Month: June 2016

Vacations

Planning Vacation in 2016

Karen

So, I bet you can’t guess what’s on my mind right now…

beach

I initially told Kevin that we weren’t going on vacation this year, that we were going to have a staycation and save some money ….

And then I got to talking to a friend of mine at work and she was raving about her stay on South Padre Island and I thought … hhmm…. that wouldn’t be too expensive, right??

And then I talked to another friend of mine at work who just got back from Destin, Florida and how she rented a car to drive down there and I thought … hhmm…

So I started doing some research.

Let me just say, that I LOVE doing vacation research. The possibilities are nearly endless.

I looked up cars and it would cost us about $300 dollars to rent a car for a week. I thought, okay, we’ll drive to South Padre island, it’ll take us two days down there and back, we’ll take our time, stop off whenever, wherever, we wanted … we would get the XM Satellite option and Kevin would have all sorts of stations to listen to .. it’ll be cool.

Then I started researching hotels in South Padre island and things to do – which admittedly, wasn’t much. But that’s okay, we would relax, enjoy the sun/beach. Our Hawaii vacation, though freaking awesome, was anything but relaxing, we went on excursions every day and we were constantly on the go. But we figured, WE WERE IN HAWAII, and we would likely never go back, so we wanted to see as much as we possibly could. And we did. We island hopped and we got some pretty fantastic pictures, which I have yet to show you or talk about, but I’ll get around to it, eventually.

I presented my ideas to Kevin. I was excited, I had a plan. This would be different, relaxing and relatively cheap compared to vacations in the past.

Kevin was less than thrilled with my idea. In fact, he shot me down. In fact, he hated the whole idea.

He wasn’t excited about taking four days out of our vacation to drive. He’s never been one to like driving anyway, he feels like it’s a waste of time so no, that idea was shot.

I didn’t give up though. He wanted to cash in our frequent flyer miles and fly down there, the problem is, there really isn’t any place to fly TO. There’s Brownsville, TX, but American Airlines doesn’t go there, the closest we can go is San Antonio. So I thought, okay, let’s fly into San Antonio, spend a few days there, see the sights, (they have a hop-on-hop off boat tour thing which I thought looked fun), and then we would rent a car and drive the five hours to South Padre Island, spend a few days on the beach, drive back to San Antonio and fly home.

Again, Kevin shot me down. I just couldn’t get him excited about South Padre Island.

I got to talking to my friend again at work and she mentioned she wanted to spend her 25th wedding anniversary at a Sandal’s resort.

Hmmm….

So I started researching Sandals in the Bahamas. We’ve talked about wanting to go back someday. I figured we could fly out of Tulsa using our frequent flyer miles and stay at the resort for four days, then come home. We would then have a few more days at  home to goof around.

I started shopping prices, dates, things to do, which admittedly, there wasn’t much to do during the day at the Sandals resort, the beach, of course, but so many days of sitting on the beach and even I, who loves to sit and read, would get bored. So I figured four days would really be all we could handle. But there looked like there would be plenty to do at night, so that would be fun.

I approached Kevin and he loved the idea. Sandals is basically a cruise on land. It’s all inclusive, which means it includes food/tips/drinks. We love that concept because then you don’t have to worry about where you’re going to eat and how much it’s going to cost.

We HATE spending money on food. You’re literally eating your money. Hate it.

I had everything lined up. It would cost us about $2,200 dollars for four days. Remember, our flight was “free” with our frequent flyer miles, we would have to pay taxes (GRR) and luggage fees.

I hesitated clicking the “book it” button. We sat around and talked about it for a while then we went to the Sandals website to look at pictures of the resort. (We were booking the resort through hotels.com – highly recommend, by the way).

The pictures were nice – full of nicely-dressed people standing around with smiles and drinks, looking happy and oh-so pretentious.

Pretentious.

Kevin and I looked at each other. “Do we have to dress up for this place?” Kevin asked.

“I hope not,” I said. “Though if we want to eat at some of their nicer restaurants, we’ll have to dress a little nicer than a t-shirt and shorts.”

Now, we know the pictures on the Sandals’ website are meant to entice and advertise for their resort, but honestly, it sort of turned us off because we’re t-shirt/shorts sorts of people and if we’re going on vacation, the last thing we want to do is dress for work. (Well him, anyway, since I’m in scrubs all day every day).

