A2K time zones: What's the time where you are & what are you up to?

Sounds like tasty food to me.

Currently about 8:30 at night, eerie quiet for a warm Friday, usually much more commotion outside.

My wife and I are now in Rapid City, SD, having just arrived about 4PM today. 17 in our tour group coached up from Denver, and we met up with 25 more in our group at a reception at 6PM. My wife and I sat at a table with a couple from Pittsburg, a couple from Yorkshire, England, and a single lady from VA.

My wife and I had dinner at "the best restaurant in Rapid City, SD, the Corn Exchange."

It's now 8:20PM.

It was delicious. Fresh strawberries for dessert. It's been unusually quiet up here too. I wonder what's going on--or what isn't going on.

9:13am Eastern Daylight Time, had the top down on the convertible doing errands with my son.

Ah, there is no place like home (hopefully not Kansas)

7:50 am in still cloudy southern California.
I love it when everyone is still asleep and I can have a cup of strong coffee and sit down and browse through the internet and a2k. In a few hours I'll play chauffeur to my teenager again, driving her to point A, pick up kids, drive to point B and then point C - then hours later in the reverse again..... still better than letting her drive. It will come soon enough and then my real worries start.......

9:03 a.m. in mid morning New Mexico. Katy scarfed her kibble and is sitting behind me in the Master Computer Room, where I'm browsing news and a2k. Lots of computer related stuff to do today. Well, first I'll have more coffee.

I got a call from my lawyer late yesterday. Could I come in on Tuesday and sign papers for the sale of my house on Wednesday. The now 100+ year old house I bought in 1976 when Rio (pronounced with a long i and long o) was a two lane country road.
When I bought the wood frame structure it featured attic insulation consisting of crumpled newspapers from the 1920's.
Over the years I bought more of the adjoining land, including the "cottage" which had been a country store owned by the people who lived in my house. And a few vacant acres down below on part of which I built 5 townhouses. Nice townhouses.
Back to the main house. 1500 sq ft, with another 2000 sq ft on two floors. Entirely too much lot and too little building, with county code restricting adding more structures due to a lack of parking.
And then there are the oaks. Two. Two adults stretching their arms around them can't touch their fingers. They need a kid to complete the circle.
My lawyer wrote language into any contract requiring the buyer to maintain the oaks. I've paid the company that maintains Monticello to take care of them.
I never expected anyone to buy the property.
But a young couple stepped forward.
Now I am having seller's remorse. Sort of a postpartum thing. I think they share my for concern for respecting the place, but one never knows.

maybe they will let you come visit the trees...

are you gonna live over the business now?

Congratulations on your successful sale, rjb. I can sympathize with your mixed feelings about leaving such a place. Much of your past life is being left behind. I went through something very much like that a few years ago in New Hampshire. Painful.

This is lovely (the image and the way you put it).

Yes, where will you be living now that you're leaving?

I've wept bitter tears when I left every single place I've ever lived (bitterest were probably my first real apartment in Madison, and my little house in Pasadena), but then fall in love all over again with the next one....

Also interested to hear, RJB.

8.18 am Sunday morning here. About to get coffee....hoping my coffee maker doesn't shed its valve and spout coffee to the ceiling as it did yesterday! I am assuming I didn't put the valve on correctly.

Beset by cats...I've had noses and paws all over my face trying to roust me out now play-fighting all over me.


MUST DO HOUSEWORK TODAY!

Yeah, I can understand that, RJB.
It sounds a beautiful place. I'd be very attached to it, too. And be very sad to leave!
I hope they share your respect for the property, too.
Fingers crossed.

Where are you planning on moving to?
I hope it's half as nice!

RJ, big sympathy from here. This is probably a good thing, but intensely hard to actually leave, walk the walk. You have been such a good caretaker of the land. It's hard to give up control, even when you put it on the market yourself.
Keep us up to snuff on what you're going to do, if it's not too invasive to ask.

Welcome home, engineer.
I'll bet it feels good to put that spreadsheet away!
No more counting.

So, how does it feel to wake up in your own bed again?
Does your home territory feel kinda strange after India & China?
(That always used to happen to me after travel adventures in Asia. I couldn't believe the space! And almost no one to be seen on the streets! Ghost town. )


Sunday 13th May, 9:3a am, Melbourne ....

Sitting at my computer, wearing bulky woolly sock & a big woolly jumper, drinking tea ....
Cold & wet & not very inviting outside.
What will I do today?
I think I'll continue with the Big Tidy Up.
I am making wonderful progress!
Even washed all the curtains yesterday!
Today I am going to try to get rid of all unnecessary paper in what I call my "study" (ha). This is a big task which I've been putting off for some time. Not looking forward to it, at all.
But it'll be great when I'm finished.

Go Msolga!

You'll feel great when it's done...and you are an inspiration to those of us who flagged on the way.

8:30 PM Lancaster Pa time. Im planning to set out my tomatoes tomorrow. Also, Im going to begin tilling an entire section for some summer crops from seed (beans, beets, okra, gourds,)

Thank you, thank you, Deb!

I don't quite know what's come over me, really.
A friend said I have my seasons confused.
Why am I doing my spring cleaning in late autumn, she asked?
Probably because if I allow things to become more cluttered & messy it will be unbearable to be cooped up in this dusty old house all winter!

Ah, I envy you, farmer.
Best time of the year ... planting tomatoes & your other summer crops, then watching them grow.
I love it.
Though the scale of your plantings would be huge compared to mine!
I hope the weather's kinder to your plants than ours was during the past summer.

Kudos to you msolga you're doing well.

Cold overcast Sunday morning here in Adelaide. Being Mother's Day I'm taking my wife out for lunch at a seaside restaurant. Will be my first outing since my illness, she is driving and I'm paying the bill.

Happy Mother's Day, Dutchy, to both of you.