January 2018 – Just Some Wandering

Life as a Digital Nomad – January 2018

All in all, life is pretty darn dandy down in the tropics! We have chosen this life, and we are making it work. One day at a time!

In 2017 my partner and I sold all of our posessions to hit the road and seek out a life of travel. “Life as a Digital Nomad” is a monthly series of posts that keep people updated on how we are now carving out a life and making a living while being on the road full time.

We have now been on the road for 3 months. For the last 10 weeks, we have been living in a small town on the South West Coast of Costa Rica, called Matapalo. While we didn’t expect to be here this long, we are feeling very blessed for the opportunities that have come our way.

After our housesitting job ended on December 30th, we transitioned nicely, 2 doors down into Managing a small 2 unit Cabina Rental (read that post here). The owner had to leave town suddenly, and needed someone to take care of his customers over the busy season. This has brought us not only more free accomodation, but a little bit of income on top of it all.

Obviously this removes a fair amount of concern regarding our very survival, and how we are currently feeding ourselves. But of course, we know that this won’t last forever.

Chris has taken a bit of a break from his tattooing. After a booming business with the locals in early December, the holiday season didn’t bring many people wanting new ink, which is not surprising. However, talk has started again about some of his past clients wanting more, and he is still handing out cards to tourists in the area.

0B870177-7082-4592-BD40-C4A5A08B6265 — We created a double sided business card that we ordered from Vista Print. We had them shipped to the lady that owns the house where we were housesitting as she lives in the States, and she brought them down for us.

I am continuously trying to build up my online shops that are selling my digital designs on any number of items; Duvet Covers, Shower Curtains, Cell Phone Cases, Throw Pillows and more!

9523664B-8FCD-4082-BF5C-11D4F9ED0E8E — This is one of my newest designs and is already quite popular. It’s called “Copper Leaves” and you can find it on many home decor and accessory items in my Society 6 store and my Etsy shop. (Click highlighted text to go straight there!)

Valentines Day is around the corner and I have created some fun Valentines Day Fractals that will please that favourite valentine of yours!

1655D78E-B276-4CBA-A504-D25A1D174EB2 — This image is called “Stacking Hearts” and is now available in my Society 6 shop. Click here to shop this design.

F92C4A73-9E42-4294-8B82-B783DA74895C — This image is called “Heart of the Mandelbrot” and is available on many different items in my Society 6 store. Click here to shop this design.

ABB3A1F8-6C5E-4A50-93F8-75CE1AD14599 — This image is called “Strawberry Cream” and it’s available on these items and much more in my Society 6 shop, and on leggings and tank tops in my Etsy shop.

For those who aren’t into Fractals, I have many other designs as well! These are all digitally created on my iPad, and are also available on many different items. Check them all out here.

I have been promoting these items and pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest with some success. Although sales are not staggering, I’m certainly seeing growth and an increased sales since starting about 7 weeks ago. I have read reports that people earn in excess of $5000/month in some of these types of shops, so I am dam well determined to keep at it!

I have also recently started a Fine Art America shop where I am posting my actual photography from our travels. It is an online market place that caters to mostly photographers. Customers can buy high end prints, framed or unframed, plus Giclee printed canvasses and other items with the images on them such as mugs, cell phone cases, notebooks and more.

This is just a sampling of photos that I have uploaded. To see more of my photography at Fine Art America, click here. Eventually I will be adding pictures of our trip In 2015 to Greece, Bulgaria and Italy, plus much more as we move around in the future.

Although all of this has been attempted by me in the past, I have to say that I never had the time required to really dedicate myself to getting these sites going the way they should be. It is a FULL TIME JOB! I spend anywhere from 4-7 hours per day working at this. It takes time and dedication to upload images, create well thought out descriptions, do the appropriate tagging so that they can be found in searches, and on and on and on.

I have also been educating myself about target marketing, SEO searches, and numerous other things that go along with trying to make a living online. It is a lot of work, but with dedication and perserverance, I can see it paying off in the long run! Not too mention that I get to stare at art all day! How much fun is that!!??

All in all, life is pretty darn dandy down in the tropics! We have chosen this life, and we are making work. One day at a time!

I hope this post inspires you to get out there and live your life with passion. We didn’t know if this whole hairbrained idea was going to work, but we felt like life was too short to not at least give it a try!

All the best to you all from Costa Rica!

xo Jill

Thanks for reading! Please know that above all else, I aim to inspire others to just get out and see the world. Traveling is such an enriching experience, and I can’t even comprehend how much it has shaped me as an individual. If you have ANY questions, or need travel advice of ANY kind, PLEASE don’t hesitate to email me at the address below! I will do my very best to help you in any way I can!

