A Brief Transitional Interlude

Let's break away from our travelog deluge to reflect on transition, a subject I've written much on. Let's look at Wife and my day today.

They were calling for rain. I was not excited about running around the crazy roads here if it was raining especially as I am really looking forward to exploring the hill towns of the region. So I decided today would be a work day. One of my goals when I finally designed the semi-retired state was to be able to continue working in a reduced state on what I liked while I was traveling wherever I wanted in the world.

So today I worked. I did a review of legal documents. I wrote a newsletter. I did major work on revamping the design and text of my website. I did a lot of this outside looking over the Mediterranean sipping coffee or Orangena soda. Then around Noon, Wife and I decided it would be an Italian day and went into Ventimiglia for lunch. We enjoyed some of the best pizza we've had on the trip with a lovely salad and a half liter of house red wine. We went walking in the town and took some pictures. We grabbed a gelatto. We spent maybe three hours on the whole lunch period including travel.

We came back to the house. I took a nap. I went back to work, again looking out over the spectacular scenery. We were both so satisfied from lunch that we skipped eating anything for dinner - not uncommon for us when we are traveling.

After I finish this blog post, I will dig into writing my book. It was a productive day punctuated by our being in another country enjoying a completely different lifestyle than we do at home.

This life style did not happen by accident. It happened because of the long hard work Wife and I did figuring out what we really wanted, figuring out how we had to change things so we could have what we wanted, and making trade-offs, sometimes hard trade-offs of other things that we deemed less important.

The final chapters only have the chance of being happy if you are willing to do the work to make them so.