Update: Plans, Health, Some Mini Disasters, and a Few Links

Like I've mentioned before, our plans seem to change nearly daily. Here's what's going on:

• Plans. We finally bought our tickets to our next destination which will be Las Vegas. Hubby and the BIL will be taking part in the World Series of Poker tournament there (fingers crossed that they win the multi-million dollar prize!) and I will get to catch up with some friends I haven't seen for a few years. We will be there the last week of June and the first week of July and after that? Well, we haven't decided yet.


• Health. As soon as we decided to go to Vegas, I decided I better get serious about my health. While my days of having a "boomin" bod and hanging out at the pool all day and nightclub all night are long gone, I still don't want to look like a beached whale (which is exactly what I feel like after basically lounging around and doing not much of anything for three months)! My goal is to lose 25 pounds in 40 days and in order to do so I have been working out at least two hours each day as well as eating better than I ever have. I went with a "Paleo-ish" diet of only natural, nutritious foods including meat, fish, lots of fruit and vegetables as well as non-paleo foods such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, bananas, and very occasionally rice. In fact, a few days after I started eating this way I was reading Carla's blog over at My 1/2 Dozen Daily and found that what I eat basically follows along with this post (although she rendered the explanation much better--and prettier!--than I could). Basically you skip the grains, dairy, and processed foods and eat only natural food. After just a week, I actually do feel much better, although I very much miss my favorite food groups--wheat, dairy, and Starbucks.


• Mini Disaster #1. About a week or so ago, I was ready to throw in the towel, move back home, buy another house, and get back into the rat race. I was bored silly (I have always worked at least one, usually two, jobs since I was sixteen but for the past four months I haven't worked at all and was going stir crazy). I missed my friends (I talk to them often and they always ask when I am coming home and I felt like I was missing out on so much with them...I was homesick!). And, since I read the online version of our local paper each day, there have been no less than six front page articles that, had I still been "in the mix" so to speak, I would have known about before the things hit the paper. I would have been a part of what was going on instead of reading about things from afar. I felt like my life, or at least my previous life, was passing me by. Then I had a moment of feeling sorry for the idle rich. It is all of these things--working, having a social group, being part of things in a community--that creates the fabric of life. Just traveling around and having no ties takes this important part of living away from you. I was ready to hop on the next plane and go home but hubby told me to stick it out, at least until after Las Vegas, and see where we feel like going from there. So I am waiting and in the past week I haven't felt so bad.


• Mini Disaster #2. A couple of days ago my step daughter (who is wonderful and the only "daughter" I have), sent me a text message. It said "I'm leaving my husband, can you help me?" I was ready to do the happy dance as I thoroughly dislike her husband and find him to be borderline abusive and getting worse but we have kept out of their relationship and told her we support whatever she wants to do. After four kids and trying to work it out, seems like she finally wised up and is kicking the idiot to the curb. But I digress. Like most women with four kids, a lousy husband, and a bad relationship, leaving him means that she will basically be out on her own, have to find a new place to live, and have to support her family by herself (we are hoping the guy will pay child support but that remains to be seen). So I know that the help we will provide will be mostly from our emergency fund. Ouch. Fortunately the kids (there's five of them) have learned to not ask us for money (we don't co sign loans, pay their massive cell phone bills, dig them out of credit card debt, or pay bail) but on occasion we do help out with unforeseen emergencies. This is one of them. It remains to be seen how much and what kind of help she will need.


• And finally, some links. Here's some interesting links you might like: Your Debt Free Checklist (exactly the process we used to get out of debt). Daily Habits that Keep Me Out of Debt (I have most of these same habits). Your Ideal Life Strategy (we basically did these things to get to the point we are at now).

Finally, since my blog always looks a little blah due to the lack of pictures, I decided to throw up a picture of my favorite flower to photograph, a dahlia. Have a great weekend!