Decisions. Decisions.

You ever wonder how different your life would be if you made a different decision?

I do all the time. I don’t have regrets about my decisions. In fact, quite the opposite, I feel proud of them. But there are some very poignant times in my life where it could have gone the other way.

I’m watching this show on Investigative Discovery (yes, more murder and mayhem) and one of the survivors of this serial killer made a last minute decision to go out that night. She hadn’t planned to. She just decided she wanted to meet up with her friends at the bar after all. Obviously that decision changed her life.

While none of mine are that drastic, I do spend a decent amount of time thinking about the What Ifs.

What if I had decided to not join my friend Christy at the youth group in the early 1980’s? Dad was so sure that being a part of the church back then really helped keep me on the straight and narrow. Admittedly I had been hanging out with a “friend” who I followed into a bit of trouble (vandalism of all things). Mom and Dad, of course, put their foot down. And that was the last time I did anything with Anna DeGuzman.

What if I had chosen to stay in Seattle and go to Lake Washington HS instead of going to boarding school?  This one his huge to me. Not only would I not have some of the best friends I currently have, but I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have the travel bug. I’d probably be content just sticking close to home. Hard to say, really.

What if I had said YES to a young man who wanted to marry me? Would I still be married? Would I have had kids? I certainly wouldn’t have the life I have now. Is it better? Don’t know. Would I be any happier? I certainly wouldn’t be living here in Seattle – he went the military route, so chances are high I would have moved all over the place.

What if I had not left Boeing and wen to work at Microsoft? Would I still be there? Would have had all the work experiences that I’ve had? Would have gone down the Project Management road? Probably not.

With each of those decisions, my life would be different. Maybe better, maybe not? That’s the great thing about decisions…you make the best one you can with the information you have. Or if you’re making a decision with your heart, you hope for the best.

I think of all the things that define my life now, cooking, photography, scrapbooking, closeness to family, constant attempt to lose weight…would ANY of these be a part of my life had I made any other decisions?

One decision that has plagued me and that is a big regret with me is not going to Tucson in December of 2016. Granted, the blood clots stopped me, but what if I had made healthier choices earlier in my life and learned to love eating healthy…I wouldn’t have the blood clots and I would have been able to spend one last Christmas with mom. I can almost guarantee we would have eaten out almost every night I was there, we would have had dinner with so many friends she has down there, we would have gone shopping, we would have talked and chattered for hours. We probably would have had a great time cooking Christmas dinner – which could have been anything. I would have left before my birthday because I liked to be home for my birthday. I would have left telling her how much I love her and that we’ll talk soon. She would have told me to text her when I made it home. Would I have noticed something was right with her and made her go into the doctors? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t really linger on that thought too much thankfully.

As I start thinking about my future and decisions that are going to need to be made I wonder whether I’ll look back on them with any regrets. Or will I feel confident that I’m doing the right thing for me at the time? Probably the latter.  

Suddenly we're at day 80!

As I sit and type this I cannot believe we've been sheltering in place for 80 days. I've not been in my office or seen my work peeps for 80 days. 

I am not alone when I say that it feels like we're in the movie Ground Hog's day! Every day seems like the last. Nothing differentiates the days. 

What's happened in the last 20 days...well...here's a list:

1. I finished some great books. The Elephant Whisperer, Where the Crawdads Sing, and The Last Boleyn. All great reads and certainly long books that is helping add to my goal of a certain number of pages. 

2. I've been cooking like crazy. Since I'm home, I figured I might as well focus on new recipes. I want to try 75 new recipes this year. I'm well on my way and think I can make it. I've had some good ones. You can find them on my cooking blog if you're interested.  

3. I've been watching a ton of TV. Too much TV really. It's on almost all day as noise in the background as I work. For some reason working in silence distracts me so I just have the TV going. I've recently been watching the 3 part mini-series on the History Channel on Grant. Pretty interesting to me. Funny how the older I get the more interested in history I become. 

4. Seeing people has been hard. I met Blueberry last Saturday for Pizza in a Parking Lot. We sat in our respective cars and ate pizza and chatted. This weekend I'm meeting some colleagues at work for a tailgate lunch...again in the parking lot. I miss people. I miss entertaining. I miss hugs. 

