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!

Time to Get Creative!

Looking for something to do while you socially distance yourself from the rest of humanity?  Want something other than what is in the news to think about for the next 5 or 10 minutes?  Let me share a little mental exercise with you to take your mind to a different place than it has been forced to exist lately.  It will only be a brief escape, but this is me, doing what I can to help you channel your inner dreamer.  Consider it a mental vacation, since we can't take an actual vacation for a while!

A virtual vacation to enjoy.

I purchased the book, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, many years ago while taking a memoir writing course, at the encouragement of our instructor. It is a guide to lead you on "a spiritual path to higher creativity".  I've tried to read it several times,  maybe I was never in the right place to do the work needed to find my higher creativity.  The book, frankly, intimidated me.  Who am I to think I am a creative person, much less one with greater potential?  Well, as a New Year's resolution of sorts, I decided to read the book from beginning to end, at a slow and deliberate pace.  If I did not answer all of the questions or do all of the thought provoking prompts at least I would thoughtfully ponder them.  I am happy to report that I am almost halfway through the book and am enjoying the process....most days. 

Today as I read my few pages, one of the exercises seemed like it might be something we can all ponder as we stay home.  Thought I would share a bit of it with you and let everyone leave their comments.  It might help us over the next few weeks to channel our inner creative side as we stay home and healthy.  I, for one, can only clean so many closets, do so much laundry, sweep up the never ending stream of oak leaves and twirly things off my driveway, and take so many walks before I too need something else to do.  Maybe a new hobby or just rediscovering an old one!

Name 5 hobbies that sound like fun.
Go!
But do it from home!