Bad News, Cashier-Brain, and Books (Yay! Books!!!)

   Currently, I'm on vacation, or staycation, because we are just staying home in our apartment, with no travel plans, nor any other plans, come to think of it. The only hard and fast plan that I did have was to go see Divergent, and to spend the night at my sister's and watch some scary movies, and I've done both (I loved Divergent!). So I have a line of empty days ahead of me and my daughter, who is on spring break.
   And that's a good thing, because I was seriously suffering from a strong case of cashier-brain. I was seeing PLU numbers (price look-up codes) every time I shut my eyes. I was hearing that blasted beeping even when I had left the stores, and my last two vivid nightmares had both been about work. That's too much; that is a sign. Marie needs a break, clearly written across my psyche.
   Of course, come time for me to take my break, everything starts happening. I have had a shit-storm of bad news that I can't really do anything about, which is one of the worst types of bad news there is. Not being able to do anything kinda makes you feel like a glass of ice water in the North Pole: redundant. All I can do, over and over again, is say how sorry I am and that I'll pray, when I would much rather charge in, fix everything, and have us all live happily ever after. But all I can do is sit here and worry.
   And then on top of that, every nuisance task that can manage to rear it's ugly head comes along, such as having to fill out paperwork and provide documentation that your daughter really is your daughter, so that your insurance won't drop her as a dependent on your coverage. I mean, yeah, that's easy enough to prove, but I didn't exactly want to take time from my worry and fret to mess around with my damn insurance, for a matter that I think is a bunch of bullshit at any damn rate. Even if my daughter wasn't my daughter, I still feel that I should be allowed to cover her on my insurance if I want to. But she is my daughter, so the whole mess is just minor aggravation that I'm just shrugging at.
    But this is my vacation, so I am making effort to do things that I like, so last night, I stayed up and read Night Broken, which is book number eight in the Mercy Thompson series, and which also happens to be my most favorite urban fantasy series ever. I love Patricia Briggs, and yes, I did sit down and read the book from start to finish, secure in the knowledge that I am on vacation and would be able to sleep in. Most times when I sit down and read a book from start to finish, I read with the guilty knowledge that I am going to be a cashier-zombie in the morning.
    My daughter's pretty happy as well, because since we are on vacation, I just feel that she should have new material to read, so she's been coming to me with her Kindle, waiving the thing in my face with books already pulled up on the screen and ready to purchase, begging with her puppy-dog eyes, "Momma, please? Please, Momma?" I'm a sucker for this type of request, so she has scored The Fault With Our Stars, and all three of the books in The Maze Runner trilogy, so far. We are not even halfway through our vacation. She knows that when she asks me for a book, getting a yes is almost guaranteed, unless I truly am broke, and then, I guess I am lucky that she's a good kid, and doesn't give me a hard time about getting a no, because I know that I have spoiled her so far as getting knew books are concerned. I don't feel too badly about this, because I also know that I can be very strict about other things, and I do feel that while we really need to provide rules and boundaries for our kids, a small amount of spoiling never hurt anything, especially when you are talking about books.
   I did think I would write a little more than I have, but honestly, right now I am at a bit of a loss for topics. My mind keeps circling around that bad news that I have received -- my damn mind is like a freaking vulture and it's pissing me off, but what can you do when you get pissed at your own mind? And these topics are topics that I don't really feel at leisure to discuss, because frankly, they aren't my business to discuss, and if there is one thing I want to avoid, being the writer who writes about everyone else's business is one of them. I do NOT want people - friends and family - to feel like they can't talk to me about private things because they are worried they will show up in my blog. But at the moment, this does leave me without a topic, and thus you all get treated to this wandering ramble.  Happy staycation to me, and if nothing else, may I be cured from the cursed cashier-brain. 

Ocean Shores = Awesome

My daughter and myself at Ocean Shores. We did wade a lot.

   I was kinda wracking my brain for a prewritten post to schedule while I was one vacation. I want to keep content flowing while I am gone, but I also have to keep content flowing right now, so that is a lot of writing. But then I thought, well, last post I talked about Disney, so why not continue with a vacations past theme? I am not so sure that anyone wants to hear about all my vacations, but I love to go on vacation, so I am going to go for it. I plan for my vacations all year, because I need time to save money and request time off and all that good stuff. Sometimes, however, I cannot be so spend-y as to go to places like Yellowstone and Disney. I have to be mindful of budget at all times. Who doesn't? No one I know of; we are all being mindful of money right now.
   But there are often many places that you can go to that are nearby to you, and as such, aren't as costly. I have two nearby places that I love to go to: Ocean Shores and Mount Rainier. I love these places. They are great places to go and relax and they are obviously very different. Washington is great like that; there are many diverse places to go, we have mountains, oceans, and even a temperate rain forest! (It's near Forks, haha! You can see the home of the Sparkle Fairies while you are there.) I haven't been to the rain forest yet, but I have tentative plans to go, in the far, far future. (Not that far!)
    The last vacation I went on a vacation, I went to Ocean Shores. I went with my mom and my daughter; my sister couldn't come. She didn't have vacation time, so we want to go again when she can come. My sister is zany, and we miss the zany loudness that is signature to her personality. But my mom and I had a great time.
    Pretty much, we got to our hotel at Ocean Shores, and we parked, and we didn't leave. I love the beach, but if you are used to the beaches at Florida, or along the Southern areas, where I originally come from, then you do need to understand that Northern beaches do seem to be different, from my experience. The water is not the same color and the sand is different, and there are more rocks and plant-life and not so much vast sandy shores of white or yellow sand. Plus, the water is cold. REALLY FREAKING COLD.
    Nevertheless, the beach is beautiful, and Ocean Shores is really awesome, so I am not saying all this to downplay the beach here. I am just saying different: not saying yuck. The beach here is so awesome, and the birds that you can see are amazing. We saw so many ocean birds! A lot of pelicans and seagulls and little birds that I don't know the name for and they were all eating crab. We would go walk the beach every single morning as the tide went in, and these huge crabs would get caught in the tide pools. Then the birds would come get the crabs and smash them on rocks or hard ground, and they would feast. All the birds were really fat, and I was really jealous. I love crab. With all that crab-eating going on around me, I ended up ordering crab dishes for most of my meals. Soooo good.

