Almost 3 weeks on the road, and now we're home again!
Hello!
I feel like it's been a while since I posted anything, which always makes it weird to start. So here's my message I've repeated many times before - I'm sorry I haven't been reading or posting! I hope I can catch up, and just jump back into the mix.
I'm typing this on Dreamwidth right now, which is suuuuper weird. I'm crossposting to Livejournal, too. It seems like it shouldn't feel odd, but it is, because even though it looks incredibly similar in pretty much every way, it is a whole other Place on the web. I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about.
So let's see. I just got back a few days ago from a road trip! I wish I'd had the energy to write and post while I traveled, but I just SO did not. Driving to the Chicago area required about 6 hours of driving a day on average, and at the end of it, I just wanted to veg out. I scrapbooked a little, and Joe and I watched some tv. It felt good to kind of unplug from social media. And I think because of that break, it feels good to get back into it, too! I have quite a few photos to edit, and I feel so good about a lot of them. I'm happy to see my photography skills improving with practice! I'll share some here as soon as I can.
Driving out there was actually really fun. It was awesome seeing so many states I'd never been to before. It was good seeing my in-laws too! We sat around and chatted, ate, and laughed. I played fetch with their dog. We went to a water park, and the hotel pools, and had hotel breakfast every day. Seeing little strips of stores on Main St, in several different small towns was very cool. We even saw Mt Rushmore and Devil's Tower, in the same day, too! It was really cool! Then we drove through a rain and hail storm on the way out of there.
The whole trip was 4,150 miles, and I drove all of it!! I'm excited I did that, and we met all our goals - Joe did really well on the planning of stops and everything. It was cool seeing our plans all come together and just work out well.
I even did pretty well keeping up with the scrapbook I took along for the ride. I thought Homer would participate in it more, but he did a little bit at least. (I'm trying to get him writing and reading more on his own before school starts back up again in a month.) I'm excited to add some photos to the scrapbook and then I'll post up some photos of that too.
My friend, Meander, suggested possibly being accountability buddies for keeping up with our creative work projects and scheduled posts and stuff, and I think it's a really good idea. I get so off track when I try to do things by myself. So hopefully that'll mean posting more here, on my particlewoman wordpress, on my instagram accounts, and just generally writing more. I need to give myself a writing schedule!! I haven't done any fiction writing, really, in months, not the way I want to be anyway. Well, hey, that's another reason I'm excited about LJ Idol starting up again next month. I like prompts and deadlines!! They help immensely.
At the very least I have been reading a little bit more, which is good. I keep trying to make myself open Kindle, or Duolingo, when I'm on my phone instead of Facebook. Fb is such a time suck and it adds very little to that feeling of productivity, or just well-being, you know? I find a lot more personal contentment after reading, and practicing Spanish, too.
Anyway, I'm currently about 30% of the way through Dead Beat, the 7th book in the Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher. It's really good!
I missed our sweet Amy gecko, and our Ashton pup while we were away for those two and a half weeks. My mom had Ashton with her, and my friend Melissa R had Amy. It worked out great! And we got home Tuesday, and then Homer and I picked up the pets on Wednesday. Melissa R and my mom live really close to one another, so that was helpful too.
I want to piece together my daily photo posts from the past few weeks, but I'm intimidated by it, too. I just should get on it, because otherwise, I'll fall completely off the project like I did... was it last year?.. around this time, too. And I don't want to do that again! So catch up time will happen soon.
I am so glad Homer got to meet so many cousins he's never met before! And I'm excited that we're getting even more cousins together in a few weeks when Ruby and Anna come to visit with my brother and his wife. Then we'll have Ruby, Anna, Homer, Allister and Jakob all together. I can't wait to take photos of them all together and see how funny and cute they all are with each other. It's hard to believe it's been a year already since we last saw Anna and Ruby! I'm super looking forward to their arrival!
I'm glad the weather has been really nice. We had AWESOME weather on our trip, btw. It was not super hot. And then we missed Seattle area's epic heatwave, so that was nice too. It's been like 70 as the high since we got back. Next week it'll be mid-80s and sunny, so we'll be at the pool a ton I think.
A not-fun thing I've been dealing with is a lot of carpal tunnel symptoms - pain, and tingling/numbness in my fingers and wrists/thumbs. UGH. That part sucks. I'm dreading going to the doctor, because mine is on maternity leave and I don't know who they'll have me see. Somebody new to me, which is always nerve wracking to me for some reason. I also never know what treatment they'll suggest, but I know I just need to do it. I'm most scared they'll want to inject me with cortisone. That's what they did when my feet were super terrible and I had tarsal tunnel syndrome. But, I mean, any treatment is worth it, because I can't exactly afford to be losing feeling in my hands. I need my hands!! For like, everything! Omg.
So yes, getting back into the swing of being home again. But it's weird. Joe and I both keep having mild nightmares, or weird wakeups. Like Joe startled awake thinking we had to check out. I heard him close our bathroom door as I woke up and thought it was someone knocking on our hotel door. But we were at home, so nope. So weird! This morning at least I knew where I was. Though yesterday, when I opened my eyes in the morning, I was so disoriented, because I expected Joe to be on the other side of me, because the hotel rooms were so different from our bedroom we ended up sleeping differently than we do at home.
But it's cool to be at my desk again, in my own bed again, on our own couch again... It's awesome to look outside and feel that connection to the trees and the view and be like, yep this is home. It's good!
I think that's all for now. I'll write more soon. Off to read, and edit some photos! :D
Hope you're having a happy week, and wishing you all a wonderful weekend!
