Stop and Smell the Roses
We heard some sad news yesterday. One of Jean’s puppies, 14 year old Barkley (on the right in the photo), was being put down. Barkley was one of the many critters that Jean so lovingly took home from a kill shelter. She lost Sundance, another retriever, just under a year ago. Needless to say it has been a tough year for her. But she still has two little guys at home, Salsa-the-crazy-black-cat and Scooter-the-crazy-terrier. Barkley played the middle man between the two before and although his best friend was Scooter, he had befriended (or tolerated) Salsa as well. Now it’s up to Salsa and Scooter to hash it out and start snuggling. Jean, we are thinking about you and very sorry about your loss. We know how much Barkley meant to you.
BJ woke up at 4am yesterday (8am in Jackson, Wyoming) to meet over Skype with Vertical Media. When I finally zombied out of bed he was already half way through his work day. His meetings went great and the solid internet connection that we have make us more optimistic about being able to work from just about anywhere. We spent the late afternoon watching people kite surf on the beach and then reading, eating fine cheese, drinking German beer, and listening to the birds sing on our deck next to our koi fish pond.
We’ve cooked the last two meals at “home” and it has been a nice surprise to go into the local grocery store and find much more than just meat pies, kebab, and vegemite (what BJ feared would consume our diets down under). After dinner we took a walk around the neighborhood. We stopped and smelled roses, honeysuckle, and lilies in front of a few different houses and tried to remember the last time we had “stopped and smelled the flowers.”
We find ourselves in a unique situation. We actually have the chance to test out a few places and decide if and where we want to stay during our 6 months in New Zealand. We like Nelson, but what if we like Wanaka or Queenstown or Dunedin more? For this week, at least, we are calling Nelson home and looking forward to enjoying the artsy and active community that lives here.