Month: November 2023

A Year of Health, Happiness, and Feeling Like ‘Home’ Is Less of an Abstract Concept

Thanksgiving 2023 is TOMORROW. Families or friends will gather to give thanks for all that they have. As someone who has struggled with being told to express gratitude, this holiday is one of the hardest for me. I AM grateful for all that I have; I just know for all the work I’ve put into certain endeavors my expectation for the final results has not always aligned with what came to fruition. Some years that progress is easier to greet. The more that I’ve seen social media explode into a world of influencers (with a lot less education might I add) flaunting monthly income figures easily topping $20,000 or more, the more disheartened I am that I committed to earning four college degrees and my take home seems paltry. My post-graduate career path has felt like I am on a crumbled asphalt road leading at points to a dirt path to a dying town no one wants to see survive. It’s like if you’re unwilling to hawk every product known to man to make a buck there is no (or little) space for you in this employment minefield. This situation has recently led to me popping onto social media for fixed amounts of time and to start culling my list of accounts I follow. I’m tired of everyone gushing over every car brand, type of wheat flour, fashion trend, or makeup product and their #ad posts reminds me that as much as I’ve cut back on retail therapy in my in-person life, there is always someone itching to sell a product online their own pockets. 2023 is a year I’ve worked to re-establish peace in my life.

This situation has not been easy to tackle. We are still witnessing the Hamas-Israel war continue to unfold; if things continue as they are, the Russia-Ukraine war will also hit another anniversary in February; this year, it took some time to watch my health turn around; and we’re all around the globe continuing to see unrealistic housing prices and grocery costs make it harder to get by. Reclaiming some semblance of control with what is and what is possible takes an honest look at the circumstances of the past, present, and desired future. As a war veteran, I am not near the landscape of either of these wars, so I am, like so many, an important witness instead of an active participant in the fighting. I have a responsibility to build my education about what is happening and to encourage the resolution of these wars. My heart has an unlimited capacity to care for the non-combatants whose lives have been turned upside down by these events. When I see their strife, I know that my chronic health struggles of this year pale in comparison. Not that it means I should not attend to my medical needs, but I can keep my complaints in check. I still live in a world where I can regularly access fresh safe drinking water, enough food to support my needs, and medical care to help reduce the severity of my symptoms and encourage the prevention of longterm health problems. This year, with the world being what it is, I have tried to enjoy the natural beauty around us more.

We started our year in California, having ended 2022 in a short vacation there. Our stay in Rancho Palos Verdes gave us a respite place to land after a difficult year where we lost our dog, Radar, to an unexplained illness. He struggled from the moment we brought him home with chronic skin infections and towards the end of his life all the veterinary care we could afford did not result in diagnosing a treatable condition. Starting and ending our day by the ocean helped me to appreciate the fact the world is vast and will always be larger than our existence as human beings. Every day, the ocean starts a cycle anew and is transformed by the heat of the sun, cloud cover, the wind, and the moment of animals. She is never the same, and I think I’ve had to learn to accept that about myself, too, instead of mourning the ways my career has not gone.

While I take a moment to breathe about where my career has not gone, I am fortunate that friends remind me of what has been. One of my Marine friends from my time with 1st Marine Division sent me this photo of our shop located at Camp Pendleton 33 Area. When I joined, it was the NBC platoon shop until our career path was re-fashioned as “Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear Defense.” Sandwiched alongside Combat Camera, I lived in a world that I was never quite sure I belonged in, but I was smart enough to squeak by and join. That imposter syndrome people talk about, I get it. There was so much educational material thrown at us during our MOS school that I no longer remember. Once I stopped using this information my brain was absolutely ready to dump it. I guess that’s why I never feel it necessary to tell people about what I did in the Marine Corps for my MOS. The work I did in Iraq for 1st Marine Division was outside the MOS and has remained a more honest reflection of my skills. I have a lot of administrative skill as it relates to records and seeing how different pieces of puzzles fit together. Could I run a gas chamber today, if permitted? Probably. I wouldn’t enjoy leading service members now through the steps of donning and clearing their masks and having them go through certain exercises in the gas chamber any more than I did in the service. But put me back into the command aspect of operations and I’ve found myself a home. It’s a different way of seeing people, society, the elements of risks and safety and I kind of shine there.

