Catching up on "my life"

Suffice it to say...I had a quite a journey since I left Calama in 2000. So, I'm going to give the nutshell version!

We came back to the US and took a two month trip in an old motorhome we bought. We visited old friends from the Air Force days, Peru, and family as well as sighseeing. We traveled through the south, to Tennessee, Florida, up to Maine, across the northern states, and down the California coast. I will have to admit that two months was about two weeks too long, but we had a wonderful time seeing parts of the US we had not visited before.

Back in Arizona, we lived for a year in an efficiency apartment next door to our friends Patty and Troy Riley in Scottsdale. Russell was taking a management course and I got hired as a bi-lingual teacher's aide with a friend of Patty's. Loved the aide position and learned that I do not want to teach and loved spending so much time with Patty but was very ready to move back to Tucson.

Jana had bought a condo and Russell was going to be working in Chile a lot so I moved in with her. Up until this point in our relationship I was pretty sure I had lost my daughter. I felt she thought I was "just" a housewife and had little real value. So I was very apprehensive, but that year turned our relationship around. I became her "wife" and she realized how many skills I really had. We've been very close ever since.

Went to live in Santiago for almost a year, came back to the US and bought Jana's condo.

Off to Chingola, Zambia, next. I arrived during the rainy season and fell in love with rain on a tin roof! I met wonderful people, black and white and brown, and made great friends. Played Bridge, went on several safaris, and met my cosmic sister, Shelagh, who gave me a crash course in Vortex Card Alighment just before I left. Two fantastic years of 6 months of torrential rains and 6 months of zip, zero, nada. My day usually began in the office waiting for the vervet monkeys to arrive sounding like tennis balls being thrown on the roof. My desk looked over the roof of the patio and they hung out there every day for a while. The only drawback was the lethal snakes! I was petrified to go outside. (Although I never saw one!)

Back to Tucson for a few months then off to Durango, Mexico, for a year. Loved it! Venezuela for another year. Loved it! Beautiful country and people, just a little tense since the President didn't like Americans. Felt like I was being watched all the time.

Oh, OK, back to Zambia! Solwezi this time. Farther along the Copper Belt and more remote. Taught yoga classes, practiced Reiki and hypnosis, made more wonderful friends and went on more safaris. More even more lethal snakes that kept me petrified to go outside. Loved every minute of those two years until...back home.

And...back to Chile, Antofagasta on the coast. Our house looked out on the Pacific Ocean and I was in heaven. Reconnected with old friends from Calama, made new friends. Friends from Toquepala bought a hostel in Villaricca in the lake district and we visited there several times. Took a Skorpios cruise to the San Rafael glacier to drink 35 year old wiskey over 35,000 year old ice! Loved it, had a blast! One sad note is that I lost my brother, Johnny, to drug overdose. But I know that he is watching my family as I had contact with him during a psychic reading. He had spent Thanksgiving with us in Tucson a few monts earlier and we had a beautiful visit. But...life goes on...elsewhere!

Back to the US. Russell thought he might retire--for about a New York minute! Somewhere in all this we bought our retirement home in the middle of Tucson. When you tell the Universe exactly what you want it will be manifested, but I forgot one small detail. We found the perfect Territorial style adobe brick house on 1.8 acres with a pool, old stables, sheep pens, etc.,...I just forgot to tell the Universe what price we wanted to pay. So what's wrong with buying at the height of the market??? Anyway, we love this place--can't hear any street noise, view of the mountains.

So of course, just after moving in and sorting through a houseful of furniture and 2 storages, we leave for Cedar City, Utah--as much of a foreign country as I've ever lived in! Mormonlandia! Didn't make very many friends once they realized I couldn't be converted, but did love living in a small town with one real grocery store, one kind of, and Walmart. I had the chance to perfect my on-line shopping. But the best part was Jennifer getting a job at the mine and moved to Cedar, too. I got to know the youngest grandchild, Emma, when I got her early in the morning and on to the bus to school and again in the afternoons for two years. And I loved the weekends when the family came for Sunday breakfast every week. Bryce Canyon and Zion were done several times. Trips to Vegas for shows were also a highlight. During this time both my Mom and Dad crossed over. I miss them both every day, but know they are watching my life with so much love.

But alas, as is with my life, all good things come to an end and back to Tucson we went.

So I'll leave you here with this nutshell look at about 14 years.