Reinventing Bonnie, or Parts Thereof...

Hello after an almost two month hiatus. The photo below displays the huge Japanese maple out my new bedroom window. Today finds me only partially settled in my Santa Rosa digs. Oakmont is advertised as an active adult community of over three thousand homes. Its beautiful, safe, and perhaps a bit boring, at least this writer finds it so, as I see on tv the dramatic winter sunsets I am used to overlooking San Francisco Bay. Just now we are experiencing the second of three contiguous rain storms and my mind keeps going to Cathy Lane. Tsk, Bonnie, stop it. "Did the new owners remember to clean the drains in the driveway and close the windows on the greenhouse?" "Is the water level rising in the patio?" "Are they checking for downed limbs?" It becomes more and more clear, like the master of Downton Abbey,  how seriously I took my role as caretaker of that land for 51 years, and how I can't quite shed the mantle of love and responsibility.
Reason tell me  it is time to transfer my concerns to my small plot on Oakmont Drive as I try to reconstruct a life and make new friends, while still treasuring the old. The neighbors here (so close) have been wonderful. A big task awaits as I embrace new doctors, new stores, new dog walkers, a new gym, new gardeners and new handy men. Meanwhile, recovering from a fractured hip (doing well, thank you) and replacing the furniture damaged in a flood in my storage locker in Oakland (going slowly).. Some days I cringe at the stacks of unpacked boxes strewed around my living room and shudder at the stacks of insurance papers to process, but I try to do a little each day before I collapse with a book.
Kodi is having a hard time with the adjustment, too. I try to balance his stress with more TLC. He adores being rubbed down with dry towels after a rainy hike in Arundel State Park which he did this morning. This house has one great room with dark hardwood floors, called Tiger Eye.  They are quite beautiful but of course highlight every wet doggie foot print. The house seems very dark to one being used to a house flooded with light. Wish me illumination!

Monday I am having four solar tube lights installed here to try to bring more light into my life.  More on reinventing Bonnie next week.