Valerie

Happy Monday, Reader We're home!! I'll share more thoughts in a future email, as I'm still catching up from this trip – and I leave for Anchorage again on Thursday 😅 – but our trip was a success: Baby V had a good time, and we did too! (You can see a bunch of recap posts over on my Facebook Page if you missed them...) Today I want to chat about the Ultimate Explorer competition, as it's a crunch week. If I finish this week (which ends on Thursday night) in the #1 position, I move on to the...

Happy Monday, Reader How's your week been? I'm traveling this week* – a recap is coming in next week's email! *Don't forget you can find daily posts from my trip on Facebook & Instagram! Today I'll keep it short and sweet in the same format as previous emails... --- The Ultimate Explorer Competition --- I finished #2 again last week, which reduced us down to the Top 10 – apparently my group is quite competitive! I need to finish in the top 5 this week to continue to the next phase, which I'm...

Happy Monday, Reader As mentioned last week, I'm simplifying these emails for the next few weeks. They'll be shorter and have two main sections – so let's dive in! --- The Ultimate Explorer Competition --- First up, an update on the Ultimate Explorer competition: I made it to the top 15 last week (and was #1 in my group). Thank you to everyone who voted after last week's email, as it helped me pop back to the top of my group in a snap 🫰 This week, they're trimming to the top 10, so if you...

Happy Monday, Reader I've been sitting here for about 45 minutes now, writing and then deleting emails to you. I looked back at what I've sent these past few months, and realized: I'm just not happy with what I'm doing right now. I've been sending business-ish updates for a while, but I don't really want these emails to be about my business. I want them to be about travel. That said, I haven't been traveling much this year because A) Baby V is still so small (6 months already, though!) and B)...

Happy Monday, Reader First off, thank you to everyone who did not email me to let me know I had a typo in my last email – I said it was Wednesday when it was Monday (#mombrain 🤪) Secondly, how was your weekend? Mine was good! Mr. V is doing a sailing class so Baby V and I hung out just the two of us all weekend. We had a few nice walks and got a lot of house chores done. It was very domestic 😅 I'm already ramping up for our Alaska cruise in a few weeks though... Two more things I want to...

Happy Wednesday, Reader I'm back! As promised! How was your weekend? On our end, we went for a nice long walk in our neighborhood, took a big chunk out of the hedge we're removing from our front yard, spent some quality time as a family – and I got a break to go play Dungeons & Dragons with friends. It was a great weekend in my book, and I hope yours was good too. I mentioned in last week's email that I had some news to share, so here it is: I've been selected to compete to win in the...

Happy Wednesday, Reader Somehow it's been three weeks since my last email – I think I definitely should have taken a planned summer break from emailing, like I have in years past... rather than leaving you hanging wondering where oh where is Valerie's email this week? whatever will I do without it?! (Because I know you've definitely been thinking that 😉) In any case, hi! Good to see you! Welcome to August! Oh, and Baby V is six months old today! Time is flying, my friends! As I know many are...

Happy Monday, Reader In my last email, I mentioned I was going to start taking the second week of the month off from blog work – and I think (or I guess based on not emailing last week) that includes my emails if I don't get my thoughts scheduled to send in advance. Anyway, how are you? How was your week last week? I got some things done around the house and our rental units, plus worked on some other projects that might become a bigger focus in the coming months. Additionally, I had some...

Happy Monday Wednesday, ReaderLast week, I said I wasn't taking a break from emailing... but I guess I didn't say I would be perfect about emailing every Monday 😅 (I've found it doesn't matter which day of the week I pick – I always miss a few!) Anyway, last week I also mentioned that I was taking a personal retreat day on Tuesday, which I did. The backstory is that for Mother's Day this year, Mr. V gave me "a day" so I cashed in that chip for an entire day "off" from mom duty and took it to...