New Beginnings! (Retirement Planning)

Written February 6, 2017 as we were planning for retirement:

 George Turner the lead character in the Australian/New Zealand show 800 Words writes...."Because endings are, by definition, finite...whereas new beginnings bring infinite possibilities."

There is so much fear in change but yet how often are we having to experience it in life? You would think with all the practice we have with change that we would embrace it better. Leaving our home of 30 years was an ending I never considered. It is also the beginning of a new life together for new things, new experiences, new normals which seems pretty exciting to me. 

The best part of our new beginning together is the sense of newness in our relationship. We have been raising kids and grandkids for so many years now and grateful to have them in our life. Now it is just us and it is such a change in our own thought processes. We go to the beach to sit and talk! It seems so strange to have each others undivided attention and we love that about this time in our life.

Planning things together and making new memories has been such a treat and we never dreamed that we would ever have this opportunity. We have precious memories with our kids and grandkids and looking forward to precious memories together! 

We are enjoying our sunsets on the beach!

New Beginnings!

George Turner the lead character in the Australian/New Zealand show 800 Words writes...."Because endings are, by definition, finite...whereas new beginnings bring infinite possibilities."

There is so much fear in change but yet how often are we having to experience it in life? You would think with all the practice we have with change that we would embrace it better. Leaving our home of 30 years was an ending I never considered. It is also the beginning of a new life together for new things, new experiences, new normals which seems pretty exciting to me. 

The best part of our new beginning together is the sense of newness in our relationship. We have been raising kids and grandkids for so many years now and grateful to have them in our life. Now it is just us and it is such a change in our own thought processes. We go to the beach to sit and talk! It seems so strange to have each others undivided attention and we love that about this time in our life.

Planning things together and making new memories has been such a treat and we never dreamed that we would ever have this opportunity. We have precious memories with our kids and grandkids and looking forward to precious memories together! 

We are enjoying our sunsets on the beach!

Our New Normal

A dear friend said to me she would be praying for me during our move to have a smooth transition to our "new normal." She had recently moved herself so she knew exactly what prayer we needed. After living in a home for 30 years it had been a very long time since we had any "new normals."

One thing we began doing immediately was walking at sunset on the beach. We both would sit there just amazed at our "new normal" that God had just given to us. That became the place where we would have our evening prayer together. It also became the place where we would spend much time talking together about our day or anything that was on our mind.

Many "new normals" came into our life because of this move and we have thanked God for that over and over again. We are grateful for the time spent in our home of 30 years and all the wonderful memories of raising children and grandchildren there. It was certainly time for us to let go and begin this journey and new memories to be made.

This past weekend we took our grandkids for a walk on the beach and then a picnic at the park. We look forward to many new outdoor activities with them and many new memories to be made together!

Praying & Planning 

Our New Normal (Retirement Planning)

Written 2/15/17 as we prepared for retirement in 2018

A dear friend said to me she would be praying for me during our move to have a smooth transition to our "new normal." She had recently moved herself so she knew exactly what prayer we needed. After living in a home for 30 years it had been a very long time since we had made any "new normals."

One thing we began doing immediately was walking at sunset on the beach. We both would sit there just amazed at our "new normal" that God had just given to us. That became the place where we would have our evening prayer together. It also became the place where we would spend much time talking together about our day or anything that was on our mind.

Many "new normals" came into our life because of this move and we have thanked God for that over and over again. We are grateful for the time spent in our home of 30 years and all the wonderful memories of raising children and grandchildren there. It was certainly time for us to let go and begin this journey and new memories to be made.

This past weekend we took our grandkids for a walk on the beach and then a picnic at the park. We look forward to many new outdoor activities with them and many new memories to be made together!

Praying & Planning 

A New Life: The Beginning

Chapter 1

The beginning of our traveling life. How we made a conscious decision of becoming nomads traveling full time. Click into each title as we go through the process and emotions of making changes after living in our home for 30 years.

Prayer 

Dream 

Fear

Living Vicariously

Stuff

Control

Emotions

Anxiety

Planning

Selling

Dross

Debris

Wait

Home For Sale

The Element of Yearning

Inspiration and Contemplation

Leaving Home to Travel

Living with the “What If’s”

New Beginnings

Our New Normal

Fun in the Sun

Weekend Warriors

Our Travel Trailer for YouTube

The Element of Yearning (Preparing for Retirement)

 Written 7/19/2017 as we prepared for retirement in 2018

It is going on 5 years now that I have yearned to live a more nomadic life. It's in my roots from my own parents who took me at 6 weeks old to Africa. Jimmy has lived here in South Florida nearly his entire lifetime so he could not even entertain the idea and said, "No way!" My prayer was that God change either my yearning to go or his heart to stay. One year ago he came home and said, "I think I would like to do go ahead with your plans!" Music to my ears.....I began packing the next day!

