Welcome!

Over the past two years, I've been handed many challenges. I was laid off from my job at a newspaper where I had worked for 20 years. It was a job I had created; a job I loved, and a job that was snatched away from me on a sunny Friday morning.
My husband, a musician, had emergency open chest surgery; a procedure that introduced both of us to the maddening health care system and reminded us that we weren't immortal after all.
My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
Our seemingly ageless family dog, a yellow Lab named Waldo, died as he neared the age of 16.
Our lives seemed to switch into a lower gear. Saddened by the loss of Waldo and slowed by my husband's health, we didn't hike for more than a year. The closest we came to camping was throwing open our bedroom window on a chilled night and letting the wind blow through the room.
Our home in the mountains became our sanctuary, our retreat, and sometimes, our prison. As my husband healed, there were weeks when our cars never left the driveway. But throughout it all, we held onto our professions, the work we loved. For me, it was writing. For my husband, it was music. I began taking freelance writing jobs. He taught and played music. The click of my computer keyboard and the rumble of his bass guitar were the background music in our home.
And after two years, amazingly, we are still doing what we love. And we are finding our true selves again. We went hiking last week, and we're planning a camping trip with our new dog, a beagle named Hunter S. Thompson (you'll read more about him later.) Both of our professions have been deeply wounded by the economy, but we believe in what we do.
At my last newspaper job, I helped create a blog about Colorado and the outdoors. This time around, I'll write about the world beyond my window as well as the big and little events that are part of the experience of being a Coloradan, a boomer, a wife, a mother, a woman, and a beagle's best friend.