Vlog 2! Home and a short NYC work trip

My first vlog

Bliss

 

My new favorite past time is taking my 5$ watercolor set to the beach lately and just painting away. I play the Down Dog playlist on Spotify without headphones so I can listen to the waves as well and just bliss out.

 I love this photo of my brother from his visit a few weeks back. 

A sweet girl I met at yoga told me about Greenridge Stables.

It has been wonderful to have an affordable place to go out riding.

Something that has profoundly changed my outlook on the world and I highly recommend is the audiobook "You Can Be Happy No Matter What" by Richard Carlson. I have listened to it about 4 times in the past month on my libraries' free app. My new favorite quote is from this book:
 "Happiness is a feeling, not an outcome."
How good is that? I think that if we truly understand this, we will save ourselves from years of misery grasping after that next "thing" we think is right out of our reach that will finally bring us happiness. Happiness is not based on outside circumstances. It is noticing a feeling of contentment that can be accessed in this very moment.

kitchen progress

We had the old kitchen completely redone. We even took down half a wall!

The next steps will be to replace the glass sliding doors with white hurricane proof ones, remove the popcorn ceiling and give the walls a fresh coat of pure white paint. 

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      // Before photos

3 things I am grateful for today

Fitner app: I have been loving doing pilates and yoga almost daily with Mellisa Wood Health. It has been liberating to let go of working out my body too hard and adopting a gentler, kinder excercise routine.

Insight timer app: You can't go wrong with any of the meditations under the popular guided meditations tab. I love that it filters them depending on how much time you have. The "breathing into sleep" meditation makes your whole body relax and helps you blissfully drift off into dreamland. I look forward to playing this meditation now before I go to sleep.

Your Own Magic podcast: I am a long time lover of Allie Michelle so I was very excited about this podcast coming out. It leaves me feeling relaxed and inspired.

sister's visit!

It was so amazing it was to have my family here in Jupiter. I am so grateful that they were able to visit. It couldn't have been a more lovely time showing them my favorite places I have discovered the past 6 months here in my new home. I took them to my favorite acai bowl place, restaurants, yoga studio, and we shared pool time and lots of time at the beach.

My sister is such a hard worker as a restaurant manager and momma to 3 angel girls so it made me so happy to watch her have a couple days to herself, completely relaxed and swimming in the ocean everyday for literally hours on end. Her zest for life and positive energy is contagious so it is always a joy to have her around. My favorite memory from the trip was definitely jumping around in the waves together while it was raining.

Our house is still waiting on final touches like a couch in the living room, art, new windows and paint but we have enough set up to welcome guests now which is so exciting!

Spain 2017

An epic trip we took in October back to one of the countries I feel so at home in!
Before leaving for the airport, I went to the beach in the morning to do yoga and stretch out before the long trip ahead. I set an intention for the trip and decided I was going to try to live fully in the moment instead of worrying about the next moment or place we would be heading to. I would take everything in and be more still. It was lovely to have a specific theme I was working on during the trip so I would love to remember to do this before my future trips.

We spent the first few evenings at Dave's brother Steve's home in a tiny medieval village an hour from Barcelona. Steve recently got married to a wonderful Spanish woman and had a baby boy so it was a treat to get to catch up and witness their beautiful life in rural Spain. She is a tour book writer for their area of Spain so she knows all the best places to go. Their home is one of my favorites that I have ever seen. It was 4 levels with the roof being an open veranda that looked out over the beautiful countryside surrounding the village.

The 3rd and 4th evenings of the trip we went back to one of our favorite travel destinations! Cadaques, Spain. We went to our special hiking spot the first night that we discovered the last time we were in Cadaques 2 years ago. It is a little spot hidden away next to the sea around rocky terrain. It is so fun to climb down into this rocky nook and relax in privacy while watching the waves crash against the rocks. The next day we hiked all day long and discovered another cool private beach. We slept well after our active days in a sweet little minimalist hotel near the city center. Steve's wife recommended a crazy awesome tiny vegan restaurant that was tucked away into an old basement at the end of a street. Most of the streets in Cadaques are car free so there are many little restaurants tucked away into nooks and if you blink you may miss them. You can see the unique old restaurant named "Brown Sugar" in the photo below, what a spectacular atmosphere this place had! 

 After returning back to Steve's house, we went on a nearby outing to explore his city on a hazy afternoon. 

The following evenings we spent in rural Spain at the most insane house for Dave's family reunion. Steve's wife's mother is a caretaker of this huge home out in the mountains. At the end of a very long gravel driveway you end up at this ancient 2 story house that is filled with so much home inspiration it is unbelievable.

 We went on another beautiful outing nearby with Dave's father and took a pretty hike. We discovered the smallest medieval village and it was simply amazing. We hiked to the top of the cities old lookout and could see the whole village down below. What an adventure this day was!

Before heading home, we spent a rainy evening in Barcelona because I had to visit my Plaza Catalunya! I called this place home for 4 months during the Spanish Revolution in 2011.

 The best way to prepare for a long day of travel is to get as much yoga in beforehand anyway you can!