So. We scratched the Sandals idea. Though we would still like to go to one of the resorts some day – we’re not totally tossing the idea. And $2,200 for four days?? We could go on a cruise for cheaper than that.

Which brings us to our latest vacation idea – another cruise.

People, you just can’t beat a cruise, you truly can’t. It’s not as expensive as you might think it is. Especially when you start comparing what you get on a cruise and what you get when you have to pay for all of the individual goodies by themselves.

Again. I fought against another cruise. I love cruising, don’t get me wrong, but they are hard on me. I’ll be honest, I get seasick. Not so bad that I’m stuck in my room puking my guts out, but there have been a few occasions when we have run into rough waters and I’ve had to sit, breathe and drink ginger ale. (Which helps a lot, by the way).

I really wanted to take a break from cruising this year. But then Kevin said, “do you really want to look back at our lives and have nothing to show for it? Look at all of the fantastic vacation pictures we’ve taken over the years and how many stories we have to tell. Let’s do it.”

And still, I hesitated.

And then, I noticed how tired Kevin was looking. He’s been working really hard lately and taking very little time off. For those of you that don’t know, he is self-employed which translates into, he is always working. When he’s not at a client’s, he’s working from his office after 5:00 and on the weekends. He never really gets away from it.

Which got me thinking, what if we went on another cruise, he would have no choice but to relax if we did that. We’re out in the middle of the ocean, he has no where to go.

One of the places we haven’t been to is Bermuda. And to reach Bermuda, you leave from Boston or New York – which we have yet to visit Boston, (well me, Kevin has been for business) and we want to go back to New York because that was the year we left for a cruise from New York for the Bahamas shortly after he had his motorcycle accident and we didn’t get to do as much as we wanted because he was weak (and probably shouldn’t have gone on vacation so soon after his accident anyway).

So I started researching a cruise to Bermuda. Kevin told me dates that would work for him and his business and I set to work

I went to Royal Caribbean’s website first, because we haven’t cruised on that line yet, but their cruises were only 5 days and leaving from Baltimore and New Jersey. That didn’t work for us.

Then I went to Norwegian’s website – we sailed with Norwegian last year when we cruised the Hawaiian islands and we really liked it. I started with leaving from Boston, but the dates didn’t line up so I looked at leaving from New York.

The dates matched.

Then I went to American Airlines’ website to look at flights. I always start my search leaving from Springfield because if we can avoid driving four hours to St. Louis/Kansas City/Tulsa, then we’re going to try and avoid it. The down side to cashing in frequent flyer miles is that you’re limited on your dates. You just sort of have to make it work if you want to cash them in. And since paying for flights can cost $1,000’s of dollars, we make it work.

To my surprise and delight, flying from Springfield would work. (If Springfield hadn’t worked, I would have checked Tulsa then Kansas City – we try and avoid St. Louis airport unless we don’t have any other choices).

Here’s a little tip if you’re looking into booking a cruise – bite the bullet and arrive at your destination the day before you’re supposed to board the boat. We flew down ON the day we were departing one time, ONE TIME, and never again will we do that. It was beyond stressful worrying about whether the flights would leave on time because one little hiccup and we risk not boarding the boat in time. In fact, the time we flew down on the day, we were one of the last to board, we cut it that close.

NEVER. AGAIN.

So we always fly in to the city the day before, spend the night and then it’s no big deal to get to the pier the next day in plenty of time. In fact, we’re always one of the first batch of people to board the boat.

This particular cruise is from Sunday to Sunday. So, the plan is, since we want to spend a few days in New York to finish sightseeing the places we didn’t have a chance to see last trip, we will fly in on Friday, get to New York about 11:00 PM, then we’ll have all day Saturday to sight see. Sunday, we’ll have a nice breakfast, check-out of our hotel and make our way to the pier.

There was one flight back on the Sunday the ship returns but it was at 7:30 AM and the boat won’t dock until 8:00 AM, so that won’t work. We’ll have to spend Sunday in New York, do more sightseeing, then catch the plane back home on Monday. It will be back to work on Tuesday. It will be rough, and I’m sure we’ll be exhausted, but we’ll handle it.

