Land of wine, cheese plates, cafès, beautiful parks, the iconic Eiffel tower, museums, history, art, lovers, magic…and now, lost luggage.
It started off as a typical travel hiccup. We wait at the baggage claim for an hour. No bags. Bummed but not too concerned, we make a claim, give our address to Air France’s bag service and start our adventure.
Day 1 – 3: Paris
What can I say about Paris? Aside from the crazy traffic and impossible intersections, I love it. Old, beautiful history everywhere you look- full of details. In the center of the city, building after building could easily be the most iconic building in a city in America. Here, it’s just another building. Michelle’s Uncle gave me the condensed history of France in our ride from the airport to their flat in Paris. Will need many years of studying to fully grasp everything he shared. Her Uncle (Michelle’s father’s brother), is originally from the States and has been living in France for over 40+ years after moving here after college. He met a wonderful Parisian woman and raised their family in Paris. They’ve been incredible hosts and introduced me to the ever-important cheese plate course. I asked, “Are baguettes and cheese each day a typical thing in France?” Answer: “Yes!” Me: “Awesome!” Continue reading “Our First 7 Days in France: A Tale of Two Bags”→
Today Michelle and I head out on a month and a half long adventure across the Atlantic to a place I’m told is called Europe. It’s the first time for me, and the first time we are traveling to that continent together. Our destination(s): France and Switzerland where we will be tourists, Help X volunteers (more to come about this), and visiting the Alps with family. The best part? We are doing this through miles that we’ve earned through Alaska Airlines (more to come about this as well).
We’ll be blogging about the whole experience (naturally) here and at Intentional Travelers, sharing pics, and hopefully capturing footage of Michelle’s ability to speak French, and my sad attempt to try.
Though we’ve actually been in business for several months now (some of you may or may not have known that) and have several clients, we wanted to officially introduce our new company:
special thank you to Becca at RSJ Creative for our awesome identity
A Conventional Solution for Unconventional Living
A lot of people have asked us how we afford to live unconventionally. “You have to make some sort of income, right?” Yes. One of the things we discussed prior to returning from Peace Corps was the idea of starting our own company, one where our services could be done from a computer connected to the internet, to allow us the most flexibility and mobility.
What Kind of Company?
Consulting was the best word we could think of that could hold all the ideas we had of services we could provide. It allows us to do a wide variety of things, which is what we wanted. We don’t want to be known for one specific thing. We want people to hire us because of who we are, our skills and experiences, our values and passions. We are branding and marketing ourselves. We both believe that this is not a long-term career company, but a conventional way (having a job, so to speak) for the time being to live unconventionally. Since we also know that being very vague is not the best way to market ourselves, we narrowed it down to:
Project Management
Brand & Identity Development
Website Development
Marketing Strategy
Event Coordination
Michelle and I love being in charge of projects. We love to coordinate and implement programs. Projects can range from helping a small business owner get their business online to helping coordinate events and conventions. If there’s something we can’t do ourselves, we have a big network of talented folks who we can contract.
Social Media & Website Management Because of our experience in blogging and managing websites, we were contacted by a few people to help them with their social media accounts and manage their online presence (websites). We do everything from creating original content, uploading blog posts, engaging with an organization’s audience on facebook, etc.. We also have a lot of experience teaching people the basics of how to use online tools for themselves.
This is mutually beneficial for us and clients as we can do this kind of work anywhere we have internet.
There are tons of things we can also do that we didn’t list which is the beauty of why we started our own consulting company. The most important thing we want to get across, though, is that we want people to see that, as individuals and as a team, we can provide a lot. We have a range of professional and personal skills, and now, the time and flexibility to work on a wide range of projects.
We’d love if you would help us and connect us to people who might need our help. You might have a conversation with a family member, friend, or co-worker and be like, “I know a couple that could help you out.”
We still have available housesitting dates for late October to Thanksgiving for 2014 and beginning of 2015 from January to May. If you or someone you know needs housesitters, let us know. Here’s the link: https://jeddandmichelle.com/house-sitting/
Our Epic Road Trip of 2014 is over. For one month we traveled from Portland to Seattle; to Canada’s Vancouver B.C.; Kelowna B.C., Banff (in Alberta); back to the states to Glacier, Montana; Salt Lake City; Fort Collins; Boulder; Denver; Boise; and back to Portland. About 5,500 miles in all.
