Hale Koa Appreciation

Episode № 99 takes you with me to Waikiki for my first stay in an Armed Forces Recreation Center.

Transcript

Episode № 99 Hale Koa Appreciation

Welcome back!
Lady Jupiter Podcast is the audio accompaniment to LadyJupiter.com a lifestyle blog where I write about my family’s military life, our home life, and other tiny details that I just like to share. I’m happy that you’re here with me.

In this episode I’ll share an update on our life as affected by the U.S. military, then continue with a blog update, and wrap up with something domestic.

Today in our military-affected lives I have nothing significant to update.

Recently I had the opportunity to meet Mister Jupiter on one of his many work trips. After a week in Tokyo, he needed to be in Honolulu…so I met up with him. Similar to joining him for the Airlift Tanker Association convention, he went to work each morning, and some afternoons. But the evenings were ours and we had a lot of fun with his peers. Primarily eating and drinking of course, but we even saw some friends when we went out for an afternoon hike. I love seeing friends in the wild - it’s even more fun when we’re all loose on the same island and we still find each other.

Otherwise - I am fond of “island time” and I really enjoy grabbing a coffee from the lobby and seeking different places to camp out to write or just listen to the birds. This wasn’t my first time staying in Waikiki, but it was my first time staying at the Hale Koa. The last time we were in Honolulu together, a friend on Fort Shafter lent us his truck…then we learned how tricky it is to park a very large truck in Waikiki. We were told that the Hale Koa had military rates for parking, so we used the parking garage.

Now I know that the Hale Koa is an AFRC; an Armed Forces Recreation Center Resort - which are owned by the Department of Defense and not available to the general public. It’s like a tiny Air Force base on the beach. Everything requires a military ID or room key. There’s even a tiny Exchange on the ground level. I would pop in every few hours for affordable water, snacks, and souvenirs. They had everything I needed - minus shoes. I forgot to pack a certain pair of shoes so I needed to shop. A Hilton is next door to the Hale Koa, and they have a nice shopping village, and that’s were I found a good pair of shoes in a surf shop. They were perfect for our waterfall-viewing hike, perfect for walking down to the hotel pool, and even making a little black dress more casual.

For today’s LadyJupiter.com update…the site is still up and running.

One of my many quiet coffee mornings included finding a great spot to write and I was able to get a lot of headway on one of about 40 future blog posts. I didn’t finish it of course, it is nowhere near ready to publish, but I got to actually focus and draft for an entire hour and loved it.

And lastly something domestic.

I’ve been buying storage cubes online and I love them. The ones I buy are 12” cubes, but when the zippers are unzipped, they fold down to lay flat. The sides are rigid, but flexible frosted plastic, and they have small handles. They are perfect for storing out of season clothes, and using as light duty bins around the house for wrangling small objects. Expect to see several in our homes from this moment forward. I would love to have a storage wall full of these things - and maybe one day, I will.

So far they really strike the balance between putting things away so that they don’t create clutter, but also having them somewhat visible so that I don’t forget about them entirely. You probably are not surprised that I have been using my label maker to identify the contents. These storage cubes aren’t so rigid that they can be stacked, definitely far from milk crates - but they are excellent dust cover cubes so I can easily relocate puffy jackets, or out of season favorites like my summer gauze. Then I tuck away the labeled storage cube in one of many shelves that require a ladder. I’ll never be tall, but I will always be resourceful.

That’s it for today’s episode.

Show notes and transcript are available anytime; swing by LadyJupiter.com/podcast.
📌Ladyjupiter.com/Podcast

You can always reach me via email - podcast @ LadyJupiter .com . I can’t promise prompt responses, but I wanted you to know that I am here and available for questions or feedback. I always enjoy listening to listener questions on other podcasts, but I can’t imagine what anybody would ask me specifically - so if I make my email nice and available, I won’t have to imagine what you might ask; I’ll just give you the green light to email me anytime. That email address again is podcast @ LadyJupiter .com use it wisely!

I will talk to you when I can record next. 

—Bye for now!