Who says no to a Jamaica spa trip? NOT ME!

PHOTO: Jamaica's Negril Beach

One of the most curious aspects of transitioning from a political operative to a food and travel writer is the drastic difference in my quality of life, never more highlighted than with this week's announcement Governor Jeb Bush was running for president.

During the last two presidential cycles, I was subsisting on Doritos (my favorite food in the world and I know what that says about me) and Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bars. I lost 20 pounds and was basically holding up my clothes with a belt -- since I didn't have time to go and buy new clothes. My hair was ragged and typically in a bun; my skin pasty yet strangely acne-free; and sleep was something I read about while decidedly NOT sleeping.

PHOTO: Doritos delivery truck on the streets of D.C., which I seriously contemplated stealing (c) Sery Kim

Fast forward to 2015. In January of this year, I decided to give full-time food and travel writing a real "go," not really knowing what all this might entail except for the glamorous element of being able to fill up all of my passport pages while traveling around for free. After going to bed with health care regulations and line-by-lines for 8 1/2 years, this sounded pretty great to me!

Still, I never imagined my new schedule would look like this: getting up at 3 am to research and write; submit article ideas for the day between 8 am and 10 am; writing 5 articles by 3 pm; working 40 hours a week at a law firm to bridge the gap between writing and paying the bills; and then spending another 60 hours a week traveling to far-flung reaches of the world like Curacao, Dolomities (Italy), Ghana, Turkey and Costa Rica.

MY LIFE IS CRAZIER THAN A PRESIDENTIAL!

The first six months have been a continous blur and yesterday I began scheduling trips for OCTOBER because my November and December has been filled by Antartica, New Zealand and Australia. Seriously! WHO AM I?!?

I'm incredulous at myself and am thankful to everyone who has helped me on this journey the first half of this year. The second half is going to be even better and I can feel the rhymic waves of Negril Beach putting me to sleep when I goes wheels-up in October for a press research spa trip to Jamaica -- yes, I'm THAT girl and yes, I know you hate me.

Until then, remember that while you are sleeping 8 hours a night, I'm sleeping 4!