Expectations

We celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary in grand style over the past four days. For me, it started with the following horoscope:  

You'll realize that you do have time to do what you really want to do if you change your expectations.

So that's what I did ... I deleted the solitaire game from my iPhone, pulled up my tube socks and tied on my work boots. Then Don and I headed out to cut brush and frost weed from the back of the property.  We also did a lot of planning for the great room/studio/bunkhouse project.  And dined happily on spaghetti and meatballs. Not the romantic anniversary dinner that I would have imagined oh so many years ago, but truly what we really wanted to do.

Sunday we got the house organized a bit before we headed back outside and took the chain saw to some of the dead trees and limbs on the property (after taking some ibuprofen to counteract our back aches from the previous day). It was a good day's work.

Monday dawned rainy and we made the unhappy discovery of a dead deer in our front yard. Since we had plans to head to Austin, we deferred any action. After all, it was raining, and it was New Year's Eve, and we had an Uncle Lucius/Ray Wylie Hubbard concert to go to. Besides, we really had no clue what to do with a dead deer.

Tuesday morning the deer was still in our front yard ... in spite of my somewhat unrealistic hope that it would magically disappear. It was time to change my expectations, so I pulled on my tube socks and tied on my work boots. 

Plan A was to roll the deer onto a tarp, pull it into the lawnmower cart, and take it to the back of the property for the buzzards. Except the lawnmower wouldn't start. Plan B was to lay the side of the wheelbarrow down next to the deer, roll the deer into the wheelbarrow, then push it to the back of the property. Which actually worked, amazingly enough. Rigor mortis is a wonderful thing and it was also very convenient that the deer ended its days next to a large, wedge-shaped rock ... both of which made things much easier.

Job done, we headed off to Gruene Hall, where we reacquainted ourselves with Walt Wilkins and the Mystiqueros (who we hadn't seen in ages). That makes three acts that we've listened to in 2013 (Uncle Lucius and Ray Wylie kept singing after midnight on New Year's Eve) ... not a bad start.  As Ray Wylie says,

"And the days that I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations ... well, I have really good days"

Here's to lots more really good days in 2013.