My Favorite Story about "Life"

This is such a great teaching story, which I try to keep in mind before judging something "good" or "bad" in my life: http://www.wisebread.com/good-luck-bad-luck-who-can-tell

More Permaculture!

I'm still very excited with the concept of permaculture - as Geoff Lawton, one of the leaders of the permaculture movement, says "you can solve all the problems of the world with a garden".

I discovered his videos which are fascinating and very inspiring.  

Here is a video tour of the permaculture farm that he manages – it's paradise!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASNVqSEEk1U


He also offers a series of free videos that introduce the concepts of permaculture that he teaches in his courses:

You can find them at  http://geofflawton.com

You might need to enter your first name and email address to access the series of free videos, but I find it well worth it – he definitely doesn't spam you or anything.... Just sends you a glorious new free video every week!

San Diego trip & Change of Moving Plans?

Hey, where did December go?  We had an exciting trip to San Diego, though I came back with a bad cold, and therefore lay low for the whole holiday season. I feel great now, though! 

Here are the highlights of our trip to San Diego:  

We checked out several RV parks that we might like to stay at when we move down there, and this is the one that seems the nicest in our price range, and has a very friendly, helpful manager:  http://www.woodsvalley.com

We also spent half a day at the Deer Park Zen Buddhist monastery we are interested in attending sometimes http://www.deerparkmonastery.org 
 

as well as the Seaside Center for Spiritual Living in Encinitas http://seasidecenter.com, where people were super friendly (we've watched some of their Sunday services via YouTube, so we felt quite at home there!)

These were the Air BNB rooms we stayed at down there – our hosts were wonderful at both places, and we find it much nicer than staying in a hotel when we can:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/245451?s=adbb

h
 We also went on a tour of a small, slightly funky Permaculture farm – everyone there was also very friendly, and we've become very interested in the concept of permaculture:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LdT-qcvRiw

We really love the weather down there, and are excited about moving to California – but.... the heavy traffic in San Diego and the relatively high cost of living have us considering a new location to move to – the Pismo Beach area (central California coast).  This is where Rick grew up (full-time to age 6 and part-time visiting his grandparents after that).  

Pismo Beach has a population of about 8000 people, and nearby San Luis Obispo has a population of 45,000 - So this area is probably more our "speed".