leavin it all behind March 14, 2008

hey all!

this week hubby and i took an old buddy of his (mark) and his good friend (elena) out to dinner.  they are both unemployed and homeless…

…because they quit their jobs to travel together the rest of the year!

tomorrow they are leaving the country and will be staying in barcelona, spain for a few days, then taking a train to montpelier, france, where they will take residence for the next three months.  they dont really have a formal itinerary—so it will be a true adventure!

after three months, currently the plan is for mark to travel in africa. (everyone—especially his family—is trying to convince him otherwise. LOL.)  elena plans to travel europe—including biking in the swiss alps (i think?  SOME mountains! hehe) and visiting her family in romania. 

then around christmastime, they’ll meet back up here in WI and start to integrate themselves back into normal society. hehe.     

it was a blast hearing how they’ve prepared for the trip and what their expectations are.  but out of all the things they told us, i think what i was most surprised about is that in france, a bottle of wine is cheaper to buy than a bottle of water!  hahaha!!  

they’ve both started their own travel blogs and i encourage you to stop by!  elena’s adventures captures the travel experience from the vantage point of someone who just takes it all in.  and mark’s 2008 travels chronicles all the important—and sometimes funny—little details and nuances of taking such a big plunge in life!

quitting my job and leaving everything behind for nearly a year would be something i’m not sure i’d ever do.  but i’ll live vicariously thru them. hehe.  for now at least…i guess ya just never know! 

i think they are very fortunate (and brave. or crazy? hehe!) to be able to do this!  i wish them the safest travels and adventures they will treasure for a lifetime.  

au revoir, mark and elena! have a great time!!

~josey~
 

back in the land of cheese and brats October 31, 2007

hey!!

(oh by the way…that’s not "brats" like kids…that’s "brats" like bratwurst. LOL!)

welp im back in the "blog office" again.  we just got back from a fun, exciting trip to visit some friends and do some sight-seeing in the south!  yep, us yanks (me, hubby and the dog) went down to atlanta for hubby to visit a friend and for me to catch up with my old friend from high school!  remember the girl i said i hadnt seen in 15 years?  well, she lives near atlanta as well so i spent a few days with her and we had a BLAST! =D

we spent one afternoon leafing thru tons of old pix and looking through my high school scrapbook.  we laughed so hard i thought i’d finally cough up my tonsils!! hahah!!!  for example, here’s something goofy i kept:

fry box from 1989!isnt it funny how almost 20 years later you ask yourself WHY in the heck you’d save a mcd’s fry container? LOL!  i mean, i’ve seen WAYyyyy too many of those in my life   but, this one holds a special memory! 

kelly and i also laughed so hard at a rap we wrote (of course, we rapped it again–and still had it memorized! hehe!!), some goofy pictures we drew of our boyfriends (hers was drawn as a clown LOL) and a strange comic strip sort of thing we wrote about a guy we knew that evolved into a basketball-playing frog.  HAHA!! 

oh now, come on, you did weerd stuff like that in high school, too!  and some of you probably still do teehee!

then we spent the evening in a 7-acre corn maze.  it was SO AWESOME!!  strangely enough, with me being a hoosier, this was the first corn maze i’ve been in.  *hehe*  we went at night, so we had maglites in hand.  we got thru it in about an hour and 15 minutes!

it was hard to leave the next day, kinda like a slumber party you never want to end…but im hoping to get back down there again in the next year.  i feel so blessed to be able to reconnect with someone i thought i may never see again. 

altho we’ve both changed in a lot of ways, we still have it in us to act like a coupla goofballs and cut it up!!  and in that 15 years we’ve each been thru a lot and can shed some light on situations in each others’ lives for some perspective.  kelly is a special friend and i am so glad she’s back in my life!!  love ya, kel!  *HUGS*

on the trek back home, hubby & i stayed in asheville, NC for a night and visited the Biltmore Estate.  it was breathtaking!  and more than anything, the perfect fall weather made the whole visit perfect. (in addition to all the yummy chicken and biscuits and sausage gravy everywhere we ate. LOL)

a view from Biltmore courtyard–wouldn’t you love this back yard??

me, enjoying some mochaccino and lookin a bit haggard from all the driving *hehe*

 

 

 

 

 

 

sooooo now we’re home and getting back into the swing of real life.  it wasnt a glamorous or lengthy getaway, but it was nice to well…get away. hehe   i gotta lotta re-evaluating to do on my diet and just some lifestyle habits in general…which you will definitely be hearing about in the very near future

well, i should hop offa here for now–hope you all are having a GREAT week!!!

and kel, this is for you! ROTFL!!! >;-D

excerpt from the evolution of kermi. 1990.

ttys!!

~jos~