not necessarily in this order

We really did have a great time in NH. We did everything on our list: We saw waterfalls! We went on rides! We went out to breakfast! But, as a lot of things do right now, the whole thing felt so shaky and precarious. We are in one of those weird seasons where everything feels so wrought with meaning because it’s all the firsts – our first NH vacation where we didn’t have to wait for a call about my mom or have me on the phone with an ER or nurse. It puts a weird “supposed to” energy on things because we no longer have this elephant in the room, but we also are still finding our balance in this next part of life. So, when the boarding place called to say Bella might have a UTI but they weren’t worried about it, it was like muscle memory to start worrying.    <<this part isn’t too graphic, but it just talks about pet ick a bit, so SKIP THIS NEXT PARAGRAGH if you need to, but know Bella was sicker than a “don’t worry about it”, sigh.    A few months ago, Bella had...

I’ve been so impressed by  Daria‘ s Italy recaps that I decided to take a swing and try and recap my wild week. We have our family vacation to  New Hampshire  from Monday through Thursday and then on Saturday I’m actually going away by myself to Maine, which is a trial run or precursor to my first ever solo vacation this fall. Our energy is a little hectic coming off a week where we were trying to do a big computer swap that just left us only with our work computers and smartphones and Lil Mama having some wild antics. But, I have hope that this vacation can chill us out and make some memories, and hopefully be an overall win. Here’s how I prepped : I admitted that I’m feeling a lot of feels  For almost my entire life, but especially the last 5 to 10 years, I’ve spent every vacation or day away worrying about my parents. Things always just seem to happen when I was away and it’s led to a lot of anxiety around being away. This is my first one since losing both of them...