Next chapter in the 2010 review . . .

December 22 – Travel

How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year?  (Author: Tara Hunt)

{Future Tool: New Year’s Goal Questions for No-Goals Creatives from Jeffrey Davis. For the next 10 days as you round out your year, we’ll share one tool each day to help you plan your year ahead.}

For the first time in many years (like 9) I did NOT FLY anywhere in 2010!   Did a lot of driving, that’s for sure – but did not step foot on one single plane.   Let’s see, we drove over 17,000 MILES (not km) in our 34′ motorhome on our Young Snow Birds 6 month RV trip around the US and Canada.  You can see our entire route here.   Including miles on the car (which we towed behind the RV) which we used daily and for side trips – we went over 26,000 kms.

I’ve already got some travel planned for 2011.  I’m off to Turkey for 3 weeks, on a ladies trip.  Then Rob will fly to Barcelona, Spain and I’ll meet him there – where we’ll spend 10 days visiting with our friend Michele and touring the area and relaxing.  We might take a train, or rent a scooter or motorbike – who knows.

Beyond that, we want to head to Peru at some point and stay for around 3-4 months.  I’ve been there but Rob hasn’t and we both want to go down and help my friend Washi build his retreat, see Diana (from Red Lotus Tours that took me there the first time), do some work for Path of the Heart, and learn more Spanish.

December 23 – New Name

Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why?   (Author: Becca Wilcott)

{Future tool: Chris Guillebeau’s How to Conduct Your Own Annual Review. For the next 9 days as you round out your year, we’ll share one tool each day to help you plan your year ahead.}

Rob does this all the time at parties where there are new people.  Totally messes with them.  He’s been Trevor, Kevin, Tom, and Fred.   He also makes up a different job for each personality too.

For myself, I have no idea.  After I got divorced I took my maiden name back and didn’t change it when I remarried.  I’m actually really proud to be who I am, so why would I be someone else?  That’s all I got, I can’t think of a single name I’d rather be called.  Although I did like it when Rob called me “Chickadee” the other day.

December 24 Prompt – Everything’s OK

What was the best moment that could serve as proof that everything is going to be alright? And how will you incorporate that discovery into the year ahead?

(Author: Kate Inglis)

{Future tool: Gwen Bell – How to Create Your Personal Manifesto. For the next 8 days as you round out your year, we’ll share one tool each day to help you plan your year ahead.}

I don’t think I had one moment of “ah, it’s okay” but it sort of dripped on me.  By going to Bissell center frequently (including this morning) it helps me see and remind myself that others in the world have it a LOT tougher than I’ve got it.  Health, finances, personal relationships – someone, somewhere is suffering more than I.  I have a lot to be grateful for and how I’ll keep that going into 2011 is to keep up with my gratitude journal, if not nightly, then every second night.

December 25 – Photo – a present to yourself

Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

(Author: Tracey Clark)

{Future tool: Soul Biographies: Thoughts Become Things. For the next 7 days as you round out your year, we’ll share one tool each day to help you plan your year ahead.}

I’d have to pick a few different ones.  First this one of me alone:

Rob took this on the beach at Port Aransas, TX.  We spent over a month in Texas and absolutely loved it!  We had our own beach on the bay at the RV park, and a 30 minute drive would take it to this one right on the gulf.  I love it because the wind in my hair, the waves rolling in behind me – that setting is totally relaxing and it reminds me that I want to be by the ocean more often.

The image above was taken with the camera on a tripod with a self-timer.  This was our second trip back to the beach on Port Aransas (same as photo above).  We packed up the RV and took it over specifically for this photo.   I had managed to get an article with the Good Sam RV Club’s magazine and we had the possibility of getting on the cover of that issue if we sent in a good photo of us with the RV in a unique spot.   We also had the intention of parking on the beach for night, but that didn’t work out.   We didn’t get on the cover of the magazine but they did run it in the issue with our story.

Lastly this is one of my favorite images of us from the trip.  It was taken by my friend and amazing photographer, Tim Zielenbach in Savannah, Georgia.  It is the very square where part of Forest Gump was filmed.  Forest sat on a bus stop in much of the movie – behind him was this square.  We absolutely LOVED Savannah and both agreed we could live there.  We loved the slow lifestyle and laid back ways of the southerners.  The city is so gorgeous, and at just over 125,000 or so people it’s a perfect size.  We’d go back there in a second and are so grateful for Tim for photographing us.  Tim then kidnapped me (I went willingly and eagerly actually) for an afternoon to return the favor and photograph him with his two boys. We have many great memories there.

____________________________________________________________

This one went a bit long so I’ll sign off here and do the last 6 days on the 31st.  Until then – have fun!