In case my previous packing post piqued your interest, I just wanted to update to say that I just returned from... Jordan and Israel!  

It was a wild ride, with magnificent sites, disturbing realities, stories of the lives of ancient people and much more. 

More on that in the next couple of weeks.  

It's officially spring, and all this (highly anticipated) warm weather has me thinking of summer travel season!  I've got a new destination on the books in a few weeks, so I've been planning and visualizing what's going to go in the bag for this trip.  This oldie, but goodie is keeping me inspired:

The weather is going to be hot, dry desert with cool nights, so I'm thinking linen pants, loose tops and maybe a maxi dress or two thrown in.  More on that later... until then, I'll be dusting off my packing cubes and visualizing myself with a few more stamps in the passport!

So, I accidentally did day 14's topic in my last post, but day 13's topic "what's in your fridge", isn't really speaking to me (I don't have a lot of input about what's in my fridge), so I'm replacing it with another question: what would I do if I won the lottery. 

What a question.  The one we all wish we had the opportunity to actually play out.  

If I won the lottery, I'd probably quit my job.  Not because I hate my job (I don't), but because I hate being tied to a 9-5.  I really would much rather my wake up call be around 8am, as opposed to my alarm's setting of 5:45am.  

I'd buy a house.  Not necessarily a big one, but one in a good location downtown with the layout I like.  Then I'd fix it all up over the x-number of years it takes to fix up a house.  

I'd travel more.  Probably 6 months out of the year.  

I'd blog.  For reals.  I honestly think that having a purpose (not necessarily a job) is important for everyone and having wealth doesn't remove the value of purpose.  So I'd like to blog - write, do photography, have a plan for most mornings - whether it made money or not.  If I became the next pioneer woman, that might be cool too.  

Beyond what I would do with the money, or how I would spend it, I think the freedom of financial independence is what I would really love.  And I think when you're not tied down by money, you have the opportunity to focus on building out other interests in your life.  Maybe you can do meditation more frequently, or focus on spiritual work, or dedicate your time to learning a practice like yoga, or Pilates or becoming a triathlete.  The real gift of money that is the time it frees up to do other things.  

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