My favorite part of any trip is the planning which feeds the yearning inside of me to travel. The past year has been all about preparing for travel full time and eliminating much of our life before. Paperwork, stuff, etc. has to all be eliminated when there is no home to store it away. Relinquishing everything was much more liberating than I had imagined. I have enjoyed life with less and have more time to work on the things I choose instead of things I need to do. I really wasn't expecting this new form of freedom which was an unexpected surprise. Somehow the grief of letting it go fooled me into believing that my grief and regret would be overwhelming. It wasn't the case at all but instead it seemed to release me of my normal anxiety and stress.

Anxiety has always been an issue for me since I was a teenager. Medication has too many side affects that eliminate my being able to use them. When I had kids my way of dealing with the anxiety and stress of motherhood was to go camping with my mom and friends from Europe. It would always work in calming me down and just what I needed to help me cope and start again fresh. That is my biggest reason for wanting to do this because I know it works for me. My husband noticed that my anxiety and stress went away as soon as we moved from our home of 30 years and started this quest. I have to agree!

We have a table I was painting just before my husbands heart change that says, "Prayer changes everything!"  My yearning calmed down when we moved here on the beach because it has been like a vacation for us. My husband now yearns for more travel just from living here so we find ourselves exploring the area to find new things to see and do. We are both thankful for answered prayer!

Exploring Lake Okeechobee!

The Element Of Yearning!

It is going on 5 years now that I have yearned to live a more nomadic life. It's in my roots from my own parents who took me at 6 weeks old to Africa. Jimmy has lived here in South Florida nearly his entire lifetime so he could not even entertain the idea and said, "No way!" My prayer was that God change either my yearning to go or his heart to stay. One year ago he came home and said, "I think I would like to do go ahead with your plans!" Music to my ears.....I began packing the next day!

My favorite part of any trip is the planning which feeds the yearning inside of me to travel. The past year has been all about preparing for travel full time and eliminating much of our life before. Paperwork, stuff, etc. has to all be eliminated when there is no home to store it away. Relinquishing everything was much more liberating than I had imagined. I have enjoyed life with less and have more time to work on the things I choose instead of things I need to do. I really wasn't expecting this new form of freedom which was an unexpected surprise. Somehow the grief of letting it go fooled me into believing that my grief and regret would be overwhelming. It wasn't the case at all but instead it seemed to release me of my normal anxiety and stress.

Anxiety has always been an issue for me since I was a teenager. Medication has too many side affects that eliminate my being able to use them. When I had kids my way of dealing with the anxiety and stress of motherhood was to go camping with my mom and friends from Europe. It would always work in calming me down and just what I needed to help me cope and start again fresh. That is my biggest reason for wanting to do this because I know it works for me. My husband noticed that my anxiety and stress went away as soon as we moved from our home of 30 years and started this quest. I have to agree!

We have a table I was painting just before my husbands heart change that says, "Prayer changes everything!"  My yearning calmed down when we moved here on the beach because it has been like a vacation for us. My husband now yearns for more travel just from living here so we find ourselves exploring the area to find new things to see and do. We are both thankful for answered prayer!

Exploring Lake Okeechobee!

Happy New Years! 🎉

 It has been since October that I have written anything because of deaths and serious illnesses in our family. We had to cancel our trip last fall to Bar Harbor, Maine and instead left Upstate New York and traveled to Delaware to be with our nephew as he was suffering from liver failure. We spent the end of Sept until the beginning of December there with both our niece and nephew. During that time we had a death in the family so we spent some of that time in Tennessee with family and funeral arrangements. 

This has been one of the most difficult and emotional years for us in our travels. We were glad to be able to be flexible enough to move around and spend time with family during their difficulties. I have to say that blogging was no longer important and just maintaining ourselves emotionally became the priority. This has left me feeling emotionally fragile this year and I am still processing everything. 

Now we are back in Florida with family and friends getting caught up with everyone, especially our grandkids! We will be here to catch up on medical appointments and things that need to be taken care of before we leave again mid-March. Then we will begin heading west to Texas to spend time in that beautiful state and spend time with family!

