Off to Hawaii!

I know it’s been ages since I’ve blogged last… almost a month, in fact. My apologies for my loyal readers who keep checking back for new posts. The last month has flown by as I’ve been incredibly busy, mostly with work stuff, which has found me repeatedly out of town and working some evening/weekends conducting workshops or participating in conferences of different types. Tomorrow, though, I leave for a one week vacation in Hawaii with my best friend in the whole world – my sister.  I was lucky enough to win flights to anywhere in North America/Caribbean at a fundraiser last year. The rest of the trip (hotel, car, etc) was not covered, but I saved up all year in order to be able to afford the kind of trip I really wanted. It’s a great feeling. Every month I put aside whatever money I could – from extra jobs I took on, or from gifts, or GST rebates, or whatever I could spare during that month – and kept it in a separate savings account. I kept thinking back to all the episodes of TTDUP where Gail encourages her participants to plan for trips and save the money before traveling. I had always marveled at how even couples who made very little money and/or had piles of debt were still able to keep their travel plans just by working hard, making more money and budgeting. I’ve applied a similar approach and made it happen for myself.  It’s really quite simple and easy when you apply a step-by-step approach and plan ahead. (Just one more way in which Gail has been an inspiration to me!)

Upon my return I’ll be attending more out-of-town workshops, planning for lectures, and more workshops, so I’ll be a busy gal. And I am of course continuing on with my fun goals. Between work and my social life, I have nearly every weekend of the next two months already fully booked! But I aim to check in on the blog more frequently and will give an update on my trip.

In the meantime, here’s a picture from a cold winter walk I took recently. Looking forward to leaving this cold weather behind, even just for a few days!