Yes. I live here. It’s for real. I’m not moving any time soon. It’s finally sunk in that this is my home and that I’m an expat now.

I also realize that I now live near the beach. After living 6+ hours from the nearest beach for so long I consider a less than thirty minute drive “near” the beach. Definitely. Even better is that I live that far away from several beaches.

That means I’ve crossed off two things from my life list. I’ve now lived abroad (though technically I did that in college but it wasn’t the same). I’ve also now lived near the ocean (although I could always get closer!).

Here’s to the upcoming new year and crossing off more amazing things from my life list! :)

Since I left for Oregon a couple months ago I’ve traveled thousands of miles and gone through 15 states. I spent the last three weeks traveling and basically living out of my car on a road trip from Oregon to California to Texas to Louisiana to North Carolina to Tennessee.

I started in Salem, Oregon, where I was living for a month and a half with my good friend. From there I traveled to San Francisco and then Santa Monica to meet up with bloggers from the healthy living niche.

Venice Beach, CA

Emerald Isle, NC

I went to Los Angeles I picked up my boyfriend after he traveled to the US from New Zealand. We then went to Disneyland (see The Happy for the best photo ever from Disneyland), Vegas, Texas, New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, and finally ended up on the east coast in North Carolina.

Seven Lessons Learned From A Cross Country Road Trip

1. Be flexible. Having a plan in place is a great idea, but make sure it’s not very rigid. Having some flexibility for new opportunities that might come up will make your trip more enjoyable. We had a tight schedule in certain places and it would have been nice to be more flexible and try more things.

2. Expect to spend more money than you budget. Unless you have a high budget, you probably will over spend. We had a very modest budget and definitely overspent in certain places. It’s hard to predict when gas will cost more or an unexpected but necessary expense presents itself.

3. Take care of your car carefully. If you are going on a roadtrip across the country you will be spending a lot of time in your car and putting a lot of miles on it. Getting your oil changed on schedule, having air in your tires – these things are important for your safety and for your car to be as efficient as possible. You might also want to consider getting AAA, which even if you don’t use gives you piece of mind on the off chance that anything might go wrong with your car.

4. People you’ve never met will be the best people to stay with. On our trip we stayed with a lot of bloggers to keep our expenses down and meet some of our readers (Kepa and I are both bloggers). Many of these stops were the most amazing and unforgettable experiences of the trip. The people we stayed with shared their homes and gave us more than we ever could have expected. If you get a chance, instead of staying in hotels stay with people you know or even those you’ve never met. Check out couchsurfing.org if you don’t know bloggers in a million places.

5. Explore as much as possible. See a random billboard on the interestate for something that looks promising? Get off and try it out. That’s how we found Lea’s Lunchroom in Louisiana, which gave me the best slice of apple pie I’d ever had. Don’t always stick with the standard stops – explore a little bit.

6.  It’s hard to be healthy. I’m a healthy living blogger who tries my hardest to eat healthy food on most days. On a road trip, however, it’s ridiculously hard. If you are trying to fully enjoy the roadtrip you want to try local dives and specialties, not chew on celery sticks. A long term road trip can definitely lead to weight gain when you combine the yummy food with sitting in a car for hours upon hours.

7.  It’s worth it. A cross country roadtrip was something I’ve wanted to do for years. It’s one of those things on my life list that I knew would stay on there until I did it. It was the most exciting, most fun, best relationship building, worthwhile experience. Road trips can turn out the other way though, so make sure whoever you go with is someone you really enjoy spending time with!

Those are a few things I learned in the past three weeks while traveling across the country. I’m finally back in Memphis now and I’m glad. My last three weeks in the United States will be filled with showing Kepa around Memphis and tying up lose ends before moving to New Zealand.

Sort of.

It might be the lamest excuse for one ever.  I used my iphone for more photos than I would like to admit.  And I messed up the dates and skipped at least 4 days, since it ended several days after the date I originally started on.  (Perhaps a bit of that could be blamed on the confusion of going abroad for a while.)  All of the pictures aren’t great.  Maybe only a few are good.

But I did it.

Project 365 is getting crossed off the life list and my camera is going back to being a special use item.  The pressure, not that there was any, is off.

For me it’s less about the pictures and more about all the wonderful things that happened while I was trying to document my life over a year. Sure, a lot of boring “oh no i forgot” pictures are in there. But there are also pictures from trips to Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. and New Zealand and more. There are pictures of friends getting married, blogging conferences, living in Vermont, vacationing with my mom and meeting the love of my life. It’s been an interesting and unpredictable year for me and this project reminds me of that fact.