Since attending the World Domination Summit 2014 last month (recap here), I’ve come to realize that being a dreamer, or an idealist, is not enough in the world if there is no action, no intentional effort to turn the things you want in life into a reality. One of my favorite speakers and stories from the
Jadah Sellner of Simple Green Smoothies
summit came from Jadah Sellner, an amazing entrepreneur and community leader who built a huge brand and community around healthy, green smoothies. I’ll share her amazing story later from WDS 2014 (when they publish her talk) but there were two main takeaways that I think about often:
1. “Dream Out Loud” – Talk to people about what your dreams and passions are. When you do, you actually learn if it’s possible or not. You take action to make it happen. You find others with similar interests. Things start to happen.
2. “Take Imperfect Action” – I like the way she phrased this. It literally means to start and don’t worry about having it all together. Our biggest hinderance in life is usually the fear that prevents us from doing anything. You can’t accomplish anything that you don’t start.
That being said, I thought I would dream out loud for today and share with you something I’ve been thinking about doing for a couple of years now: I want to write a book.
That time we went to Glacier and fell in love (with the park that is, we were already in love for clarification). Click on the pic above or the following link to see Michelle’s awesome travel post about our time in this awesome National Park. Intentional Travelers Explore Glacier
Our first (of what we hope will be many) road trip through Canada took us from Vancouver B.C. to hidden gem Kelowna B.C., and then finally to Banff. Check out pics and information from our travels by clicking on the pictures below. The pictures take you to our travel blog – Intentional Travelers
Two simple living, trustworthy, very responsible, easy going, and respectful young adults (who also have been married for 6 years) are seeking housesitting opportunities for certain time periods in 2014-2015 to help homeowners that need short term house watching/loving care while they are out on vacation, sabbatical, adventures, etc…Want to learn more about us? Check out our “about” page here.
We can:
Care for pets, specifically well behaved cats and dogs (and or easy to maintain pets, sorry no livestock unless you teach us)
Travel anywhere (well, almost- if the gig is good)
Clean up after ourselves, and like ninjas make it look like we were never there
We would consider helping with:
Small household projects such as yardwork, painting, etc… (you would have to supply the tools and materials)
Short term (like a week) up to long term (a month or more)
This past weekend, Michelle and I volunteered as Ambassadors at the 2014 World Domination Summit (an event that brought together 3000+ participants and over 80+ volunteers and staff together in Portland, OR). Before you ask yourself “What is that?” (too late) let me provide you with some context and history as to how we got there.
How We Got Here
4 years ago, life was going well. Michelle and I both had awesome jobs at 2 different universities in Portland. We were in the process of buying a house, setting down roots… But we decided, it wasn’t the life that what we wanted. Continue reading “World Domination Summit 2014”→
We have finally had the opportunity to start reconnecting with friends in the Portland area these past few weeks. It has been wonderful to see everyone again, especially to meet the new little members of our friends’ families who arrived on scene after we left for Jamaica.
In the process of seeing everyone for the first time, we’re realizing that we still struggle to explain our plans and what we’re doing with our lives. We don’t really fit into a category right now. We’re not moving in anywhere. We’re not getting back into careers. It can be a bit confusing to not be able to categorize us.
So I thought it would be good to spell out the plan as it stands right now.
The Plan: Another Sabbatical
Housing We’re planning to be very mobile but we will most often be staying with Michelle’s parents in Salem, our brother and sister-in-law in Portland, and also doing house-sitting gigs. We try to contribute a little free labor to make it more of a win-win for our hosts. Continue reading “Updates Galore”→
What can I say about Paris? Aside from the crazy traffic and impossible intersections, I love it. Old, beautiful history everywhere you look- full of details. In the center of the city, building after building could easily be the most iconic building in a city in America. Here, it’s just another building. Michelle’s Uncle gave me the condensed history of France in our ride from the airport to their flat in Paris. Will need many years of studying to fully grasp everything he shared. Her Uncle (Michelle’s father’s brother), is originally from the States and has been living in France for over 40+ years after moving here after college. He met a wonderful Parisian woman and raised their family in Paris. They’ve been incredible hosts and introduced me to the ever-important cheese plate course. I asked, “Are baguettes and cheese each day a typical thing in France?” Answer: “Yes!” Me: “Awesome!” Continue reading “Our First 7 Days in France: A Tale of Two Bags” 
Simply Intentional 