Now

Traveling the US as I write this, my husband and I are full-time RVers, hiking and living the life we dreamed of several years ago when we use to blog.

Lots of state parks, national parks, and national forests under our belt — no plans to stop traveling until we’ve ticked off all the items on our bucket list:

Visit all the US states (visited 39/50 so far)
Visit all of the US national parks (visited 23/62 so far, my favorite pictured below)
Visit every country (visited 3/195 UN-recognized countries so far)

*Dry Tortugas National Park, November 2019*

Where I’m located

southern Utah, enjoying the Mighty 5

What’s on mind

1. Health

Since I graduated from college, I took stabs at improving my diet and fitness, but nothing stuck because the second I felt distress, I’d justify skipping the gym and then chow down on my favorite junk foods.

During the lockdown at the start of the pandemic this year, I put in the time required to properly research diet and exercise and then take action to make a true lifestyle change.

As a result of my research, I decided on a plant-based diet, strength training, and trail running. So, I’m working with experts on all of these lifestyle changes to get into optimal shape.

I’m loving every single minute I spend on the trails, lifting kettlebells, stretching, and practicing yoga. Yeah, it’s a lot of minutes and they’re all great.

2. Happiness

Social media didn’t contribute to my happiness, so I stopped engaging. Research backs this up, too. Social media offers little benefit beyond keeping in touch with friends and family.

However, I think there is another benefit I hadn’t thought of before and that’s the power of retrospection. Hindsight is 20/20, right? So, why not apply that to the present day or even the future?

Write retrospectively — write down today what you don’t want to have to read (or think) about yourself in the future:

One week from now: I don’t want to read/think about myself … Instead, I want to …
One month from now: I don’t want to read/think about myself … Instead, I want to …
One year from now: I don’t want to read/think about myself … Instead, I want to …

Another way of looking at this might be to write your own obituary, but I think that’s too far away to really grasp on to today to make any real change happen.

Since this idea of writing retrospectively to improve present and future happiness only just came to me, I personally have to think and reflect on my own thoughts…

One week from now: I don’t want to think of myself as out of shape when I struggle with increasing my mileage as I prepare to run my first half-marathon. Instead, I want to think about the progress I’ve made going from 0 miles at the beginning of 2020 to 20+ miles a week in October.
One month from now: TBD
One year from now: TBD

3. Work

Having a business doesn’t mean growth for the sake of growth. Rather, business is the opportunity we have to choose to do work that matters.

Consequently, we’ve been downshifting to focus on the work I really love to do with those I enjoy working with, which provided to be the best decision I’ve made this year.

With my free time, I’ve decided to write a book. Actually, the proposal is nearly done, so I’ll be sure to share the details soon.