How to Care but NOT Stress (I'm still learning) - and re: hurricanes in FL

Between hurricanes and elections, life is a lot right now. I like to balance it all by mixing travel AND awkward/difficult conversations. What about you?

I look forward to the day that I sit down to write my newsletter and have NOTHING eventful to share, but today is not the day. It’s October so we’ve got one more month of hurricane season, we’ve got Halloween coming up, and then next month is double birthday month AND the election. All of these things are heavy for their own reasons, so I’m sharing how I am managing my stress with some of this today. Before that though, I wanted to share my excitement about a few things I’ve been working on.

First up, there were AMAZING Northern Lights displays all across North America this week, including all the way down here in Florida. I’ve been building out my new Alaska website and decided to publish my post about how to get good photos of the Northern Lights, just in case anybody needed some tips.

Next up, I have an Instagram and TikTok for my St Augustine site and this week my videos and info have been doing great. That’s very exciting for me, as I struggle to enjoy making videos, for work or for fun, and it’s encouraging when I see them do well. I shared videos relating to Hurricane Milton impacts and people were really into them.

Final thing that I’m excited about, I’m going through my Alaska photos from last month and I’m just so thrilled about some of the wildlife shots I got. In particular I had a day in Denali National Park where I was photographing hawk owls and some of my photos are incredible. Between Denali and Kenai Fjords this summer, it’s been an incredible season of Alaskan wildlife. Wildlife photography absolutely fills me with joy .

Hawk owl taking flight in Denali National Park. I was able to find several and LOVED photographing them.

Managing Election Stress

I think we are all thinking about what it could mean for our lives and communities if the presidential election brings back the convicted felon into office. For some reason the very notion of being a felon and overall scumbag who’s not even endorsed by 40 of his 44 cabinet members, any of his former chiefs of staff, or even his own VP. How are we in this spot that it feel like it’s actually possible for him to return to power? Scary and unimaginable, yet here we are.

“So, how do we deal with the stress of the situation WITHOUT DISASSOCIATING?” I’m so glad you asked. I’ve talked about simple actions we all can take to help others vote and be advocates for those at risk (women, immigrants, marginalized people, LGBTQ folks…) and we need to keep that up. We need to peacefully and patiently share the values and good we want to see in the future. We need to respectfully but FIRMLY restate why it’s important to vote with our kids’ and aging parents’ futures in mind.

I know this can be uncomfortable in the moment, but would you rather spend 30 seconds being true to yourself and those you care about or slink into silence while you watch those you love lose their rights, health care, privacy and hope? I know my answer, and knowing that I actively engage with the people I meet in both real life AND online, I know that I’m doing my part and that in itself lowers my stress level about it. When I know that I’m doing all I can to positively influence the people I meet, that helps me stress less about the outcome of the upcoming election. And then when I think about the people I know who are also doing this, I feel like collectively we have a lot of potential to make a difference.

Denali National Park with the first dusting of snow and fall colors on the tundra. This is only here to add some beauty while talking about the doom of politics.

Election Time Tips

Firstly, if you’re talking with somebody who for some reason thinks it’s okay to be a felon, to sexually assault women, to bankrupt business or to run an organization that scams people, it may not be worth investing your energy in. All of those things are really bad and if somebody’s moral ground isn’t shaking after having that knowledge, I don’t know what to say, so save yourself the stress and invest your time and energy with those who understand what it means to be NOT a criminal both on paper and in real life. Anyways…

Y’all need to not look at the weird polls the media puts out. Half of them are meant to influence people to think that things are dire and the other half are meant to bolster confidence that YOUR vote won’t make a difference (good or bad). This is simply not true. Ignore the polls you see and vote like yours and those you love’s rights and futures are on the ballot.

When somebody says to you “She’s not qualified for the job” remember that VP Harris is the most qualified person to have run for president, having held MAJOR rolls in all three branches of government.

When somebody says “That border crisis is still a problem” or anything else relating to immigrants, remind them that immigration happens because people are in despair trying to make a better life and that it’s not just because it sounded fun to flee one’s homeland. And then if the conversation turns to immigrants putting a strain on social services, remind them that the people who come to this country and require support to take care of their families are humans too and they are CONTRIBUTING members of society, even if they haven’t secured citizenship or even if they’re not here 100% above the boards yet.