Xoxoxo Happy Travels!

Current Location: We are managing a Cabina on the beach at Playa Matapalo, between Quepos and Dominical, in Costa Rica. If you are travelling in the area, please get in touch! We would love to connect with fellow travellers!

To follow my art page on Facebook, please head to Jillian Amatt Designs

To see more photos, and to follow our progress on Facebook, please follow our Facebook page Just Some Wandering.

Please follow my Instagram Page Just Some Wandering by clicking on the bottom right hand corner of this feed.

To learn about where I have previously traveled, visit my Countries Page.

To see all of my blog post headings on one page, head over to my Blog Post Menu.

To see more items that are available in my online stores, visit my ShopsAll in Page.

To email me directly, please do so anytime at jillamatt@me.com.

January 11th, 2018 – One Year Later

Over the course of 9 months in 2017, my partner and I sold all of our possessions, including 2 vehicles, and a house full of stuff. In order to sell the house for its maximum value, we also completed 3 months of renovations that had been lingering for over 3 years. We wrapped up 2 businesses and left a town and tight knit community that we both cherished. We did all of this in order to seek out a life of freedom, away from the hustle and bustle of the 9-5 life, but most importantly, we did it so that we could travel. This is our story…….

Today marks one year since we made this crazy decision to sell all of our things, to not only seek out a life of travel, but to free ourselves of the burdens that society had placed on us. (To read my post that day, click here.)

We had found ourselves suddenly drowning in debt with no clear picture of how we were going to get out of it. We were living a life that seemed normal to others, but was terribly uninteresting and uninspiring to us. We both made and created art, but because of our need to make money doing our “REAL” jobs, we didn’t have the time to properly sell it or promote it, something we really wanted to do.

We lived a life that was the epitome of being on the hamster wheel. Running, running, running, working ourselves to utter exhaustion, but never getting ahead.

I asked myself all the time: “Is there more to life than this?”

I knew there was, I knew there had to be, but I didn’t know how to get there. I didn’t know how to pay all the bills at home, keep my house, keep my car, keep my things, keep my small business, and still do the thing that I really wanted to do…….travelling.

As I sat in my art studio one year ago, I was watching ‘Minimalism’ a new documentary that had just come out on Netflix, while working on my creations. As I watched this enlightening documentary, in the most quintessential way possible, I had an epiphany. It was as though a lightening bolt blasted down from the heavens and jolted me in the back of the head. From that film, I suddenly realized that my house, my car, all of my stuff, was actually what was keeping me from travelling. All of the stuff, was literally drowning us. All of the stuff was what was making us feel like we were treading water. All of the stuff was what was keeping me from doing what I wanted to do the most.

I say this in a first person narrative because Chris, at that point, hadn’t travelled a ton. We had done a 6 week trip to Europe in 2015, and had done a 2 week trip to Mexico, but that was it. He understood that he liked travelling, but he didn’t really know what it was like to LIVE in a different country, to really spend time learning different cultures, customs and traditions, and to learn about what makes different places tick. He had had a taste, that was all. But thankfully, he too decided that he wanted more.

On that fateful evening, we decided that enough was enough! All of our stuff didn’t matter anymore! The only thing that mattered was making our life count! We knew in that moment, that we had some HUGE changes ahead of us, and we knew it would be a ton of work, but we were committed. We had a plan, it was set, and we immediately got started on undoing the life we had built, to seek out a vastly different one. One that was fulfilling, one that was inspiring, one that was EXCITING!

Fast forward one year later, and it all seems like a distant dream. In nine months we held multiple garage sales, we sold items on Facebook, to friends, to neighbours. We took mountains of things to the thrift store and inevitably, the dump. We finished renovations on our house that had been half done for over 3 years. We sold our vehicles and our house. We closed down our business’ and we worked our butts off to pay off as much debt as possible. We stopped drinking, eating out and buying things. We completely flipped our life upside down, in order to make this happen, in order to unburden ourselves, in order to seek out a life of freedom.

It was not an easy ride! We were utterly exhausted most of the time. We put in as much effort as we physically could, and worked harder than either of us ever had before. But guess what? It worked! We did it!

Our life has gone from “normal” to extraordinary, and it happened all in 9 months!

Today I sit in Costa Rica, staring out to the waves breaking, to the pelicans soaring by, and sometimes, to a sloth climbing the tree in our front yard. Today I feel FREE! Today the worries about money, how I’m going to pay the next bill, how I’m going to find the next client, and how I’m going to be able to travel again, are gone. Literally gone!

