This is our 10th year  to spend the winter in this casita in Gold Canyon, Arizona, east of Phoenix.  It t so nice not to contend with ice and snow in the winter.  Today, as I write this, our temperature is 63 degrees, while in the Denver area it is 28 degrees.  We used to enjoy downhill and cross-country skiing.  Today, we can enjoy walking outside.  Much better.     A couple of months ago, we found water spots on my jewelry box.  We contacted Hector and Sons painting to calk the windows where the leak seemed to be.  After doing that, we had the entire home painted.  First, they power-washed the outside and primed over the cracks in the stucco.                                        As you can see, house looks really nice after it is painted.        While the prep work was being done, Hector...

 Normally, we come to our winter home in Gold Canyon Arizona, in September.  Nothing about this year has been normal.  The first major change was in April last year when we sold our Airstream trailer.  Then we adjusted to living in an apartment in Lone Tree.  Next, John was diagnosed with prostrate cancer. His radiation treatments began in mid-December. That meant he made a trip to the hospital for treatments 4 or 5 days a week, putting a crimp on any other plans for the day.   It also meant that we have spent our first winter in the Colorado cold since probably 2009.   The treatments are complete and we wait for three months before blood tests will show the doctors if the radiation was a success.  We had planned to leave Denver Tuesday, January 31. However, a storm was predicted for northern Arizona that day so we waited until February 1 to drive south.  It was so good to get to the (relative) warmth of the Phoenix valley....

This will be our first Christmas in our apartment. We are enjoying seeing how folks decorate, especially in the hall outside their door. Since our own Christmas decorations are still stored in our Arizona winter home, our apartment doesn't look very festive. We did buy a tree. The garland (?) of yarn is a tribute to the tree decoration our first holiday in the funeral home we owned in Castle Rock. We had moved in just a few days before Christmas and we brought our artificial tree from our Boulder home to Castle Rock. My sister-in-law had some yarn that was very thick and I used it to make large bows on the branches of the tree. This year, I didn't want to duplicate the decorations we have stored in Arizona, so I again used yarn and a borrowed nativity. Next year we will have our own decorations in our apartment. The nativity scene next to this tree is borrowed from our daughter-in-law, Liz. She has a collection of these and agreed to my using this one this year. Many ...

We bought this house in May 1992 and it was the location of so many wonderful events, from family gatherings for Christmas and Thanksgiving to entertaining friends and hosting vestry meetings. There were baby showers and teas with our grandchildren. We built an HO guage model railroad in the basement which we enjoyed with our grandchildren. John set up a stained glass workshop where he produced numerous windows for our home and for friends and family. In 2009 we moved out and began traveling year-long in our RV. The house was converted to rental property and our son Eric managed it. In the last 13 years we had two renters who provided us with a steady income. But it is now time to simplify our lives and we decided to sell it. Just before Thanksgiving, we closed on the sale of the house. Yea! We will invest the proceeds so we can receive some income to compensate in part for what funds we had been getting in rent. It was a great home and then income property. But i...

An uninvited guest has come to stay with us. We wish he would leave on his own but it sounds like we have a lot of work ahead to evict him. John has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Yesterday we met with the urologist to discuss treatment. So far, after a bone scan and a CT scan, there is no evidence the cancer has metasticised—it hasn’t spread. That is good news. But this guest is embarrassed to come in to somewhere it isn’t welcome. That means we have to fight to get rid of it. That means tests like an MRi, radiation who knows what else. I do know that this guest claims a lot of time and space in our time, space, future plans. Our calendar is full of encounters with the visitor or plans to get rid of it. all began with a colonoscopy in July. That led to two endoscopies in September and October, then a biopsy in October then a bone scan followed by a CT scan this month. The urologist also wants an MRI. Since John has a pacemaker, that means he needs to connect...

 We have been here in our Lone Tree apartment since April and have watched the seasons change.  This fall the leaves have been absolutely beautiful, probably the most colorful we ever remember here. I was ready to post a blog about changing colors. But yesterday we had a taste of winter--that means snow--and so I will change the focus a bit. In May, soon after we arrived, we looked out our window and saw this. Fast forward to October and November and the trees were no longer green or white.  The leaves had changed to yellow and many shades of orange and even red. Driving down city streets. Walking along paths near our apartment. This was the view of our courtyard a couple of days ago. The snow fell on the mountains last week.  Isn't it beautiful? The snow moved down to Lone Tree and we looked out our patio door Wednesday to see this. Today, we visited the Lone Tree Recreation Center and saw these trees.  Aren't they stunning?  They remind me of what we saw ...

The fall colors in Colorado are incredibly beautiful this year.  In ways it reminds us of what we saw during the three years we lived in Wisconsin.  Aspen trees turning yellow is the norm here.  This year, there are a lot of red leaves on some of the trees--not aspen.  I'm not sure what kind of trees they are.  I have an app on my phone (suggested by our daughter-in-law Liz) called PictureThis that helps me identify plants and trees.  However, I haven't been close enough to the trees to tell what they are. Last Friday we drove to the Carson Nature Center along the South Platte River to walk and view the trees.    This photo shows the sprinkler system located along the trail.  I don't know what activates it.  The grounds look like the vegetation is native and doesn't need watering to thrive.  We wonder if maybe it is a form of fire suppression.  This photo was taken when we were walking near our apartment in Lone Tree.  Thi...