Since then….

What has happened since last I wrote this blog, you might ask?

I arrived back safely in the US of A at the end of October, but with much trepidation about living through the day of the Presidential election on November 4. I threw myself back on the mercy of Matthew and Gloria for accommodation for about two weeks before my next house sit. It felt good to be home with them.

Anyway, I managed to steer clear of all news for most of election day (too nerve racking to listen to the play by play) and tuned in to PBS on Matthew’s computer/tv in my room (his office) for the evening news. By then, it was becoming pretty obvious what was going on and it was such a relief as the night wore on to learn that the American people finally woke up to reality. I felt (as Michelle Obama professed) proud – for the first time in a very long while – to be a part of an American culture who would not put up with any more of the brutal regime we have been under for so long. Suffice it to say, all seems right with the world now. Barack takes the reins!

I had an enjoyable three weeks back with the three big dogs in Mesa making full use of the water view and a daily walk around the lake. I spent time looking for an apartment to live in that I could afford for the two months (December and January) before my next house sit in February – which is literally around the corner from Matthew in Scottsdale! I did find my apartment (where I am presently ensconced) in Phoenix close to Tempe and the university area, which I like. It is a bit of a grungy neighborhood, but close to nice things and with plenty of healthy food shopping and yoga classes. There is even a lovely organic farm and restaurant five minutes from me and I can ride my bike there. The apartment complex is run by an Englishman and his wife and he has video cameras all around for safety. Mostly Hispanics live here and there are plenty of children and cats – very nice! I really MUST learn Spanish – ridiculous not to speak any. Of course, most of them speak English (at least the children do.) Lots of good cooking smells during the day.

Matthew and Gloria volunteer at a homeless shelter and I went with them this week – because they are city employees they have been “vetted” and I got in on their coat strings. We played with all the children for a couple of hours while the parents had time to themselves. There were about ten volunteers and probably twenty children of varying ages. I made paper Chinese lanterns with some of them that I used to make at school for Christmas decorations. It was fun. There was a sweet Mexican family with Mum, two daughters and two sons that had only been there two weeks or so. We are not supposed to ask them anything about their circumstances. However, one feels the need to help out individuals in a more concrete way with their housing problems or something, but I’d better concentrate on fixing mine first, I suppose!

My next house sit starts in February and will go for a year, or more. The couple who need me have a big house in Scottsdale and he is a civil engineer working on the light rail system for Honolulu in Hawaii. They have been living in a small apartment in Honolulu for a year already, but their nephew who was house sitting suddenly found a great job out of town and left. So, enter myself. The wife, Lani, does not like cities (especially not Honolulu) and is pretty upset that her husband (who loves his job and everything) has been asked to stay for the actual building of the system – which could take many years more. With this economy, they cannot sell their Scottsdale house and buy a nice one in Hawaii. So, they are stuck with housesitters and living in a small apartment. Lani has two cats in Hawaii and two cats in Scottsdale. She really misses her 14 year old cat, Casper, in Scottsdale and may make the effort to transport him to Hawaii (with all the quarantine requirements.) It seems a bit dire for him, I must say. He seemed to like me so I shall give him lots of TLC and hope that I will be a good substitute for Lani.

The gist, for me, is that I seem to have “free” living for several years, if I want it! The rent for their Hawaiian accommodation is paid for, so the only thing I may pay is for some electricity if it goes over $200/month. The only time that might happen is in the summer, when even I will feel the need for air conditioning.

This will now relieve Michelle of the responsibility (that she felt) for taking advantage of the low housing prices in Phoenix to buy a condo somewhere in the Phoenix area so that I could live in it and pay the monthly mortgage – which, at the current rates, would be about half any rent payment. It could be a very good investment actually and is still something we might look at, but now there is a year to think about it and look around. I have committed to a one year house sit to start with and will continue for longer if I want or need to.

Time flies….

Well, just as I am settling in to life in the Australian country, the time is nearly here to leave.  I kept thinking about writing more on this blog since my last entry, but never seemed to be inspired enough to do it.  I have under one week left now.  The spring has sprung and everything is looking lovely and green.

