Today in Happier News...

Enough of the doom and gloom...today I present to you a sure sign of fall in Las Vegas...baby lemons!

On a side note, if the doom and gloom is getting to you, the new 988 system is a wonderful, free, resource for people who are suicidal, teetering on the edge of their sanity, or just feeling overwhelmed and want to vent to someone.

On another side note, I've decided that my project, in honor of Charlie Kirk, is to post positive, useful information every day for the rest of the year here on my blog!

Sober October

October is the quintessential month for people who have an, um, overreliance on alcohol.  For the entire month of October many people, either individually or in groups, swear off alcohol for a month in hopes of kicking the addiction completely.

Since I've never drank, smoked, taken drugs, etc., I have decided that my "Sober October" goal is to kick my overreliance on unhealthy food.  Junk food, diary, meat, processed food...I am going to endeavor to do a Daniel Diet-esque type of eating plan for the entire month.  Along with this goal, I want to make a point to walk every single day in October, make it a low-spend month, participate in as many free activities as we can, and do an exceptional job with my work tasks.

This means I will probably regale you with my activities, on a daily basis, for the entire month, as a way to keep myself accountable and (hopefully) kick my awful overreliance on crappy food for good! 

p.s.  If you are looking for an addiction to kick, check out this list of 40 (very common) uncommon addictions.

A New Tablet and More Goals

On June 1st, I put together a list of 92 goals I wanted to accomplish this summer and so far I am making pretty good progress on these goals.  At the same time I am knocking things off my list of 1000 things to see and do in Las Vegas which I am also recording on my other blog.  It's going to be a busy summer!

One of my goals this summer was to get a new tablet.  I absolutely LOVE my 8" Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 but it is five years old, it's on its second battery, and it is also getting pretty slow.  Unfortunately Samsung does not make a really good 8" tablet so I decided to get the newest Tab S6 10" version which I picked up today.  Being frugal (as usual), I waited until it was on sale at Best Buy.  The regular price is $649.99 but this week it was on sale for $529.99.  When I was looking at the tablet and getting ready to buy it online (Best Buy stores aren't open in our area yet but you can buy things online then drive by and pick them up), I saw that they had open box tablets on sale for even less.  The same S6 in 'open box excellent' condition was $481 and the 'open box satisfactory' tablet was on sale for $402.  It said the tablet worked fine but had cosmetic damage but as long as it works right I'm good with a few scratches on the back which would be covered with a case anyway.  So I bought the satisfactory tablet, picked it up, and it was missing a charging cord so they gave me a very nice charging cord for free!  I feel like I got a great deal getting $250 off the tablet and hopefully this tablet will last for another five years like the last one!

And Yet More Goals

I made a huge list of 1000 things to do, see, and experience in Las Vegas a few years ago.  While I didn't end up turning the list into a book, I kept the list in a folder and now I am working on checking off every item on that list.  So far this month we have went to several places (I am blogging about these visits on my other blog) and it has turned into a great way to do small activities and keep things interesting this summer.  Many of the activities we do and places we visit are cheap or free so that's an added bonus, and we enjoy going to places that we would otherwise not go to (FWIW Las Vegas locals generally avoid the Strip and other tourist areas like the plague!).  So far this has been a wonderful summer despite the pandemic/protests/100+ degree temps!

Knocking Out More Goals

Today we knocked out a couple more goals by visiting Sunset Park as well as getting some photos of the Benny Binion Statue.  We are still stockpiling a little bit at a time, mostly because the economic news is still kind of iffy.  I found this interesting website where you can listen to a lot of different radio stations, there is still no word on my unemployment (I'm not too worried as some people have been filing since March and still haven't received a single payment!), and I just heard that the newest season of Queer Eye is now on Netflix so I know what I will be binge watching this evening!

