Weekend Photography - Tucson's Colorful Adobes

Sometimes you actually get to go on vacation for a half minute, spend some time with people you really like, and take some photos.  Tucson is a fun place to take photos because there is so much to love about the colors.

These were all just taken on my phone.  But they still turned out pretty good.

I should be doing homework.  I am so over school.  And by "over" I mean just plain old tired.  Hopefully I can rally!

Saving My Sanity (or Ma Santé Mentale)

I discovered something that has been saving my sanity lately.

Some days I am so busy and things are so crazy at work, I don't know how to slow down when I get off work.  In fact, sometimes I am genuinely surprised at how overwhelmingly busy work can be.  Sometimes I look at the clock and it's 3 pm and it feels like it should be 10 am and I am slightly panicked about how much I still need to accomplish before the end of my day.  I never end my day having accomplished everything I set out to do in the morning.  My job will always have a never ending task list that I will never actually reach the end of.  I  have accepted that but it does make my brain a little crazy.

Once I leave work I generally probably have some sort of school work I should attend to.  If it's not reading it's a paper, or articles, or presentations or a test.  You get the idea.  I read and write all day at work and then I read an write at home and if I have free time I am always trying to squeeze in either more reading that is also in relation to school and I feel will just help me be a better counselor OR I collapse on the couch and stare at The Real Housewives of Orange County for a hour while my brain does almost nothing.

It feels like I am either in full academic/psychology/behavioral health mode or my brain needs to completely escape.  And this is frequently a problem.  Because I find that my brain does not want to turn off.  Sometimes I literally cannot sit still for a whole episode of the Housewives just because my brain is still too engaged.

My other thing I have been experiencing lately is this feeling that this schedule is relentless and never ending.  Sometimes it really doesn't seem there will ever be a time in my life again that will involve free time of the sort of would like to find.  Or vacations.  I can't find the time to do so many things I would like to do because at least for the next year and 1/2, the time to do those things just doesn't exist.  I know I will get through it.

Saving my mind right now is Duo Lingo.

What the heck is Duolingo you may ask.  Well it's a phone app on which you can practice language skills in several other languages and the best part is, it's free.  

I learned some french in high school and college but I have never been proficient.  I LOOOOOOOVE this app.  When my brain can't turn off I just flip open this app and start practicing French and feel myself just completely in some sort of fantastic zen space.  Sometimes I can't stop and I have to force myself to move on to other tasks.  My french is getting so much better.  Yesterday on NPR there was a press conference in french which they translated - but I understood well over 50% of it before the translation.  It's awesome.  

If you want to brush up on a language you once kinda sorta learned a little of or if you want to learn one you've never tried I highly recommend it. It's like playing a video game but it's not a waste of time. 

Also.  I really want to go to France when I have a different situation wherein I can actually leave my house for an extended vacation at some point in the future.  My goal is to go the year I turn 50.  So learning French better feels like it is increasing my likelihood of having a better vacation. 

Which brings me to my one other sanity saver which I've discussed before.  Pinterest images of the places I'd like to go in France. 

Provence

French Riviera

Monmartre

Cannes

Neptune Fountain - Versailles

French Riviera

Provence 

Versailles

Burgundy

  

But for now it's back to two papers I need to write.

Feral Cats in the Land of Mouse - Ingredients for an Awesome Vacation!

Vacation was awesome.  Mainly because it was VACATION.  My future goal is to have a whole week or two off at once.  Doesn't that sound heavenly?  But even though my vacation was only four days - it was still pretty great.

We crammed 5 people into my Prius to make the trip to California from Phoenix.  From her all the way to the beach in Newport it's about 7 hours.  I always want it to be less, but realistically you have to plan on 7.  Man do I love that Prius.  I figure the gas to drive there cost us about $28.

We went straight to the beach and then had the luck of getting parking spot right next to a fantastic spot.  It couldn't have worked out better.  I fed the meter to allow us to stay until after 5 pm that evening.  It was absolutely beautiful.  The weather was perfect.  I even bought a fresh cut mango to enjoy on the beach and that was pretty awesome as well.  Here's an instagram photo I took while lazing on the sand with my book.

Later we checked in to our secret hotel by Disneyland.  I'm not going to tell you about our hotel.  Know why?  Because I honestly don't want everyone to find out about it.  It's the least expensive half-way decent hotel I've found close to Disneyland and they don't really advertise very much online so it's actually a little hard to find.  I found it back in the mid 90s through a travel agency (do those even exist anymore?).  They seem busy enough to stay in business but not so busy that they will remodel or rip the place down and build something expensive in it's place.  If you really want to know ask me and I'll tell you personally.  :)

We spent the next 2 days in Disneyland and California adventure and that is always fun.  But it was super great having all my grown kids there with me.  Yes, Disneyland was fun when they were little.  But I would say it's just as fun now.  And I don't have to find a bathroom to change any little kids diapers anymore.  We even ate at the Blue Bayou which was awesome (pricey yes, but totally worth it).

(we rode this Disney train and around and around one night - it was kind of crazy - I now have the weird song memorized that they play when you're in the "grand canyon and the primitive world").  

I can never decide what my favorite ride is.  I still really love splash mountain - but we got so wet this time I was wet for most of the day!  I do really like California Screamer and Tower of Terror too.  But honestly, this time I think maybe I most enjoyed Soaring over California - which I've always liked but seemed especially lovely this year.  There were a couple of new rides I had not seen or ridden before - the new Ariel ride in California Adventures is pretty cute.  And I will always love Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion - Pirates possibly being the ride we went on the most times.  I lost track. 

