I Run Like A Girl

Hello, hello! I’m excited to catch up with you all. 🙂 Last week, I shared one of my first vlogs here – it was so much fun to make, and I already have some ideas for upcoming videos. In the meantime, I’m excited to get back to writing as this outlet has always been my comfort zone.

September has been a real blur. After coming back from Mexico three weeks ago, Joe and I immediately got COVID! It was both of our first experiences with COVID (3 years after the start of the pandemic)… don’t worry because we 100% recovered, but I have to say, between the quarantine and the fatigue/brain fog that lingered for 2 weeks, COVID made this month feel like one loooong dream that I just woke up from.

Our two weeks in quarantine were filled with lots of pandemic-era activities and movie nights (seriously, how did we do this for 2 years?). My favorite movie we watched was Theater Camp. Oh my god you guys, this movie was SO GOOD. It’s an Indie mockumentary about a children’s theater summer camp in upstate New York. I was nonstop laughing the entire movie. I loved it so much, I watched it two nights in a row.

I’m beyond grateful we both recovered nicely and can resume normal life. COVID made me feel grateful for small things like leaving the apartment to take a walk again; I was even grateful to go to the office last week!

Now that we feel like ourselves again, we had our first “normal” weekend of the month filled with outdoors time and a day-trip for some RV stuff.

Friday: dahlia garden + dinner date

Friday started with a little celebration. I tested negative last week, but it took Joe an extra week to receive a negative test. Once we saw that, we both sighed a breath of relief and decided to celebrate with a dinner date.

We first took a walk to the dahlia garden at Golden Gate Park. I’ve been visiting these dahlias almost every week throughout the summer, and it was lovely to finally see them in full bloom. I love this garden as it’s a beautiful pop of color with all the varieties of dahlias.

For dinner, we went to our favorite spot on Haight Street, Parada 22. They have the BEST Puerto Rican food, a cuisine I didn’t realize I liked until I came here. We always share the chicken mofongo entree which is just enough food for both of us. This was our first time eating out since we fell sick, so this was a real treat.

Saturday: day trip for RV errands + suburb fun + RV reflection

Saturday started off with my usual morning routine: meditating, reading, and working out. I did a strength workout on Sydney Cumming’s Youtube channel focusing on upper body and core.

In the late-morning, Joe and I set out for our day’s adventure. Our RV has been in the repair shop for months, and it was finally time to pick it up and transfer it to our RV storage spot in Vacaville, CA. Since we were going all the way to Vacaville (1.5 hours from SF), we decided to make a whole day out of it and do suburban things we can’t do in the city. 🙂

First up – lunch at McDonald’s. There are virtually no fast food options in San Francisco, so we wanted to take advantage of the fast food outside the city.

We walked off our big lunch with a hike at Rockville Hills Regional Park. We hadn’t visited this park before because it’s juuust over our driving tolerance for a casual weekend hike, but we figured we’d check it out since we were already driving today. The park had a large network of trails – it was very dry and dusty as we’re right in the middle of wildfire season in Northern California. I really enjoyed the warmer temps and open space, which was what I was looking for.

Our hike brought us to a lake which looked more like a pond given the dry weather.

There was plenty of wildlife on the trail; the pond had SO many baby toads. Joe and I caught a few – it felt like we were kids again. 🙂

After the hike, we killed time at Starbucks and Target, and then we made it to Camping World to pick up the RV. During our cross-country move from Texas to California earlier this year, our slide-out broke for the umpteenth time. It’s pretty surprising how often we had repairs done on the RV – we visited Camping Worlds all across the country and have certainly gotten our warranty’s worth! Nevertheless, the Camping World in Vacaville always does a nice job, and we were grateful to finally get this fixed.

We also moved out the last of our belongings as we are getting ready to sell the RV. It was bittersweet seeing everything cleared out. The stress from the repairs made me bitter about the RV for a while, but seeing it over the weekend gave me a flood of good emotions and memories. It all came full circle, and I felt a sense of closure. I’m truly glad we had this experience, and I’ll always love our first home together. ❤

By the time we got home, we were pooped. The whole day was so much fun – who knew McDonalds and Target would feel so refreshing after being cooped up in an apartment for weeks. 😉

Sunday: all the weekend favorites

Sunday morning was a slow one. I skipped working out and spent most of the morning doing laptop errands.

For the day’s activity, Joe and I wanted nothing more than to do our favorite weekend itinerary: lunch in the Sunset and a walk in Golden Gate Park. Between Mexico and COVID, we hadn’t done this in weeks.

First up: lunch at Yummy Yummy, one of our favorite restaurants in the Sunset serving Vietnamese food. The staff greeted us with huge smiles and we ordered our favorite dishes.

After lunch, we bought some donuts from Donut World (another fave) and walked into Golden Gate Park. During our walk, we passed by a free Japanese Flower Design show in the county fair building. The show was filled with beautifully currated designs by flower artists. Super interesting and right up our alley.

Then, we took a walk through the Botanical Garden. Joe was eager to see the fall flowers, especially in the California Native Section. One thing that stood out was all the bulbs – the entire garden was filled with bulbs in peak bloom. It was an impressive sight as bulbs tend to take more planning than other plants.

The rest of the day was a lazy one – I took a massive nap since I’m a terrible sleeper and I collected sleep debt all week. Then, I took a long walk on the track near our apartment, and Joe made a wonderful dinner for the both of us. The entire weekend was just what I needed. I’m excited to be back in action!