turning 50 Archives - Cruisin with the Colemans

VF Day 1: Jet Lag, Eminent Rain, and Walking

Posted on June 1, 2022 by Cruisin Michelle

I should be asleep right now. It’s 1:30 a.m. There’s rain coming in at 11:00 a.m. so we have to start walking early. I definitely should be asleep. Unfortunately my body is still adjusting to the 6 hour time zone change and I’m restless with anticipation of the pilgrimage we’re embarking on.

I try to be productive with my time. I start by reading the book I have downloaded on my phone because if I’m genuinely tired that usually does the trick. If that doesn’t work, I play the most boring game I have on my phone, solitaire. It’s the modern equivalent of counting sheep. When neither of those work, I blog. So here I am, it’s 2 a.m.

Hopefully this won’t happen too often. Sheer exhaustion from the walking should allow me to sleep well. However, I’m a post-menopausal woman which means sleep doesn’t always come swiftly.

The morning comes and we are ready for breakfast at 7:00 a.m. I think I had about 3 1/2-4 hours of sleep. We enjoy our first pilgrim breakfast in Switzerland. I had yogurt with granola and a cappuccino. Brian had cereal with milk, yogurt, and a cappuccino. There was bread, meat, and cheese that we packed up for today’s snack.

We have a short 12 km walk and we picked the flat route. A pilgrimage is what you make of it. We are in the first leg of a marathon. The goal is Rome. The goal is also that we make it to Rome healthy, no lasting damage to our bodies, and we have a long way to go.

It’s a beautiful day. We’re on the official VF route for about 6 of the 12 km, a gorgeous bike path for all of the walk. I am thrilled today is easy because we have some extremely challenging days ahead to get over the Grand St. Bernard Pass of the Swiss Alps.

We arrive at the Abbey of St. Maurice a little before noon. Wow, that was quick! Fortunately, they allow us to check in. We take advantage of how we feel and tour the Abbey. It is stunning. Check our YouTube channel for videos as we will share a bit about the Abbey in our video.

Then comes the wait. It’s mid-afternoon and everything closes for a type of siesta. Fortunately the bar is open and it has wi-fi so we enjoy a glass while we catch up on a bit of necessary work.

It’s decision time. The restaurant opens at 1800 (6 p.m.) which is the same time as mass. Mass is all in Latin and French. The decision is made because we just heard from the Geneva airport, our bag was found and they will be delivering it tonight between 8-10 p.m. Sounds like we need to go to mass and then head to dinner so we will still be awake when the delivery driver arrives.

The mass was interesting, a lot of Gregorian chanting. We didn’t understand much but wow was is beautiful to listen to. No pilgrim blessing as we sometimes experience.

Dinner was pizza. It was good meal but I know we’re going to have a lot of pizza.

Tomorrow we’ll have breakfast with, hopefully, the sarcastic Father who doesn’t speak English but showed us to our room. I’m also hoping for a blessing. We need it. We start a small climb up today, then we have 3 days of intense climbing. It’s also supposed to rain for the next 3 days. Please lift a prayer.

By the way, our hiking poles/umbrellas arrived by a courier from the airport at midnight. At least we have them. if you haven’t already, make sure you check out our YouTube channel because we’ll will have a lot more details and stunning video of our walk.

Check out the video on YouTube!

Stats for today:

Walked from Aigle to Saint-Maurice – 12 km
Lodging at the Abbey of Saint-Maurice – 60 franks
Abbey Tour – 24 franks

Living a Life of Adventure = Achieving Goals

Posted on February 27, 2022May 26, 2024 by Cruisin Michelle

It’s critical to focus on the positive when you’re deep in the weeds working on your goals. And, oh my gosh, these weeds are thick! At the of each day, we want to be able to say, “we did everything we could.” We want to say that but some days we just soak in our hot tub and figure out how to do better the next day.

Alas, I am going to look at the positive – we have achieved 10 of our 50 goals already! We have been plugging away for 5 months and we are giving ourselves all of 2022 to finish them. Have you seen our “Year of 50” Goals? If not, click here to read the last blog post about them! Will we achieve all 50 goals in 2022? Today, we are going to be positive which includes not focusing on the finish line.

“If you really want to do something, you will find the way.”
– Jim Rohn

Our approach to our “Year of 50” goal-setting has been to stretch ourselves, challenge ourselves, do fun stuff, and remember a life worth living is a life worth living well. When I am deep in the weeds, sulking about what isn’t done, I remind myself we are blessed to have choices. We know the burdens many are faced with mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially. We don’t take our blessings for granted and we share in many of their struggles. But we stay positive and continue to live a life of adventure; one that makes others feel like they are right there with us even when it’s something they cannot do, don’t want to do, or are too scared to try.