~Meg
I feel like it's been a while since I posted anything, which always makes it weird to start. So here's my message I've repeated many times before - I'm sorry I haven't been reading or posting! I hope I can catch up, and just jump back into the mix.
I'm typing this on Dreamwidth right now, which is suuuuper weird. I'm crossposting to Livejournal, too. It seems like it shouldn't feel odd, but it is, because even though it looks incredibly similar in pretty much every way, it is a whole other Place on the web. I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about.
So let's see. I just got back a few days ago from a road trip! I wish I'd had the energy to write and post while I traveled, but I just SO did not. Driving to the Chicago area required about 6 hours of driving a day on average, and at the end of it, I just wanted to veg out. I scrapbooked a little, and Joe and I watched some tv. It felt good to kind of unplug from social media. And I think because of that break, it feels good to get back into it, too! I have quite a few photos to edit, and I feel so good about a lot of them. I'm happy to see my photography skills improving with practice! I'll share some here as soon as I can.
Driving out there was actually really fun. It was awesome seeing so many states I'd never been to before. It was good seeing my in-laws too! We sat around and chatted, ate, and laughed. I played fetch with their dog. We went to a water park, and the hotel pools, and had hotel breakfast every day. Seeing little strips of stores on Main St, in several different small towns was very cool. We even saw Mt Rushmore and Devil's Tower, in the same day, too! It was really cool! Then we drove through a rain and hail storm on the way out of there.
The whole trip was 4,150 miles, and I drove all of it!! I'm excited I did that, and we met all our goals - Joe did really well on the planning of stops and everything. It was cool seeing our plans all come together and just work out well.
I even did pretty well keeping up with the scrapbook I took along for the ride. I thought Homer would participate in it more, but he did a little bit at least. (I'm trying to get him writing and reading more on his own before school starts back up again in a month.) I'm excited to add some photos to the scrapbook and then I'll post up some photos of that too.
My friend, Meander, suggested possibly being accountability buddies for keeping up with our creative work projects and scheduled posts and stuff, and I think it's a really good idea. I get so off track when I try to do things by myself. So hopefully that'll mean posting more here, on my particlewoman wordpress, on my instagram accounts, and just generally writing more. I need to give myself a writing schedule!! I haven't done any fiction writing, really, in months, not the way I want to be anyway. Well, hey, that's another reason I'm excited about LJ Idol starting up again next month. I like prompts and deadlines!! They help immensely.
At the very least I have been reading a little bit more, which is good. I keep trying to make myself open Kindle, or Duolingo, when I'm on my phone instead of Facebook. Fb is such a time suck and it adds very little to that feeling of productivity, or just well-being, you know? I find a lot more personal contentment after reading, and practicing Spanish, too.
Anyway, I'm currently about 30% of the way through Dead Beat, the 7th book in the Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher. It's really good!
I missed our sweet Amy gecko, and our Ashton pup while we were away for those two and a half weeks. My mom had Ashton with her, and my friend Melissa R had Amy. It worked out great! And we got home Tuesday, and then Homer and I picked up the pets on Wednesday. Melissa R and my mom live really close to one another, so that was helpful too.
I want to piece together my daily photo posts from the past few weeks, but I'm intimidated by it, too. I just should get on it, because otherwise, I'll fall completely off the project like I did... was it last year?.. around this time, too. And I don't want to do that again! So catch up time will happen soon.
I am so glad Homer got to meet so many cousins he's never met before! And I'm excited that we're getting even more cousins together in a few weeks when Ruby and Anna come to visit with my brother and his wife. Then we'll have Ruby, Anna, Homer, Allister and Jakob all together. I can't wait to take photos of them all together and see how funny and cute they all are with each other. It's hard to believe it's been a year already since we last saw Anna and Ruby! I'm super looking forward to their arrival!
I'm glad the weather has been really nice. We had AWESOME weather on our trip, btw. It was not super hot. And then we missed Seattle area's epic heatwave, so that was nice too. It's been like 70 as the high since we got back. Next week it'll be mid-80s and sunny, so we'll be at the pool a ton I think.
A not-fun thing I've been dealing with is a lot of carpal tunnel symptoms - pain, and tingling/numbness in my fingers and wrists/thumbs. UGH. That part sucks. I'm dreading going to the doctor, because mine is on maternity leave and I don't know who they'll have me see. Somebody new to me, which is always nerve wracking to me for some reason. I also never know what treatment they'll suggest, but I know I just need to do it. I'm most scared they'll want to inject me with cortisone. That's what they did when my feet were super terrible and I had tarsal tunnel syndrome. But, I mean, any treatment is worth it, because I can't exactly afford to be losing feeling in my hands. I need my hands!! For like, everything! Omg.
So yes, getting back into the swing of being home again. But it's weird. Joe and I both keep having mild nightmares, or weird wakeups. Like Joe startled awake thinking we had to check out. I heard him close our bathroom door as I woke up and thought it was someone knocking on our hotel door. But we were at home, so nope. So weird! This morning at least I knew where I was. Though yesterday, when I opened my eyes in the morning, I was so disoriented, because I expected Joe to be on the other side of me, because the hotel rooms were so different from our bedroom we ended up sleeping differently than we do at home.
But it's cool to be at my desk again, in my own bed again, on our own couch again... It's awesome to look outside and feel that connection to the trees and the view and be like, yep this is home. It's good!
I think that's all for now. I'll write more soon. Off to read, and edit some photos! :D
Hope you're having a happy week, and wishing you all a wonderful weekend!
~Meg