Tag: New years

Happy New Year!

So you may be wondering what the plans are for 2025. It’s going to be a full year!

Starting out, my husband has decided to start running again with his old running group with a goal of doing a few half-marathons this year and moving up to full marathons again in 2026. I have agreed to do the half marathon when he does the full at races in fun destinations to make a mini getaway for us. I’m NOT joining the running group. I hate running. But I walk faster than most people jog so I’m walking them. I figure my triathlon training is enough to keep me in shape to do a half marathon without any extra work specific to those races. I may be wrong, but since I already have “running” as part of my triathlon training and I’m use to endurance races I’m just going to go with it. 😁

Now let’s talk travel… we are starting 2025 by taking the kids to Great Wolf Lodge. May the odds be ever in our favor while traveling with 2 kids with Autism and taking them away from their routine.

Up next is Cabo San Lucas sans-kids for our anniversary. This will be a different trip there for my husband who is ready to step out of his comfort zone and try some new things. Our previous trips to Cabo together started with 2 days there on a cruise where I was super big and pregnant with our 1st son. We made it back home with 3 days to spare before I was too far along in my pregnancy to travel internationally. I may have freaked him out a bit by doing pretty much all the stuff they tell you NOT to do on the cruise ship. But I was too big and too hot to care and have been to Cabo more times than I can count prior to that trip. The 2nd trip there was for our anniversary during Covid where we only left the resort once. But we left it and survived and I didn’t freak him out too much probably due to the tequila tasting I took him to first before venturing out. Liquid courage did wonders for his nerves.

So this trip he said he is ready to travel my way and try new things. I asked him if he was sure because once I book it he is stuck. He thought about it and the next day he said he was ready. I immediately booked us in a small boutique hotel with only 8 rooms with a great location. I had to book it all in Spanish. Thankfully, I speak “travel” in many languages and Spanish is my strongest. Up next was choosing activities. Since he apparently grew up under a rock he really has not done much so we are doing it all! ATVs in the desert, riding camels, parasailing, glass bottom boat tour, glass blowing, shopping, bar hopping, a cooking class, hiking to El Arco, a street food tour… it will be a trip full of adventure by day and relaxing evenings sipping margaritas and laughing the night away.

If you follow my blog you know my husband is NOT a traveler but very much wants to be one. Getting him to this point has not been easy. He slowly learning how to pack (although I can’t seem to get him to travel light as I do so every time we go somewhere I get annoyed waiting for him to 1. Check his bag and 2. Get his bag after the flight) I will occasionally need to check a bag because I have something that I can’t put in my carry on bag like when I had several knives to bring home from Nepal. Or when I have a bit too much to drink and go shopping and purchase bottles of booze that I need to bring home. (Or a case or two plus loose bottles) It annoys me when I have to check a bag or more too.

Enough about Mexico. Let’s talk about the couples trip for special needs parents that my husband and I are leading. We started out by hosting a monthly “parents night out” for the special needs parents group we are part of locally. It has gone really well for a few years now but have been asked for more. There is a Moms retreat. But not much else. It’s difficult to get away as a couple when you have typical kids but with special needs kids it is almost impossible. So with the success of parents night out, we are attempting a getaway for parents to be themselves among others who “get it”. We chose Catalina Island off the coast of California as our destination for a long weekend getaway. It’s far enough to be “away” but close enough that if things go really bad at home we can all make it back fairly easy. So far we have 7 couples excited about going with rooms already booked.

The day after we get home from Catalina I leave to go to the UK with one of my best friends to celebrate her 50th birthday. She watches our kids for us when we go out of town so we don’t have to pay a sitter to sleep and without her help, we would never be able to go anywhere overnight together. Going to the UK has been at the top of her bucket list for as long as I have known her. So as her 50th birthday approached I asked my husband if it would be ok if I took her as a thank you for watching the kids. I usually take her out somewhere for her birthday every year even if it’s just lunch but with it being 50 I wanted to do something big. He agreed *if* I could stay within a budget and not get crazy. Honestly, I think he thought I couldn’t make it work. But as an old school budget traveler and backpacker I got this! When I told her she cried she was so happy. I told her to stay within the budget she would need to pay for her own airfare (that may be as much as $1200, but I’ll look for the best deal I can find for a direct flight…actual total $662.81 each round trip from San Francisco to London 😎) but I got the rest. We are working on what to do with our week there now. I have a plan that I think she will love but told her to give me her top “must see” list soon so I can get started booking and fit in as many of those places as I can.

