WELCOME TO MY BLOG

I’ve always enjoyed writing. It’s something I fell out of interest with once college started, but over the past few years I’ve had an itch to bring it back into my life. I think the main reason for wanting to write is to get my thoughts out on paper and have something to either look back on or something to hold me accountable. For both of those reasons, and a little push from my husband, Marcus, I’ve started this blog. Here I hope to put my plans, my travels and everything in between.

In 2006 Marcus and I took a budget Carnival cruise out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. To say I was excited is a gross understatement. I was ecstatic. I’d barely left home before and as a soon-to-be college graduate, I really had both fear and excitement about venturing out in the unknown.

Today life is vastly different. We have been to a few countries and begun the expansion of our cultural horizons. In June 2020, we sat down for a brainstorming session, creating a plan to base our decisions around in the next few years. What we came up with were new goals, as we had reached many we had set years before, and we were both lacking drive.

Goal #1 was to pursue FIRE- Financial Independence, Retire Early. I have been managing our finances for the last several years so I knew what we would need to do to get to a point where we would no longer be reliant on the traditional 9-5 and could live the life we wanted. When most people are settling down, having children and creating roots, Marcus and I have a desire to become less rooted, more free to do what we want when we want. Not having children has given us the ability to be a lot more fluid in our timelines, so besides financial goals, what else would we want to strive for?

Goal #2 came about because of our love of travel. I love the newness of it, the exploring, the fun and the unfamiliar. We spent a week in Germany in 2017 and to both of us, it felt like home. We have always jokingly said we would not move out of Madison, Wisconsin unless we found someplace better. Besides the homey feeling Munich had for us, we also really would like to think about having a ‘home base’ of sorts in Europe, for easier travel. 2020 was supposed to be a year we spent adding to our travel book, The Netherlands and Canada were on our list. Obviously the state of the world was not in line with those plans, but it did give us more time to construct a firmer plan. We want to travel more, and not just as tourists, but long slow travel, being digital nomads and experiencing the world at our own pace.

Goal #3 is to learn German. Admittedly neither of us is as far along on this journey as we would like but it is hard to stick to learning another language when who knows when you’ll get to test it out. To go along with Goal #2, we have been talking about maybe buying a flat in Germany to have as our European home base. Learning the language, while not really necessary, is something we both felt we wanted to commit to. We really want to be comfortable in our new home if we ever make it there.

We know our goals are not in line with many of our peer’s goals. For the last 15 years I think we have both known that we just didn’t want to live the expected life of college, marriage, house, kids, vacation once a year. We love learning and culture more than the idea of paying a mortgage and car payments until we die. We have a supportive and loving family and we are both super happy to have the opportunity to be the cool world-traveling Aunt and Uncle. We know no one’s journey is the same, but we do hope that as we learn and grow on our journey, we can share our experiences with others and help them find their own path, no matter where that may lead.

I’m really looking forward to 2021. While 2020 may not have been the best, we are grateful that we have not been too impacted by all of the suffering that the world is experiencing. For me, the biggest lesson to come of 2020 was gratitude. Be grateful for everything you have (and sometimes don’t have) and don’t make your entire life about the things you don’t have. We may not be back to ‘normal’ for a long time, but we will do what we need to do to continue setting ourselves up for success in our above mentioned goals. This year isn’t about losing weight or eating better for me, it’s about making the choices that are in my overall best interest. Admittedly eating better is in my own best interest, but so is reading more, being present more, listening more, and going with the flow.

For our sanity’s sake, I hope 2021 looks up and up and up. Here’s to reaching those goals!