Grow Dammit.

Dec 09, 2023

Happy Saturday friends!

By the time you read this I will be happily and safely in Pittsburgh at my brother’s house but right now I’m writing this on Tuesday morning and I’m in a tizzy.

5:30am: My alarm went off and I was immediately wide awake and all tabs in my Brain Browser were running at 100%. Ugh. It was time for making lists.

Travel has always been a difficult thing for me. Airports are the worst, sensory overload. When we moved from North Carolina to Colorado in 2003, I had to travel by plane much more often and I finally figured out some important things for my (at that point unknown) neurodivergent brain, like: comfort is king and elastic waist bands and slip on shoes make security so much easier; bring your own food; noise cancelling over ear headphones; lord the list of how I make it ok for me to travel is extensive. And I didn't even touch on what I do so I don't get motion sick! 🙄 Haaaa! I'm kinda high maintenance but at least I maintain myself lol. Needless to say, flying isn't my favorite.

But! Now that we are on the east coast again, I don’t mind driving to Pittsburgh, it’s just 8 hours, 9 if I'm driving a Tesla and having to factor in charging stops. I like to drive, I like talking on the phone, listening to audio books and podcasts so I’m happy as a clam.

But this time…I’m driving my Tesla by myself to Pittsburgh. I’ve been driving gas cars forever of course and have never had issues. The one time I drove Brad’s Tesla on a trip, I had ManChild with me and the car, unbeknownst to us until too late, navigated us 5 hours out of our way. An 8 hour trip became 13 hours. Gawd.

So I was wide awake and feeling kind of panicky, not really knowing why.

The unknown is why.

The new is why.

The unknown and new and by myself is why. So over the next few days I will endeavor to treat myself like a toddler, “This is going to be fun! An adventure!” And also: I will have some feelings about it and that’s okay too.

Brene Brown calls this an FFT, an Effing First Time and I wrote about it here.

At least I’ve done this trip multiple times, yay!

And I know that Tesla maps can be weird sometimes so I know to print off directions too, yay!

Driving a Giant iPad Car…not new.

Driving the Giant iPad Car by myself on a long trip…FFT.

Driving the Giant iPad Car in colder weather, where the battery (which normally has about 330 miles on a charge) won’t have as many miles available compared to summer weather…FFT.

There are a lot of “what ifs” in my brain and I have a lot of tabs open, trying to come up with a solution to each scenario. It’s wearing me out.

I’m trying to remind myself, there are just as many issues that could happen in a gas car! I’m just used to gas cars and have learned how to push the “what ifs” into a box in my brain and put it on a very high shelf.

All of this makes me think…Did you ever read the Clan of the Cave Bear series? The second book was called the Valley of the Horses and in it, she becomes friends with a horse and eventually rides the horse, talk about an FFT.

Humans are amazing. To go from horses to cars? And always the skepticism that it will never work and people are stupid for trying. And yet, what huge leaps we are capable of!

Things change and that’s ok. FFTs are ok. I’ll be ok. I will do what I can to prepare for what I can and then I just have to put as much as I can in that driving-a-car-is-completely-safe box, stuff it high up on the brain shelf, and leave Thursday morning. Other feelings that didn't fit in the brain box? Well, I will have 9 hours to work through them. 🤪

I bought this for Mom's garden a long time ago and now it's in mine and when I saw it yesterday with the shadow like this, I thought: How apropos.

And if you still think electric cars are weird, check this out! How amazing will this be?!

REMEMBER!:

For the rest of the year I'm changing my pricing to a flat fee of $70 for everything I offer!

Want an hour of coaching? An hour of Reiki? An hour of neurofeedback? A gift certificate? Let's do it!

You can read more about that here!

THE RANCH:

Wynter's winter mustache is growing back!

Everyone wanted to get in on the game of fuzzy muzzle pics!

Jaffee:

Raynie's speckled muzzle 🥰:

Raynie hoping to get a treat:

Little Man Sweetness:

Wynter again:

Doesn't he have beautiful eyelashes?:

B-Rad and I were in my car in the garage, talking about the trip when I Love Lucy decided to join us:

The last time I went to Pittsburgh, I took her. She was great in the car. Not so happy living somewhere else for a few days. The first day, as I was unpacking my car, I found her in my suitcase, looking so woebegone:

She spent the rest of the trip holed up in a bathroom. She will be much happier at home! But I will start taking her on trips around town again, she loves that.

MEMORIES:

This was when I had Rayn boarded at a local facility in Longmont, CO. Wynter wasn't yet mine but he would often come hang out with me when I was out with the herd. I caught these two fighting over a fence!