Marching Forward

The world is still falling apart, or at least it looks like that in our city.  One man was killed and one police officer was shot and on life support due to the protests last night.  My friend lives in LA and said it looks like a war zone there.  ayayay  I was so tired of hearing all of the bad news that I purposely avoided the news all day yesterday (only to be greeted with more bad news when I checked the news websites this morning...). 

But we did manage to knock one goal off the list yesterday; we went to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Cactus Garden which was on the list.  There were only a few people there which was nice as the place is usually overrun with tourists, especially during the summer.  Then today we made some headway on our stockpiling of food and supplies.  We decided that every time we shop for groceries we will buy and extra $5-$20 in food or other supplies so today bought three extra bags of dried garbanzo beans (I couldn't find these to make hummus for nearly two months!), a bottle of tahini, and a couple of cans of pork and beans which will all go into our food stores.  Next up for tomorrow...visiting another park in our area!

92 Goals

There are 92 days of summer--from June 1st to August 31st--and I plan to make the most of them!

Here are my 92 goals for this summer...

1. Beaver Dam park
2. Berlin-Ichthyosaur park
3. Big Bend of the Colorado park
4. Buckland Station park
5. Cathedral Gorge park
6. Cave Lake park
7. Cave Rock park
8. Dayton park
9. Echo Canyon park
10. Elgin Schoolhouse park
11. Fort Churchill park
12. Ice Age Fossils park
13. Kershaw-Ryan park
14. Lahontan park
15. Mormon Station park
16. Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort park
17. Rye Patch park
18. Sand Harbor park
19. South Fork park
20. Spooner Lake and Backcountry park
21. Spring Mountain Ranch park
22. Spring Valley park
23. Valley of Fire park
24. Van Sickle park
25. Walker River park
26. Ward Charcoal Ovens park
27. Washoe Lake park
28. Wild Horse park
29. Renew driver’s license
30. Pay off honda
31. Visit national parks in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho
32. Make pickles
33. One social media post per day
34. 100% WFPB vegan
35. Get new tablet
36. Get new cell phone
37. Do 100 pushups at once
38. Do 100 arm weights at once
39. Do 100 sit ups at once
40. Do 100 squats at once
41. Do 100 jumping jacks at once
42. Walk 400 miles
43. Get new walk shoes/super feet
44. Get new Brooks/super feet
45. Go to the Clark County museum
46. Go to the Neon museum
47. Go to Sunset Park
48. Go to the NV Museum/Springs Preserve
49. Go to Floyd Lamb park
50. Go to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory
51. Go to the Veterans Memorial
52. Get unemployment
53. Go to the Desert National Wildlife Refuge
54. Do a dinner cruise
55. Go to the Bellagio Conservatory
56. Go to the Gilcrease Orchard
57. Go to the Henderson bird preserve
58. Go to Pahranagat Reserve
59. Go to Red Rock Canyon
60. Go to Mt Charleston
61. Do volksmarches (NV, OR, CA, WA, ID, AZ, MT, UT, CO, NM)
62. Go to Unity church
63. Go to the Church of Religious Science
64. Go bowling
65. Play bingo
66. Roller skate
67. Ice skate
68. Visit tourist attractions in Downtown Las Vegas
69. Take CCW class/get license
70. Send a box to the Philippines
71. Go to Zion National Park
72. Go to the drive in movie
73. Play mini golf
74. Make a torte
75. Make jam
76. Buy a ham radio
77. Go to a community event
78. Go to a rodeo event
79. Go to Lake Mead National Park
80. Go to Great Basin National Park
81. Record all counties visited with Extra Milers Club
82. Plan trip to Asia
83. Learn five songs on the piano
84. Go to Tule Springs Fossil Beds
85. Go to Death Valley National Park
86. Do a 5k fun run
87. Gather box of emergency gear (tent, sleeping bags, etc)
88. Stock food and supplies in case of fall pandemic lockdown
89. Throw a dinner party for the cousins
90. Visit 7 Magic Mountains
91. Go to the beach
92. Start renovations on house (paint, flooring, appliances)

