So, I had to renew the website today OR ELSE! Or else it would go away into the land of the internet for someone else to use. I was on the fence about renewing for a few weeks, mainly because it had been close to a year since I was on here and wrote anything. But I wasn’t quite ready to let go yet. Not yet.

They changed the format here so I am having a technology crises moment. LOL

Anywho, back to why I decided to pop in tonight (aside from the fact that I just paid for another year so maybe I should, you know, do something constructive). It’s been a busy 6 years and I finally feel like I can rest for a bit.

The busyness started in 2014 with the Turning Fifty Bucket List – and starting a new job. Then came renovation projects, the Year of Cancer, more renovation projects, the decision to move, selling a house, moving (twice!), building a house (not really by choice) and then unpacking / settling in. Oh yeah, let’s throw a pandemic in there during the moving process to make things interesting. Ha!

I have to admit that it felt kind of weird to not have “something else” looming in the future. A trip, a project, something to focus on. It was a little disorienting and in a way anxiety provoking. While a trip to Venice was cancelled, I instead made a trip to Pennsylvania to see family and have a little downtime. A Christmas trip up north is still mostly up in the air right now. But my great nephew turned TWO this past February and that makes the trips even more special. He does love his Aunt Pam.

The picture up above is from the front porch of the house. This house is pretty darn near perfect for me – the driveway is a killer and the garage situation has not yet been fixed (there is really not enough room at the top of the driveway to pull into the garage….there is a very steep dropoff that makes it quite a challenge) but otherwise, it is pretty much very close to exactly what I wanted.

There are wild turkeys that drop by on occasion, I have seen deer twice, and there are some bears around that I haven’t seen yet but they have made themselves otherwise known. And birds, lots of birds, including a special thrill of so many hummingbirds! So I have two regular bird feeders in the front yard and a hummingbird feeder.

Turns out watching birds is exactly what I need to do these days. It’s almost meditative in a way. The hummingbirds are surprisingly not terribly afraid of humans. Yesterday afternoon, I almost swatted one away from near my head because I thought it was a large bee.

I think we spend a lot of time going from project to project, busyness to busyness that we forget how to just sit down for a minute or an hour and just enjoy the peace. Or maybe it’s just me. Or maybe it’s a getting older thing. I can remember the younger days where I always felt like I was working toward something – a promotion, a raise, a different career – always feeling driven to get something else that always seemed so elusive.

But now I watch birds for hours at a time on the weekends. It’s what I do when I take a break from work. I no longer feel like I have something to prove career wise or even personally. It’s kind of nice to feel “settled”. If I didn’t have to work, I’d even feel mostly at peace.

Several friends think I should feel “afraid” living so close to the woods and in particular afraid of the bears. Nope. I RESPECT the bears and all the other critters out there. This was their home before it was mine. I felt more afraid in Orlando with all the crime. A bear doesn’t carry a gun. Besides, there are 49 other houses in the neighborhood. Most people can’t seem to understand that I live in an actual neighborhood.

The other day, I opened the garage door to put the bird feeders out (the bears will knock them down and eat all the seed – learned that the hard way) and what did I see?

Why yes, those are bear tracks – fresh ones – right by the garage door. Makes a girl pause for a minute.

This morning I went to take the bird feeders out and discovered I forgot to close the garage door last night. What was my first thought? Not that someone could have robbed the house – but that the bears (or other critters, namely squirrels) could have robbed me of bird food. All was well, but now you see the difference living here.

So that is life in the mountains these days. Hope you all are well or even still around. Would be nice to hear from someone just so I know this post doesn’t go to oblivion.

Who knows, now that the pace of life has slowed down I just might be beck before August 2021!