It’s been said that Happiness doesn’t increase significantly once you have a roof over your head, food on the table and love in your heart.

I came across a post on Facebook today which brought me back to a book my Dad likes Enough by John C Bogle, the Founder and former CEO of Vanguard Mutual Fund Group created in 1974.  ”…the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money.” He goes on to quote a party conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and his pal, Joseph Heller. Vonnegut states their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22  during its entire history of sales. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.”

Bogle reinforces this point with a quotation from Socrates made 2,500 years ago: “I honor and love you; but why do you who are citizens of this great and mighty nation care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul? Are you not ashamed of this? I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man.”

This is the Facebook post about Capitalism’s “Too Much”.  I know I have Enough.  Now is the best season to give back

We didn’t take a tour, we didn’t go out for dinner, we didn’t drive to the other side of the island, we didn’t work much, and we didn’t stay in a hotel.  Sometimes a great vacation is defined by the things you didn’t do

We surfed, made home cooked meals, rode bikes, read books, made toasts, golfed, took silly and beautiful photos, made many footprints in the sand, listened to the ocean waves, played cards, loved with open hearts and took naps everyday.   We sometimes were joined by a stray dog named Lucky and a neighbor’s cat called Tiger.  The warm island breeze always brings me back to being present, here now.

Appetizers that is.  It’s been a month since we’ve been away from Colorado.  Two weeks in Montana and two weeks in Hawaii were epic but it’s great to be home. Sweet pics and blogs to follow about those journeys.  I wanted to share this Great Super Quick Roast Beef recipe that serves 4 with approximated per piece:   37 Calories ~ 2 g fat ~ 13 mg cholesterol ~ 1 g carbs ~ 5 g protein ~ 34 mg sodium ~ 66 mg potassium.  Let me know if you like it as much as we did!

Ingredients:

8 slices good Deli Roast Beef  (about 1/2 lb)

8oz Light Boursin or Light Laughing Cow Cheese (I used Garlic and Herb flavor)

1 red and 1 yellow bell pepper

1 jalapeño pepper

fresh cilantro

Prep:

Sauté sliced peppers in olive oil with chopped cilantro and salt and pepper.   Spread 2 slices of roast beef with 1/2 divided section of cheese.  Roll the roast beef around 1 slice of each pepper.  Slice in half and put the sliced sides down on a plate.  Enjoy!

True Blood began this season off with an exceptional show.  Yes I know the acting isn’t Academy Award level but the plot was interesting and couldn’t help but love the characters as they developed in the new season.  This past Sunday’s episode made me angry for some reason.  The plot seemed silly and the acting was really poor from the same actors I loved just a week prior.

I got some perspective on my walk today remembering the last show I watched season after season.  The XFiles wasn’t always a stellar in acting or plots either. But some I thought were amazing masterpieces!   Then I looked at my photography work.  I love some pieces and may even consider 3 or 4 a personal masterpiece but have some less than great shots.  So lesson learned to take life less seriously.  Take it easy on yourself and others and be forgiving.  It’s way more peaceful that way.  Not that vampires and werewolves are too concerned with being peaceful..  :)

I drove to Winter Park tonight to present some of my photos at the local stores and restaurants and clean our condo for our upcoming house guests. After presenting Chari at Alberto’s, my favorite restaurant in Winter Park with my framed print, they wanted me to hang my Fraser sunset in their entry way tomorrow at 3:30.  Wahoo!!   I had a pretty full schedule the next day in Denver including showing my work art Pokadot and looking at granite in Boulder with Matt Raible for our kitchen remodel.  I told Matt that needed to make the time and that I would miss 100% of the shots I didn’t take.   Being flexible is key.

I think the biggest advice I can give to photographers is that people will buy what they personally associate with and what they associate with is usually very local images.  The second bit of advice is that it is hard to know which type of sales efforts will pay off big or small, but you’ll miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. So get out there and talk to people!

Growing up, I always thought RVs were overbearing on the world of transportation.  Semi trucks make the world go round bringing us all our goodies but why do I need to jeopardize my highway travels passing super slow RVs? Pull over or something.

Once I fell back head over heels with photography, an RV came back around for consideration.  So I can stay somewhere for an epic sunset, sleep there and wake up for a chance at a gorgeous sunrise?  Sahweet!    We stayed in a trailer park in Golden, Colorado this month while I went biking at Centennial Trail with my girlfriends, biked to and from to the Red Rocks for the Spearhead/Franti concert with Matt Raible and had a great Happy Hour at the Golden City Brewery with our friends.  (GCB for locals)

Thinking it would fit in well, I wore my favorite Jim Beam baseball style T-shirt with the 86 number on the back which I love since I’ve been ’86ed from an establishment or two over the last 20 years.  Those stories to follow in another post  So what I was expecting was 180 degrees from what Matt and I saw as we took a late night walk around Dakota Ridge RV Park.  These suckers were HUGE! Like pack up your favorite basketball team of 40 to sleep and enjoy luxury travel in Huge style!  These big boys start at $100k-200k and are as nice as some of the homes I’ve lived in.  The next afternoon, we meet Mary and Bridget who were traveling nurses and living in the RV park during their stay… which could be 3-9 months.  I invited them over for Margaritas which was super insightful to hear their stories.  They were living my trailer park dream come true.. if I could stay anywhere that long.  With the whole ease of life, simplicity of possessions, mobility like our Native Indian ancestors and the opportunity to be outside with friends next to beautiful open space was truely  inspirational.

From there I took Matt’s 2 kiddos and their 2 friends to Stillwater Campground on Lake Granby in the RV for my BootCamp of Boat Fishing, horseback riding, kayaking and Kite Flying.  Cherry Creek Res with the RVs on Friday night is next with the Korndogs.  We’ll see if the dream continues..

I met a new friend up in Fraser today, Betsy.  She has beautiful silvery hair curled under at shoulder length that reminds me of a shimmery silver wig I’ve worn out to parties over the years.  My 5 year old border collie Sagan had been borrowing one of her dog’s soft frisbees on our run-walks along the scenic river path.  Sagan had been having so much fun with his new found soft frisbee that I was hesitant to find it’s rightful owner.  He had found it in the meadow next to where she was now playing frisbee with her pup.  She looked like a very interesting woman especially since she was wearing a white apron that was color splashed with a variety of oil paints.  Betsy has just taken up oil painting and has an end condo that looks perfect for sunset martins.  I told her that I am a photographer and just started playing the fiddle.  Her husband and friend play guitar and fiddle so we’ll get together to jam soon.  Yikes, I gotta practice some more! She wants to see some of my landscape photos too.  I promised to return the frisbee today after I wash it off a bit and give her my contact info.  Yay!  New friends rock!

My 6 year old border collie Jake chased a new friend today that looked like a big wolf-coyote-fox mix.  Humm.. can they cross-breed?  It ran straight up a steep natural cliff and calmly peered over the top as Jake scrambled to get up it.  Deep thought #9: There is something very peaceful about a canine lookout unless you’re the prey being looked out at.  Sagan tried to follow Jake in his usual Whirling Dervish fashion with frisbee in mouth not knowing really what he was chasing.  I called back to Jake since I didn’t know if the Coyote chase was a ploy to bring domestic dogs back to the pack.  Or perhaps there are cute Coyote pups I can shoot with my Nikon?  The run-walk was fun at 8500′ especially since I learned later it was National Run Day and I did it with altitude.

Dogs are wonderful cause they bring you to the best places.  Like down to the river and lakes around here to play frisbee.  Life is ruff.

Now back to Denver with the love of my life for Jen Velasquez’ Karaoke Birthday Shenanigans!