Matt and Julie on the Cliffs of Moher on the West Coast of Ireland.
We’re back in America and we plan on staying for awhile. The Tour d’Europe and our Spring Marathon tour are finished and it’s time to look forward after all the great life experiences of the past few months filled with international travels and racing. It’s time to start the Super Seattle Summer!
We’re in Ohio for the week visiting our family and packing up our trusty Honda Element yet again for another cross country drive with the end destination being Seattle, our new home for the summer. We have some awesome projects to work on and we are eager to get started.
One project we’re not doing anymore is the Julie CPA plan. While in Italy she ditched that plan after finally realizing and admitting that the corporate office world is not what she’s most passionate about at this point in her life. Instead, Julie now has two main projects for this summer. First, she’s writing a new book! She’s currently putting together her second book, this time centered round our 2011 Appalachian Trail thru-hike. She has some really great ideas for telling this story and I’m excited to see it unfold. Second, she’s begun diving into the world of web design and development. With the help of some intelligent and inspirational friends, along with lots of free web resources, she is looking to combine her love of art and design, with her talent and somewhat unique passion for reading manuals and following instructions (she tells me she was a Lego-geek growing up). So we’re going to Seattle, Julie has tons to do, and it’s not CPA study and school but instead writing and designing.
However, after she originally decided to go to school in Seattle, I needed to come up with a plan too that had us living in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest. I scoured my Projects list to figure out what would be most opportune for me to work on during this time and I too came up with school. I’ve wanted to learn a medical skill and get more into the sciences ever since my undergraduate days as a Philosophy major. I’ve always loved exercise, the science of it, and health, and I decided it’s time to combine these passions. So I’m going back to school with the ultimate aim of being a nurse! I’m starting at square one with all the basic prerequisites including English Composition 101 (based on the requirements for the program I want, I actually need to take some of the basics again despite having an MA). I plan to take prerequisites over the summer and fall quarters and if all goes well, I’ll start a nursing program next fall (2013). I’m embracing the opportunity and am looking forward to living the life of a student again; I think I can do it way better than my previous attempts.
Along with being a student again at age 31, I also have an ambitious running schedule for the summer. I’ve been feeling pretty roughed up probably due to all the marathons without much training along with being on hard surfaces for much of the past few months. Because of this, we’re very much looking forward to the trails and mountains of the Northwest. We’ve also noticed that with getting a little older, our bodies simply ache a little more and are not as agile or coordinated as they once were. As a result, we’ve started the P90x Lean program to focus on total body fitness along with our running. We’re two days into it now and though we’re a bit sore, we are motivated and excited to be doing a program again where we’re given the plan and our responsibility is simply to follow the plan. Plus, my Dad is doing the program with us which is extra motivation for us.
We plan on leaving Ohio next Wednesday after our big presentation and book signing at the Findlay Library Tuesday night (come join us if you’re in town, 6:30 pm at the Findlay Public Library). We are stopping to visit a few friends and family en route to our end destination of Seattle. We’re amped to see everyone we can and super excited to be out west with our NW friends again too. So onwards to the great NW! The adventure continues; cheers to a Super Seattle Summer!