We haven’t booked it yet – we’re still talking, but I think we’re about 80% sure we’ll do it. This is what we do every time we plan on going anywhere – we talk it to death before taking the plunge.

Yes. It will be expensive (but not as expensive as other trips), but you know what? I work hard, Kevin works harder. We deserve one week of the year for some R-and-R.

Don’t you?

Work Stuff

Fractured

Karen

Sorry about the graphic parts of the above video, but this is what happens when there’s trauma – it’s messy, gross and painful.

Our doctors actually see a lot of spinal/skull fractures. We would never see an open fracture because if someone presents to the ER with an open spinal fracture, they are likely paralyzed. If they present to the ER with an open skull fracture, they will likely require brain surgery stat.

The fractures we see in the clinic are people who had an accident, fell off something, or were involved in an MVA, (motor vehicle accident), or someone simply tripped over something and fell flat on his/her face.

There’s not much you can do when you fracture your spine – both surgically and literally. When you fracture your spine, you have technically broken your back but not severe enough for paralysis. Most of the time, it’s a hairline fracture and you will be required to wear a brace, sometimes for several months, to allow your bone to grow back. If you do not wear this brace, and you make the fracture worse, then you CAN possibly make that fracture worse and crack it in two.

Then you’re really in trouble.

No one likes wearing the brace. In fact, if the fracture is severe enough, our doctors will sometimes offer surgery in order to go in, brace the spine with rods to hold it in place, and then they come back and have the rods removed once the fracture heals. They don’t do this very often – I’m sure the circumstances has to be just right, but for some people, it’s preferable to wearing a very restrictive brace for weeks/months.

I’ve found that people are on the extreme ends of the spectrum when it comes to fractures. On one end, you have the people that are completely freaked out and are convinced one wrong move will render them paralyzed. And yes, sometimes fractures are that severe and you have to be very careful, but often times, it’s not as bad as one might think. These people are afraid of everything and are very tense.

Then you have people that are supposed to wear a brace and don’t. Those are the ones who aren’t taking the fracture serious enough and don’t seem to realize – a brace is there to prevent you from making the fracture worse. And again, if the fracture gets worse, you’re really in deep doo-doo.

If you have a cervical (neck) fracture severe enough, or close enough to your brain stem, you may have to wear a halo.

The ring is attached by four bars to a stiff, lightweight vest that fits around your chest. This keeps your neck and spine moving as one with your body so the spinal injury can heal. Most people wear a halo for 6 to 12 weeks. You can expect your neck and back to feel stiff or sore at first.

I had to assist a PA in removing one of these bad boys one day. When you wear a halo,  you have to wear it for weeks, and you can’t wash your hair, and it’s very hard to bathe at all. So when patients come in to have their halos removed, they stink.

BAD.

And their hair is greasy and stinky. It was enough to almost make me gag.

The halo part that goes around the skull is literally screwed into the skull on all four sides. I used what looked like a small crescent wrench and loosened the screws. I loosened all of them a little at a time until we could finally slip it off the patient. The patient will have holes in his scalp which will scab over and eventually heal and fall off. So they must be careful when he/she can finally wash his/her hair.

Removing the halo was both gross and fascinating and I’m glad we don’t have to do those very often. But I’m glad the PA gave me the opportunity to remove it, at least once.

Patients with fractures don’t normally require surgery but they must be monitored. We usually see fracture patients back about 4-6 weeks after the injury with an xray prior to see how the fracture is healing. If it’s slow to heal, because the bones are weak, or the patient hasn’t been wearing his/her brace, then the doctor will have them come back in another 4-6 weeks with another xray until he/she is finally released from the brace and the fracture has healed enough not to cause damage.

I thought the part in the video above, how the calcified bone surrounds the injury and makes new bone was interesting. I didn’t know that part, Isn’t it fascinating how our bodies heal themselves?

It’s funny how we evolved like that, huh. (Inside joke between me and Kevin – every time something fascinating happens with the body, Kevin likes to snicker and make fun of evolution – which we obviously don’t believe in).

Fractures are painful an there is little you can do for them other than suffer through them until they heal. I always feel sorry that come in with fractures as we don’t do anything other than monitor how they are healing. Our doctors don’t prescribe pain medication  unless patients have had surgery so we get a lot of upset patients when they come in to see us.

