Lifestyle Changes

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Over the last several months, I’ve been considering that I would like to get back to a lifestyle more centered around health and fitness. Although I’m pretty active and usually take dance, barre, and strength-training classes for five or so hours per week, I’ve let my eating habits become beyond horrible. As a result, the scale has been creeping upward, and in January I found myself at the heaviest weight of my life.

I say that I’ve been ‘considering’ getting back to a healthier lifestyle because even though I’m unhappy with my current weight and habits, I also haven’t done much to change the situation. But seeing myself in my summer clothes (the ones that fit, anyway) or in the mirrors at the studios I work out in, I know that I don’t like how I look with this extra weight. As I ice my sore ankles after each class, I also know that I don’t like how I feel with this extra weight. As I sat at my desk after dance class this morning with my ice pack strapped to my ankle, I decided that I’m done with this and I’m going to commit to making some changes so that I can get some of this extra weight off.

Functionally, I know how to lose weight. For me, counting calories has always been the one thing that worked and was sustainable. And I have been logging my food pretty diligently over the last several years, so I can say for certainty that the problem is how much I eat (and drink…margaritas, why are you so delicious??). If I use my same food-logging habits to set and stick to a calorie goal, the weight will come off. I’ve been here before and I know that this is an approach that works for me.

I’ve actually learned even more about calorie counting since I last used this method around ten years ago. Back then, I didn’t know that the trackers that count how many calories are burned are pretty unreliable, so I would “eat back” my calories. Now I know not to do that; my calorie goal is my calorie goal, and I won’t add allotted calories to my day for my workouts. I’ve also learned that it’s easier to have an average daily calorie goal, and to split that into four lower-calorie and three higher-calorie days each week, than it is to try and aim for the same amount of calories every day no matter what. By cycling my calories, I can still enjoy treats throughout the week; I just have to plan for them.

The hardest part of making these changes will be learning to tell myself no and to enforce that no. I’m a person who will wake up every morning full of motivation and promises to myself about how today is the day that I’m going to exercise, eat right, and start my new lifestyle. But by dinnertime I’m tired, sometimes I’m stressed, and all I want to do it go out to a favorite restaurant and connect with my husband. But that habit is expensive, and it’s unhealthy for both of us. I know we’re both getting older, and if we don’t build good habits now we’re going to really struggle when we reach old age. And that’s not what I want for either of us.

Right now I’m not ready to share what my current weight is, but maybe once I’ve made some progress I’ll open up about the actual numbers. For now, what I’ll share is that I’m making myself a plan for improving my eating. Before I go into the specifics of what I’m going to be doing, I want to say that this is what works for my body type and my life, and it may not work well for others. And that’s okay! Everyone is different and all bodies are unique.

I’ve chosen a starting point of an average of 1,600 calories per day for a goal weight of 133lbs. My goal on low-calorie days will be 1,386 calories, and on high days it will be 1,886 calories. As I go along, I may adjust this, but for now I want to try these numbers and see how it goes. In order to figure out what I wanted my calorie goal to be, I followed this video made by trainer Jordan Syatt. I plan to tailor my high and low days to my plans for each week, so that I can enjoy meals out with Bill or time with friends without feeling overly restricted with my choices.

For me, one of the things that works well with keeping my calories in check is to eat pretty much the same meals and snacks every day. I know some people like a lot of variety in their food, but I actually don’t mind the repetition – I think it makes it easier to eat healthy if I just automatically reach for the same things when I get hungry. Here are some examples of staple meals and snacks for me (again, these are things that I like to eat and that work for me personally – this isn’t intended to tell anyone else what they should be eating!):

Typical breakfast: Egg muffins made with egg whites, bell peppers, spinach, mushrooms, and Everything Bagel seasoning and a homemade almond milk latte

Typical lunch: Protein shake made with almond milk, chocolate Shakeology, and frozen mixed berries (Quick side note: I am not currently a Beachbody member and I don’t sell their products – I have two bags of Shakeology left over from when I purchased it regularly and want to use it up, but after that I’ll be looking for a protein powder that I like to make my shakes with)

Typical snacks: Apple slices (morning), Greek yogurt with a quarter of a cup of Kellogg’s All Bran Buds cereal (afternoon)

Typical dinners: Chicken on salad with dinner rolls, taco bowls, or grilled chicken burgers

I’m hoping that by writing about this on my blog, it’ll help me stay accountable and that I’ll have some tangible progress to report back! And anyway, it’s nice to be blogging again – I realized I missed it!