In order to live a life of adventure, step one is meeting with your financial planner. Haha! We never want to go into debt – period. We have been deep in debt, both before we met and as we merged two families. It stunk! We have learned that no house, no RV, no adventure is worth living paycheck-to-paycheck. We sought out advice from professionals and friends we trusted. It took the first 10 years of our marriage but we are better off now than we ever have been. If you are struggling with your finances, please get help. When I was a single mom, I got help from our local Consumer Credit Counseling office and they changed everything for me. I am thankful I was able to admit I needed help because I was not raised with a good understanding of how to manage money.

We are not completely debt-free yet, but we are getting there and are definitely smarter about money. We analyze our finances monthly, we strategically pay off debt, and most importantly, we strategically spend money. Would we love a bigger RV? A bigger truck? Stay in the best hotels? Absolutely, sure! We would love to win the lottery too but we don’t play the game. What we do have is a great 30-foot rig that takes us on adventures and has become our second home, we have a truck that can pull it, a comfortable home base so we can work the jobs we love, and backpacks that help us see the world through the eyes of slow tourists.

Another goal we’ve completed is planning our pilgrimage. As I type this blog, we are 90 days from go time! This goal accompanies other goals that we have struggled with but we continue to plug away. We have no idea how this pilgrimage will go but we do know this: We are going to see Switzerland and Italy, we are going to be together, we have planned an outstanding trip, we will do what is necessary every day so we can do what is possible, and Lord willing, we will have a blast doing the impossible. Thank you, St. Francis, we pray for support along our journey.

Because balance is the secret to success, another goal we’ve achieved that I have to mention before this blog is over is that we’re swing dancing again! 💃 🕺 I cannot explain how fun it is to dance with your partner. We started swing dancing in 2016, and though we certainly don’t do it enough and will never win any awards; we love it when music is playing we can joyfully hop on the dance floor. We are thankful to VuDo Swing for teaching us what we know and for continuing to teach us more about swing dancing. It truly adds to the breadth of our adventures.

We challenge you to live your best life. Don’t live with regrets about what you have not done. Rather, wake up every day and do what is necessary, so you can do what is possible, and believe it or not, before you know it you will be doing the impossible.

Is Turning 50 Tough? Setting Goals for a New Year

Posted on January 30, 2022 by Cruisin Michelle

“Age is not important unless you’re a cheese.”
Helen Hayes

Turning 50 isn’t hard in the literal sense. One day it’s a Tuesday and you are 49, the next day is a Wednesday and you are 50 years old. Sure, literally it is not difficult. But we all know how the mind plays tricks on you about the aging process.

If you follow us on social media, you have heard us talk about our “Year of 50.” The idea has been to take ownership of the emotional transition from being “40 something” to “50 something.” We couldn’t ignore it, because to us, turning 50 is a big deal.

“Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.”
Victor Hugo

Take ownership we did! We created 50 goals to honor turning 50 years old. Most importantly, we recognize turning 50 is a gift as sadly there are too many people who never make it to 50. There are also people who make it to 50 but with failing health, or within a few years receive a surprising cancer diagnosis, or some other major health crisis comes along. Is 50 goals a lot? Of course it is! We know how ridiculous it sounds to some of you but we needed to show 50 who’s boss.

I turned 50 in August and Brian in October of 2021. We spent a lot of time that year creating SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-based) goals. We shared our goals with a few people for accountability but ultimately knew we would need to keep each other accountable. It’s not fair to hand your friend 50 goals and ask him/her to hold you accountable. Haha, I know, I tried. It’s overwhelming, but that is why one of our goals is to re-assess them every week; it’s our accountability goal. Haha!

We decided our “Year of 50” would happen throughout 2022. We started working on them before 2022 began but this wasn’t so much about starting on a birthday and ending on a birthday but rather the bigger picture of just making it happen.

You can easily presume why we chose 50 goals. But more than a number we wanted our goals to touch on various areas of our life from health & fitness, to adventure & travel, to home projects, to personal, and our community. We didn’t want our goals to be all be self-serving, giving back has been a big part of who we are and who we will continue to be.

Here they are, all 50 of them for all of you to see. Hold on while I catch my breath. Preparing for this blog has been tough because I am not interested in what others think about our goals. I love the accountability of typing away on my computer, creating this record of my intentions, and coming back to it every now and again (which is why I blog). I’m also eternally optimistic and I pray someone gets an ounce of inspiration from any blog we post.

How is it going thus far? To be real, some days are better than others. It’s only January and we have checked 8 goals off the list! We have several goals that will take more time to complete but we are on track. The goals are big. We feel the responsibility and pressure, but even more, we are on cloud nine watching the process work.

We set our intention for our year to turn 50. We will not surrender, dwell on the change, or wait around for whatever life has in store. We are having fun and keep creating adventures. If we are so lucky to get another 50 years of life, we are focused on creating what we want them to look like.

One of my goals is to blog monthly throughout this year. It’s January and I am kicking it off today! My goal is to talk about what individual goals look like in the weeds of detail, what they mean to us, and why we are focusing on a specific area. For now, I am heading off to the gynecologist. I know she is going to tell me it’s time to get my ovaries out. Hahahaha! Let the year of 50 begin…