Living, Not Vacationing

Good Morning from our VRBO near Spokane, WA! It’s 7 am and Tim’s heading down the path to the river to fish. Yesterday he caught 10! He’s adjusting well to retirement and hasn’t missed work at all! He’s enjoying learning video editing and how to YouTube and should have a second episode (improved to horizontal) out soon.

I’m enjoying the view from inside as I do the prep work for our international travels. All those organizing projects/passwords/tracking/photo projects you put off for decades? Well, ya kinda gotta take care of it all before you start the nomad life. I’m getting our documents and spreadsheets and accounts all in order, setting up our phones for their new e-sim life, organizing apps, applying for visas, finalizing address changes and bank payment changes, etc. If anything ever happens to us, it’ll be super easy for our kids to find and access everything—and split the leftover money.

Of course there are always delays and frustrations with all this computing. I’ll be glad when I’m done so I can work on our website. Tim has helped too, spending hours on the phone trying to work out rental car issues. I love him so much! He’s also been a huge help doing laundry, cooking, and dishes. Did I mention how much I love my guy?!

Yep, housework. And grocery shopping. Because this is life, people, not the extended vacation some of you expected. We knew it. We wanted it. Because vacations are expensive. But instead of running our daily life in the U.S., we’ll be living it here and there in beautiful, (much cheaper!) international destinations where our daily walks and the view from our window is much more interesting, the food and wine are new to us, and our minds and bodies are challenged and stretched every day just trying to run errands, do laundry and get around in a different culture and language. Just living has never been more exciting.