Complaining while in Paradise? Yes, sometimes.

We are in the most beautiful place. I wish my small words could describe the quaintness of the towns around, the beauty of the ocean and the sand. The birds the wind, the waves the sun (although I have a gripe with the sun right now, we'll get to that later.) It's is so beautiful that nothing could ruin it. Well, maybe nothing. Let me start from the beginning...

I spent months looking at condo properties to rent during the time we were in Ft. Walton Beach. I looked at dozens of them on line, cataloged them in my phone, their cost, which owners got back to me when I emailed and so forth.  I did my homework. I waited a bit to long to book because of the sheer pressure that comes from getting the right one. But when I did finally book I thought I had gotten the best of the best. A nice looking condo with tons of room, facing the water at an acceptable height (floor level that we would be able to see the ocean with ease and amazement.) And best of all the price was right! I was impressed with myself and thought I had done pretty good.

When we got to the condo it was late at night. Sure enough it was a nice place! Initially I had a few gripes, like the carpets were not looking their cleanest, there didn't seem to be more than one roll of toilet paper in the whole place and we could only find 5 hangers. But other than that we were on cloud nine with anticipation of the week ahead and the amazing beauty of the place we were going to be staying in.

In the morning I woke up and was delighted at the view! I went out side on the balcony to take pictures. I noticed rope hanging from the balcony and I had to maneuver around the hanging rope to get a picture of the beach without that annoying rope in the picture. But not really a big deal. I went inside and took a cute picture of Scott and just about that time there began to be strange noises.  Within the next few minutes our peace and quiet morning was shattered by sounds of working men using powered chisels and grinders and drills! And it continued to get worse! In short order the worker men were on our balcony and hanging from scaffolding right in our window!! The peace and quiet was gone! and the beauty was demolished along with it! Arrg! I was trying to laugh and say how funny it was, but the reality was that it was the morning of our 20th wedding anniversary and we woke up in paradise to have paradise snuffed out with whineing, vibrating noises throughout the walls!

We hurried and got out of the condo and onto the beach where we took a long walk and enjoyed the sheer beauty emensly. After our walk we took a  drive and managed to stay gone for the remainder of the day shopping and what not. Previously to all of this, we had planned that sometime during our trip we would spend one night away from the condo and travel to Tallahassee and to the small southern towns around. Since our peace had been shattered that day we decided we should take the opportunity to get away for the next day and hopefully the worker men would have moved on from our unit and onto another balcony to bug some other patron. (Although, the Emerald Coast is quite vacant this time of year and I seriously doubt there could of been many other patrons in the building at all. Maybe this was on purpose due to work that was being done on the building.) And so we did, we were gone for the next 24 hours. We left at night to take the drive, stayed in a hotel and woke the next morning to explore Tallahassee and the surrounding area. We didn't return till late the next night.

When we were driving back into Ft. Walton Beach there was quite a rain storm with thunder and lightning. When we got into the condo  you could look out the window and see the rain and waves and awesomeness. We snuggled into bed and fell fast asleep. Only to be woken this morning, the third morning of our stay, by the sound of power tools!!!! I couldn't believe it!!! 8:10 am and they were full force! Not on our balcony, but hanging just below it! I could still see beedy eyes of worker men right above the floor of the balcony! And the noise was so loud Scott and I could barely hear each other talking while we were sitting in the same room together!

I was annoyed! I couldn't shake it. I wanted to "get over it". I mean after all, there was nothing I could do about it, right? It was what it was... Or at least that's what Scott kept saying. But I was pretty angry and I didn't want to wake up for the next 4 mornings of our trip angry!

And this is where I stop and ask, isn't it ok to be frustrated sometimes? Isn't it ok to complain about things when the plans you have so carefully made become smooshed by power tools and worker guys?! I need validation here. I mean seriously!

Ok, to move on and finish this story, we got out of our contract with the first condo people and Scott was awesome at finding us another beautiful condo just a few buildings down from the first. I am happily laying in bed at the new condo typing about the past. And any minute now I am going to let it all go! :)  Actually, I let it go once we got all moved into the new condo. I was happy to be in a place that I can wake up in morning to silence. But for a moment, I have to say, I just needed to be grouchy and complain a little. Life isn't blissful all the time and sometimes you just have to gripe! I think there is nothing wrong with it. You have to let it out! I think I'll make a cute subway art about griping. I wonder if there is already one made on pinterest?!