Don’t get me wrong, life is not a perfect, easy, breezy time, all of the time. Of course, we are both working on ways to secure a financial future, as the money we now have will run out eventually. But we are doing it with clear intentions. We are focussing on what is important to us. We are seeking out those things that inspire us, that motivate us, that move us. We are going where the wind blows us. When we see a good opportunity, we take it. If we don’t like the situation we are in, we change it. We don’t owe anyone our time. We certainly don’t owe anyone our souls. We are in charge of what we do, that is it, that is all.

Many people we meet ask the same question over and over again. They hear about what we are doing now, but then they can’t help but ask “But what about your future? What is your plan for the future?”

Well, the answer if simple. We have no real plan for our future. We are simply just being. Being in the moment, taking life one day at a time, enjoying ourselves and really getting to know ourselves. We have given ourselves the gift of presence. We have given ourselves the gift of living each day as it comes. We don’t know what is around the corner, and quite frankly we like it that way. Our future is not some construct that we have laid out, hoping that all of the pieces fall into place the way that we have planned. Our future is determined one day at a time. Each day determines tomorrow’s path. Each day brings new directions, new thoughts, and new opportunities.

And so, I ask you this. Are you living a life that is inspiring and exciting? Is there something that you would like to do, but just can’t quite figure out how to do it?

My advice is simple, take a hard look around you and find ways to let go of what is burdening you. Maybe you are like me and you realize that it is your stuff that is weighing you down. But maybe it is your job, your relationship, the place you live, the people you surround yourself with? There can be any number of things that we carry around with us that are holding us back from doing what it is that we really want to do in life. But it is up to us, and ONLY us, to figure those things out, to let go of those things, and to build a life that we truly love.

Pura Vida from Costa Rica!

Xoxoxo Happy Travels!

To see more photos, and to follow our progress on Facebook, please follow our Facebook page Just Some Wandering.

Please follow my Instagram Page Just Some Wandering by clicking on the bottom right hand corner of this feed.

To learn about where I have previously traveled, visit my Countries Page.

To see all of my blog post headings on one page, head over to my Blog Post Menu.

To email me directly, please do so anytime at jillamatt@me.com.

My 5 Most Read Posts of 2017!

So I leave this with you! What do you want to create for yourself in 2018? Because until you decide, and until you ask for it, it simply will not happen!

I’ve noticed that many bloggers are doing some sort of wrap up or feature about their 2017 blog posts. Some people post their favourite posts, and some post their most read posts. At first, I wasn’t going to do anything, but then I got curious. I decided to take a look, just to see which ones actually were read the most. It turns out that my 5 top read posts are definitely some of my favourites as well. So here goes!

In 2017 I wrote 47 blog posts all together. It’s interesting because I just made a 2018 goal yesterday to do at least one blog post per week! So it’s nice to see that I was already really close to accomplishing this last year!

If you haven’t read any of these, take a look, maybe they will resonate with you as well! Just click on the post title to go straight to it! Enjoy and Happy New Year to you all once again!

Notes on My Hometown – Canmore, Alberta, Canada

By FAR this was my most read post at 420 views and 7 comments! However, as I also list my email address at the end of each post, I got many emails from complete strangers who also grew up in Canmore, who resonated with my words.

In the post I outline how the town that I grew up in has changed so much, yet there is so much of it that is also still the same. Over time I have become angry and jaded by the multitudes of changes, but recently I was able to make peace with it again. I realized that no matter what, I had an incredible childhood growing up there, and nobody can take that away from me!

Did you grow up in a place that has changed a lot? Maybe there are some insights in here that will make you see things in a different way.

I Dream a Dream

I’m very excited that this is the second most visited post at 287 views and 30 comments! This post was the start of all of this! This post is when we decided to sell all of our possessions and hit the road. It feels so amazing to look back on this and remember how full of excitement, nervousness and fear that we were feeling. It was a HUGE decision to do this! But now, here we are, and looking back it actually all now seems so incredibly easy!

Through this process we have both realized that our life, and how we live it, is simply a long string of choices that we make. By making this choice, we have opened ourselves up to a whole new world and we couldn’t be happier!

I hope this post inspires you to make some tough decisions that will give you the best and happiest life possible!

September 22, 2017 – We Are Unplugged!

The third most visited post at 182 views and 12 comments is definitely one of my favourites! It is a re-cap on our final days in Powell River, the place that I had called home for 11 years, and a little bit about my feelings a couple days after we left. To say it was an emotional roller coaster, would be a massive understatement! But we never faltered in our plan. We were heading in one direction, and we were doing it together!