It seems that I am a rain bringer, because they have had more rain than in many years.  The gold mine is happy, because their dam is getting full and that’s what they use to wash out the ore.  With all this doom and gloom in the global economy, Orange will benefit from having the gold mines, I should think.  Mind you, they think there will be a recession here too with unemployment rising generally, people losing money in their superannuation accounts and the effects on the banking industry.   I am fairly placid about it all, since when you don’t have a lot, you don’t have a lot to lose.  I am thrilled with my business which keeps paying me and happy to be able to travel and see friends and family in different countries.

When I was last here, I spent several months driving up the east coast from Melbourne to Cooktown with a friend called Caro.  We spent some time in Melbourne working part time jobs and were lucky to be loaned a flat (apartment) in an upscale area.   One Saturday we decided to throw a party and invited all the people we thought we knew or had met and spent all day preparing food and buying drinks and choosing music.   After we got all dressed up and had been waiting for about an hour, we realised no one was going to show up!  I think we had a good laugh and ate and drank ourselves silly.   The other thing I remember about Melbourne is that no one had told us about the trams before we drove in.  There is a rule that to turn right, you had to be on the left and allow the trams to go before you turned.  We did not know that and nearly had a heart attack when we were nearly run down by a tram because we were in the wrong turn lane!   I also remember the wonderful art museum that had a stained glass ceiling all along a corridor as you entered the building.  Everyone would simply get down on the floor and lie on their backs to look at it.  I wonder if it’s still there…I would love to have been able to get to Melbourne or Sydney, and even Tasmania, but there just wasn’t time or money to do that this time.

In Orange’s centre, there seems to me to be more coffee shops, restaurants, fast food joints, hairdressers, bookshops, clothing stores and arcades full of more shops in between all the buildings than any place in the US.   I just don’t know where all the people who are downtown shopping and eating all day, come from.  Four out of five people are grossly overweight – really.  There are two economic stratas it seems, too.  Those who don’t have enough money, but still eat and shop for very cheap stuff, and those who are, usually, older and more wealthy who eat in the more expensive places and shop in the more expensive department stores.  As the summer comes in, there will be an inflow of tourists from Sydney at the weekends, especially, taking advantage of all the wineries around here and the very expensive restaurants.   They are having a wine festival starting next week and the local people often can’t get tickets to all the events because they sell out to the Sydney-ites first.  The countryside is looking lovely now and so are all the gardens.   Lots of blossoms and flowers and budding trees of all kinds.  The rain has made it a banner year for spring growth.  Here are a couple of photos I took…

One day I borrowed Keith’s car and went over to help a lady called Tina in her garden.   She and her husband own an historic house that has been in her family for generations.  Tina gives tours of the house and garden and keeps it all up herself, housework and gardening.  She makes lovely English teas with scones and clotted cream and home made jam.   Unfortunately, she has a broken leg (nearly healed) and now a broken arm, poor thing!   She needed help with weeding the path and beds and so off I went.  Here are a couple of pictures of the house:

I have found a tea/coffee shop I really like, which is called Anything Grows.   It is a nursery that sells plants and garden things and also has a gift shop.  They serve the coffee, tea and home made cakes at little tables all amongst the flowers, as well as in two inside areas.  It is really charming.  Here are a couple of photos of it.  I bought Ro a water lily plant for her fish pond there and a rain guage for Keith there too.

You can see my coffee cup and plate on the table below where I sat in the sun and enjoyed looking at the fountain and plants.  Quite delightful!

Meanwhile, it has taken me over two hours just fiddling about trying to get these pictures in and you can see the gaps where they should have gone in.  One of the reasons I don’t post here too much – it takes so much time to do so when you don’t know how to navigate.  Anyway, these photos are all taken on my cell phone, so I think the whole thing is pretty amazing!

Most of the houses here have tin roofs – much cheaper, apparently.  In the US a tin roof is very expensive and very desirable.  Hearing the rain on it is quite an experience!  Anyway, here are a couple of photos of the roofs over the verandah curving down – called a bull nose roof, because it curves like a bull’s nose.  There are often Victorian bits of lacy wood stuff underneath for decoration.  I’ve never seen it anywhere but in Australia.

The houses are mostly bungalows(meaning only one floor) and do have fences and hedges around, as in England.  Nearly everyone has a garden with lots of flowers and flowering trees and bushes.  One of the things I like here is that it really reminds me of England in so many ways.   The photo on the left shows a small road “train.”  It only has two carriages, but the really big ones with three and four drive mostly in the middle of the country between the states.  Driving them must be a nightmare, but I am told trying to pass one on the road is even worse!  The roads out there in the middle are pretty straight and long, but you probably can’t see if anything is coming at you from the other way to allow you to pass until it is too late!

