Lap of Luxury

Paradise!!!

A few months ago I booked a flight on Frontier Airlines to Vegas. They are very much like Spirit in that they are less expensive, but nickel and dime you to death on...well pretty much everything. The only thing that comes free on Frontier is what they call a personal item. So, basically your purse or a backpack small enough to fit underneath the seat in front of you. This was a basic Friday to Monday trip to my parents house, and I did not want to pay any extra money so I convinced myself that for the first time ever I would travel with only a backpack. My little sister can do it. I won't need much. I'll make it work.

NOT.

No hair products, no workout wear, no dressy clothes, no extra shoes. limited toiletries. No extras. Just your standard undergarments and a different shirt for every day. It was warm in Vegas so I only wanted to bring one pair of jeans and the rest would be shorts and tanks but it absolutely would not fit. After that, I realized right then and there for sure that I would never be the kind of person who could travel with a backpack no matter how lightly I thought I was packing. I accepted that, but I still wanted to be better about over packing so I was determined not to do it when packing for our trip to Mexico.

I was a little bit worried about the weather before we left. June to mid October is rainy season in Nuevo Vallarta, and the weather app was showing thunder showers every single day. It was raining when we left the Puerto Vallarta airport, but by the time we arrived at the resort it was gone. The first thing I noticed was the humidity. So, hot and so humid. My skin felt damp and moist anytime I was outside.

My Frozen Shoulder: One Year Later

This time last year I was recovering from a Manipulation Under Anesthesia with the hopes of unsticking my shoulder. I'd been dealing with pain from a torn rotator cuff since the Summer of 2016. The pain got worse and worse until it eventually froze in August 2017. In September I was diagnosed with Adhesive Capsulitis. When I say it froze, I quite literally mean that my shoulder joint froze. At it's worst, I could barely lift my arm enough to get a razor in to shave my arm pit. I could not lift my arm fully above my head or extend the angle of shoulder open past 90 degrees. I don't think I fully realized how much I needed my shoulder to rotate on ball and socket, until I lost my ability to do so. The human body is amazing and it was especially designed that way for a reason.

I Blinked And it Was Over

Flower Fields are so trendy right now

The last two months have been pretty great. I've basically just been living living my best life.

In March my mother in law was in town for two weeks, so we did that be a tourist in your own city thing. While she was here we had the the first big gathering at our house. Lots of people showed up. I think MJ invited everyone on his Facebook friends list. I got zero pictures. Not even one! There wasn't a moment to spare. Looking back on it, the day was really a blur. I sat down a few times, but spent most of the time mingling and making sure everything was in place. I think that's just kind of what happens when you are hosting. We had stuff to prep, guests to greet, and then the entire day flew by. Our lasts guest left a little after 6ish. I think. Then we had clean up. I was so tired, I almost fell out when my mother in law told me we were going whale watching the next day.

Why I haven't Been Blogging

Do you ever feel like you've run out of things to say? Lately I've been feeling like either I've said it already or someone else is already saying it. Then I wonder, what's the point? There are 50 billion blogs on the internet. Nobody cares!!

I'm not kidding when I say that I've been documenting my life since I was 9 years old. I have an extremely heavy plastic bin of diaries and spiral bound college ruled notebooks to prove it. They are currently being stored in the overhead storage in our garage and the older I get the more I wonder about the fate of those journals after I'm gone. I should probably go ahead and burn them. So many secrets, so many emotions, so many words. Every heartbreak, internal struggle, and joy painstakingly handwritten not only to look back on and remember later, but also as a means of therapy. Writing has always been so therapeutic for me. A way to release the raw and often times jumbled thoughts in my brain and arrange them into organized rows of words that help me exercise the pain and make sense of my feelings. I always feel better after writing it out, and I've always taken such joy in writing down words I don't want to say or that don't need to be said at all.

Things We Considered Before Buying New Contruction

When we started looking at houses our priority was a decent location, price, and a list of must have's that we were really, really hoping we could get. We tried to keep that list as short as possible. The part that stressed me out the most is that we had a home we would have to sell, before we could buy something else. I wasn't hopeful that the stars would align so that we would find a buyer for our house, and get an offer accepted on a home we wanted to buy at the same time. Between house hunting, making your own house available for showings, negotiations, inspections, and funding there are a lot of variables that need to pan out in a timeline that works for the buyer of our home, the seller of the home we want, and us. People do it, but I don't know how, without selling your house, renting, then doing the home search from there. We definitely wanted a newer or updated home. We didn't have our mind set on buying new construction, but doing so did streamline the buying/selling process. We didn't have to worry about competing with other offers, or trying to time out multiple closings. Sometimes the builder negotiates with discounts or credits, but the price is the price, and it's first come first served. Once you pre-qualify, sign the contract and hand over earnest money the house is yours pending funding, and any contingencies, such as selling your current home are taken care of. We ended up moving twice anyway, but we had a closing date, and could plan for it.  Having everything new is nice, but there are a lot of things we had to consider.

'Tis the Season to be Tired Fa La La La La....

Happy Holidays! Better late then never right?

I'm currently in the middle of a Christmas break that is going way to quickly. I can feel the time slipping away, with each blissfully work free day, but I'm trying really hard not to focus on that. I don't want this break to be about what I could or should be accomplishing during this time, because dammit, all I really want to do right now is BE. Is that too much to ask?

So what have I been up to? Since I haven't updated too much on life happenings since October-ish, I'm just going to do a basic recap post. The kind that nobody likes to read.

Moving Day!!

We went to Lake Tahoe over labor day weekend, and then when we came back we moved to our little apartment in Mission Valley. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Moving is the worst. We expected to live there from September 7th until mid December, but plans changed when the builder moved up the closing date on our new home to end October. I was ready to get out of that apartment, but having to break our 3 month lease was stressful, and I was not ready to have to move again so soon. We only lived there for six weeks.