It's the first day of September.
This year I am not sad about the hours of Florida sunshine getting shorter. I'm not whiny about the dark coming earlier and earlier, or the weather cooling off, or the summer ending.
I haven't even gone to the perfectly good pool that I have access to (and pay for, really, with the monthly homeowner dues) at our condo complex one single time this year. I did buy a new bathing suit, but I haven't worn it.
If anything, the bright blue skies and hot yellow sunshine is annoying. Shut up, summer.
For the first time I'm looking forward to shorter days, sunset coming earlier, and even the cold(er) weather. I keep seeing visions in my head of chilly nights with a house in the darkness, warm orange light from inside peeking through the windows. I keep thinking of fuzzy throw blankets and pumpkin scented candles and cups of hot tea.
I'm also looking forward to Christmas. It'll be the first Christmas that I don't spend with Mom. (There may be one or two Christmases when I was in my late 20's and had just moved to Florida, and Mom and Dad were still a 12+ hour drive away in Virginia, and I stayed in FL and they stayed in VA and we didn't see each other. But that didn't happen more than once, I think. How can I not remember? I gave it so little thought at the time. I sure didn't know that 20 years later I'd literally be brought to tears by my inability to remember.)
It will also be the first Christmas of my married life with Greg that we don't have to drive 7+ hours to Georgia to visit Mom. I kind of hated that drive and I am looking forward to not doing it this year. I also kind of hated not really spending Christmas at home; not being there on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day made me feel like it wasn't really worth a lot of decorating, or a lot of cooking.
I'm going to get a few really good quality Christmas decorations, and find new ways to display the old decorations to give them places of honor in our home. I have handmade decorations made by several family members, some of whom are dead now. I have ugly styrofoam glitter things that I made in kindergarten and Mom saved and put up every year.
After taking our usual Thanksgiving day trips to Greg's various family members the month before, we can just take a few days off work and create our own brand new Christmas traditions.
I swear I'm looking forward to it.
Showing posts with label virginia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label virginia. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Friday, June 20, 2014
Planning a vacation
I'm trying to plan my time off for the rest of the year.
It occurred to me recently that I really do have somewhat of a talent for my job in that I love to plan ahead. I still hate math and spreadsheets and sitting under fluorescent lights for 8+ hours a day, but there are aspects that come somewhat naturally to me. I like planning ahead and being organized. I like it when I can help the agents in the call center with their scheduling problems and conflicts. I like helping other departments with forecasting their call volume and scheduling their agents. I am getting much better at training the supervisors and team leads on using the workforce management computer programs, and leading meetings with a bunch of people around a conference room table, and it's possible that one day I won't dread having to stand in front of the new hire classes and talk about workforce expectations and answer questions.
Anyway, I want to go visit Mom two more times between now and Christmas, and I want to take a little vacation with my sweetie to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary the first week of October. We just went on a vacation to Cleveland to celebrate Greg's 40th birthday in April at the Cinema Wasteland convention, which means two things: One, he's super grateful because, even though I had a great time, he feels like it was his vacation and I think he kinda feels like he owes me one now. Two, we spent a lot of money (relative to not going on vacation, anyway) and I think we both kinda feel like we shouldn't spend much again so soon.
There are new cheap flights between the Orlando area and Roanoke, which means we could go back to my "home" (it will always seem like home, but since I haven't lived there since 1988 I'll go ahead and add grammatically incorrect quote marks). I feel guilty that I'm reluctant. I should go back now while my 100-year old aunt is still around, I should go visit all those relatives I haven't seen in decades, I should go while my Mom is still around for me to tell about where I go and who I see.
That thought really stabs at me. She would love to hear about me visiting "home", just LOVE it. I could bring back pictures and stories of people who haven't been so good at staying in touch. Not to mention visiting my father's grave. And this would be a lovely time of year to visit southwestern Virginia, the Appalachian mountains. Not too cold but a little nippy, possibly leaves turning brilliant red and yellow.
It just doesn't seem fun, though, it seems like an obligation, which makes me feel guilty. I wish I wanted to do this, I feel like I ought to do it, and honestly I feel like I ought to want to do it.
