Category: Retired

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Qué Dios lo bendiga

That is “God bless you!” in Spanish and what one of my many moving sale guests said to me upon leaving. And I said to myself that it was kind of representative of the wonderful group of different people who have come by for the sale which has slowed down, though officially ends Friday and I still have two appointments on Thursday! 🙂

I had both Ticos and Expats coming to the sale with Ticos coming mostly for the practical kitchen and household things while most expats came for art. And all have been such interesting and very nice people! A mother who works the night shift at the local Emergency Room and later her very polite and thankful twenty-something son for some cheap prices on things he needed like the sleeper sofa. A former missionary to Peru who retired here before her husband died and for years helped administer the local children’s home that you FBC Nashville people met. Neighbors, friends and total strangers from all over the world came by and they are partly what make Costa Rica the interesting and enjoyable place it is.

So yes, God did bless me in a simple process like a moving sale and continues to bless me in so many different ways here in Costa Rica – a move that I continue to thank Him for! And I’m thanking Him that things are seeming to fall in place for this next big adventure! It has always been difficult for me to let someone serve me as I’ve always seen myself as the servant, but I can tell you that I’m really looking forward to someone else preparing the meals! 🙂 Along with new relationships, activities and some new environments to explore.

And that feature photo? It was my last bed in the states with the print of Jesus in Gethsemane that hung over my maternal grandmother’s bed and has mine now for many years and I am taking it with me to Verdeza where it will again hang over the head of my bed as it has for the 12 years here in Atenas. Just one more of God’s many blessings! 🙂 The official title is “Christ in Gethsemane” by Heinrich Hofmann in 1886. And I like the sepia toned print as did my grandmother. 🙂

Bear with me as I don’t blog much for several weeks while I get the big move done and adjust to a new environment and then I hope for a new blogging spirit to keep me creative and still focused on nature!

¡Pura Vida!

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Last Week of Moving Sale! 8-14 November

There has been no time for blog posts this week with an off and on flow of local people responding to my Moving Sale Galleries (linked) and I have continued to add items for sale, so locals please keep coming back! 🙂 THIS WILL BE THE LAST WEEK OF THE SALE! Ending Saturday 14 November.

The most over-looked or not used categories have been the arts, except for my African Arts Sale Gallery (linked) which has only 3 items left! And they are 3 of my favorites! 🙂 Now I’m telling you about the three other art categories with hugely discounted prices that might interest you . . .

Letting some of my Art Collection go at bargain prices at https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/MOVING-SALE/Wall-Art-By-Other-Artists OR CLICK THE ABOVE IMAGE

This sub-gallery has some of my “Collected Art” from over the many years of my long life and though I love it all, I will likely live the rest of my life in a small apartment without space to display or store it all, so some must go. CLICK ON THE ABOVE IMAGE TO SEE THAT GALLERY, then call for a time to come by and check it out as with the next two sub-galleries.

Last chance to get a Charlie Doggett photo! See what is left at: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/MOVING-SALE/Wall-Art-My-Nature-Photos – The above image is not complete, more have been added, but still going fast!

My first 12 years living here in Costa Rica and many of the last 10 in the USA were given to nature and travel photography and above is mainly wall art from over these last nearly 20 years with a few other things like two mouse pads and I have 5 coffee mugs left that I am just giving away if interested in a mug with a butterfly photo. Like with the previous gallery, call for a time to come look at what is available and finally I have everything clearly labeled with the price and other information. And yes, much of the above are items that did not sell in my earlier efforts in an art gallery and some arts & crafts fairs, but ALL ARE DISCOUNTED AT LEAST 75% with a few as low as $1!

Accent pillows with flower photos on both sides. Go to: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/MOVING-SALE/Flower-Accent-Pillows-1-each

And lastly, one of my favorites, the Flower Photos Accent Pillows, that I never understood why they did not sell at the gallery or the craft fairs, but now you can get a brilliant $20 accent pillow for only$1!

Then My Last Week Here (15-22 November) . . .