In trying to find where I belong, I also have to confront what is not meant for me. (Isn’t that one of the hardest things to accept?!). Earlier this year, we started to explore moving to a different part of the Phoenix Valley. Our current home has appreciated in value quite well due to the pandemic housing uptick and the modifications we’ve made to it since occupying the house. We educated ourselves about listing offerings through Zillow and ones curated from a custom listing search with our realtor. A 1950’s home was high on our interest list but we were never able to visit it since the family handling the estate didn’t respond in time to our request for a showing. We saw large properties (think 13,000 square feet…which is good for us here), but both of those older homes were less appealing on the inside due to lack of proper came from the homeowners. Nothing dire, but there would be some serious elbow grease involved and a questioning as to when things like the roof, water heater, and HVAC might be in need of replacing. One of my favorites, although it had a quirky layout, was a home in Tempe, Arizona. This is the front door to that place. It is more a patio home. We could have lived with the quirky layout, but it had an incredibly low fence, about 4-5 ft high. The lack of privacy and risk our dog (or future dog) would get out made it a no go.

This is where that journey of what’s not meant for you can lead into something that might be a better fit. We settled into the fact we weren’t uprooting our existing lifestyle (although we prepared and packed a bunch of boxes that are still packed up) and busied ourselves this summer with work until we could take our fall vacation. Going to Louisville, KY this year with a brief stay in Nashville, TN opened us up to a possibility we didn’t know existed. Our Marine Corps friend, who we were visiting to see him and his family, told us the state of Indiana offers a tuition and fee exemption for children of service-connected veterans. We’d have to live in Indiana for at least 5 years before our daughter is eligible, but it’s still worth exploring. Over the past few weeks, my husband and I have started to look at career and home prospects in the Indiana area. Knowing that it wouldn’t be good to just look at this one opportunity, we’ve both applied to different federal jobs: some are remote, one is in Kentucky, another is in Chicago, and we have covered our bases in the Virginia/Washington D.C. area. If we want more pay but aren’t in a position to settle in Indiana, we won’t have a tuition exemption for our daughter in the other locales. My preference would be for us to both move into higher paying remote jobs and find our next home in Indiana, allowing us to tick as many boxes of “financial life hacking” as possible. Plus it never hurts to live closer to people you love and trust. Our vacation visiting these friends was one of my happiest memories this year. I felt at home in Louisville and that doesn’t really happen when I visit somewhere new.

This sense of “home” is something I know is unique to all of us. I recognize some people are grateful they live in large cities with a plethora of amenities while others crave rural roads and lots of open space. Arizona as “home” has been something I’ve questioned a lot over the years. We had a real rocky start our first few years, but there are things that I also enjoy tremendously outside of living near some good friends (and family a few hours away). Seeing plants bloom in the desert is almost a spiritual experience. The area comes alive with color for a brief moment of time and the fragrant scent of some plants, especially after it has rained, has a calming effect. We don’t get a lot of rain, so it’s something I always look forward to here and I love when the sky darkens as monsoon rains are almost ready to cascade down on us. I also enjoy the smell of jet fuel when we visit ASU’s Polytechnic campus. Not the best thing to breathe in, but it is a reminder of passing diesel fueling stations at Al Asad Air Base and it’s a weird comfort thing for me. Will it feel weird one day to say goodbye to this place? Sure, but starting over somewhere new can be exhilarating. There are possibilities like owning more land, seeing more fall foliage, enjoying a smattering of new restaurants and cuisines not as easily found where we live now, and making the eastern half of the United States (and Canada) more feasible to visit.

Taking the time like this to write down about my year makes it easier to see that a lot has gone well, even if not all is right with the world. Tomorrow, we will keep our festivities simple. We ordered Hawaiian food from Highway Inn through Goldbelly. For dessert, I am making cookie dough dip from Blackberry Babe and we’re pairing it with Goya brand chocolate Maria cookies. A holiday cocktail is on the menu as well and for this year, I’ve chosen Liquor’s Expense of Honesty, which will require modifications based on the type of alcohol we have on hand. There is no way I’m visiting Total Wine the day before Thanksgiving!!! If our dog lets us, we’ll sleep in. The day with start with a leisurely walk and a morning coffee (black, no sugar or cream). We are not hosting anyone or going out anywhere. In this year where we’ve traveled more, there is no disappointment on my end to enjoy a quiet holiday at home. I will revel in fact we have a roof over our head, enough food, our health and happiness needs met, and a future that is ours to carve out differently than we previously imagined it would take shape.

