by Sarah | Jul 19, 2021 | All About Family, All About Me, All of Us, Personal, Redefining Perfect
Dad passed away on the 1st of November.
Denver and I made the long trek back to Indiana for a week of family, mourning, laughter, tears, and saying goodbye.
While there, I became the keeper of the photographs. The box of print photos from my youth to Denver’s youngest days.
At one point my mom had the entire case organized precisely by date, occasion, location, and all of that…
With dad’s Parkinson’s, he’d get on these binges of activity.
One of those that frequently happened, was him going through the pictures.
The box is chaos. A mess of photos mixed up into unorganized groups that have little to do with each other.
I began the painstaking process of organizing them so I could scan them into the computer for a digital archive.
And then I had to pause.
In the middle of the chaos of the group I was working on were 4 pictures.
4 pictures that had a similar theme.
They’re pictures of my parents. Just the two of them. No kids, no friends…just them.
Smiling, happy.
Like that’s what he wanted to see.
Just dad and mom. Together.
It’s what I needed to see, too.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget how much they loved each other.
But this little reminder brought it all to the surface.
I knew he’d left this treasure for one of us to find.
I’m glad it was me.
by Sarah | Jul 15, 2021 | All About Denver, All About Erik, All About Family, All About Kennedy, All About Me, All About Molly, All of Us, Disney, Redefining Perfect
Let’s face it…we all have expectations of Disney.
I mean, it’s supposed to be THE vacation.
The happiest place on earth…
Mickey, and Minnie, and Buzz, and Pooh Bear, and family, and love, and magic.
Everything rolled into one.
Amazing.
Joyous.
It’s supposed to be this:
But, let’s face it…reality, I mean…
It’s usually more like this:
All the time.
Siblings will be siblings.
Arguments will happen.
You roll with it.
(Seriously, there was much laughter after this moment).
by Sarah | Jul 13, 2021 | All About Denver, All About Erik, All About Family, All About Kennedy, All About Me, All About Molly, All of Us, Blogging Life, Redefining Perfect, Top Ten Tuesday
Five months until Graduation! Hard to believe that in 5 months time I’ll be free from all of this schoolwork, tests, stress. It’s been a super difficult year and a half. 2021 has been exceptionally hard with me working full time as well as school full time – at least until I resolved that issue last month it was.
Now I’m dreaming of what I will do when I only have to work 3 days a week. When I can have freedom from studying, and an actually decent combined income for once in our 19 years of marriage. 6 months until I achieve my second Oola dream in life and find a new level of…well, oola. 🙂
So what do I want to do when I graduate? Oh, there’s plenty.
- Take a real, honest to goodness, 2 week vacation at Disney/Universal. I want to not be cramped by only so any hours/days that we need to cram every little thing into. I want to chill by the pool, spend some hours at the park, and maybe chill in the room with the family. A trip where we don’t have to plan every minute because we have ALL the minutes.
- Get another decent camera and start photography again. I miss my camera. It’s still here, but it’s ancient…and with all the wildlife I need some better lenses too. Maybe get hubby or one of my kids involved in it, too.
- Crochet/knit all the things. While I AM still crocheting while in school with supplies I had around…I have lots of projects saved that I want to work on.
- Get my Etsy business back up and running again. I miss the hell out of crafting. I miss making my jewelry and have some more things I want to try doing jewelry-wise. I can’t wait for the freedom to explore more projects.
- WRITE. More than my crafts, I miss making words. I miss my fun worlds and characters and hearing them chatter at me in my brain. Right now so much of my brain is vitals and anatomy and pharmacology…I want to revisit Dominion Falls, The Tribe, The Exceptionals, maybe even Lake Point again…and I want to find NEW worlds to create and explore.
- Beach time. I moved to Florida for the proximity to the gosh darn beaches…and I have not gone NEARLY enough. I am a water baby and want all the beaches.
- Travel. I want to see more of Florida, ALL of Florida. I want to pack up my kids and drive wherever. I also moved to Florida for freedom and getting-out…but school and covid and urgh…but my kids are going to virtual school next year and I’ll be working/schooling less. It’s time for us to get on the road.
- Go back to school. Weird, right? But I want my BSN. Employers want me to have that BSN. So I want to keep on going on. Not right away, but I want to start before 2022 is over.
- Tackle my bucket list(s). Next week I’m going to revisit and revamp. I’ve done a LOT more of my 50X50 list than I’ve actually managed to get around to marking as done, and some of the things need to be switched around. I also have a Florida bucket list and a Disney bucket list. I want to get back to checking things off. For a while I was doing 2-3/year on the 50X50, but the past 2 years they’ve been neglected due to moving, work-stress, school, and covid. I have a LOT to catch up on. Only 5 years until I’m 50…
- Get a personal trainer. I need someone to kick my butt to work it out…because while I plan on some plastic surgery eventually (a few tweaks I wanna make), I also want to get healthy again. I want to feel strong again…and I got that best when I was working out regularly and eating better.
