Kelsie left for the Mayan Riviera today for a nice long 10 day vacation with her family.
Josh will be leaving soon (this weekend?) for the Mayan Riviera, too.
Nicole is going to Las Vegas with some friends this weekend.
Nancy is planning a long weekend in Bryce Canyon to explore the canyon on her horse.
My BFF LA is going to Alaska with her husband in May.
I am going to San Diego to visit my sister (with a bonus trip to see the folks!) in early April. I feel the need to get out of town and do something fun!
About a week or two ago when I was scrolling through Facebook, I passed an article about the difference between pleasure and joy. I didn't take the time to read the story, but the concept has been on my mind since I saw the headline.
I looked up the definitions of pleasure and joy.
Pleasure - a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment
Joy - a feeling of great pleasure and happiness
Those two definitions sound pretty much the same, don't they?
Then, as I was cruising around the interwebs looking for an answer to my question, I saw this quote from Eckhart Tolle:
This definition makes more sense to me, but then I wondered who the heck was Eckhart Tolle? I would say he's a philosopher, based on what I read on Wikipedia and from Herr Tolle's website.
Based on Tolle's definition, I think I'm using the simple pleasure Monday phraseology correctly. :)
Whew. Glad I got that cleared up, at least in my own mind. I've always been interested in pleasure and joy. I think it's important to have both in your life. Sometimes finding joy is hard, at least for me. I feel like I get stuck in a rut and it's just the same old thing all the time. I have to remind myself to keep my eyes and heart open to find my joy.
Pleasure, though, seems to be a lot easier to find. Today my simple pleasure also brought me joy and peace. When I got home from the grocery store, I was feeling a little tired, so I laid down on my bed to read and relax. My dog, Osi, jumped up on the bed with me, so I put my feet on her soft, velvety fur. She was fine with that for a minute, but then she sat up and looked at me with her soulful doggie eyes and I knew that she wanted to snuggle. I rolled onto my side and she tucked her body into a ball and snuggled into me. She closed her eyes and started snoring a little. She was just so peaceful and sweet and warm and soft. I laid there and petted her and got into the rhythm of her breathing. It was all good until I started to drift off to sleep too. I couldn't have that! I have a hard enough time sleeping at night without napping during the day. So I took a selfie:
That swimming dude is going to my MT next week! If you don't know what the creature with the huge mouth is, well, that's a whale shark. Apparently this is the time of year when the whale sharks are around Isla Mujeres. MT really wants to swim with the creatures. I may go out on the boat, but NO WAY would I get in the water with that! I'm scared of little fish. The whale shark is huge!
Whale sharks just swim around with their mouth open swallowing plankton. I don't think they are dangerous to humans, but I wouldn't get in the way of it swimming with it's mouth open. :D
I like this picture and I like the quote. I think it's pretty accurate. I do not understand people who tell me they went somewhere but don't know where they went. For example, one time I was having a pedicure prior to a trip. Of course I was talking to the girl about my trip and she said she had just come back from the Dominican Republic. She had gone there with her boyfriend and his family. I got all excited because I really like the DR, so I asked her what part of the island she had been to. She looked at me, kind of confused, and said she didn't know. What? She said they had been at a resort. I asked if she remember the name or the resort company. I even named a couple. Was it Iberostar? Gran Bahia Principe? Riu? She didn't know. I asked if she was on the Caribbean side of the island or the Atlantic side. All I got was a blank stare. I stopped talking after that.
I don't really know if I fully understand the second part of the quote, about travelers not knowing where they are going, but I rationalize it to fit us. When we start talking about going on vacation, we usually do not have a clear destination in mind. There are so many places we want to see that we typically have a list of places and a budget and we start narrowing down the options. I don't know if that's what Paul Theroux is talking about, but that's how I interpret it.
