Tag: travel

back from wine country

Posted on by jplatt27

Wine

I’m back from a week-long vacation in Sonoma, California, also known as wine country. We had a great time–good experiences, good wine, good food. I’m still trying to process it all but one thing I know I want to bring back/maintain in my “normal” life is the lack overwhelm. I really enjoyed just living in the moment and enjoying things one thing at a time. Check in with me in a few weeks and ask how it’s going. I really hope I can keep this up.

PS–Have you liked Love Always, Jo on Facebook yet? Only one like needed to get to 100!

wine country vacation: what i’m looking forward to

Posted on by jplatt27

suitcase

Packed and ready to go!

We’re headed to Sonoma, California! We rented a house with some friends in wine country for the week and the excitement is finally sinking in!

On this trip I’m looking forward to (in no particular order):

1. reading, I love reading in general so on vacation it’s a must. Choosing the books for my vacation is one of my favorite things. This trip I’m bringing Lean In and The Engagements.

2. eating outside (another one of my favorite things)

3. laughter, lots and lots of belly laughs

4. biking, we’re doing a self guided winery tour by bike

5. quality time with Mike I’ve been a little out of sorts lately so quality time between us has been lacking. I’m looking forward to getting back to myself and sharing the whole me with Mike.

I’ll be back in DC on the 11th and should be back to the blog sometime that week.  Ok, gotta go! Cabs coming in 20.

Have a great week my friends!

What do you look forward to on vacation?

 

 

an early Christmas present for my husband

Posted on by jplatt27

We hit quite a bit of traffic on our way home for Christmas. Mike is a pretty even-keeled person, doesn’t really get worked up about things. But when it comes to traffic–not so much. He gets super grumpy and frustrated by it. He’ll start huffing and puffing, throwing his head back, you get the idea.

I don’t think we’d even hit Baltimore before I heard this comment: “Yep, time for more traffic, it’s been 5 minutes since we were sitting in traffic, it’s time.”  It was going to be a long ride.

Of course, I didn’t want to start my Christmas vacation on a grumpy mood and Mike didn’t either–we’d planned to take our time on Saturday morning and go to our favorite coffee shop before hitting the road.  I perused the bookstore for a few minutes on our way out (one of my favorite activities) and found three gifts!  Then, I was ready for a nice leisurely drive.

Then traffic hit.  I could feel Mike getting irritated as we crawled along.

And then it hit me: just because he’s grumpy doesn’t mean I have to be grumpy.  I can sit back and enjoy the ride–regardless of how fast or how slow we’re moving. So I did. I relaxed into my seat and into my thoughts and looked out the window.

I enjoyed the ride.  I really did.  I was so proud of myself for not taking on his mood.  I have a tendency to pick up other people’s energy but with that realization comes the power to make a different choice.  So I did.

Getting grumpy because Mike’s grumpy not only sours my mood, it doesn’t help Mike either. You know what they say “happy wife, happy life.” So I decided to be content, at peace even in the traffic and even with grumpy-pants sitting next to me, and decided to let Mike be in his mood–not trying to change it or tell him why it was silly. That’s like a double early Christmas present if you ask me.

 

 

My Marvelous March {Giveaway winner}

Posted on by jplatt27

The month of March was pretty good to me. Though it was filled with periods of anxiety, mostly it was filled with exciting things and people I love.

We started the month with a visit from Mike’s parents.

I coached my first Girls on the Run practice.

I paid off my credit card.

Daylight savings came.

I spent a week in St. Lucia with my sisters.

I came back and had some time to myself while Mike was in Disney.

I found out that Jess is bringing the Business with Intention Workshop to DC in May and I signed up.

Because I get paid bi-weekly and there were five Fridays in March, I got an extra paycheck this month.

I paid off my first student loan, accelerating my debt snowball.

I spent the last day of the month exploring DC with my sister Chrissy, some of her friends from school, my dad and his girlfriend Debbie.

I hosted my first giveaway!

Giveaway Winner

The winner of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is Sarah! Please send your mailing address to thingsafterrings@gmail.com.

I’d love to know:

What was good about your March?

St. Lucia Recap

Posted on by jplatt27

I spent a fun-filled, sun-filled, week with my sisters and Sarah, Melissa’s girlfriend, in St. Lucia last month.

