I don’t know why I have waited so long to post anything. My life has changed dramatically since the last time that I felt I needed to change the title of my blog. Last time I wrote anything I was in Louisiana celebrating Mardi Gras. I never finished that. That was a wonderful trip. I have never been to New Orleans. But a back-country Mardi Gras in Lafayette was an experience that I will just never forget.
Since Louisiana I have traveled to Maine to visit my friend, Carolyn. This was in August, 2017. We spent the week driving around the state. I have a new laptop that I just acquired about two days ago and it does not have my pictures on it yet. As soon as it does, I will post some. It was a wonderful time. I arrived home happy but about 10 pounds heavier. And determined to take off all the extra weight once and for all. I had my right hip re-done after the Louisiana trip and was happily walking without a cane again. So I started exercising and eating better. And the weight started coming off. I reached my goal weight in May, 2018. I can again wear my Texas State Queen tiara.
In June, 2018 I traveled to Asheville, North Carolina on a Road Scholar trip and met Carolyn there. We had fun but I think it was not our favorite trip. We had issues with our travel (the American Airlines computer glitch debacle) and other things caused some undue stress throughout the week. It was a good trip, but we have had better ones. Then this past September I traveled to Paris, France with my younger sister. We had been planning the trip for several months. Our nephew (our older sister’s son) works at the embassy in Paris and he and his wife have a wonderful Parisian apartment just a couple of blocks from the Eiffel Tower. So we flew over and spent the week walking around Paris, being shown around by our own private tour guide (our nephew’s wife) and she is a photographer, so we have wonderful pictures, that I will have to post as soon as I can get them transferred over. We took the high speed train to Nice and Monaco as well and spent the weekend there. The whole week was wonderful.
When I returned, Carolyn and I began planning our next trip: Italy. It won’t be until November, 2020 and it will be a bus trip through Go Ahead Tours. We will drive all around Italy. I have already signed up for it and have started making payments on it. We cannot wait. My next trip will most likely be in June, 2019 when I will be going back to Maine to visit with Carolyn again. I haven’t seen her since Asheville and probably won’t see her until I fly up there. It’s hard not seeing your best friend for that long. But we email almost every day.
Now that I have gotten through all of that, there are sadder things to report. My dad, who had been in a nursing home for a couple of years, passed away on October 18, 2017. It’s been a hard year, but a fast one. But when he passed away, finances changed for my mom, so I ended up moving in with her. My life has changed dramatically since then. I am still on a waiting list for a one bedroom apartment but have another year to go. I moved in with my mom in December, 2017. So one year has passed. It has worked better than I thought, and I have saved a lot of money and was able to travel to these places. But my freedom and privacy has disappeared in a way that is so hard to explain. I will try in future posts but it is Thanksgiving morning and it is a day to look for things to be thankful for.
Plus, it is time for me to get up, out of bed, and start my day. We have reservations for Thanksgiving dinner at 11am at Mimi’s Cafe, so I need to eat breakfast. And have coffee! Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
Whose Life is this Anyway? 