Gordon B. Hinckley said, "By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are only thinking of ourselves." I agree President Hinckley, but when you're on your second honeymoon you're supposed to be thinking of yourself! I'm just saying. He also said, "Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured." And this is us, trying to enjoy Florida in the best possible way!

 Old annoying LOUD view...

Beautiful new peaceful, unobstructed view! And a little higher up too!

And we end our day happy as little larks. I'm even more happy than Scott because a small miracle happened! Scott went shopping with me and didn't complain one bit! He was pleasant and kind the whole time. North west Florida shuts down pretty early in January, so we shopped until they kicked us out and then we had delicious food at Panera Bread.  We got shut that place down too. It's weird how early everyone closes here, but let's face it, all there is around her this time of year are snow birds! So why not.

Happy complaining people!!

Small Southern Towns

Wouldn't you love to take a drive through little old southern towns? That's just what we did today, enjoying the beautiful porches on every home from small to large. Brick streets. Neat old southern churches of every kind. Wonderful accents! Trees with moss hanging everywhere. I wish we would of gotten pictures of everything, but we only got a few. Oh, and one of the coolest things of the day was a little deli called The Scoop that we ate at. It was so cute and had so much character. The owner was really nice and shared a little bit of her history with us. I enjoyed it a ton. I love to find places like that. If I could I'd love to spend lots of time driving around these little towns finding treasures like The Scoop. Taking pictures and antiquing! Today we really didn't have much time at all. We saw a lot but couldn't stop much. Every time we would drive by an antique shop I wanted so badly to stop!! My heart almost skipped a beat each time. But we really couldn't. And how would I bring the things home anyway? We couldn't carry it on a plane. We'd have to ship it. We thought that on Saturday if we have time we may try to find some antiquing around the beach cities. It won't be nearly as good as the old southern towns, but better than not at all.

Beautiful in every way!

Nearly every house has a porch in Thomasville, GA. It is so great! Small houses, old houses, ugly houses. It's great!!

Look at the moss on this tree. Look at the size of this tree. Cool!

Streets covered with trees are awesome. In the spring or when the leaves are on the trees this one would be all shadowed over. It's beautiful.

This was a really huge church. I didn't get close enough.

I had to add the LDS church

The Scoop. The dang cutest deli/icecream place ever!

So authentic, so southern. Nothing commercial or cookie cutter about it!     

Brick streets. They are everywhere. Love them! Brick is abundant in the south. Everything is made out of brick.

 And then there's the weird! This is Enterprise, AL where they have a monument to the boll weevil.  Why? I don't know. I don't think they really know. Just strange. But funny!

Good Morning Ft. Walton Beach!!

Good Morning Ft. Walton Beach!

Good Morning Scott!

Good Morning creepy guy on our balcony!!

 Haha! That's how we woke up this first morning in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida on our 20th annivarsary! We were waken by loud noises of scaffolding dangling from the top of our condo building. And while it's only a 6 story building and there's only 12 units, our balcony and our unit was chosen first to have the repairs done!  What the??? It was the strangest thing. Workers and noise, didn't make for a very peaceful morning. But as you can see from the first picture of the beach, Anytime you can look at that from your bedroom window, with or without scaffolding in the way, it's peaceful! We're happy to be here celebraing 20 years. We feel blessed to be able to do it and to be able to enjoy this trip together.

You'll see in pictures that I post, that Scott is a really good photographer! I'm not, but he is patient with me.

Scott took the picture of the seagulls. I took the one of Scott. 

 

 Because we can't take our own photo together, we had to do it seperately. bummer. We liked the pier and wanted to take pictures with it. Notice blue skys and green water. If you don't know, this area is called the Emerald Coast. This is because the water is oddly that emerald color. It is soooo beautiful! And with the white sand it is really breath taking. While we walked I had several moments that I just had to pause and be in awe. So different from Californ, fine white sand instead of brown coarse sand. Clear green water instead of blue water you really can't see through at all. The Gulf Coast is Amazing! So Beautiful!