So here are the 365 photos that managed to make it into the final slideshow of Project 365 greatness.

Need proof?

Even though it was on my list of things to do, I never really thought I would get around to doing it.  But I did!!

I was super nervous about it when we got there, because it’s something I’ve never done and it’s jumping off something HIGH with only a cord attached to your ankles. In the video you can see that I was slightly freaking out in the beginning. That was partly because I must have looked nervous so the guys working started joking about being drunk and accidents and how nervous they were. Ah! But really the worst part is slowly waddling your way to the edge of the platform so you can jump. The cord is hanging off the platform and pulling at your feet like it is going to pull you off – it’s scarier than actually jumping. But once I got in place and they told me you just fall forward I knew I could do it… and I did!! I screamed for like a second and then realized it was fun and laughed during most of the jump. If you have three-ish minutes you should totally check out the video because it is freaking awesome.

Yeah. That’s how it is.

We also went to The Honey Hive where I bought some honey, took a little excursion to see Huka falls, and we went kayaking, then got caught in a storm, camped out for a bit with a super nice family from Auckland, and then hauled ass back so as not to get electrocuted. Maybe not the best kayaking adventure, but definitely a unique one.

Just another reason why Taupo, and New Zealand in general, is awesome.

I hadn’t realized before then that 1) it wasn’t on there and 2) I haven’t done it yet.

I spent the weekend hanging out with friends in various parts of Vermont.  I went on a little travel adventure and toured Meredith’s apartment and then Mallory’s as well and realized I wanted to have my own space too.   They both had such cute apartments full of things that spoke to them and represented them so well.  I realized that I wanted the same thing.  I want my own space filled with things I like that no one else has control over.

I’ve always lived with someone else.  Whether my family or roommates, there has always been someone else involved in making the decisions involved in my living space.  At most I’ve only had a single room and bathroom where I alone called the shots.  It’s not enough. I need to live on my own.

Financially speaking, having a roommate is the smart thing to do usually.  It has been for me in the past.  But I’m done with that.  I want to have my own small kingdom to rule.  I want to buy furniture I like and not care if someone else appreciates it in the same way.  I want to share my space and my things with no one else, except maybe a cute puppy.

So it is on my list now.

I will live alone somewhere, somehow.

As I was writing it I went exploring online and found a lot of amazing life/to-do/bucket lists from other bloggers.  Since reading all of these lists and recreating my own I’ve been pondering the idea of life lists.

Are life lists really necessary?   Can’t you just do the things you want to do without having a list to check off?

Why write a life list?

Life is short. Figure out what you want to do and then do it.  You don’t have the time to mess around.

Lists make you focus. The reason we write to-do lists is so we can focus on what needs to get done without getting distracted and forgetting tasks.  Life is very distracting at times and those awesome, fun, creative things we want to do can be forgotten in the midst of daily living.

Progress is fun. Creating a life list can give you a sense of progress and accomplishment as you look back at the things that have been finished and marked off.

Accountability. You know what is on my list now.  Remind me.  Let’s do some together.  It is out there for all the world to see and follow as I make it happen.  Writing out a list gives you more accountability to make things happen, even if that is just accountability with yourself.

I mentioned that I’ve written out my life list before.  Several times, once even on individual post-it notes.  So I’d like to share some of the experiences that were previously on my life list but have been completed before the list became digital in its version 2.0.  Progress at it’s best – the COMPLETED LIST:

Study abroad. Go paragliding. Visit California. Visit Mexico.  Graduate college with honors.  Win at intramurals.  Stay up all night.  Complete my thesis.  Present at an academic conference.  Learn how to snowboard.  Snowboard in the Rockies.  Visit Jessi in Orgeon.  Swim in the Pacific Ocean.  Sing Karaoke.   Ride a moped.  Eat deep dish pizza in Chicago. Go to BlogHer.  Meet blogging friends in real life. Go ziplining.  Spring break trip with the girls.  Visit Paris; Rome; Athens; Vienna; Brussels; Prague; Budapest.  Go to Puerto Rico.  Get a job through Twitter.  Kayak in Spring River; Lake Tahoe.  Backpack around Europe.  Take a train ride in the US; Europe.  Take a Greyhound bus.  Blog for over a year. Inspire someone.

I’ve done a few cool things already and have plenty of things left to experience.

How about you?  Do you have a life list out there somewhere?