Rain, rain – come to stay?

So, this weekend Ro and I went off to have lunch with her brother, John, and his wife, Jill.   John and Jill live in Canowindra, where Ro’s parents and she and Keith used to live.  Ro’s three children all grew up there in the lovely river flat farmland with hills all around.  So, where are the pictures, you ask?   They will have to remain in my mind, since the rain was bucketing down so much we could hardly see out of the car!   Everyone is simply thrilled to have the rain, after seven years of drought.  Ro was amazed to see her old fields of canola – rape seed, very bright yellow – growing so well, compared to the past few years.  (Keith actually grew some other kind of cattle feed when he farmed those same fields nearly thirty years ago, and it was a struggle. )   Plus, the rain will be an absolute boon to the town or Orange, where the gold mines need their dry dams filled up so they can use the water to flush out the gold ore.   They used to call that panning, but I think it takes on a whole new meaning when you’re digging hundreds of feet underground using enormous machines to bring out the ore and dump it into troughs, or whatever, to be flushed.  Ro’s son, Alistair, drives one of the machines that picks up the ore down in the mines and says it is completely dark down there.  The only lights they have are the headlights on the machine – eery!   He does that for eight hours at a time.   There is another huge gold mine going to be built near here next year and so Orange is getting ready for a big expansion of housing and an influx of people.   Guess who is buying most of the gold?  That’s right, good old China – which is also buying all (incredible amounts) of the iron ore being dug out in Western Australia.   The US might still think it’s hanging on to its richest nation in the world status, but since China owns all the US debt and is growing its own infrastructure and economy like crazy, that might not last for too much longer.   Whadda ya think?

The rain did let up a bit for our tour of the lovely historic town of Canowindra and Dudley and Thelma’s farm that I stayed on for so long (now split up and owned by others) and Ro and Keith’s first house and the one they built by hand completely themselves, with a swimming pool and lovely great room with fireplace.  We didn’t go in to that one, but it was on a wonderful acreage in the hills with a river running through and long, red dirt roads all around that her children biked, motorbiked and drove tractors on.  It looked as though it would have been the most wonderful childhood for them.  However, they did really work the fields on the tractors from a young age and so contributed to the farm work.  Ro also had a local restaurant for many years, called The Lunch Bucket, that she ran by herself doing all the cooking and baking in a nearby town called Cowra.  It was open every day for breakfast and lunch and the children all helped there also as they got older.   It all sounds rather romantic, but I think it was a very hard working life on the land and times were often pretty hard – for the parents, anyway!

Since there are no scenic photos for you, here are some of the wonderful orange eggs we eat here (from Orange, hah, hah!) and one of Ro’s daughter, Phillipa, mixing a cake for tea. 

I will endeavour to take more photos this week.   Meanwhile, I really am doing some work and we have got four more people on the Isagenix programs.   The results being obtained by people here are wonderful, even though they more or less do it all wrong.  You can’t tell the Aussies what to do!   But, they obviously need what we have and it is making a big difference for their weight and health.   Australia’s population is now the most obese in the world – overtaking the #1 position from the US.   No worries, right?

I would be a little worried…if we didn’t have the answer!

House painting – now and then

Yesterday was painting day at Ro’s brother’s new investment house.  They are rehabbing it for renters and the first renters wil be Ro’s son and family – so, it’s all in the family!   Anyway, we have pulled down wallpaper and scraped walls and then we painted.  Back again today for the second coat in the living room and first coat in the main bedroom.

It reminds me of when I first came to Australia in 1969 as an “immigrant.”  I had been in East Africa for four months camping with a a girlfriend with whom I had worked on The Guardian newspaper in London (many adventures to relate from that trip, but another time.)   When I returned from Africa I was not content to just “be back home” and get another job, so I was looking for another place to travel – which wouldn’t cost me any money, since I had none left!   I hit upon immigrating to Australia, because at that time the Australian government were paying for anyone in the Commonwealth to go there and be useful – they needed workers and people spending their money.  Anyway, it cost me 10 pounds for admin fees and the flight was free.  Since my Godmother, Ro’s mother, was living there I “landed” on her and spent the first three months staying at her and her husband, Dudley’s, lovely farm.  Because I was there so long, I earned my keep by wallpapering and painting several of Thelma’s rooms.  I had been trained pretty well in those skills by having helped my mother many times and also by learning from a friend of hers in the building trade.   I really loved being in Australia and it was super to be with family also.   Ro was married by then and she and husband Keith had a small farm of their own in the same town of Canowindra where her parents farmed.