Five Things I Would Like to Do By the End of the Year

Planning out the rest of the year, there are several things I would like to do in the upcoming months:

1. Visit all of the Nevada State parks.  There are 26 parks spread throughout the state (it is a BIG state to drive through though) and if we visit all of the parks and get our parks "passport" stamped, we will get a free annual park pass for next year.
2. Participate in the Historical Romance Retreat.  I love historical romance books and I love history in general and I have heard about this retreat and this fall the event happens to take place only a couple hours away from where I live so this is totally do-able.
3. Participate in the Freedom Walk Fest.  This walking event takes place every fall in Washington DC and is a pretty big deal for the national walking club that I belong to.  If we do any traveling this year it will be to join in this walking festival.
4. Pay off my credit card and car.  This was on my goal list for this year and while I am making a pretty big dent in my remaining debt, it will be quite a stretch to accomplish this but I am still hopeful it will happen.
5. Plan something BIG for hubby's 70th birthday which will take place in early February.  I would love to put together another family reunion cruise for this momentous birthday but I would have to pay for it (five kids, 13 grandkids, 3 great grand kids).  Needless to say, it would be expensive.  A friend suggested just renting a huge house on Air BnB and hosting everyone that way which would be less expensive but more work (to coordinate the food, activities and cleaning which is all taken care of when you do a cruise).  I'll have to give more thought to this...

1000 Things to Do in Las Vegas

At the beginning of the year, it was one of my goals to write a few books.  I realized that updating one of the books that I had published a while back wasn't such a great idea because the information changes so often that once the book is published and listed for sale, something that I put in the book could now be incorrect!  So I decided to make a website to list the information that was in the book (1000 Things to Do in Washington State) and finished that last month.  Hopefully it will make a bit of money with the few ads I put on the site.

The second book I wanted to write was similar to the first but focusing on Las Vegas.  Again, things change so fast here--businesses open, businesses close, businesses change names, etc--that putting the information in book format was pretty much a guarantee that the book would be outdated by the time it got published.  So I added another page to the website and wrote a list of "1000 Things to Do In Las Vegas".  After copious amounts of research and work the list is complete!  You can find it here and hopefully if you ever come to Las Vegas it will give you some ideas of activities to do here.

I told hubby that our task for the next while (year or more!) will be to do all of these activities and I will blog about them and attach the blog post to the list on the website.  He already said a flat "no way" to cliff jumping however...

A Quick Update on My Annual Goals

I posted my goals for 2014 over on the sidebar at the beginning of the year.  I figured I would take a look at them and see if I am on track or not with them (note the red goals have been completed):

1. Go to Europe (I'm hoping we will do this in the fall but no solid plans yet)
2. Work WSOP (I'm all signed up and ready to work in about a month!)
3. Walk a marathon (I am tentatively planning to do this in Washington DC in October)
4. Do Centurion Challenge (this challenge is to walk 100 volksmarches; I just counted and have only done 10.  Not sure if I will complete this or not)
5. Go to San Francisco 4/15 (we did this as a side trip on our way to Seattle and although we only spent five hours in San Francisco, we had a great time)
6. Go to New Orleans (no solid plans for this but I hope to squeeze it in sometime)
7. Get new washer and dryer (we bought a new washer and dryer then promptly returned them after reading so many bad reviews; hopefully we will find a set we like by the end of the year)
8. Get new refrigerator 1/28 (I just happened to be shopping and came across a nice, new, cheap side by side and we love it)
9. Hike Grand Canyon (there is no solid plan for this but physically I would have no problem doing it, however hubby wants me to go with someone and not do this 25 mile hike alone in one day...any takers?)
10. Visit Hubby's family (again, no solid plan but we can catch up with them when we go to the East Coast in the fall)
11. Visit my family 4/19 (I organize an annual family reunion lunch for my family and got to catch up with everyone a couple of weeks ago)
12. Go to Asia (again no solid plans but hopefully we will get there in the fall)
13. Walk 1000 miles (I'm making good progress on this goal but probably won't walk much in the super hot summer here so will have to pile on the miles after August)