You can’t really avoid fractures, enough stress and your bone will simply snap, but you can keep your bones strong so that they are less likely to snap. A lot of times, if fractures take a long time to heal it’s because the patient smokes (which SEVERELY limits healing of any sort), or the bones density is poor and the bones themselves are brittle.

I’ve started taking calcium, magnesium, zinc and vitamin D every day now. I mentioned in another post how my body was simply aching whenever I went to bed and I’ve noticed it doesn’t seem to be aching as much since I’ve started supplementing my diet.

So seriously, if you’re getting older, pay attention to your calicum/vitamin D intake. You could save yourself from a broken hip later in life.

Life

Tame the Chaos

Karen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr4_dOorquQ

I don’t know a lot about Autism, but I understand it on some level.

I don’t know the specifics about Autism, how it truly affects people, individual struggles to cope and process environment stimuli, but I get how environmental stimuli could be overwhelming.

I am not Autistic, but I am hyper aware of my surroundings. Without really trying, I am aware of what people are doing, where people are in relation to my position, what they are saying, their body language, their facial expressions and I have potential scenarios running in my head all the time – if this happens I will do this, if that happens I will do that. I pride myself on anticipating what needs to be done next, what someone might need from me, and I will often perform some task without the other person having to tell me.

I would be aware of all of these things in the video, but the difference is, my brain can quickly process it and then discard it as not being important to me or the people I’m with.

Does that make sense?

I suppose my awareness is one of the reasons I’m such a great multi-tasker. I thrive on handling several things at once. I get an adrenaline rush whenever I’m put into a situation like that – I can work on something, answer the phone, answer someone’s question while I’m on the phone, and make an appointment all at the same time. I do this all day, every day at work. I’m good at compartmentalizing. This is one of the reasons why I’m completely brain dead when I get home at night and on the weekends – because I’m juggling my environmental stimuli and constantly adjusting my personality/demeanor to put patients at ease or simply deal with different co-worker, patient personalities.

I can’t imagine being bombarded with all of that information, that over stimulation and NOT being able to quickly process it. It must feel a little like drowning, I would predict.

I work with a gal who doesn’t process very well. For example, we started clinic one day and my doctor got called away for emergency surgery. He had been on call the day before and a patient had been admitted with a brain bleed. They didn’t do anything on that day wanting to see if the bleed would resolve, only it didn’t, and by the next day, the day of our clinic, the bleed got worse and required immediate intervention.

My doctor had to cancel his clinic so he could do an emergency craniotomy (a fancy term that means to cut into the brain to see what was going on) on the patient.

This meant we had to deal with the patients already in the rooms, the patients checking in, notifying the clinic of the situation and calling patients that had yet to arrive. And we had to do all of this super fast – our pace just got jacked up to about five times faster than our normal speed so that the doctor could try and see the patients we had in the clinic before going down to the OR. (They were to call us when the patient was in the OR and ready for him to cut).

It was exhilarating to me, but not so much for the nurse that I work with. I could quickly see she was completely overwhelmed. She had no idea what to do first, couldn’t focus on the task in front of her and I literally ran circles around her taking care of everything.

I don’t say this to brag, I’m just saying that I tend to handle high-stress moments like that. I’ve always operated well under duress. I think quickly – whenever something like that happens, it’s like the fog is blown away and I see everything crystal clear.

But I realize that not everyone is like that. I admit, I got pretty impatient with the nurse for not thinking/moving as quickly as me, but I do realize that not everyone is capable of doing that.

(But you would think thinking quick on your feet would be a prerequisite for nursing as they are often asked to think/move quickly??).

But again, I’m okay to handle situations like that as long as they’re not long lasting. In the scenario above, it only lasted about 30 minutes and then things quieted way down once the doctor went down to the OR. I can only imagine how stressful and exhausting that must be to a person with Autism every moment of every day.

It’s no wonder that Autistic people come up with unique ways to cope – they have to right their worlds somehow – tame the chaos the only way they know how.

Abundant Life

Why Did Jesus Have to Die and Suffer?

Karen

“What do you do with genuinely evil people?”

