I'm going to state up front that this is a work in progress. But it's important to get this out. It doesn't hurt that I promised a friend that I would share this. 😛 (Hi, Darshan!) Trust me, this list will make more sense after I share about our cruise.
In preparation for our upcoming cruise, I've gone down the YouTube rabbit hole. I am eternally grateful to the many content creators providing a metric tonne of information and experiences to satisfy my nerdiness and help me feel prepared. I've noticed some major patterns in what I am seeing and thought a summation would be helpful.
Some friends of ours booked this cruise. These friends are folk who we join for the Buckhead Life Summer dine around program. We've been to several of their life events - including both daughters' bat mitzvahs - and they to our wedding. The approach they had was to let one daughter (L) select the location, then find something that would interest the other daughter (E.)
When they shared it with us, I don't know what they expected. I have gotten the impression that they didn't expect us to drop cash and join them. I'm not sure if they wanted us to join them. lol In the end, I made the decision to join them. I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity. It felt too rare to actually happen again.
Daniel kept saying he was fine either way and he wanted it to be my decision, since the financial burden is something that weighs more heavily on me based on how I grew up. Related, our future nephew-in-law has the phrase "We can always make more money." Luckily, my job feels very solid. Daniel's job is safe from all but the company completely failing, which while it is struggling due to the economy, I don't think it will happen. When I made the decision and we booked it plus travel and hotel, it felt like a burden I was carrying had lifted. That told me I made the correct decision, at least for my (and Daniel's) mental health.
To their credit, our friends have appreciated the tips and tricks that I've shared with them. It's been fun seeing inspiration for nails. It's been fun plotting silliness - including bringing the girls into it. It's been fun planning and crafting.
Do I hope that the crafting results in something? Of course! But at the end of the day, if it creates fun, it has served its purpose. I suppose I should finally list the bar crawl on Etsy. I've got three ships (of a current eight) ready to go. I also wrote down the steps to make them. It's a long process, and it was a struggle to remember and recreate it from the Wish and Treasure almost a year ago. (Kathy, let me know your thoughts on the Treasure card, please.)
To be continued...