During all the crisis of life these past few months my husband found an RV that he has wanted for quite some time. We have upgraded to a 30 ft Majestic Thor and it has been such a great rig for us. I will write all about that in another blog.

We are still loving this travel life and cannot imagine it differently. God may have other plans in our future but for now He has certainly given us the desires of our heart with our nomadic life!

Family Time in Texas 🌵Vlog #91

I travel to Texas to visit my little brother, his wife, their children and grandchildren. We do family stuff and just enjoy being together. God has given us the gift of a large family so we never want to take that for granted. We don’t ever want to miss the opportunity of making a memory with them. Life is short and nothing matters more to us than family!

How wonderful it is for us to be able to travel around the country and Europe to visit with as many family members as possible. It is not the only reason but definitely my favorite reason. I also love getting to see different areas of the country, the landscapes and the culture of each state. Yes, each state definitely has it’s own culture. There is so much to learn about our great country and it’s history. We are not the kind of travelers that make it our mission to exhaust every opportunity to learn everything about every area we travel. Instead, we enjoy and live normally but do include some exploration of the places we travel because we are always planning to return again. 

This is an area of Texas that we have been many times before but on this visit we took time to see a small town we have traveled through often. Jimmy loves to take me on a date and this was a fun date! It’s similar to what he has done when we lived in South Florida by taking me to all the neighboring towns to see and enjoy new restaurants and surroundings. You don’t have to travel like us to see new things just begin to venture out of your own area and enjoy what is nearby. It’s a favorite for us both! 

Lavonia Park

(972) 442-3141

https://maps.app.goo.gl/CRot652ZC4RYqmAP8?g_st=ic

Rockwall County Court House

(972) 204-7000

https://maps.app.goo.gl/j7MsJc6Q2bt7Mciu6?g_st=ic

Community BBQ and Grill

(972) 227-4755

https://maps.app.goo.gl/1eNbZHWY6G2AstQK7?g_st=ic

Living Vicariously (Retirement Planning)

Written 8/23/2016 as we were making plans to retire by 2018:

 I always tell my mom that I am living vicariously through her. She has always been the type of person that is not afraid to travel places. She doesn't even mind getting lost and says those have been her best adventures. My father was the same way and I never really appreciated this about them more than now.

They traveled by ship to Africa when I was only 6 weeks old in 1958. Who does that with a new born? Now that I have had my own children I often think how crazy that would be to do now much less in the 50's. When I became a grandmother I was horrified at how my grandparents must have felt at them leaving with their grandchild. Talk about anxiety!

I have to admit that at my age I more than admire both my parents for their adventuresome spirit. My brother inherited those genes and loves to travel too. I do enjoy discovering new places more than most but not at the level my parents did. I think because I grew up that way for the first decade of my life I now feel the urge to follow in their footsteps instead of living vicariously through their memories.

Lavinia Spalding, 43, writing and teacher in San Francisco said it best: Don't think about it too much. Don't make pro and con list. Pro and con list are nothing but trouble. If you think about it too much, you'll just end up staying home and then someday you'll be telling your grandchildren, "I always wanted to do that" instead of showing them photos of the trips you took and giving them advice on where to go. Over the years, family and friends have said to me, "I'm living vicariously through you." Don't ever live vicariously. This is your life. Live!  ....quoted from the book Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

I took this picture at Bethesda by the Sea garden.

Living Vicariously

I always tell my mom that I am living vicariously through her. She has always been the type of person that is not afraid to travel places. She doesn't even mind getting lost and says those have been her best adventures. My father was the same way and I never really appreciated this about them more than now.

They traveled by ship to Africa when I was only 6 weeks old in 1958. Who does that with a new born? Now that I have had my own children I often think how crazy that would be to do now much less in the 50's. When I became a grandmother I was horrified at how my grandparents must have felt at them leaving with their grandchild. Talk about anxiety!

I have to admit that at my age I more than admire both my parents for their adventuresome spirit. My brother inherited those genes and loves to travel too. I do enjoy discovering new places more than most but not at the level my parents did. I think because I grew up that way for the first decade of my life I now feel the urge to follow in their footsteps instead of living vicariously through their memories.

