Icy cold greetings from Jacksonville Beach where we just did the polar plunge!
Ok, ok – so the polar plunge in Florida isn’t quite the same as the ones in Coney Island and other actually frigid places. Still, you gotta give this thin-skinned Floridian credit for hopping into a 58-degree ocean!
I actually loved the whole experience and would do it again next year, but I’ve got 365 days and a lot of life to live before I need to think about that. So let’s reminisce about the last 90 days in this 61st edition of Reflections from the Road – because MUCHO has happened – and then dive into expectations for 2025.
New here? Catch up on the latest (AND LAST*) edition of RFTR.
*See below for the tea.
Highs
BABY ON BOARD
No – it’s not me. Let’s get that out of the way because I’ve received way too many congratulations from folks who didn’t read the whole post. The baby on the way is Baby Miller, the 3rd child of my little sister and her husband Ben (after canine children Sheba and Nora, of course.)
It’s a BOY! And our whole family is pumped for his April arrival (except Sheba and Nora because they have no idea what’s coming). It’s all we talk about in the group chat, from how big he is (we get weekly updates comparing him to fruit), what the name might be (Ghenghis Khan, Django the Mango, Rasputin, Jessi) to how long we’re all allowed to stay in Orlando after he’s born because Rae and Ben are gonna have to tell us when to leave.
IN MY ERAS ERA
The Lord hath shined his face upon me once again, y’all, because at the last minute a friend-of-a-friend appeared like an angel on a cloud with face value Eras Tour tickets for Miami Night 1. Rae came with me and we were ready to clown hard for Reputation all night. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it was one of the top performances in the entire 140+ night tour. (And I watched most of them on the grainy TikTok livestreams!)
If none of this makes any sense to you, that’s ok. As I tell the foaming-at-the-mouth strangers on Threads, not everything is for everyone. If you don’t like Taylor Swift or Blake Lively or Meghan Markle or Wicked or cat ladies, you can just go on not liking those things and you don’t have to holler at everyone who does. Yucking someone else’s yum is not a valid hobby.
But for me? Truly some of my most favorite moments from 2023-2024 have included the Eras Tour, so I’m grateful that I got to see it three times. (Tampa, Stockholm, Miami)
There are so many things about being a Swiftie that I love:
- The freedom to just be a sparkly girl and not a grown-up who has to have everything figured out, just once in a while
- The exhilaration of singing THE SMALLEST MAN WHO EVER LIVED with tens of thousands of others who have also dated that guy
- Exchanging friendship bracelets with cuties young and old
- “Clowning” about Debutation theories
- Finding fresh meaning in lyrics I’ve heard 1,000 times
It’s just a fun, joyful, safe community. I’ve never been a big “fandom” person, but if I could bottle up the vibes at the Eras Tour… whew, I’d be almost as rich as TayTay herself.
HAWAII, Vol. 8 (?)
Rick and I were long overdue for a vacation for just the two of us, so we went back to a favorite: Hawaii! Believe it or not, in my many visits to the 50th state, I’ve only ever spent real quality time on Kauai. (My two visits to Oahu were painfully short.) So this time, we decided to spend a couple days on Kauai visiting my uncle and friends, followed by the rest of the week on the island of Hawaii – affectionately known as the Big Island.
Kauai was as lush and fragrant and rainbow-y as ever, and we stayed at a hotel I’ve long lusted after: The 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay. On the Big Island, we added another national park to our collection, swam with giant manta rays and ascended to 14,000 feet, the summit of Mauna Kea. It was such a blessing to be able to get away with my dude and to spend so much time outdoors. Much more to come on that whole trip as I churn out content in January. In the meantime, check out the latest episode of Traveling with AAA featuring my friend Rob Taylor for all the hot tips on visiting the Big Island.
