NFA (No Fixed Address)

I've been on a social media blackout for an entire month.  It's not as bad as I thought it would be.   In fact, it's been very freeing.  Life, on my terms, needed to be reset.

My dad has had some health issues over the past year that came to a head in October.  He would up spending three weeks in a nursing home to rehab a hip that needed radiation treatments. I spoke to my mom every night and after 2 weeks of being connected through the telephone, Lyle decided we needed to be connected in person.  Against my will, I have been returned to Bellingham in the winter.  Winter in the Pacific Northwest is my LEAST favorite time of year to be here.  Dark and wet.  To quote a line from the movie Auntie Mame, "How bleak was my childhood...".

Currently my dad is doing well.  After a month of continued care at home, has regained his mobility and is back to walking with a cane. He will be 85 just before Christmas. I don't know when, but somewhere along the way, my parents got older. I find the idea impossible to fathom as I have never aged and am clearly still in my late 20's.

Almost three years ago we set out on a grand adventure.  The idea was to live life on our terms with no regrets.  We left Los Angeles put our stuff in Palm Springs and then promptly moved to Mammoth Lakes ski hill.  If you didn't pay attention, you could get whiplash.

When it come time to leave the ski hill, we decide to go North in the summer to be closer to our families. After seeing many friends lose parents, we wanted to make certain we were connected and present whenever that was possible, moving in with them for a month at a time definitely connected us. We came up with a schedule that had us up and down the West Coast doing a summer road trip that included friends, family and photos.  Many photos.

Our life looks quite glamorous in photos. I have made it my policy to not complain (in public) about the consequences of our non-traditional choices for work and living.  But I can confess that unpacking and repacking one to two truck loads of clothes, kitchen and personal effects every 6 months, 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 nights as you roam far from home is exhausting.  Trying to remember which address to use for a credit card payment, mapping out where you might be in 5 weeks to tell someone where to send mail so that you can meet it, is a level of crazy not everyone gets to experience. (that was polite, wasn't it?)

We are in the midst of a complete re-launch of our lives.  Everything we own has gone into storage while we figure out where to live next.  We have plans and ideas but I am loathe to write them down for fear of being held accountable to answer questions about them later.

Which brings me to my social media holiday.  Life got complicated.  I needed to place my full focus on my parents, in the moment.  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and this blog are an amazing way to connect to a vast support network of people, but for me and my need to seek approval through being entertaining, it was a distraction.

For the time being, I'm in Bellingham, borrowing a friend's house, until January. It's cold and wet.

Comings and goings

So, uh, it's been a long time since I've been here.  My last statement was that I was going under the radar.  We were going through an immigration process and I was feeling VERY scrutinized with the government pawing through my entire life history that I decided to make my online presence less accessible.  I'm pleased to say that the immigration process is over as of September and my husband is now a proud green card holder!

But life is tricky, and things stayed complicated and this here blog is a fairly public forum.  But I'm going to try and get back here a but more.  Facebook is nice, but limiting.  Here, I can ramble on and on.  And isn't that what we are all looking for?

Under the radar

This blog is going to go private for a few months.  Got some stuff to work on.

I think you can subscribe to it, or request to be added via your email to a reader's list.  Just a head's up. 

I'll be back...

Cupcakes

Yes, for dinner.

Mr Cooper, on the road

"The road is a lonely place, and that sounds like a cliche, you know, like what is my life?"

--Artie Lange 

Snowing again

Ain't complaining. 

Hotel Zamboni