It's also an expensive option. Even with the cheaper flights it's still a car rental plus gas plus hotel for 3 or 4 nights plus meals. I may be able to get good discount hotel rates through my company, but still.
Or... we could go to Universal and go to the new Wizarding World expansion. Oh man, it looks SO fun. We could stay onsite for two nights in the brand new super cute lower-priced Cabana Bay resort and get a Florida Resident discount; staying onsite would get us into the parks an hour before they open to the non-staying-onsite general public. We could do the new Hogwarts Express train ride between Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, and the Gringott's ride. It would be less expensive than going to Virginia, even factoring in meals and buying a reasonable amount (!) of Harry Potter crap.
Or we could just say home and spend a bit of money and time on fixing up our house, which has an ever-increasing list of things that need to be repaired or replaced or just fancied up. That idea has a lot of appeal and would, in many ways, seem to be the most mature and adult option. Plus a nice staycation would be relaxing.
What would I regret later? How badly would it hurt me if my mother passed away before I went back to Virginia? How guilty would I feel if I chose a children's book and an amusement park over an opportunity to delight my mother?
The thought of going back "home" after my mother isn't here to tell about it is just heartbreaking. There is no one, no one, who shares my memories from my childhood. I grew up without siblings in the house, and my father is gone, my aunt who lived next door is gone. I have a few cousins who remember their own slice of childhood that sometimes overlapped with my own, but no one who knows it all like my own sweet Mom. The neighbors next door who had an outhouse and raised bees, the way the snow drifted in the hilly backyard, the taste of the Silver Queen corn that Dad grew in the garden, the constant breeze from living in between two mountains.
It's also worth considering that the Wizarding World is going to be crowded; the first week of October is not peak and kids are not out of school, but the new expansion will pack in tourists anyway. If we waited to go in January we'd have nice (?) cool weather and the smallest crowds of the whole year.
I am sure of one thing, if I hesitate too long to book a Universal trip for October, it'll be too late. All the media coverage of the Wizarding World will ensure sold-out onsite hotels very quickly.
I suppose I'm lucky, really. Trying to make a decision between nothing but nice vacation options is a pretty good thing.
It occurred to me recently that I really do have somewhat of a talent for my job in that I love to plan ahead. I still hate math and spreadsheets and sitting under fluorescent lights for 8+ hours a day, but there are aspects that come somewhat naturally to me. I like planning ahead and being organized. I like it when I can help the agents in the call center with their scheduling problems and conflicts. I like helping other departments with forecasting their call volume and scheduling their agents. I am getting much better at training the supervisors and team leads on using the workforce management computer programs, and leading meetings with a bunch of people around a conference room table, and it's possible that one day I won't dread having to stand in front of the new hire classes and talk about workforce expectations and answer questions.
Anyway, I want to go visit Mom two more times between now and Christmas, and I want to take a little vacation with my sweetie to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary the first week of October. We just went on a vacation to Cleveland to celebrate Greg's 40th birthday in April at the Cinema Wasteland convention, which means two things: One, he's super grateful because, even though I had a great time, he feels like it was his vacation and I think he kinda feels like he owes me one now. Two, we spent a lot of money (relative to not going on vacation, anyway) and I think we both kinda feel like we shouldn't spend much again so soon.
There are new cheap flights between the Orlando area and Roanoke, which means we could go back to my "home" (it will always seem like home, but since I haven't lived there since 1988 I'll go ahead and add grammatically incorrect quote marks). I feel guilty that I'm reluctant. I should go back now while my 100-year old aunt is still around, I should go visit all those relatives I haven't seen in decades, I should go while my Mom is still around for me to tell about where I go and who I see.
That thought really stabs at me. She would love to hear about me visiting "home", just LOVE it. I could bring back pictures and stories of people who haven't been so good at staying in touch. Not to mention visiting my father's grave. And this would be a lovely time of year to visit southwestern Virginia, the Appalachian mountains. Not too cold but a little nippy, possibly leaves turning brilliant red and yellow.
It just doesn't seem fun, though, it seems like an obligation, which makes me feel guilty. I wish I wanted to do this, I feel like I ought to do it, and honestly I feel like I ought to want to do it.
