Looking up

I just got back from my two week mini-journey around the Northwest. It was a nice short trip, and the Northwest is such a beautiful part of the country. I guess to some it wouldn't be short, but having spent months on end motorhoming, anything less than one month seems like a blip on the calendar!

I left my camera's card reader in the RV though, so I won't get to share any pictures until I retrieve it.

Has anyone seen the movie "Up"? If you haven't, I suggest you go out and spend the money, because it is worth it. The first 10 minutes of it would've made me cry had I don't been in mixed company... I don't like crying in front of people. It was so moving and touching. I feel like a girly girl saying that, but it was really an incredible opening sequence. If I buy two movies this year, they will be Up and Star Trek. Actually, the first 10 minutes of Star Trek make me cry too...

The best thing about Up is how it shows the importance of our elderly and the legitimacy of living a quiet, non-spectacular life. I hate using the word "elderly" to describe that age group... it sounds so pandering and un-honorable. I guess I will say, those in the "golden years" of life. I feel like our generation is told that we have to make it. We have to get somewhere, we have to make something of ourselves. I feel like just being middle class, having a family, living within your means, and being relatively unextraordinary has acquired some sort of stigma lately. Like, if you aren't trying to become a CEO, or a magazine editor, or politician; if you aren't focusing in on advancing a career, then you aren't living life. Maybe just I feel that way.

I guess I just want to have a dog, own my own very modest home, go to a job every day that I like doing, and come home to people I love. It's not that I don't want to be successful careerwise, I do, very much. I just don't see it as the most important.

(The wedding photo above is by Josh Newton Photography. I went to high school with him, and his work is absolutely incredible. Go look at his photos at joshnewton.com, you won't be disappointed.)

(ffffound)

I think it's important for us to keep our priorities in a healthy order. Movies like Up seem to help us evaluate what we think is important. Right now the top photo is my desktop background. Hopefully it will remind me where I want to set my sights.