Empty Nest Life

Desert Trip: An Epic Music Festival for All Generations

Desert Trip

Desert Trip

“Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, tomorrow I’ll miss you.” Paul McCartney

It has been a challenge for me to collect all of my thoughts and emotions that get tangled together over our incredible experience at Desert Trip. Nostalgic emotions emerged that bring back memories of high school, no responsibilities and the joys of being a teenager, sprinkled with rock and roll.

Desert Trip

Since our kids were little Craig would say, “Who is the greatest band in the world?” The correct answer was always: “The Rolling Stones”. Music and concerts have always been a huge part of our lives, so when we learned the news that Desert Trip was created and coming soon, we knew that the experience of seeing these iconic classic rock bands from our youth was something we needed to share with our grown children.

Read more

Where to go this Fall ~ 7 Great Destinations to Enjoy!

where to go this fall

Where to go this fall to enjoy the best of what this colorful season has to offer ~

Summer has ended and we are headed to Fall, my very favorite season! Funny thing is that I live in Southern California where the temps are hovering around 90 degrees! How can I think about cool, sweater weather, drinking hot cocoa, eating warm apple pie and enjoying walks through the autumn leaves?

I can find these desirable images in my imagination, or I can plan a fall getaway! Where can we go? Many of my friends who live on the East Coast will chuckle when I write about how I long for the cooler weather, because I don’t really experience any type of super cold weather in Pasadena. I think I wear a coat maybe once or twice all season at home.

Read more

Happiness in the Empty Nest (The nest is full this weekend!)

happiness in the empty nest

photo 4

Happiness in the Empty Nest

Just for Labor Day weekend, our nest will be full! Oh happy day, our kids are coming home for the weekend and I am over the moon. How lucky are we that our busy, adult children want to come home to visit, hang out and attend an event with us.

Partly because there was a free airline ticket, partly because there will be free delicious food and free handcrafted cocktails and partly because they really do love us and want to come home!

Can I get a woo hoo? So often Craig and I attend a really fun event which usually involves very special food and drink and we say to each other, “I really wish Alex and Nick were here to experience this with us.”

The Taste

We said this a couple of times when we attended The Taste, a culinary extravaganza on the backlot (which is super cool) at Paramount Studios. Craig and I have attended this Los Angeles Times event twice in the past four years and missed last year.

We thoroughly loved the experience so much and the kids were able to arrange their schedules to come down to LA and join us this year. Yay!

Read more

Sage Advice for the New Empty Nester: Cheer up!

advice for the empty nester

IMG_5357

Are you looking for advice for the new empty nester?

It is August and new empty nesters are now arriving at the most difficult of the empty nest hurdles. Navigating the college send off, dealing with the new freshman’s anxiety, the anticipation of the actual “goodbye” is a lot to deal with. Not to mention how you use your acting skills to pretend this is all for the best and you are “so excited” for their first year away at school.

Of course you are excited and proud of your 18 year old baby who has accomplished such amazing things! But the fact is, that adorable, perfectly delicious child of yours will not be walking back in to your house for a while and certainly NOT on a daily basis. This my friend is not an easy situation to handle. Some of you will breeze through this process and some will cry a little more than you want to. That was me.

Read more

Rock and Roll in Midlife: The English Beat Concert in Pasadena

The English Beat rock and roll

IMG_7204

Rock and roll and midlife fit together like a melody and lyrics. We grew up in the 60’s but we found our rock and roll stride in our high school and college years in the late 70’s and 80’s. From high school sweethearts, to now at 32 years of marriage, we have been listening and discovering music and bands, as well as attending countless concerts for almost forty years.

Read more

Home Renovation Update – Almost finished!

empty nest home renovation
No more construction fence! A brand new replica of the original leaded glass front window has been installed. Dumpsters should be gone soon. The design of the super cool driveway is a bit unique in that it is cut in a large brick pattern. The color of the concrete is called “Fawn” and was designed to be much the same color as the old concrete on the sidewalks. We wanted the house to be updated, but still blend in nicely with all of the other old homes on the street.There is still a lot to do on the outside, but we are thrilled with the results so far.

Read more

The Pasadena Empty Nest Fixer Upper Update!

 

kitchen remodel
The refrigerator and freezer panels are waiting for the appliances to arrive. Next up: The hardwood floor to be finished and hardware for the cabinets. There is paper covering the new floors for now.

Another update for the empty nest fixer upper…

More progress, more decisions, more changes, rinse, repeat. It does seem that the little house in Pasadena has made some significant progress, but with that progress came a couple of setbacks.

Every time we are cruising along at a healthy pace, something happens that slows it all down just a bit. The tile that I had originally picked for the front of the fireplace arrived and I was taken aback at what I had chosen. There was nothing about it that I liked. The architect urged me to choose something more traditional, more “old Pasadena” and we made the choice together. I now see that the colors were wrong, it seemed old fashioned, but I made this decision in the middle of the last few (horrific) months of my dad’s life. I made a mistake.

Read more

Empty Nest: New Update for the Fixer Upper Renovation

fixer upper renovation

The outside stucco color is a vanilla malt, the doors are a fabulous color of persimmon, and the trim is a chocolate-brown.

More news on the fixer upper renovation!

Oh boy, there is a lot to talk about. I started reviewing older posts from as far back as September. My video makes it fun to see the old house and I was so optimistic that we would be completed in seven months but the reality is more like nine months. What is a couple of months when we have a lifetime of enjoyment ahead of us!

My original video:

If you receive this post via email, click HERE to see the video.

Read more

The Empty Nest Home Renovation is Delayed… a little

Original Backyard home renovation
The original backyard – There was a super odd looking (and useless) planter in the middle of the pool deck. All of the back of the house has changed with new windows and doors and the second story addition.

The Empty Nest home renovation is…DELAYED, but just by a little.

I know many of your heads are nodding and you are silently saying “I told you so”, but we do have a slight delay of our home renovation. We cannot blame it on El Niño, we cannot blame it on the contractor, we cannot even blame it on me.

building the wall home renovation
Without the planter in the middle of this small yard, it will add more usable space. The new wall being built will add privacy along that side of the yard.

Read more