Our two families got together during the war when my mother and three of her friends from the WACS rolled up one weekend to Dudley’s farm in Lincolnshire looking for a place to stable a horse belonging to Diana, one of the girls.  Diana wanted to get the horse away from the London bombings and they literally just chose a farm to knock on the door and ask.  They were greeted kindly by Dudley and Thelma, invited in to drinks and the rest is history.  Everyone became firm friends and my mother would often go down and visit Dudley and Thelma in Lincolnshire, so when she got married and got pregnant she asked Thelma to be Godmother to her child, me.  She also asked another of the original girls, Mina Tedder, to be a second Godmother to me.  (I suppose in the war you never knew who would be there for the long haul.)   Mina was also asked to be Godmother to Thelma’s younger daughter, Ro – with whom I am now staying!  Ro and I knew Mina as Teddy and she was the only daughter of Lord Tedder, who was a mucky muck in the armed forces during the war, and who knew Eisenhower pretty well.   Teddy always thought her father was the forgotten hero of the war and finally managed to get a book written about him (after his death) about ten years ago.

Oddities

Bruno told me when we lived in Brisbane years ago, that the water whirls the opposite way down the drainpipes in Australia (or in the East.)  I don’t know if he was kidding (I don’t think so) and I did watch the whirlpool draining and it seemed to be going clockwise – is that the way it goes in the west?

Anyway, the other thing is that all loos (toilets) in Australia (private and public) have two buttons for flushing – one of the left for half flush and one on the right for full flush.  You can guess which one you need for which, but it is all to save water, of course.   The other thing one has to remember is that when you need a bathroom while shopping, you have to find a public one in a mall or in the street.  Most eating places and tea rooms or coffee shops do not have them.

Oh, the other thing I found out today, while recording my receipts in my account book, was that many of them said “rounded up” or “rounded down” before the total amount.   When looking at my change I realised that there are no pennies any more over here, which is why they round the total off.  So, if you buy gas and it is $20.02, then it is rounded down to $20.  If it is $20.03, then it is rounded up to $20.05.  It all balances out in the end, I suppose.  There are also no one dollar bills, they have those in coin, so the money is actually more heavy in the pocket – but without pennies much less of it.  (Since most young people in the US seem to discard pennies all over the place as being worthless, it would seem a good idea for the US to adopt the same practice.)  Australia actually has one dollar coins and two dollar coins (golden color) and large silver 50c coins, along with silver 20c, 20c and 5c coins.  It is very similar to the English money system.   The bills are $100, $50, $20, $10 and $5 – all in different bright colors with a transparent window in them.

What else is different over here are the “road trains.”  Huge lorries (trucks) with two, three and more cars being pulled behind them to drive the huge distances across the desert and through the bush country.  In town here, they are mostly just two car ones, but they are big.   When I tried to find some model road trains from Australia to send my grandchildren, there were none.  All the toy stores seem to have only US models, probably made in China.  There aren’t even any English model cars, taxis or buses.

Here are a couple more photos I have managed to take:  Many of the close ups come out really fuzzy because it is almost impossible to take a photo on the phone without moving it.

Happy cat, Ted, napping on my tummy - which looks bigger than it is, really!

Pond on the patio, which now has a wire mesh all over it since we witnessed a carrawong bird stealing a goldfish from it the other day! Naughty bird, as Hugh (aged two) said. I am trying to get a photo of the carrawong.

Ro standing by a wattle tree on our walk to her brother's house in town

Granny Ro Ro battling to change young Max's nappy (diaper.) She doesn't "do" dirty nappies, but was persuaded just this once!

Ted in kitchen - awaiting food

Views from the wall of windows in the fitness centre I have joined. Nice!

