Bill and I used to both work in the travel industry where part of our jobs was to attend consumer trade shows as representatives for our respective companies. At every show one of the comments we consistently heard from potential travelers was their desire to go on a “trip of a lifetime”. They might describe a week-long stay in Scotland with one night in a castle or perhaps a visit to Tuscany, Provence, or some other well-known region of western Europe. We would always compare notes after these shows and quickly realized that we had already taken all of these “trips of a lifetime, sometimes several in one year, with many more planned for the future. We recognized how lucky we were and to remind ourselves of that we started repeating the phrase “live in the moment” when we would be on one of our European trips. Now, instead of dreading that uncomfortable, sleepless night for 8 hours on a plane it meant that we would wake up in a magical place like Paris. That cold, icy, 45 minute windy walk up the side of a German mountain would culminate in the wondrous Neuschwanstein castle said to have inspired Walt Disney himself. In other words, take nothing for granted; enjoy what you have right now.

As consuming as making a move overseas can be, it’s easy to forget the day-to-day pleasures that still exist around us right here. On the surface it might not seem as exciting as what the future holds for us in France, but real beauty can be found as close as the deck on the back of our house. We have window boxes there full of brightly colored portulaca flowers that the bees, butterflies, and even hummingbirds find irresistible, not to mention how often we stare at their brilliance in the sunshine. Here’s a photo Bill just took of a Swallowtail butterfly sipping the nectar. Long live these moments!