Virtual Travel and Happy Hours

Let's begin with another virtual vacation! 
Today, we are going to the Cayman Islands!  I could use a nice day on the beach, especially since it is raining here.  Feel the warm breeze, the sand between your toes, that slightly crispy salty way your skin feels after snorkeling in the salt water for an hour, taste the ice cold cerveza and feel your body relax onto one of these lounge chairs.  Close your eyes, hear the waves lapping onto the shore and the wind rustling the leaves in the nearby trees. 

Choose 4 other people and imagine yourself here with them!
Cayman Islands, circa  2011
The above post is quite ironic!

Couldn't we all use a day like this right about now?  Those chairs are mighty close to each other aren't they?  This social distancing has made me crave human contact!  As an extrovert, I get my energy from being around other people and the way things are going my personal energy level may be depleted by the end of week 2.  I keep finding myself envying people lucky enough to be living together in a house with several others.  I would love nothing more than to have all of my kids and grand kids here together under one roof.  It has been just me and TJ bumping around this house for a week.  Not that I don't love TJ, but I need my other human batteries to charge me up! 

I am sure we all are feeling the same ebb and flow of emotions as we deal with trying our best to distance ourselves from others and still do our jobs, educate our children, reach out (from a safe distance) to those in need and those we love, and live the new life we are faced with for the foreseeable future.  Those last words are the ones that are giving me the most trouble, the foreseeable future. 

How many of us have made plans for some date in the future and are now wondering if those plans will actually happen?  What a complicated new mindset we are facing.  As we are finding out, we have no idea what tomorrow will look like.  Even an optimist like me is having trouble from time to time through this mixture of isolation and social distancing.  It does not help that the sun has also decided to distance itself from Sugar Land.  I really need to stop looking at those Instagram posts of people walking along scenic lakes, majestic mountains, sunny French countrysides or forest paths while socially distancing themselves.  Bah humbug!  I am here to make all of you suburbanites feel better because I walk the same sidewalks every day and there is nothing majestic or scenic here.  I try to see the beauty but it is getting harder and harder. 

The splendor and beauty of my daily sanity walk.

I will say I had one of the best hours of my week the other night when I had a great video chat with two dear friends.  We were supposed to be together this past week, seeing a play, laughing, eating, drinking and catching up but Covid-19 had other plans.  We instead shared an hour and several drinks together while we laughed and caught up on life as we now know it.  It really was one of the best hours of my week, thanks ladies.  I highly recommend a virtual girls night to everyone!

So ponder my first photo and let me know where you are going and with whom you are going when we are free to roam....someday!  We all need to dream!
Hang in there and stay home!