Wishing you and yours the very best until we touch base again.

~Cheryl

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Kentucky Hugs & Loving Kentucky Back

Kentucky has been something of a “maybe” state for me; I’ve never been someone with firm plans to visit all 50 states. I planned to visit here years ago and then things changed, keeping the state off my radar. The bit I thought I knew about the state, painted somewhat in an unflattering light, from others—including various news sources—served as enough information about the area to keep it low on my list of places to visit. Then my friends shared more about their experiences living or visiting the state. A plethora of nature photos showcasing the natural beauty of the area helped me to cast off my doubts about visiting. 

Self Portrait at 21C Museum Hotel Louisville

This trip is the longest family trip my small family has taken—ever. Traveling was off-limits for a while as we navigated career shifts and funneled our income and time towards the accrual of higher education.  Hawaii was our intended goal in 2020 for a weeklong vacation, then the pandemic hit. A few attempts here and there to reignite Hawaii plans were undone as COVID restrictions create barriers towards our goal. Maybe we’ll get there one day, but we were done holding off on a vacation longer than an extended weekend. 

The artwork statement does not apply to the painting behind it, but I love that the movement of the dancer’s skirt are reminiscent of the flapping of a butterfly’s wings.

Picking Louisville simply came down to wanting to visit a longtime friend, his wife, and their daughter. Flying into Louisville was more expensive than traveling through Nashville, so we bookmarked a sliver of travel time and accommodations there. There is so much to see in Louisville, a city much larger than our own; we sit around 280,000 people and here, it’s about 621,000. Part of traveling is always assessing what is worth checking out and being ok with saying no to other experiences others might really love (but you do not or might not like as much). 

Juggling activities with friends and our respective family time wasn’t hard to figure out. Our first day in Louisville, we visited our friends’ home, losing out on some time together due to inclement weather and an unexpected travel delay—originally listed as throwing us two hours behind schedule, but it ended up being roughly an hour. The casual gathering introduced us to a lot of our friends’ friends, a mix of adults and kids so no one felt left out as can happen back in Arizona where we are often the only persons that show up with a child in tow. Our daughter sandwiched herself nicely at the dinner table entertaining adults and their kids until her and the other girls her age became infatuated making glow stick handcuffs, linking themselves all together. Our late first night bonding over dinner, cake, and bourbon (for the adults) encouraged us to get up later here and go to bed later so we are roughly using the three hour time difference to get up around 5ish Arizona time and tucking ourselves into bed around our typical AZ bedtime of 8-9. 

Monday, we kept to our little trio, walking along the Louisville Riverwalk after a warming indulgent southern breakfast at 21C Museum hotel and drinks from Blackbeard Espresso and when the bracing cold got to us, took in a tour at the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience (not originally on our list of sites since we already planned two distillery tours). We were warmly greeted by Diane, who took photos of our daughter and I by their storefront display, and Rita, our tour guide. We were treated to a series of short mocumentaties and a brief visual display of the bourbon making process. Navigating our way past windows showcasing the distillery process, we also learned how barrels aged in the highest point of the rickhouse lose more product, dubbed the Angel’s share. (Something we learned from the Neatdocumentary I’m sure, but a fun reminder nonetheless.) Our tasting took place upstairs in an old-fashioned (no pun intended) bar. From our tasting, my favorite was the Square Six High Rye bourbon: think cornbread. (We don’t have this rye available back home, so we picked up a bottle.)

Tuesday, we balanced our day between personal family time and meeting up with our friends. Our morning started with an hourlong visit to Purrfect Day cafe so our daughter could play with adoptable kittens. (We weren’t interested in adopting any, just wanted her to enjoy time with animals. She loves all creatures, save for mosquitoes and maybe flies.) I wanted to hit up V-Grits (100% vegan, by the way) for their “Cosmic Bird  faultry” chicken sandwiches. Our lunch visit proved their fries and mac and cheese are amazing; their chicken sandwiches don’t compare—in the slightest—to the high-quality seitan based vegan hot chicken sandwiches from Monroe’s Hot Chicken in Phoenix, AZ, but I have faith the brand will continue to improve their offerings. (Maybe they were just having an off-day, too, because the patty was a bit dense, like it got smushed in the freezer.) If vegan is not your thing, Full Arepa KY—the stall right next to V-Grits, definitely has great options. My husband had the arepa pernil (pork) and loved it. I opted not to try it to avoid needing a lactase tablet, selectively saving my medication for indulgent meals and snacks I didn’t want to miss out on. 