Lavinia Spalding, 43, writing and teacher in San Francisco said it best: Don't think about it too much. Don't make pro and con list. Pro and con list are nothing but trouble. If you think about it too much, you'll just end up staying home and then someday you'll be telling your grandchildren, "I always wanted to do that" instead of showing them photos of the trips you took and giving them advice on where to go. Over the years, family and friends have said to me, "I'm living vicariously through you." Don't ever live vicariously. This is your life. Live!  ....quoted from the book Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

I took this picture at Bethesda by the Sea garden.

Planning the Route across USA 🇺🇸

My parents raised me up in 5 countries and 3 continents before the age of 10 so I have inherited a bit of experience with traveling. They traveled to see the world but as a kid my favorite part of traveling was to see family and friends. When I became an adult I always made vacation plans to spend time with my mother, my aunt and cousins and all my friends growing up. I continue to do the same thing even with our nomadic life to include all the same people plus now my kids, grandkids, siblings and our 100 nieces and nephews in our family. 

Most people plan a destination they want to explore and we do that as well but it is the secondary goal of our travels. I wanted to visit Niagra Falls so my niece and nephew planned it all and took us. Perfect! My youngest daughter wanted to join us in Europe so we visited our usual places in Portugal and Spain but also visited Paris for her birthday. Most of the beautiful places we venture out to see are because we plan with family and friends who join us or because someone we are visiting wants to show us something spectacular in their area. It's better than getting a tour guide!

That is how we discovered Letchworth State Park in Upstate New York! I planned a trip to visit one of my dearest friends since I was 21 years old. She and her husband live in a small town outside of Rochester and they took us to this beautiful place for a day outing. We fell in love with the area and made that one of our stops to camp each time we are in the area. The places that we have enjoyed the most since we have been traveling has happened just like that - the locals definitely know all the BEST places to see!

Frankfurt, Germany

 What a wonderful visit we had with a high school friend and her family. We had such a great visit and made lasting memories together. Frankfurt is a beautiful city to visit considering it was leveled during World War II. They built on the ruins left from the war and you can see how the old architecture merges with the new. Amazing history there!

During the time that we were visiting Germany a bomb had been discovered from World War II. That is part of the life of living in an area where so many bombs were dropped during the war, 75 years ago.

Celebrating Christmas in Spain 🇪🇸 Vlog #110

This is our first year away from our family for the holidays and in another country. We wanted to see Christmas in Europe and share the holidays with my mom who lives in Spain. We had quite a celebration as you will see in the video. What a feast of foods we had for 3 days. It will definitely be a memory we will remember forever. It was a very special time!

We missed our family and especially our grandkids so we are looking forward to returning home. We always miss them when we are away so that wasn’t anything new. Our youngest daughter called us nearly every night during Christmas week so we knew she was struggling with our absence. She has been our main cheerleader in life in supporting us with our travels. She never makes us feel guilty for being away even when we can see she would rather us be near her, always!

Having my mom and my family from Spain here made Christmas so special for me. I don’t believe being away from our own kids and grandkids would have been doable without my extended family here. I am thrilled for the memories made in Spain with family!!!

Taking A Break!

So many people have asked why haven't created any new videos or updated our travel blog? It is only because we have been visiting so many family and friends this past year. It is easy enough to do when we are on the road by ourselves but I don't ever want to take the time that we have when we are with others. It has been another incredible year together going to all the many places that we have had the privilege to explore. We feel like two kids living in a fort and opening the door to new adventures every day!

We have nieces and nephews who have made our journey even more remarkable by spending time with us and taking us places that we would not have been able to on our own. The memories that we have made these past few years have been so full of laughter and joy! We still feel the same excitement the day we left our home of 40 years and moved into the beach house on the coast of Florida.

Every night we thank the Lord for our time with others and our time together! We are reminded that the doctors said Jimmy would not live to see these years but God saw differently. We don't take this time together for granted at all....

The holidays are coming and we will be back home with more family and friends but we are planning to make time to document online our adventures! Thank you to all of you have joined us online to see where we are and what we are up to.....you all encourage us so much and we thank you!!!!

Travel Life 

Artwork on the Road!

I love that we are traveling. I love that I have more time to work creatively. The one thing I have in common with my grandkids is the love of creativity. When I work on a project it makes me feel more connected to them because I miss them so much. My husband and I fell in love with upcycling after our first visit to Seaside, Florida in the early 90’s. We began making furniture and many other things from nothing. I especially love upcycling creatively as in this video. Most of all I love the outdoors being my new art studio!

 

Traveling Life