5. Traveling has, of course, stopped. The Niece and I, though, managed a quick trip to Eastern Washington to clean up the headstones in prep for Memorial Day. As always it was a fun, but fast, trip. Harder to do when bathrooms aren't nearly as available as they are when restaurants are open. But we survived. 

In a couple of days, I bet I could copy and paste this blog ... the same will be happening. Over and Over again. 

Day 60...can you believe it?

Yesterday was day 60 of quarantine. I never would have thought when I was sent home on March 9th that'd we'd still be at home in May. Yet here we are! The governor has us on a 4 stage plan to get back to the new normal. He says there will be 3 weeks between each phase, which means that puts us into Sept before we can get back to a normal...it won't be "normal" like it was. No, it'll be a new normal. I can't wait to see what that looks like.

Cammie and I took off yesterday for our annual Odessa or Bust trip. We missed last year because she was working. She pinged me on Monday and it was an immediate YES. We took off at 9am with blue skies and what promised to be a warm day. First song on the playlist? On the Road Again! Mom and Dad used to play this song every time they set out of one of their new adventures. I figured, why not keep that tradition.

The sun stayed out all day, and in Eastern Wa it got up to 71 only.  It was actually warmer in Seattle than Eastern Wa, which isn't normal.

We stopped in Cle Elum to pee and get some breakfast. While we were there we decided to see if Owens Meats was opened to get jerky. It was! It was packed, and I have to say people were not social distancing like I had expected.

Jerky in hand...off we went. The "tradition" is when we get off the freeway to get onto Hwy 21, Cammie gets to drive. The first couple of times she was nervous to drive, but this time she seemed to approve and even enjoy the way Wroamin gripped the road. There's a section where the road gets a bit curvy. The "joke" her dad told her when she was learning to drive is she couldn't use brakes... ahhh, sure... I told her...go ahead. She couldn't. She wasn't comfortable enough with the car. It would have done fine, but I appreciated her being aware of her insecurities and not doing it.

We finally got to the cemetery, drove Wroamin in and took a deep breath. This part of the trip is always the most difficult. This time though it seemed worse, the Bohemian Cemetery looked horrible. It doesn't look like anyone is keeping it up they way it had. It looked like it hadn't been mowed for awhile. The weeds were calf deep.

We did what we do...cleaned the headstones, removed old flowers and put in new ones (we take the old flowers and put them on other family member graves who might be missing some), had a moment of silence, and just existed with our loved ones. We miss them so much.

Our next stop is the German cemetery where we stop to see our cousin Cindy. Every single time we forget where Cindy is. We "think" we know, but we always end up parking and walking the rows until we find her. THIS time we both made a note that she's back by the far corner, so maybe next time we won't forget. We will. But we like to pretend.

Back in the car and off for home. We slathered up more sunscreen - because we've learned our lesson. Stopped in Moses Lake for lunch and sat in the parking lot eating our cheeseburgers.

Our last and final traditional stop is the scenic view over the Columbia River. The wind is usually blowing like mad so we take crazy photos of our hair all over the place. Yesterday, not so much. Pretty calm considering.

The day went by too quickly. I do so enjoy these days with her. Thrilled she still wants to spend time with me. We barely talk in the car, she's a pretty quiet person, but just being around each other and then when we do talk it's usually pretty worthwhile conversation.

The fun I like to have is putting together a playlist that I'm SURE she will not approve of. She knows my taste of music tends towards 80's and she tolerates it. I personally think it's her "pretending" to tolerate it. I see her singing along. After every song, you can almost feel her wait with baited breath to see how bad the next song will be. "Bad" being all relative.

The other thing that happened is Wroamin flipped over to 19,000 miles. I leased Wroamin - though always planning to keep it - and the lease gave me 32,000 in 3 years - which is July 6th. If I were to turn this car in, I'd be well within the lease parameters. We were 2 miles from home when it flipped over so I had to pull over and take a photo.

Now, I'm back home. By myself. Well, me and the cats. They were a bit put out that I was gone all day yesterday. There was a lot of cat cuddling last night just to settle the two down.