Another year and the adventure continues.

Greetings from Ricardo,

This has been a very challenging year to say the least but with an ending that was well worth the journey for us nomads. Let’s begin with the once in a life time event that unfortunately occurred to our home in beautiful Carrboro. You all must know that we had a flood that took everything but the physical structure of our home at 110 Riverbirch Point. So what was good about it.  I want to say something without sounding as a person in denial.  First of all after 3 weeks of mediation we sold the house and there is not much more to say here. On the same day the house was sold we started our trip north for our yearly family reunion with our new car,  a 2025 Camry hybrid.  Yes it was hard, very hard but the memory was thankfully short lived . I feel that we were the unlucky lucky ones moving forward quickly into our new life here at Twin Lakes Community.

Now we are at TLC, which is like an adult camp.  I have never felt so safe and cared for in my 71 times around our precious sun. We are focusing on getting back as much strength as possible with yoga, a physical trainer and many walks around our new neighborhood.  For the most part our lives haven’t changed that much.  Eating yummy food and watching shows most nights.

We are only 40 minutes from Carrboro/Chapel Hill so friends come here and we travel back on average of once a week. Yes TLC is different but for us who don’t have strong feelings of attachments the transition was doable.  Thankfully we had the Herculean help from Susan’s incredible and beautiful sister Nancy who helped getting us setup in our new home.

Richard and Mei Mei also traveled to spend a week with us which is always a joy.  We look forward to Alan and Marilyn when they stop here for time to share on their return trip from Florida. Sadly, I won’t have much repair work for Alan here as I don’t even change a light bulb! We've also had so many of our dear friends come to visit including a few of my men’s group crowd.

Sending love and wishing you all a blessed and fruitful year to come.
Ricardo

And from Susan...

Hello to our family and friends as we say goodbye to 2025 and approach the year 2026 with much gratitude. As usual for us, life has its ups and downs with unpredictable moments. Somehow, we get through each challenge hopefully a bit stronger (in attitude, if not for physical strength). As last year came to a close I was struggling to gain my strength to walk normally after my broken femur in Paris. This required many months of PT and OT. I am happy to say that I am walking well without aids.  

We then spent most of the next 6 months enjoying our home in Carrboro including a celebration for Ricardo's 70th birthday in February as well as seeing our friends and family and enjoying life. Little did we know that these would be the last months to enjoy that beautiful home. We had plans (as I mentioned last year) to move to a CCRC in Burlington, NC. (Continuing Care Retirement Community) so we were beginning to think about what we would bring from our home, and what not to bring. As many of our friends learned, this is a big challenge...letting go of one or more parts of life and starting another.

Now let's flash forward to the night of July 6, 2025. There had been some rain during the day, but nothing unusual. Richard looked out the front door at around 9:30 when we went to bed and there was no rain. As usual, one or the other of us (Richard in this case) got up at 11ish to pee and stepped into water over his knees. We were both up, walking around the house in three plus feet of water. Neighbors were all on their phones wondering what we should all do. Someone found out that the police department would be coming house to house to rescue us in a police boat. We were told to stand by our front door with a flashlight. They took us outside our neighborhood to dry land and then took us to the Hampton Inn in Carrboro for the night. There were 46 out of 56 homes in a similar situation in our neighborhood and 10 houses built high enough to miss this flood caused by Tropical Storm Chantal. Thankfully the rain stopped at about the same time as we were transported out of the neighborhood or the damages could have been even worse. Gratefully, no one was physically hurt but for many there was psychological and emotional pain which continues to this day for some. 

The following day brought us into reality as we all faced this scene and had to decide what to do. I was not physically well enough to go back to the house and face the mud and damage to all our belongings. Richard was amazing as he immediately contacted his friend Everado who came with his family and friends to our aid right away and began the job of cleaning up. He figured that everyone was going to be needing help and the key was speed to minimize moisture sitting in the house causing mold. They ripped out the walls (4 feet up). rugs, floor boards and started the big piles that were soon everywhere in front of all of the homes - of furniture, appliances, etc.

In the end, we lost all our furniture except 2 small end tables (made of metal and glass). We lost our car, all our appliances and all household goods and clothing that were up to 4' in the house. I remember seeing all my shoes floating by as we were walking around the house that night. Looking back now those first few days felt like a surrealistic dream. Several friends came to help cleanup the first few days and we scrambled to hire cleanup companies to start and finish the cleanup. Then there was the need for electrical work, HVAC, etc. Ricardo was remarkable in how he handled the whole process. Needless to say, it was a very stressful time. Thanks to Ricardo, we were the first home to be emptied and with big fans - dried out and ready to sell (obviously at a much lower price then would have been before the flood). We sold it on Aug 1st, only 3 weeks from the flood. Then we were able to move on. We followed our plan to head north to NY and MA to visit our families and attend our annual family reunion at Cape Cod.

Love my brothers and sister

the whole family in Brewster, MA

So....getting back to what I was writing about - letting go of stuff and preparing for a move to a CCRC or anywhere....Much of this decision making was made for us. We were able to move into our apartment in Twin Lakes at the end of Aug instead of the planned move at the end of October and we brought our dishes, pots and pans and most of our clothing. No need for a moving van or deciding which pieces of furniture! This was a major lesson in non attachment and letting go. I suppose our lifestyle for many years of minimalism was helpful and our life of moving from place to place in our travels and house sitting days in Mexico helped us prepare for this time in our lives. I am so grateful that we were safe and sound and have all we need now. It's funny about stuff....we can live with so much less than we think!

One of the lakes 

Now we are in our new lives. We felt like newlyweds moving into our first home as we had to buy all new furniture etc. My sister Nancy was my angel during the first week in helping us set up our home. There were so many details to take care of and she was instrumental in making it happen. We lost all the paperwork, both important and unimportant, as well as the photos that remained after we went through them during Covid. We had saved only the important ones in a small box on a shelf in our garage. Oh well...at least I have the blog posts and photos in that for memories. We still notice things missing as we need them.

Wittenberg

We are VERY happy here at Twin Lakes. There are so many activities and the people who live here and the staff are all friendly and helpful in so many ways. We are in an apartment building (Wittenberg) of 24 apartments on 3 floors. Everyone knows each other and there are many activites to do together. At the same time we all have our privacy and our own lives. Unlike many CCRCs, there is no food plan or dining hall for all. There is a small cafeteria and a regular restaurant on campus. This was important to us because I am so fussy with my food lifestyle and wouldn't want to have to eat one or more meal daily. We are still the "new kids on the block" and getting to know folks. 

Cousins Greg and Bryna helping
on move in day

One other change in our lives is that we have both given up our roles on the Board of Directors of Libros para Todos. I was the President and Ricardo was the Treasurer and we both felt that it was time to pass the baton to others. I am very proud of all that we have done to bring literacy to children in rural communities of Mexico. I will continue to provide support to Daniela Franco, the Director of the program when I can. Many of you who are reading this blog post have been faithful supporters of this program and I hope that you will continue your financial support.

Lastly I am doing the best that I can to accept my Parkinson's Disease. I continue to do exercise, including Rocksteady Boxing (a program of exercise for people with PD) which is available right here at Twin Lakes twice/week. We both have dedicated our first months here to yoga, strength training and lots of walking. 

That was a long winded blog post. Remember, I write much of it for ourselves to remember our year. 

As this year comes to an end we both wish you 

A  HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON AND NEW YEAR.