A Year in Review

Hard to believe that a year ago this week I wrote my first post about moving to the coast, exploring my new area and looking for work.  I found a great job with benefits just as summer ended and we threw ourselves into coastal living.  We're starting our second year on some of these events;  Prince Eric and I competed in the Amazing Race again and are looking forward to the Pirate Treasure Hunt in a couple of weeks.  Next weekend, we are going to compete in a sandcastle contest!  I'm not really a competitive person, but there is fun stuff to do here.  Last weekend I entered a cake in a local event, and came in 2nd, winning an apron and $10.  Most things cost very little to enter and many benefit charity organizations.

In February, we moved from our oceanside gated community with a private cove to a place a little cheaper and closer to our jobs.  I snuck Flounder back to his favorite beach there recently.  Last year he would frolic and run, the joy clear on his face.  This year it is obvious he is getting older.  As Prince Eric pointed out to me, in approximate dog years he is 7 years older.  He enjoyed the beach and walked along the water's edge with me, but didn't frolic freely.  While he's not that old for a smaller dog, he'll be 10 in February, it saddens me that our time with him is probably 3/4 over.

We are aging too.  Last September I had surgery to repair my fallopian tubes so that Prince Eric and I could have a child together.  It hasn't worked.  As I near 42 and Prince Eric 45 (both also next February) I'm losing hope that it will happen but we knew beforehand that our chances weren't real high, I just didn't want to miss the opportunity to try.   Prince Eric is putting things into place to return to school to meet his ultimate goal of coaching college softball.  I'm expanding my role at work and learning and taking on some new things, which I enjoy.

Melody will be starting her junior year at a different school.  While she prefers the smaller charter school she went to last year, it doesn't have the sports program she desires.  She also has her first real job working in a local restaurant and is building her bank account. Sebastian is starting his senior year of college and is schooling us on saving the environment.  He's looking at post-grad opportunities in the Peace Corps or Ameri-corps.

Overall, this has been a great year of growth for us all.  However, I haven't crossed anything off my bucket list in 2014 and the year is more than half over!  Maybe I need to add "Win a Sandcastle building contest"  . . .
 

We are not unlike a particularly hardy crustacean. . . With each passage from one stage of human growth to the next we, too, must shed a protective structure. We are left exposed and vulnerable -- but also yeasty and embryonic again, capable of stretching in ways we hadn't known before. These sheddings may take several years or more. Coming out of each passage, though, we enter a longer and more stable period in which we can expect relative tranquility and a sense of equilibrium regained.

Gail Sheehy

I'm Starting to See a Pattern Here . . .

I always intend (see: the road to hell) to blog more but I can't write without inspiration and a good dose of motivation.  More disciplined, i.e. paid, writers seem to be able to sit down and blurt out words on demand but since I don't have any incentive other than my ego, I guess my audience has to wait with bated breath for me to impart my pearls of wisdom.

Today when I was on my almost daily walk on the beach I started noticing natural patterns, further defined by Wikipedia as "symmetries, trees, spirals, meanders, waves, foams, arrays, cracks and stripes".  There's tons of research on the psychology of symmetry and how humans and animals are attracted to mates with symmetrical features.  Also, theories abound on how early human survival depended on recognizing patterns.  Whatever . . . my theory is simpler:  Nature's cool.  Check out the pictures I took today just in one small area:

 We often build things that also follow natural patterns, these are from the same area as above:

Frank Lloyd Wright is probably one of the best known examples of builders who built with organic images and linear patterns.  One of his designs, the Gordon House, seen below, can toured in Silverton at the Oregon Gardens.  It's fascinating the level of details put into maintaining lines and patterns.  While I'm sure Oregon's not the only place where cool nature is in abundance, I'm thankful to live in an area where it is all around me.