It's also an expensive option. Even with the cheaper flights it's still a car rental plus gas plus hotel for 3 or 4 nights plus meals. I may be able to get good discount hotel rates through my company, but still.
Or... we could go to Universal and go to the new Wizarding World expansion. Oh man, it looks SO fun. We could stay onsite for two nights in the brand new super cute lower-priced Cabana Bay resort and get a Florida Resident discount; staying onsite would get us into the parks an hour before they open to the non-staying-onsite general public. We could do the new Hogwarts Express train ride between Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, and the Gringott's ride. It would be less expensive than going to Virginia, even factoring in meals and buying a reasonable amount (!) of Harry Potter crap.
Or we could just say home and spend a bit of money and time on fixing up our house, which has an ever-increasing list of things that need to be repaired or replaced or just fancied up. That idea has a lot of appeal and would, in many ways, seem to be the most mature and adult option. Plus a nice staycation would be relaxing.
What would I regret later? How badly would it hurt me if my mother passed away before I went back to Virginia? How guilty would I feel if I chose a children's book and an amusement park over an opportunity to delight my mother?
The thought of going back "home" after my mother isn't here to tell about it is just heartbreaking. There is no one, no one, who shares my memories from my childhood. I grew up without siblings in the house, and my father is gone, my aunt who lived next door is gone. I have a few cousins who remember their own slice of childhood that sometimes overlapped with my own, but no one who knows it all like my own sweet Mom. The neighbors next door who had an outhouse and raised bees, the way the snow drifted in the hilly backyard, the taste of the Silver Queen corn that Dad grew in the garden, the constant breeze from living in between two mountains.
It's also worth considering that the Wizarding World is going to be crowded; the first week of October is not peak and kids are not out of school, but the new expansion will pack in tourists anyway. If we waited to go in January we'd have nice (?) cool weather and the smallest crowds of the whole year.
I am sure of one thing, if I hesitate too long to book a Universal trip for October, it'll be too late. All the media coverage of the Wizarding World will ensure sold-out onsite hotels very quickly.
I suppose I'm lucky, really. Trying to make a decision between nothing but nice vacation options is a pretty good thing.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Beauty
This is where I am from. How beautiful is this?
I was looking around online, and it always amazes me when I can find something on the world wide web that originates in little Newport Virginia (that is NOT Newport News, thankyouverymuch), because the whole area seems to be straight out of the 1800's.
I found this website: Windrush Farm. This is literally less than a mile from where I grew up. I was raised in the house that my father built for me to grow up in, built right next door to his sister and the place where he grew up.
To say that I did not appreciate the beauty of this area during my childhood would be such an understatement. I was right there living next to that mountain, listening to Adam and the Ants and the Dead Kennedys and reading Anne Rice and dreaming of living in a real place, a place with public transportation and tall buildings and culture.
I suppose most teenagers are fairly stupid.
Now with the perspective of decades of distance I look at photos of the wondrous beauty of the Appalachian mountains and it just makes me ache with homesickness. I like where I am now and I really don't want to move back, but it feels like a sizable chunk of my heart is there, and always will be.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
What Should I Do?
Several times this year I have mentioned finding old friends on Facebook, and how there is one particular friend, Casey, to whom I was especially close in high school and college, that I can't find. She was such an interesting person back then, so smart and funny. She was tall, with slender legs and arms, and my short little self was so envious of her effortless elegance. She rooted for underdogs, liked to cook, was too shy to speak to any guy she thought was cute, and despised her curly hair (she wanted to have a sheet of silky hair, like a Veela, but her hair defied her).
To recap: we kept in touch after I moved from Virginia to Florida for the first few years, then our long-distance phone calls and hand-written letters became farther and farther apart. Communicating was so much harder in the dark days before the internet! I haven't heard from her in more than 15 years, at this point.
I've asked other friends, and the same thing happened with them. Casey moved away from our small town, and lost touch with all our old friends. When people found me on Facebook, they'd message me asking about Casey, assuming I'd be most likely to still be in touch.
