One Giant Step…Is All It Takes

5 months!!  Did you hear me?  I said 5, count them…five months until we take our first Giant Step! One, two, three, four, five…does that sound like very many to you? It doesn’t to me!

Of course, we’ve been counting down since we first made this decision in April 2008, and you’ve been counting down with us since August when we tipped our hand, but now it’s so tangible, so close, so…real!! It seems like we have a thousand things to do, that time will just fly by, that June will be here before we know it.

To mark the 5 month mark, I’ve come up with five lists of 5… Read the rest of this entry »

We are still reading.  Here is the latest list of books that we have read that have somehow affected our travel minds. Some were read before we even made this decision…shows me that this has been ‘in us’ for some time, we just hadn’t found it.

I hope everyone enjoyed the Christmas break and is getting lots of reading in! Read the rest of this entry »

When Jason and I first met 10 years ago he was working in the restaurant service industry (yes, that’s a fancy way of saying he was a waiter) and knew lots about food. I had always enjoyed going out for dinner and during our courtship we spent plenty of time in some of the best restaurants in Vancouver. We still go out regularly now but we have also honed our cooking skills to a point where we can stay in and eat just as well.

We love eating. We love going out to eat. We love cooking. We love fancy food. We love simple food. We like trying new food. We like old favorites. We like local food. We like exotic food. We love food. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time to look at all the vaccinations and illness avoidness techniques that we will need while we’re away.

As we are traveling primarily in disease endemic areas, there are plenty of vaccinations, medications and precautions that we will have to have in order to ensure that we don’t catch some dreaded lurgy. This is on top of regular medications and remedies.

In September we visited our local travel clinic. We had sent them our itinerary ahead of time so, when we got there, they were ready with all kinds of documents, advice, questions and ideas.  We left there weighed down with pamphlets, leaflets, warnings and precautions — and completely overwhelmed!! The pile of stuff sat, untouched, in our office for weeks as we were unsure how to wade through it all.

This week I realized it was time to get busy with it. Being so much closer to selling our place has pushed us to the other side of ‘holy $hit, we better get going if we’re going to do this!!’, and so I sorted through the pile and distilled the important information out. Read the rest of this entry »

This week I was going to write about where we might be one year from now. Like I said here, one of the ways we stay motivated is to imagine where we’ll be this time next year. However, one year from now we will be in India and not long after that we’ll be in Thailand. Given the serious situations in both those countries these past weeks it’s hard to think about how much fun we’ll be having when we’re thinking about how we might handle such situations while we’re on the road. Read the rest of this entry »

We had an open house on the weekend that finally proved fruitful!!  We have accepted an offer on our condo.  It’s on condition of the sale of the buyers current condo, but we are optimistic that their place is well priced and in a desirable area of town (wait a minute…isn’t that what we said a little while ago?). Anyway, they will be motivated to sell and we will think positive thoughts for them (and us)!

And so comes to the end of the ‘play off’ beard.  Jason has, in the interest of good karma (or so he tells me), not shaved since we placed our unit on the market.  Oh, he’s ‘cleaned it up’ and ‘kept it neat’, but he is currently fully bearded. He almost gave in just last week but I talked him through it and explained that he must keep the faith. And thank goodness too as this week has proven to be successful!

Truth be told though, I think it is J’s brother Kevin who might be the root of this good fortune. Kevin came to visit last year at this time and the following week Jason got an interview which led to his current job. Kevin happened to have been visiting just this past weekend and was here during the open house…jump to your own conclusions, I am thinking we might owe Kevin a beer! 

Stay tuned, and think positive thoughts!

We’re just about 1/2 way from when we decided we would take this step, to actually leaving at the beginning of June 2009. 

At first we were tentative and scared, wondering if we could, wondering if we should do this. Then we were secretive and excited as we planned and schemed a way to do it. After that we were anxious as we ‘let the cat out of the bag’ and told our family and friends of our plans. And we were motivated…spreadsheeting, reading, phoning, researching and learning. Read the rest of this entry »

Is it time to call a spade a spade? I can do that - I can call this a mid life crisis…but then I’m just not sure what to do with it!

The term ‘crisis’ seems a bit too serious really.  I mean, I’m not unhappy, or depressed, or in need of psychotherapy for crying out loud! And I’m not leaving my partner for a young cabana boy, buying a convertible, and dressing in tight leopard print skirts (although who am I to judge if that’s how you question your reality?).

I am just questioning the droning out of daily life that, I know, we all experience. I guess I have the privilege of having a midlife crisis - many people must feel the same way but do not have the opportunity to ’step out’ and take a break. That has, in fact, been one of the pieces that I’ve been struggling with…who am I to do this? What makes me different from anyone else? There are millions (billions?) of people out there who are also questioning their reality and they don’t have the options that I do. Maybe it’s my English roots, but I feel like I’m being a bit ‘posh’. Let’s just say that I know how lucky I am. Read the rest of this entry »

When it comes to planning a trip around the world, it seems you can do it one of three ways.

We haven’t decided yet which, of the three, we will go with. Each has merits, downsides and comfort level. On the travel sites I’ve visited, and the travelogues I read, one method does not stand out above the others as being more popular. That’s what makes the decision difficult - there doesn’t seem to be a ‘right’ way, or a ‘wrong’ way, to do this. Read the rest of this entry »

I love my spanish teacher.  I love learning spanish. I’m not sure I’m very good at it, as it seems to be taking a long time, but I am loving the process. I think I’m good at pronouncing the words, and I’m not bad at reading, but conjugating verbs and coming up with words is proving to be difficult.

Turns out I remember more french than I ever thought I knew!! It’s been about 24 years (seriously? that long?) since I’ve taken a french course but, every time I try to find a spanish word in my head, up pops the french word instead! And it sticks - I can’t get rid of it to find the spanish word. And so I’m left with a curious mixture of english and french and spanish…engfranish? Hopefully it’ll work itself out soon. Read the rest of this entry »