Travel medicine June 2012

My doctor hypothesized early in my illness that warm weather would help me if I felt good enough to travel.  My husband had his summer airline second job by then, so we tested it with a trip to Hawaii and though I spent a lot of time in the room resting, she was absolutely right.  My turtle trips started last year, and I slipped in a very brief one this year (a couple of weeks ago.  My friend Jenny, in some of my turtle pictures last year, happened to be on Oahu the same days as us.  This first photo is the kids waiting in the ocean while I talked with Greg about flight options for getting back.

Today's best 'lobsterquotes'

Lobsterquotes is the twitter handle of an optimist (I'm assuming) who posts inspirational quotes.  I can't click "favorite" fast enough to save all of the ones that catch my attention. 

I had a good evening with the kids, forcing myself to breathe peacefully and FOCUS on the end of the kids movie we were watching, rather taking the opportunity to fret about work/legal matters.  And if my mind wandered there, I thought healthy thoughts about what a healthy perspective would look like.

So when I opened my computer after they both went to bed, each twitter lobsterquote came with a calm breathe that took absolutely no thought or effort, and with a calm little wave of endorphines.

These are the ones I could "favorite" fast enough to save (gems, all of them).

A contented man is always rich~proverb

To know the road ahead, ask those coming back~Chinese Proverb

If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you'll die a lot of times~Dean Smith

Family is a haven in a heartless world~Lasch

If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought~Peace Pilgrim

We cannot rise higher than our thought of ourselves~ Orison Swett Marden

Happiness lies, first of all, in health~George William Curtis

Kids in Vegas Part 2 (video, photos, Christopher's hat, lion king tickets, and 3 mile goal)



Katie doing math by the pool



Monday was our first full day, and we sat through the time share gig, as planned, to earn 3 free lion king tickets.  It was still worth it, but of course it went long.  The kids were awesome for the first hour and a half of what was supposed to be a half hour (not that we ever thought it would be that short).  I did get a bit agitated with this one becasue my patience with subjective math is pretty short.  But its comical to watch them turn to Greg, as if he'd be more likely to accept their creative reaoning.  Trust me people, if I'm not buying what you're saying, you lost my husband a long time ago.

Our goal was to get to the Mandalay bay to book our seats and see as much as we could along the way.  It was a lot of fun zig zagging through the crowd and looking up at everything.  Christopher's hat disappeared in the Mandalay and he was pretty distraught until we (very luckily) found it.  The kids didn't know we where we were headed or why, and Katie couldn't stop trying to get me to spill the beans.  The video below shows her face when I finally told her.  They were pretty excited to have tickets to the Lion King for Christopher's birthday (Tuesday).

We're here.....Kids in Vegas Part 1 (video)

Sunday night we made it to Vegas.  The craziest part is how crazy it wasn't to get there.  We left our front porch at 11 am and were checking into our hotel by 5 pm.  Christopher cried when we landed because I mentioned that Vegas was in the desert and he didn't want to be in a desert for his birthday.  But now that he's seen the pool he is completely over it and back to being excited.

We packed what food we could and checked a regular sized suitcase and one of our carry ons instead of taking just carry ons.  In addition to saving money on food, it was nice to have less with us from plane to plane and it was nice to be able to protect my bridesmaids dress, which made it nicely to Vegas.

We signed up for a 30 minute time share schpiel in order to get 3 free lion king tickets and free breakfast.  It will save us at least $160 and let us see a show, which we would definitely not be able to do otherwise.

If you're reading this, I'm in Vegas

So, I'm "scheduling" to post this, knowing (hoping) I will soon be on planes to warm places.  So, if you are reading this, we are on our way or we are there.  First, we are scheduled to use timeshare points in Vegas, traveling for free with Greg's standby benefits (my husband works seasonally for an airline so we can travel).

We would love to be heading to Hawaii or somewhere a little more amazing, but I haven't been earning a paycheck (though I would sure like to be) so we have no money.  In Vegas we can take a free shuttle to the strip and see fun stuff and spend lots of time together at the pool.  We are even bringing food to save money.  Then to Cheryl's wedding!  But Cheryl, if you happen to read this, wedding expenses are covered...we pre-planned and covered that by alternate means months ago.  So any fretting about money in any blog post is an entirely seperate matter!

At the moment I have a huge pile of laundry to fold for packing.  And instead of brushing his teeth, Christopher (who will be six next week) is standing with his tooth brush in hand explaining that he only has bad dreams here, but never in hotels.  The house smells like sugar cookies that Greg is helping him cook to share at school, since we will be gone for his birthday.  Katie is spraweled amongst the laundray reading "American History Revisted," a giant bathroom reader of Greg's.

Update Sunday closer to departure....

I'm updating from the Kalispell airport with a few pictures, as our first flight looks pretty good.

Renunciation

I am a novice to meditation and fairly ignorant of Buddhism, aside from sharing the generic generalizations that most of the western world probably shares (peace, chanting, an acknowledgement of wisdom and tranquility without much knowledge or first hand proof of these attributes).  The buddhist analogy for the word renunciation that I just read fits so closely with what I am beginning to experience internally, however, that I wanted to capture it before it flitted away (though I may find later that my ignorance of buddhism has led me to a peripheral or inaccurate interpretation of the concept).  I hope to experience this in a more physical sense, too, when I step free of CFS.

From an article on letting go (http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/2010/06/letting-go/):

"We can see the Buddhist emphasis on what is gained through letting go by how the tradition understands renunciation. While the English word implies giving something up, the Buddhist analogy for renunciation, is to go out from a place that is confined and dusty, into a wide open, clear space. It is as if you have been in a one room cabin with your relatives, snowed in for an entire winter. While you may love your relatives, what is gained when you open the door and get out into the spring, probably feels exquisite.

One of the nice things about letting go into something is that it has less to do with willing something or creating something than it does with allowing or relaxing. Once we know how to swim, it can be relaxing to float by allowing the water to hold us up. Once we know how to have compassion, there may be times when we not only let go of ill-will, but also let go into a sense of empathy. Letting go of fear, may then also be resting back into a sense of calm."

There are all types of directions I could take this line of thought, but as I am regaining my powers of concentration, I feel that baby steps are the right approach, so I'll let the idea rest for now in its own form.