Then I found, just by random searching on Facebook, Casey's sister Donna. They were close to the same age, and we'd all been friends. Thrilled, I friended her and sent her a message. She accepted my friend request silently. I messaged her again, and heard nothing. I sent her an email to the address she listed, and heard more nothing. I sent friend suggestions to people from high school we'd known. Nothing came of that, none of them are friends with Donna - in fact, despite a fairly large number of our classmates on Facebook, I am the only one from back in the day that Donna is friends with.
The one day out of the blue she posted a comment on one of my photos, saying she had some old photos she would post soon. I was encouraged, and posted several old photos of her and Casey and I, tagged her to be sure she'd see them, and posted this on her wall: Just uploaded some pics from college, several of you and several of Casey. Send me a message or an email, I'd like to catch up! :)
That was on April 11. Since then, there's been no activity at all. No response, no wall posts or status updates or anything.
So. I did a Google search for Donna's name and the city I see she now lives in, and found a phone number. I'm practically a stalker.
What should I do now? Should I call her? Should I take the Facebook silence as a big hint, and go away? At this point I feel that the news about Casey might well be bad, and that bothers me tremendously. Knowing what happened, even if it's bad news, would at least bring an end to my wondering. But is that selfish, expecting Donna to relive whatever emotion is tied to thinking and talking about her sister?
Also, she didn't give me her phone number. Would it be invasive to call her? I found it because it is listed in the public phone directory, though, so anyone with access to a phone book can find it.
Not ever finding out what happened to my old friend would be so sad. And there is at least a TINY chance that Donna would be glad to hear from me. Maybe she just couldn't get the hang of Facebook so she stopped using it. Maybe Casey is fine, and Donna would give me her phone number, and we'd renew our friendship, and everyone would be happy.
I could use some guidance, as I am completely conflicted about what to do. Should I call Donna and ask about Casey, or should I let it go? Please leave a comment and give me a little advice. :)
To recap: we kept in touch after I moved from Virginia to Florida for the first few years, then our long-distance phone calls and hand-written letters became farther and farther apart. Communicating was so much harder in the dark days before the internet! I haven't heard from her in more than 15 years, at this point.
I've asked other friends, and the same thing happened with them. Casey moved away from our small town, and lost touch with all our old friends. When people found me on Facebook, they'd message me asking about Casey, assuming I'd be most likely to still be in touch.
Then I found, just by random searching on Facebook, Casey's sister Donna. They were close to the same age, and we'd all been friends. Thrilled, I friended her and sent her a message. She accepted my friend request silently. I messaged her again, and heard nothing. I sent her an email to the address she listed, and heard more nothing. I sent friend suggestions to people from high school we'd known. Nothing came of that, none of them are friends with Donna - in fact, despite a fairly large number of our classmates on Facebook, I am the only one from back in the day that Donna is friends with.
The one day out of the blue she posted a comment on one of my photos, saying she had some old photos she would post soon. I was encouraged, and posted several old photos of her and Casey and I, tagged her to be sure she'd see them, and posted this on her wall: Just uploaded some pics from college, several of you and several of Casey. Send me a message or an email, I'd like to catch up! :)
That was on April 11. Since then, there's been no activity at all. No response, no wall posts or status updates or anything.
So. I did a Google search for Donna's name and the city I see she now lives in, and found a phone number. I'm practically a stalker.
What should I do now? Should I call her? Should I take the Facebook silence as a big hint, and go away? At this point I feel that the news about Casey might well be bad, and that bothers me tremendously. Knowing what happened, even if it's bad news, would at least bring an end to my wondering. But is that selfish, expecting Donna to relive whatever emotion is tied to thinking and talking about her sister?
Also, she didn't give me her phone number. Would it be invasive to call her? I found it because it is listed in the public phone directory, though, so anyone with access to a phone book can find it.
Not ever finding out what happened to my old friend would be so sad. And there is at least a TINY chance that Donna would be glad to hear from me. Maybe she just couldn't get the hang of Facebook so she stopped using it. Maybe Casey is fine, and Donna would give me her phone number, and we'd renew our friendship, and everyone would be happy.
I could use some guidance, as I am completely conflicted about what to do. Should I call Donna and ask about Casey, or should I let it go? Please leave a comment and give me a little advice. :)
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