Escaping Old Man Winter, Part 2

Here is the second installment of photos from Puerto Rico. If you like these you can see the first set of photos and description of the vacation here.

He is a lot of fun.

This baby sheep and a rooster (not pictured) woke me every morning. 

Surfers

Pedro, the restaurant's dog. 

I like how this digital picture turned out looking like over exposed film.

This cutie just walked on into our open door to check out the place. 

Front door of our cottage. 

Pretty eyed stray. 

Nick in Old San Juan.

Cobalt brick streets of Old San Juan.

Old San Juan was a the earliest Spanish settlement in Puerto Rico. The island is surrounded by fort walls. Here you can see the wall with large metal spikes. 

We didn't make it around even a 1/3 of the island because we had to make our flight. But I'd love to have spent more time exploring the forts on the island and eating Spanish tapas.

This kitty and her friends were all over in old San Juan. 

Last photo before we headed off to the airport.

Now I am home. As fun as the vacation was, the feeling of being happy to be home is even better.  I love being back to a place of appreciation. I lost that a bit (or a lot) before our trip. I think vacation has a way of putting some things in perspective. If you come home feeling refreshed and ready for life you're doing something right. If you come back with dread it may be time for a change (in my experience).  

XO,

M

Escaping Old Man Winter, Part 1

Every winter about this time I start to become incredibly grumpy. The short days, cold weather and significantly reduced social interaction just gets to me in a way that I can't totally shake until spring arrives. So, for a few years I've been wanting to take a winter break to someplace beautiful and warm. This year I decided to not let another winter go by without doing something. Seriously guys, this trip was awesome self care and it totally got me out of my funk.

The area of Puerto Rico we stayed in is Rincon, a sleepy little surf town. They get a lot of surf tourism and so there was quite a bit to do and see. I decided to do this post in two installments, half of the pictures are up today and I'll put the other half up tomorrow.  

Below are pictures of our trip. Two things to note:

Feet Haters: Randomly (seemingly at least), we took a few pictures of my feet in the various places we visited. I included the pictures because I like the texture of the the ground in each one (but feet are kind of creepy).

Dog lovers: Puerto Rico is full of stray and unleashed not stray dogs. The not stray dogs had collars. That's the only way I knew they had an owner. I saw dozens of stray dogs. It was a hard thing to see and there is some reflection of them in tomorrows pictures. I can say that although it does not make up for having a loving, comfortable home, all the stray dogs seemed to well fed by the local people. I never saw a starving dog.

Wrap around patio of our tree house cottage.

Beach below the cottage. 

Sunset at dinner.

Nick "Take my picture so it looks like I'm holding up the sailboat."

Me "Okay !(?)"

Ooops!

A little after dinner swinging. 

We drove one hour from Rincon to San Sebastian to see the Gozanlandia waterfall. 

It was a steep hike down and a local man encouraged me by saying "Come on Chicago, one foot in front of the other!". 

Hanging in after a long day.

War-Nick wins.

Nick and I learned to stand up paddle board! 

We took this awesome tour with an awesome dude through an iguana filled, mangrove covered river.

If you're in the area I would highly recommend using Verde Azul.

All the SUP pictures were taken by our guide.

Nick takes a break from SUP to jump into the river.

He thinks he's a pro now. 

More pictures tomorrow! (Find them here!)

XO,

M

PS. No photoshop or filter. This place is really THAT gorgeous. 

My Bullying Story

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to 

bear." Martin Luther King Jr.

In the second grade I had a school bus bully, two actually. The ride home from school every day was humiliating and sometimes scary. Due to assigned seats and timing I sat across the aisle from two boys in the grade above me who denigrated me every chance they had. The anxiety would start to build up when it was time to line up for the bus. I would beg my teacher to let us leave for the bus a couple of minutes early. If I could just make it earlier than the other two girls, I could sit inside our seat and evade the boys. But we were not allowed to go out of order. So every day of second grade I faced these bullies. But in less than a half hour the bullying was over and I was home. They could no longer reach me. Now it's different, through the internet kids and adults are subjected to bullying twenty four hours a day. 

Alphie checking out the interwebs. 

According to www.dosomething.org, 58% of kids say that someone has been mean or said something hurtful to them online and bullying victims are 2-9 times more likely to consider committing suicide. Various websites and apps are being used by both adults and teens to anonymously and sometimes not so anonymously bully each other. Some examples are Snapchat (read recent media story about the site here), Fit or Fugly (rate the person's worth based on a photo), Facebook and Twitter. Most adults I know would easily be able to identify bullying between kids. But lately I've run into a trend of people (that often I respect and care about) misnaming adult bullying as free speech.

The first amendment to the constitution protects our freedom of speech. This amendment has a significant role in our identity as a democracy (bias of information available is a topic for another day). I have very liberal views on freedom of speech and censorship. The thought of censorship being imposed on us makes me angry. Access to information is vital. However, to identify something as a freedom of speech issue it must meet the criteria of government intervention.  Anything else is not a freedom of speech issue. Expressing hate for anyone because they are gay, straight, black, brown, disabled, poor, wealthy, have a different body type or religion, slut shaming, and so on, is bullying. And yes, I do think using religion to shame people is a very thin veil. That's still hate my friends.  If you say something hurtful, hateful and denigrating there are consequences. And more often than not the consequences are unseen. Such consequences may be the anxiety, shame and humiliation I felt every day of the second grade. Other consequences may also be experienced by the bully, such as the loss of respect and trust by peers and negative effects on professional and educational careers. 

Personally, I have struggled  maintaining a social media relationship with people I see doing these things. I am conflicted, I want to understand their side of the discussion. But I can't wrap my mind around entitlement to be hateful. As someone that is so easily drawn into the negativity around me, I need to purposely engage in positive relationships and surround myself with those that express love.  I feel stuck. I want to hit delete or unfriend, but also want to understand those different than myself.  I can't and won't write off a whole person as being "bad" because there is a part of them that I don't agree with. For now, I haven't made any changes. 

Have you made changes to your social media exposure? Do you think cutting out people because of their hurtful (to me or you) views means the loss of an opportunity for another view point? 

I'll end with words that always make me feel good: love is love.

XO,

M