If you have ever moved, you know that there are a million things that have to be done and the moving sale prevented me from doing many of them including a physical for entry into a Senior Adult facility along with address changes and cancellations, etc. etc.! 🙂

That last week will be capped off on Sunday 22 November with a “Farewell Charlie Luncheon” at a neighbor’s house with several local friends coming to say goodbye. Then 23 & 24 are the very last minute packing with the actual move on 25 November and the beginning of another chapter of the old man’s life, an adventure to still be discovered from the greenway to the city streets! A lot to explore and discover! Plus a lot of new friends to grow old with. Thanks to all of you for your kindnesses and good wishes and the blog might be quiet again for a while as I finish the transition to a blog from a slightly different perspective. We will see what happens! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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My next Big Adventure

During the last week of November (23-29) I begin my next big adventure in life and what for many is their last. On whichever day that week the apartment is ready, I move to the Verdeza Senior Living Apartments in Escazu, a suburb of San Jose, Costa Rica. I start with the independent living but will be there if and when assisted living or nursing care is required. And one of the most attractive things to me is that the dining room is a real restaurant with multiple-options menus, changing weekly, plus morning and afternoon snacks provided! 🙂 Also, there will be much more social interaction than I have been getting in my little Atenas hideaway! It is a change that I believe I am ready for and probably need. A lot of things have been happening to lead to this change and I decided not to try and explain.

One of multiple “living rooms” at Verdeza.

I will not be immersed in as much nature as I have been in Atenas, nor will I be able to afford as many trips to nature lodges and national parks, but I will be just a 10 minute walk from the Rutas Naturbanas Greenway at Avenida Escazu and similar distances from at least two city parks, so not completely without nature! 🙂 Plus I will be just a 10 minute walk in one direction to a very large Walmart and in the other direction just a 10 minute walk to Office Depot that I often need and it is next to the large Multi-Plaza Shopping Mall with a big screen theater, all near the Rutas Naturbanas greenway! 🙂 It is reminding me of my 10 years in a rowhouse in downtown Nashville across the street from the Bicentennial Capital Mall State Park. 🙂

Most areas of the Naturbanas will not be this busy, but it is popular and that is good! 🙂

I will keep you up to date with information on my move, though during that last week of November I may not have much time for blog posts. 🙂 We will see. It is kind of like that last month in Nashville, trying to get rid of my accumulated “junk” or stuff for a move into a much smaller apartment this time and a thousand other details to manage. Not an easy challenge, but doable! 🙂

One of the entrances to Verdeza Senior Living Apartments.

¡Pura Vida!

And a link to an instagram video about the Rutas Naturbanas en español of course:

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DSJH03ikelN

And hopefully publishing my new address online won’t create a problem or an onslaught of marketing mail! Effective 23 November:

Charlie Doggett, Apartamento 315

Edificio Verdeza a mano derecha

De Oficentro El Cedral, 1 km al oeste

Trejos Montealegre, Escazú

10203 Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Online Class: Photography & Mindfulness

I hate to admit that I succumbed to an advertisement on Facebook for an online class titled “Photography & Mindfulness.” But I did! 🙂 I have now gone through the first 2 of 10 classes which we do on our own time but are rationed out at 2 per week. In short, the first class left me very disappointed and sorry I paid money for it, but lesson 2 was much better and I have hope that it will get better and give me some more inspiration during this time of fewer birds and butterflies! 🙂 And even though the rainy season has started early this year, the wind is still blowing too much, though at least less than the previous 4 months. The weather is still blamed on the stronger than usual El Niño this year. Sooooo . . .

I followed their suggestion of starting a paper notebook of my notes, etc. on the class but by the second class decided I preferred typing than writing and by doing it online, I can include photos and links, thus my class notes are pages on my website under the ABOUT Page titled Photographer. The subpage there is Photography & Mindfulness under which there will eventually be 10 pages for the 10 lessons that Andaña calls “Pauses.” I was a little negative in my notes on Pause 1 as the class was not what I was expecting, but after Pause 2, I’m more positive. You can check out what you want to and I will do a post on each of the lessons, linking to the more detailed notes in the online pages.

