Who'd have thought that a floating family reunion for those descended from the Danish family of Boe, plus spouses, could go off without a hitch? You can't imagine the details involved in getting 22 people, ages 9 months to 82, from five states and two provinces, on one vessel enroute to Alaska. How to choose the pictures?…

I was writing to our realtor to request a change in closing date for the sale of our house. Explaining that we had an offer in on another house (!), I ended with the  phrase "exciting times ahead!" Auto correct guessed at my inaccurate thumb typing and came up with a not-too-far-off word, in meaning. Yes,…

I avoid cliche. I dislike exclamation points. And forget those over-dramatic screamy all caps. But, as the high school teacher who taught me "a guilty conscience needs no accuser" and "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" used to say, "there is an exception to every rule:" "Where does the the time go?" says…

The retirement adventure continues. For the past two days, instead of house hunting, C and I had the ultimate knitting, painting and woodworking experience. Imagine getting paid for the things you love to do that don't seem like work. We were hired as skilled background, AKA extras, for a made-for-TV Christmas movie, brought to you…

These were taken in Sudden Valley, Bellingham, Washington, where we spent many happy summer days and nights while the kids were growing up. The only modifications to these photos are the yellow tone in the first and ever-so-slightly deepening of the exposure in the second. In other words it really is as beautiful as it…

Our realtor arrived today with the official sign: It all happened so quickly, which I suppose is a good thing. We do have a long closing date so we have plenty of time to look for something else.  For Easter I treated myself to a course in pet portraits. Better that than chocolate. It was…

As moving preparations continue, we find items in the house that that appear to be multiplying. Pennies: we don't even have pennies in Canada. It seems when they made the announcement to discontinue the copper coins, an army of them hid in every corner of our house, hoping to escape inevitable meltdown. Sorry guys, to…

C and I decided on the spur of the moment to advance our retirement plans and hightail it out of the rainforest. Where to? Not far. As Canadians we want to stay north of the 49th to keep our medical benefits and be close to our children. But I'm not looking at real estate anywhere until…

I was fortunate to take a course with world famous artist Jean Haines,whose loose, ethereal style melts subjects into nothingness. My style is so realistic or illustrative and I was looking forward to pushing the boundaries beyond my comfort zone. I did this painting of my first Scottie, MacTavish and sent a off picture to my…

In a time of need long ago, I found a wonderful book explaining death to children. It's called Lifetimes. It calmly explains that every living being has an expected life expectancy and that death is the natural end. I remember changing the age of the human lifetime to beyond the 72 years it mentions, so…