In just 11 short days, I’m heading off to San Fransisco and today, I thought I’d take a bit of time to tell you why I was going and what it means for me personally.
I got an email from Pinterest themselves a few weeks ago inviting me to Pinterest HQ in San Fransisco for a day which was super exciting and there may have been squeals when I first read it.
The more I thought about it though, the more I realised that it wasn’t going to be possible for me seeing as I live on the other side of the world. I knew that the long journey would be pretty expensive and would be a good 15 hours travel time each way (minimum).
And it wasn’t just the cost I was worried about, I had lots of other things on my mind that were putting me off going – the main ones being that I’d be travelling on my own and would have to leave Mr Frugal and the kids to fend for themselves for longer than I have before.
In my head, there were so many reasons not to go and only one reason to actually do it. That should have made the decision simple but it didn’t at all because the one reason that I had to go kept coming back to me and it overshadowed all of the reasons that I had not to go.
My reason to go was simple – I wanted to go.
Like really, really wanted to go.
This year hasn’t been my greatest year ever but one good thing that’s come of it is that it’s made me more determined than ever to live life to the fullest. I want to try not to have any regrets in life and I really think I’d have regretted letting this opportunity pass me by and regret it in a much bigger way than how much I regret not buying a cute pink handbag that I wanted from TK Maxx at the weekend. 😉
Surprisingly, it was Mr Frugal who persuaded me in the end with my own mantra – he pointed out that life was short and that I’d really regret not going if I didn’t and even though I’d already told myself exactly that, I’d discounted it in my head because it was me saying it and I kind of thought I was just using that argument for my own selfish reasons. Hearing it from him along with the encouragement of the kids and some good friends made me realise that if they were all OK with me going then I should at least look into it.
The benefit of all this to-ing and fro-ing with myself is that by the time I decided that I could do it, we were within two weeks of the date I’d need to leave. Ordinarily, flight prices go up the closer to departure when it’s an airline rather than a holiday company operating the route but I managed to find an amazing deal on flights with Thomas Cook Airlines that meant the price for the flights was around £350 including all taxes etc. The best part about the Thomas Cook flight isn’t even the price though, it’s that the flight is non-stop so it’s a 10 hour journey time as opposed to a 15 hour plus journey.
We found the flight on the night before bed and although Mr Frugal wanted me to book it, I just couldn’t so we decided to sleep on it. I couldn’t sleep though because I kept talking myself out of it and justifying why it was OK for me to go.
I ended up getting up at 5am and just booking it using a little money from our Emergency Fund – this was totally an emergency though, right?
It’s been a total rush to get everything prepared but I feel like I’m almost there so on Sunday, I’ll be jetting off for four nights in San Francisco all by myself.
I don’t even care if I don’t learn anything from Pinterest themselves during my day with them, it’s more about the fact that I almost talked myself of doing something I really wanted to do.
Wish me luck and please come and follow me on Instagram and chat to me whenever I post while I’m there as I suspect I’ll be a little bit lonely at times with just me, myself and I for company.
Don’t miss out on future posts like this – receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address here and hitting subscribe. You can also follow me on Twitter, BlogLovin or Networked Blogs and I’d love to see you over on my Facebook page and on Instagram. You can find out more about me here.