DEFYING GRAVITY
Since I lived in New York City and walked by the Gershwin Theater every day on the way to work, WICKED has been a sweet part of my life. My roommates and I used to duet Popular and For Good with our little karaoke machine, and I can’t even tell you how many times I won the lottery for cheap tickets and went for a show on the spur of the moment. Ah, the good old days!
To celebrate the released of Wicked the movie, Rae and I did a special episode of BUT DID YOU DIE?! If you haven’t watched it yet, you’ve got to pop over and check it out. Don’t worry – we spared you the spectacle of us singing Defying Gravity, but we did experiment with green makeup and sparkles. Plus it’s the first time we’ve ever shared our absolutely terrifying haunted house story... so it’s a good time to catch up on our podcast.
LA FAMILIA BOLIVIANA
Our dear friends Ed & Yandi came to visit the week before Christmas, and I finally got to meet their little one Elein. I met Ed in 2005 on my first mission trip to Santa Cruz, where my church partnered with his church to build and paint and play futbol with the neighborhood kids. That trip turned into 3 more trips, I started sponsoring his little sister through Compassion International and we’ve been lifelong friends ever since.
Now Ed is married to Yandi, and they have a ministry helping families and kids in need in Santa Cruz. I’m on the board of this ministry, GRACIA, and now they’re in the US for a couple months fundraising and attending a missions conference. That’s a whole long story to get to the point: we love our Bolivians and love showing them the beach, our favorite restaurants and things to do around Jacksonville.
Lows
THE FALLS
Pretty much every hike I’ve ever done has ended up in the Lows column – until a few years later when my toenails have grown back and I’ve forgotten the worst of it. So keep that in mind in this section, where I tell you that 8 weeks after hiking to Hanakapi’ai Falls on Kauai, my toenails are just now falling off and I still have nerve damage in my arm. Did I get injured? Did I fall? Did I do something wrong?
No, this is the body I was given. I really should have known better. I literally wrote an article entitled: Bad Decisions on the Hanakapiai Falls Hike from my last adventure on the Kalalau Trail in 2012:
So, I’m the ding-dong. A couple days after the hike, I found if I moved my arm backward at all, I was in excruciating nerve pain – some of the worst I’ve ever felt. So my masseuse is helping me through it.
I am never going to do this hike again – for real, for real this time – no matter how stunning the Na Pali Coast is or how refreshing Hanakapiai Falls is or how amazing it feels when you finally stumble to the parking lot many hours later, covered in mud.
WHAT IS ACTUALLY GOING ON RIGHT NOW
I don’t know if you’ve poked around the internet lately but, um, things are going about as well as the first act in a SciFi movie. There are UFOs and plasmoids just whipping around our airspace and the government is all, “Yeah, that’s totes cray, but don’t worry about it.”
You know the moment anyone tells you not to worry about it is the moment you should probably start worrying about it. At least in the movies.
People I know for a fact aren’t whackjobs have seen crazy things, and Rick and I even… you know, what, nevermind. Nothing to see here.
It would be one thing if unidentified flying objects were the only thing going on… but have you heard about the Carrington Event? How about the fact that the inauguration is just a few weeks away…. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?! My mom keeps sending me videos about poisonous fog? And don’t forget about bird flu.
Listen, I’m not a conspiracy theorist by any means, but I do fall down the occasional rabbit hole, and I’ll say this: it sure seems like a lot of possibly unrelated, fully unhinged stuff is happening at once. If you need me, I’ll just be in my bunker.
Lessons
NOODLES
I booked a ramen class from JAX Cooking Studio for Rick’s birthday and it was such a fun date night! Especially because I don’t give a hoot about cooking (and am a danger to myself and others with knives) and he is so good in the kitchen. And he looks hot in an apron.
One lesson I learned, aside from how to make ramen noodles and broth and perfectly jammy eggs from scratch, is that I do actually like ramen, but only in this very specific instance where I make it myself. I still haven’t found ramen in the wild that I’m into.
