500 Saturdays: Nomad Diary

My meditation spot. The view from our bedroom widow.  Quinn (10 months) on video call listening to me sing to him.  His Dad said he has taken up to 3 hour naps this week, and thinks it is a growth spurt. Erin at her baby shower.  Given by a friend at church.  Next to Erin is her Mom, Nan, then her sister, Linda and Linda's daughter, Libby with 2 children, then sister-in-law Beth. A peak in our fridge with 2 weeks left here.  Many staples and more: eggs, berries, avocado, buttermile, lemons, jelly, salad stuff, sourdough bread, 'Good' cottage cheese, almond milk, bacon, maple syrup, feta and other cheeses, flax chocolate muffins, greek olives, sliced mushrooms, cherries, various left-overs. Today, it continues to be hot and humid here reaching into the 90's.  Darrell is recovering from a week-long cold and is now able to do a higher intensity workout.  Then he made gluten free pancakes that were delicious!...

Today I did all of my 'normal' activities.  Living life.  Getting up early and exercising about 30 minutes using a DDP 'fat burner' routine today.  Darrell has our routines on his tablet and rotates our daily mix.  We have strong coffee brewing while Darrell made french toast today.  I get the sides of mixed blackberries and blueberries, banana and maple syrup ready to carry out to our breakfast deck next to the woods.  We enjoy our quiet morning time and meal, even in the day heating up and extreme humidity.   Darrell calls his mother on Saturday mornings, and they chat on speaker phone for an hour or more.  I leave for my office at 9am to fulfill one appointment.  Next week I have the busiest time I've had in several weeks.  While I'm driving to the office, I think that I will text son Samuel and see if he wants to meet for lunch at a patio we know for a Mexican lunch.  He does.  I also invite Darrell who is staying h...

Enjoying our first week in Owens Crossroads.  I would live on this street. I like the shaded woodsy, cottagy houses. It is hot. It is summer and hot is appropriate. Today I had an appointment where I work. Darrell dropped me off and went to move a loveseat for our niece. Then we had lunch at Edgar's Cafe and went to our son's house for some work on a piece of furniture Darrell is helping repair. After that we headed back to our house over the mountain past the Hospital. I had a magazine with a recipe with unusual ingredients: artichokes,  fennel, olives, and pistachios.  Oddly, I had all of these in my sparsely filled fridge.  I made the recipe,  adding in mixed seafood and searing some leftover avocado rice. It turned out delicious!  We ended our evening with a long and sweaty walk. 

 We have been in our Gurley, Alabama airbnb for 4 weeks.  We are about 15 miles east of Huntsville.  Tomorrow we are moving to an Owens Crossroads airbnb for 5 weeks, about 10 miles east of Huntsville and a little southwest of Gurley. Barn on Keel Mountain in Gurley, AL Our planned move means that today is packing and cleaning day.  As I pulled our items from every cabinet and closet, it's a small job because this is a small place.  Still, for me, I think again that I have too much stuff.  I ask myself, 'what do I really want to wear?', and I remove a few more items of clothing that I have enjoyed but I am ready to donate now. I made myself homemade frozen yogurt using my Vitamix, frozen mixed berries, Siggi's nonfat yogurt, and honey.  I'm a little sad, and I think that this feeling is connected to change and getting rid of a few more of my things.   I had a video call w...

 On this Saturday morning, I woke up at 5:14 am and I was rested and got up.  Darrell also got up.  We went onto our screened porch and did a tough 45 minutes of DDP Yoga:  Diamond Cutter routine minus the last 10 minutes.  We followed that with Darrell's homemade pancakes, banana-oat today, topped with walnuts, fresh berries and maple syrup.   The sunrise was a deep orange and glowed from our view.  After breakfast, we each went to our 'corners', Darrell to do his daily Spanish lessons, and me to my prayer and daily Bible reading.  Next was an hour long call with Darrell's Mom.  Then some computer work.   Much of what I am needing to learn and prepare for in overseas travel and living is taking me one step at a time.  I worked on and completed making files on my pc accessible to my phone.  I got my password file to be password protected too!  I needed step by step guidance from Darrell, but once I got going I co...