The most precious commodity is Time!

Clouds over the Olympics on one of my recent walks. The last three days have been Glorious!!! with snow only on the mountains--where it belongs--and flowering trees and perennials down below at 500 feet above sea level, where I live. Temperatures in the high 60's and SUNNY!!! after Such a long and gray winter.

I am more aware than ever how my exciting projects stretch out in Every Direction, and how quickly time flies by. Breakfast this morning with my happily newly-retired friend, Katie. They decided that Mike should retire this year, too...life is TOO SHORT to work for a few more years for a few more hundred dollars in retirement. Somehow they've managed to travel and be together no matter what.

The AARP newsletter has an article about people
who are living on little money in order to be free
to do what they want with their time. I've decided
that I need to work another 5-10 more years at my "regular" job in order to enjoy the freedom of
a roof over my head in retirement. One of my brothers has told me it's a good time to buy a new car because the rates are low...but I'm almost finished paying for the 2004 Honda Civic I have! When I was working a lot of hours for a good salary, but didn't have the energy to create as much as I would have liked, I think I bought myself things to compensate...and I must confess that I did get myself a Chrome Cuisanart food processor on sale today...but it should last me forever...and the events of today, my thinking about what to do to be able to afford retirement, or vacations, or new cars...brings me back to the realization that the most Precious Commodity is TIME!

My heart goes out to those who have too much time because of the Recession and loss of jobs...it's Very Difficult to be creative, when you're worried about keeping a roof over your family's head. I spent enough years in that pickle to sympathize. Finding proper balance is a tricky business. This USA is going through a challenging period of trying to portion out our
great resources perhaps a bit more fairly...since I
have worked in health care for many years, I'm
especially interested in how we can make sure
that all are served as well as possible and that
people no longer have to choose between their
medication and food or lose their homes because
of hospital costs.

I am happy to see that Dr. Howard Dean from
my home state, Vermont, is going to put his brain
and energy to work on this problem...check it out:
http://www.moveon.org/