This is when we really felt like we had unplugged! Unplugged from what society had dictated that we do, unplugged from a life that wasn’t serving us anymore, unplugged from other’s expectations of how we live our lives. In this moment, we felt free! Free to head out into the world with no incumbrances and no commitments to anyone else. The horizon was laid out before us, and that was all that mattered.

August 20th – The Bear

In number 4 spot at 121 views and 4 comments, this little Bear got much more attention than I anticipated. He became a symbol of letting go, the mascot if you will.

After posting this post about the difficulties that I was having of letting this little guy go, I received many messages from friends and family wanting to adopt him, instead of seeing him go to the thrift store. It really struck me that not only was it difficult to let go of my OWN posessions, others definitely had a vested interest in my posessions as well. How strange of a species we are when we are so attached to things, that we can’t even bear to see others getting rid of their things?

In the end, this little fella flew all the way to Alberta where he is now part of a greater collection of family bears, living in Edmonton at my cousins house.

August 9th – The House is Listed

At number 5 with 93 views and 5 comments, this post was the culmination of a ridiculous amount of hard work to get this place ready to sell. We finished it about 5 weeks later than we had wanted, but we worked day and night, while also working our full time jobs, and knew that we were doing the best that we possibly could. We were so exhausted, it’s hard to even comprehend now.

Because we had a housesitting gig in Costa Rica lined up for November 1st, we wanted to leave by about September 20th to give ourselves time to visit family and also arrive in Costa Rica a little early, so we could do some exploring before settling into our job. Because of our late listing date we knew that for this to sell before we left, it would have to happen quickly. Well, about 4 hours after posting the video that you will see in this post, our Realtor called us to tell us that he was writing an offer, sight unseen. The buyers were gardeners, first and foremost, and they knew that it was the house for them based on this video. They wanted it primarily for the work we had put into the yard, for the time and effort we had put into building the soil and cultivating the land from scratch. They were EXACTLY the buyers that we had requested from the Universe! Not a more perfect match could have been made!

So! That is it! My top 5 most visited posts that I wrote in 2017! I’m glad that I chose to do this as it has again reminded me how amazing this journey is that we are on.

We made a decision back in January, almost one year ago, to change our lives. To live with more purpose and meaning, to live with happiness and joy, to only do those things that inspire us and motivate us. We made a decision that absolutely changed our trajectory, and along the way all of the pieces have literally fallen into place. Along the way we have asked for what we wanted, and we truly have received it all.

Miracles can happen, but it is up to us to ask for them! Don’t sit and wait and hope that something manifests itself. We must do this work for ourselves. We must seek out what it is that we want out of life.

So I leave this with you! What do you want to create for yourself in 2018? Because until you decide, and until you ask for it, it simply will not happen!

Pura Vida from Costa Rica!

Xoxoxo Happy Travels!

To see more photos, and to follow our progress on Facebook, please follow our Facebook page Just Some Wandering.

Please follow my Instagram Page Just Some Wandering by clicking on the bottom right hand corner of this feed.

To learn about where I have previously traveled, visit my Countries Page.

To see all of my blog post headings on one page, head over to my Blog Post Menu.

To email me directly, please do so anytime at jillamatt@me.com.

From Housesitters to Cabina Managers…..

And so here we are! Entering 2018 in a way that we never anticipated or imagined!

Wow! This last couple of weeks has been a bit of a whirlwind!

Two weeks ago our plan was to finish our housesitting gig here in Matapalo, Costa Rica on December 30th. We had booked ourselves into Spanish School up in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua from January 7th-13th. But that was it, that was our plan, at least in the immediate future. Beyond that we had a rough idea to head up into the mountains here in Costa Rica, to work on our friends farm, and help him to get some projects finished that he has been needing to do. But that was a loose plan, nothing was set in stone, and we pretty much could have just showed up anytime that we wanted to.

We had also been applying to some more housesitting jobs, but nothing was confirmed, and we had been researching WWOOFING opportunities here, but again, nothing was really decided.

C1F34A81-6E1A-4F5E-AF27-46ABD30D5EAA — We had a visit from a herd of cows that walked by the other day! I’ve never seen cows on the beach before!

6EFAB49B-C518-4FD2-9C87-7A831459F721 — This guy was hanging from a tree just in front of our house the other day. The sloths are quite prevelant in this area, but they usually sleep much higher up. This guy was only about 8 feet off the ground, allowing a great opportunity for photos.