Tonight I did some pre-packing. I got out my clothes that I'm taking and made sure I had everything I wanted. Tomorrow my plan is to gather my toiletries like sunscreen and shampoo and stuff like that. I'm already starting to imagine the sweet tropical winds on my skin and how that first cold beer is going to taste when I've got my toes in the water, ass in the sand. (Zac Brown Band reference!)
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Second part of post:
Tonight was the Major League Baseball All-Star game. I watched the first inning, then the last few innings. I thought Idina Menzel killed it on the national anthem. She's so great.
Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees is retiring after this season. He started playing for the Yankees in 1995 and so was part of their World Series championships in the late 90s. He was my nemesis because he was a Yankee who beat all my favorite teams, including the Atlanta Braves. Now that he's retiring, though, I grudgingly give him respect. I like that he has always played for the same team and I like that he has always seemed respectful and dignified. You never read or heard anything bad about him and I like that, too.
I have never seen the Yankees play in person; I've never really wanted to until this season. I would like to see The Captain in person and pay my respects. I looked at the teams here in the west to see when the Yankees would be coming out this way, but there wasn't a time when I could get to Anaheim or Oakland. I was kinda bummed about it. Let's be clear: I wouldn't cheer for the Yankees, but I would tip my cap to Jeter.
During the All-Star game, right before Jeter's first at-bat, this commercial/tribute was shown. I absolutely love it.
It's the middle of the baseball season already; tonight was the first night of the MLB All-Star game festivities, the Home Run Derby.
I can't help myself. I watch it every year. I get a kick out of it. Overall, I think it takes too long, even though the format was changed this year. Even without the rain delay tonight, it would have been long. Don't get me wrong - I watched the whole thing. Yoenis Cespedes from the Oakland A's won again this year. He's the first back-to-back Home Run Derby winner since Ken Griffey Jr in the late 90s.
I know you don't care about that, but I like it.
We are down to mere days before vacation! I found it a little hard to concentrate at work today. I had stuff to do, but thankfully there wasn't anything that needed my full brain power. :) The middle of the month is the easiest time for me, hence the scheduling of the vacation.
Tonight I didn't do anything to prepare for the vacation, but I thought about it a lot. LOL. Tomorrow I will get on it for sure!
This quote from the Dalai Lama is one of my favorite quotes ever. Since I first saw it, I have tried to make it a yearly goal. We've been going somewhere we've never been before since 2006. Even though we didn't do a "big" vacation last year, we still went somewhere new: the three of us went to Missouri for Kevin and Janet's wedding, plus T and I went to Oklahoma City. That counts!
OK, that's all for tonight. I've got to get to bed now. Good night!
I try to stay pretty mellow and sort of "removed" from the news. Tonight, though, I was browsing through the headlines on my homepage and two stories on the main news feed caught my eye because both stories were from Utah. Utah County, to be specific. Not really Happy Valley.
The first was about the woman from the Provo area who gave birth to and then killed seven babies. Well, she killed six of them and the seventh was stillborn. All the babies were found stored in plastic containers in her garage. How f'd up is that? It just makes me sick. Meth-head.
The second story was about a policeman who drugged and raped his wife repeatedly over some length of time and then killed her, their kids, his mother-in-law and himself with his service revolver. What the hell?
This is why I stick to the sports page. I understand that there are bad stories relating to sports, too, but generally if I just skip to the sports and entertainment sections, I'm a much happier person.
GRR. Now I'm going to have to play games on Facebook to cheer myself up.
When I left you yesterday I was heading out for a walk. My intention was to walk about 15 minutes. I set the timer on my beloved iPhone for eight minutes and then I was going to turn around and head back. Instead of turning around and coming back the way I went, I took a turn and wandered through a really nice quiet neighborhood and then I couldn't figure out how to get back to my street! The streets in the neighborhood were twist-y and turn-y and were cul-de-sacs. I ended up walking for nearly 45 minutes! It was a nice night, though and I did enjoy my wandering.
No roaming tonight, though. Around 8PM I start feeling extremely tired. I'm kind of impressed that I'm still awake at 9:08. I think I'm just going to give into the feeling and go to bed.
