property. With only myself, my husband, who had good and bad days with his rheumatoid arthritis and my mom, who spends basically 16 - 20 hours in bed every day, chores do pile up.
Spending the last several years planning and dreaming about what my retirement would be was my major mental exercise while driving. Since I drove trucks for 30 years, I had lots of time to daydream about my retirement. Sadly only part of those dreams have come to fruition. We, my husband and I were able to move back to New Mexico as planned but we also have my mother with us. Though we love her and enjoy our time with her, having to be here for her proves to crimp a lot of the plans we had for travel. Since dad died in September of 2011, we have had mom with us. She is not capable of taking care of herself, yet in good enough shape we don't have to consider any kind of "old folks home" for her.
Our days are filled with working on this place to improve it in many ways, landscaping, gardening, planting trees, basically the never-ending list that goes with home ownership and 36 acres to boot. It seems we get one project completed and two more have managed to be added to the list. I have two nephews that live fairly close, one about ten miles and one about eighty miles and they were adamant about coming to help when we got moved in... but that has not been the case. Neither have been out to help or even just to visit their grandmother in over a year. I am disappointed but we will push through on our own.
Mike and I really enjoy riding motorcycles and our trips have been cut down to anywhere that we can return on the same day. My brother Fred, who lives about two hundred and fifty miles away has managed to come up and help on a few occasions. He stays with mom, making sure she takes her meds and eats right for a few days so Mike and I can get away for 3-4 days. These short trips are very enjoyable but not the kind of trips we had been hoping to make once we were both retired. Dreams of four, five or ten thousand miles on a single trip were floating around in our imaginations.
We had made several trips of three to six thousand miles. Riding all over the country is a great experience. From Dallas, Texas to Portland, Oregon or Pensacola, Florida or San Diego, California. There are so many beautiful sights to see around this country. Going to Montana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or even all the way to Maine is on our "Bucket List". We have ridden to and through twenty states, several of them many times. I just turned forty thousand miles on my most recent motorcycle. We will do what we can when we can. For now we have great memories of many wonderful places.
It's about time to get ready for church so I better go. I may try to get one here more often and keep practicing writing. Have a blessed day, enjoy the greatest country in the world find a miracle every day. They're out there if you just look.
