This is not a Christmas book! It's a book about re-inventing yourself in middle age.
I was 58 years old. My 38-year marriage had ended, and I needed a new start. If I had to begin life over at my age, I'd start with where I lived. So, it was goodbye to the cold, damp, frequently snowy, and icy East Coast, and hello to warm, sunny Southern California. Among many things that I had always wanted to do was to drive cross-country. Now was the perfect opportunity; it was a double deal: beginning again and a check-off on my bucket list. It was my choice to pretty much leave everything in the two houses we owned (one in Somerset County, NJ, and a beach house at the Jersey shore) and take things that meant something to me or would be useful as I was setting up housekeeping as a single. When I rolled out of the driveway for the last time, clothes were in the closets, dishes in the cabinets, linens in the linen closet, and even spices in the spice drawer. Fortunately for me, I was able to hire the most amazing women who ran estate sales and helped to pack up the few things that were going with me. In one sense, it was an estate sale since the marriage was dead. The process all worked very well, and my helpers, who became my friends, did an outstanding job relieving me of some of the burdens of putting things in boxes. It was hard enough to make the decisions on what to keep and what to sell. But there was one minor problem. I had this favorite Christmas decoration, a birch log and twig reindeer with a red nose, that was too fragile and was pretty much impossible to pack. So, thus began Travels with Rudolph. He became my loyal companion and, at times, my "navigator" ("Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won't you guide my car tonight"). Above all, Rudolph was an excellent listener. I hope you enjoy my travel tales with an inanimate object as my co-pilot and beginning a new life 3,000 miles away from everyone and everything I have known.
I was 58 years old. My 38-year marriage had ended, and I needed a new start. If I had to begin life over at my age, I'd start with where I lived. So, it was goodbye to the cold, damp, frequently snowy, and icy East Coast, and hello to warm, sunny Southern California. Among many things that I had always wanted to do was to drive cross-country. Now was the perfect opportunity; it was a double deal: beginning again and a check-off on my bucket list. It was my choice to pretty much leave everything in the two houses we owned (one in Somerset County, NJ, and a beach house at the Jersey shore) and take things that meant something to me or would be useful as I was setting up housekeeping as a single. When I rolled out of the driveway for the last time, clothes were in the closets, dishes in the cabinets, linens in the linen closet, and even spices in the spice drawer. Fortunately for me, I was able to hire the most amazing women who ran estate sales and helped to pack up the few things that were going with me. In one sense, it was an estate sale since the marriage was dead. The process all worked very well, and my helpers, who became my friends, did an outstanding job relieving me of some of the burdens of putting things in boxes. It was hard enough to make the decisions on what to keep and what to sell. But there was one minor problem. I had this favorite Christmas decoration, a birch log and twig reindeer with a red nose, that was too fragile and was pretty much impossible to pack. So, thus began Travels with Rudolph. He became my loyal companion and, at times, my "navigator" ("Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won't you guide my car tonight"). Above all, Rudolph was an excellent listener. I hope you enjoy my travel tales with an inanimate object as my co-pilot and beginning a new life 3,000 miles away from everyone and everything I have known.