Now that we’re older and live kind of far from one another (me in DC, Melissa in Florida and Chrissy and Becca 3 hours apart in PA), it’s rare that we get to spend much time together.  Of course, now that we’re actually friends, we rarely see one another. So when Chrissy and Becca’s spring breaks fell on the same week this year, we took the opportunity to go on vacation together.

We had a really really good time.  We talked. We laughed. We laid on the beach and then by the pool.  We ate a lot.  Napped a lot.  Read a lot.  I emailed back and forth with Mike. I didn’t blow dry my hair or wear makeup the entire week. It was glorious.

Chrissy, Becca, and I shared a room for the week and it was kind of like a slumber party.  One night Chrissy plucked my eyebrows, making me bleed only once, and yanking a thick piece of skin one other time. I straightened Becca’s hair before dinner out one night. We talked about our relationships, watched the Bachelor finale. You know, girl stuff.

We went on two cool excursions off the resort. Mid-week we went SNUBA diving: a combination of scuba and snorkeling. It was amazing to see the schools of fish rushing by me…they swam so fast and so close to me.  Incredible.

On our last day we did a triple adventure: jeep ride, zip-lining, and hiking to a waterfall.

The triple adventure was awesome.  We rode in a jeep on the way there and the tour guide gave us some information about the island. He asked two questions and I answered them both right: 1) What is the best part about St. Lucia? The people! 2) Why are there so many bananas in St. Lucia? No monkeys!

The zipline was super fun.  There were 12 lines total, some higher, longer, faster than others.  It was so cool to be flying over the jungle. And it really wasn’t that scary.  Luckily we moved through the course pretty quickly.  I think if I had too much time to think about how high we were it would’ve been a lot scarier. But we were the first group on the course in the morning so we went right on each one.  After the zipline, we drove a short way and hiked down into the jungle to see a waterfall.  We brought our suits and climbed up onto the rocks in front of it for a photo shoot.  It felt very Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue like. Then we drove about an hour in the jeep back to the resort, caribbean music playing and the wind in our hair.  Good good times.

 

It was a good week.  A really good week. Did we get on each other’s nerves?  Of course we did.  We’re sisters. Would I vacation with all 3 of my sisters again? Definitely.

 

 

Together while apart: how we stay in touch while traveling

Posted on by jplatt27

While Mike is in Florida, we’re communicating primarily through email. It started when I went to St. Lucia and knew I wouldn’t have cell service.  It didn’t even cross my mind to find a way to be able to use my phone while there. My sisters got calling cards, texting plans, and an app to call through wi-fi but I just assumed we’d have wi-fi at the resort and Mike and I agreed to email back and forth through the week. We liked it so much that even though we can chat on the phone or through text while Mike is in Florida we decided we’d primarily chat through email.

While it was weird not speaking or texting when I was away, we realized that we really enjoyed emailing back and forth. I liked taking time to sit and write an email to him–it allowed me time to reflect on the trip, to think about my response before responding. In writing to each other, I think we gave each other more quality time than we would have if we’d be calling and texting.

When we’re apart, phone calls are usually short at the end of the day when I’m tired and/or distracted and therefore they’re not very substantive, and filled with lots of  “i miss you.” While texts are nice, text conversations can be the worst.

But, when I sat down to write Mike an email (in the morning, my favorite time of day), I wanted to fill him in on what I’d been up to, what things were on my mind. I’d think consciously about what I wanted him to know, what I wanted to talk to him about. When you’re emailing, you can’t just be on the other end of the line, you have to write and you have to think about it. I’d be sure to ask him thoughtful questions, to follow up on things he’d told me to keep the conversation going. It is a different way of a communicating but a nice change of pace.

It was fun to look forward to the emails. When did I think he’d write? What would he say? I felt like I did back in middle school waiting for a note from a boy I liked and the giddiness and excitement that went along with that.

If I looked forward to emails from him every day this week, you can imagine my excitement that he’s coming home TODAY!

I’d love to know:

How do you keep in touch with your sig-o when traveling apart? (see above)

Do you remember exchanging notes in middle school? I remember getting notes from Mike in middle school.  I can still remember how he folded them–differently than I did.  

When anxiety breaks

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Before I went on vacation, I wrote about the separation anxiety I experience before leaving Mike. My anxiety “broke” the night before I left for St. Lucia: I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed and spent so much energy doing so that I went to bed at 9:30. I spent the morning after reflecting on and journaling about my experience. I want to share a little bit about my anxiety with the hope that someone else experiencing what I do may feel that they’re not alone or so that someone that hasn’t ever experienced anxiety can understand a little better what it feels like.  The following is an excerpt from a journal entry I wrote before I left.

