The Adventures of Jim & Rhonda

Every so often I’m really reminded of why we’re taking this trip (or at least one big reason) and that is to truly live life to the fullest and appreciate every day. In the last couple of years we’ve lost my sister in law, my mom & our dog and have cried many tears along the way. A  good friend of mine lost her mom almost exactly 2 weeks after I lost mine and every time we see eachother there is that little bit of sadness of being kindred spirits.

I just heard from her and on the way home from putting flowers on her moms grave she found out one of her dearest friends from childhood was killed. There is much sadness in the world but I think we all need to take away the lesson that you must truly LIVE, not just exist to work to pay your bills, etc always waiting for  “someday” to follow our dreams & truly appreciate the wonder of our lives.. Too bad it often takes tragedy to wake us up to that fact but I know I, for one, plan on making every day count.

We put our acerage on the market on 5/10 and sold it on 5/12… Great news! We sort of figured it would go quickly since finding a small acerage is a bit tough in the area, however we had no idea it would go so quickly! It was especially a blessing since the same day as the house went on the market Jim got layed off from his job! It was a bit of a shock but we realized it was meant to be once the house went so quickly.

Well I slaving away at the office wishing I were anywhere but here, he is at home packing, securing the storage unit, making endless phone calls for appointments for inspections, etc, finding an apartment, etc. It has certainly taken a lot of stress of me since he’s accomplishing so much during the day I haven’t been having to do much in the evenings to prepare.

So, the time frame has been moved up and I’m looking at 31July being my last day at work with a departure date for our RTW sometime in mid-August. I can see this is how the entire trip will work… we’ll have a bit of a plan and something will come up to completely switch things up!

My in-laws have a time share in Fiji so we’re also now thinking of spending a week or two on “vacation” before we actually start our RTW. I will still officially be part of the travel community before we go so we are going to get a travel agent rate on Air New Zealand w/ a stopover in Fiji for around $700pp from LAX. Not a bad deal.

Right now we’re so busy with all of the emotions of the last week it’s still a bit surreal (not only did JIm get layed off and we sold our house but I also cut my hair really short and am in the process of getting as blonde as possible pre-trip. With my pre-mature grey it will be much easier to just have it light to begin with so the grey will blend in easier but what a shock to the system!)  I think the fact that we’re really doing this won’t kick in for a bit longer!