Except for occassional short, intense waves of grief (they like to kick me in the stomach, and that won't make sense to anybody unless they've experienced hardcore grief) I'm doing good, I think.
It is a beautiful Autumn day out. Eugene has a lot of changing trees..gold, red, brown, burnt umber, burnt sienna and all the other beautiful Crayola Autumn colors that exist. I notice that the season changes are more obvious down here than up in Seattle, despite us only being 5 1/2 hours south of Seattle.
The tree outside our bedroom window is full of mustard yellow leaves. That tree will have to be cut down as its roots are crumbling and cracking the sidewalk to the point of it being a public safety issue, I guess. I'll miss that beautiful old tree.
It is sort of nice having this house all to ourselves FINALLY. We clean up our own messes or leave them around if we choose to. I can walk around naked if I want to. Not that it was that much of a hassle with mom living with us, because it wasn't.
I spent a long time last night reading through Lonely Planet's "Europe on a Shoe String"..I keep trying to calculate in my head how much 6+ months of being in Europe might cost me but it almost seems impossible to come up with any exact amount that I want to set aside for my European adventure. I have decided that I won't be going to any of the Scandanavian countries because they are some of the more expensive places in Europe. I know I want to visit the following countries: Netherlands (obviously..I'll be spending a lot of time there, actually), Belgium, Germany, France, Czech Republic, England, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Greece. Oh, I think I forgot Switzerland. After that I have no clue...so many places to go. And then it's also picking a region or two in each country, but maybe I should go to less countries and spend more time in the countries I DO go to. How does one plan a huge and exciting meandering adventure without Overplanning or underplanning?? Any advice would be appreciated!! I guess I could base some of my travels on all the different festivals that take place all over Europe in the spring and summer.
Well, enough of that. I'm going to eat some oatmeal (my breakfast changes somewhat seasonally...oatmeal and the like for Fall and Winter, yogurt and toast for Spring and Summer) and drink some more Pomegranate Green Tea.