Reinventing V

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Over the years I’ve developed something of a love/hate relationship with social media, but one feature on my Facebook and Instagram accounts that I’ve always loved is seeing the posts I made in prior years in the Memories feature (on Instagram it’s under Archive, but same deal). I started my Facebook account in 2007 and so some of the earlier posts make me cringe a little bit at times, but I also like seeing how much I’ve grown as a person and looking back on fun times with people I love.

Just such a memory came up last week. It was a photo of me and two of my Zumba friends. It was taken on a cold, clear January Saturday in 2013, when we decided to meet up and walk laps on the track at a local school to get some exercise. I remember that day vividly and it’s a really happy memory for me – not just of a fun time with friends, but of how I felt that day. I was on top of my game and the strong, self-assured look on my face in the photo very accurately reflects how I felt about myself. I was in the best shape of my life, I was full of self-confidence, and overall just felt really good about myself.

It’s been a long time since I last felt that way. The stress of the last few years has taken a toll on me, and I’ve struggled a lot with my mental health. I made some strides in 2022 with therapy, and overall I am feeling better, but there’s a lot more work to do. I want to fall back in love with myself, to give myself the very best care and to find my best self again.

One of the things I’ve learned in therapy is that a lot of my anxiety disorder originates from my need to be perfect at all times. Allowing myself to be imperfect – to make mistakes, to be tired, to get it wrong, to not have the perfect response to every situation – would very likely help me to feel a lot more worthy of love and a lot more confident. I struggle so much with giving myself the same grace that I give others, and constantly reprimanding myself is exhausting. I do genuinely try to do the right thing and to be a good person, and at some point that has to be enough. I can’t ever be truly happy if I’m constantly in fear that I’ll somehow fail someone or at something.

I’ve been pretty open about my therapy journey, and one of the amazing things that’s happened as a result is that others have become more comfortable sharing their own stories with me. It made me realize that some of the people I admire most in the world have also experienced mental health issues, and that having an anxiety disorder and experiencing depression don’t mean that I can’t be (or that I’m not already) an aspirational person myself.

And so, I am committing to reinventing myself in 2023. This will be my year to focus on falling in love with myself and my life again, to embrace my imperfections and give myself grace, to get back to the healthiest version of myself both physically and mentally.

Health Scare

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On Sunday, my phone rang at around 5:15am. It woke me up; I was in Portland for the weekend with Bill and my good friend Jamie and didn’t need to be up until around 7:30 to start packing to head home. As I rushed to answer, my not-yet-awake brain was slowly processing that what I was hearing was my ringtone and not my alarm and that it was too early in the morning for anyone to be calling me with anything but bad news. The Caller ID display showed it was a call from my dad and briefly I hoped that he was simply up early (as he often is) and had somehow dialed my number by accident as he walked the dog. But as soon as I answered, he was there on the line, telling me first that everyone was okay but then going on to share that my mom had suffered a heart attack.

When I think of the things that I might have worried about happening to my mom, a heart attack wasn’t really on it. She’s in her seventies and up until now has never experienced any sort of issues with her heart. My grandfather and uncle both had heart problems, so it isn’t completely shocking – but they both experienced those problems when they were much younger so I always figured Mom had dodged any potential genetic bullets.

Having a parent in the hospital when you’re far away from them is incredibly stressful, or at least it is for me. As I am not a heart surgeon and quite frankly get a little squicked out by just being in a hospital, I don’t entertain any sort of fantasies that my being there would help her recovery in any way, but it’s still hard knowing that she’s going through something pretty traumatic for her and that there’s nothing I can do to comfort her or make things better. As someone who likes to plan and problem-solve, feeling helpless is extremely difficult for me.

Heart attacks sound very scary, but in reality medical advances have made them a lot less so and heart attack survivors can recover very quickly. As long as there are no unexpected setbacks, Mom should be able to go home from the hospital by the end of the week, and with some time to rest she’ll be as good as new. She’ll have to make some diet and lifestyle changes, but it seems like there’s also the possibility that she’ll ultimately feel better than she has in a long time.

Heart attacks present differently in women than they do in men and I feel like that’s as widely known as it should be. It’s important to know the common symptoms:

1. Uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain in the center of your chest. It lasts more than a few minutes, or goes away and comes back.

2. Pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach.

3. Shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort.

4. Other signs such as breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness, or heartburn.

5. As with men, women’s most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women are somewhat more likely than men to experience some of the other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting and back or jaw pain.

