Aug 31, 2011

The Radioactive Duck Returns

My unexplained hiatus has ended. Life has taken some interesting turns and I've decided to return with a different view of things.

I spent much of this winter traveling for work.  I managed to travel to LA, San Diego, and Southern Cali in four days before returning home for a week to set out on a six week adventure which took me to Seattle, Detroit, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Shannon, Ireland, Dublin, Ireland, Honolulu, Chicago and Minneapolis.  The travel was long, but I learned so much and was instrumental in putting together our next software release largely based on the user feedback that I collected.  I made many new friends while traveling and had many unique opportunities come my way.  I managed to get a few extra days of relaxation here and there by traveling direct to my next destination instead of returning home for a day before heading back out.  I got to enjoy hot yoga in Vancouver, two road trips in Ireland (from Dublin to Shannon and Shannon back to Dublin), and three whole extra days in paradise.

I had surgery yesterday for my spinal cord simulator and have two weeks off from work.  This was my fourth battery since 2003 and the third location of the battery pocket. I've decided that during this time I wanted to revive Ducktales.  Some of the things that I would like to focus on in this new incarnation of Ducktales are:
  • Genealogy research - continuing my exploration of my family tree
  • WeightNot - my current weight loss journey through the WeightNot program from Ravel Med Spa
  • Corset training - waist training and corseting
  • Wicca and Reiki - my journey on my spiritual path
I of course still want to work on reducing my footprint and living "smaller". For me living smaller has many meanings.  One important meaning for me is that living smaller means living with less bills.  This is something that is difficult for many of us, especially with how the economy has been.  It's a goal and maybe one day I'll reach it.  Living smaller also means literally living small; need less space and having less extraneous clutter.  I've learned clutter comes in many forms and sometimes clutter can be emotional clutter.  While learning to release the emotional clutter is bound to be the most difficult undertaking, the reward of cutting the cords and removing the hooks of the emotional clutter are bound to reap countless rewards.