The Found Year

Living a life free of fear

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Life After Sabbatical: Pop Tarts, Unemployment, and Mom

Life After Sabbatical: Pop Tarts, Unemployment, and Mom

Family picture taken one week after returning to US, same day we were reunited with Molly (black) and Tucker (brown), and five weeks before we had to put Tucker to sleep

It’s been more than five months since we landed back home in the U.S. after six months on the other side of the world, and I have to say that the transition hasn’t been exactly what I expected. No judgment in that (that’s one…

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Sabbatical Part II by the Numbers

Co-written by Rana and Trent (As you read the following, please imagine that Rana and Trent are speaking in an overly serious tone, wearing starched white lab coats, supported by a PowerPoint presentation filled with impressive looking gibberish.) In order to give you, our blog readers, the very best possible reading experience, we are excited to announce that we have developed several objective,…

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Lovin’ Luang Prabang

I’m not getting lazy. Trent just happens to be a great writer with lots of good stuff to say about our sabbatical adventures. So, here is another guest blog post by him, all about our four days in Luang Prabang, which is fun to say and fun for play! Luang Prabang! Trent just chillin’ with a Beer Lao at Utopia, overlooking the Nam Khang River. By guest blogger: Trent, my hubs Our adventure…

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Adventures in Border Crossing: Thailand to Laos

Our visit to Laos has been an unexpected adventure from the beginning. When we arrived in Thailand nearly six months ago, we didn’t have any plans to visit Laos. Heck, two years ago, I couldn’t have found it on a map (blame my US geography education or lack thereof), pronounce it correctly, or tell you anything at all about its place in the world. To be honest, I am still not sure of the…

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Sabbatical Lessons: a guest blog by my husband, Trent

Sabbatical has given us the time and space to grow, learn, and be reminded of what matters. Special thanks to my husband, Trent, for his thoughtful reflections below on his own unique sabbatical experience. I am grateful every day that he is my life partner and that we are on this adventure together. I hope you enjoy his perspective! Written by Trent: As we approach the triumphant conclusion of…

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Celebrating the Thai New Year Thai-style

For three days in April, half of the people in Bangkok leave town, returning to their homes and families all over Thailand to celebrate the Thai New Year, or Songkran. The other half don their tropical shirts, grab a water gun and take to the streets to celebrate by drenching each other and the thousands of tourists who have come here for the shenanigans. Craziness like this takes place all over…

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Sabbatical Days 344 and 345: The Great Barrier Reef and Waterfall Loop

The end of sabbatical draws closer every day like an approaching cargo ship on the horizon, packed with dogs and friends and family and good Mexican food, and also a whole lotta slap ya in the face reality. But until that ship arrives, we are busy attempting to enjoy every moment of every day. Our last two days in Cairns qualify as two of the very best days in our entire yearlong sabbatical…

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The Great Australian Road Trip part VII: Final Destination Cairns!

Townsville to Cairns We spent our last day in Townsville taking in the scenic views from the top of Castle Hill (just shy of being called a mountain). This glorious pink hill is smack dab in the center of Townsville and offers stunning 360 degree views. It was a nice way to end our time in Townsville, the town so nice they names it twice. Castle Hill and views from Castle Hill, Townsville,…

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Down Under road trip part VI: the little things from Rockhampton to Townsville

Still no trace of the sun, but that’s okay, because this is a grand adventure, and rain or shine, we will make the most of it. Let me show you what little wonders we experience along the way. Because often it’s the little things that make a memory, that make life worth remembering. Rockhampton was a nice little town for a one night stopover. We did the zoo and Botanic Gardens and our laundry.…

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Oz road trip part V: Desperately Seeking Sunshine

This is the day that I admit to y’all that not every day on sabbatical is all sunshine and totally awesome. Some days are boring or frustrating or disappointing or even sad. Sometimes Trent gets on my nerves, and many days I get on his and vice versa. The camper van leaves little space between us and nowhere to run in an argument, but most of the time we are cozy and all smiles. We awoke to the…

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Straya road trip part IV: A Bundy Time in Brisbane & the Sunshine Coast

We awoke early in our makeshift free camp site south of Brisbane after falling asleep to the strangely coherent sounds of cars on the highway, someone strumming a guitar, and mobs of twenty-somethings laughing about things they won’t remember in 20 years (but they will remember the feeling of freedom they had). The guitar was by far the best at lulling me to sleep, but what I really wanted to do…

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Australia road trip part III: Byron Bay to The Gold Coast

Wow! What a day! The drive from Byron Bay to the Gold Coast was a meandering, unexpected, triple beach kinda day, and we can’t imagine how life gets any better than this. After a night of near constant rain in Byron Bay, we awoke to sunshine and the sounds of kookaburras and wild turkeys, apparently enjoying themselves immensely. I may have been giggling at the sound as I opened my eyes. If I…

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Australia road trip part II: Chasing the sun from Port Macquarie to Byron Bay

It’s going to be hard to top Port Mac, as I’ve come to affectionately call Port Macquarie in just two days time. This small to mid-sized little working class town in New South Wales was just small enough to be interesting and just big enough to be convenient. No Starbucks on Main Street that we saw (that’s a good thing), but plenty of cute cafes and espresso shops for my flat whites. And not too…

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Australia road trip part I: Sydney to Port MacQuarie

In a throwback to the first six months of our sabbatical, when we spent a good portion of our time on various camping adventures and road trips through North America with our Freedom Machine, we opted to tackle the eastern coast of Australia in a camper van. Our ultimate destination is Cairns, a jumping off point in Northeastern Australia to see the Great Barrier Reef. Many people take a few…

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G’day from Sydney!

It was here in Sydney that Trent finally perfected the Trent Beer Index, or TBI as we call it. It’s pretty simple. The TBI is a score that a country receives based on the relative cost of a draft beer. It’s obviously important, so you’ll read more about it in a future blog post. Let’s just say Sydney did alright. Leaving our indulgence in alcoholic delights aside, we adored Sydney as another new…

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Singapore, you captured my imagination. And my wallet.

Before arriving in Singapore, the sum total of my knowledge of the city was based solely on 1) spare snippets shared by my husband from his time working on assignment there ~13 years ago, 2) the recent commentary by a young Singaporean couple with whom we dined during a cruise through Vietnam’s Halong Bay a few months ago and 3) random comments by a few expats we met in Thailand. That is to say,…

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Reflections on the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh

On our 8th day in Cambodia, we visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh. It was important to us to learn more about the disturbing history of the Khmer Rouge in this country. I am embarrassed to say how little I really understood before coming here. If you don’t know much, please google it. This post isn’t graphic, but the museum itself is overwhelming and filled with disturbing…

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