Back at work

Laura needed a jacket on the pier in San Clemente last week, its 110 in Phoenix today, and that is a contrast.

I had Sunday off and decided to attend the church that exists on the property that I served from 1995-2002. The Calvary Chapel there has added two buildings but they received quite a gift from what was Grace Community Church. It was such a treat for me to see what we built being used so effectively, although if we had handled a few things better is would still be a community church and I may have ended my career there instead of here in Sun Lakes. I am fully OK with the way it turned out and the pain and gain we went through during that time in our lives.

Then and New

We walked the campus of the San Clemente Inn where we had a time share trade and an early vacation with Shannon, though the planter was bare we tried a time jump photo and had lots of fun remembering a vacation week in San Clemente nine years ago.

Vacation reflections

Fun at the beach. The cool ocean air, the early rising to enjoy the complimentary breakfast, the coffee on the balcony, the sound of pounding waves on the shore, the birds flying overhead, the people watching, the Starbucks visits, the walk to the end of the pier, the early morning walks in the neighborhoods behind the golf course, its all quite refreshing.

Three Days at the Ocean Bliss

A beach on the big island.

My computer will not upload pictures without the extra toy I forgot to bring. We built up our beach time from 3 to 4 to 5 hours today and just enjoyed watching all the families play and romp in the surf.

Ben was non stop boogie boarding and I had to sit him down to rest. He is hooked on the sport, as are most of the kids at this beach.

Pics later.

Cloudy sunburn!!

UV rays burn your skin even when the sun is behind the clouds....no fair! My poor feet got burned in our almost four hour day at the beach yesterday and we are headed back for another session today. We also enjoyed the rest of the day and I got to shoot a sunset at the pier. This morning drinking coffee out by the pool in 75 degrees is such a contrast to our Phoenix reality that I pinched myself. We both commented that living in a beach city constantly overrun by tourists may not be that great, but being one of the overrunning tourists is just ideal.

Headed out for my morning photo walk on our second full day of vacation. Sweet.

We love this Beach Town

Best we can remember this is our sixth visit to San Clemente Beach since we discovered it in 2006. It's been three years and we have been staying at the Hampton Inn Suites overlooking the public golf course with our own balcony view. The seven plus hour trip was long, and I cannot understand I-5? Why would there be bumper to bumper slow downs on an interstate on Sunday Evening?

So, we enjoy the coffee and I walk the beautiful neighborhoods near the course. Now to the beach for the rest of the morning and through lunch. Thankfully no dead red crabs spotted last evening.

The Hampton has remodeled the breakfast room and just everything about it is great for a reasonable price.

Countdown to Medicare

Two weeks until I switch to Medicare. All cards secured and companies contracted for part B through whatever. Paid first premium. Used insurance for one last refill of all meds on our group plan. Eye Exam and new eyeglasses purchased under group plan, Dental problem fixed under the group plan. So, wee shall see what the transition looks and acts like in the future, which I hope will be long and as problem free as the rest of life. It does look like seniors are pretty much on their own for dental and eye issues.

Woke up today thinking it was Saturday, so I get another one tomorrow. Ready for a few days in the Beach Community of San Clemente one hour north of San Diego. It was 116 here today and 76 there, so yippee.

I picked out four pictures from Shannons first visit and ours to this destination in 2006 to try photo matching. Should be fun.

Most of all, I love a few days watching the ocean and walking the beach and seeing some great sunsets near the pier.

Know Thy Vacation Self

I was having a discussion with my Dentist about San Clemente and I realized that going back to the same place over and over is something I find appealing. You know the streets, you have memories from earlier visits, you see new things and old things. We must all have a personality type about vacations, some folks wanting to see things they have never seen before and keep checking things off the bucket list.

I think than I have a bit of both in me.

Golf Watching Junkie

Boy Oh Boy am I looking forward to enjoying the links style golf from Washington State this week. I am of course rooting for the old guys, having watched Phil Mickelson since I moved here when he was a Senior at ASU. It's a long shot, and frankly with this course anyone could win.

I will be watching and enjoying it, except for driving to San Diego on Sunday. I will have to catch the highlights that evening.

First Day of body slam heat

Heading for San Clemente Ca beaches next week, we first went there in 2007.

We finally hit the 110 degree day we have been expecting. It is always a bit of a shock to the body to walk in those waves of heat. The cars are hot even when you cover the windshields with protection. The worst part for our home is the temps in our bedroom which has three sides open to the sun. Our AC really needs a check up because it gets up to 85 in the afternoon.

Enough complaining, I chose to move to the desert. It's a dry heat.

My Next Phase

One of my financial advisors gave me a really neat book about the emotional and psychological issues of retiring. Lots of tests and questions about your personality help you decide when, whether, and in what directions the next phase of your life should go. Goes way deeper than just asking if I have money enough to retire.

I plan to digest the book and do the exercises to get some understanding. I know I can't live in Hawaii, and love my work, although I have ways in which these passions can develop in other places and settings.

Music and Serenity

Enjoying a walk in the high country two weeks ago.
Unboxing my early Birthday Present.

