Good Bye to Summer.....

     According to the calendar anyway.  This is Labor Day weekend here in America.  That is our last official big summer fling before autumn comes sweeping in.  As it is, some areas welcome autumn weather before some of the rest of us.  (Might I be referring to northern Wisconsin where the leaves are turning colors, the apples are crisping, the air is cooling, the wood piles are enlarging and the bears are growing fat?) 
 
      I'm using this weekend to re-visit (re-invent?) my mental alertness, organization, self-discipline, goals, challenges, focus and endurance.  I have enjoyed a 15 month sabbatical from routine responsibilities while packing, moving, travelling, unpacking, settling in, learning to drive in a city, more travelling, exploring the area, more travelling, and now......it is time to discover what my "routine" life will be.  It's just...... I don't know what that translates into..... 
       I have lived in the Pacific Northwest for a year now (minus 7 weeks gone "visiting").  I find living here at Creekside, a 55+ community, feels like a  combination high school boarding school, year round summer camp, first housing away from home and on one's own, long ago familiarity of city dwelling as a child, and introduction into senior living. 
     I find it important to make an effort to get to know people, to socialize, exercise, eat healthy, get up at a reasonable hour in the morning, explore the area,  engage in local life, learn to enjoy and constructively use "alone time" and discover (even now) one's identity-- who you are and who and what you want to be.

    I am coming to admire the ladies who "keep on keeping on".  Even into their 80's these hearty ladies are hiking, swimming, driving in Portland, going on cruises, learning, challenging and overcoming physical ailments, still fully engaged in life.  They are my heroes, my role models!  May I be like them when I turn 80. 







        So this morning was the "first day of the rest of my life".  I sat the alarm to go off at 7AM and I was actually awake before that.  Actually got out of bed.  Had time for some leisurely cups of tea, time to mentally schedule the day and time for prayer and meditation before heading out to water aerobics at 9. 
        That mental schedule included laundry, going for a hair trim and manicure, blogging, practicing piano, a few emails----and about 4 other tasks that never got done.  And, OH YEAH, a NO TV on Saturdays routine.  I've maintained that for several Saturdays and it's amazing how constructive those days are.  (Not like yesterday after 3 episodes of Star Trek and a 3 hour documentary of the Galápagos' Islands.  Well, at least that was educational and I had cleaned the bathroom before all that. And was resting after a chiropractor adjustment.)

       This has been a good 3 "let's get your act together" days in the life of Grandma G.

      "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.  (Proverbs 19:21)