Tag: blogging

All moved in!

We’re finally moved into our Connecticut home. It’s been a long time coming, as we first learned about the possibility of moving to the Tri-State area back in March. We closed on Tuesday, the movers came and dropped all of the boxes off in the appropriate rooms on Wednesday, and here I am Thursday with the rest of the work that moving entails.

I wanted to take a break from unpacking, laundry, and the madness to show y’all some before photos from our new house. I just love the space. It’s smaller than our first house in Houston, but it’s much cozier, the floor plan works better for us, and there’s not going to be any minimally used spaces like we had before.

Another big difference between this house and our Houston house is that it’s been recently completely redone. New windows, roof, kitchen, baths, everything. And everything is WHITE. As the cable installation man left yesterday, he said to us, “I can finally say that I’ve visited the white house.”

This is perfect for me, because it is a blank slate to decorate as I wish, but without the headaches and never-ending project of remodeling.

Without further ado… Continue reading “All moved in!” →

Hiking Jenny Lake

Following three days in Yellowstone National Park, we made our way over to Grand Teton National Park.

Grand Teton was originally a side note to the trip. Flights out of the area that were the most reasonably priced were coming out of Jackson Hole, and I noticed to get there from Yellowstone, we’d go through the park. If you couldn’t tell by my wedding at Joshua Tree, I’ve kinda got a thing for National Parks. I was pretty stoked to cross another off of my list.

After a bit of lurking on TripAdvisor, we were dead set on doing some hang gliding. Yes, you read that right. It was the most thrilling thing on our itinerary.

Unfortunately, their runways were flooded during the time we’d be there, so we settled for a hike and a picnic around Jenny Lake. It didn’t disappoint.

Hiking Jenny Lake in Grand Teton NP-2 Continue reading “Hiking Jenny Lake” →

Honeymooners: Palawan’s River of Bioluminescence, Diving, and Island Hopping

Our first day in Palawan was the best of our entire trip! We took a quick flight via Cebu Pacific Air first thing in the morning, and brought (almost) the entire fam. After our arrival to our hotel, we had to leave quickly. Though we had originally booked a city tour of Puerto Princessa, our new found love of diving led us to contact someone local the day prior to see what the waters of Palawan had to offer.

And oh, did it offer a lot. We broke away from the rest of the group, picked up the dive equipment from the dive instructors’ gorgeous home, took a short ride, picked up some lunch and water, and arrived at Pristine Beach. Literally–that’s the name of the beach. And for good reason.

Unfortunately, Mark had me leave my phone and camera behind. So I don’t have any photos!

The dives were great, we did one for forty five minutes, ate lunch, then did another dive for the same amount of time. We went down as deep as 18 meters during the first dive, but during the second we didn’t have to go nearly as far: there was a full wall of reef going down as deep as we could see.

After diving, we rested at the hotel, played some foozeball, and I discovered banoffe. BANANA IN MY FROZEN COFFEE.

YUM
YUM.

That night, all 12 of us piled in a van and headed to go firefly watching.

Puerto Princessa Firefly watching

They fed us a traditional Filipino dinner, and then we got on boats for the tour. The boats were row boats, and only four people, including the guide, were allowed on each boat.

During the tour, the guide asked if we see fireflies where we come from, then asked us if we see them less often now than we used to. Growing up and spending time in my cousin’s neighborhood in northern Corpus Christi, I saw many. But it really has been a long time.

The guide explained to us that fireflies are a sign of a healthy environment, free of pollution. They’re a sign of good air. No wonder it’s been a while. Kind of sad.

Fireflies were everywhere, and he would use a simple red light to make them shine more brightly: with his light, he looked to them to be a firefly as well. The stars shined brightly. It was gorgeous.

THEN, the tour guide threw us for a loop. “You may notice the stars shining brightly, and of course the fireflies. But they aren’t the only things that shine here in this river. If you put your hand in the water–”

“WHAT!!” Continue reading “Honeymooners: Palawan’s River of Bioluminescence, Diving, and Island Hopping” →

Honeymooners: Diving Boracay

Despite our late night fire dancing on Boracay’s White Beach, we woke up before the crack of dawn, yet again. This time, we had big intentions for the day. Boracay offers SO MANY water activities, and a few that we had in mind for the day were rowing in clear boats, wake boarding, surfing, banana boating and more. First, we went helmet diving with Mark’s dad’s girlfriend, Ann.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Continue reading “Honeymooners: Diving Boracay” →

Honeymooners: Boracay’s White Beach

We woke up at 3 a.m. our first day in Manila to head back to the airport we arrived at less than a day prior. On the first flight of the day, we headed to Boracay.

