loungin' and the lack thereof

When I first bought my house one of the main things that I wanted to do was put in a patio door and get a swing for my deck. I quickly realized that cost money I didn't exactly have, so that would have to wait a bit. Fast forward two years and I was able to do this very thing approximately two months ago.

This is currently being typed out while laying on the swing while Jack runs around the yard attempting (and failing) to play with the neighbors dog through the fence. I should probably get out here more, but at the very least I get out on the deck a few times a day. Usually it's just a few minutes at a time, but I am working on spending more time here.

It's probably not as peaceful as I hoped, with a large group of people always hanging out next door, a nosy neighbor adjacent to the back yard and my new neighbor on the other side usually doing something in his back yard to make Jack go crazy. But it's very nice.

And I think I was justified two years ago when I decided that this was something I really wanted. Relaxation is something that I really like to do at home, especially after a hard day at work. Or a day like today when I'm just starting to exercise again and my whole body hurts. But there are definitely situations where I don't like to relax.

I've always loved to travel and I need to work more towards that. I prefer traveling to vacations. Hopefully you can understand what I mean by that. I can only really handle the beach for two days at the max, and the last time I went on a "real" beach vacation, to Belize, I got sea-sick twice and my then-girlfriend and myself almost drowned on a sea kayak with a hole in the bottom (blaming each other for the constant tipping for nearly 15 minutes before figuring out what the real problem was)...

I've mentioned before that I always wanted to be well traveled. But that goal has failed spectacularly over the last 5 years. I lived in Australia for six months in 2002, seeing the entire continent and the Southern half of New Zealand. My senior year Spring Break trip was a 10 day trip about Italy, hitting most major cities and some smaller ones that I absolutely loved (Assisi was a highlight of the trip). Then, Belize in 2005. After that, I didn't even step foot on an airplane until late 2009 when I had a job interview in Washington, DC. How pathetic is that! I just recently went to Los Angeles, which was a great trip, but not really what I'd consider traveling. So, what kind of traveling am I interested in?

It's been a goal of mine since college to go to China and climb the Great Wall of China, and I'm thinking that I'm gonna start making strides towards that. When I think about it realistically, it seems like that is approximately two years away in reality. My tax return and bonus for 2011 are already all pretty much wrapped up in all the home improvement projects that I did this year and the winter of 2011 will also most likely bring a new furnace, but this idea is definitely back on the forefront of my mind. There are obstacles, obviously, but from what I understand you can get around just fine in China speaking English. They just charge you more money. So that's one of the goals I'm working on, along with my other main goal which I'm sure I'll spend much more time talking about.

Just something I've been thinking about lately.