Mattox Live

I’ve seen so many cartoons and memes lately about how January seems to last forever. Apparently there’s some scientific reason that has to do with dopamine in your brain. I don’t know. Feel free to Google that sometime.

Here is my tip for how to avoid the infinite-January-itis: try to do all the things in a short period of time. It worked for me this last month, atleast!

First off, Christmas was amazing in Texas. My husband and I got into my hometown on Christmas Eve, and we were able to stay a few days after before heading back to Nashville. Precious time spent with family, enjoying my favorite holiday. I am forever thankful for far more than gifts at Christmas — I’m thankful for the memories, moments and tradition. The love that fills the rooms of my parent’s house… its absolutely priceless.

We opted to stay home for New Years Eve — something we have never done before. Frankly, it was lovely. A nice juxtaposition to the craziness of 2018, and a slow start into 2019 — which will probably be just as crazy as the year before.

We handled a lot of “housekeeping” for a few days at the start of the month, and then we headed to Oregon to see my husband’s family.

The goal of this trip: enjoy every second and travel as cheaply as possible.

For the cheap side: We worked every discount we could get. Traveled entirely on Rapid Reward Points for our flights. Stayed with family, and allowed ourselves only two “splurge nights.”

As for enjoying every second, we did not kill ourselves to please everyone. This was one trip we didn’t even try to see everyone we would have loved to have seen. We are so lucky to have amazing friends and family in the PNW, and we could probably spend a month up there just trying to spend time with everyone we want to see. Our trip this time we very truncated, so we kept it as simple as possible. Which was so refreshing. No expectations. No demands. Just time spent with people we love.

As a result, I think we both left feeling very relaxed, but also wanting more. I personally always feel like when I leave a trip, especially one visiting family, wishing for more time… I’ve without a doubt had a perfect trip. I left Oregon with a tear in my eye, really wishing we could stay longer.

We got back to Nashville and two days later my husband left out on tour again. And a day later, I had our cat in to the vet. He had me so scared I was about to have to say good-bye to him only a month after saying good-bye to our other cat. But instead he just had a bad upper respiratory infection and was running a high fever. It took over a week, a couple trips to the vet, and me learning how to give a cat medicine daily to get him well again.

Ironically, this cat and I haven’t exactly always gotten along, But by the time he was feeling better, he and I had become BFFs. So much so that I got him a pet sitter for when my husband and I can’t be home. Yes. I now have a pet sitter. Never thought that would happen, but I LOVE that fact.

Now as we end January, I’m facing my “tax season shuffle” as I like to call it, going between Texas and Nashville every few weeks to work with my parents in the family business. My husband is on a major tour, and we’re juggling the logistics of that. So while other people are like, “Gosh, could January end already?” For me I’m like, “Where did January go!?”

But in all sincerity, I loved January. I had its stresses, of course, but it also afforded me the ability to say we saw both sides of our family in less than a month. It let me spend time a lot of time with my husband. And it gave me the opportunity to have my hard reset of staring out into the ocean for awhile. All in all… it was a whirlwind. But it was also pretty incredible.

“Time is the longest distance between two places.”
― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie