Living in rural USA

Life in a very small town: La Veta Colorado

/ Laura Lee Carter / 12 Comments

I loved yesterday! It started out like so many of my great days… badly! Mike has been very ill so we had to cancel our anniversary trip. I was disappointed and a bit grumpy, but I had promised to go into La Veta to meet a new friend who only comes through occasionally, so I drove into town. We had some tasty pizza, along with a great time talking and laughing about “family problems” with my friend. It turns out my new friend has a wry sense of humor and, guess what? Everybody has family problems… who knew? On the way out the door I ran into another new friend.

Then we took a walk around tiny town for a few errands.

La Veta has the best public library! If they don’t have a movie, they get it for you from their extensive network of other small public libraries. That’s how I keep current on my movies. It’s free and I get to watch them in the comfort of my own home.

Speaking of libraries, I met my new friend when I was at a Christmas festival in La Veta last December, selling my new book. She came up and we started talking and before I knew it she bought a copy. Now whenever she comes down here, she looks me up. I love the person-to-person contact that comes from selling my books one-on-one to new friends, instead of through the “evil empire” Amazon. For one thing, it is so much more friendly and personal. And another, Amazon doesn’t take half of my profit! We have even had these new friends up to our solar home to show off our incredible views. I guess I’m trying to get them to think about moving here….

My friend and her husband enjoyed my new memoir so much, they wanted to buy my other books, so we walked over to my car to get them. As luck would have it, there were two ladies sitting on a bench near us when I opened up the back of my Forester. They giggled and looked at us, so I said, “No, I’m not dealing drugs out of my car. It’s even better! I’m selling my ‘feel good’ books!”

We got to talking to them about books, love and dating (because of my love book), and life in La Veta. They said it’s tough meeting good men here. The good ones are married. One older gentleman walked by, overheard us, and I think he was about to join in to disagree! They asked me to bring more of my books into town. They wanted to buy a few.

My 1st La Veta Octoberfest 2013. Should we move here?

I said goodbye to my new friend until she comes down here again, maybe for Octoberfest. That’s when they close down Main Street and everybody parties together. This will be our fifth one!

Next I went to see another friend I met through my exercise class. Such good people in La Veta, and it’s amazing how quickly you can recognize so many on Main Street. Sometimes you may be talking about someone and they will walk right by!

So glad I chose this quiet, slow and friendly lifestyle for my forever home & retirement.

To learn more about how we ended up here, living in a solar home in the Colorado outback, check out: A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado…  

Also, please follow me on Twitter!

Back to reality, strange as it is…

/ Laura Lee Carter / 8 Comments

everyone seems normal until youThis is your brain on drugs, prescription drugs… After a few days of very strange brain sensations and a few wild hallucinations (both visual and auditory!), I’m finally starting to feel ‘normal.’ I’ve been struggling with the extreme brain craziness of withdrawal from Paxil, which I really cannot recommend to anyone!

Interesting how doctors don’t tell you about this ahead of time. I couldn’t have imaged anything like this from simply stopping a pill…Post Script: 30 days later feeling much better, but I had to fire my doctor over this one.

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Then yesterday I went out into my garden and found the stupid deer or rabbits had chomped off two of the plants I’ve been carefully nurturing all summer. GRRRR… but my garden has mostly just been taken over by SUNFLOWERS EVERYWHERE! Funny how the deer don’t like them…

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We are experiencing the total invasion of three foot sunflowers everywhere here at the Navajo Ranch in southern Colorado!

Poppy field in Oz

Sometimes it feels just like that scene from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ where they find themselves surrounded by poppies!

I had so much FUN meeting a few new women at a friend’s party yesterday. Most of them live in La Veta, so I got an earful of stories and anecdotes about living there. I love La Veta, and I’m so glad it is nearby, but I have never wished that I live there.

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I figure if we came this far to get away from the noise, traffic, pollution, and problems of other people, why move in right next to them?

Fog lifting off the Spanish Peaks this morning

/ Laura Lee Carter / 4 Comments

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This morning I woke up to a dense fog surrounding our home, so rare around here! We received almost half an inch of rain last night.