I love this question – answer? Not allow them to co-exist with you in the afterlife. WHY would you?! They’re evil, they do not have much good in them. They are consumed by darkness and wallow in sin, why do they deserve to rub elbows with God-fearing (which actually means respecting) people?

For example, the nutjob that shot up the club in Orlando Florida last Sunday. Pure evil. Stop looking for a reason, there is no reason. Evil is not something that you can break down into logical chunks, evil exists to cause pain, suffering, chaos and death.  Evil exists to destroy – that’s it. No other reason. Sure, there are motivations, “triggers” that will set evil into action, but you can’t control it, there is no stopping it. It always baffles me how people stand around and scratch their heads after an event like this – how did this happen? They ask. How can we prevent this from happening again? They puzzle.

Answer – YOU CAN’T. Stop trying to make sense of something that has no logic. Stop trying to control something that is uncontrollable.

Evil will exist, evil will get worse – the only cure? Jesus Christ coming back and saving us from ourselves.

Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.

Thanks for watching.

Check out Truth or Tradition teachings on:

Truth or Tradition Website
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
iTunes
Online Store

More from Write From Karen

Fiction Fix

The Hunt is Over

Karen

friday-fix

You are on a crowded subway platform when you see a familiar face.

 “I don’t know, this is not something I can just march right into his office and say to his face. I mean, I would like to, but you know, I sort of need a paycheck, so ….”

Beka chuckled as she carefully descended the stairs, along with about 300 other people, into the underbelly of the city. Her crossover bag softly bumped into her left hip, her right hand holding onto the railing; a fleeting thought of how many germs she was scooping up with her hand briefly penetrated her thoughts. Her mobile was pressed tightly to her ear.

“No body better steal my mobile,” she grunted out. “Remember what happened to Lizzie last week”

Lizzie was walking down the street talking to her boyfriend when some jerk literally yanked her mobile from her hand and went running.

This city sucked.

“That can’t be a ‘thing’,” her friend said. “Surely people aren’t that desperate nowadays.”

“I don’t put anything past people nowadays. If people can’t afford something, they just take it from people who can,” said Beka.

She followed the masses into the dim darkness of the subway and the crowd slowly swelled toward the train. Once you got caught in the mass, you simply had to go along with the crowd or be trampled in the process.

“I may lose you,” Beka said into her phone, “I’m waiting on the train now.” She stood on her tiptoes and peeked down the pitch black tunnel. “I don’t know why I just don’t work another 30 minutes and avoid this insane crowd,” she grumbled.

She heard a soft laugh from her friend. “I would agree we are surrounded by crazy people but it’s not exactly something I would shout out right now.” She tensed as she sensed an African-American give her a disapproving glance.

A squeak of wheels and a rush of air drew everyone’s attention to the tunnel. Expectation permeated the air as the train slowly became visible through the dark.

“Crap. It’s not my train,” Beka moaned into the phone, her voice raising a few octaves to be heard over the sudden rustling of the passengers around her. She had found, by trial and error, if she just stood her ground, people would move around her, like a stream slipping past a rock. She had first tried to maneuver out of the way when she first moved to the city, but after nearly getting knocked down by overzealous people, she now just stood her ground.

People began moving past her, a few jostled her elbow, or knocked her hard enough she had to step forward or lose her balance, as the train screamed to a stop. About 3/4 of the crowd slowly moved as one onto the train.

“I hope this doesn’t mean my train is behind schedule,” Beka yelled into the phone. “My train is usually the first to arrive, this is not a good sign.”

The noise on the platform began to dissipate as more and more passengers settled into their seats, or grabbed on to bars for support. Beka’s eyes casually ran over the faces. It never ceased to amaze her how she never saw a single person she knew. Ever. And she knew a lot of people since her job was such a high-profile position.

Her eyes glided past a group of Emo kids but then promptly boomeranged back as something caught her eye. “Helllo…” she mumbled into the phone.

“Hello to you, goof,” Beka’s friend responded back with a laugh.

Beka’s eyes widened and then narrowed as she tried to focus all of her attention on one girl in the midst of the Emo crowd. Her hair was darker and it was hard to tell what color eyes she had, especially since she was a ways away, but there was something eerily familiar about the girl.

