Celebrating Two Anniversaries - 36 Years and 3 Years!

From the deck of our "home" weekend before last - Maggie Valley, NC

June 1, 2013

For the fourth time since I began writing Gains and Losses, Bill and I have celebrated a wedding anniversary.  On June 4th, we woke up, looked at each other and said, "my gosh, it's been 36 years!"  I can't write any more or any better than the previous posts I've written on our anniversaries, so I'll just link back to them and if you choose to read them, you'll learn a bit more about us and our marriage.  I love to go back each year and read them because they are all written from different places while we were traveling.  Someone asked me what we did to celebrate this year and I just laughed and said, "Bill mowed the back yard while I sat on the porch watching him and finishing Mary Higgins Clark's latest mystery."  We consider our summer travels to be our "gift" to each other, so we don't make a huge deal about it on the specific day.  It actually felt odd being at home.  Neither of us could remember the last time we were at home on our anniversary!  But there was something comforting about mowing the yard and reading.  It is so "us" and just felt good.  It was a great day.  Here are those links....33 years, 34 years, and 35 years.

Another important anniversary occurred on May 14th.  That was the day, three years ago, that I paused with my finger hovering over the "publish" button for a long time before hitting it.  And when I did, Gains and Losses: Life Through Sharon's Eyes was born.  I began that first post with the words, "I love to write. I always have."  I did not have a clue what I was doing nor could I possibly anticipate the support, encouragement, joy and new friends it would bring into my life.  It was one of the best decisions I've ever made and I look forward to many more years of writing.  Thank you so very, very much to each of you who have commented, responded and become my "friends."  I still hope someday to say that I have a blog friend in every state.  That would fulfill a little girl's wish of many years ago to have a pen pal (remember those??) in every state.  

We had a quiet weekend and I thoroughly enjoyed a rainy Monday at home.  Most of the day was spent finishing a novel I was reading, catching up on blog reading and continuing to research and plan Summer Adventure (Part 2).  We will be spending two weeks in Estes Park, Colorado to finish hiking some trails that have been inaccessible to us on our May trips because of snow.  Since our time is compressed to just a little over two weeks, Bill will fly out to Denver so he can have maximum time in Colorado because he doesn't get all excited about long road trips like I do.  We'll acclimate to the altitude for a couple of days in Boulder, then move on to Estes Park.  

I, on the other hand, can take as long as I want to get to Colorado and home from Colorado.  And oh what fun I'm having working out that scenario.  I've got a tentative plan in mind, but would love any suggestions or ideas.  

Later this week, I will write a dedicated post covering the first week of my post-adventure return to healthy eating!  Week 1 was a resounding success resulting in what I think is close to the largest weight loss in a one week period I've ever had.  And no, no, NO - I did not fast, I did not starve, in fact, I ate 1200-1500 calories of good stuff every day.  But like I said, more about that later this week.

Talk to me today - What's on your mind this week?