A day for Fathers......

With two of my children back in the late 80's......Sharon and Tim....

all my kids make me smile like this.

Sunday began with text messages and calls from my kids wishing me Happy Fathers Day.....it is a day of re-affirmation.....it is a day when any doubts you may have had about what kind of father you were are swept away by your children......you see the kind of adults they have become, and for those who have had children, the kind of parents they have become and smile.  I guess, to some degree, the kind of people your kids become as adults is testimony, in some small way, to the kind of parent/father you have been.  I know that as my dad looks down on his 5 kids, and the people they have become that he is smiling just as I am today......I know, just as he does, that I did an okay job with TLE raising our 5 kids.

Happy Father's Day Arthur Ray......have missed 

you every day for the last 36 years

I appreciate those of you who keep reading this blog every day even when we are sitting in one place for a long period of time.....even when there are days I struggle to write something that seems interesting to me.  I know, intellectually, that we live a pretty cool nomadic life, but even knowing that, sometimes as I look at the day past it seems to be rather vanilla to me. But, then I remember when it was me reading the blogs of others who have gone before me.....others who inspired me to simplify my life, get rid of most of my stuff, and embrace this nomadic lifestyle.  I hung on every word they wrote because they were living my dream.....whether they were visiting some cool place, or just hanging out with friends on a particular day, they were living my dream......they had broken free from the workaday life cluttered with schedules, possessions, and the daily obligations associated with living in a stix and brix home.  No matter what they did in a given day it was interesting to me by virtue of the fact they had figured out how to break free and live a different kind of life.....the kind of life I wished for myself.

Sunday was one of those days that reminds me of why we live this life......TLE and I are both big soccer fans.  We coached all of our kids in youth soccer, and I was a professional soccer referee for 17 years.  Before we became nomads the thought of spending a whole day, if not several days in a row, watching one soccer match after another was unthinkable because there were those pesky schedules, possessions and obligations.  If you didn't take care of your stuff there would be a price to pay.  Now that we are nomads we can spend  4 days in a row watching soccer, and not take away from anything else.  And isn't that the essence of this life we live?  There is time for everything.....if I wish, as we did in Sioux Falls, I can spend the better part of 9 days doing nothing but working on the coach.  Back in our workaday life I had parts of 2 days on the weekend to work on projects, and I always felt rushed to get things done by Sunday night so we could return to our workaday life and schedule come Monday.  On Sunday we spent the entire day watching 3 more soccer matches, the U.S. Open, and then the NBA final between the Spurs and the Heat......nothing tangible seemed to be accomplished, but it was.  What was accomplished? Well, nothing in the traditional workaday sense, but in the nomadic sense a lot was accomplished.  We lived Sunday the way we wished to live it.....not according to someone else's dictate.  We lived Sunday on our terms, and we lived it well!

And that is why I write an entry every single day of the week no matter what we are doing, or how interesting it seems to me.....I want to portray our daily nomadic life as completely as possible for those who are thinking about cutting loose and changing the way they live.  I want to show that how ever you may picture, or configure your life on the road you can make it happen.  How we live on the road is our own unique creation, and it has changed since we started, and will continue to evolve as our desires evolve.  Everyone we know who is living successfully on the road does it differently.....there is no one way to do this.

Thanks for stopping by!