2022 Happy To Be Here

7:45 AM For some reason, I was surprised to see so many people at the beach this morning. I don't know why this surprised me, it is a vacation week. There weren’t a lot of people, just more than I expected. It is also beautiful and peaceful. The sounds of the waves crashing and mumbling their way in and out from the shore keeps away any noise of cars traveling by. I came to the beach to try to catch the sunrise but with cloud cover I either missed it or couldn't see it. It has been a long time since I came to the beach. I'm writing this while sitting on a cold, damp rock in North Hampton, NH. It is utterly enjoyable to just 'be' for a little while. Water moved rocks during a recent storm. People move rocks too. 8:31 AM I walked about 2.4 miles back and forth along the sidewalk and on the rocks and sand. There was one person who took a quick swim and another who was on some kind of surfboard. Dog walkers, joggers and others were also out in the bright Decembe...

August 14th Yesterday, perhaps because packing was the priority, I forgot to post about the milestone I hit.  Everyday, for two full years, I reached my 10,000 steps a day goal.   I'm not sure if I will continue with this streak or not, but two years!  Other happy things from today in no particular order: --Amid the green in the following picture is a part of the Appalachian Trail that is between east and west Interstate 90 in Massachusetts.  There is a walking bridge to cross the highway. --We drove east on interstate 90 through New York to get home.  We passed by a quarry.  I'm not sure how big a quarry tends to be but this one seemed really large.  To sate my curiosity,  or boredom,  I went to the internet to research the quarry a little.  What I found was the customer comments list.  It was full of rock puns.  Here is a sample... --We had two cars and three drivers for the trip home from Pennsic...

 My original plan for today was to get up super early and go to the studio.  Getting up super early never happened, I did go to the studio though.  Last week I came home from work with a worn out knee in a pair of jeans.  I sewed a patch onto them at the studio.  I plan to do the other knee too, but I ran out of time today.  Other happy things: Every month or so I travel about 45 minutes south to get my mail at the post office.  I decided to walk through the conservation area nearby while there.  These are trails that I used to hike often when I lived in the area.  Twice I took wrong turns.  One, I believe, was a new trail that wasn't there before; the other I have no good reason to have made the wrong turn.  Things change.  Anyhow, it was a lovely walk in the woods.  Peaceful. One of the things I like about some sections of the trails here are where there are rocks to go over the tiny waterways instead of bridges.  ...

Yesterday the car broke down, Bel and Folke fixed it, but not enough and it was up to TF and I to take the next step in fixing it this morning. Things were going well. There were four parts, one for each cylinder, that we needed to replace. TF and I worked well together and things went well… until we were on the last part, screwing it in the last bolt I had it just about tight enough when the bolt broke. Thankfully, we were able to find bolts at the local automotive store and now the car works a huge amount better.  Other happy things from today: When the bolt broke in half we were officially without a car. The auto place wasn’t far and we started to walk. Thankfully, one of TF’s neighbors picked us up along the way and this shortened the time it took to get the job done. It felt so good when the car was done and it ran well. We visited Bel and Folke again to help them work on the bus. One of the goals was to get the mattress on the bus and we did! The bus hadn’t been start...