What do you think I should do? I have other things…but they’re more practical/boring – like paying off credit cards and getting a new car. These were just about chilling out and being happy again. What do you think?
by Sarah | Jul 3, 2021 | All About Erik, All About Family, All About Home, All About Me, All of Us, Redefining Perfect
Sundays are my ‘free day’. Homework done, I’d just finished up working overnight and had to reset my schedule for class on Monday. Perfect for watching movies with the hubby. Problem was, the conversation always went like this:
“Do you want to watch Alien?”
“Eh.”
“What about Mission Impossible?”
“Not really.”
“Oh, there’s always Star Trek.”
“Not really in the mood.”
“Comedy? We could do Gross Pointe Blank.”
“Eh…”
“What about…”
On and on the endless cycle went. I hardly ever said yes to anything. We have over 2000 movies in our house, plus an extended library thanks to streaming and…eh.
I could tell I was in the mood for something, but nothing ever sounded good.
Thus, the movie jar was born.
The rules are simple, whatever we pull, we watch. No exceptions.
There are movies we both like, movies one of us likes more. (Seriously, this is how I got Erik to watch The Hunger Games) There are 80’s movies, sci-fi, action, Disney/Kids movies, you name it.
Through this method for the past 3 months we’ve watched the likes of The Goonies, Pacific Rim, 9, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, In Time, Mission Impossible 3, even Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the ridiculous Paul.
There’s been one movie we did not finish (Bliss on the zon. We were both…ugh and done halfway through). There’s been movies that we just sort of wanted to watch when we pulled them, but we watched anyway and have not regretted them.
We’ve both seen movies we would have otherwise never seen (see above about Hunger Games), and we’ve both enjoyed movies we never expected to.
It’s been so much fun, and a great way to spend my most exhausted day together (I always work Saturday nights). I recommend it for anyone that loves watching movies, but has a hard time deciding what to watch.
Do you have any recommendations for the jar? We’ll take anything you have to offer. Give us a movie we’ve never even heard of. We can take it.
by Sarah | Jul 1, 2021 | All About Family, All of Us, Blogging Life, Disney, DisneyTips, Redefining Perfect, Universal
I haven’t been to Disney hundreds of times (yet. Give me a couple years), but I’ve been my fair share.
I’ve done it with crazy intensity, and in a casual jaunt.
I’ve done Disneyland (finally), and Disney World.
I’ve picked up a few tips along the way. And while there are blogs across the web, I wanted to hand out my own Disney advice I’ve learned along the way, and tips I’ll be learning as I begin to go more frequently.
This months tip is fun for something different. Disney is more than rides and food, although both of those are awesome. There is something small that you shouldn’t miss.
Admire the details.
Disney is excellent about the details. Little things you can find in every section of every park. On a recent trip hubs and I challenged each other to admire such details and out-photo each other. I really like finding the little details along the way. Take a look, see what I mean:
Have you tried to admire the details when you’ve visited? What’s your favorite part?
by Sarah | May 5, 2020 | All About Family, All About Me, All of Us, Florida Dreaming, Redefining Perfect
Today is the one year anniversary of me crossing the state line into Florida.
It was such a giddy rush crossing the state line, knowing I was home. The moment didn’t come easily, and it wasn’t all the joy I put on social media. Something bad happened shortly after crossing into Florida that I still don’t talk about, but it marred the moment of joy for me and put me a little at an unease (I’m fine it didn’t happy to me) . The year since has lived up to that same initial roller coaster the first few of hours in Florida gave me.
Super high-highs, and crazy-intense lows.
I admit it. I’ve been all over the map. The blog suffered. I suffered. My family suffered. We were massively on the struggle bus for a while.
But now, here we are.
One year later.
And guess what?
Hey, life’s not perfect. We’re living in quarantine now everywhere. Weird shit is happening, pandemic panic, mother earth coming back to life.
However, I’m in a much better place than I’ve been for the past year.
I’ve finished a semester of nursing school, and done well (WHAT? I’m still in shock at this)
Things at my work are looking up, well they were before the pandemic, then that turned into a stress-bomb for a whole other reason. Overall, the worst of the situations is past, so I’m going better.
Financially, we have savings again. We’re still adjusting to hubbers only being paid once a month, but we’re getting there. It took a while to get soluble again, but we’re here and doing better.
Job-wise, hubby’s still in a better place than he was. Things are tough with the pandemic, but he’s coming home to movies and movies and movies…so he’s all good. (I’m reorganizing said movies now and the man has a problem. lol)
I’ve returned to hobbies like crochet and knitting. I’ve finally returned to writing (it’s slow, but it’s going).
I haven’t been to Disney since February, which sucks…but we will return again when it reopens.
I also haven’t been to the beach in ages…but again, we will soon as we can.
The winter was beautiful. The lack of snow even better.
My mood is in a much more tolerable place. Far less doom and gloom.
It’s good to be home…and feel at home…for real.
Dad passed away on the 1st of November.