A Small Update on My Daily Goals

We are only three days into the new year and one of my daily goes has already fell by the wayside :(  Although I have only been updating a few of the daily goals here on this blog, I may start listing all of them at the bottom of my posts.  Here's today's complete update:

1. Walk (2 miles, again with hubby, again in the nice sunshine. Only 994 more miles to go!)
2. No spend ($0. Yeah!  We are hoping to do at least 15 no spend days this month)
3. Update this blog (done :)    )
4. Update client's blog (done)
5. Put photo on Instagram (done)
6. Do client work (I'm hoping to get two or three hours a day so I will have a big paycheck at the end of the month.  Today I did two hours)
7. Paleo (fail!  A lady at bowling brought chocolate and I couldn't resist and then hubby forgot I was doing paleo and got me a free hot chocolate and since I didn't want to dump it out I drank it.  Still no wheat or dairy but not all paleo either.  This goal will probably be dropped because I have NO WILLPOWER!!!)
8. Genealogy (yep, reorganizing my files and making a list of documents to order)
9. Work on non fiction book (done; I am only updating one section a day and it only takes about a half hour)
10. Work on novel to submit to RITA (used my new tablet/laptop and did A LOT of revisions while hubby was bowling today.  I love the tablet and love that I can get so much work done while hubby is bowling for two hours)

I am also keeping a shopping list.  We are hoping that (somehow) we can only spend money once a week on shopping day.  This should help us spend less (when we shop daily the money just seems to slip through our fingers) and also give us a few days to think about purchases on the list and determine if we really need them or not (we tend to think we need something then buy it then find that maybe we didn't really need it).

Working on My Monthly Goals

We are only a week into the month but I am making progress on my goals for December.

• The backpack that I ordered from REI arrived yesterday and I love it!  I will try it out on a walk this weekend. 
• We tried the Thai restaurant and it was OK but not great (more in yesterday's post).
• I've sold two of the four things I listed on Craigslist so far (a sleeping bag and the weights).

I still have lots to do--some things are scheduled for certain dates so I can't check them off until then--and I really want to get all four walks in soon but it is SO COLD outside now (like 27 degrees this morning!).

I hope you are all keeping warm--it looks like the entire country is freezing!

Looking Forward--12 Goals for 2014

Since I am not that great at achieving a whole long list of goals, I figured that maybe I can achieve a short list of goals.  Maybe one per month?  So I figured out the twelve most important things that I want to accomplish next year and here they are:

1. Go to Europe.  I simply MUST go to Europe next year.
2. Work at the World Series of Poker again.  This will fund the trip to Europe.
3. Walk a marathon.  Why do I keep torturing myself like this?
4. Complete a Centurion Challenge.  That's 1000km of walking!
5. Go to San Francisco.  I've been wanting to go for ages.
6. Go to New Orleans.  I've also wanted to go here for ages.
7. Get a new washer and dryer.  We got these used and I would like a new set.
8. Get a new refrigerator.  We got this used as well and I would like a new one.
9. Hike the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in one day.  I've been wanting to do this since last year.
10. Visit the hubby's family in New York and Connecticut.  We haven't seen them in ages.
11. Visit my friends and family in Washington.  I like to visit Washington once a year to visit people and enjoy the beautiful scenery.
12. Go to Asia.  This is a long shot money-wise but I would still like to go.

Besides a few items for the house, I really want to travel this year.  We used to travel quite a bit but hubby is so happy in Las Vegas (perfect weather, lots of entertainment, everyone comes HERE to visit us) that he doesn't want to go anywhere else!  So I will try to get him to leave Las Vegas and hopefully on each of these trips I can get a bunch of walking in as well!

