Roaming About

A Life Less Ordinary

Category: Lifestyle (page 40 of 45)

Mark and Liesbet’s 2016

2016 has passed in a jiffy. The older you get, the faster time flies. I am a firm believer of that “theory”.

In October 2015, Mark and I started our life in the United States. We applied for my green card (for the 2nd time in ten years; the 1st one, obtained in 2008, was “returned”), which I received five months later. The process for that took a tad longer than writing these two sentences! We began house sitting, expanded The Wirie business and I decided to write a book. A month later, I created this blog and an initial outline for said book. In December, we escaped to Florida for warmer weather.

2016 is our first full year of house and pet sitting in the US. The business has been successful and much easier to “handle” than from a sailboat in the middle of the ocean. I worked hard on my blog, trying to keep up a schedule of three posts a week. In April, for the A to Z Blogging Challenge, this became one a day! I worked on my memoir, which I will write more about on Wednesday, and we took care of a bunch of sweet, entertaining and smart animals. Continue reading

Wordless Wednesday – Path

I have decided to post photos of past travels in general and our eight year sailing adventure on SV Irie in particular for Wordless Wednesdays.  Also, I can’t manage “completely wordless”, but I’ll try my best at “almost wordless”. 🙂

With thousands of photos haphazardly archived over the years, I can’t easily pick what to post, so I use the weekly prompt of the Daily Post to inspire my Wordless Wednesdays. This week’s Daily Post photography theme is “path“.

This theme is very appropriate, because it is thanks to the paths we take that we are where we are today, physically and mentally. We live our lives and arrive at intersections. We stop. We think. We contemplate. Sometimes, there are multiple roads to pick from. Where do we go? Which direction do we choose? Which path do we take? Will we get lost?

Continue reading

Wordless Wednesday – Anticipation

I have decided to post photos of past travels in general and our eight year sailing adventure on SV Irie in particular for Wordless Wednesdays.  Also, I can’t manage “completely wordless”, but I’ll try my best at “almost wordless”. 🙂

With thousands of photos haphazardly archived over the years, I can’t easily pick what to post, so I use the weekly prompt of the Daily Post to inspire my Wordless Wednesdays. This week’s Daily Post photography theme is “anticipation“.

Anticipation is an interesting theme. It lifts the spirit, makes your heart jump, creates excitement, and can be fun, unless reality turns out to be nothing like you predicted. Anticipation does not prepare you for what will actually happen, which can be better, or worse. Anticipation can create dread if faced with something you don’t look forward to. When the situation is entered, things might turn out better than expected, leading to relief.

Anticipation’s big brother is expectation. Continue reading

Weight Loss Experiment – Take 1

In November, I did a case study. Of myself. After months of staring at massive bathroom mirrors and the reflection being exactly the same, I remained disgusted and could not deny the horrible truth anymore: I am (getting) fat. For months, I thought all the scales in the houses we took care of were wrong. Yes, I was that naive. Until recently, when facing – and admitting to – reality. It boils down to this: I am not all-around fat; it just has accumulated in certain spots. My body has been disproportionate for a decade: skinny on top, bulky on the bottom. Recently, the bulkier parts can be labelled fat and some new areas of concern have appeared.

People that have known me for a long time are probably raising their eyebrows reading a post about weight loss… coming from me! Most of those people have probably not seen me in a while either. Yes, I was skinny as a teenager and happy with my weight in my twenties and thirties. Sure, I was still OK wearing bikinis on our boat two years ago, ignoring the emerging belly fat, attempting to sit up straight when in company. And then, I turned 40. I like to blame the unruly weight gain on my age, but it might have to do with Mark and I swapping our challenging boat life for a more sedentary and comfortable house sitting life as well. Food is readily available in a plethora of varieties now. Sitting behind the computer all day and eating more western food probably didn’t help. Despite going for a decent walk almost daily, I gained 10 pounds in the last year… How do I get rid of that, at this age, with temptations everywhere? Continue reading

Wordless Wednesday – New Horizon

I have decided to post photos of past travels in general and our eight year sailing adventure on SV Irie in particular for Wordless Wednesdays.  Also, I can’t manage “completely wordless”, but I’ll try my best at “almost wordless”. 🙂

With thousands of photos haphazardly archived over the years, I can’t easily pick what to post, so I use the weekly prompt of the Daily Post to inspire my Wordless Wednesdays. This week’s Daily Post photography theme is “new horizon“.

