Monday, December 1, 2014

Florida Vacation Lookbook

Taking a page out of one of my new favorite blogs, Paper and Glam, I'm going to instate an occasional "Lookbook"--not a lookbook of fashion, but more like a mini online scrapbook highlighting some of the various shenanigans in my life.

Edition the First: My 2014 Thanksgiving Trip to Florida
 
For quite a few of the past several years, I've returned home to Florida for Thanksgiving to visit family. Usually this leads to a lot of fun times, but starting in 2011, things started to get rough. My aunt passed away that year, a week before Thanksgiving. And then last year, my mother passed away about 10 days before Christmas. So this was our first Thanksgiving without our mother, and for my grandparents, now 93 and 96, it was their first Thanksgiving without any of their children. 

Still, there were many memorable moments...

countless fits of helpless giggles with me and my sisters...

Possibly the most delicious crawfish etoufee I've ever had, courtesy of Tibby's in Winter Park, Florida...

Quirky, doofy Florida humor...

A blissful day of perusing various stores at the Mall of Millenia (pre-Black Friday, of course!)...

A Thanksgiving morning mosey through Sugar Mill Plantation and Gardens...

A walk down down the beach at Ponce Inlet...
 


A day spent in Cassadaga, talking with a medium who knew a lot about our mother, and who offered some life advice that was maybe a little too close for comfort...

And speaking of the Momster, we transferred her ashes to the urn and got her all set up in the shrine in the Fairy Wonderland Bedroom.

Lest my Supportive Therapist (TM) accuses me of glossing over things too much, I'll just say that it wasn't all just yummy food and peaceful nature walks and drunken games of Cards Against Humanity.  For all these pretty pictures, for all the laughter, for all the wine consumed--it was still a rough trip. We're all getting older (duh) and each year it gets harder and harder to leave. I spent a good part of the last two days of my trip crying, conflicted, and tormented by life decisions that have kept me so very far from my sisters, from my grandparents...and yet, at the same time, I don't want to return to Florida to live. I don't know what the answer is, and it's been scalding my heart for the past ten days. 

And there's no picture that can capture what that looks like. 

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