The kids were old enough to get into looking at all the interesting details and trying to figure stuff out like when you're on the Pirates ride - where the heck does that ride go?  (into the parking lot it would seem - or something!) and Jordan read up on all kids of weird disney facts before we left.  We were looking for hidden Mickeys everywhere and strange little things you've probably never noticed before.  

Jordan told us there are over 200 feral cats inside Disneyland and that they feed them.  I wasn't sure I believed that until the last night near main street and the Sleeping Beauty Castle one darted across our path!  She looked like this: 

When I got back to the hotel that night I had to look it up and sure enough!  They DO keep and feed feral cats.  They keep the rodent population down.  They showed up spontaneously in the early years of the park and they have been feeding them and spaying and neutering them ever since.  Random cats still keep showing up.  You have to admit it is a pretty good find of a place to live if you're a feral cat.  There are about 6 cat feeding stations around the park in areas where you wouldn't notice them.  One is up on the old platform for the old tram that used to stretch across the park and go through the matterhorn.  One of the stations is still there in Fantasyland kind of look up when you're in the food area kitty corner from Dumbo.  It's kind of hidden, but it's there in the corner.  Apparently the cats also really like the area around Tom Sawyer Island and the food area in Adventureland near Splash Mountain.  They like the area near the train tracks back behind Tom Sawyer island too and there is a feeding station near there as well.  

When Holden was little he used to say that if he was homeless he would go live inside Disneyland.  At the time I don't think he realized that place really never sleeps.  There are people working inside that park 24/7 so you really would not be able to hide inside that park.  But he loved that idea.  

Sadly, all Disneyland vacations must come to an end.  

We made one last stop on our way home in Pasadena.  We stopped at a place for lunch called Lemonade.  It was super tasty healthy food as well as macarons and multiple kinds of lemonade.  It was really good.  I would definitely go again.  In fact, I was wishing we had them here in Phoenix.  

I mean if you only have 4 days to spend on vacation - these are a pretty good way to spend 4 days.  

The Vacation I need...Carmel by the Sea & Big Sur

I need a vacation.

People say that, I know.  But I really do.

I haven't had a vacation or a break in...well, I don't even really know.  I'm not counting the 48 hour trip to Las Vegas - which was fun, but not really a vacation.  It wasn't even the whole weekend.

So this blog post will have to do.

Two of the places I think are the most beautiful in the whole world are Carmel By The Sea, and Big Sur.

I fell in love with Big Sur when I was a little girl watching "The Sandpiper" with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.  Something about it just seemed so fantastic to me.

A trip up the coast of California is always breathtaking and gorgeous to me but it's more than that.  For me, just the surf and the sand, the salt, the air and the color of the water has some sort of restorative property that really makes me happy.

I realized tonight with no breaks in school and working full time and starting an internship that is 20 hours per week on top of my 40 hours per week at work for 9 months before I graduate - well, there are no vacations in my immediate future.  At least not of any kind of length that I would like.

But this photos can make me a little happy for now

(If you've never made a trip to the California Coast, or central California - I highly recommend that you do!)

The Perfect Retreat Home - Cabins and Vacation Houses

When I was young I used to go with my girlfriend to stay in their family cabin in Island Park Idaho.  It was located in this magical kind of place called IP Bills Island - which was kind of literally, a small island on a lake.  I loved everything about visiting there.  Her family had a very authentic and comfortable log cabin.  But we spent very little time in doors.  We spent most of our time sunburned, on the water, in the water, near the water and maybe playing tennis if that got monotonous (which wasn't often).  I was very wistful about the idea of owning such a place and really hoped that my family would have a cabin, or that I could someday have one myself.

Then I grew up and realized part of what made it so great was that when you visit someone else's cabin you aren't really thinking about all the maintenance and cost involved in having a place like that.  (well, and you especially don't think about that when you're 15 years old).  At one point my ex husband and I came very close to buying property to build a summer home.  Really close.  But in the end we hesitated when we realized it would be a commitment that would mean that we would feel pretty obligated to spend every vacation and break utilizing the vacation home.  And we really weren't sure if all that cost was worth it when it meant that maybe you wouldn't feel like you could ever really vacation anywhere else.

I think if you're going to own something like that you need to be pretty sure you're always going to prefer spending your vacations there OR you need to have so much money that it doesn't matter all that much to you if it sits there and doesn't get used because you chose to vacation elsewhere.  I don't think we felt committed to either idea being realistic.  On the other hand, maybe it would have saved my marriage.  I don't really believe that, but I have wondered if it might have made a difference.

Sometimes I am fairly convinced that my life is never going to be one where vacation homes are going to be a part of it.  It doesn't seem like much of a realistic idea.  Plus, I dont even know if I would want that kind of responsibility anyway (see again: always having to use it for vacations).  BUT...

There are times when I remember those summers at my friends cabin so fondly - being sunburned and the smell of pine and the lake water...there are times when I think it would be really nice.

And then there's this - when I'm really stressed and trying to meditate, I either imagine myself at the beach - or I imagine myself in a completely secluded cabin all by myself.

This week I ran across several really excellent vacation houses which I think are just beautiful.  When I image the perfect vacation home or cabin, I imagine something like these:

And then there's this house in Umbria....So lovely...

You know and then that gets me thinking that maybe I shouldn't totally totally give up on the idea altogether.  

You never know.