February 29, 2024
I woke up at 3:30 a.m. I laid in bed and prayed my thanksgivings and gratitudes:
- I am grateful for family. Thank you for connection.
- I am grateful for health. Thank you for the guidance on how to be healthy.
- I am grateful for vacations. Thank you for visiting new places.
I was leaving to fly to Phoenix today to visit my sister Missy in Tucson. I was looking for to seeing her and my nieces as well as exploring a new place that I hadn’t been to before. I got up, changed my bedding and started it in the wash. I jumped on the rebounder 100 jumps and woke Angel up. We went into the house and greeted Christopher. I made my tea and smoothies and fed Little Bit and Healer. My plan was to drink one of my 64 oz. smoothies on the drive to Houston and pack the other one in my suitcase to have when I arrived in Phoenix. Angel ate breakfast and got ready to go. I finished doing my last minute packing and we headed out at 6 a.m. On the way I stopped to do a pet sitting job. I fed the dogs and goats and played with them for 45 minutes. The mean goat has gotten much friendlier towards me and his funny personality cracks me up.
On the drive to Houston, Angel slept and I drank my smoothie while listening to a talk by Michael Singer. As I was listening to him talk about being ok with whatever happens outside of us, I got stuck in Houston traffic. My airport arrival time kept getting later and later and I wasn’t feeling ok with that at all. Plus I had to stop and use the bathroom. Drinking the smoothie made me have to go really bad.
I kept taking deep breaths and relaxing but then would tense up again. I kept telling myself it would all work out but then another part of me would say that we were going to miss our flight and therefore it would be the end of the world. When Angel woke up, I stopped at a gas station and we quickly used the bathroom, let Little Bit go pee and got Angel a snack. Then I searched on my gps for a faster route to the airport but there wasn’t any. So I slowly continued on until we finally reached the airport.
I drove to the parking area I had pre paid to park at but couldn’t figure out how to get in. Then I received a message on my phone saying that my flight was delayed 45 minutes. Hallelujah! Everything was working out after all. I stopped next to a man sitting in his truck and asked him if he knew how to get into the car park. He did and he told me how to do it. Yay! I found my way in and there was a shuttle waiting to take us to our terminal. I packed the smoothie that I didn’t drink in my suitcase, locked up my truck and we got on the shuttle.
Everything when smoothly at check in and going through security. When we got to our gate I saw that our plane was delayed even longer. Angel and I found a place to sit and I read her A Wrinkle in Time until they announced that it was time to start loading. We were going to be getting on towards the last so we did one more quick bathroom break. When we got back, we found out that they had made a mistake and it still wasn’t time to start loading. We sat around people watching and Angel was getting restless. I was feeling really tired and wanted to get on the plane to have nap time. Finally, about 45 minutes later they started loading the plane.
We got settled in our seats and it took a long time before we took off. Angel opened and closed the window blind over and over, then argued with me about whether she could have her tray table down before take off. When the plane was ready to take off, they announced to keep our seatbelts fastened and our tray tables up, therefore, I automatically won that argument.
The plane eventually took off and I immediately fell asleep. Angel woke me up when the snack cart came by but there wasn’t anything she wanted from what they had to offer. I slept for about an hour more until Angel woke me up again needing to use the bathroom. Then I read to her A Wrinkle in Timeuntil I started to feel a small amount of motion sickness. The rest of the flight I sat with my eyes closed.
When we landed, I was happy to be off that plane. We went to get our suitcase from baggage claim and waited and waited but didn’t see our suitcase. We went outside to let Little Bit pee, he had done great on the flight and hadn’t made a peep. When we came back in, we still didn’t see our suitcase. There were other people from the flight that were having the same issue. One person started looking at the other baggage carousels and found their bag. So we all ran over there and sure enough, we all found our luggage on that carousel.
My niece was picking us up from the airport and had been patiently waiting for me to let her know when we were ready. I enjoyed the perfect weather outside while we waited for her to pull up. It was in the 70’s with a lovely breeze. My niece arrived and we headed to Tucson. We had great conversations on the drive and I enjoyed the scenery with the different types of cacti and the beautiful mountains in the background.
When we got to Missy’s house, I was grateful to be done traveling. We got settled in and she showed us our room. It had a day bed with a trundle bed underneath it, exactly like we slept in at home. Missy and I talked, while Little Bit played with her little dogs, Sampson and Peppa and Angel went exploring with my niece. Later on, Missy and I took the dogs for a walk and I took pictures of plants to put on iNaturalist. There were many different types of cacti I had never seen before and lots of shrubs and small trees. It’s amazing how many plants can grow with very little water.
That evening, we bathed and went to bed early at around 7:30 p.m. I read Angel some of A Wrinkle in Time and we fell asleep around 8:30 p.m. listening to a Bobbsey Twins book.
Thank you for reading my blog and being a part of my life. I dearly appreciate you.
Love,
Victoria