Next Stop: Marco Island

Authenticity

Fridays.  They so rock.

And they REALLY rock when I get Fridays off.  Today is a state holiday, and so as a government employee of this state, I get to enjoy that great little perk.

I got those transcripts out on time.  Sort of a bummer having to work on a day off, but it's extra money I could use on vacation.  I won't complain.

And now I'm sitting on my back porch, sipping Spanish wine, a storm brewing, the breeze blowing the ficus tree branches, the candle's flame flickering...I am loving this.

I've begun packing a little.  I'm taking a bubble wand.  The kid in me refuses to grow up.  I love bubbles.  Always have.  And so I bought two of those huge bubble wands to play with at sunset on the beach.  I'm taking my tripod for my camera too in hopes of getting some great shots playing with the settings on my camera. I've been checking the weather for Marco Island on my weather app, and it's not been the best this past week.  Hoping we'll get decent weather while we're there, at least two or three nice sunsets.  But even if we don't, I plan to be out there on the stormy overcast days -- which make for the best photos anyway.  I'm hoping to be able to capture my gigantic bubbles on a stormy overcast day.  How cool would THAT be?

I can already smell it ... the ocean, the surf...I can hear the birds...I can feel the breeze...I'm there in my mind already.  Want to join me?  Please?

It is a no-worries paradise.  A place that makes it very hard to leave...

I could so be a beach bum.  I envision myself living in a little shack somewhere, bare necessities ... the staples of which would include music, paints, wine and flip-flops.

Thinking today on what to pack, I'm planning on a tiny cotton sundress, a few pairs of shorts, tank tops, 2 bathing suits, two workout gear sets, tennis shoes, and flip-flops -- yes, I work out on vacation.  Do fish swim?  Do birds fly?  Does T work out on vacation?

And flip-flops?  Most women collect shoes, rows and rows, boxes and boxes of shoes.  I've lost count on my flip-flop collection.  Classy, ja?

Okay.  I'm sufficiently jacked...I CANNOT WAIT.

Snapshots of the past couple of weeks in the life of T... a few artsy projects, a token gift that I took to a BBQ at our neighbor's last weekend, and nature.  Things that placate me to the purest sense of gratitude.

The lovely red grass that we planted this year...

Yes, this will be harvested and strewn throughout my decor...

Tiger lillies are just ... WELL, HOT

 This?  A pitifully boring little chest that I picked up a few years ago,

sorely needing love...ugly, dull, who-even-cares, dimension-less dark finish, living a life unnoticed...

until NOW!

Thank you, chalk paint and dark wax!

Loving the colors sync'd with texture!

I can't help but smile.

Intoxicating natural beauty.

 Pre-storm last night...such beauty in nature...

First Things First

Sometimes my brain is dormant, my mind still, my heart in waiting.  

Those are the pauses.  

And then the music begins again.  

It is when my heart speaks.  

Little whispers at first...

That is when I want to write, let it out.  

Release.

The music is starting back up again, 

but my list of must-do's takes priority. 

although

I have the day off, 

I have work to get out that I promised an attorney 

I'd deliver via email today,

and

although

I need to resume working on those transcripts, 

I need to FIRST get to the gym, 

having slept in a little later 

and given my body hard-working body some time to recover.

And maybe later today, I can listen for the music...

It Is Breath to My Soul

It's almost that time again.

My home away from home...

Marco Island, Florida.

I've been waiting since winter -- no, even before --

counting down the days till our vacation,

planning (hoping) to have all three sons with us this year

to celebrate the Fourth of July for the first time ever

on Marco Island.

We switched our vacation to July this year,

which means we missed seeing our
"other families"

who we normally vacation with in June at Marco.

(Next year we'll be with them again...and it's in pen, a done deal!)

We've not had all our sons there together

for about four -- maybe five? -- years,

and I've been squirming with excitement.

Zach, our oldest, confirmed in May

that he would be able to fly in from Japan to join us,

which we'd been hoping would work out.

The letdown?

