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Starting Fresh

I am getting closer to understanding how to post pictures here. This picture, to the left, is from October 2017. It shows the aster that we planed in front of our house. Our house, as you can see, is brown. There is no contrasting color in the trim, door, anything. It’s pretty dull on its own. But from spring to fall we have flowers of different colors (trending toward my preferred pinks and purples) that brighten it up. I love how each year the flowers come back fuller and more beautiful than the year before. This picture also shows how grungy our front walkway is. It could use a good power washing, which I will probably do this spring (no, it was not done in 2017 or 2018). 

We are talking about going on a sabbatical next spring semester. We are exploring various locations, but Barcelona is a top contender. I have never been especially interested in Spain, and I took French in high school, but the more I read about Barcelona the more perfect it sounds. It’s a large, walkable city on the Mediterranean coast, near mountains. The cost of living seems reasonable compared to many other European cities. I hear the food and wine are magnificent. They have a major airport and train station so we could visit lots of other cities during our stay. I don’t know if it will work out in the end, but we are making movements in that direction. It’s exciting to think about but there are also a lot of aspects that I worry about. High among them is who will take care of our cats. It’s Will’s major concern as well, which makes sense. He is very connected to animals and our pets especially. We’ll see how it all goes. 


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