daily life

Flunking the Holidays

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

So, here’s how Thanksgiving actually went down: shortly after I published my somewhat pathetic blog post about our (virtually nonexistent) plans for Thanksgiving, we received an invitation to Thanksgiving at the home of our friends, the Larsons. They are also the first people who invited us over for dinner when we moved to Florida almost three years ago, and the family who invited me over when I went to Church alone while Tony and the children were in California last year (and the year before). So, good people. And good cooks too.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, and followed by an impressive selection of pies, AND a gorgeous Brazilian flan contributed by another guest.… Read more

Thanksgiving in Florida, 2014

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We’re kind of foodies at our house, so Thanksgiving is generally a gala affair. (See Last Year’s Menu and the Even More Dramatic Year Before) However, I’ve noticed that since I started working full time, I have less and less of a desire to spend my entire day off cooking when it’s a holiday. Go figure. Tony has even less of a desire to cook a big Thanksgiving, possibly due to the fact that nearly all of the everyday cooking at our house currently falls to him.

So this year we’ve decided to pare down Thanksgiving a bit. No, make that a lot.… Read more

My Favorite Walks Around the World

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I found this post mostly completed in my drafts folder, and thought I’d share, since it’s been awhile since I did a nostalgia post. One of the beautiful things about moving often is that you experience the “little things” of life in so many different ways. Like the smell of the plants outside your window. Or the way different fruits taste when they’re in season. Or the cadence of stray overheard phrases in different languages.

Among the constant yet changeable things in my life is the evening walk that Tony and I have taken ever since we got married. Besides being a great time to reconnect as a couple, talk about what’s on our minds, and get some fresh air, our walk also helps to explore whatever neighborhood is ours at the moment.… Read more

Silence in the Library

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

As per our usual Saturday routine, I took the children to the library this morning. Upon walking in the door, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a book sale going on in the Book Nest, our library’s resident book store. It was one of those $3 per bag sales that I absolutely love, because I don’t have to weigh the relative merits of each book–I simply have to concentrate on stuffing as many books as possible into my allotted grocery bag. I’ve become quite an expert at this. Here’s my haul for today:

20140809_110538

I always hit the classics shelf first.… Read more

Getting Stuck with Needles for Fun

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

acupuncture

Over the past couple of years, I’ve done acupuncture several times for anxiety and insomnia. It’s extraordinarily effective. But we always seem to move after a couple of treatments. Not strange; we move a lot. But acupuncture is most effective when you have several treatments close together to deal with the acute problem, and then taper off slowly to ensure long-term effectiveness. So this has become yet another plus side to living somewhere for more than a few consecutive months.

For my latest foray into acupuncture, I looked up providers covered by my insurance. There were two within 100 miles of my house.… Read more

Endings and Beginnings

Endings and Beginnings

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

coexist

What do you think about the new theme? Since my blog is my home on the web, I like to rearrange the furniture once in a while. I hope you enjoy the clearer text, cleaner layout, and larger header photos. I only have a few up so far, but I’ll be adding more headers into the rotation–at least one for every place we’ve ever lived, and maybe one for every place we’ve ever visited.

In other news, the weather is hot, the kids are enjoying going to the pool several times a week, and we’ve decided to take an indefinite leave of absence from the Mormon church.… Read more

The Lonely Weeks

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Tennant

Tony and the Bobbles have been in California for three weeks. I could have been blogging all this time, I suppose, but it would probably have been three weeks worth of this, so it’s probably better that I didn’t. How’s it been going? Yeah. Not really that well.

I love my children, and have had momentary stabs of missing them, but I’ve been perfectly fine chatting with them a few times and getting regular reports that they are happy and greatly enjoying their stay. If it makes me a bad mother that I don’t miss them too terribly much, then I am a bad mother.… Read more

We Got Our Christmas Letter Out Before Christmas This Year!

Sarah Bringhurst Familia
Barely.

Special Note: I know that a lot of you are also on our mailing list (I mean email, of course; you didn’t think we were organized enough to actually mail something out, did you?). I apologize for the duplication and will eventually be able to bring myself to forgive you if our letter is not interesting enough to read twice. For those who are not on our email list of people who like us and would like to be (if such exist), it is not because we don’t love you. Give me your email, and I will add you.

Dear Friends, Family and other Special People,

It’s been one of those years where nothing happens.
… Read more

Home Alone

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Yes, I’ve been home alone, childless and husbandless for exactly two weeks now. During our almost ten-year marriage, Tony and I have been apart for a couple of days on a handful of occasions. But this is the first time we’ve tried it for an extended period of time. I really wasn’t sure what to expect, especially since this is the first time I’d be the one without the children.

I kind of thought it might be fun to try out, since I have never lived alone before in my entire life. Literally. I lived at home, and then I went to college and had roommates, and then I went on a study abroad to Syria and had more roommates (and we had a safety rule that we could never go out alone), and then I went on a mission and had a companion (and even more stringent rules that we always had to be together).… Read more

My New Job – One Week In

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I’ve successfully completed one whole week of work at my new job, and here’s the verdict: this is a pretty cool job. As the new Marketing Coordinator, I am in charge of a marketing department that before I arrived really did not exist, and is now made up exclusively of me. So the job training on the ground has been pretty thin; i.e. nonexistent. At first, that was a little disconcerting, but once I got used to it, I started really enjoying it. After all, my preferred method of learning how to do something is to figure it out as I go along.… Read more