I Would've Beat Him...

...if I wasn't such a dope!

Yesterday Andy and I decided that we needed to do some serious training for triathlons. We've been working out routinely, but haven't been doing many "bricks". A brick is when you do two events back-to-back to prepare your muscles for the change of events and to practice transitions. For example, you go for a swim and then jump on your bike. And you practice the transitions as well, which is going from swim gear to putting on your bike gear as fast as you can. So Andy decided that we should do the full triathlon (similar distances to the one coming up in a few weeks) to see if we could do it and if we'd want to do the race in July.

We jumped in the ocean for a 1/4 mile swim. After practicing with one-mile swims, it seemed like we were out of the water before I even got wet! I was first on my bike and raced away as fast as I could. My goal in the bike was to stay ahead of Andy, of course. I kept looking back for him and I could see he was gaining ground. Then when I looked back again he was gone! That's when I realized I rode right past our turnaround point! This is when you're supposed to yell "Dope!" really loud so I can hear you! So....I tired out my legs more by adding another mile and a half to my ride. Even though I did have a good run yesterday, I'm sure my time could've been even better. After Andy did all of his calculations to try and make our two races comparable for time/distance, I think I could've beat him...if I wasn't such a dope.

We received an awesome reward for our efforts, though. The Turtle Patrol was out yesterday morning. Two loggerhead turtle nests had hatched and the staff helps to ensure that all of the babies get out of their nest safely and before the heat of the day hits. So we got to watch a group of the hatchlings scramble across the sand, with flippers spinning wildly, and into the ocean. They are only about 4" long. A couple got tossed about in our mild surf before they disappeared. One had us nervous as he floated directly toward a watching seagull. But the staff told us that that seagull would be too small to eat him. Years ago we had seen momma turtles come to shore and dig their nests and lay their eggs, so now being able to see the hatchlings swim off to the Gulf Stream has completed the cycle for us. We were so lucky to be there at the right time.

Our Marketplace

You might have noticed a new addition to our Blog and our Website....Our Marketplace. I've decided to promote some products that I've found to be beneficial to us. Instead of adding Google Ads (which I understand does bring in income for many others), I've chosen to try and be more personal. I'll only list products or services that we've used. These are affiliate ads, which does mean that we will get a small commission for any purchases (not click-thru's) that occur when the purchases are made through our links. So, I have just one itty-bitty favor to ask - if you like what you see, please remember to buy through our links. That would be great!

Ok, maybe a second request...is there a holiday coming up? A birthday? An anniversary? Do you normally buy stuff from Amazon online? I now have search boxes for Amazon placed on both our blog and our website. If you use these Amazon links to buy what you were planning on buying anyway, that would help us as well.

And, just for kicks, I added an MP3 box on our homepage of our website. You can listen to music and if you decide you like a song, you can buy it with a click of a button. We're always looking for more songs to add to our MP3s, so I thought that might be a fun way to find new music.

Thank you for using our website and blog for your future purchases!
And this is the end of this not-yet-paid-for advertisement.

Freedom

Earlier this month I spent the weekend attending The Millionaire Mind Intensive. It was a great seminar, and as the name implies, intense. Intense because it was long - approximately 40 hours in 3 days. But, more importantly, intense because of the activities that you do to try to determine what is stopping you from being financially free. Call it self-evaluation, reflection, inspection, whatever. Sometimes things can get ugly when looked at under a microscope. Almost all of us have had past experiences or prior role models that created a negative belief of money or rich people. But in addition to determining what is stopping us (usually fear), you must first know what you want and why. It is only with a clear vision of your goal that you can reach it. "Clarity is Power".

So, with this seminar...and watching The Secret...and doing some searching within my heart...and talking with Andy, I've realized that my goal hasn't changed. Or, I should say "our" goal. We want to travel, we want to be financially free to do so on our terms. We want to spend our time volunteering or working with our park service. We want to enjoy life.

With this, we have extended our Trading Time Limit to the end of July. Our initial deadline was April 30th. Our trading was showing signs of consistency at that time, so we extended our deadline to May 31st. Then May brought us all sorts of technical issues with Prophet Charts (the charting service we use). So much so, that Andy opened a new brokerage account with TradeStation because their charts are platform-based vs web-based. That caused us to extend our date to June 30th so he could learn the new program. And here we are - June 27th.

Today we decided we need one more month to make our final decision. What decision, you ask? It's the decision as to whether stock trading is in our future...as to whether this is the opportunity for us to reach our goal of being financially free to live our dream. We want it to be. It's a business we can travel with. It's a business that, hopefully after this learning curve, will allow us more time to enjoy life on a daily basis. We've recently read a new trading book that has shown us what we've been missing to increase our probability of winners. It's simple and sensible and we're both going to begin incorporating some changes into our trading strategies. So we need more time to see if this is indeed the missing link. But, boy oh boy, I wish we weren't in a bear market right now....

Motivational Quotes

It all started with a forwarded email. The email introduced us to The Sales Movie - a great motivational video. Since then, we've come across several others as well from links on other websites.

So before you start clicking on links, go get a drink, get comfy in your chair, relax and just watch these videos. They're just a few minutes long each, but I believe the impact will last longer than that. And, do what I do...watch them again in a couple of days!

The Sales Movie
212 - The Extra Degree
Power of Attitude

The Humor in Gas Prices

Sometimes we just need a good laugh...

Wanderlust

The itch has returned. The travel bug can get deeply imbedded in your soul after traveling for years like we have. Although we love living in South Florida and have enjoyed having a "routine" back in our lives, it just feels like something is missing. It doesn't help that certain things have happened recently to cause our thoughts (if not our bodies) to wander . For one, Jim and Chris just took off on the road again.

And our nephew, Nick, and his wife, Amy, moved to Alaska. They've been torturing me with photos of oversized cabbage and text messages of how many moose they saw. And Amy was a quick study...I pointed her in the direction of Blogger, and voila, she put together their own blog. This will torture me even more!

Then old RVing friends from our first year out wrote an email updating us on all the great things they've been doing. More torture!

This all happened recently. Prior to that, Andy's been reading our old journals every night. He'll share some parts with me and we'll fall asleep dreaming of beautiful places and funny moments. And I've set up my screen saver on my computers to scroll thru our traveling photos. These are constant reminders of all the wonderful places we've been and all of the places yet to visit. But, do they scratch the itch? Or just make it itchier?

Saying "Goodbyes"

As I expected, the past two months Jim and Chris were in town flew by. And we barely got to see them. That's what happens when you think you 'have time'...you postpone things. We had been talking about having Jim come by and replace Andy's hard drive - and that didn't happen until the week before they left. Well, at least we got it done, right?!
Here's Jim at the final moments of his work...ta da!
And since we didn't get to see them much, we really wanted to see them one last time before they left. So we drove over to their place on Saturday the day they were leaving. Don't you just *love* when people come by on your busiest day?? Yeah, they were trying to leave by noon-ish to two-ish....and we show up around 11:30. Well, at least we brought them lunch!
We don't ever really consider it "goodbye" when we see eachother off. More like "so long" or "catch you if we can"! Plus, we know they'll be back in the fall to spend the winter. But, they are now heading north into states we have yet to gather stickers for and, boy, are we jealous.