Without knowing what she was doing, she found herself scurrying to get on the train. She just managed to slip past the closing doors. The swoosh, and soft snap, of the doors broke her trance.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Beka said, her voice shaking with nerves, “but I just got on the wrong train.”

“Are you mad?” her friend asked.

“I’m beginning to wonder,” she responded. She began excusing herself through the crowd and inched closer to the group of people she saw on the platform.

“There’s this girl,” she began, her speech slow, uncertain. “I feel like I’ve seen her before.”

“If I had a dime every time I’ve heard you say that,” her friend responded. “I swear, you pretty much know everyone in this city.’

“Not quite everyone,” Beka’s gaze remained zeroed in on the girl. After a few moments, she was close enough to hear them laughing. The girl was the center of attention and all of the people surrounding her hung on her every word.

“Hello? Hello? Beka are you …”

She lost the connection. She stuffed her mobile into her bag and continued  to study the girl in between bodies.

The back of the girl’s head is facing Beka. She began inching around people in order to see the girl’s face.

“So, when we do this, we need to be smart about it. No throwing things. No shouting obscenities … Troy, I’m looking at you.” The girl spoke softly, but with authority. Her comment prompted soft laughs around her. “We join hands. This will show solidarity in our protest. We will calmly educate anyone who will listen. Again, no aggressive confrontations.”

Beka watched from a distance. She watched her body language, her facial expressions. She listened to the tone of her voice. She was sitting down, but Beka could tell she was small, probably not more than 5’5 – her height. Her hair was pitch black and she most likely used a whole eyeliner pencil on her eyes, and yet, she reminded Beka of herself, the morning after a long night. Her hairstyle was choppy and haphazardly pulled up at the sides, most likely in an attempt to keep her neck cool.

Beka moved closer. Did she have the tell-tale mole just under her left ear? She had to know. If this was who she thought it was, all the months of planning, and looking, were finally over.

She tuned out what the others were talking about, her sole focus was on this girl. She moved closer still. The train went through a tunnel and the lights temporarily dimmed. When they came back up, she was not only by the girl, she had crouched down in order to put her face at eye level.

“I figure we have about 30 minutes to really make an impact before the police show up,” the girl continued. “Dolly, do you have the …” she paused as she sensed Beka’s presence. She lifted an eyebrow and looked at her.

Beka saw the mole and suddenly couldn’t breathe.

“Um, hello?” the girl said. Her voice was more curious than annoyed. She leaned back as Beka leaned further in to verify what she suspected. “Hey. What is your problem?” she asked.

Beka visibly swallowed and shifted her eyes from the girl’s neck to meet her eyes. They were greenish brown with flecks of gold, the same as hers.

“Hi,” Beka croaked out.

The crowd around the girl suddenly grew quiet as they acknowledged Beka’s intrusion.

Beka continued, “I think you’re my sister.”

Throw Back Thursday

Throwback Thursday: Four Years of Florida Beaches

Karen
Twilight beach family photo – this was the last night on Sanibel Island and our last vacation on a Florida beach.

Other than camping, some of our first family vacations were at the beaches in Florida. We drove down to Pensacola one year, (and I remember being really frustrated because we had a hard time trying to find something to eat. And that’s been our Achilles’ Heel ever since – finding places to eat on vacation and not having to spend a fortune to do so – that’s why we love cruising so much – food everywhere, all the time), Madeira Beach one year, St. Petersburg another year and Sanibel Island was our last beach vacation – believe it or not, we were all pretty burnt out on beach vacations by that time.

Look closely, we are all sloooooooowly melting in this picture. It wasn’t so much the heat, but the humidity … UGH

The thing about beach vacations – it’s pretty hard to hide every bulge and roll. The first time I went to the beach was on our honeymoon – we went to Cozumel Mexico, and I absolutely did not pack the right sort of clothes. Everything I packed was way too heavy – I remember this one shirt, it was green and white striped, I loved that shirt, but it was a heavy cotton and I nearly passed out from heat stroke when I wore it. And even the first few years of going to the beach, I still packed heavy summer clothes like capris and t-shirts.

Helpful hint: Get over your body image because feeling like you can breathe is WAY more important over trying to look better than you really look.