RELATED: Watch the reel of our JAX Cooking Studio Ramen class.
BRAINS
I’ve mentioned a few times how I finally figured out some health stuff in 2024 that has plagued me all my life, and just knowing more about how my brain and body work (or don’t work!) has been life-changing already. It’s taken 43 years to get to this point, and I can finally give myself permission to do things my way. I’ve always known that I needed to do things differently than the majority of folks, but I pushed against that because I didn’t know any better. Things were done the way they were always done. Now I’m just going full speed ahead and it’s my way or the highway. It’s liberating and refreshing and also a bit sad, realizing how much effort I spent trying to do things like everybody else. Alas, this is what I’ve got to work with now and I’m going for it.
Next Steps
We can make our plans but God determines our steps. Proverbs 16:9
NEW YEAR, NEW ME
Not really. I gave up on resolutions after 2020 when the panini hit and I realized you can make all the lofty business goals you like, but the world is doing other things that might just stop you in your tracks. So now I make goals that are mostly within my control: take more walks, read more books, paint more canvases.
Sure, I do have things I’d like to accomplish this year – it’s how I’m wired, I don’t see that changing – but I’m just a bit more realistic about how much time and energy I actually have. Especially with a baby on the way?! Are you kidding? I am going on Auntie Maternity Leave as soon as little Ghenghis gets here. Do not call me.
But a few things I’d love to accomplish:
- Read 2 books per month
- Walk on the beach once per week (the Bolivians inspired me to appreciate my coastal life)
- Draft my next book
- Group trip to somewhere (I was thinking Jane Austen Festival but logistically it’s tricky so IDK)
- Send out a nice little update to my email list more than twice a year
See? I’m not the hustle girlie I was in my 20s and I’ve definitely made peace with that in the last few years. And on that note…
TIMES ARE A’ CHANGIN’
So I might be hustling just the teensiest little bit behind the scenes. Last year was all about launching Flirting with Disaster into the world and doing what I have always done: travel content marketing, creation, podcasting, etc.
There’s not much I can say right now, but hopefully by the time we get to Vol. 62, I’ll have some big developments to share. A lot has to happen, a lot has to go in our favor. But taking risks is kinda my thing, and I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve thrown everything I know out the window to try something new. Stay tuned.
SO LONG, REFLECTIONS FROM THE ROAD
Ok, that’s a bit misleading. I’ve been writing this series since I quit my PR job and started traveling in 2011, and it’s always been the one spot where I get the most personal and really share what’s going on – the good and the bad, for all the world to see.
The reality is… this life update is for my ride-or-dies. The people who know me, love me (or maybe just like me, that’s cool) and those who want to know what’s really going on behind the scenes. It’s not for casual readers who just stumble in, or lurkers who want the tea but don’t want to buy the whole book. (cough, cough)
So Reflections from the Road won’t change much – you’ll still get the Highs, Lows, Lessons and Next Steps as always. But, it is moving from public post on AngieAway.com to newsletter subscribers only. I barely send anything out to those of you on my email list anyway, so this will add a whopping 4 emails to that per year.
I’ve been thinking of making the switch for a long time and now that I’ve published a very personal tell-all memoir with very vulnerable details and I host a pretty big national podcast and am relatively public-facing in my day-to-day life, I need to keep the private, challenging stuff to a more exclusive, more intimate group. And I’m guessing if you’ve read this entire post, that’s you.
If you want to sign up for my list with only occasional appearances from me – again, I’m literally too busy to spam you, I promise – you can do it here.
The next 90 days are going to be game-changing in my world for so many reasons. I hope whatever you have planned from 2025 is everything you are praying for. Thanks for being here – see you on Instagram, Threads + Facebook!
If all this big news comes as a surprise, I’ve been sharing in real time on Instagram! Another way to stay in touch (and win free presents!) is to subscribe to our newsletter. Sign up here, and rest assured that we will never spam you. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