Looking Back--What I Accomplished in 2013

I thought that before I start making goals for 2014 (which we all know I'm not really good at keeping), I would look back on the things I had accomplished in 2013 (which would have been easier if I hand't deleted my annual goal list in a fit of angst).  So after wracking my brain, I came up with these things I have accomplished over the past year--and there aren't many things! :(

1. I walked a marathon.  This is the second time I finished a marathon and by mile 24 I am always telling myself what an idiot I am for torturing myself like that but I am too stubborn not to finish even though my feet are killing me.
2. I went to a reddit meet up.  I remember this was on my goal list and I had never done such a thing before and hubby thought I was crazy ("you want to meet up with people you don't even know and you aren't even very social in the first place???") but it was interesting and I am glad I pushed myself to do it.
3. I put together a family reunion for my side of the family.  This is the first time this had been done in over 20 years (and no one got stabbed!  And I am only half kidding!).  It was...interesting.
4. We went to LA and sat in the audience of a talk show.  We had never done something like this before and I was excited to go and Jeff Probst was great (unfortunately his show only lasted one season).
5. We went to a Cirque du Soleil show which was a big deal because we NEVER spend much money on shows and this was the most expensive show we have ever gone to and although we won't do this often (maybe ever again?) it was a great experience.
6. We sent a box of books and school supplies to a school in the Philippines (which was really appreciated by the teachers and students and much needed as the school is very poor).
7. I volunteered at a national genealogy conference held in Las Vegas--it was really fun and really interesting!
8. I worked at the World Series of Poker which was on my goal list because I thought it would be interesting.  It was.
9. I somehow ended up with a steady freelance gig for the past few months which looks like it will stretch into next year.
10. We did a no spend (actually a low spend) month and actually stuck with it for the entire month!

Wow this year has really flown by!

September Goals

Not three days after I lop off my 2013 annual goal list (out of frustration and financial dread mostly since everything left on the list was going to be super expensive), I'm writing out another goal list... Go figure.

Here's the things I want to accomplish in September:

• Put $50 in savings
• Pay my annual webhost fees $162
• Help hubby with the monthly bills $400
• Get a tablet $400
• Do four volksmarches and four hikes in our local mountains
• Gather up some money to put towards out fall vacation $1000
• Finish writing my next book and GET IT PUBLISHED

Now the savings goal will be easy as I already have a client sending me that exact amount which should be here any day.  I have no idea where the webhost fees will come from but it is a priority because it is due by the end of the month.  Hubby has been paying nearly all of our monthly bills (I only pay the cell phones and for the grandson's school) but I really want to start contributing more (again, no idea where that money will come from).  I really really want a tablet and, of course, if I want it I will need to come up with the cash to buy it...somehow.  Now that the weather is cooling off, I want to get out and do more walking so I've set a kind of lofty goal to walk about 60 miles give or take this month.  We haven't been on a vacation since spring and I WANT TO GO ON A VACATION!  And of course, the only way we can go on a vacation is with cash in hand.  I need to earn this cash...somehow.  And finally, I NEED to get my next book edited and published ASAP.  My first book makes me between $60 and $100 each month so I figure with two books in print, that would help to up my monthly income, paltry as it is now.

A Quick Update (Before I Get Back to Work)

It's been a busy week around here...