Shake and bake…and more pictures

Well, we are shaking and baking here in Orange, NSW! We all have our nutrititious shakes for breakfast (the kids love them too) and then wonderful baking goes on during the day for our tea time. Yes, it’s back to English customs – with another meal added in to the day for good measure! So, yesterday Ro and I went to lunch with four other ladies at her friend Maggie’s home and we ate a lovely Greek style meal that Maggie had prepared. I had second helpings of all courses and a Turkish Delight (made by Maggie) with my Greek coffee aferwards. We had a great time enjoying the company of other women – all married with children and grandchildren, with two of them divorced – and we pronounced how wonderfully talented women are in all things generally.

Then, we rushed home for tea time that Ro was hosting for Pat, an older friend of her mother’s (my Godmother, Thelma, who died this year.) Pat was there with her granddaughter-in-law (Mel) and Mel’s two children, Pat’s great grand children, of whom she has eight all told! Pat is 85 years old and looks very healthy. Years outside in the garden and generally living life on the land, I suspect. Mel was there to hook up with Ro’s daughter-in-law (Jane, who is married to Alistair, Ro’s elder son) and her two young children who all live with them for the moment. We had delicious home made tea cakes of Portuguese tarts (creme caramel in filo dough) and a home made sponge cake with REAL double cream and fresh passion fruit. No, I did not have any room for them, but did taste a tart in the evening. No dinner for me, I was so full. So, I had a shake just before bed and felt excellent this morning. Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too?!

This morning it was downtown on my bike – downhill all the way there and uphill all the way back – to check on a couple of new friends in town I am talking to about Isagenix. I helped Keith load up some old lumber to go to the tip (dump, in the US) and played with young Hugh for a while outside. I tried to get a photo of a currawong bird, who is making a nest in the tree on the patio, but he kept flying off when he saw me. They look like a huge magpie. There are really not that many smaller song birds here, which I miss.

Ro’s daughter Pippa is here for the weekend from Sydney and so the house is jammed with people. I am dossing down in Ro’s office on a rollaway bed – which is cosy, because I have my computer there and the loo (bathroom) is opposite and the kitchen is right next door. Sometimes, Ted – a lovely chocolate colored Himalayan cat – will come and keep me company. Ro and family were never cat people, but they adopted him from some friends moving away and simply adore him now. I will test my skills for taking and downloading a picture of him later today – so keep checking back. Meanwhile, here are a couple more local photos.

Back patio

Back patio and garden - bare in winter, which is now

View from front

Busy road in town!

Taken on my bike ride home

Pictures – finally!

Downtown Orange - really busy!

This is downtown Orange. It’s not very busy!

Me on the borrowed bike, now with a new saddle, new inner tube and a cable for locking downtown.

This is my borrowed bike.

Getting around and laundry

So, the walk downtown to Orange is just over half an hour and I do it every day – no worries! However, it does take a chunk out of my day, so I decided to buy a bike. Nothing second hand available that was rideable, but Big W (Woolworths) had some on sale. I bought a demo youth’s bike, already put together, for $100 AU (about $85 US) and am borrowing a helmet from Ro’s niece. The bike is a little small, but will work. I hope to sell it again before I leave. When I get a picture of me on it, I will post it. I have my own cell phone here too. Keith (Ro’s husband) lent me his old one and I put a $20 pre-paid card in it. The good news is that you only use your minutes for outgoing calls – not incoming ones! The US is the only country that deducts for both – what a crock. The nice salesman also showed me how to text because it is much cheaper. I pay 38c for 30 seconds on a call, but can text as long a message as I like for 25c.

Meanwhile, it was time to do my laundry today. Ro has a washing machine and dryer. There is also a drought. So, the first thing to do is unhook the drain hose from the washing machine and hook it up to a hose outside so the grey water can go into the garden. Clever, huh? (They use a biodegradeable soap powder.) Because they try to save energy, the clothes are then hung out on the washing line in the garden. I did manage to sneak my jeans into the dryer for five minutes first to clear the wrinkles though, since I don’t iron stuff anymore, and then hung them out to dry. It’s kind of fun to feel like a pioneer again! Actually, it makes a whole lot of sense and is much more fun, in a way. The air is often pretty cold, but the sun shines during the day for drying. It does take a bit longer, so you have to gauge the clean underwear you have left to wear!

