The lighter side of life – staying in touch with friends and family by celebrating the ordinary.
A quick summary for new readers
Cast of Characters: I’m Kristina and I’m married to John, who is a scientist.
Laura is my grown daughter who lives with her partner, Alex, and their dog, Zane, and cat, Caden, in Santa Clara, California. Laura is a data and analytics consultant, and Alex is a programmer working for Facebook.
My second grown child now goes by the name “Callan” (used to be Darren), and the nickname “Serenity”. Callan is non-binary and uses the pronouns they/them. Callan is on the autism spectrum, lives in Boise, and is a water quality engineer. Callan lives with their girlfriend, Guen (her name used to be Chirstina), who is a home healthcare provider and is also on the autism spectrum.
My three siblings are: Mark, a programmer in San Diego; Steven, a university professor in Ann Arbor; and Emily, an emergency room physician in Boston. All three of my siblings are married and have children at home.
In John’s family, we have his mom, Monica, who lives on the western edge of Houston near John’s sister, Carol and her family. Here in Tucson we have John’s brother and sister-in-law, Dan and Dawn and their three kids, Benno, Holden and Alisa. Alisa uses they/them pronouns. They live in Minnesota in the summer and Tucson in the winter.
Our Location: After spending 2 1/2 years of living in Albuquerque part-time and Tucson part-time, John and I moved full time to Tucson, spring of 2023.
My Career: I’m mostly retired now, but still doing some life coaching, working with professionals on the autism spectrum. I’ve been an autism coach since 2001, although I also used to work as an environmental manager. Life coaching gives me a sense of usefulness and contribution. My clients mean so much to me. My coaching website is here.
Highlights of 2024:
Hard to choose just one thing, but I’m grateful for all the trips to see friends and family this year. And grateful for my new friends in Tucson, and lots of music concerts!
Highlights of 2023: It’s still early yet, but it looks like this year’s theme will be…relocation to Tucson!
Highlights of 2022: The theme of 2022 is…what’s up ahead? 2022 brought continued improved health, lots of traveling between Albuquerque and Tucson, a great trip to Utah, a summer trip to Seattle, and a remodel project in Tucson.
Highlights of 2021: The theme of 2021 is…onward! It hasn’t been easy, but let’s keep going. John and I went on a big camper van road trip to Florida in February, towing our small sailboat. The story of that trip is here, starting with this post. We left the boat in storage in Florida and hope to make it back out there soon (we didn’t). We also had a second fun van trip in the summer.
Overall we’ve been having a mostly excellent 2021, enjoying Tucson and our frequent camper van adventures. The Boise Roommate Saga in the fall of 2021 was a challenge, but…onward!
The Legacy of 2020: I was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in January of 2020, had surgery in February in Boston, chemo during April-June 2020 in Albuquerque. I was very sick, but my family took care of me. Emily took me in during surgery, and her young daughters kept my hope alive. Callan came and stayed with us for part of that spring and summer, also offering comfort and emotional support. And John took complete care of me every single day and handled everything during that difficult time. The cancer scare really made me think about the importance of living life to the fullest while I can. In addition to buying a house in Tucson, we are also doing as much traveling as possible, given my health and a pandemic.
Ironically, I took this photo 5 days before my cancer diagnosis, while on a vacation trip to Tucson with John and Callan for Callan’s 30th birthday:
Here I am in February, 2020, resting with Emily’s daughter, Phoebe:
Here John works to convert Emily’s basement into a home for us:
We intended to stay with Emily’s family in Boston for my entire cancer treatment, but the pandemic (and the fact that Emily is an emergency room physician and heavily exposed to covid) forced us to reconsider. I was very sick and in no shape to fly home, so John flew to get our camper van, drove it all the way out to Boston to get me, and then drove me all the way home to Albuquerque in early March of 2020.
Pre-2020: I actually started this blog all the way back in spring of 2017. I’ll have to go back someday and pull some highlights from those innocent, pre-cancer, pre-pandemic years 🙂
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