I trust that my mom is getting the best care possible and I’m excited for her to be able to go home from the hospital to get back to living her life.

West Coast Road Trip, Pt. 3

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Friday morning dawned sunny and beautiful and it was time for us to leave Monterey behind for the next leg of our adventure. Bill and I both really wanted to see the Redwoods, and there were plenty to look at as we wound our way north toward Eureka. That stretch of highway has plenty of twists and turns, along with beautiful scenery.

I had told Bill that I wanted to find the stretch of road that runs right through a Redwood, but he was skeptical and said he was pretty sure that the tree I had been thinking of had fallen down. So I got super excited as we drove through Leggett and I spotted a sign announcing “Drive Thru Tree”.

Sure enough, we found out that there was indeed the Chandelier Tree, a giant Redwood that cars could be driven through. It’s a private attraction and it was $10 cash, which I happily paid. We bumped along a back road for a bit before coming to the tree. The sheer size of it took my breath away.

It’s actually kind of amazing that I was able to navigate my car through the tree – I get nervous driving into the car wash! But I managed it with no scrapes or incidents.

On the other side of Leggett, we followed the Avenue of the Giants detour and stopped at the Founders Grove trailhead to wander through the giant Redwoods, completely at a loss for words. I knew Redwoods would be tall, of course, but it was impossible to imagine just how overwhelming it would be to see the 346-foot Founders Tree. At the Founders Grove, we were also able to see the Dyerville Giant, a Redwood tree that is approximately 2,000 years old. It was considered the tallest tree in the area before it fell in 1991.

After staying the night in Eureka, we headed back out onto 101 for the last bit of sightseeing before we turned the car toward home. We found the turnoff for the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway and followed it. Almost immediately we drove by a meadow filled with grazing elk. I could have stayed there all day watching them!

Beyond the elk, we found grove after grove of Redwoods. We stopped at a trailhead and took a short hike into the forest to see the Corkscrew Tree, which got its name because of its unique intertwined trunk pattern. It’s difficult to get a good photo of such a giant tree but I did my best.

I could spend an entire day at least just taking all of the hikes along the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway. For this trip, we drove through slowly and enjoyed the views of the forest before eventually getting back on Highway 101 toward Crescent City. From there we took Highway 199 into Grant’s Pass, stopped for a quick lunch at In N Out, and then made our way home.

West Coast Road Trip, Pt. 2

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Bill and I left Hermosa Beach on Thursday morning, after one more amazing breakfast at Martha’s. Our plan was to take Highway 101 on our drive north, which is decidedly more scenic than I5. Our first stop was in Venice, to see the iconic apartment building that was home to Romy White and Michele Weinberger in the movie Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion – one of my all-time favorite movies. It still looks pretty close to the way it did in the film!

Traffic was slow through Malibu but we were able to pick up the pace a bit and got to Solvang for a late lunch. It’s a Danish-style town in the Santa Ynez valley that’s known for its architecture and shops. The afternoon was sunny and warm so we took advantage of the weather and decided to take a walk through town. After stopping at Mortensen’s bakery to pick up some Danish treats, we split a sausage sandwich and enjoyed a pretzel with mustard and beer cheese at Solvang Brewing.

Our next stop was in Pismo Beach. Bill had read about a place called Dinosaur Caves Park and with a name like that we couldn’t resist checking it out. The day had turned cloudy, which suited me fine because I love a moody coastline.

We stayed the night in Monterey and I was beyond excited that we drove into town and to Beach Point just in time for sunset! The sky had opened up and dumped rain on us for the last hour of our drive, but right as the sun began to set the skies cleared just enough to treat us to a spectacular color show.

West Coast Road Trip, Pt. 1

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As I write this, I’m sitting on a balcony at the Grandview Inn, looking out at the ocean while I breathe in the scent of the salt air. Hermosa Beach is one of my favorite places to be, and today as usual it has me in a calm, relaxed mindset that I can really only achieve by being near the ocean. I’m definitely a beach girl!

Truth is, even though Seattle is home and hopefully always will be, LA is a very close second choice. I am a SoCal girl at heart and being back here always just feels right. This trip, we drove down instead of flying. I love a road trip. We made it to Bakersfield the first night, then drove into Victorville on Monday for lunch with my Cali BFF Keri and her two girls, my Nieces Big and Small. Keri and I met back in our 411 days, then later became neighbors when she got married and moved into the same apartment complex I lived in. We went from being neighbors to long-distance friends when she moved to Arizona, only to come back to Victorville just months after I moved to Washington. We’ve always made our friendship a priority though, and when we get together it’s like we were never apart.