  • Pause 1: Photography & Mindfulness – May 5, 2026
  • Pause 2: Looking With New Eyes – May 8, 2026
  • Pause 3: Breathing – May 12, 2026
  • Pause 4: Sensation and Emotion -May 15, 2026
  • Pause 5: Light and Shadow – May 19, 2026
  • Pause 6: Silence – May 22, 2026
  • Pause 7: Rhythm and Movement – May 26, 2026
  • Pause 8: Looking Inward – May 29, 2026
  • Pause 9: Contemplative Storytelling – June 2, 2026
  • Pause 10: Final Project—Your Mindful Photography Journal – June 5, 2026
  • Final Questionnaire
  • We Continue (They are going to offer me more courses.)  🙂

Interesting to me was that the second lesson’s theme, “Looking with New Eyes,” was the theme of one of my earlier books of titled:  A Voyage of Discovery, Having New Eyes for Costa Rica Landscapes.  

It appears that each lesson will feature a photographer that I will link to plus so far she has included a music video with each of the lessons that I can also share on my reports. For example, Pause 2 has this video:

¡Pura Vida!

The featured photo is a Physalis or “Chinese Lantern” growing wild in a neighbor’s yard until he “cleaned up” the yard, cutting down such weeds. 🙂 Wildness sometimes has unique beauties that a cultivated garden will never have!  Maybe that is “mindfulness” of wildness! 🙂 I miss that wild flower near me!

Go to: My Notes on Photography & Mindfulness Class

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A person can do nothing better than to . . .

“A person can do nothing better than to . . . find satisfaction in their own toil.” ~Ecclesiastes 2:24

CLICK ABOVE IMAGE to go to my galleries or go to: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/

Because the photo gallery linked above will go away when I die, I have donated my bird, butterfly and many other nature photos to the following three sources where they can be seen now and for posterity as well as contributing to the science of each species as all three are major sources of nature research for many research organizations and universities around the world, including their professors and students:

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“The Hills”

“The greatest gift of life on the mountain is time… to sit and stare at the shapes of the hills.” ~Phillip Connors: 

The always changing vista from my terrace that I never tire of.

¡Pura Vida!

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“A longing fulfilled . . .”

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” ~Proverbs 13:12

Cortez Amarillo Trees blooming, Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails,
Arenal Volcano National Park, Alajuela, Costa Rica

My blog/website administrative page has a bucket for “Drafts” and occasionally I put something in there that I think I might work into a blog post later (like yesterday’s). Back in 2022 I placed the above quote from Proverbs that I picked from one of my Daily Bible Readings to comment on later and here I am, about 3 years later, commenting on it (with photos!). 🙂

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My 2025 in Books + Visitors

Thanks to “GoodReads” for this neat photo of the books I completed this year that does not include the ones I started and did not finish, like Beloved by Toni Morrison that someone in a newspaper article said was his favorite book ever, so I tried it and was bored after reading 20%, even though it was a 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner and NY Times bestseller! 🙂 Having been a part of two dysfunctional families myself, I don’t enjoy reading about others! 🙂 But who know, I may finish it this year – we’ll see. 🙂

Charlie Doggett’s 2025 books completed. Image by GoodReads.

For the last few years, my favorite mystery/adventure book authors have obviously been Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, especially their Agent Prendergast FBI mystery series of which I’ve read all (better than Sherlock Holmes series of which I’ve read all or even Agatha Christie’s two series) and I pre-ordered the prequel book coming out in 2026. 🙂 One of those books was made into a successful movie as was one of Preston’s solo books.

I got started first with a Douglas Preston book, Lost City of the Monkey God, during my first year or two in Costa Rica when I Googled “Central America adventure books.” It was the best of that search and based on a true story of an archaeological discovery in nearby Honduras which I re-read this year. Preston is also an archeologist and so some of the “Indiana Jones” adventure style comes through in several of his books! 🙂

I also try to read one of the “Classics” every year and though “Beloved” didn’t work out for me, I did read all of Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper and it was sort of fun, though the old English language seemed strange and though not the same kind of adventures as Preston & Child, I enjoyed the book and look forward to another classic this year as I read through the 50 Masterpieces you have to read before you die. 🙂

I got to where I did not like TV and haven’t had a TV subscription for most of my time in Costa Rica. My dinner habit is to read 2 or 3 chapters out of whatever my current book is. Right now I’m reading a Lincoln Child book, Deep Storm, a science fiction mystery/adventure on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. I’m at 40% at this writing. Kindle keeps one posted on how far through a book you are. 🙂 It will appear on my 2026 books report and with this I’m starting a new series, The Jeremy Logan Series Book 1, which I think will be science adventures or science fiction and so far I’m inclined to continue the series. 🙂

Put simply, for me, Preston & Child are both just great story tellers who hold my attention and interest through almost every word. I read them because I enjoy them. Better entertainment than TV! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Last Night’s Visit with Steve & Sherrell Hewko & Children.

