Life...

Do you make your bed in the morning? I use to...

until a few weeks ago...

You see, it's dark when I leave for work every morning, and it is already dark when I come back. I don’t get to see our home during daylight any more, and only get to enjoy our home for just those few hours before I go to bed and wake up to start again with the same routine the following morning.  Thus, our bed doesn’t get to be this pretty any more.  It only gets ‘fluffed up’ every morning... it is our routine now.  

I work 10-hour shifts during my weekdays, and only take ½ hour lunch. These are very long hours and very long shorter days I'm living.  But this schedule it also contributes to my Fridays off.  And thus, Fridays are an expression of freedom and goodness and of been able to see my home again and get to spend time in it…

It is such an amazing feeling, such joy to be able to do such simple, familiar chores again, like making our bed in the morning and see our lovely home during day hours.

Fridays are now also the days to do everything we can’t do during our long weekdays, such as bathroom cleaning, floor cleaning, washing and folding clothes, cooking, shopping for food and work on the garden. This past Friday we accomplished so much! Our bathrooms are now clean, our floors shinning and even the garden got a few hours of cleaning up.

I pruned most of the roses and got done with most of the perennials; cutting them down to the ground and cleaning flowerbeds, while the Fisherman helped with racking and picking up leaves… which were a lot!

The garden looks a little neater now; a little tidier, and although its floors are still covered in leaves, those are staying to serve as a protecting bed during our cold winter days.  

This is the time to work on tying up vines and ramblers too, but I just don’t have neither the energy nor the desire to do so, and I’m afraid we’ll just have to wait and see what would I do about it comes spring again.

The other side of the garden still needs work

Roses are frozen in time...

and frogs and other friends sleep under beds of fallen leaves...

My life had changed again. Or it is changing.  It was my own insecurities and indecisions what caused this change and made me go back to a full-time job, but I have made peace with myself and feel confident I will survive this time.  At least I am not feeling miserable at my work, as it had been the case before.  Hours go by fast, and as I learn new complicated programs and get used to my new environment, I feel happy. What a nice difference from my last job at the courthouse in our little southern town this is!  A more civilized ambient I should say.  A more friendly oriented-less gossipy atmosphere, and one that it is truly letting me be me without the ‘people’ pressure, so I can work in peace.  So, although it may be long hours, my soul is at ease.  I will survive. 

Our last camping trip of the year? Yeah?

November 9^th—the latest in the year we have ever camp. Temperatures were 44 degrees this morning when we started our road trip, and for a moment, we even had to stop and questioned our sanity, knowing that it gets in the 20th at night.  Should we had stayed?  Keep on?  But our hearts were set and ready to go and our gypsy spirits eager to embarked in what it should be our last camping trip of the year, before the real winter weather settles in and our gypsy caravan had to be wintered and close for the year…

…and what lovely, lovely showcase the Desert put up for us when we arrived!  The camp was almost emptied, with only two or three tents trembling under the chill of the morning in the distance.  The sun shunned strong and high in cloudless blue skies—skies saturated with geese’s in their migrating flights; filling the air with their migration songs, their hunks and trumpets satisfying the silence of the dunes as they displaced themselves through invisible airways and roads, leaving us in awed at their magnificent sight…  everything was perfect… perfect in every way!

It had snowed up in the dunes...

The skies were saturated with songs and glories all around!

Before getting to our camp, on our way to the dunes, we stopped at Albertsons to stack on coffee because I had forgotten to bring mine, and that’s when I met Ollie… it was true love at the first glance, I should say!  And the Fisherman got Ollie for me.  Thus, Ollie the owl is now part of our gypsy caravan and from now on will remain here.  He will sleep with us and eat and read with us.  He’s so soft and cuddly and I’m dreaming, and hopping that Ollie would bring a real owl to me tonight.  I’m leaving my window open, and I hope not to freeze during the night...

I set up our little living room in the open first things up, as I always do, and then sat Ollie on my chair.  I always like to decorate our gypsy campsite with whatever gift Nature wants to gift me with, depending on the season.  This time, the desert had its beautiful dry tumbleweeds scattered all around, so I made my own bouquet and called the place my home.  Then I went on to prepare us lunch…

Veggie rice and chicken tikka masala, along with an avocado salad in olive oil, salt and pepper.  The weather was perfect, perfect sun, no insects no heat to steal our joy and perfect comfort. 

We discovered a falcon perched up in one of the tallest trees and for a few delightful minutes we were gifted with the perfect distraction as we contemplate him through our lances and took dozens of pictures.

I thought the lake was probably saturated with geese’s and thus wanted to go see… we walked the desert trails all the way to the lake, were a few fisherman and fisherweman were there fishing.  A cute dog with painted ears was fishing too.  But the geese hadn’t stopped there at all.  Only the usual mallards and the ruby ducks.

The desert was filled with golden light and this time it was dressed only in golden rods and browns.  What a beautiful beautiful sight are desert and dunes to me.

Back at our gypsy camp we sat down to read outside, until it got a little chilly by 3:30pm.  Then we went inside, I put on my warm pjs and made me a cup of coffee while the Fisherman read. 

I love it here... love it so much!

My heart lives here... this is home!

It felt delightful inside our gypsy caravan.  Ollie looked so comfortable there.  I think he is going to like it here!  When the sun was coming down, we bundled up and went out again to walk the trails under the last light.  How beautiful how very beautiful it was.  

Sunset is always so beautiful in the desert. The sky takes on shades of orange and pinks, even purples… colors and a sky that gives you hope that the sun will set only to rise again.

We made chili with Tostitos for dinner, bread, orange marmalade and creamy swiss cheeses from the laughing cow and kept writing ad reading some more while the sun set outside and the sky turned even more lovelier, more mystifying and glorious... how beautiful this place is, and how I love to come here...  

A full moon serenated us from outside… looking down at us from above our gypsy caravan.

It felt utterly magical inside our cozy gypsy caravan.  

Ollie loved it there too!

The next morning was just beautiful, I woke up around 5:30am hoping to hear an owl.  Made coffee and toast and sat to wait.  But she never came by.  Only Ollie and I and the Fisherman who kept sleeping a little longer...

Would this be our last gypsy trip of the year?  Perhaps no!  I want to come here next week, but I hear that temperatures are coming down this week, so we'll see!  Till next time then gypsies!