Monday, December 31, 2012

Golf Gypsy's 2012 Review in Photos.

Seasons of golf in the USA.
It was a warmer than average winter, so I was actually able to practice a few golf shots before flying out to Palm Springs with Peggy to play our spring golf at The Palms and The Classic Club. (We are troopers:  not even tornadoes, wall clouds, and pouring storming rains can keep us from our California destination, but it can make us a day or two late.)  I'd like to say that the golf was stellar but that would be a lie!  In May, we celebrated Peggy's two on hole 7 at MCC.  It helped us win but it cost me a dollar.   Mary Lee and I played in our first ever Triple Threat event and had the time of our lives, focused, diligent, talking golf, and laughing. Oh, I forgot to mention, feeling lucky.   I was mentally ready for golf and I thought physically, especially after  a year of Pilates, but again I was wrong.  A golf ball sized  hernia was cramping my style; once that was stitched up and six lazy weeks had passed I was really ready to test my skills.

In July the Walenz Explorer took four of us to Beaver Creek, Colorado and four days of golf at Red Sky Ranch, which tested our skills, our patients, our ability to focus in spite of the Black Angus cattle running across the fairway while being chased by a bear, and our enjoyment of taking the edge off!  August and September were filled with golf tournaments and travels with friends, as I tried to make up for missing June golf.  I will however, not complain about that rest.  I don't know when I've ever felt so refreshed.   October, November, and up until December 2 turned out to be so unseasonably warm that many friends visited Prairie Dunes to play where the pros have played, and  I took turns visiting their courses.  Along the way we each made some daring one putts, hit some memorable shots, trees, gunch, sand, and other unplayable lies.  For us amateurs that's about all we can ask for in a round of golf.  Cheers to memories of 2012.

Journeys, memories, and victories in 2012.







Saturday, December 29, 2012

Christmas on the Road

La Quinta view, but not in California

Here I sit looking out a south window at a motel pool  as snowy ice pellets hit the water's surface creating dazzling modern art forms. Today, December 25, this is my Norman Rockwell Christmas painting, and, like so many of my 64 Christmases, we are on the road.  Christmas on the road has taken me to New Orleans, Chicago, Pasadena, Miami, Florida (and my Miami, OK), Dallas, Wichita and many other tiny towns and truck stops of the old two lane highways and Route 66.  Very few Christmas's were ever spent in our home, as a child or now as an adult, but I'm oh so blessed to have celebrated uniquely.

There were years when Christmas was a struggle; when I forgot the true meaning of Christmas; when I worried that it wouldn't be perfect; when I compared our children's Christmas, divided with divorced parents and brought together in a combined family, to those of one happy home.  I'd gotten lost in maize of looking for the perfect painting.    One day in a silent prayer for guidance a gentle voice reminded me that Christmas lives in our hearts, and to open my heart to his love to his words.  Watching now as the ice pellets turn to snowflakes, the birds flutter in the trees, a cardinal perches on a bush in front of me, I am refreshed in the beauty of the moment, my heart is open and it is Christmas.  Merry Christmas World.