I posted on my new priorities in May: Health, Wealth & Happiness and now that six months have passed, I thought I would do a little update. Thank you fo reading; this helps me stay accountable.
Mid-Life Health Check-In
I did all my various poking and prodding medical appointments and all was fine. I am finding that it’s so easy to gain weight at age 54.9 and it all goes to my middle which is very frustrating. It feels like a six-pack is totally out of reach so I am adding that to my list. I’m just striving for those long sleek lines down my abdominals, not the actual six-pack though.
My middle daughter, PickyKidPix, thinks that it’s impossible for me to reach this goal. She recommends liposuction or CoolSculpt but I searched the internet and found a few examples of women in their 50’s and 60’s with very nice abs. The advice was the same; at my age, it’s tougher to lose weight in the middle but I read that if you are willing to put the work in, it’s achievable.
My mom friend had a vitamin deficiency and got B12 injections from her doctor and I worried about being deficient as well, but then I looked it up and I think it’s because she’s vegan. I am definitely not vegan so I think that I am ok but I am trying to eat more vegetarian this year.
In the meantime, PickyKidPix, also felt that she gained some weight in her middle. We both blame it on our Paris trip, but she laughs at the difficulty of my goal because she only has to do two or three exercise classes for her six-pack to pop right back. That is youth for you!
Mid-Life Health Goal: Get a six-pack by mindful eating and a little extra exercise!
Exercise Plan:
Boxing training (1 hour) two times a week
Ab and butt workout (20 minutes) two times a week
Vinyasa yoga (1 hour) one time a week
Hike with sprints with my dog (1 hour) one time a week
Mid-Life Wealth Check-In
I started researching stocks again and have placed trades (limit price, good until canceled). I am being very patient with trying to buy the stocks that I am tracking because a recession is around the bend.
As PickyKidPix put it, the economy is cyclical and it’s been ten years since the last recession. We are overdue and the cycle pattern usually is about 5.5 years. There is a multitude of indicators that signal a recession: Trump’s tariffs, consumer confidence down, long-term bond rates lower than short-term bonds, and the U.S. high-and-growing national debt.
My advice to all is to hoard your cash and invest this in places that can withstand volatility. I’m making sure to have stock trades locked and loaded on my online investment brokerage account to try to buy in dips. The prices that I have picked are extremely low compared to the actual trading price, but again, patience is the key.
On the book writing front, my first book, How To Coach Girls, has earned out! Yay! I received my first royalty check!
We also published an ebook update with three bonus chapters.
I am working on a “sequel” of how to play sports in college and my second draft is completed.
I also completed a nonfiction book which will be published by a large educational publishing company. More details to come once I get permission to announce.
I’m currently working on earning out Sumo Joe, my debut picture book, and Best #OwnVoices Children’s Books: My Favorite Diversity Books for Kids Ages 2-12.
Mid-Life Wealth Goals: Continue researching stocks and placing trades. Set up Sumo Joe book events. Figure out a way to promote Best #OwnVoices Children’s Books.
Mid-Life Happiness Check-In
One of my goals was travel and I’m happy to report that I did almost too much travel. My family visited my mom in Southern California twice as she is at end of life. It was bittersweet to help set her up with 24/7 hospice care and a hospital bed in her independent living condo. She’s handling it with grace and optimism, as usual. She’s really an incredible role model for the power of positive thinking.
And strangely, she’s also a model for stock trading. For someone with the most rudimentary knowledge of finance and the stock market, she’s done very well. She just relied on tips from friends and would place a trade based on that. Her real gift, though, was knowing when to sell. She was never greedy, nor did she have a rule of thumb like selling when the price doubled. She just waited until she felt it was high enough and she would sell, many times at the high of the company. It was an uncanny ability of ignorance because she didn’t do research or read the annual reports. It was all by gut feeling. So there’s that too!
We took a two-week family vacation in Hawaii with our favorite “buffer family,” The Bengos. We have shared a house with them twice before in North Captiva, Florida, and we are so lucky to have such perfect compatibility. It brings us great joy, my husband and I, to see our children forge such strong friendships with their children. Aaron Bengoechea is one of my husband’s closest friends from the golf world.
I followed that by meeting my daughters in Paris with their friends. I also snuck in a quick trip to Chicago with my daughters and their friend to visit colleges.
My husband and I took our first no-kids vacation in 20 years. Yes, really. It’s been that long. We went to Nova Scotia a week after Hurricane Dorian made landfall there. My husband has been wanting to play a golf course there for a very long time. Finally, my husband drove me to Chappaqua for the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival so we had a second no-kids trip in two months!
I anticipate several trips back to Southern California revolving around my mother and cleaning out her house. We’d like to take our kids back to Asia this summer to Korea and perhaps Japan but we have talked about this for a long time and have yet to pull the trigger.
Mid-Life Happiness Goals: stay in the moment and enjoy the time with our kids. We are missing our oldest who is off in college terribly, but we do seem to talk to her daily and see her frequently as she’s only an hour away at RISD.
We are planning another girls trip (me and my girls) in 2020 that will perhaps be in San Francisco but this is just a loose plan at this point. With my middle child a senior in high school, the nest is emptying out faster than I would like! The days are long but the years are fast!
How about you? What are your health, wealth and happiness goals? Hope you are planning some nice stuff for yourself!
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My books:
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World
- Junior Library Guild Gold selection
- Selected as one of 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023 by dPICTUS and featured at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
- Starred review from School Library Journal
- Chicago Library’s Best of the Best
- 2023 INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist
- Green Earth Book Award longlist
- Imagination Soup’s 35 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 for Kids
Amazon / Barefoot Books / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Scholastic / Signed or Inscribed by Me
