June 2022 – Sweat & Sparkle

Heaven

I sunburn within seconds of exposure to the sun. I don’t particularly care for being hot. I will happily take air conditioning over sunbathing any day. I am worse than a cat with hating water. So it makes absolutely no sense that I adore the beach, but I do.

A few months ago, when my husband and I were having a particularly hectic and stressful week, I decided to salvage my sanity by planning a future trip to get away. It didn’t take long for us to decide on a destination: the beach!

This past weekend, we finally packed up and hit the road for that trip. I’m embarrassed to even admit how long it’s been since we took a real vacation. We were practically stripping on our way into our room, we were in such a hurry to put on swimsuits and get into that gorgeous, blue water. We dropped our towels on our chairs, grabbed each other’s hand, and finally, finally waded into the waves.

I don’t think I fully realized how desperately we needed a vacation until we were there. We couldn’t stop smiling. I’m sure other guests thought we were blissful newlyweds. Well, it felt like it. We were excited, happy, giddy. He kept turning to me and asking, “Are you having a good time?” The answer was always the same: yes, the best.

I put my arms around him in the ocean, and he lifted me up and held me. Floating gently and lazily on the waves, the sun on our shoulders, waves rolling and crashing and splashing all around us…it was peaceful, absolutely beautiful. Heaven.

We walked one evening along the beach, letting the waves lap at our feet, talking, pointing out our favorite beach houses, and didn’t even realize how far we had walked until we turned around to go back. My husband joked, “We are staying on this beach, right?” We laughed about having to call the Coast Guard to come get us, but we eventually found our place, after getting a few pictures of the sunset over the water.

The weekend went by much too fast, but it was perfectly lovely. Coming to work yesterday was downright painful. I admit, I didn’t get much work done. I organized my beach photos into an album, posted pictures on Facebook, researched ways to display the shells we collected…and already started planning our next trip! We definitely won’t wait nearly as long this time.

Best Relationship

Courage to See Yourself

It’s easy to identify issues and weak spots in others. Turning that magnifying glass onto yourself, however, can be uncomfortable. Scary. Knowledge should go hand-in-hand with action, as well, so sometimes it’s easier to bury your head in the sand, put on blinders, and pretend you don’t see the areas where you need to invest some work to improve yourself.

But why accept status quo from yourself? Why place limitations on what you can offer to your loved ones? Why settle for less than optimum in anything that truly matters?

Echoes

On Saturday, it was roughly 50 million degrees outside. I am not a fan of hot weather, to put it mildly, but we had work to do, so I slathered on enough sunscreen to protect me from a nuclear blast, put on my big, floppy, dorky-but-practical hat, and bravely ventured out of the air-conditioned refuge of the house.

While my husband mowed the grass, I gave the poor plants much-needed water, trimmed roses, planted some new plants, all the while sweating more than any human being should be expected to sweat. When my husband finished the grass, he brought me cold water from the house, then sat in the shade on the front porch and watched me finish up, trimming a potted plant by the walkway.

He surveyed the yard like royalty regarding his kingdom, smiled, then told me, “I love our house.”

Even though I was two seconds away from a heat stroke and panting like a dehydrated dog, I had to smile too. Yes, I love our home, too. We have put a lot of work into our house and our yard, making it ours, and just looking at it makes me happy. I feel peace reach out to me when I pull into the driveway after work, and walking through the front door, I feel like I am entering our little sanctuary, our little piece of the world, leaving everything else outside.

I still remember standing on that front porch the first time we went to view the house. It’s funny to think about it now, when it was someone else’s house, empty, and we walked through those rooms for the first time. Now, I can’t imagine anyone else ever being in it, or us being anywhere else. Our touches fill the rooms, hang on the walls. Our voices echo in the air. (And since both of us can get loud, especially when we’re laughing, that’s a lot of echoes!)

I hope we never stop feeling this way. It brings me so much happiness and peace.