After spending some time charging my Sony Over the Ears Headphones and getting the Blue Tooth connections activated I relaxed before sleep with some favorite pieces of music that have become part of my listening life over the last half decade. Technological development has certainly made progress from the Vinyl recording, the cassette tape, the CD to the digital age, when you can now get your music from the air, from a source out their somewhere to your own head. It's all pretty awesome.

When I am using music for relaxation and for producing serenity, its the instrumental music that they lump under New Age that most moves me to joy. I love all types of music to differing degrees and love classical and great movie themes, and on occasion jazz. It reminds me that we are best as humanity when we are being creative and harmonious and playing in sync and for the benefit of others. This is serenity reflected through sound.

One month left

Can't wait to use the earphones on a noisy airplane trip.

One month till my 65th birthday and the switch to Medicare coverage. To celebrate I got my present early so I could enjoy it during our upcoming vacation. After lots of reading and weighing options I got a pair of Sony Wireless, Noise Canceling Earphones for walking and helping me doze off at night with the constant ear ringing issues.

Cheaper than the Bose, and I love wireless freedom. Thanks Laura for the present.

One month left of Laura's all too brief six week summer vacation. I love seeing her relax and read and enjoy her home.

Choose Compassion

My son Brian doing some photo modeling in NYC. Pretty sure he does not own a tux.

Everyone is choosing sides these days. Everyone is lining up their guru expert against there guru expert. Everyone is drawing lines in the sand that say if you still want to be one of us don't cross that line. Everyone is passing out sheep and goat badges in their own minds.

Forget compassion this is war, forget the still small voice this is the megaphone.

Just want to shut off the noise some days.

My Dad was a recliner

Even after Mom and Dad got Lazy Boys, Dad would continue to watch TV lying on the floor on his elbow just like the above picnic photo. His ability to do that for so long always amazed me.

I am grateful for this photo and for memories of my parents and kids growing up. I noticed a malfunction in my small Canon camera this weekend, the sliding open and close lid is not opening. This is not a good sign for these cameras so I am headed to the repair shop to see if it can be fixed.

Hell Fire and Damnation Pepper Sauce for sale

Another Monday rolls around, another Hope Coach sack lunch day. This time my wife is with me and gets to see the Phoenix rescue mission on a bustling Monday when businesses are donating large amounts of food and produce. The construction and expansion and improvements are remarkable.

On the way home I shared one of my favorite lunch spots called Pepper Sauce, which has a delightful look and menu and some of the funniest and raunchiest named pepper sauces for sale. It was fun to share the place with her. Perhaps what retirement lifestyle allows.

Serenity Now

It is one of the most popular prayers ever published. Tomorrow I will be talking about valid faith responses to an uncertain and insecure future.

The Serenity Prayer has grown enormously popular since being adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous as one of their resources.

Staying in an attitude of serenity is to me a wonderful reponse that should replace fear with faith, and still leave room for both action and surrender when facing lifes problems.

Body Maintanance is good

Here I am with a father and his three sons, all aging well.

Yesterday during my gym workout I determined to add a notch to all my weight machines, which I did. I sit now nursing an ache in my left shoulder joint and wonder if I pushed too hard. This afternoon I visit my Dentist to get a crown on a tooth that has had too many fillings over the years and is cracking. Yikes.
Then right after that over to my optomologist to get my eyes tested for a 2 year vision test and probably new glasses before I leave my wifes health plan the first of July. This doctor takes a picture of my inner eye workings to see if diabetes is damaging my vision. Glad I did this.

Just like yard maintenance our bodies need some maintenance as well. I earnestly desire to see, hear, and move as long as I have the ability to see hear and move. Try as I might, there is no denying the fact that in six weeks I will turn 65. Much as I am trying to not make this a big deal, our culture has baptized that number for so long that even though my age group does not officially and governmentally retire until 66, most people still use the big 65 as a milestone age.

Desert Landscaping is expensive

Playing with Jill and Eddies Grandsons last weekend.

We don't mow a lawn, but we have trees and bushes and flowering plants, and every June or (yune) as my Hispanic yard man says, our three towering palm trees must be denuded of the dead fronds and left with just a few new shoots at the top, and my 8 year old museum palo verde must be cut back of over hanging our roof and encroaching the neighbors fences, and add a bunch of bushes and flowering plants in the front and in over two hours the crew filled a huge high sided truck and departed with a shocking amount of my money which he contends is a good deal and I am embarrassed to share. Such is desert landscaping....but the yard is nice, and the doves still showed up to sleep in the Palo Verde last evening.

No Turning Back

I swam with dolphins once, loved it.

I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back....so goes the old hymn. THe calvinist in me has occassionaly railed that the hymn makes too much of my own decision and not enough of His, and perhaps too much of a boast about my own ability to perservere in the faith.

Now, this week, as I reflect on my life and thought and the development of some key ideas about the gospel of grace. I find myself knowing deep inside that there is no going back to a former version of me, one that fits in with mainstream views. Cannot in all good conscience do it.

There is no turning back, no turning back.