Lately, Boracay has gotten a bad rep for being overcrowded and overrated. The week before we arrived was the Easter holiday–the busiest weekend of the year, so we may have gotten a different side of the island. We really enjoyed it.

You can’t just fly into Boracay. We had to take a van to a speedboat to another van to get to our hotel. Mark’s dad, who we were there with, along with his girlfriend, told us that it wasn’t too long ago when you had to take a tricycle, get in a ROW boat, then take another tricycle to get to white beach. Which is a little like… But for partying, which is amazing and when I started to understand why the Philippine Department of Tourism has declared their tagline, “It’s more fun in the Philippines.” Continue reading “Honeymooners: Boracay’s White Beach” →

Drop the Drama

I have a lot of feelings.

Ever find yourself watching Teen Mom on purpose? Lifetime movies? Crying over songs Justin Timberlake wrote for Jessica Biel? Super Bowl commercials?

It can get a little embarrassing, but I do. When people open up about great loss, when they open up over great triumph, when they make something beautiful, when they display any degree of passion in any direction–I cry. I can face it: I cry a lot.

Past

As a kid, my mom and other relatives would call me a “drama queen,” and it caused me great hurt. My feelings felt so real to me; how could people who love me devalue them like that?

When I grew into an adolescent, I rebelled against my feelings. I hated that I was emotional, so I took on a persona of  “hippie” and “chill”. Drama free, care free. I wanted to be Cool Girl, and I steered clear of all people who were always fighting about who knows what, in favor of others who shared the same carefree careless attitude toward life. I wanted to be strong.

As an adult, I embrace my feelings, and take pride in the empathy I have for others. I learned that strength comes from knowing yourself, expressing yourself fearlessly, and inspiring others to do the same. I steered away from the drama-filled people and the careless, and confide in people who are emotionally aware. Now, I’m really drama free, right?

Present

Not quite. A little perspective I gathered from my 40 days meeting today:

Just because you steer clear of unnecessary conflict and people who are always wrapped up in it, doesn’t make you bulletproof from drama.

How often do you think, “Well, I really want to _______, BUT _____,” where BUT is some aspect of life that you allow to limit your growth?

  • “I really want to lose weight, BUT I can’t make the time to work out.“
  • “I really want to eat healthy, BUT I hardly know how to cook.“
  • “I really want to blog everyday, BUT I worry that there’s nothing valuable in what I have to say, and no one will care.“
  • “I really want to simplify my life, BUT first I have to tend to my to-do list.“

These are limiting beliefs I’ve let control my actions–my life even. I bring drama to things like going for a run because I haven’t done the laundry yet. I bring drama into cooking because I might fail again, I bring drama into blogging because “Oh no, I posted a link to my blog on Facebook and now people who I know could read about how I really feel and things I do that no one probably cares about and I’ll be vulnerable and they’ll judge me and my writing isn’t good enough and and and!” 

I bring drama into finding misplaced objects: “Where is that f*cking thing?” and as I continue to look, “Damn it! I can’t live in this mess!” and I bring drama into laundry: “I’m going to fold some laundry, but first I need to find a movie on Netflix to watch while doing that.” Then later, “Ugh! Why does Netflix keep messing up, I’m trying to focus on getting this stuff done!” 

Future

Now that I’ve noticed these thought patterns, I can bring ease into my daily life. I can stop thinking about what could limit me, and just BEGIN. I can think to myself, “Where is that useful object?” and replace the word “f*cking” with “delightful” in any situation. I can glide over the hurdles effortlessly if I’m focused on the finish line. All I need to do is see and drop the drama.

Is there something simple in life that you add drama to? Let me know in the comments!

 Featured image found on https://myfitwitjourney.wordpress.com/

My Face Hurts.

Deciding to become a stay-at-home mom was a long, drawn out process that was fraught with worry and hesitation. In May of 2013, after a few long and hard years of going to college while caring for a child, most of which was during a divorce, I graduated from a four year university. Those school years were plagued with doubt, and I was constantly terrified of how disappointed everyone would be if I couldn’t get a job after those years of leaning on others for support. I took the second job I was offered. Then, I stumbled upon an opportunity that was better for me and my home life, and jumped at it. Working from home, part time, for 150% better pay than the first. Perfect.

It was only a couple of months in before I realized how unsuited I was for the gig. I was disorganized, I lacked passion about my subject matter, and I lacked self-motivation. Week after week, I was suffering from self-imposed stress because I was focusing more on my duties as a homemaker and a mother than on being an employee. I was a failure. One day, in tears, I lamented to Mark, “I could climb the corporate ladder, I could be an entrepreneur, but nothing will give me as much satisfaction as raising my kids!” Unfortunately, it wasn’t in the cards for me. Continue reading “My Face Hurts.” →