Well, hello!
It’s been awhile, and I apologize for the radio silence. After this chapter of our whirlwind adventure came to an end, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with this blog.
It’s served as a wonderful place to share our travels with our friends and family, a sort-of (barely updated) travel diary, and a really great way to connect and share stories with other travel bloggers and travelers. But, now what?
I think I’d like to keep it as a place to talk about our travels. Because those will never come to an end! And I really like having our little place on the internet dedicated to living the life you choose. I hope that we will always strive for that and ask ourselves, “how do we want to live our lives?” on a regular basis.
Well, let’s start off by sharing where we are.
Jake and I knew we weren’t going to move back to Seattle when our trip ended. It’s just gotten too expensive and we wanted to live somewhere where we could save money and not have to sacrifice too much on our quality of living. (No more hour and a half long commutes, please and thank you!) While we were in Mongolia of all places, we started toying with the idea of moving to Cincinnati.
Why Cincinnati?
- Jake’s family is there, so we knew we’d have a soft place to land with a lot of support.
- It’s cheaper, by A LOT! We can rent a two bedroom house for the cost of a studio in Seattle.
- It felt the time for a new adventure. Adventure isn’t always about travel, it’s also about choosing a different path than you were used to.
- We wanted to explore more of the US. Cincinnati is so close to some other amazing cities like Chicago, Nashville, and Louisville.
So here we are. Just over a year after we left our home in Seattle and we’re putting down new roots in a new (to-me- newish-to-him) city.
So, What the heck are we up to?
Well, I’m still fortunate enough to be working via freelance with the same company I worked with in Seattle, Odd Dog Media. It’s an amazing company and a great team that I feel so fortunate to be a part of. But I’m missing the office dogs something fierce!
I also have a few other projects going on because, I mean, if you know me, you totally understand…
I launched my own digital agency! I have a passion for local businesses and so want to grow my own business to include helping business owners grow theirs as well.
You can find more details about my brand-spanking-new agency here: http://www.danielleisbell.com/
AND as of this week, I am officially a Beautycounter Consultant!
NOTE: If you’re thinking, “OH NO! NOT ANOTHER MLM BUSINESS! Now I can never talk to Danielle again!” Calm yourself. I will not hard sell you or try to get you to join my team.. unless of course you want to or have questions about safer skincare! – this will be the most I write about it on this site, and you can just skip ahead if you just don’t care…
Slowly, bit by bit, I’ve been exploring safer beauty and hygiene products to incorporate into my life. First, it was cutting the aluminum from my deodorant, next, it was jumping on the no-poo bandwagon (that one did NOT go over well for me….). I’ve tried coconut oil, olive oil, apple cider vinegar as beauty products and cleaners with a varying amount of success.
I came across Beautycounter via a couple of trusted people in the paleo food community. (Cassy Garcia and Diane Sanfilippo) and immediately fell in love with their mission to provide effective and SAFE beauty products. I’m just at the very beginning of my journey, but I can’t express just how excited I am to be a part of this amazing group of women.
You can learn more about Beautycounter here or by watching this video.
OK, back to the blog! I’m a bit behind in our posts from our adventure, so I’m aiming to get those completed soon. I have so much more to write about Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Australia!
What travels do we have planned next?
Well, this year will be all about domestic travel. I’ll be visiting Seattle and Portland this summer, which is really more of a return to the homeland than it is a new travel adventure, Chicago in October, and some shorter trips we hope to get on the books in the area. Like Nashville, Asheville, Columbus, and Cleaveland. This is the first time I’ve lived in this part of the world, and there’s so much to explore!
Stay tuned!
Safe & happy travels –
Danielle and Jake
