Yesterday I got engaged at my mom’s house in Millington. (Proposal story here.)

We celebrated with lunch at Las Tortugas in Germantown.

And had Jerry’s Sno Cones in Memphis.

We chilled in Audobon Park in Memphis.

And for dinner we ate at Central BBQ in Memphis.

It was kind of the perfect day of love, food, celebration, and Memphis.

I love being engaged and I’m glad it happened here. Memphis will always be a special place for me.

Even though this is my “travel” blog, I never blog about traveling when I’m actually doing it. But that’s what I’ve been doing for the last few weeks.

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.

Currently I’m hanging out in Tennessee, at home, one of my stops on our cross country road trip.

I finally have had time to relax and catch up on internet happenings while I’ve been gone. It was only one week of traveling, yet it was jam packed. We went from LA to Disneyland to Vegas to Dallas to New Orleans to Memphis in a week. That’s with the driving too. Quite crazy, right? And we still have to travel across the state of Tennessee and then North Carolina so we can visit the other coast and complete the road trip.

At some point I will sit down and blog about the entire trip and all the places we’ve been.  But let’s just say that on this trip I’ve found the happy.

Wheee!

I’ve been staying in Oakland with a wonderful blogging friend for the last few days. I had the chance to explore the bay area a bit and had a great time. But instead of blogging about any of that, I want to show the results of a few hours spent organizing her home office while I was here.

Before:

After:

Oddly enough, I like to clean and organize. My adventures into living minimally and without clutter have pushed me towards doing the same for other people and enjoying the process. I love tackling a project like this that feels overwhelming (which is why it hasn’t been done already) and leaving the space useable and clean. And it’s so nice when the person appreciates the final result. Perhaps I have a future as a professional organizer?

I finally got around to organizing and packing yesterday, thankfully. This is my last day in Oregon so it needed to get done regardless of how I felt about the tasks and my overwhelming desire to procrastinate.

While I was cleaning and going through my papers, I cam across a notebook I’ve had for a few years. Inside was an old 101 in 1001 Days list. I’d completely forgotten about the list but it was awesome to see that even without keeping it in mind I’d completed a good number (almost half) of the things on the list. I’d done things like:

• visit Chicago
• drove to Iowa and bought corn
• continue to blog at least weekly
• take my mom on a vacation
• donate blood
• learn to cook 10 new meals
• shop at a farmers market
• get a CPR certification
• fall in love
• achieve $500 monthly income from the web

It was fun to go back through the list and cross off the those things and more that I have accomplished. A lot of them were little silly things, but a few were substantial. Like the internet income. Crossing that off felt really good because when I wrote that I probably made 50 cents a month online. And now I make more than $500 each month. It took some time, but achieving goals is possible.

Finding this forgotten life list inspired me to update my current life list (the one that is always changing as I change). I’ve updated it a bit to reflect some new goals and to inspire me to complete some of the other things on the list. I know quite a few will be happening in the next few months and I’m so excited. I’m happy my forgotten life list showed up just at the right time to inspire me once again.

I’ve been procrastinating a lot lately.  I’ve been procrastinating on doing my laundry, completing my to do list, packing for my move/roadtrip. I’ve been procrastinating a lot by watching Design Star and surfing the web and generally avoiding all the things I need to do to make the next month or so run smoothly for myself. And what am I doing now? Blogging. Clearly I don’t want to get anything done today either.

Which leaves everything for me to do tomorrow, since I’m leaving on Thursday for San Fransisco/Oakland. Really that’s fine because there isn’t much to do in terms of actual physical labor. Because I don’t own much I need to do a single load of laundry and then pack my things up. Easy. But I am procrastinating and leaving that until tomorrow.

Beside my packing, I really have a lot of other things I need to be doing. Last night I made a long list of things that still need to get done either before the roadtrip or before moving to New Zealand. That list is a bit random and includes things like buying travel health insurance, creating a list of business books to read, finding a place to stay for one night in LA, further researching self employment retirement options, and writing blog posts to post while I’m on the road. I’m not sure why I’m procrastinating when I have so much on my list of things to do today.

I’ve always had a problem with procrastination. I’m not the kind of person that gets things done way ahead of time, even though I wish I was that person. I’m most definitely the person that finishes things right before they need to be done. I remember when I was creating my ebook, I was putting finishing touches on it right before I was set to release it (just cosmetic stuff, the content is solid). I remember in college I would write my papers timed perfectly so they would be finished right before needing to be handed in. I always have procrastinated and then stressed myself out trying to finish things before they are do. For some reason I avoid stress in most areas of my life, but still create it for myself when I procrastinate.

But I want to change. I want to stop procrastinating. So I’m going to start making my lists again – my to do list for today is the first in a long time – and then getting them done. Life is too short and I’ve got way too much to do to let procrastination keep winning. I’m turning over a new leaf and no longer procrastinating. I’m going to get things done.. which means I need to stop blogging my declaration of war on procrastination and actually go get things done. So have a good day!

So, I want to buy things. In particular I want to buy one thing: a new lens for my camera.