I finally got smart and started packing tank tops, spaghetti strap tees and flowey skirts and lightweight shorts.

And bonus! They look better on me, anyway.

I’ve told Kevin that my swimsuit days are over, but really, I don’t feel comfortable wearing a swimsuit in front of Roy. It’s just … disturbing. So if (when) you ever get me into a swimsuit again, it will absolutely be a one piece, in fact, I don’t ever recall wearing a two piece – ever. I tried those cutsie tankinis on once and I wanted to love it so much, but it did NOT complement my body, at all. (Hello muffin top)

I need to buy a new suit – it’s been YEARS since I’ve bought a swimsuit but let’s be honest ladies, swimsuit buying is even worse than going to the gynecologist, can I get an Amen??

I look better in sportier suits, the ones with the high necks. I’m planning on buying a new suit this year, Kevin and I are throwing ideas around on where we want to go on vacation this year, and we’re definitely leaning toward a beachey destination, but I think I’ll wait until this Fall when they go on sale.

The boys weren’t crazy about the beach. It was SO HOT. Of course, we went in the middle of summer and well, summer is hot. But we didn’t have a choice since they were in school the rest of the year. It was the cruise to the Western Carribean and we were traipsing the jungle in Honduras when we decided – WE ARE DONE WITH SUMMER VACATIONS. If we go on vacation, it will be in off season when it’s not so DAMN HOT. It’s hard to enjoy yourself when you’re literally drenching your clothes. (True story – I had to photoshop sweat stains out of my clothing in the pictures we took in Honduras because it was so bad).

I still have this outfit – too bad I can’t fit into the shorts anymore.

I remember the first time we went to the beach, Brandon couldn’t have been more than … four or five, and he would sit there and make a disgusted face because the sand was dirty.

Have I mentioned one of my first words was dirty? Like mother like son.

And I admit, I’m not crazy about sand, it’s so … gritty and gets EVERYWHERE. And I’m not crazy about the ocean, either. Oh sure, I enjoy looking at it, smelling the salty air, (not to mention, it does wonders for my skin), listen to the waves crash, but swimming in the ocean? YUK, NO. If I stick my body into any water, there better not be any mysterious creature/plant that brushes up against my leg.

Did we enjoy the beach? Of course, and we made some pretty great memories but I do wish I would have relaxed more and just let things happen – I was too much of a control freak and traveling out-of-town, (isn’t that what travel means? To leave one’s home??) stressed me out. I went ape shit if we forgot to pack toothpaste.

Um. Hello. Karen. It’s possible that other stores in other cities may, and I stress MAY, sell toothpaste and it’s possible, just stay with me a moment, to actually BUY a tube of toothpaste from said foreign store. (*GASP*)

Sanibel Island was gorgeous and I felt the most comfortable there, but I think the prettiest beach we saw in Florida was St. Petersberg. I remember the beach down there sort of taking my breath away. It was so pretty. I can’t remember – was that the year we stayed at a hotel and there was a wedding party that was so loud and obnoxious that none of us could sleep?

It’s hard to smile and stay upbeat when you’re sweating inches off your body by the hour and you’re so tired your head is too heavy for your body.

I think that’s the biggest reason I’m not a big beach person – because I don’t feel attractive when we go to the beach. I’m hot, sweaty, gritty, stinky, my hair is greasy and tangly from the wind … and then I’m forcing a smile for vacation pictures.

If we ever go back to the beach, it will be during off season, when it’s not so hot and unbearable. I love the beach, don’t get me wrong, it’s peaceful and beautiful, but I don’t like how it turns me into a walking sandcastle. It’s not fun or attractive, for me.

 

At the Moment

What Do You See When You Hear This?

Karen

Isn’t this a fun video?? I love The Piano Guys – such a cool duo.

Watch it first because it’s cool.

Then push play, close your eyes and listen. Breathe. Take a moment. We’re all in such a rush nowadays. It’s nice to just slow down and EXIST.

What sort of images do you see when you hear this song?

I see a young couple in various stages of their relationship  – romantic, exciting, volatile, sweet, loving, fun, determined to make it work,  then older, sitting on their back porch, satisfied with life and with each other, and then finally reflecting back on their lives together, hands joined, small smiles creasing their faces.

Comment below.