A small slip of paper...

A few years ago I brought a dollar and a piece of paper folded into an envelope to Denny's for my annual get together with old friends. (I haven'r missed this in 26 years). I set out a challenge. Each of us would write down a list of five things we would try to do in the next year simply for the joy of it.  The first person to do all five wins the dollar.

So far none of us have won. We tend to forget the list you see. Ed and Cat came close with three things. Anyways last year Rossana filled out a slip and I got to read it this year in her absence. It said "Be more spontaneous" as her No 1. thing to bring joy to her life. The other four items were arrows pointing to the first item.

I thought that rather odd, since I think of ourselves as somewhat spontaneous. But in fact we aren't. We don't have a boring 9 to 5 existence, but the last few years has involved a lot of responsibilities, planning and fretting. Taking care of her father has been difficult for Rossana in many ways. She's strong, but it takes a lot out of her. I do what I can, but she is doing the lions share of the work and its stressing her. Being truly spontaneous can be kinda hard when you take care of a family member as well as run your own business. You never seem to be truly away from work.

So today I decided to take the advice she wrote down on the slip of paper on her behalf. We drove to the local AAA office and decided then and there to go "somewhere". Going to Europe was something I knew she wanted to do, but getting a flight wasn't easy or in any way cheap. So we opted to go to Florida for a few days. We've been dying to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter as well as the Animal Kingdom hotel at Disney. So that's what we opted for. Just a short trip to celebrate her birthday and get away from her responsibilities for a little while.

Of course, we'll need to call the pet sitter, send out those pending orders, answer emails about custom orders, rack the stock, find our if we owe any state sales tax, update the website with new stock items, make sure the nursing home knows how to reach us, check the brakes of the Honda, get cat food, pay a few bills and pack.

But after we do all that...yeah...totally spontaneous trip.