Whenever somebody talks about the economy, remember that the economy today and jobs today are the best they’ve been in 50 years. And if somebody say’s they’re paying for “socialism” at the pump, remind them that helping humans is more important than gas prices (not that gas prices are actually controlled by the office of the Prez).

There are many things you can share with others and remind others of how politics impact other peoples’ worlds and daily lives even when they don’t realize it. Hold your own peace and joy, but allow yourself to have simple albeit awkward conversations.

Our happy, normal family that exists because of progress and not oppression, hope not hate. And the kids learned how to make French toast (unrelated).

Hurricanes Hitting Florida

Welp, Hurricane Milton swept across Florida and did a lot of damage. We were VERY fortunate over here in St Augustine and really didn’t get the worst of it, by any means. It was intense though. There was a moment where I woke up at 12:30 am or so and the house was absolutely shaking from the wind. It was loud and I could feel our home flex with the gusts. We made it through just fine though.

We had a fair amount of rain, tons of wind and an infinite amount of crap blown into our pool. The garden got thrashed hard and it’ll be a few months for recovery. Ultimately, it was more stress and anxiety than actual damage. I’m very thankful, but also I do not regret us preparing for a big weather event. We did our hurricane shutters, sandbags and had our supplies well prepped. We hunkered down (we knew we weren’t getting a direct hit) and rode it out. Hopefully the season will end early and we won’t have any more big storms on the horizon.

WITH THAT: we very much appreciate all the messages and notes checking in on us BUT when life is stressful and tense due to a natural disaster, the check-in questions are not helpful and actually add to the stress. No, I don’t have to respond to every single message I get or question about current wind speeds and amount of rain, but I feel guilty if I don’t (cuz that’s how social media has sculpted my mind, ugh). As a tip to minimize little stresses and such for people IN the storm, let them do their thing and they’ll share as they’re able or ready. If you’re concerned because YOU are stressing on their behalf, let that go and let them keep you in the loop as things happen. Unless you are ready and able to remove somebody from an impending situation, hold your questions until those affected are sharing what’s up with them.

This is me putting up our hurricane shutters. You have to do it before the wind starts or you’ll be fighting with dangerous metal edges.

Travel in 2025 - What are you thinking about?

Yes, next year’s travel plans are my dead horse. I will continue to work on getting people to plan in advance instead of a few weeks out. I know it can be fun to just decide that you’re going on an adventure, but it really does limit you. The longer you wait to plan a trip the higher the costs can be and the less availability there may be for your ideal vacation. For example, you want to go camping in Florida in a month. NOPE. You needed a campground reservation 6-9 months ago to camp almost anywhere here in FL.

Another example is ANYTHING in Alaska. When we did our Alaska road trip earlier this year, I only could plan it two months out and was VERY limited in what I could secure for us for lodging and we couldn’t even book our Denali National Park Tundra Wilderness Tour. When we went to NYC in January we didn’t plan far enough out and couldn’t get show tickets for the shows/nights we wanted (but still had a great time).

So, thinking about that and considering any level of budget, it’s worth doing a little planning at least 4 months out. That’s my favorite travel planning window. So, we’re less than 4 months from 2025, what are you going to do?

Here are six fun, adventurous road trips you can plan NOW and adjust as your travel dates get closer:

• Florida Keys road trip

• Glacier National Park (easy to add Waterton AB)

• California road trip loop (National Parks)

• Maine summer road trip w/ Acadia NP

• Washington DC and Virginia education trip

• Arizona road trip for Spring Break

There you have an easy spot to start your planning. Pick a trip and feel free to ask questions if you need some advice that’s not included in the road trip plans. I think planning travel is a blast, so am here to help. :)

I know not everyone is into road trips, but they will forever be my jam and my number pick for vacations.

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I hope you all have a great week, enjoy the fall fun (I miss pumpkin patches), and THANK YOU for staying in the loop with us. I appreciate it, from those who’ve been along for the ride for the last decade to those who subscribed for the first time today.

Take care and safe travels!