Dream to Real Life - A journey of a lifetime and hurricanes (intro post)

Hi to the Hive World,

~~Introducing oneself in one post is like a putting a fish in a simple fishbowl with just that limited expression of that bowl, when there is an ocean of uniqueness to each one of us. ~~

This is my second attempt at an #introduceyourself post and want to thank @machiatta from @OCD for giving me some insights and lead-way on where to begin. And being new to Hive my RC rewards were low so I had to wait for a bit to get them filled before I could post another post. At this point I am thinking about purchasing some real Hive just so I can interact and post more.

I have also been perusing hive.blog to learn as much as I possibly can about terminology and how everything works. I have to say it is quite a bit overwhelming (I wonder if age has anything to do with it) even though I am not completely new to cryptos. but hey I think I got the basics! A great resource for newbies and what helped me is this link newbie guide

Sometimes it feels like the world is moving so fast it makes the head spin (I get motion sickness) - at least in the world of technology it seems that way. There is always something new to learn. At times we don't even get a chance to master that "new" before we move on to another "new". But I am not one to give up by saying "its too hard", or "its too confusing". And neither should anyone else for that matter. The blockchain world and the cutting edge technology that comes with it is ever evolving and is inevitably our future.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic, so let me introduce myself...

Hi my name is Kathleen.

I have lived in the midwest USA for most of my live, until about 9 years ago my partner and I decided to move to the US Virgin Islands for a new way of life and in search of a warmer climate. While life was wonderful with beaches, new friends and everything a tropical lifestyle brings you, it does come with some major downsides, namely Hurricanes.

In Sept of 2017 during active hurricane season, Two hurricane that were forming off the coast of Africa were projected to hit the islands.

Hurricane Irma - the category 5 hurricane - highest category storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale (a commonly used scale that attempts to measure potential property damage from storm winds) - had wind speeds around 185 mph. As it moved through the Caribbean and towards southern Florida, Irma sustained winds of 185 mph for 37 hrs, making it the longest and most intense tropical cyclone on record.

While our Island, St. Croix, only sustained moderate damage with no life lost, the sister island of St. Thomas and St. John were ghastly impacted along with some other islands including the almost complete destruction of Barbuda.

Less than 2 weeks later the 2nd hurricane was projected to hit the islands. With the first storm not really impacting our island, we were caught between wether we should leave or not. We opted to stay but the closer the storm came upon the island the more nervous we got. We started trying to find ways to leave before the hurricane hit. No commercial planes or boats were leaving the island at that point. Lucky for us, one of our friends, who has a plane decided to move his plane out of harms way to the southern ABC Islands. He offered us a ride to get off the island. We hopped on his plane 4 hours before the storm hit to fly to Island "B"(Bonaire). Thank goodness we did...

Prior to making landfall the storm strengthened from a Category 1 to a Category 5 in less than 24 hours with sustaining winds of about 175 miles per hour. The storm hit St. Croix with a vengeance and caused billions of dollars in damage in its wake to infrastructure and the power grid of every island it touched.

We never returned to the island to live as it was without power for 9 months and for sure devastated. Instead we went to my homeland in the Midwest and lived there for 4 years...Until recently

... about 2 months ago, my partner and I along with our now 6 year old daughter uprooted ourselves once again from the USA and venture to a different land, Mexico. The new adventure surely will come with some challenges as our Spanish is not yet conversational and we are starting from scratch once again. Only difference this time is we have a 6 year old to help navigate our adventure to a new land, new culture and new language.

We had been missing the warm weather, beaches and were having a hard time with the cold even after 4 years being in cold country.

I quit my job, sold all our stuff and moved. I now have fulfilled one of my biggest dreams - spend more time with my daughter especially since we chose the path to homeschool.

My second goal and dream is make an income while pursuing our dreams as a family. Lastly, but not least and the ultimate, is to find myself, find purpose and health.

It has been 2 months and I can honestly say that it has not been stress free time. Let's just say, this is not a vacation as many of our friends seem to think it is. There are a lot of things to work out and mountains to cross all the while dealing with a language barrier, but, there is no turning back in my mind... and despite, being in hurricane territory - I was hooked! The beaches are like the fishers of the sea - and I was their catch of a lifetime.

To say the least this has been a journey of a lifetime or maybe couple of lifetimes at this point.

So hopefully you will join my road to self discovery, anything food, travel, Mexico, homeschool and last but not least health.