Our Tuesday afternoon was spent with friends visiting Rabbit Hole distillery (their first time, too!) and Old Forester. Now is an important time to mention while the tours all tell the same important details of what separates bourbon from whiskey, each lends a different slant to the storytelling of distilling based on the distiller’s place in history. Similarly, it should not be undercut that they all offer different finished product products. There are more distilleries to explore, but we didn’t want to overbook ourselves this trip and I’m sure my liver likes a break here and there from alcohol consumption. This trip involved more bourbon than I typically enjoy in a week.

Rabbit Hole is the distillery I am most familiar with, I previously tried all four products on their website before the tour: Cavehill, Heigold, Dareringer, and Boxergrail, a rye whiskey, my favorite. They surprised by also throwing their bespoke gin—London dry gin finished in Kentucky rye barrels—on the tasting tour; it reminded me of a lemon cookie. Aside from the gin, I was equally surprised to learn the founder of Rabbit Hole, Kaveh Zamanian, came to the United States from Iran decades ago. If you don’t pay attention, you may miss out on the fine details associated with the American flag on the wall ahead of where you walk to enter the tasting room. The art piece, entitled Executive Order 13769, weaves together flags from the nations where immigrants were banned from certain predominantly Muslim countries entering the United States under Trump’s presidency with the American flag in a way that shows our personal histories are interwoven.   Ahead of the tour I was nosing around Rabbit Hole’s website and was drawn to the fact there was an art collection section. (The bulk of our distillery purchases came from here, including one souvenir t-shirt.)

Ending this trip’s series of distillery tours with Old Forester gave us a chance to learn more about the barrel making process of distilling and I loved seeing the rickhouse 12 barrels high. Our tour guide, Lucy, dressed as Smokey the Bear for our Halloween tour. If I recall correctly, the barrels read 2 digit year followed by a letter to represent the month and end with 2 digits to reference day of the month. She educated us that the letters utilized don’t coincide as expected; you cannot use “J” because January, June, and July would not be distinguished from each other much like March and May cannot be marked by “M.” A fan favorite was also seeing the inside of a whiskey barrel get charred. From this respective tour, I most enjoyed the Old Forester 1910, their product that undergoes two barrelings. I never realized that was a thing, and the bourbon is very easy to drink.  

I found myself easily falling in love with the area and that’s a lot to say on my first trip even though the weather was mostly in the 30’s-40’s, not the best way to encourage others to make a move. The tours are one thing—obviously, no one is going to go on a distillery tour every day. We’d need more things to sustain us in we were to live in the local area and I think the city has enough interesting venues and eateries to explore. Our stay at 21C Museum hotel gave us the chance to see some beautiful artwork; Art Eatables is a smallish place we popped into for our daughter to get bourbon chocolates and then she settled on rock candy instead. I found a few Kim Perry bourbon prints at Art Eatables I liked, but I will order them online instead of trying to keep them safe during the flight home. Wiltshire Pantry Bakery & Cafe makes exceptional kouign amann pastries, only $5 each. I’ve made these laminated pastries before; they are a lot of work to make and the ones we had in Louisville are somewhere between baseball and softball size. They are a great buy for the money. For lunch on Wednesday, we treated ourselves to Agave & Rye Wednesday after our long walk through Cherokee Park (lovely, by the way, and we saw a deer there). I had a glass of Sazerac rye, served neat, paired with the green goddess and Jedi epic tacos. I could have stopped at the green goddess taco, they are filling. The green goddess is filled with brussel sprouts and roasted corn while the Jedi has sweet chili crispy chicken and lo mein noodles. 