With 2025 plans looking good so far I was talking to my friend in Australia about our next meet up and when and where to go. My 2025 is pretty full but 2026 is open. We each looked at a world map and decided that we want warmer over colder and somewhere cheap and not too touristy that was not over 24 hours of travel for each of us to get there. Things always get weird when we try to get together since we live on complete opposite sides of the planet I don’t think we could be farther apart from each other. After a couple days of crossing off countries from our list we finally decided on Indonesia. (Yeah, we are both very well traveled and actually met in Egypt. So, while most people could not even tell us where Indonesia is we were both into the idea.) Today I approached my husband with the idea of me going solo to Indonesia to meet up with my friend from the land down under. Cringing because I’m already going to the UK…again with another friend this year and expecting a lecture about saving money and trying to pay off the house early…but surprisingly he was great with it. He said it has been too long since we got together and are well overdue for it. And apparently he was watching a video on YouTube recently that said Indonesia is a totally underrated and affordable travel destination (as apparently are several other places I keep talking about going to. Apparently I have good taste.) So, I sent her a quick message and told her “project Indonesia 2026 is a go”.

So that wraps up 2025 plans and gives you a sneak peek at 2026 plans starting to form. I know 2026 seems far away but it will be here sooner than you think and I find that I do more and see more if I have a plan. So, with 2025 mostly booked it’s time to start my general outline for 2026.

Happy New Year to all my readers. I hope if you don’t have plans for 2025 and beyond yet that I have inspired you to make some. After all… life is what happens when you get off the couch.

Achieving my dream of one day going to Tibet

New Year – New you – 2023

I have not made any secrets that 2021 was rough on me, particularly all the overtime. Everything kinda fell apart as I struggled with 60+ hour weeks. That ended up with me off work on stress leave and struggling to get my life under control.

The year ended with packed schedules triple booked to try to get patients seen before I’m off work for a couple months for carpal tunnel surgery. We knew it was going to be hard on my co worker and myself but it was best to do what we could…then she got covid. I then had a completely unrealistic schedule and now I have to cover her as well. Let’s just say it was tough.

In light of the hideous work schedules, stress and my overall health I decided to make 2022 the year of me! No more putting myself last. I started off my year by finally having my carpal tunnel taken care of. Then planned on using my time off to reset my life and get back on track. Well, it kinda went off track pretty quickly. Now There were some great times, but there was a lot of really bad too.

2022 was a mixed bag, good with the bad. One of my best friends died suddenly in February. It was awful and heartbreaking to take her off life support but I was thankful that I was off work recovering from my carpal tunnel surgery so I was able to be there her last days and as she passed. I was also able to help sort through her things with her brother and boyfriend and be there when we laid her ashes to rest in one of her favorite places in the world. Should I have been at work getting off work for that would have been difficult with how short handed we are.

That was followed by me having a severe reaction to my mandatory covid booster. I am a big believer in vaccines and they do save lives. but I am against mandatory vaccinations. I believe that health decisions should be up to an individual and their MD. This was my view since before the first mandates. I voluntarily got my first 2 covid vaccines and I reacted to the first one and worse to the second one. I had no intentions of getting a booster due to how bad i felt after the 2nd shot. But I work in healthcare and our governor feels that everyone who works in healthcare must get a mandatory booster too or loose their jobs. No one else in the state needs to even be vaccinated and it is even optional for state employees but if you work in healthcare it is mandatory, not by our employers (who just recommended it, but it was not mandatory) but by the state that mandated it. Well, I reacted and even worse than my first two shots. To the point that I am lucky to be alive now. Near death or death is the only way to qualify for an exemption (my reaction to shot 2 was bad, but not bad enough to qualify for the exemption under the mandate) so I now am exempt for any further mandatory vaccine because if I get one again it will probably kill me. So yippie for not dying.

To take the good with the bad, It was actually fortunate that I was off work with my carpal tunnel surgery so I had time to get my health under control for the most part before returning to work. Was not at 100% but at least I was at probably 80% by the time I went back to work. Without that time off it would have been near impossible to fir in all the testing and appointments I had at the beginning to figure out just how extensive the problems were and get them under control. I had appointments almost every day for a few weeks, sometimes I had multiple appointments in a day. By the time I got back to work I only had appointments about once a week. Now I am doing much better and only have appointments every couple months and lab work. No one knows if I have to worry about future flare ups or other complications or anything because the vaccine is so new. But hey, I am still here.

Now 2022 was not all doom and gloom. I did have some good points. I had a couple road trips with some friends. I reconnected with an old friend that moved away a few years ago. I also checked off a bucket list item that has sat on that list for 26 years. It was just as amazing as I dreamed it would be.

So where does that leave me for 2023?

In 2023 I am again trying to focus on my health…again. I will be working on getting in shape and managing my stress. I will also be checking another item off my bucket list and finally seeing the Northern Lights in February. I was suppose to go in February of 2021, but it got bumped to 2022 then 2023 because of Covid. I was starting to feel like it may never actually happen. But I am very excited that it looks like it is actually going to happen in 2023!

My husband and I had a talk just before New Years about our goals and wishes for the upcoming years. I am excited for the plans we have made. We are both looking forward to a healthy, rewarding 2023 and an even better 2024.

From our home to yours… Happy new year everyone! May 2023 be the best one yet!