It was nice hearing from Nane today. :) And just as nice that I understood the parts she wrote in German. I only had to look up one word. So mist means crap in German, LOL. How did she and Maliheh manage to swap shoes like they have anyway? Where I used to hear from Maliheh regularly but hardly from Nane, now it’s the other way around.

I guess the cure for weight loss is just to do a journal entry bitching about it because I went down two pounds. Yeah, I took it easy on the food and worked out yesterday but I think the last of the period bloaties went away and what I really lost was water. My tummy is much flatter today than it was yesterday. Dieting and exercising and losing 2-3 pounds during the week isn’t the hard part. The hard part is not caving in and pigging out on weekends. If I could stop doing that I’d be thin in just a few months.

I just wonder how the hell a size S can be loose on a blimp like me, LOL. My new size S bra is fine, but my size S panties are a bit big, and of course getting a size L thong was a dumb idea, but I still love the feel of the spandex and how no panty lines show through my shorts. They fit like a second skin even though I should’ve gotten size S or M.

Since my “pretty lady” fan hasn’t identified herself, I’d say it’s likely that it’s just someone messing around with me that I don’t know. The game was fun at first, but I’m fast losing interest at this point.

It’s now totally official as far as Tom’s job goes. :) He signed all the papers yesterday. The only bad thing is that he’s not getting a raise. He might in 90 days, though. We’re just glad he’s an official employee! The person who handles the insurance thing won’t be back till next week, though, so it won’t be until then that we know how much that will cost. It is going to be so nice being paid for holidays and vacation time! He’s also eligible for certain bonuses like a paid day off for every month he works, floating holidays, etc. The best part is that assuming he works there till he retires we should be looking at a minimum of 50K from the 401K plan.

Since we could get a sizeable amount of money when he retires, Tom pointed out that it doesn’t have to be Florida we retire to and that there are other options to consider – rural places in the desert of Nevada, Cali, New Mexico and even other countries. As soon as he said that I got to some heavy thinking and thus a seed was planted. One I don’t expect to ever grow, but it sure makes for a fun thought, and that would be Spain. :) That was the first thing that came to mind. The weather’s still nice there, but maybe not so nice that it invites 6” spiders to live there, and Spanish is my favorite language and my second best one, too. Well, third best if you want to count the sign language. I’d love to live, breathe and eat the language! Poor unilingual Tom, though, LOL. He’d be as lost as I would be at a math expo. His first choice would be Australia if we didn’t remain in the U.S. cuz it’s got desert areas and they speak English there (boring!). I don’t want to go back to the desert (though it’s better than a cold climate) cuz of the way it dried the hell out of my skin no matter how much lotion I’d use), and it’d be boring to always speak English. Living in another language, to me, would be part of the fun, though I suppose that’s a chilling thought for most Americans who only know one language and that’s usually English. My next best language is Italian but I don’t know that I’d want to live with such conservative people, and it snows in Germany, so that’s out.

Doing a tour of Europe would be fun since Europe as a whole is so much smaller than the U.S. We could do a backward C and see friends in Norway, then Mitch in Wales, Adonis in the Netherlands, my German friends, then maybe Irene before we swung back over to Spain. My French isn’t that good but I wouldn’t mind seeing the Eiffel Tower in France.

It’s almost 1000 miles from Valencia to Munich but only 655 from Barcelona to Munich. I’d love to live in the Barcelona area cuz then we’d be closer to more countries besides Portugal (France, Italy, Switzerland, etc.) But it will depend on the weather, if you can get pet rats, and the retirement situation. If all the retirees there leave Whiskey and Brandy outside 24/7, then forget it. We might be better off not getting a dog of our own if this is even remotely possible cuz the thing could still be alive in 11 years. We also have to consider and research what kinds of people we could be dealing with there. Just the annual Running of the Bulls makes me wonder who would do such crazy shit, LOL. Mexico’s Day of the Dead would be more fun.

I wouldn’t mind dumping all our stuff and just taking some clothes and the bare necessities since I like newer things anyway. Well, by then most of our stuff will be pretty old if not close to it, so since I like new things anyway, it wouldn’t kill me to part with our stuff.

I checked and they do have retirement communities. Like I said, I don’t mind renting all my life, but I will never again do the attached living thing if I can help it. Or live in the mainstream unless it’s in a rural setting where I can get some serious footage between the neighbors and us.