We said goodbye to Louisville on Thursday, but we didn’t leave Kentucky right away. We visited Kentucky Down Under. No way we wanted to pass up on petting and feeding kangaroos! As part of our admission price, we also took a tour of Mammoth Onyx cave, which opened to the public in 1922. There are a few tight spots to walk through and some slippy steps, but it didn’t feel claustrophobic as I was expecting for being in a cave. There are handrails in areas that also require more careful stepping. Our tour guide, Chris, was also easy to get along with; he had fun showing us the UV features on driver’s licenses, but the real winners in the group were the family from Denmark. Their passports had the most security features for the tour guide to check out. Our last meal in Kentucky was at Farmwald’s Restaurant & Dutch Bakery, located in Horse Cave, KY next to Kentucky Down Under. I had the ribeye sandwich ($8.99) while my husband ordered the roast beef manhattan ($8.99) and our daughter opted for the mac ‘n cheese ($3.49). We didn’t need dessert by any means by the strawberry cheesecake bar (maybe $5 something) was divided up into roughly 3 cellphone size portions.   

The bullfrog here is named Dumbledore.

As easy as it is for me to ramble about fun, lighthearted things like drinking with friends and playing with animals, I want to touch on one last thing: Louisville is a lot more progressive than I imagined it would be ahead of the visit. Residents aren’t shy about hanging up their pride flags. We also saw Black Lives Matters yard signs and a prominent “SAY HER NAME” mural walking in downtown Louisville. In an area I pegged might be a deeply far right Republican territory, the area felt more like what I imagined Portland, Oregon feels like. From its appearance, it also shares the feeling of Grand Junction, CO; part of San Francisco, CA; and Newport, RI. There are quaint shops, water views, and tree-lined streets that make some neighborhoods so inviting, it’s hard to want to do anything else other than take a long walk with a warm coffee in hand. Every stranger we passed was polite and friendly, some more friendly than what I encounter here in Arizona crossing busy and even less friendly traveled streets. I’ve seen far more ‘Merica type sentiment in Arizona showcased by gun-related and “Vote for Trump” window decals on in my local area compared to the types of vehicles I noticed in Kentucky. In fact, it seems there is more love for the University of Kentucky based on the license plate covers, window clings, and souvenir items I came across than there is for a presidential political candidate for the upcoming election in 2024. On the political front, there were a plethora of yard signs for current Kentucky governor Andy Beshear. I am eager to return to the area knowing what I know now.

During our trip, it was mentioned that bourbon leaves with you a Kentucky hug, that warm feeling that lingers after sipping it. I can say the feeling also encompasses most of my visit here. The cold certainly took some getting used to, especially after it was still in the 80’s in Phoenix, Arizona when we departed for our vacation. The area though is a different story. Political views of all kinds exist here. As a former moderate Republican and what I would describe as currently a very moderate Democrat, I didn’t feel out of place here. There is space to enjoy nature and places to unwind, with or without that Kentucky bourbon hug. I appreciate greenery and the shift in seasons more after living in the desert and being deprived of the beautiful changing of colors in the fall. I like that the area utilizes art to discuss racial injustice, what it means to be seen, and societal history alongside personal narratives shaped through work and personal struggles.

The warm reception we received during our trip, not only through reconnecting with friends but with locals in the area, is a key part to why we have discussed returning to the area. Arizona does not afford us the type of land we want to live on and with a rising cost of housing here, it was encouraging to see what a move to southern Indiana, placing us just north of Louisville might offer. Being so close to Kentucky, we’d be in a good spot to still visit the many more distilleries there are to tour and fall is only one season to enjoy the beautiful landscape of this state. With a return to warmer temperatures in the late spring or early summer, 2025 is our plan to visit again and see what the area holds for our future. For now through, I am in my research season. We didn’t make time to tour any part of Indiana. Our friends (and our waiter at Agave & Rye) provided good info that southern Indiana would have a little more to offer than Louisville and so, we’re taking a bit of a gamble to see if our family could call that area home to live out some homeownership dreams that are financially out-of-reach in Arizona and allow us to escape the unbearable triple digit summers we’ve grown accustomed to since arriving in 2012. This year, with its record setting amount of triple digit days, is an impetus for me to revisit my feelings about cold winters, and after living mostly cooped up during the pandemic years, I am ready to see what a move could afford our family as a new chapter in our lives and a different way to experience living in the United States.

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