"You are the sunshine of my life."

Had a fuss budget morning.  The van is in the garage with the emission control system warning light glowing brightly.  On the other hand I just got a nice refund check for an overpayment.  The van will probably eat that up.  Should I be sad my refund will be gone, or happy that it showed up just in time to fund this upkeep on an older car that I intend to keep until forever?  The choice is mine.  This old house is drafty.  This old house is paid for.  Went out looking at condos, found two in my price range but the cost of selling and rebuying would fund many winter heat bills, not to mention more insulation and wool socks.  And there's condo fees.  And when it hits 100 in the summer this house actually stays reasonably cool under its steep roof and wide overhanging eaves.  And it's on a pretty street, with good neighbors, mixed ages, people from 90+ down to a toddler.  I can walk to the library from here, and now the library is serving coffee. 

So at the risk of being a Pollyanna I started thinking about what is right with life right now.  My two sons for one thing.  That is them many years ago in face paint at a campout at Lake Kachess in the Washington Cascades.  The eldest has on a souvenir of a time when my alma mater made it to the Rose Bowl with success.  We often camped here in the summer when they were young, and I have lots of warm, sunny, memories of those times.  Scrambled eggs and bacon, Grand Marnier in the parent's coffee in the morning.  Anchoring the tent on the hill that sloped down to the lake.  Once we put the tent on several of those cheap floating air mattresses when it rained thereby diverted the water running down the hill from entering our tent, and we still had the air mattresses under us.

My daughter-in-law picked me up at the garage and brought me home.  When I told her about the condos, she asked what was I looking for, and asked was I just feeling "itchy."  I told her about the concerns I had for when I turned 80, or 90.  Once I said them they seemed to dissipate.  She is a perceptive young woman, I'm lucky to have her in my life.   I remembered that it will soon be a year since my divorce and how those kind of anniversaries bring on discontented itchiness for me.  I am indeed feeling itchy, and my "inner child" always wants to pack up and leave and see something new.   We moved constantly when I was growing up and staying put is still rather a novel experience for me.  I think I will go back to stripping the wallpaper in the bathroom and find some "new" that way.