Reality is starting to sink in a little

I am not just on vacation in this beautiful place, I live here. I LIVE HERE. Wow! It feels like a permanent vacation, even though we are working and basically living our lives as if we were still in Utah, except we are living our lives here, in paradise.

We rented a great little 3 bed 2 bath beach house (we committed to a year lease which should feel real but still kind of doesn't) 1/2 a block walking distance from the beach. It has a really huge yard that we are allowed to grow a garden on. I'm very excited to start growing our food again, we left our garden in Salt Lake just as it was really starting to produce, and I miss eating those delicious ripe tomatoes so much. Our beach house is the third house in off the A1A. East of the A1A is a vacant lot that is our private access to the beach, we are that close to the beach and the beautiful, warm Atlantic ocean.

   

Living here really is a dream come true. We walk to the beach every single night to watch the sunset. The sunsets here are always beautiful. It is still warm here like a perfect summer day even though it's mid-September. The water has been a nice warm 80 degrees. My headaches, allergies and sinus problems have disappeared and I feel healed and renewed from breathing warm, clean, humid air. My spirits are lifted by the sunshine, and I enjoy the reprieve from the heat during the morning and afternoon rain showers. My soul is calmed and I feel a sense of peace being near the vastness of mother earth's waters. In the ocean, I am in her womb, a part of a beautiful and interconnected wilderness. I love the humidity here, the way my skin glows with a touch of color and moisture. I love not using any moisturizing products, no lip balms, lotions or even conditioner for my hair. I love being active here, being walking distance to everything keeps my body moving, and playing on the beach or swimming in the ocean feels great.

I love the wild energy and nature of this place. I love seeing turtles in our front or back yard on any given day (usually after a heavy rain), we see all different kinds of small lizards every day, everything is green, palm trees, jungle and sand. The skies are bright blue. At night we can see the stars. The butterflies are gorgeous, HUGE and plentiful. The bugs here really are as big as everyone says they are, and that is taking some getting used to. I've been spoiled only seeing a cockroach maybe a handful of times in my entire life (and we are talking about UT cockroaches that are pretty small, maybe 1/2" max), and here in the new beach house our second day I was greeted by one more than an inch long on our bathroom sink. That night, one more than 2.5" was climbing the wall outside our bedroom window, and one 2.5"-3" long was crawling towards Naiyah in the grass and actually scared her! They are BIG! I have never seen spider's as big as they are here either (or as many this big that are poisenous as well). I'm not much of a seasoned traveller in parts of the world where bugs grow big. I am from Utah. We don't really get big bugs there. The bugs don't like it there, and neither do I. We like it warm and wet, what can we say, the dry desert just isn't for us. We like us some heat, some humidity, lots of rain and sunshine all the rest of the time.

We try to live in harmony with our environment, and avoid pesticides even when dealing with the big roaches. Thankfully our kitties and Jaiden do a pretty good job of taking care of any unwelcomed visitors that make their way into the house. Those that stay outside, well we don't mind them. Hopefully they will help us process our compost pile (once we start it) into a nice healthy pile of nutrient rich soil for our garden next spring.

Everywhere I look I love what I see. It feels really good to enjoy the beauty of the place you call home, and to feel happy and content to be there. I haven't felt that way in a long time. I have felt trapped, and have wanted to leave Utah for so long. I was afraid I would never leave that place and each year I stayed, I became more and more discontent. It is taking a while to get used to the feeling of "having" instead of "wanting". I was really starting to feel like I would "want" to leave Utah forever, but never actually leave, so that feeling of "wanting" became semi-permanent. I left. I now have what I wanted and it is the most surreal feeling I've ever experienced. I still can't get used to having this.
 

I'm so grateful to be here, in Daytona Beach Florida living my dream come true with the loves of my life, Hiram, Jaiden, Naiyah, Sushi and Alias (and next week our cousin and friend Peter will be joining us to share in the magic of this adventure as well!)