_____________________

I’ve exhausted myself. My anxiety over leaving Mike came to a head on our date last night. I made it through the meal OK but any time Mike brought up the trip, I tensed up and would give one word answers. I didn’t want to talk about it. Because it reminds me of the anxiety. Everything came to a head in the car. And once the anxiety broke and the waves of tears came crashing through, I felt worlds better.  The tension that had been in my chest for at least 48 hours was released. Physically and mentally I felt completely different. But so did Mike.

In releasing my stress, I snapped at Mike a bit, saying things that got him angry and caused him to be defensive. As the tension in me subsided, the tension in him started to build. And he got frustrated and quiet. But when he took my hand walking up the driveway, I felt relieved, comforted. How I’d wanted to feel all night. 

I hate that I do this, that I have such severe anxiety that causes me to act this way.  I wish I could articulate to Mike how severe, how strong, and how deep the anxiety is. While I’m conscious of the anxiety, the feelings, the fear, the pain, the tension is completely subconscious.  No matter how much rational self-talk I give to myself, it doesn’t help. Because this isn’t something that I can choose.  These feelings run deep and they are strong and choosing to try and ignore them, to push them down doesn’t help. In fact, it only makes the outburst that much worse.

________________________

As Mike gets excited for his trip to Disney this weekend and my anxiety starts to settle in this morning, I hope that we don’t have a repeat of last week.  To prevent that, I’m being honest with myself about my feelings and communicating them to Mike.  I’m also trying to focus on how great it will be when he gets home. How excited we’ll be to see each other.

Oh, and we’re not going to spend $100 on a dinner date this time.

Back in Action (almost)

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I had a wonderful time in St. Lucia.  Lots of pool/beach time, quality time with my sisters, an afternoon nap daily, it was awesome.

Now I’m back in DC and happy to be home.  But I thought I’d come back refreshed and ready to hit the ground running. Yeah, not so much.  I’m. so. tired. And all I want to do is get through the day and get back in bed. So this is all I’ve got for now. I hope to be back tomorrow or later this week with a more interesting post.

I’d love to know:

How was your week?  Are you having gorgeous spring weather like we are in DC?

See you in a week!

Posted on by jplatt27

I’m off to St. Lucia!  I’m looking forward to lots of sun, relaxation, strawberry margaritas, and quality time with my sisters.  I landed in Florida last night and I’m already completely relaxed.  After just one night with my sisters, I’m so glad we’re doing this.

One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to get lost in a good book so I never travel without a boatload of reading material. I got a couple books from the library, picked up a new one from Barnes and Noble, and added one from my shelf.  I used a gift card from Christmas to buy the whole first season of Downton Abbey for my iPad (LOVE traveling with this!) which will be perfect if I get antsy on the plane. Mike got me a little travel kit too: a copy of Women’s Health and some peanut M&Ms. So I’m all set!

I hope I’ll be able to blog from the resort but I’m not sure if that’s in the cards.  If not, I’ll be sure to share pictures when I get back!

In the meantime, I hope you have  a great weekend!  Oh, and Happy Daylight Savings!

Separation anxiety

Posted on by jplatt27

I get separation anxiety when I’m going to be away from Mike for a little while.  I think this started at some point during college and I can’t explain exactly why it started or why it continues today.  But it’s something I deal with.  And it can be intense.

So even though I’m super excited about going to St. Lucia with my sisters (Melissa, Chrissy, and Becca) for a week starting tomorrow, I’ve been battling this anxiety for the whole week.

As a sub-conscious way to protect myself, I’ll start to get short with Mike, frustrated with him for silly things, and will start to distance myself from him. Of course, this is the exact opposite of how I want to spend days together before days apart.

Once I leave or he leaves, I’m fine. I’ll shed a tear or two and get on with the fun. But the couple days leading up to the departure are rough.

So that’s where I am today.  Anxious about packing up and leaving tomorrow. Nervous that I’ll ruin our date tonight by picking fights or being snappy at my husband when all I want is a fun, romantic, relaxing evening together. And excited for vacation with my sisters all at the same time.

I’d love to know:

Do you ever have separation anxiety?  How do you get through it?