I thought the pelicans were so neat to watch.

    I didn't want to go in the water at first. You don't see a whole lot of people getting in the water at Ocean Shores. The water is cold, and it's also rough. But my daughter really wanted to, so we let her. Then the next thing I know, my mom was in the damn water. I was like, "MOM!" I wasn't expecting her to get in. But that is my mom for you; never think that you can predict what she is going to do. She went out pretty far too, which worried me, because my daughter went with her, and I have made my helicopter mom disease no secret. I was nervous; they laughed at me. My mom is a bad influence, but you can't exactly scold your mother, so sometimes I just find myself suffering. I do not suffer in silence, however. Then she retaliates by bringing up all the crazy and wild stuff that I did, and then I like to bring up the fact that she grounded me when I did that stuff, and in fact, she still sometimes threatens to ground both me and my sister, even though we are adults.
   But this was a very relaxing vacation. My mom has the corner on stressful jobs; she is an oncology nurse, so she really needs the destressing time, but I can use this time as well. Getting away from the daily routine and away from all the stress is really something that we all need to do every once in a while.

This is a really beautiful and relaxing beach.

Here is the link (in blue) to the City of Ocean Shores, if you might be interested in planning your own trip or just looking at info. 

Vacation! For Two Weeks :)

    I am writing this blog post in advance so that my blog can still have a little new content while I am on vacation. At the time that I actually publish this, I will be on my way to Yellowstone!!! So excited. I am going with my mom, my sister, her two kids, and my daughter and we are all going to pile into my sister's minivan and go! We are all very excited. But I didn't want my blog to be completely inactive while I was on vacation, and you can schedule posts to publish, so I thought, why not write a few!
   Of course, you might be wondering why  I don't just take my laptop and publish while I am on vacation. Don't worry -- I will write up some good Yellowstone vacation posts when I come back, but to be brutally honest, my laptop is no longer portable. My family understands that I am a tightwad for certain expenses, so they don't say much when they look at my ancient laptop held together with tape. But what would the public think? Plus, I don't think the tape would hold together for travel. My laptop is stationary at home because when you move my laptop, you can hear the hinges creaking and cracking. I am so going to have to get a new one soon, but I am waiting until after vacation. If I bought one now, that would eat heavily into my vacation money, and I just won't do that. I have been saving for this vacation for a year. I had to scrimp and scrimp and pinch pennies left and right, and I am not wasting that money on a laptop!

Teacups spin, and I get sick, so my sis took the kiddos on this one.

    We will be gone for two weeks, so I am going to write up some posts in advance to publish, so you'll have something to read from me if you want. And then when I come back, I will try to have some good pictures and topics about our family vacation to amuse you with.
   The last vacation that we did as an entire family was to Disneyland, and that was a blast. That vacation was mine and my daughter's second visit, but my sister's and her kids first visit, and we had a great time. The best time we had was on the It's A Small World ride. Now, I know that some people think that this is a dull ride, but I like this ride. And I am curious about whether or not you could actually tip that boat that we ride in. So my sister and I spent several trips trying to do that, and on the last, final good-bye trip, we shared a boat with a dad and his teenage son! They participated in our attempt to tip over the small world boat. We did not succeed, but the attempt was so much fun. I hope that they had as much fun as we did. They were laughing with us, so I think so. Probably this was not the safest activity (duh, no probably to this, it wasn't safe, dumbass. Don't do this!.)
    Anyway, we didn't act like this the entire time. And we never acted like this when there was someone who really didn't appreciate our attempts. We are not the types to spoil someone else's fun. My sister's kids have the same twisted, warped personalities that seem to be genetic in our family, but we usually sat in a boat alone, and the in this case, the other family was willing! Plus, the boats are really well connected, so I was about 90% sure that we would not tip it. And I was right.
     Regardless of wild shenanigans, I will return in two weeks. So if you ask a question, and I don't answer you, hopefully you know that this is because I am on vacation. I will line up a few blog posts for scheduled posting while I am gone, but I won't be responding to questions/comments until I get back. And then I will regale you with my wild pet-the-bear Yellowstone stories. (Joking, joking.)

Disney is freaking awesome; I don't care how jaded and cranky you are. 

   Plan your own trip to Disneyland :)