We weren’t really worried about our futures. We had a short term plan, and knew that we would just figure the rest out as it came along. As stated before, we want to be open to new experiences, and allow things to flow our way, without constructing our future too much, and over committing ourselves.

We want to be able to say YES, when an awesome opportunity comes our way!

Well, I can tell you that that is exactly what happened!

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While walking the dogs on the beach one evening, we discussed the fact that we only had a few days left here. We both felt sad that our stint at Playa Matapalo was coming to an end. We had grown to love this place, we had made friends, we had built community. We didn’t feel like we were ready to go, and we both verbalized this. We finished our walk, and didn’t think much else of it.

Around this time we had also learned that a German man that we had made friends with, suddenly had to leave the area, and it wasn’t clear when he was coming back. He has three dogs, of which had become quite fond of us, and a small Cabina Rental with only 2 units. Immediately we offered to step in to feed the dogs and take them for walks, plus put them in their house at night. But over the course of the next few days, we started a conversation with him about possibly taking over managing the cabina rentals as well. Christmas was coming and his bookings were full, cancelling them would mean a huge loss to him.

Of course, this meant that we would get to stay here longer, and our wishes would be fulfilled. But it also meant that we had the chance to make some really good money, which is never a bad thing! However, it also meant that we had to cancel our Nicaragua trip, but really, that isn’t a big deal. We will go to Nicaragua another time, when we are meant to.

This is our new view from our Cabina job. All day long the Pelicans fly by, we see fish and mantarays jumping, and we listen to the rhythmic rumble of the waves crashing to shore.

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The irony was not lost on us that this was another instance of verbalizing our wishes, and having them come true. This has happened to us over the course of this entire year. We manifested the buyers of our house, we manifested our housesitting job here in Costa Rica, and now we have manifested a longer stay here in Matapalo.

We are also fully aware that the reason this opportunity came our way, is because we were open to it. It’s because we have freed our life up in a way that we CAN say yes to any and every good opportunity that presents itself. It’s the reason that we are trying to not over plan, and over commit to our futures. We are very much living in the moment, and it is paying off in a big way!

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One question you may ask is “What do you know about managing Cabinas?”

The answer is simple: Literally Nothing!

But you know what? We are willing to try. We are willing to give it a go, to learn how to do it along the way. We are willing to make mistakes and learn from them, but most importantly we are willing to take risks, and have new experiences.

This job comes with a lovely Tica (Costa Rican) lady that knows most of the ropes. She has been able to guide us and show us the way. Communication has been interesting, but thankfully I know enough Spanish to get us by, and she has been very patient with us. If it’s clear that I don’t understand what she is saying, she will show us in a different way. Together we are making this work, together we are learning as we go. Not too mention, of course, our owner is only a message away if there is anything that we really need to know.

804963BA-7F98-4D27-B83E-EAAAE7DF490C — Our Tica helper showed us how she makes the beds and cleans the rooms so that we could be prepared for when she had days off. This is the result of our first try!

And the best part of this job is that we get to meet other travellers! Connecting with people from around the world, makes me incredibly happy! This is exactly what I wanted to do while travelling, not only meet the locals of where we visit, but connect with other travellers from around the world, creating a network of like-minded individuals who love to travel.

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And so, here we are! Entering 2018 in a way that we never anticipated or imagined! We don’t know exactly how long we will be here, but we are definitely loving each and every day as it comes!

I will leave this message with these wishes to all of you:

LIVE YOUR DREAMS IN 2018!

FOLLOW YOUR PASSIONS IN 2018!

LIVE THE BEST LIFE POSSIBLE IN 2018!

Because I can assure you, that you, and only you, are responsible for your choices and doing what makes you happy!

Life is short, lets get busy! Take the risks! Go on the trip! Do that thing that you have always wanted to!

I can assure you that you WILL NOT regret it!

I hope that life brings you peace, love and happiness in 2018.

Make this your best year yet!!

With gratitude and love,

xo Jill

Xoxoxo Happy Travels!

To head back to the beginning of our journey, and the moment we decided to do this, click here.

To see more photos, and to follow our progress on Facebook, please follow our Facebook page Just Some Wandering.

Please follow my Instagram Page Just Some Wandering by clicking on the bottom right hand corner of this feed.

To learn about where I have previously traveled, visit my Countries Page.

To see all of my blog post headings on one page, head over to my Blog Post Menu.

To email me directly, please do so anytime at jillamatt@me.com.

	jillamatt on Moving on…….
	jillamatt on Our Nomadic Kitchen
	LeBeau on Our Nomadic Kitchen
	Passport Overused on Moving on…….
	ccandraymond on A New Year and A Brand New…

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