 When we got to the pier it cost $2 to walk to the end. So we just stayed at the beginning and took a few pictures. We liked this rusty fence. It didn't turn out to be quite as cool of a backdrop as we thought. And then we found a nice local fisherman who we had take a picture of both of us. We are going to have to do that more so we have pictures together!

After the walk to the pier, shopping was on the menu. That makes me happy, so happy infact that we forgot to take pictures of the fun shopping sites. :)

Florida

In less than two weeks Scott and I are going back to Florida! I'm getting really excited! I'm sure everything will be so different and we won't recognize a thing!
Tonight I was going through one of my mission boxes just to see what is in there and I found a million letters from friends and family who had written while I was out. It was really fun to go through them and remember old friends, missionary friends and companions and lots of people who loved me!! What an ego boost! I don't even know where a lot of those people are. I wish I did. I came in and immediately looked up a bunch of them on facebook, but didn't find anyone. :(  I wish a couple of them would find me. Any, it made me happy.
Scott and I looked up a couple of places like The Zoo Gallery and Billi Willi Surf Shop that we remember from the mission. The Zoo Gallery is still there and we are excited to go and buy t-shirts from there. I had a couple of their t-shirts from the mission and I probably still have them in a box somewhere!! I'm excited to just go to Ft. Walton Beach and drive and walk around! So exciting!!
I love people tonight... :)

Overcoming.

Overcoming myself may be my greatest challenge in life thus far. Overcoming physical desires, overcoming spiritual inadequacy, overcoming emotional weakness. And the list could go on.
I'm working hard to break this truth, the truth that says I can't rely on myself or overcome my own weakness. With exercize, with eating, with personal reliability, with spiritual matters, with relationships, with family relationships, and on and on and on. There's a lot of work to do.

New Year, New Try.

I'm excited about the new year. I don't know why, nothing imparticular has happened to make me this way. (oops, I take that back. maybe the fact that I'm 95 lbs. less than I was is a start...)  I don't know if I'll make a change in my home or my spending or myself, but I have hopes that I do. Here's to 1012! My goals are: to continue to make healthy choices and changes in my body. To be a good steward of our money. (There's a lot of work to do there!) To be a better mother to my children in the form of time spent with them and time spent on making our home more homey. Those are the main ones. That will keep me busy enough.

Kendahl is leaving to go back to BYU today. She had a rough go of it last semester. She has a mountain to climb in order to get herself back on track. I hope and pray she can do it. Scott have her a beautiful blessing this morning and it was perfect! I hope that God, her own efforts and medication get her to where she needs to be! Prayer is my only tool. I can't do anything else for her. Well, I guess there's always love and listening. I can do those too.

There are tough things all around. Our business is one of them. It's hard to be a good steward of a business, employees, money. Really hard. I pray for help and knowledge there too.

I don't really know why I'm writing on this blog. It's nothing exciting to read. Probably no one reads it anyway. Kendahl gave me a book for Christmas called, "No one cares what you had for lunch..." It's ideas for blogging. I'm gonna get it out and see if it helps my lame writing skills. ;) If anyone does read this, I'm sure they'll appreciate it!! :) Maybe I'll become a better writer in the process.

Christmas Choir

I was part of our Stake Christmas Choir tonight and really enjoyed myself. We put on a program with beautiful songs. It was fun. We have been practicing for a couple of months now. Last week I actually told myself that I wouldn't do it again because of the time it took every Sunday evening to practice, but today as I reflect I'm glad I did it and I'd do it again! It has been wonderful singing Christmas songs. It helps me get in the spirit of the season and I love them.

Other Christmas thoughts...
I don't really have many... Well, I thought I'd be so ahead this year. I got a good start, got lots of gifts, started wrapping early, but the time has crept up and there's only a week left till Christmas. It seems like there is still so much to do! I'll be busy doing it and before you know it Christmas will be here.  I won't be done even when it is. I never am.  But I just do my best.

Merry Christmas to anyone who reads this. :)

Focus on the Significant

This is a beautiful quote from Elder Uchtdorf. I saw it tonight and thought how I need to spend some time pondering it. This is a problem for me in my life. I pass over the significant to focus on the non-important things and it really does not help me to be happy in my life. I day dream and live in the stories in my head most of the time. Sounds silly, but it is true for me.