This is one of the most motivational books I’ve ever read and it made me move towards living my dream instead of just dreaming. A big part of what Tim talks about is travelling. But not just going on holiday for a week or two but spending months or even years exploring a region as well as living as an expat to really learn about a country and its culture instead of just seeing the main touristy sites everyone else sees.

Living in Europe is my dream and I love being in Paris and being able to visit another European country with just a couple of hours of travel. I’ve loved doing this for the last few years but I want more now. I want to get off the beaten path and explore more unusual places. I want to go backpacking around the Middle East. I want to spend a few months in Buenos Aires learning Spanish. I want to visit the Galapagos Islands. I want to spend a few weeks on safari in Africa. There are so many places to see and things to do.

Of course the problem with just packing up and going is money. But I work from home anyway so all I need is my computer and internet access and I can still earn my living. The thing is, I want to have a home to come back to. I can’t keep paying rent here and pay all my travel expenses too. The only solution I can see is to buy an apartment somewhere in Europe, for cash, which I can use as a base and where I can leave all my stuff. No rent or mortgage to pay will give me the freedom to travel for months at a time and live more of a vagabond lifestyle. I just have to figure out how and where I can buy something with the little cash I have.

I’ve been thinking a lot about all of this in recent months and today I watched this video by Rolf Potts in which he discusses his lifestyle, which is exactly how I would like to live. I definitely recommend watching it if you want a little inspiration.

Cloud Cakes

I chose to make cloud cakes which are strawberry (I used raspberry) and vanilla cupcakes with a meringue type icing. The recipe is so much better than the Magnolia cupcake recipe I used last time. The Magnolia recipe had heaps of butter and sugar in it – a heart attack waiting to happen. These had much less butter and less sugar and were really light and fluffy. You can find the recipe here.

Leesa will probably say I cooked them too long because they are too brown on top but I’m still trying to figure out the temperature on my stupid oven. They tasted great anyway, if I do say so myself

This workout focuses on the booty It’s a slightly easier workout than the ones I posted earlier in the week, thankfully. I needed a bit of a break.

Full details can be found here.

Results:

26th February 2010: 18 minutes and 58 seconds

Body Burn Workout – Super high intensity cardio workout. Just about passed out from this workout.

• 60 Left Leg Skipping (no rope)
• 60 Right Leg Skipping (no rope)
• 3 Explosive Push Ups (attempted the clap, didn’t really work)
• 60 Left Leg Skipping
• 60 Right Leg Skipping
• 3 Explosive Push Ups
• Box Jump and Step Ups (1 jump followed by 5 step ups per leg) – Repeat x10 (failed at the jump up)
• 3 Explosive Push Ups
• 30 Jump Lunges with Touch Down
• 10 One Leg Pike Press (5 per leg)
• Repeat

Results:

25th February 2010: 24 minutes and 2 seconds

As usual, I did quite a bit of research before buying. It took 8 months to pick something out so I’m obviously not an impulse buyer! In the end we got a Samsung 102cm super slim LED TV. It’s very pretty. It’s all hooked up and working fine but it’s not in HD because we have a super old decoder box thingy.

So I ring the fantastic France Telecom about getting a new box and they tell me it’s not a problem, I just have to take the old one to any France Telecom shop and they’ll exchange it for me. Easy. Of course, there’s a catch, they are out of stock. No problem, I can wait a week or so. Mais non! They don’t expect them in for 6 to 8 weeks. Yay, France Telecom, you’re the best.

There were so many individual stories going on that you never really got to know any of the characters and it was just one cliche after another. Plus it went for 2 painful hours! I should have walked out.

Movie #: 13

Very high intensity cardio workout. Seven exercises which flow into one another. Four brutal rounds.

• 20 Low Jacks
• 6 Pike Presses
• 20 Mountain Climbers
• 10 Triceps Leg Lifts (modified)
• 10 Superman Lifts
• 20 Toe Touches
• 10 Leg Lifts (modified)
• Repeat

Results:

24th February 2010: 21 minutes 41 seconds

The main story is set in post-World War II Poland in which a beautiful and dignified middle-aged woman, Martha is terminally ill. But her husband, a small-town doctor, declines to tell her since she has so little time to live. As it is, Martha drifts in a melancholy state, still mourning the deaths of two sons in the war until a working-class youth catches her eye. He is about the age her boys would be or maybe a few years younger.

Within the movie, Krystyna Janda is seen on an austere, simple set, delivering a monologue before a stationary camera about the final days in her husband’s life, how suddenly his death came and even how unprepared she still is to cope with his passing. Edward K?osi?ski died whilst taking the sips of water she fed him to keep him hydrated. According to Janda, the death came one afternoon, thus giving her time for an evening performance on stage. The film-within-a-film was actually Janda’s idea and she even wrote her own lines. In art as in life, a man’s passing is mourned and the end result is a deeply moving film about death, sorrow, and farewells to loved ones.

I didn’t feel deeply moved but whatever… hopefully some more interesting (to me) films will come out later this week.

Movie #: 12