What is to be found across the new horizon?

What is to be found across the new horizon?

Now this is a theme I can resonate with, since one of my mottos is “Expand your horizons!” Continue reading

Modern Day Nomads? That’s Us!

I am taking the easy way out today with my blog. I truly ought to prioritize my book and I am a bit demotivated because of a Bluehost server problem that was out of our hands, last Friday. It broke our 3 websites at a critical time, for 16 hours straight; just when I had put some extra effort into a few things. You gotta love the internet, and hosting services you pay a lot of money for…

Irie, Mark, Liesbet, Darwin and Kali in the Bahamas

Irie, Mark, Liesbet, Darwin and Kali in the Bahamas

So, I am offering up two links today. Don’t worry, they are not affiliate links, nor do they bring you somewhere you don’t want to be. The first one is a recent interview with us, by Modern Day Nomads, which officially declares us nomads of the present (and the future). 🙂 Continue reading

Then and Now – Relaxation

I am a couple of days late for my Wordless Wednesday post and WordPress photo theme of the week, which was “relax“. The reason: my first Wednesday of every month is devoted to a writing update as part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. The advantage of my delay is that I can add this theme to my Friday “Then and Now” series, and that the weekend is already upon us; time to relax!

Samara, Costa Rica, 2006

Luperon, Dominican Republic, 2008

British Virgin Islands, 2009 Continue reading

Then and Now – My Birthday

Last week, Donna from Retirement Reflections suggested I do a “Then and Now” post about my birthday. While the thought had crossed my mind, I was hesitant to pursue it, because I thought I could do something bigger with that topic than “just” a blog post. See, a little while back, I played with the brief idea to make my variety of birthdays a thread in the memoir I am writing, or at least incorporate my last decade into an article, “Sailing through My Thirties” or something like that. As always with most of my genius ideas, not much ever happens with them. So, why not turn the thought into a blog? Some parts will still make it into my book, so I can’t reveal any juicy details or you won’t buy it. 🙂 The photos will not be able to make it into the memoir,  so… here are some birthday galleries!

30 – Monterrey, California, USA

My birthday in 2005 was a bit stressful and exciting at the same time, since our sailboat F/Our Choice/s (on which we were living) was getting hauled out of the water in the morning and undergoing an inspection to be sold. Or not… We spent part of the afternoon in the amazing aquarium and went out to dinner. We both love Monterrey, especially the wildlife, like sea otters swimming by the boat.

31 – Belize, Central America

Continue reading

Then and Now – Thanksgiving

This blog follows the theme from last week, but with much less color! 🙂

Thanksgiving didn’t mean anything to me as a Belgian, until I started visiting the US over a decade ago. Being married to an American made me appreciate this day of thanks, and I am always happy with an extra day off, of course. Thanksgiving is Mark’s favorite holiday, since it is not commercialized and involves no gifts. Instead, the focus is on good food (lots of it) and being with friends or family. Continue reading

Are We Lost?

I have mentioned before how Mark and I love our current lifestyle of house and pet sitting… The variety it offers, the different areas we experience, the wonderful pets we get to adore and take care of, the low cost, the comfort and conveniences of living in a house, the adventurous aspect of packing up and moving every few weeks or months. Yet, there is one, big, not to be underestimated negative aspect when committing yourself to full-time house sitting. One we only slightly realized while in New England, but that has bubbled up since we have been in California. Every day, it appears to become stronger: we are feeling lost! Not so much in a literal way as in “we don’t have our own place to live in and don’t feel like we belong anywhere”, which is true as well, but we knew this ahead of time when choosing this lifestyle. No, I mean socially lost. Mark and I don’t know anyone wherever we temporarily live and that does not seem to change for the better. We are isolated. Continue reading

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