🤔 Pondering my future – a few takeaways

Happy ~~Monday~~ Wednesday, Reader

Last 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 try and figure out "what's next?"

I started with a massage, followed by lunch, a bit of thoughtful time at the public library in downtown Cleveland, and a happy hour Negroni to mark Bourdain Day (each June 25th, fans honor his memory in a number of ways).

The whole day was – I think, just one week on – quite productive. I came up with some priorities for the next few months and the remainder of 2024, but I wasn't really able to come up with a solution for the bigger question of what's next... (you might recall that a few weeks ago, I emailed about the uncertainty of how long I would be running this blog as my full-time job.) Either way, it's nice to have some focus.

One major decision I made is to take off every Tuesday and the second week of every month from "website work." This means that if I miss my planned Monday email slot, I won't send an email until Wednesday – but it also means I can catch up on some bigger projects and priorities that aren't related to my sites specifically. (Like getting Croatian citizenship, fixing up some of the maintenance issues at our rental properties, and some appointments for Baby V, etc.)

I also have a few creative projects in mind, including trying to get started on a new YouTube idea I had. I might not do this until the last few months of the year though, as the tasks I prioritized for Q3 are already set on my calendar.

I'm still very committed to this site – and (most of) my other sites – but I am going to be re-balancing my energy and focus in the remained of the year. Don't worry though – you'll still find plenty of Alaska and other travel resources on my site! (Check the P.S. to this email to see what's new!)

That's it for me this week; see you next week, hopefully on Monday!

✌️❤️✈️,

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P.S. Looking for some travel content instead? Here are three resources from my archives:

P.P.S. You can, as always, find a "weekly recap" of my latest posts on both Instagram and Facebook!