Most people have few if any nice things to say about the High Desert, but I honestly don’t mind being there. It’ll always be my hometown, the place I spent half my life so far and where I did most of my growing up. While we were there I tried to drive past the house I once owned, but the neighborhood has been built up so much that initially I got lost and had to go around the block and start over. The house looks the same as I imagine it would if I still lived there. The rose bushes, trees, and sage we planted are all still there, although much much bigger now. It’s kind of strange to think that fourteen years have passed since I bought that place. It was a beautiful house, but the time in my life when I lived there wasn’t the happiest. Things are far better for me now.

After lunch, we headed down to Hermosa Beach, where we’ll be until tomorrow morning when we begin our drive north toward home. I love being here. We’ve had a fun time enjoying the beach, shopping, and eating at cool local restaurants. We found a great piece of art for our room that I’m really excited about, and Bill and I both found some great new clothes and each found a fun pair of shoes at Vans.

Our normal breakfast place when we’re here is Good Stuff, but it’s closed for renovations so we’ve been branching out. This morning we tried Martha’s, and we absolutely loved it. We might even go back tomorrow for one more meal before heading out of town! Although I’m sad that our normal spot isn’t open right now, it’s been great trying new places.

While I love traveling to new places and exploring, I’m happy that we keep coming back to Hermosa Beach. And I’m so grateful that we got through the last two years without having to struggle with our health or finances and that we’re able to take vacations and spend time together doing things we love.

Friendsgiving in Paradise

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Over the last several years, Bill and I have had a tradition of spending our Thanksgiving holidays with our good friends Ben and Jamie. We’ve dubbed it “Friendsgiving”, and we would alternate hosting each other from year to year (they’ve lived in both Texas and Colorado over the years that we’ve been doing it). After missing out on our get-together last year, we decided we wanted to make our Friendsgiving 2021 extra-special by planning to have it in Hawaii.

When we booked the trip last June, we decided on sharing a two-bedroom condo in Kihei, Maui. Bill and I have been to Maui before, Ben had been to Hawaii but never to Maui, and it was Jamie’s first time going to Hawaii. We picked Maui because we feel like it has a good combination of great beaches and plenty of local shopping and restaurants without feeling super touristy.

By August, Covid cases had spiked and the governor of Hawaii issued a message discouraging tourism through October. We were a little unsure that we’d be able to take our trip after all, but thankfully things got much better and by mid-November the guidance had been lifted and tourists were no longer discouraged from going. All four of us were also able to get our Covid booster shots in enough advance to be fully effective in time for our trip.

We flew to Maui the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and met up with our friends at the airport. After two years apart, we were so excited to see each other! The weather was gorgeous and a much-needed break from the gloom of Seattle in November.

On Wednesday evening we drove to Lahaina to attend the Feast at Lele Luau. It was really fun! We were greeted with fresh leis before being led to our table, where we were able to sip cocktails while we watched the beginnings of the sunset. Then we were treated to a five-course meal that we enjoyed while we watched the dances that accompanied each course. It was a tour of the islands for both our eyes and palates!

At the luau

We got incredibly fortunate to be able to find a condo through Airbnb that was right across the street from Kamaole Beach Park II. We went there every day to relax and swim. One of my favorite things was seeing sea turtles! The turtles love to play in the surf and we spotted quite a few of them every day. One actually brushed against Bill as it swam by us!

Kamaole Beach Park II

Bill’s favorite beach in Maui is at Makena State Park, so we made sure to spend plenty of time there. The beaches are breathtaking and the surf is usually good. Our Airbnb host provided us with an assortment of beach toys and equipment, including two boogie boards, and we had a blast taking turns catching waves.

Sunset at Makena

We ate way too much amazing food while we were there. Our favorite spot was the Kihei Caffe, where we began most of our mornings in Hawaii. Their breakfasts are beyond delicious and the portions are generous. We liked to eat there and then head to the beach, knowing we wouldn’t be truly hungry again until dinner time. Although there was always a line in the mornings, it goes fast and the food is well worth the wait!

While everything about being in Maui was amazing, hands-down my favorite part of the trip was enjoying such a beautiful place with friends we love and had missed so very much over the last two years. Hopefully this will be the first of many vacations we can all take together!