Ouch.  Unfortunately, we learned last week

that our middle son Gavin

would not be able to take off from work after all 

for that week, the owner needing that week off for a family event.

And the owner trumps.

I was beyond disappointed.

My emotions took a toll ...

I wallowed.

Consumed.

Pathetically. 

I refused to even talk about it.

It took me over a week to come to terms 

with my disappointment.

I think what made it worse was that I haven't

been able to see Gavin since March 

due to his crazy work schedule not getting weekends off.  

They've been training new managers,

and he's been slammed with his schedule.

Hopefully things will ease up sometime in July.

I want to make the most of this vacation

despite my high hopes of the five of us being together

having been splintered.

I will not let this rob me of the joy of

Zach and Colton getting to spend time together at least

after almost a year of not seeing each other...

AND...we'll be celebrating the Fourth of July together...

in paradise!

We're making memories.

We're leaving our worries behind.

It's time to unplug and purge.

Just over a week to go...

I.CAN'T.WAIT.

Somebody Call Orkin

One of my few pleasures of the morning while having coffee-- my giant-sized coffee --before heading to the gym is scrolling through my Reading List of Blogger to the recent posts of blogs I subscribe to.  (Creature of habit here.)  I would much rather do this than log on to Facebook (puhleeeze) or surf news browsers.

My morning "fix" (play on words) is easy.  Just let me read my emails, cleanse & pray with scripture, and read my blog feeds.  That's what I like.  That makes my mornings complete.

There apparently is a bug on the Reading List Feed component of Blogger, allowing only one blog post to display at a time.  No matter what you do, it won't load more updated blogs to your list.  Bugs.  For three days now...  "Thank you for your patience...our engineers are working on this problem..."

My patience?  Hmm.  They assume things they shouldn't assume.

It's D Day

That was the text message I received yesterday afternoon from a dear, childhood friend.

"It's D Day!  Come help me celebrate with dinner and drinks after work."

It would be GNO in honor of her big D.  Her divorce was final yesterday.  She'd been looking forward to this day for the last ten years or so, waiting patiently for her third son to graduate from high school.  Less complicated.  No strings.  A nice, clean break to begin her life all over again.

I have to say that her pending divorce has been good for her.  I hadn't seen her for several months, and she looked amazing.  Happier, healthier, younger.  There was life in her eyes, a glimpse of the girl/woman I knew so many years ago.  It was shouting obvious.  I almost wanted to stare.

She'd just returned from the beach, helping chaperon her son's senior trip with a few other moms.  She was tanned, she'd dropped about 30 lbs, and she'd let her hair grow back to its natural medium chestnut brown color, emphasizing her beautiful blue-green eyes.  She was wearing a short, white, cotton sheath, slightly fitted, showing off her new slender body; white sandals, and a smile the size of Texas.

There were five of us that were able to make it to the celebration dinner.  We talked and laughed and toasted and drank and ate for almost three hours.  I decided to order a Greek salad with grilled shrimp, and red wine.  (Of course, red wine-- so predictable, I am!)  I felt a little out of place, considering I was the only married woman among the crowd.  I couldn't help but notice that their mindsets, their focus seemed so much different from mine----or maybe I should call it a lack of focus.  Capricious.  I sensed an undercurrent of insecurities, some more than others.  There seemed to an overall exaggerated watchfulness to the comings and goings of our surroundings, thus the muddled focus.

Curiously, I couldn't help but notice that even though we were all roughly the same age, the other women -- my newly divorced friend the exception -- had not aged quite as gracefully, I'll say?  I'll call it "rough edges" and leave it there.  I attributed it to a lack of self-awareness, responsibility to self.  Living life in the carefree zone a tad too long perhaps?

I was taking notes in my head; it was hard not to.  The contrast.  These were HER friends, acquaintances to me, women I might not run into but for our mutual friend.  They seemed to all have a far different agenda than I.  There was a sense of brazenness that I wasn't completely comfortable with -- did I really just say that?  I must have seemed somewhat boring to them, no doubt.  But from my inward perspective, it was liberating.  I felt exonerated in a way.

