Settling in? - Jeff

Greetings from still warm and balmy Tucson!

One of things that Martha and I wanted to do in retirement is be more active volunteers. Well, things are starting to heat up in that area.

Our first time worshiping at Resurrection Lutheran a woman, Sandy, from Interfaith Community Services (ICS) gave a short talk about current needs in the Tucson area. ICS provides meals, transportation, and other "pastoral care" type services. Martha thought it would be a good idea to at least check them out, so we are going to attend volunteer orientation on 11/10. When Martha talked with Sandy I could tell they made a connection of sorts. In fact, Sandy called Martha this week and asked if she could help out preparing foods bags (stapling instructions to the brown paper bag)for distribution even before we agreed to be volunteers. I decided to tag along, so yesterday Martha and I stapled 500 grocery bags. It felt good to do a little something for ICS right now, even before being official volunteers.

But the fun thing, for me, was that while we were stapling bags I overheard Sandy talking about the golf tournament. Naturally I inquired, and now I am signed up to play in the ICS tournament on Wed. 11/11. It is a Texas scramble which should be fun. This is ICS's major fundraiser for the year. I am looking forward to playing for a worthy cause and getting to know some more folks, especially golfers!

Our lives are starting to develop a certain rhythm now. We get to bed by 10-10:30 and we get up at 6:30. We don't seem to have too much trouble filling our days. Martha does Pilates three days a week, and I have been golfing once a week. We also help out taking Jim Vadis (cousin-in-law) to physical therapy twice a week.

ps. I have added a couple of pictures to earlier posts if you want to check them out.