hi friends!

 so i thought i'd been away longer but it turns out not.

i've been having fun on the youtube.

it's like storytelling with pictures.

i've always been a writer so this has been an interesting creative outlet.

reminds me of my beginner blogger days...where i was SO SURE one thumbnail or edgy blog post would propel me into blogging infamy.

ha!

it's hard not to get sucked into the productivity-achievement wheel of death.

but my experiment was to see if high volume content would fast forward me to monetization in 3 months. as we used to do in my last job, my interim analysis does not show any data to support that.

so i'm slowly backing off.

i don't know what the channel will look like after the 3 months of video i have scheduled published. so time will tell.

i came on here to think through a vacation.

i was having fun playing travel voucher tetris. i had a $100 delta credit and some SW vouchers + a marriott FNC.

so i figure i'd retry a cruise. probably not a bad idea since i'm planning a transpacific cruise next year. 

but then i was helping a family member plan for  a DR stay in december and the prices were reasonable...now i'm thinking...do i want to do that instead? 

by now the voucher roulette crusie has turned into 2 back-to-back cruise cuz that's what all the cool cruisers do. but i'm like...how did not trying to waste $100 turn into a $2k trip!

see how they get you!

the consumer machine wins again.

a friend recently went on 2 week trips...and i was thinking..hmmm...is my short trips a relic of working or would i enjoy actually staying longer???

so i've been trying to default to two weeks since i "need" to spend the money and i have plenty of time...so we shall see

luckily, i know i'm still vacillating on this and i'm still exploring the after effects or early retired life so i gave myself a stop order until at least after my next SW voucher credit posts (this weekend) and perferably after my yellowstone trip to see how i feel after a long trip. 

will have to deprogram myself from short trips and needing the buffer before returning to work. 

funnily i was watching that same friend convince herself that work was fine and she would stay with it for a while...while her face and body showed something completely different.

oh well... my other relatives seem to be having an out of body experience as well. just kind of all over the place..i think their current life and aspirational life are butting heads.

again, oh well.

happy end of july!