I listened to my friend talk about "then,"and "now," and what now...all with that sparkle in her eye.  A direct contrast from the tired and weary dialogue we'd shared in times past when we'd meet for dinner to catch up on each other's lives.  It was as if I was talking to a completely different woman.  In a word, extraordinary.  The burden and sadness had lifted.  Pieces of her had died over the last several years, and the pain in her face told the whole story.  I can't believe she waited so long to take control and make the changes necessary to make her feel whole and alive again.  So many years in a dormant, stale existence.  Although in her defense, she could not have survived on her own financially had she left those many years ago.  She had spent most of her married life being a stay-at-home mom, had developed no particular marketable skills for gainful, independent employment, especially with three sons to raise ... until now.

At about two and a half hours in, I announced I needed to get going.  I gave my friend a fierce hug and congratulated her one final time, then I said my goodbyes to everyone, promising to stay in touch so that we could all get together for a shopping weekend soon.   I paid my bill, and I left the restaurant.

The air was warm, the sun hanging on. It was a beautiful summer evening.  I wanted to go home, change clothes, and take a walk.  I wanted quiet time to reflect on what I'd just witnessed...and to reflect on my own life.  I felt a renewed sense of gratefulness for my life, my blessings.  I'm content with who I am as a person, standing alone, a life of character building, defined not by a dependence on others, for what they can give to me or provide for me.  I have never depended on that restless stamp of approval from others.  I make no excuses.  I am who I am without justification.  That sense of self-sufficiency, I think, has been my lifeboat over the years.

I'm hoping that my friend will take the time to feel comfortable in her own skin, alone and unteathered for a while.  I hope she allows time for introspection, to get reacquainted with herself, who she is standing alone, not as defined by a title, like "wife" or "mom."  She has a chance to totally reinvent herself, rebuild her courage and inner strength by learning how to first stand alone.  I pray that her choices will not cause her to lose sight of this opportunity.

Meet My Hero

My husband is a saint.  He is one of the most selfless people I know, unceasingly giving of his time and attention and sacrifices to his family, especially to his sons and to his aging mother who lives two hours away.
.
I wish that my two older sons could be here this weekend to celebrate the wonderful father that he is, along with my youngest son.  A full-blown, bow-down, blowout bash of a honor, love and kudos. He deserves that glory and attention.  That royalty. Because he is royalty. Zach, my oldest, will soon be 27 years old, old enough to appreciate the depths of his love and sacrifices over the years. And Gavin, at 23, yes, he gets it too and never misses a chance to express his gratitude to his dad on his own initiatives and at just the right times.

Just this morning, my youngest son is scheduled to take the ACT exam, needing to be at the test site by 8 a.m....and there is his forbearing father, urging him to hurry, hurry, c'mon, hurry up, you're going to be late.  Me?  I would have blasted him by now; I have a tolerance thing that I'm still working on.  But his dad seems to muster the necessary patience to "just deal with it."  Sometimes I think it's a mistake, that he lets him get by with too much, bypassing those painful lessons we learn from our mistakes in life -- my mom had no problem with tough love for the four of us!   But I'll let him steer this ship.

And when he finishes his test -- assuming he got there on time and they allowed him to sign in -- they'll travel two hours together to my husband's mother's farm, where they'll spend the next two days running the tractor, cutting grass, tidying up her yard and such.  Working?  On Father's Day?  When he should be relaxing and soaking up the pampering?  No.  He would have it no other way.  "It's what I do," he's said in defense.  And he's right.  It's what he does.  It's just who he is.  But at least he will have at least one of his sons with him on Father's Day tomorrow.  I plan to have a yummy dinner with his favorite dessert waiting on him when they arrive home tomorrow.

My husband...he deserves the best.  I want him to know -- really know -- what an outstanding man he is on Father's Day... how much he is appreciated by ALL of his family.  I love him for being the father to my sons that I never had.  And I give thanks for him.

(thank goodness I save their artwork!)