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the bored and the restless

It’s been a tough week, Readers.  I’ve had some really down days and I am struggling my way out.  I am currently fighting off a serious restlessness.  This is the time of year when I most crave travel.

I want to throw some clothes and road food into the car, pack up my camera and go find some off the road hidden hideaway, picnic beside the ocean or a waterfall, fill up a memory card with pictures of moving water and sand and rocks and green, green grass.

Alas, it isn’t happening any time soon.

Instead, I’m tripping my way through various “virtual tours” of places I long to go, and I’m puttering around in my “garden” on my patio.  I have containers filled with succulents that have been loving the rain and not-too-cold temps, plus one salvia that got a little battered in the winds this past month and a lily of the valley that is finally blooming.  Oh, and a couple of containers with gladiolas that my mother gave me last year.  No blooms on them yet, but I’m hopeful.

I think I’ve probably watched every documentary on history or crime or nature or any mix thereof available on Netflix or Amazon.  I think today I will turn to Disney+ for my entertainment.

How are you coping, Readers?  Is there a great book you’d recommend?  Or maybe some documentary or “based on a true story” movie I might have missed?  Do you want me to do another poetry reading?  Maybe some Edgar Allan Poe?

I have to admit I have a deep and abiding love for the way Mr. Poe put words together.  I often read him aloud just for myself.  There is a story of his that I rediscovered recently that I am consider reading on a Facebook live called “Some Words With a Mummy” and I would love to share it with all of you.

For now though, I will return you to whatever you were doing, and I’ll head out to try to find something I haven’t watched yet…or fall back on rewatching old favorites.

Please be safe, stay home, wash your hands and do something kind for yourself today.  I love you all.

Cover Photo by Océane George on Unsplash

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The thing about being a woman of a certain age is that, while much of life is certainly so much better than it was in your 20s (more money & stability, no need to please everyone around you, etc), there comes with age this one particularly unpleasant symptom.  And for someone who has always run a little hotter than everyone around me, when I say that I’m having a hot flash, please understand that isn’t just me being dramatic.

Heaven knows I can be dramatic, but this kind of hot is no joke.

Having returned from my days at Disney with some sort of sinus infection/cold, I’m sitting here at my computer trying to determine if this is a hot flash, or a fever.  Of course, I can’t find my thermometer to check, and I have no desire to leave the house to get a new one, so I will continue to wonder.

Still, the trip to Disneyland with my 24 year old niece was worth a few days of being less than fully healthy.  It was the thing I needed to release some stress and included some amazing character interactions in Galaxy’s Edge (complete with massive Chewbacca hugs that just made life worth living) and getting to ride the new Rise of the Resistance ride twice.

I got to ride roller coasters and other rides, which is something I haven’t done in 20 something years due to my size.  We flew the Millenium Falcon, had drinks at Oga’s Cantina, and ran around Batuu hacking our way through the Play Disney App’s games.

Since I was there last in September, I’ve read the book Black Spire, and that gave me a whole new appreciation of the park, and really informed some of our interactions with the “locals” including one guy at Oga’s that just really got into his role.

Of course, all good things must end, and we eventually left LA for the long drive north, a drive made all the longer by traffic problems that included a big rig fire on the Grapevine that burned the hillside and left nothing of the truck but some bits of metal.

That got me home too late to even consider going in to the office on Thursday, and I woke up with the cold/sinus infection on Friday morning, so I worked from home both days.  For today, I’m going to take it easy, going light on the chores, and probably not even getting much writing done since my brain is having trouble getting words to push through the sludge of congestion.

I think it might be a good day to settle in with my giant TV and surround sound to watch movies and get caught up on TV.  Happy Sunday, Readers!  I leave you with one of my favorite shots from Disney, on board the Millenium Falcon in my Han Solo Disneybound.

 

Han Solo on the Falcon

Header Photo by Hans Reniers on Unsplash

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new year, same old me…

I’m not big on New Years as a holiday, or a time for big changes.   As a Pagan I celebrate the turning of the wheel toward beginnings at Samhain (Halloween), so it seems a bit redundant to do so again on the first of January.

I do get something of a new beginning this year, as the job I’m working moved into a new office during the holidays…and I just upgraded my home theater system with a new TV and surround sound system.

I took a few days off after Christmas to go visit my father, step-mother and one of my dearest friends in Tucson, Arizona and it was a chance to take my camera out into the desert where the sky put on quite the show for us.  It had been raining and stormy through the night, but the sun came out and the clouds were just gorgeous.

Speaking of gorgeous, check out these beautiful birds!

I should get back to drinking my coffee before it goes cold.  However you view the new year, Readers, I wish you joy, kindness and success (by whatever definition you define success) in 2020.  May the Force be With You and Live Long and Prosper!