So difficult. I lost it at the Denpasar airport, a teary mess, my mind going to terrible places. When will I see my kids again? A man, who it turns out is from our town, comforted me. We talked about the kids being in a lower risk category and it made perfect sense for us…

AKA Paradise postponed. What it feels like is Paradise Lost. Checked flights online and one was available at an additional price of $3000 for the two of us (we flew here round trip for $1000 each), but changes required a phone call. Decided to try to call the airlines at 5:00a.m., thinking there would be…

Back in Bali listening to EVA Air’s never ending on-hold music, ten bars punctuated with “Thank you for your patience…” over and over and over again. We are a living example of the definition of the word dilemma; a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more equally undesirable alternatives.…

We interrupt the regularly scheduled blog post to tell you the story of last night. The island of Ceningan is connected to the island of Lembongan by a rickety narrow yellow bridge, which can only accommodate pedestrians and scooters. I awakened in the middle of the night to what felt like the vibration of a…

From Nusa Ceningan, Indonesia    Have you ever asked that question about being stranded on a tropical island? If you could bring one thing with you what would you want on that island in the sea?    In a sense we are stranded, eight healthy Canadians unable to break through the bottleneck of the airline’s…

An update from our family:   We’re amongst those far from home observing the world in turmoil via CNN International. As house sitters were still willing to follow through, we arrived in Bali ahead of travel advisories, armed with a decent supply of antibacterial wipes, purposely booking connecting flights through a city held up as…

On the dozenth run to Lowe's I thought to myself how could I be doing this again? It seems like yesterday that I was running back and forth to the home improvement store as we were selling our old house and rebuilding the one we're in. We've decided to sell the family "cabin," the vacation…

Looking over my photos from that January day, I realized I must have been in the mood for angles. It was a day of sightseeing in the desert with C's cousin and his wife. We headed south along the Salton Sea, that body of brown water that used to be nicknamed the Salton Riviera, a…

Let me start with the fact that bad habits die hard. A 15+ year history of blogging hasn't instilled in me the good habit of hitting the save button sooner rather than later. And when that's not done, the auto save doesn't kick in and you risk losing everything. Hence, my absence last week. I…

The Ham Scam is officially over, having received a full refund from Paypal. I'm happy to say it was a relatively easy process.  December’s art show was an overall success as well as a personal one. I sold four original paintings and cards made from prints. Remember this, started years ago, now more than half…