Victoria Day Weekend

A very satisfactory weekend. The garden is planted; everything is cut, trimmed, washed, weeded... and a summer of yard work stretches out ahead. I enjoy this stuff: power-washing, staining, painting. A cup of peppermint tea straight from the garden. The promise of rhubarb next spring; the hope of squash, beans, peas, strawberries, all fresh from the back yard.

This is what we bust our asses for all week. This is why we get intensely involved in the commercial world and build up our store of ducats. Yes, we have long and short term plans beyond the mundane routines, but we want the mundane routines to be enhanced. We want to have room on the grocery budget, we want to know that the planned long trips won't take a lifetime of saving to realize.

We also know that it could all disappear in the blink of an eye. Natural disasters, medical events... so we have to always balance appreciation of the present with plans for the future. And that balance is absolutely not contradictory, as we discover over time. Good things happen with preparedness; the medal comes after a long, arduous, glorious run to the finish.