Working Out with the Peloton App

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Over the last year and a half, Bill and I have been working out pretty much exclusively from home. Our gym was shut down during the beginning of the pandemic, and even when it reopened in summer 2020 neither of us felt ready to go back to that environment. We decided to cancel our membership and restart it when things felt more normal, which sadly hasn’t happened yet. Although the gym we went to is taking Covid extremely seriously and has implemented a lot of great safety protocols, the idea of being around sweaty people who are breathing heavy just doesn’t seem like a good idea to me just yet.

We kept ourselves active with home workouts from our Beachbody on Demand subscription, but over the last couple of months I think both of us have grown bored with our exercise routine and found ourselves craving something new. Although BoD does have a robust library of different exercise programs to follow, I don’t really want to work out six or seven days a week and I’m generally happy to keep my home workouts to around 30 minutes, and not a lot of the Beachbody workouts fit those parameters.

A couple of weeks ago I was lamenting to a friend that I was bored with my workout routine and having a hard time making myself exercise, and she enthusiastically told me about the Peloton app. Although I do not live under a rock and know all about the extremely-popular Peloton spin bikes, what I didn’t know was that there is also an on-demand library of other types of workouts. I get a free trial of the Peloton app with my credit card, so I was able to sign up with zero commitment.

My first impression as we explored the different available workouts is that there are a LOT to pick from in different categories. And since there are some that are as short as ten minutes, we’re able to stack multiple workouts. Today, for example, we did a 20-minute strength training workout and a 10-minute cardio one. There are also longer videos to pick from, but something about doing multiple different ones makes me happy.

Using the Peloton workouts has been such a great change for us. Different trainers always work you out differently and the app has plenty of different people to choose from, and just mixing up our routine has made me more excited to work out again.

Reopening Anxiety

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Like most people we know, Bill and I are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19. With the exception of flying to San Diego last month (something I never would have done prior to being vaccinated), not a lot has changed for us. We still don’t eat inside restaurants, we aren’t going to the movie theater, we wear our masks religiously inside stores even if it isn’t required anymore.

Truthfully, I still have a lot of anxiety about the prospect of getting sick. Even if I caught something other than COVID, I know being ill for the first time in almost two years would freak me out. And the truth is, I like not getting sick. I really like it. If wearing a little piece of cloth over my face means I never have to suffer a stupid head cold again, it’s well worth it.

While our closest friends seem to be on the same page as us and are remaining more cautious, I know plenty of other people, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, who have tossed aside their masks and are back to their pre-pandemic way of life. When a family member or friend texts me to gloat about how amazing it felt to go shopping sans mask, I don’t really know what to say. At this stage of things, I think they’re making a mistake, but it’s not really my place to tell them so. But I also don’t understand why these people feel the need to tell me about their behavior in the first place, since they are all people who know I think it’s too soon for that.

It’s okay to be anxious about the loosened restrictions and I am not going to be pressured into changing my behavior just because the option has presented itself. I have to do what I feel is right for me and what I’m comfortable with, and that extends into who I spend my time with. After a lot of anxious consideration, I regretfully turned down an invitation to a family gathering next month because it’s being held indoors and not all of the attendees will be vaccinated. Spending an extended period of time in close quarters with unvaccinated people is not something I’m ready to do and I finally came to the conclusion that the best way to handle these situations is to just be upfront about why I don’t want to go. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about my loved ones, but it does mean that I am prioritizing myself and my health right now.

I’ve had people tell me that I need to “just live my life”, to which I say, I am! I am not a shut-in. I have game nights with vaccinated family members and friends, and Bill and I have started dining out at restaurants that offer outdoor seating (and by that I mean true outdoor seating, not a fully enclosed tent which is now effectively just a new indoor space). When I flew for the first time, I was definitely a little nervous, but overall I handled it well and I am comfortable with the idea of doing it again.

I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to try indoor dining again, or go to a movie in a theater, or attend a party when I don’t know everyone’s vaccination status. I suppose I’ll watch and wait, and see if case numbers continue to fall or if we see another surge as a result of the loosened restrictions. As for masking up, I see that being a permanent staple in my life, at least in large crowds indoors and during cold and flu season. It’s such a small thing to do that yields such great benefits that I don’t see any reason to stop. After all, being sick sucks, no matter what I’m infected with!

A Weekend in San Diego

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Hey look, a travel post!

Prior to the COVID pandemic, Bill and I loved to travel and made sure that we did so as often as possible. Now that we’re both fully vaccinated, we decided that we were ready to try flying again.

