i wish for you...

Here we are, the last day of 2020. I know we are all glad to bid adieu to this year, so I won't belabor the point.

Looking back over this year, there were some unexpected, painful happenings...health issues (and some scary diagnoses from friends and family), deaths of acquaintances and friends, disappointments and hurts from loved ones. But that is life. We can't expect to go through life unscathed from hurt and pain. We can, however, choose how we deal with these things. Prayer, meditation, journaling, talking with a good friend, therapy ~ whatever it takes to help us through.

Life, of course, is balanced with happy times and there were plenty of those, even in our Covid and nasty election filled year. The best thing that happened in 2020 was our trip to California to see our son, Tim. It was right before Covid really hit the US and any restrictions were in place. When we had made our plans to see Tim in early March, we hadn't realized it was California's rainy season. Nor did we see a pandemic looming on the horizon.

Turns out, the timing on our trip was for the best. By the time we got home, Covid hit the poop-fan. I still remember getting home from the airport and going to the grocery store for needed items. We walked into the store at 10:30 PM and it was packed. The bread section was wiped entirely clean. The produce section didn't even have bananas. There was no toilet paper. We thought people were going crazy, just like they did at the end of 1999. Remember the Y2K panic?

I have been working on end-of-year journaling and setting intentions and goals for the new year. It's been popular the last few years to choose a word to focus on for the year: A word that guides with intention and positive change. Do you choose a word? I did so a couple of years ago and it lost the luster (or maybe I did) after a few months. I might try it again for 2021.

No New Year's Eve celebration here for us. Just another day. When Brian gets home from work, perhaps we'll have a little something to eat, have a glass of wine, relax a little bit, then go to bed at our usual time. 

My wish and prayer for all of you for 2021 is ~

Enough love to sustain you through all your hard days.
Enough kindness that it spills over to those around you.
Enough strength to face whatever comes your way.

Thank you all for your friendship and kind comments.

💓

some of the things we did ~ including meeting a blogger friend

We packed a lot of activity into the few days we were in California. One of the places we went was the Museum of Illusions. Such a cool place! 

 We also took a hike in Runyon Canyon Park, despite the light rain. It was beautiful and peaceful. We only came across one other person while we were there.

 Took a stroll on the Hollywood Walk of Fame...

Another day, we walked around the Fashion District in downtown Los Angeles. That was rather umm...interesting!

Our last full day in California, we headed to Ventura...

for me to meet up with Carol at Art and Sand! I'm sure most of you recognize this view of her house.

It was an absolute delight to meet Carol in person and spend some time with her.

I can personally vouch for how sweet Lulu is in person and how soft her fur is.

After Carol and I had lunch, she drove me to the beach so I could see the ocean and take some pictures, even though it was cloudy and rainy.

I am so thankful we were able to go on this trip to visit with our son. It was right before all the stay-at-home orders went into place. One more week and we would've had to cancel our trip.

Hope you all are staying well and healthy.

💓

beautiful views, homes and landscaping

California vacation, part two ~

One morning, we woke early and before we headed out to pick up Tim and go about our day, we decided to walk the neighborhood.

I don't think I'd ever get tired of this beautiful view. Even in the overcast weather, the mountains are beautiful shrouded in clouds.

This is the owner's house of the guest cottage we stayed in.

While walking around the neighborhood, we noticed a lot of Spanish-style architecture....

and beautiful foliage and landscaping. We don't have any of these plants and trees in the Midwest, so it was all fascinating to me...

Like I said in my last post, I couldn't get over all the lemon and orange trees in people's yards. To be able to just walk out your front door and pick fresh citrus any time you want it, is incredible to me.

I know we're living in a stressful time right now. I'm finding that reading blogs is a nice diversion. It always is, but moreso now. I hope you all are doing well ~ physically, mentally and spiritually. 💓

california vacation ~ our cottage

Hello, friends! We just got back from a vacation in California, so if I haven't been around to visit your blog, I will be soon. Our son, Tim moved to the Los Angeles area last November, so we went out there to visit him. It'd also been 10-1/2 years since we last took a vacation, so I'd say we were overdue. Ironically, that last vacation was also to California, but to San Francisco. I LOVE California. I wish we could afford to live there. It's my happy place. I have a lot of photos and stories to tell about my trip, so I'll break it up into two or three blog posts.

Going through O'Hare Airport, I got a chuckle out of these boxes. Cannabis just became legal here in Illinois as of January 1st, but it's still illegal on a federal level. So one can dispose of their weed that they forgot to leave at home, before getting on the plane. Makes you wonder who gets to clean these boxes out, hmm?! 

 After getting up super early to get to the airport, setting off the alarms through the security check-through and getting patted down by TSA (laughable, really...of course I didn't have anything on me, nor do I have a pacemaker or any artificial "parts"), a long, bumpy plane ride, some frustration with the car rental pick-up, and not having any food in over nine hours, we finally found a place to sit down in the sunshine and enjoy a huge, delicious, fresh salad with grilled chicken. It felt so good to experience 70-degree weather again. We had to chuckle at a lot of the passers-by wearing coats. 

 Being from Illinois, the only succulents I ever see are small ones in plant nurseries. So when I see them growing prolifically along the sidewalks and in homeowner's landscaping, I'm in awe. I told Brian I wish I could just dig some up and bring them home.

Another thing I couldn't stop gawking over the entire week were the hills and mountains. They are so beautiful and amazing to me since I live where it's mostly flat. Tim told me if I lived there, I'd get used to them and not even really "see" them anymore. I dunno...I think the older I get, the more I'm aware and appreciative of the beauty that surrounds me.

 We rented a little guest cottage behind someone's house through VRBO. This place was even better in person than what we saw online. Even Tim loved the place and said he wished he could move in and rent it on a permanent basis. 😉

 These hammock chairs were amazing. I almost fell asleep in one the afternoon we arrived. I envisioned myself hanging out here every evening with a glass of wine, and then in the mornings with a cup of coffee. But, I guess it wasn't meant to be because we ended up with a lot of rain.

 Chaise right outside our bedroom door.

The gardens in the patio area were so pretty. This little cottage inside and out was decorated in a Zen theme.

See the lemon tree over the fence? Those were all over the place, with easily 100+ lemons on every tree. I can't imagine being able to walk out your door every morning and pick fresh lemons. I use them in my water every day. They are expensive in Illinois and coated in wax. The owner of our cottage left some fresh lemons for us in the fridge and I was amazed that they weren't shiny (no wax!), still had a stem on them, and when cut open, had a faint herbal scent.

Inside our little cottage was a dining area...

a small but adequate kitchen...

and a living room area.

A TV on the wall across from the sofa...though we only watched TV for an hour one night when Tim was with us. We couldn't relax outside due to the rain.

We were only able to sit outside one evening...the one where it didn't rain. The patio at night was magical.

The bedroom...

View from across the bed. 

I have to admit, I'm not a good traveler. I don't like waiting around in boring airports, being herded like cattle through TSA checkpoints, sitting in a cramped plane with uncomfortable seats, the constant noise and pressure inside the plane, the unfamiliarity of the hotel room (or cottage, in this case), time changes, and living out of a suitcase. I barely slept that night and woke up in the morning with a raging headache.

I know we're all concerned about the coronavirus right now, so I hope that perhaps this blog post was a small, pleasant distraction in your day. I am choosing to mostly self-quarantine since I was just traveling and with thousands of people between the airports, planes, restaurants, a museum, stores, etc. The virus takes two days - two weeks to show up, so I'll stay mostly put until the end of the month. I wouldn't want to unknowingly pass along the virus to anyone else.

Be well, be happy, be peaceful. God bless. 💓