• The sister-in-law dropped her grandkids off back in Florida and she returned here a couple of days ago.  Today is the last day of the BIL's job in Las Vegas so they are going to do a two week tour around California (their hotel in Yosemite will cost $200 a night!  Yikes...but it is the height of tourist season...).  They will also hit the Napa Valley and the Redwoods then drive back along the coast.  Sounds like a wonderful vacation!
• Jury duty on Tuesday lasted a grand total of two hours and they they said were were done and wouldn't be called again for another two years (cases often settle or the defendant takes a plea right before going to trial).
• I've done two volksmarches in the past week, one this morning with the SIL who had never heard of such a thing.  Now I think she is a convert!
• Work is rolling in.  I made $250 yesterday just for doing a simple salary survey for a client.  I emailed out the website proposal which will net me $2400 if it is accepted.  And today I will be hard at work on the "big job" which is writing a policy book which could take up to a year but should be pretty lucrative.  All of these jobs came from word of mouth from previous clients that I haven't see for more than two years!
• I'm liking my new camera and think it was a good by for $89 (see another photo, above).  Like I said, I am no photographer but at least it will give me some pretty clear photos which I can add to my blogs!.
• I sent for my great grandmother's birth certificate but it wasn't in the county she was supposed to have been born in.  I'll need to do more research on that.  Also, I didn't know where my parents got married (most everyone who would know are now dead) so I emailed a distant aunt and she gave me a lead (apparently they may have eloped to Idaho.  The aunt mentioned she and her husband eloped in Idaho too.  Why do people elope to Idaho?  I have no idea.  Vegas, yes.  Idaho, no.).
• Three trips have presented themselves to us but as always, money is a big part of all of them.  Some of hubby's sisters want me to plan a cruise for the fall, the SIL that is here wants to go to the Philippines in December, and there is a volksmarch festival in Washington DC in October that looks really fun.  As odd as it sounds (and even though we have no money for these things) it really feels like we will accomplish all of these things this year (plus they are on my goal list!).  We'll see what happens.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend (and for those of you in the Northeast, I hope you get some relief from the heat!)!

10 Goals for May and a Quick Update

Well, I only met 50% of my 20 goals for April (list here) so this month I decided to only have 10 goals to complete.  In no particular order, here's this month's goal list:

1. Complete a rough, rough draft of my next book.
2. Make it through the first few days of my new job. (done. survived!)
3. Go to a reddit meet up.
4. Meet a blogger (any of you coming to Las Vegas this month??)
5. Get my concealed carry license.
6. Do the genealogy conference (I will be volunteering for five days). (done. fun!)
7. Work on filling up my box to send to a school in the Philippines.
8. Give our guests (we will have a few this month) a wonderful Las Vegas experience. (done. also fun!)
9. Do three volksmarches.
10. Work on my RITA manuscript.

Wow it has been a super busy week.  Here's the highlights:

• I wanted to get some new nail polish since I have had exactly one bottle/color for the past two years.  At Target, one bottle of my second favorite polish (Revlon; OPI is my favorite but it is expensive) cost $3.99 so I went next door to Ross and got four bottles for $6.99.  And with the white polish that came in the set, I used it to write the letters on my laptop keyboard that had been obliterated by my typing!
• I met the nicest lady who came down from Seattle.  She emailed our volksmarch club to see if anyone wanted to walk with her so I volunteered and we went on one walk (with the second walk I had to have hubby drop her off and pick her up because I had to go to my job interview).  Anyway, she had lived in India and traveled all over the world and was just fascinating to talk to!
• We will be having a lot of guests in the next couple of months so we repaired the leaky kitchen faucet (replaced it with a cheap faucet from Walmart instead of the $90 faucet I wanted because an expensive faucet just wasn't in the budget this month.  At least it doesn't leak!).  We also bought two shower doors and are installing them today and tomorrow.  What a pain--hubby and I should put all of this on YouTube because it never works out as simply and easily as it does on TV :I
• We crammed in four FillASeat shows this past week because we hadn't went to any all month.  The first was a comedian who was OK (hubby was so tired after getting back from Seattle he was nodding off at the show!), the second was a comedian/impressionist.  I didn't think he was that great--he was OK and playing at a very small venue with a very small audience--but you have to admire anyone who has the courage to get up in front of an audience and try to be funny (a very subjective thing to do).  Next we went to see Recycled Percussion (taking a cue from Dar I brought along my earplugs and I was SO GLAD I DID!).  The show was creative and fun but about 200 decibels too loud for my taste.  Finally we went to see Pin Up which was really good--no one told us it was media night so we basically showed up at a red carpet event in jeans--but the show was wonderful, the band was excellent, the choreography was amazing, the dancers were really skillful, the crowd was cheering...overall a great show!
• And other good things: I got two very cute outfits at the Goodwill for a total of $10 today, one of the cousins gave us a suite at the Rio for two nights and three days which we enjoyed last weekend, we met up with another friend who came down from Seattle for a few days, I'm excited to get to volunteer at the National Genealogical Society conference which will be here in Vegas next week, and I sent in my supplemental hiring questions for the very good job and (kind of) have my fingers crossed that I will move further along in the hiring process!   

