Friday, May 28, 2010

Hello Costa Rica!

Image by Salvatore Vuono
Costa Rica, my friend, I love you! God bless 80 degree days filled with humidity. I know that sounds weird, but toss in a little trade winds and I’m in paradise – or better yet Costa Rica! New Orleans, don’t be jealous. I still love you too!

Though after the five and half hour red-eye flight and the annoying guy who got up to pee 6 (yes 6!) times and still insisted on having a window seat, I required some much needed ZZZs . FYI – I never got the expression red-eye till now because that is definitely how you look after one of those flights. Thank god for super early check-ins and really friendly front desk people who tolerate exhausted Americans trying to speak Spanish, but are too tired to form actual sentences in my first language.

After several hours sleep I woke up refreshed and ready to explore the city that was bustling just below my window. That’s when I realized that in our sleep deprived state earlier we hadn’t been given any instructions for the next leg of our adventure. While I’m fine with winging things most of the time, The Man definitely is not, so we’d arranged a travel package that would take us from one stop to the next and several tours at the various locations.  Not an ideal situation.

After several attempts to reach someone at our travel companies local office who knew what was going on (it was lunch and siesta hour and the poor girl who answered the phone didn’t speak that great of English and my Spanish isn’t good enough for that conversation) we had a time to meet the guide tomorrow and still half of the first day to catch some of the local sites in San Jose.

So here is to 10 days filled with nature, culture and adventure!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Life isn’t about finding yourself, It’s about creating yourself!


You ever hear people say “I’m finding myself”? Well, I absolutely hate that saying. It’s ridiculous and makes no sense. How can you find yourself? It’s not as if you were somewhere then whoops turned around and you’re gone. You didn’t misplace yourself somewhere. No one is going to hand you a map or plug the coordinates into your GPS and presto! There you are. It’s you! The one you’ve spent all this time looking for.

In life we don’t find ourselves, we create ourselves!

We have never been here before and we will never be here, in this moment in time again. With every choice, every action, every thought - we create. We Hope. We dream. We embrace. We cry. We fall. We love. We lose. We explore. We live. 

Our life and the people we become are our creation.

I believe I’m still creating myself. The self I want to be. The better me. The more involved me. The more humble, more compassionate, more dedicated, more inspired me.  Every day I continue to work toward creating the me I want to be. 

It's not about being content with who you are, but continuing to strive to achieve a better you. Everyone of us is beautiful in our own right. We do not need to find ourselves, for we are already here. We already know who we are. The question is, "Is this the best person I can be?" I resoundingly say NO!

Because of this I will never stop creating. Never stop evolving. And most importantly never stop learning. I learn, I live and I create. 

May you always appreciate the you, you are and you, you are creating. Who will the you, you create be?

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

A head full of useless facts & absurd skills


Sometimes I wish I could delete all the useless information that has accumulated in my brain over the last 26. Out with the old and in with some stuff that may actually be useful!

Most importantly I would delete the ability to say the ABC’s backwards. There was some very stupid myth in the 90s that cops would make you say the ABC’s backwards if you were pulled over. At the ripe of 11 I decided that I better learn how to do that. I was terrified of being hauled off to jail on suspicion of a DUI when I was only speeding all because I couldn’t say them backwards. The things kids will believe.

Fifteen years later it is more of an inconvenience than anything. I do now have it on good authority that cops will not ask you say your ABC’s backwards for any reason. It’s apparently not a common thing people can do. Plus it screws me up when I’m trying to figure out what letter comes after which. I actually have to stop and think (okay, yes and sing a little) is it N-O-P-Q or Q-P-O-N?

Amazingly being able to recite every state in the US alphabetically still comes in handy! I’m keeping that one. Thank you 5th grade! Everybody sing it - Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas….

So with a head full of useless facts what is a girl to do? Looks like I'll just have to stick to rocking at trivia games.

If you could purge your brain of useless knowledge what would you delete?

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Almost Vacation -But Not Quite Here Yet- Blues


It’s official. I’m finally going to get another stamp in my passport! The St. Lucia stamp was starting to get lonely, so what else could I do but give it a little company? The bad thing about scheduling a vacation is that the waiting period suddenly becomes so much longer. May 28th why, oh why, can’t you just get here?

If you know me then you know that when I get an idea in my head or a notion to do something I do it. I don’t sit and talk about how I would love to do this, or it would be so fun to do that, or I’ve always wanted to try… I take charge, pull the lever and send myself in there guns blazing. I’m proud of the dedication and determination I have to embrace every opportunity and challenge. Without it I would never have rode waves of the coast of Hawaii, jumped out of an airplane on a beautiful October morning, or had the courage to explore school again and a change in career.

Yes, I admit that sometimes things can go awry. Otherwise I would never have had the pleasure of cruising through airports in a wheelchair on the way back from New Orleans. But to me it was completely worth it. When else would I have randomly stumbled onto a pirate’s convention and spent the weekend hanging with swashbucklers?

You see, one of my biggest goals is to truly see and do everything. Anything from cruising the canals of Venice in a gondola, and eating native nuts with the Pigmies, to fishing the anchovies run in South Africa and even seeing that damn 5 legged calf in Kansas. Yes, everything. The important thing is gaining the experience. Feeling something, learning something, exploring my understanding, expanding the mind and embracing another day that could have and would have just gone by.

As with anything, the key to reaching a goal is to make that first step. So, here I go again taking another step.  This time I will be stepping into Costa Rica where I will spend 10 days touring the canals in the rainforest, hiking up volcanoes, sea kayaking along the coast, and embracing the local culture from the Gulf side clear to the Pacific. Who knows, with a little luck I may even get the chance to put those surf lessons to good use again.

Now if only I can make it the 3 weeks till I take off for some vaca time.
Related Posts with Thumbnails