Travel Update

First, I'm so excited for Maggie to come home in 5 days.

SE ASIA still on the table for me.

Maggie and I continue to give thought to a big Road Trip.  She sent me the link to a blog by Randy Olson who computed the optimal route for a road trip around the USA.  He's also done them for Europe and South America.  Wonder why he hasn't done Canada? ha ha

I really need to crunch the numbers for road tripping.  I looked a little into the cost per day of living in Asia and am thinking I could live there quite nicely on my pension.  Travel costs are pretty fuzzy right now.






  

Fitness Training Update

Spring Training began March 9.  Aim was:

• Pilates 3x/week
• Swimming 6x/week - minimum 20 mins; goal to swim 1500m
• hike or walk 5k 3x/week
• meditate 2x/day

I'm having new respect for verbalizing intentions ... I told people at work and others about Spring Training Camp with the hope that it would increase the likelihood that I would achieve these aims.

I might also be on the verge of new respect for "goal setting".

So far I'm mostly on track.  I'm behind 2, maybe 3, meditation sessions (although I set out to meditate 2x/day, I'm now aiming for 1x/day for now) and 1x swim session.

I've completed 6 hikes on the North Shore, including Lynn Peak and this morning swam 1200 m.

Feeling pretty good.

SE Asia in February 2016

While The Road Trip is still on the table, thinking about and planning for a trip to SE Asia has taken over as my default mode for being.
Out of the blue, Ann proposed that we go to Thailand next winter and mentioned a yoga & meditation retreat in Cambodia.  At first I was (hugely) hesitant ... bedbugs, dirt, depression ... but am now totally stoked.  I'm so glad it's a year away as I have a lot of things to put into place before I leave:

• memorial bench for Mom
• sell apartment on Charles Street
• store stuff
• remove all expenses not associated with travel
• save enough money for flights and emergencies
• get as strong and fit as possible
• find someone to care for the dogs

The trip, for me, will be on a one-way ticket, entirely open-ended, which I hope will include:

• yoga/pilates/exercise & meditation retreats
• trekking in the Himalayas
• surfing
• Tibet
• taking the Trans Siberian train across Russia
• lots of beach time

With retirement in June and this trip on the horizon, I feel like I'm graduating university; I'm going to bum around and do interesting things until I find something I want to commit to "for the rest of my life", something to do "when I grow up".  My only other idea on the horizon is to take liberal arts classes at university.    

Still On Strike

It's taken me longer than it should have, but I did finally skid to a stop with my spending.  No more coffee from Turks ... for awhile.  This is a good thing as I will have to live on less than I was before retiring/quitting

Maggie has left on her big adventure.  Mwa.  If she has half the number of wonderful experiences I had when I travelled, she'll have had a good trip.

We are both still stoked for our Road Trip and are committed to an asap-etd.  We have not taken Burning Man off the Itinerary and surfing in the USA (?) continues to hold #1 spot on Things To Do & Places to Go Lists.

I'm stoked to be doing my last year and final project of my "learning journey": "A XXX Model of Support in an Inner City Elementary School" and will be blogging about that at QA Resource site.  

Women Who Wander

Women Who Wander is the current working title for our road trip.

Since committing to the project, it's all I can think of.

(Inspiration Maps ... one of my favourite apps)

It's not just the trip ... it's allowed me to pull it all together.  It's got it all:

• a road trip
• time with Maggie (and, hopefully, other family)
• an intellectual focus
• a creative focus
• a personal/spiritual focus
• an awesome "distraction"

I'm glad that Maggie is going to Europe this fall and a little weirded out about how eerily similar her life is to my life was at her age.

U of R, 1972
VCC, 2011

This is us at the same age, our post secondary student cards.  26758 ... I can still remember my student number.

My Mother, My Self

phyllis muntain

The notion of making up for something done to somebody who is dead is ridiculous.  Perhaps the best, or at least something, I can do is dedicate this project to you.

Mom ... you were heroic on your final journey and I loved you so much.


My Mother - My Self

Women Who Wander

Maggie and I are going on an open-ended road trip beginning with Burning Man, 2015.  She is leaving for Europe in September and I will begin my last year before retiring.

The idea struck on June 16th, 2014 and we have been talking about it ever since.

hoping for Cricket sponsorship

We will each have a shared and solo journey.

So far we have:

• Pay it Forward - we pay forward 1/3 of whatever we get.  
• Doing Interesting Things for Fun while Looking Good
• Comment and Publish in Social Media
• Equally shared expenses of transportation, accommodation, nutrition 
• Gesamtkunstwerk 

Shared/Individual Identities: Adventurers, Artists, Activists, Philosophers, Mother/Daughter, Women, Sisters, Friends, Acquaintances

I'm going to walk the dogs, then wake up Maggie to go to Euro Cafe for a meeting before I leave for strike duty.  We must talk about shared and solo projects, manifesto, ideals ... Humor & Art