One Marathon. Done.

I've crossed another goal off of my annual goal list: complete a marathon.  Which I did this past Saturday.  My feet still hurt.  Here's what we did:

• We skipped the trip to the San Juans, unfortunately.  It was storming the night before we left and we figured that if for some reason the ferries to the east side of the sound and the ferry through the San Juans got delayed due to the weather there would be no way to make it to the marathon.
• So we hopped the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria BC the next morning and the weather turned out to be nice as soon as we got to the BC side of the water.
• I did complete the marathon (see certificate above).  Note that I am the slowest walker I know and it took nearly nine hours of walking to complete (needless to say my feet and still unhappy).  Of course the fact that I would walk ten paces then find something interesting to take a picture of didn't help (see photos here and here).
• Canadians are the nicest people on the planet!  They are so friendly and helpful (nearly a half dozen times people stopped to ask if I was lost or needed help during the walk since I was looking around for the trail markers and, well, I probably did look lost.  One guy went zipping by me on a bike, stopped, turned around, and came back to ask if I was looking for something.  Amazing!).  Also, if you are anywhere in the vicinity of a crosswalk, they stop and wait patiently while you cross the street (in Las Vegas, unless it is a certainty that you will cause damage to their car, people don't stop at crosswalks).  tl;dr: if it wasn't freezing cold in Canada, I would move there!
• The weather was great for a walk.  It was sunny and warm most of the way with a light breeze--perfect for walking.
• There is A LOT of nature in Victoria BC!  We walked 12+ miles out from Victoria and found ourselves in the wilderness.  We walked the Lochshead Trail, around two lakes, and hit all kinds of other trails through forests and along waterways.  Beautiful!
• Canadians also sound nice (I like their accents!) and look nice (or maybe everyone I saw on the trial looked nice because they get out in nature often.  Maybe socialized health care?  Whatever it is, they look much healthier than Americans).
• We had donairs twice (something we don't often find in the US) but I couldn't find poutine anywhere (it looked tasty on a Food Network Canada TV show we watched).
• Bus service around the island was excellent, with a $5 pass, we could get on and off buses all day as we checked out various parts of the city.
• I was a little leery about the hotel we reserved (Travelodge in Esquimalt) because it was a cheap rate where you pay first then find out the name of the hotel but I thought that since it was a two-star hotel with hundreds of four-star ratings, it might be OK.  And it was.  It was clean and quiet and well cared for and located perfectly for us.  We were super happy with the hotel!
• This was a smaller walk festival than I have been to in the past with only about 20 people completing the marathon and lots of people doing shorter walks and while I walked by myself much of the way, I did walk about 10k with a lady who was preparing for a May trip to Spain to do the 800k Camino de Santiago walk.  You meet the most interesting people volksmarching!

Overall it was a wonderful trip, I got to knock off another goal (although "do a marathon" may never again end up on my goals lists!), and I am already planning to come back up to the Pacific Northwest next summer to attend a week-long volksmarch festival in the Columbia River Gorge (where I will do daily 10k walks instead of one long--and painful--42k walk!).

20 Goals for April and Some Bad News

First, the bad news.  We were supposed to go to the Ellen show tomorrow but I called and cancelled our reservations because my allergy problem has turned into a head and chest cold/infection and I can't go ten minutes without having a coughing fit.  Since I didn't want to be tossed out of the show for disturbing the filming because it sounds like I am hacking up a lung, I figured it was best to cancel (and I wish I could say "April Fools!" but it isn't, I feel like crap :I ).

