Learn From My Summer Experience
Did you do what you hoped during the warmer months? Lots of warm days remain, so get out your calendar.
Since much of creating an organized life results from forecasting and preparation, I want to share my unique summer experience with you.
It will make your life easier while traveling and in general.
I didn't plan on being in Albuquerque from May until July.
I thought perhaps 1-2 weeks, but it morphed into months. We can't predict what life will toss our way.
It wasn't a leisurely vacation, though. We welcomed two new little family members, Finneas and Darby, and it was all hands on deck.
From weather to food, New Mexico is very different from living in Pennsylvania and heightened my awareness of my surroundings and what I took for granted before traveling.
New experiences change perspectives.
Being decades past raising my kids, I have a profound appreciation for the relentlessly hard mental and physical work babies and children require. I have new benchmarks for being tired and sore.
Prematurity adds layers of fear, expense, and upset to the exhaustion of caring for two infants. The stress is enormous.
In addition, one little guy developed NEC, necrotizing enterocolitis, and was in the University of New Mexico hospital for six months, well into the summer.
I was fortunate to be able to help, even though initially I assumed I couldn't. Emergencies invite creative thinking.
There was a lot of time to think and observe.
Being confined to a hospital room invites thought, many many long thoughts.
I hope my experience helps you be ready for the inevitable life events that remodel your plans.
I'll start with the essentials.
Then I'll follow with general but meaningful actions to make your life easier while traveling or coping with an emergency, whether it's a travel delay, weather, or medical crisis.
I've also included a few New Mexico insider tips.
ESSENTIAL ACTIONS
Take nothing for granted.
Notice and appreciate what you are looking at, for it changes instantly.
Be still for a moment. Look out the window; question what you see. I asked a nurse about the shadow on the western hills. Even as a lifelong resident, she said she hadn't noticed. I told her later it was the Rio Grande Rift.