Pro-Soup Propaganda

Oh, 2013, what a funny, weird, great, horrible year you were.

I did some pretty awesome stuff this year.

*I did a fair amount of hiking! I did some nice walks at Mt. Tabor, other hikes around Portland, went to some parks, hiked up Multnomah Falls, and hiked (and camped!) in Central Oregon's high desert, to name a few.

*I met Lil Bub, Internet Cat Sensation!

*Jonathan and I finally kayaked and it was awesome!

*I got laid-off from my "main" job and all of my side-hustles soon became my job! Luckily I am making a bunch of money and am able to put a ton of it into savings.

*I saw Michael Pollan speak for the second time.

*Jonathan and I went whale-watching at the coast and it was awesome!

*I had a great, well-earned sandwich at the top of Mt Waynapicchu.

*I went to Ketchikan to work a lot and saw some bears, went to Easter Island and saw a lot of moai, saw the Nazca Lines, hiked the Sun Gate Trail, was forgotten by the train in middle-of-nowhere Peru and hiked back to Machu Picchu Pueblo in the dark (still one of my top favorite travel memories!), explored Machu-freaking-Picchu!, and explored Cusco.

*We adopted the weirdest member of our family, hands down. Welcome, FunCat, we are glad to have you, even though you may be a small evil orange wizard, but we are glad you live in the Fortress of Joy with us!

*I made a packing list of my carry-on bag for my three weeks in South America. Maybe it will inspire or help you?

*Amy and I had some amazing conversations.

*Jonathan and I only snowshoed once this year. We tried to go again last week, but Mt. Hood doesn't have enough snow on it. Boo!

*I thought I helped co-create #slothing but apparently it's been the rage on the internet already.

*I fulfilled some Gob Bluth wannabe-ness and rode a Segway!

*I cooked some of my favorite recipes that I still love to make: Chicken Vegetable Soup, Thai Coconut Soup, Basil Garbanzo Beans and Quinoa, Curry-Fried Quinoa, and the best Chicken and Veggie Noodle Soup ever!

*I visited a U-Pick farm with Amy and look forward to returning!

While there were more many happy memories this year than not, this was a really painful year in parts. I had some personal life issues that took several months to deal with. I'm still dealing with them, really. I'm doing my best to focus on the now and look forward to healing and feeling better, but sometimes it sucks. I feel kind of lost and floundery sometimes (like I'm floundering, not like this guy, cute as he is). I know things will get better and I'm doing the best I can, but I am really excited to go to Antarctica and focus on me for a bit. I have been working my butt off the past two months and am looking forward to reaping the benefits.

This was my list of 2013 Resolutions. While I actually did pretty good on that stuff (yay reading lots of books and saving money!), there is stuff that didn't really happen (going to the Japanese Garden and yoga).

This new year is going to be called "Year of the Radical." (2013 was "Year of the Waffle." It was a delicious year.) There are going to be some radical changes. Things are going to be shaken up. Amy is going to be moving in with us quite soon, which will help both her and us with our respective money situations. I will be going on my big adventures. Jonathan and I will both be getting mountain bikes. We want to go on more bigger adventures together. I no longer need to totally kill myself with trying to earn money to pay for my trips. I will still be hustling but I would like to think that now I don't have to drive myself crazy with Making All The Money, but, who am I kidding myself, it IS nice to have it. ;o)

Brendan Leonard's post "Do Things And Make Things Next Year" really resonated with me. His goals for next year? "Do Things" and "Make Things." After being SO busy this year and having it jam-packed with everything, I am looking forward to a little bit of downtime. I want time to do stuff and time to make stuff. What will those things be? I don't know, but I look forward to finding out.

That's pretty much how I feel about Portland's snow today. Woo wo, indeed!

I'm writing this post from the house I started house-sitting today. I'll pretty much be house-sitting from today through the next month at various places, so my schedule is pretty darn full. November was INSANE. I earned three times in that month working for myself and STILL having more free time than I ever did having my full-time desk job. Awesome. This month is looking like I'll maybe be making a little less, but not by much! Hopefully this trend keeps up because I really like being able to adventure more often!

Speaking of adventures... I leave for my Antarctica trip IN A MONTH!!!! I really can't believe that this adventure that I have been saving for for what feels like forever is finally happening. I started to follow the ship that I'll be on, the M/V Expedition on both Twitter and Instagram, and have been enthralled with what I've been seeing. I truly can't believe that I'll soon be on that very boat seeing those very things. I've been mentally preparing myself over the past month trying to think of any last items I may need. I'm kind of thinking of getting Patagonia's Triolet pants to go with my jacket, but that's really the last thing I'm thinking. Having windproof and waterproof outerwear is a good idea in those cold , variable climates so I'm leaning toward yes. That will also help me for my Patagonia trip with all the windiness there! (Finding that post makes me think that I should probably write a post expanding about the fact that I'm going to volunteer at Torres del Paine National Park in freaking Patagonia in March, 2014!!)