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Only minutes later, the sun worked its way through the clouds, and the Spanish Peaks began to emerge…

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Looking west, Mount Mestas suddenly appeared with a big fat gollop of clouds on top.

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LOVE the cloud and sun show in this part of the country!

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Home Sweet Home

 

Living in the simplicity of the present

/ Laura Lee Carter / 14 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I have been changed by the experience of leaving city life behind. The greatest change has been my new ability to at least occasionally be in the present. I see now that before I moved here, I was constantly stressed out, and in distraction mode.

“Distractions are both more tempting and more destructive than we realize. It’s tempting to fill in every little minute of the day with productivity or distractions. Don’t. Leave some emptiness.”  – Zen Habits

It seems to me that cities are set up for constant outside noise and distraction. Any time you feel uncomfortable in any way, you can call up someone to go see, order some new kind of food, go out shopping or go see a movie. People in cities spend most of their time sitting in traffic or driving somewhere else. Cities are distraction machines, and the Internet is the ultimate, easily available escapism.

Being in the present means you are not planning ahead. You are sitting still, willing to be here now to observe and absorb your present surroundings with no thoughts of yesterday or tomorrow, no need to distract yourself. I find many of the observations of ZenHabits.com useful in my new mindset:

“If you’re filling your life with distractions, its probably because you’re afraid of what life would feel like without those distractions…”

To be honest, I never really had the time to gain full awareness of all of this until I moved away from modern American life. I knew I was anxious and not as relaxed as I wanted to be in the city, and now I see why. Cities raise our anxiety levels. I know because it took me at least a year away from a city to see how anxious I have been most of my life, and then find ways to allow myself to truly relax.

I have been a worry shopper my whole life. Once I solved one problem I moved on to the next one. Out here there is so little to worry about, leaving me much more time to focus on what is important to me. Now that’s a great new challenge! And what is important to me now is a few important relationships, and appreciating the natural world and its wonders.

We can sit and dream about so many things, but we would be wasting our lives. This present reality is all we get. Let’s learn to love it.

Best of Boomer Blogs, Number 505

/ Laura Lee Carter / 3 Comments

IMGP6244I woke up entirely too early this morning. In fact the moon was still slowly sinking in the west when I went outside, and I could see the orange haze from wildfires west of here. I enjoy working in my garden at this time of day, before the sun comes up.

It’s my turn to present a few blog posts from my fellow Boomer bloggers. Today I received an interesting mix of posts about food and drink, along with a couple about death and the pain of loss.

now that the barn burned down see the moon

Over the holiday weekend Tom Sightings had a premonition that something was wrong — only to find out that a friend of his had died suddenly of a heart attack. Now he shares with you his way of saying goodbye to a friend.

It can be hard to see the blessings in the tough challenges that arise in life. Here Carol Cassara writes about a different way of viewing the pros and cons of life’s major challenges.

beer toastOK, so some of us are better than others at embracing life’s challenges. In fact some us choose to drown our sorrows, but what does that do to our health? On The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, Rita R. Robison, consumer journalist, asks whether we should limit our alcohol consumption. A recent study showed even one glass of alcohol per day can increase your risk of breast cancer. In contrast, a huge study is being undertaken to see if a glass of wine, a beer, or a cocktail every day might prevent a heart attack and help us live longer. I wonder who funded that study?

No matter. Alcohol is not my drug of choice… and I also cannot stand SPAM!

spam and eggsThis week Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting had food history on her mind. Though not a fan of processed products, she nevertheless pays homage to a product consumed today around the world. Some love it, others hate it. Here’s Ms. Baer’s tribute: Spamming the World for 80 Years. 

After a three day trip back to the city we moved here from, the longest time we have spent in a city since moving to the country, I came home feeling so relieved that I never have to live in a city again!

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In a world full of self-absorption, better known as selfie obsessions, I thought I might add my own version with my garden and the Spanish Peaks behind me as I peer into my own dining room…

Happy Summer! Have some fun while the sun shines!