During my 3 years as a missionary in The Gambia West Africa, a group of Campus Crusade Student Missionaries came for about 2 years of that time and we became friends and cohorts with multiple joint projects, especially remembered was a retreat I coordinated for them at Sindola Lodge.

Stephen Hewko was one of the students and the group leader of those students that included Sherrell, his now wife. That was 23 years ago! He brought his family of Sherrell and 3 teen children to Costa Rica on vacation last week and today they fly back to Toronto, Canada. I visited with them at their pre-flight hotel last night, or mostly with Steve as Mom and the kids were in and out of the pool, our poolside table and their hotel room. Last night’s photo of Steve is below beside a photo copy from my scrapbook of him in The Gambia back in 2002! Today he is Director of the Canadian Institute for Empirical Church Research at Wycliffe University in Toronto after doing several years of mission work back in The Gambia.

Steve Hewko in the Gambia, 2002.
Steve Hewko in Costa Rica, 2025.

Every once in a while, a nice little surprise drops in on me. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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My Christmas Tree Adventure

Some of you may remember that back in 2017 I started a collection of handmade “Artisan Birds,” mainly from artists in Costa Rica, but a few from other Central American countries and ended up with 2 from countries outside Central America. The collection has not grown much since the first two years or so, but I finally I now have a better tree on which to display them.

Up close on a few of my artisan birds. See each one individually in the linked gallery.

And you can see all of my “Artisan Birds” collection with labels of where they are each from in my photo gallery: My Artisan Birds Tree

The first year (2017) was the best display tree, a dead tree branch with lots of branches and I never found another like that. Last year I finally bought an artificial green bush or shrub which I kept most of the year in my living room with or without the artisan birds, but never liked it and the artificial limbs were too weak and droopy and earlier this month it went to the garbage man. And I vowed to find a better one this year!

Well, last week I found this all white artificial small tree with little tiny lights and decided that was it! But again, the limbs were too weak and droopy to handle the small weight of my tiny ornaments! (See the BEFORE & AFTER pictures below.) Grrrrr! BUT, “where there’s a will there’s a way!” I figured out how they made it with a real little tree trunk and wires going up and out for limbs, “they” just used too thin or flimsy wires. I thought, “why couldn’t they have used stiffer (heavier) wires?” Then I realized that if I could tell them how they “should” have done it, I could just do it myself! And I did! 🙂

I went to the main hardware store here in Atenas (La Ferretería Vargas & Hijos) and bought some heavier or stiffer wire (12.5 m roll) for a fraction of what the 3 rolls of white electrical tape (cinta blanca) cost and two days later I have totally “rewired” my little Christmas tree with the new heavy wire held to the older thinner wires with lots of white electrical tape wrapped around every centimeter of every limb and the trunk! A LOT OF WORK! But, ta daa! I now have a new tree that is strong enough to hold the artisan birds! 🙂 Here are two pairs of “Before & After” photos to show you what I accomplished . . .

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Reflected Sunrise

The sun rises in the east behind other mountains that are behind the one that my house is on the west side of. 🙂 Simply put, I cannot see much of a sunrise from my house or terrace that faces W/NW where the vista of little mountains I often share are located. But when I am not sleeping late, I can get out on my terrace and get what I call a “reflected sunrise” on those hills in the W/NW. This past week I’ve been sleeping as late as I could to help cure my sick stomach which is now finally well! (I think!) But these two early morning “reflected sunrise” shots were made earlier in March. The feature photo at top is a panorama of three shots on my Canon 750D and this shot below for email version was a quick snap on my cheap Samsung Cellphone! 🙂

Reflected Sunrise in the NW hills of Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica – Cellphone shot.
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