I celebrated my 31st birthday on Sunday, which is kinda crazy. I feel like I should either feel older or something, but I don't. I still love that I get carded and people are like, "You're a decade older than the carding age?!" Ha!

And that's about what I've been up to! Just trying to keep my nose to the grindstone and make some money to pay for my Patagonia trip!

What's new with you?

Clothes

Cameras & Electronics

Canon PowerShot S100 Digital Camera - Not seen, taking these pictures ;o)

Extra camera batteries

Diana F+ Camera

LCA+ Camera

4 rolls of 120 film

14 rolls of 35mm film (Update: did not use all of it because my LCA+ wrist strap broke.)

Kobo Touch

iPad

Travel adapter

Miscellaneous

Frank is a necessity!! I look forward to updating her photo stream and map!

Lots and lots of sunblock :o) (Update: did not end up liking this sunblock much.)

Extra quart-size bag

Cash

Water bottle

Toothbrush

Snacks!

Voila!

It was so good because I earned it after hiking Waynapicchu in Peru in June. It was just whole wheat bread, dry, with mashed avocado, salami, and "lunch cheese" (yup, that's what kind of cheese it was) on it, but at that time it was the best sandwich ever.

I gotta thank my girl DoOrDebt for her post "Side Hustles vs. Relationships" that she posted earlier this week. It really resonated with me in thinking about HOW much I've been side-hustling lately.

In the past year I have...

Helped Amy with Little Bright Studio 

 Helped Shawn with Pixel Party

Worked at a curios shop in Ketchikan 

Dog-sat 

Tested wares at Ketchikan Dry Goods

Worked at Saturday Market for Karina 

Sold soap

And mooore!

That's a LOT of side hustles and I'm not even naming all of them. DoorDebt's post is about her struggle between needing to pay down her debt and spending time with her partner. She turned down a $20 an hour job to stay in for some much-needed down time. She comes to the realization that she would rather foster her relationship with her partner than earn the money. Her take is that, while she needs the money, there are only so many moments in life and she is tired of their conversations being short nuggets of information and her coming home when he is sleeping and vice versa. I totally respect that, but what if you're me and you have a really expensive trip to Antarctica coming up?

For me, I would have taken the job BUT only because my trip is so much closer. I have a LOT of money I need to be earning (like $10,000+) before my trip starts in January. And that's just paying for the trip. It's not even counting the amount of work that I will be missing out on for three weeks. (I think I will have two weeks of vacation time then?)

Yes, working a ton on alllll these side hustles means I have less time to spend with friends and family. It makes me slightly neurotic sometimes to think of how much money I need to save so that I have to take less money out of my do-not-touch savings. (I already realize there would have to be a miracle for me to earn all the money I need in this amount of time and I have been slaving my butt off.) I would sometimes just like to buy something I don't need just because I want to. I would love to go out and have dinner and drinks with friends sometimes and not worry about spending the money.

It's only temporary.

That's what I just have to keep telling myself.

I am working my butt off and I would love to spend some time at home, but until my trip is over I need to keep my head down and eyes on the prize. I'm thankful that Jonathan is so supportive of this trip and my dreams and whatever I need to do. It also helps that we both really value our alone time and we're not co-dependent on each other.

The take-away from this? When I am on a five week trip of a lifetime I'm going to be SO thankful that I worked so hard for 2+ years. It's going to be totally worth it. Will I spend this much time earning money in the future? I don't know. It IS kind of addicting to have a bunch of money in savings. My stocks are doing good and it would be nice to put a bunch more $$$ in them. I don't know if I could ever be one of those people that is able to retire when I'm 40 or something, but it would be kinda neat. ;o)

What would you do if you were in my situation?

P.S. I found a trip to the North Pole that is "only" $24,999! But it includes helicopter and hot air balloon tours, so it's totally worth it, right? :oD Anyone want to buy it for me??

Sunset our first night

The quarry where all the moai came from

Goofing around at Rono Raraku

Ahu Tongariki

Birdman carved in the rock

The "Naval of the Earth" - a cool magnetic rock!

Rano Kau crater

We saw a turtle sunning on the beach one afternoon!

Super splashy waves here!

Home is only 7714mn from us!

Sunset on our last night from a GREAT restaurant