Slipping and Sliding Out

It warmed up enough to get a slide on the camper out today! Yesterday I took advantage of the forecast, and a 25% off coupon to buy a little rug for in front of the camper's fireplace. I had seen it before I left and thought that it would be perfect, and it was :-) I'm getting excited to get out there on our first camp - April can't come soon enough for me.

I didn't forget about my grateful journal yesterday, I just kept it in my head. I wondered if I would find the landscape here boring, but it seems that wide open spaces really are more my thing. The drive into town takes us through some farmland that is wide open and free of trees - it felt ... hummm... I can't think of the right word, I know there is one. But it felt good, almost calm. My eye scanned the horizon and didn't feel constrained. The thing about NZ is that there were spaces high up where you could see forever and I loved that, but then there were the valleys where everything is cramped in and the sun leaves early in the day.

We took Carm's mom to the Heart Institute to be fitted with a Holter Monitor. It is just a checkup sort of thing, but our health care system took care of it. We don't have to worry about the giant bill that might follow (did you see CNN's report on health care expenses - OMG). (this is one of my grateful things for yesterday - to live somewhere that has decent health care available to everyone, sure it's not perfect, but I'd bet those Americans going bankrupt would think it is pretty darn good).

The tulips are getting close to done. They are all fully open and looking a bit bedraggled. But they are still beautiful and a lovely burst of colour. A book I read last year (Spontaneous Happiness) suggested bringing flowers into the house every week to bring a little brightness and beauty. I like the idea but haven't implemented it. Maybe I'll turn over a new leaf (or would that be petal). Har har.

With the warm day today the dogs were happy to spend a bit of time outside. Spike and Bella (the poodles) first run down to the barn to look for varmints... to kill. They have turned into hunters. They were well on their way last summer with the killing of 3 groundhogs, but now they've added a rabbit to their kill list. Who knows what they'd get if we just left them outside to their own devices (we don't). After checking out the barn they ran back up to the house to join Kabira in her mad run up and down the laneway. She's an incredibly agile dog - she can go full speed one direction and then reverse by just planting a leg and spinning around. I've never seen a dog turn like her. She would have been great fun to take lure coursing.

Tonight we had our neighbors Vashek and Marie over for a glass of wine. They were kind enough to humour me by looking at my pictures. I transferred a subset over to a usb stick which stuck into the blueray player. They looked great on the tv! Better even than on my laptop. Perhaps I don't need a new camera after all? It was fun to look at the photos again and remember all the great times I didn't cry. (note to self, purge some of the eel photos)

All in all things here are pretty quiet (which is what I like for right now), and even though I'm not 100% converted over to this time zone, I'm adjusting well. And staving off any depression that might have been flitting around.

Do you wish me a good morning or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it to be or not or that you feel good this morning or that it is a morning to be good on?
Gandalf in The Hobbit