My parents had booked a camping trip in San Diego, staying at a campground that we used to frequent as a family when I was growing up, so we decided to plan a trip to California to spend a few days with them. I hadn’t seen my parents since pre-pandemic, and we had all promised each other that once we were all vaccinated that we would find a way to get together.

Even vaccinated and masked, I admit I wasn’t wild about our first experience with flying. I didn’t realize that TSA will make people lower their masks when going through security, so I was a little surprised and not super thrilled to have to do that, but I didn’t really have a choice so I went with it. The airport terminal at SeaTac Airport was under construction and half closed, so there were a lot of people and it was really crowded. We did our best to find a secluded corner away from everyone else so that we could eat a quick snack and sip some water.

We pretty much exclusively fly Alaska Airlines, and they’ve been really good about health protocols. On the plane itself, we got seats in Premium Class and Alaska is still blocking off middle seats in that section. Bill and I had the row to ourselves which made me feel a lot more comfortable than I ordinarily would have, and I just watched Grey’s Anatomy on my iPad and read a book and didn’t look at anyone else around me.

I still don’t love the idea of a larger hotel, so we opted to book a condo on Airbnb instead. The condo we booked was one street over from Mission Beach, and I liked being able to smell the salt air and hear the waves when we opened the windows. The place itself was really cute and nice. We had two bedrooms, a full kitchen, and a nice bathroom. It was only fifteen minutes away from Campland on the Bay, where my parents were staying, so it was an easy drive to go visit them each day.

At my parents’ campsite, we were able to sit around a campfire in the evenings, and they had a great view of Mission Bay. At night, we were able to watch a fireworks display from across the bay at Sea World. A few things have been updated, but for the most part Campland is exactly the same as I remember it from when I was little. They’ve updated a couple of areas to be nice dog parks, which is really cool for campers like my parents who bring pets along.

On Friday, my parents took us to their favorite spot on Coronado Island, the Coronado Dog Beach. It runs along Ocean Blvd all the way up to the border with the US Naval Station, and offers great views of Point Loma and the Hotel del Coronado. And, we got to see a lot of really cool and adorable dogs! That trip was definitely one of the highlights of our weekend.

On Saturday my sister and brother-in-law drove down from their house in Beaumont to spend the afternoon with us. The weather was decidedly chilly and windy, so we retreated into my parents’ camping trailer and spent the afternoon blissfully playing cards and laughing ourselves silly. My sister brought Cards Against Humanity and insisted we play it. I was not sure at all how that would be received by my conservative parents, who are in their seventies, but they were very good sports and really got into the game.

Even though we had a condo with a full kitchen, somehow we never actually got around to stocking said kitchen with any food. Instead, when I got up in the mornings I would make a pot of coffee and sip it while I watched glimpses of the waves and surfers from our living room window, and when we got hungry Bill and I would walk down Mission Blvd to Sara’s Mexican Food, a little walk-up stand that sold tacos, burritos, and other Mexican fare. We instantly developed an addiction to their Chorizo breakfast burritos, which were big enough that we could split them and still have a hearty breakfast and that made for great sightseeing fuel.

Our trip home yesterday wasn’t as nerve-wracking as I expected it to be, but I was definitely more anxious because we weren’t able to get seats in Premium Class and I knew that meant we’d be sharing our row with a third occupant. Because Bill is so tall, I always end up having to sit in the middle, and I don’t love being squashed in between him and a random stranger under normal circumstances but I expected to dislike it even more now that I’ve been social distancing from strangers for the last year. I had to repeatedly give myself a pep talk and remind myself that I’m vaccinated against COVID, that I was going to be double-masked (for crowded places I wear a disposable mask under my cloth one for some added protection), and that people fly every day and that they haven’t seen any trends or spikes in COVID cases in people that have flown recently. When we got into the terminal at San Diego International, it was super crowded and I didn’t like it at all, but then we remembered another wing that we’d walked toward when we’d headed to baggage claim when we’d first arrived the previous Thursday. We walked over there, and sure enough it was totally deserted (AND I found a little store that sold healthy snacks and had almond milk so that I could mix up my Shakeology shake, which made me very happy). We were able to sit all by ourselves, with no one anywhere around, and we waited until we absolutely had to leave before we gathered up our things and walked back to the gate where our flight was departing from. Our seatmate turned out to be a teenager who put his head down on the tray table and napped for the majority of the flight, so being in close quarters wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Overall, flying was a little uncomfortable but I was very grateful for the chance to visit with my family again, and our weekend in San Diego was a pleasant one!