It started this morning when I bought six CDs from iTunes. I think I may have mentioned that I'm a gift card hoarder? I had plenty of gcs to handle the purchases. Here are the CDs I bought:
Ed Sheeran, X
Coldplay, Ghost Stories
One Republic, Native
The Black Keys, Turn Blue
Zac Brown Band, The Grohl Sessions, Vol. 1 Wicked Broadway recording
I also got a few singles:
KONGOS, Come With Me Now
Idina Menzel, Let it Go
Chris Brown, Loyal
Kid Ink, Show Me
Heavy D and the Boys, Now That We Found Love
Lana del Ray, Once Upon a Dream
I'm pretty pleased with all of that new music.
The next thing I did was head over to Kohls. I wanted to pick up a couple of vacation clothes. Something very unusual happened while I was trying on clothes. I liked pretty much everything I tried on. I wound up buying a bit more than I planned; I hope that when I actually wear what I thought was so great in the store that I'm not disappointed. I bought several tops and a sundress.
In the afternoon I took T to Old Navy. I thought he might find some shorts he would like, but it was like pulling teeth to get him over there. I know how he is, though. He doesn't want to go, but when he gets to a store, he is quite the little shopper. Of course he is a collector - doesn't matter what it is, he wants several of it - and he didn't disappoint me. He didn't really find any shorts he liked (he only got one pair) but he got a bunch of new t-shirts. Watching him try on clothes is pretty hilarious. He poses. It makes me smile. I can't resist him :)
To finish up the afternoon, we went to the grocery store. Now the boys have gone to see the new Transformer movie and I'm thinking about attending to my checkbook.
On second thought, maybe I'll save that until the morning.
In light of my activities today, I thought this quote was particularly fitting:
T finished his driver's training course today! He now has a certificate that he can take to the DMV on Sept. 27 in order to get his official driver's license. Until then, he is still required to drive with a parent or responsible person.
Last night when I got home from work, T asked if I still wanted to go to Target. When I said yes, he said, "Good, because I need something for this," and he pointed to his eye. It was all red and puffy. Just looking at it made my eyes water. I bought him some Visine, but it didn't really do much to help him.
MT took T to the doctor this morning. T has pink eye. (I had actually diagnosed pink eye myself after consulting Web MD.) He got some antibacterial drops for $100. Hopefully the drops will clear up the issue. The pink eye has moved to the other eye as well. My beautiful boy doesn't look so hot right now. He has to be isolated today, so he couldn't hang out with his friends, and they had planned to do something. Guess they will hang out another day.
MT has been working on the rental that was damaged. We went over together to look at it on Sunday night. It was bad, but not as bad as I expected. Of course, I'm not the one doing the work. I totally understand why MT is so upset, though. He worked really hard to make that place really cute and those people only lived there maybe six months. We could not rent the place in it's current condition. Typically when we have had renters move out, we clean it and paint it and do a little touch up here and there and get the next family into the house. (Oh, and when I say we, I mean MT.) MT will need to do some repairs in every room.
That's the downside of land-lording.
Here's my travel quote of the day:
I found this one tonight and I love it! What I know about myself is that my heart is many places because my mind wanders to my parent's house in California, to Petco Park in San Diego with my sister, to Yellowstone Park, to my in-law's house in Idaho, to pretty much any beach I've ever been to, and to a whole bunch of places that I can only imagine because I haven't seen them yet. Sometimes my mind even wanders right here to my own house and I think about sitting in my favorite chair, snuggling with my dog and just watching TV. When I go on vacation, even for a quick weekend trip somewhere, I always look forward to coming home.
Since we will be going on vacation this month, I thought it would be fun to find a bunch of travel-related quotes to share. I liked this one from Susan Sontag. Whenever anyone asks me, "Have you been there?" my standard response is, "Not yet!" We really haven' been all that many places and I realize that there is a big wide world out there for us to explore, but right now I am happy to work my way around the Caribbean islands. :)