Our meeting last night for Isagenix was a complete success – from Ro’s point of view. She got lots of sign ups. None of the five people I had spoken to showed up though! Not surprising, but I will go downtown and hook up with them one on one now. Everyone was really enthusiastic and quite amazed at the results people are having. There are a LOT of overweight people walking around Orange, but the economy is tight and so they are busy buying a lot of fast food and junk food – same as in the US. However, I don’t think their local cows and vegetables and fruit are pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, as in the US, so the meat here looks and tastes wonderful. Ro gets raw milk and eggs from one of her employees who has a farm, so that is very healthy. There’s only one health food store (no fresh organic produce though) and I have already bought some stuff there. A couple of the local supermarkets do have organic fruit and veg, but nothing like a Whole Foods in the US. You have to go to Sydney for those.

The air is much cleaner here and the countryside is pretty. Yes, I will take some picture on my US cell phone and download them soon. There are parrots and magpies and blackbirds and sparrows in the garden. I saw a mob of kangaroo grazing by the side of the road on the bus coming here. They don’t have squirrels in Australia, which is why Ro’s daughter Pippa went bananas when she stayed with me in my Kent condo several years ago on looking out the window at all the squirrels trying to eat my bird food. I suppose I would feel the same on looking out and seeing koala bears. Not likely here, though.

No worries, mates. Be back this weekend, maybe.

In Australia

I arrived in Australia six days ago and had forgotten how to log into my blog, so a slight delay in posting. I am now a day ahead of all you laggards in the west, having crossed the dateline on the l-o-o-n-g flight from LA to Sydney. It really wasn’t that bad and we flew in an old 747, although I thought they might have put all those out to grass by now. Last time I flew in one of those I was actually up in the bubble and it was very comfortable, but they have put that area back for first class only. I had an aisle seat, but there really wasn’t a lot of leg room. Fortunately, the middle seat was empty so I could spread. The chap in the window seat slept for almost the entire flight – amazing. I did actually sleep myself for about two hours and then dozed and read and ate my own food for the rest of the journey.

I had to lug all my baggage out of the airport along to a bus that would take me to the Central train station. Fortunately, I had plenty of time and the sun was shining because it was about an hour wait. The bus driver loaded my bags on the bus, but once in the train station it was a long walk to the platform, where I waited another hour for the train. I could have booked my bags all the way through to Orange, except that they both exceed the weight limit! The bus driver had complained that someone might sue me if they hurt their back handling my bags – wimps! Actually, I get their point and have vowed never again to bring so much stuff. The train journey from Sydney to Orange went through the Blue Mountains which were really beautiful and when we got to Lithgow, I had to manhandl my bags off the train and into a lift (fortunately) up to the road to put them on another bus to Orange, where my childhood friend Ro picked me up. The cost of this whole journey, on Ro’s senior pass was $15 for the nearly four hour journey! If you just get the train from Lithgow to Sydney, about three hours, you pay only $2.50 for a senior fare. Boy, does it pay to be old over here!

The weather is pretty chilly in the mornings in Orange with frost on the ground and the car, but it warms up in the afternoon and the sun shines all day. Jet lag did not really bother me much, but I think it took time for my body to adjust to the time zone. No trouble sleeping though – thanks to Ionix Supreme!

Since arriving, I have manned a booth at a local Bridal show to ply our Isagenix products and got quite a bit of interest. However, ALL the bridal gowns they showcased in the fashion show were positively awful. Most of them were strapless dresses and the poor girls would turn one way and the iron framework of the bodice sticking out, would go the other way, leaving a huge gap and looking ridiculous. Orange is quite a big county town and the main employer is a gold mine, which is fuelling a bit of a boom. They are about to build (or dig, I suppose) another mine because there is a lot of gold in these hills, apparently.

Anyway, this Thursday Ro is hosting an evening party to tell more about the Isagenix products and see if we can take on some partners. This morning, Ro and I got up early to attend a Chamber of Commerce breakfast downtown and that was quite interesting. The sausages and eggs were delicious – the meat here is much healthier because it is local and they don’t use any growth hormones or antibiotics in their cattle. The cost of food is about the same and the US dollar and Aussie dollar are almost at par, within a few cents anyway.

I have to go downtown now and will be driving a spare car. I have to remember to drive on the left! Until next time, I say “Good on yer, mates!”

