A shakedown trip for the two-ish months of travel ahead

For the next two months or so I will be away more than I'm home.  I love to travel. I love meeting new people and engaging culture that is new to me or at least different from my own. 

Brian and I are in Bellingham, WA visiting blended family kid #6, AKA "the baby," for a long weekend. The culture surprises here come primarily from spending extended time with Gen Z 😆. We took the baby's roommates and their boyfriends out to dinner last night at The Black Cat 🐈‍⬛️  in Fairhaven and had lovely discussions over excellent food. 

We arranged to meet kid for breakfast but forgot to account for defrosting the windshield, something we don't do often at home in California, ❄️❄️❄️ but thanks to a misunderstanding about how far the restaurant was from the hotel and kid's need to defrost her windshield we made it on time 😆. 

We are having a down afternoon. We put together a jigsaw puzzle and now it's rest time before we go out to see some cool places. 

The view out the side window this morning at 26°. Sorry the pics are sideways; I'm traveling without a computer and the phone app won't rotate them.

Sabbatical Day 2

I started to really believe that I'm on sabbatical when I was eating a leisurely breakfast and wondering what I *should* do today.  The answer--nothing. Breaking the reign of the *shoulds* is what this fallow time is all about.

So I did a little of this and a little of that and didn't worry about productivity.

Tonight--Go Sharks!

Sabbatical!

The long-awaited day has arrived.  As of about 3:30 this afternoon, I am on sabbatical. It's still kind of surprising, and I'm not totally sure what to do next, but I think it will be an adventure. And as evidence, we found ourselves out for dinner eating our pre-adventure meal. 

I have a history with this soup.  I've eaten it the nights before going to camp, taking youth on a service trip (twice), and trips to far away places (several times).

Thank you, tom kha gha, for nourishing me for so many adventures.  May this one be just as awesome!  

Resurrection!

I believe in resurrection!  For example, I haven't touched this blog in <GASP> well over six years, and yet here it is, breathing once more.

What has happened in the last six years since my visit to Cinque Terra you might ask?  A lot!  I have a new (well not new but less than six year old job), a husband(!), and apparently a habit of using parentheses that I might need to examine.

But the really important thing is that I am less than 24 hours from embarking on a three-month sabbatical.  Tomorrow afternoon, my work will quite suddenly come to a stop and I will set off on a new adventure of not being driven by what is going to happen next Sunday.

 My plan, you ask?  Rest, pursue personal projects, and of course my favorite activity, travel.  Some of that travel will be to visit family in February, and then in March I am taking my hubby, five of our six adult kids, and two of their partners to New Zealand!  

As part of the "pursuing personal projects" thing, I plan to keep breathing life into this blog.  Will I? Your guess is as good as mine!

Welcome to my next adventure.