A wonderful day and some awesome news!

On Thursday Joshua and I went to a private meditation training session with a woman named Sarah Maclean. My mom won the session at a silent auction and she was supposed to go with me, but something came up and Joshua took her place. I am so so glad that he did. This was such a wonderful, life-enriching experience. The teacher, Sarah, was one of the founding educators for the Deepak Chopra institute, she also left everything behind to stay in India for 6 months, and was a resident at a zen buddhist training center for two years. She was so wonderful. Anyway, enough gushing about her, she taught Joshua and I some lessons on meditation and on how to practice daily. She spent almost an hour and a half talking about the benefits of meditation, of which there are many, and giving us background on meditation.

I am very hopeful that with daily practice I can reduce my stress level and by doing so help with my insomnia. I know that some people feel meditation is hokey, but I really believe in it's power and I am looking forward to sharing some of positive experiences.

I know I complain about AZ a lot, but some of it is really beautiful. Sedona, where the training was held, is about an hour and a half outside of Phoenix.

We had a picnic after our training session. We just set up our blanket at some baseball field in town.

This is the view from our picnic spot.

After leaving Sedona, we drove up to Jerome. It is a little art community on the side of a mountain. This is the view from the lot where we parked.

This is what I look like when I am annoyed at having my picture taken :)

One of the artist/shop owner's backyards. This man was 87 and he rides his bike from Jerome to Sedona every day. That's like 60 miles!!! He was telling us all about the stuff he has collected and turned into art in his yard.

Then we drove to Prescott, which is a cute little town with a neat town square. We didn't stay too long because we were tired and hungry.

It was a wonderful, relaxing day for Joshua and I. We don't get to do dates very often, so this was a special treat for us. We spent a long time talking and decided that we are going to make our RV dream a go. Yes, you read correctly...WE ARE GOING TO DO IT!!!! We have two years to save money, which sounds like forever, but when you are making little money, you have to save for longer. We intend to purchase the RV after a year and spend the next year continuing to save money and fixing up the rig. I will keep everyone updated as we work towards our goal, but I KNOW we are going to make it happen. We are excited and determined :)

Happy Friday! I am off to work on my journals for Amy's art journal swap.