And the goals:
It seems to work out really well when I write down my monthly goals (like last month) and even though I don't reach ALL of my goals, it seems like I accomplish many more things than when I don't write down my goals and try to keep them all in my head.  So here are my goals for April (barring something like bronchial pneumonia...):

1. Buy and install a kitchen faucet. (done!)
2. Buy and install a shower door. (done, both mine and hubby's)
3. Go to a reddit meet up. (fail; no meet ups this month)
4. Go to the family reunion. (done; and no major drama :)
5. Walk a marathon.(done! yeah me)
6. Walk 150k in volksmarches. (fail; only did about 60k)
7. Go to the San Juan Islands. (skipped; fail)
8. Continue filling the school supplies/books box for the Philippines. (fail; didn't add a single thing to the box)
9. Complete the rough draft of my next book. (fail; not even close)
10. Book a cruise for May. (fail; postponed til fall)
11. Prep for the bike trip. (fail, postponed til August)
12. Find the perfect walking bag/backpack. (done; a cute, lightweight, salmon-colored bag from Eddie Bauer)
13. Be a size six. (fail; I think I will be a size 8 forever)
14. Order two more death certificates. (fail; still waiting to be sent)
15. Turn 46! (done...as if I had a choice...)
16. Stay paleo with one treat each week. (fail, fail, fail)
17. Make a genealogy presentation for the reunion. (done and the family loved it!)
18. Go to four FillASeat shows. (done; two comedians, Recycled Percussion, and Pin Up)
19. Write to my great uncle (grandmother's brother) for genealogy info. (done and waiting for a reply!)
20. Buy two new shades of nail polish. (done; bought four in fact)

Ice Skating. Check. Concert. Check. A Goal Update

Yesterday I knocked two more goals off of my annual goal list!

• First, I went ice skating.  While I can still skate even though it's been years, I kept praying that I didn't crash and break anything because I have a marathon to walk next month!  So I skated for a bit and realized that I like roller skating better.
• Then we went to a concert.  A rock concert.  Actually it was a six hour rock festival but we came in at the half way point and were there for about three hours.  We saw Skid Row, Night Ranger (photo above), and Vince Neil.  I haven't been to a rock concert in like 30 years, here are the differences I noticed: then--the audience was full of screaming teenagers, including me. Now, the audience was full of screaming middle-agers, including me.  Then, the music was loud, the louder the better.  Now, the music was deafening; I really hope my hearing goes back to normal!  Then, the rockers on stage were older, like in their 20s and 30s.  Now, the rockers are still older, like in their 50s and 60s.  Overall it was an interesting experience but one I am not likely to repeat because I can hardly hear anything this morning and I value my hearing more than a rocking good time :)

In other goal news:

• I am still trying to work in a trip to San Francisco when we go to LA.
• The family reunion is set up and everyone is excited to attend.
• We have everything set for our trip to Victoria where I will walk a marathon.
• My box of school supplies for the Philippines is half full.
• I have been doing a ton of genealogy research and have a couple of lines back to ten generations already.
• I deleted the book I was working on because it just wasn't coming together but as I was sailing around the skating rink yesterday I had a flash of inspiration so I am starting on a new book today.
• I still haven't heard back about working at the WSOP but I hope they call me!
• I put off getting my concealed carry license because of the expense and the fact that I would rarely, if ever, carry concealed in Las Vegas because we are in casinos nearly every day and of course you can't carry concealed in casinos.

And in other news:

• Allergy season is upon me.  Not as bad as when we were in Georgia but still.  Ugh.
• I haven't been able to comment on Carla's blog in a couple of weeks.  I'm trying to figure out why.
• Right in the midst of wondering where my next bit of income was coming from, I got calls from two friends about doing some work for them yesterday (mostly website stuff).  Yeah!

Have a wonderful weekend!