I’ve had a Nikon D40 for a while and while it’s not the best thing ever it pretty much suits my needs and nonexistent budget for upgrades. But one thing I’ve disliked for years is my lack of lenses. I only have the standard zoom lens that came with the camera. While that’s not bad, I want lenses for more specific occasions.

The one thing I really want a lens for is food photography. I write a food blog to help with my weight loss efforts. It’s just something I find easier to do than the boring methods people normally recommend for food tracking. But when I do something I tend to get obsessed and that’s where I now find myself with food photography. I want to take better pictures of my food.

Most lenses are extremely expensive, which is why I haven’t bought any for myself in the last few years of owning a DSLR. But now I find myself wanting a lens so bad I’m ready to press click on the order button. I can’t afford most of the fancy lenses but a standard 50 mm f/1.8 D Nikon lens would be a great starting lens to play with my food photography and improve my skills.

It’s only $125 on Amazon. Anyone want to grant me an item on my wish list? Yes? Anyone out there in blog land have a used one they are willing to sell?

Of course wanting a new lens or two also leads me down the path of wanting more gear including flashes and lighting equipment.  I won’t be going that direction for a while, but I do want to get a new lens before I leave the US. I would prefer before I leave Oregon, but since that’s happening next Thursday it’s not likely. But I will be getting it, some how, some way.

I think my recent anxiety over jobs, careers, and the decisions that they involve was caused by my upcoming move abroad. Last time I lived abroad I was in college and had a job working for the college. This time? It’s a whole new ballgame.

For starters, my visa allows temporary (up to 3 months) of part time work. If I want to get anything else I have to apply to get a different work permit. That alone leaves me scared that I’ll never find work. Add to that the fact that research online and from friends who lived in New Zealand tells me I’m at a disadvantage because I’m American. Yep, apparently kiwis don’t like to hire Americans. It makes sense in a small country with limited jobs and resources. It makes sense but it scares me. What if I’m always unemployable once I make the move? To be honest the whole process scares me and leaves me feeling almost paralyzed.

Although the move is in August, the chain of events leading up the move is going to start next weekend when I head south to Cali for a week or so. Because of that the move feels a lot closer than it actually is. I’m very excited to move to New Zealand. I’m looking forward to it. But certain things, like the job situation, give me pause and get me worrying. I know worry is pointless, but it’s a hard thing to stop once you’ve started.

So I worry a little bit and write posts about my career crisis and my confusion over the future.  Thank goodness for great comments that remind me that everything will come together. They remind me that I’m lucky enough to have created a somewhat stable online business to help me out even if I don’t have another job. They remind me to snap out of my worrying about careers and realize I’m one of those people who likes to be doing 18 different things at once. One job forever? Ha. I’ve already dipped my toes into a dozen different things and that number will just keep rising. I’ll probably end up have 4 different careers and a zillion different jobs. And that’s okay.

Now that I’ve moved past the mini vocation related crisis, I’m once again super excited about all the things coming up. I just spent a few minutes looking back through my vacation photos from New Zealand and I’m really missing it.  I’m so excited to move there for a year! :)

Generally I read a lot of blogs each day. I read some health & fitness ones, quite a few food ones, and then there are the travel/live better/live independent ones.  After a while most of those get old. The only ones I continually enjoy are the food blogs, which amazingly surprise me with new recipes and ideas daily.

But yesterday after writing about my career befuddlement, I started wandering the blogosphere. Because what else does one do when you haven’t a clue what to be or do? Surf the web, of course!

I found an interesting post from a girl who gives a rundown of her work history, which similar to mine includes a variety of jobs with the only similarity being the consistency of always working/having a job or two.

I love working.  As much as I hate early mornings and late nights and having a boss that drives me nuts, the whole reason that not working is bugging me so much is that I feel purposeless without a job.  For so long, I’ve been a teacher or a babysitter or a cashier or even a fitting room attendant.  I don’t know what to make of it. And sure, unemployment will cover my expenses and I have love, support and great people who would never let me fall, but still, I feel like I’m flailing: I don’t know how to just be me, sans title.

I am hoping to answer this question a bit while I’m waiting to find a job.  Who am I when I’m not a teacher?  What am I proud of when I’m not attached to some profession?  How can I make myself better, and make the world better, outside of a job?

She summed up exactly how I feel lately. I know blogging is considered a job, but for me it feels like her unemployment situation: it covers my expenses but I somehow feel like I’m without a title and purpose.

But more than just resonating with that bit, I love Amy’s entire blog. She has a life list and writes about lots of lovely things. Apparently she is the Community Manager for 20-Something Bloggers community, something I belong to but have not been very active with, but realize now I should. There are so many wonderful bloggers out there. I continue to find new favorites and explore new little pockets of the blogosphere as a whole.

Amy’s blogroll sent me wandering even farther into those amazing parts of the internet where I developed even more blog crushes on people like Jamie Varon and Gwen Bell and Sarah Von (I love the karma cards she sells) and Doniree Walker and honestly the list goes on forever. Ah, so many fun blogs with a variety of content. Variety! They don’t have schedules! They post about what they love! I love it.

Love this find via Just a Titch via Yes and Yes.

A nice reminder.  :)