Spring Break

It's Spring Break in Anchorage so I took a day off and went to Seward with Dick. We have some good friends there who are moving out of state and this was probably our last chance to see them, so we met for lunch and had a great time.
It really was a nice day for me because I had the whole day to do whatever I wanted - so I drank a huge mug of cocoa at the Starbuck's in the Carrs grocery store and looked at quilting and sewing magazines for an hour and a half. But unlike most of the customers there, I actually bought a couple instead of just bending the pages and putting them back on the shelf as if I was at the library. It was a great use of time to plan out some future gifts and projects.
After lunch I spent the afternoon in Dick's little apartment reading the Ensign magazine and pondering the next five years and if perhaps I should consider a more minimalist lifestyle. This topic has come up a few times lately in different settings, once at church, once in a conversation with Dick and I, and in a conversation I had with one of the female instructors at Avtec yesterday. Her and her husband have lived on a boat, own no home, and spend two months every summer traveling on the water. Hmm. Probably a little too minimalist for me, I mean, what if people come to visit? Or you want to have people over for dinner? And they have no children and I do.
But I did pause to consider if there are things in my life that are keeping me from doing the things I would like to do or want to do or would like to be able to do in the future and what changes I need to make. I remember when Dick and I were first married and living in Germany, we had almost nothing, and bought almost nothing (except a lot of stereo equipment!) so we could spend our resources traveling and seeing things we might never have the opportunity to see again. I don't regret it for a minute. Now I have a house full of stuff I only use when I have company.
The closer we get to retirement the more we consider what we really need and what we can live without. And this could be said for all of our baggage, mentally and physically.
So Yay for spring break and getting away and being able to explore our many options!
Now if spring would just come!