beach

The beginning of July is so very difficult for me. You see, July is when we celebrated our anniversary. It's not our legal anniversary, that came later, but when we moved in together we told everyone that we'd gotten married out of respect for my parents who were very religious and conservative.

We actually went to a local historic estate in our town on July 3, just the 2 of us, and exchanged our own private and personal vows so we always celebrated our "wedding" anniversary on that date. We picked that date because it was right before a holiday so we always took a little vacation on that date - a trip or a visit back to Florida. So this year, for the first time in 33 years, I didn't have anybody to celebrate with and I knew it was going to hard.

Last year was my favorite anniversary celebration

I had made plans to go back to that little motel I visited on Taz's birthday, just me and Charlie, but then I needed to get the car repaired and that took all my "anniversary" money so I canceled it and decided to just hide away by myself on that day or just ignore the day and go into work.

Then a friend found out, decided I shouldn't be alone and changed all my plans. I got a text at work on Monday that she had booked a room for her family at her favorite beach for 2 nights and there was room for me and Charlie if we wanted to come. Let's see, wallow alone in loneliness or hang out with my 5 favorite people? I texted YES back so fast.

I hadn't been to this beach before and I thought I already had a favorite beach in Florida but I have since changed my mind. We hung out at the beach Wednesday morning and it's now my new favorite. The water was the perfect temperature, the waves were pretty quiet so you could actually swim and not worry about getting knocked off your feet. Not great for surfing (on my bucket list) but perfect for hanging out with your favorite kids.

I brought our waterproof camera to the beach and, as you can see, I'm not at all familiar with using it so you see my finger making an appearance in each picture. LOL Gotta work on that but at least I got a few precious memories.

The kids and I spent all of our time together over the 2 days. They rode in the car with me, hung out in the room with me, went to the breakfast buffet with me (where I let them make all their own food choices, parents be damned) and went with me on all Charlie's walks. It was an amazing time and I hated for it to end but I had family coming to visit for the holiday weekend and I hadn't done anything to get ready for them so I had to leave. I will always be grateful to my friend for arranging it, it was the perfect way to avoid my anniversary. I really hadn't been looking forward to being alone, not at all.

I didn't have any time to feel sorry for myself after I got home because my sister and her husband arrived, we had a pool party/bbq so that they could meet all my friends, went to the movies, ate out a lot and just spent time enjoying each other. They live 7 hours away so we don't get to see each other all that much and I cherish the time we do have.

And now the holiday week is over, my anniversary is over, the family visit is over and I have to get ready for another work week, this time with full-time hours so my old life is over and it's on to the next adventure.