Second Post

Well, time goes by, as they say and posting on a blog has been the last thing on my mind.  Because it comes up as my home page though, I am reminded of it now and then.  As has just happened.  So – here goes.

I drove to Las Vegas last Sunday to attend the Isagenix annual convention.  6,000 people were there and I am happy to report that next year it will be held in Anaheim, CA.  Vegas is not a favorite place for me.  Gambling seems a fool’s errand and most of the people you see sitting at the machines are zombie like and express almost no emotion when the money comes pouring out as they win.  They simply continue to feed the machine.  Life has to be more fun than that, surely?  It really points up that money is not really worth the value we give it.  Of course, we have to have enough to exchange for the things we want in life, but it would be great to get back to the gold standard so that we could use something of value rather than just a substitute.  Read Robert Kiyosaki’s latest book, “Increase Your Financial IQ,” to see a very candid explanation of how the rules of money changed when we got off the Gold standard.  Robert describes himself as a capitalist and apolitical, but he writes simply and eloquently about what he has learned in his life and how he has used that knowledge to his advantage.  It is pretty eye opening, although I was aware of the manipulation of the masses from other previous readings.  I respond well to those who question the power of those in control, having always been a rebel against “authority.”

Back to Vegas.  The drive took just under five hours and took me over the Hoover Dam.  It was not quite as dry as this time last year, but the whole edifice is simply amazing.  Even more so, is the massive bridge they are building across the whole gorge for a new road that will avoid the road around the actual dam, presumably.  Just looking up at the engineering feat as the bridge extends from each side into mid-air is awesome.  Not sure I wouldn’t be a bit nervous crossing it when it’s finished, since it doesn’t seem possible for it to be held up like that.  What do I know?  I still can’t fathom how airplanes stay up there!

Speaking of which, I am now in spinning head mode and packing up to leave for Australia next Tuesday.  I will leave from LA late Tuesday night and arrive in Sydney very early Thursday morning.  I actually miss Wednesday completely!   The little knotty problem is that I have to lug any bags I bring on to a train to get from the airport to the train terminal, and from there to a train to Lithgow (three hour ride) and from there up a staircase (no elevator or escalator) to the road to get on a bus to Orange, NSW where my friend Ro will meet me.   Since I am going to be in Oz for two and a half months, and it is dead winter and bloody cold (says Ro,) I will need to pack a few things, right?  Unfortunately, I don’t have a fancy Louis Vuitton suitcase that practically rolls itself along and keeps all my clothes nice and loosely packed and wrinkle free, so I am reduced to the $39 rolling sports bag I bought at WalMart when I lived in CT.  It is mostly against my principles to shop at WalMart because of their very nasty bullying practices when it comes to merchants who supply them and to their treatment of their staff.   However, I can often be found to compromise my principles when in a bind for money, or whatever.  I am working on becoming a better person, promise.

Meanwhile, I also have another rolling sports bag that is absolutely filled to the brim with my Isagenix food.  I am also bringing some Isagenix products that they don’t sell in Oz yet for all the cleansing teams over there.  Ro and her family have become so damn healthy and fit, they wouldn’t be a day without their Isagenix food any more than I would – just as passionate as I am.  I am certainly hoping to return from Oz a much richer woman than when I left, having helped Ro become much richer also.  Such a lovely win-win situation!   So, I now have two rolling bags to cope with, along with my computer case, another carry on and my handbag.  The fact is, most of the clothes I need will not even fit into the first sports bag, so it is really making me pare down to the minimum.  Sounds a bit like my life for the past two years.  Actually, I think it is a very good thing.  I have really been finding that less is more (stuff, that is.)  I want to have LOTS more money!   Not, actually, to acquire more useless stuff, but to be able to live my lifestyle of choice with travel and environmentally friendly living places filled with toxic free everything and an ability to give back to all the people and places who need a helping hand.  I have partnered up with something called HUB – Humanity Unites Brilliance.  Funnily enough, it was thought into existence by an Englishman called Charlie Gay, along with a gal name Spryte.  Anyway, it will give me a way to be involved in humanitarian philanthropy around the world while associating with amazingly brilliant like-minded people for the rest of my life.  Here’s were you can check it out: www.empowerchange.hubhub.org.

Th-th-that’s all for now folks!