Please be a traveler...

Well said, Andrew.

Great Travel Guides for Amergris Caye, Belize

For those of you thinking of traveling to Ambergris Caye, I highly recommend it. Home to one of the top scuba diving spots in the world, the Blue Hole is a scene not to miss. Not certified? No problem...take a boat to Shark Alley and snorkel with nurse sharks and giant sting rays. If you prefer to stay on dry land keep your eyes open for spotting some of the most exotic birds in the Carribean. There are plenty of hotels in San Pedro to make you feel right at home during your stay.

On the brink of veganism...Thank you Skinny Bitch - Cross-Country Road Trip 7.2

Last night I started reading Skinny Bitch - a no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous (thanks Marlene!). If you haven't heard of it, I highly suggest you check it out. It's very in-your-face, tell-it-like-it-is, humorous common sense advice on what you should and shouldn't out in your body.

For those of you who don't know, I'm an animal lover. I gave up eating pork one day about 10 years ago because I saw a video on how the pigs are killed in factories. It made me cry and I swore I would never financially support such violence again. Hypocritically, I didn't give up beef or chicken because I wanted to pretend their deaths were somehow not as cruel.

Well I'm halfway through Skinny Bitch and I'm feeling a need to address my hypocrisy. Almost an entire chapter was dedicated to publishing quotes of cruel and inhumane acts performed and/or witnessed by slaughterhouse employees. I literally felt nauseous after reading it.

It's now impossible for me to live in ignorance. Either I support the brutal mass-murders of hundreds of thousands of animals by continuing to eat them, or I take a stand and let my dollars do the talking. It's that simple. Maybe the FDA and slaughterhouse owners would eventually start listening if they saw a change in their bottom line.

Chief Dan George Quote

May the stars carry your sadness away,
May the flowers fill your heart with beauty.

-Chief Dan George

This quote by Chief Dan George really struck a chord with me after the passing of my Dad. It's so simple but straightforward. To me, it means that the world has a way of healing all emotions. By giving my sadness to the stars, I'm no longer consumed with it and can move on...but still know that my dad is there when I need him. Looking at the flowers, to me, means appreciating even the smallest things and recognizing the beauty that still exists around me.

Excerpts from Eat Pray Love

If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's a story of a newly divorced woman figuring out who she is and what life is all about by embarking on a journey through Italy, India and Indonesia. For someone like me who loves to travel, I found myself relating to everything the main character was saying. Here are two of my favorite excerpts from the book.

"Still, despite all this, traveling is the one great true love of my life. I have always felt ever since I was sixteen years old and first went to Russia with my saved-up babysitting money, that to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice. I am loyal and constant in my love for travel, as I have not always been loyal and constant in my other loves. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless newborn baby - I just don't care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it's mine. Because it looks exactly like me. It can barf all over me if it wants to - I just don't care."

"In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe its wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices."

Hooked on the Twilight books!

I never thought I'd get caught up in the teenie-bopper world again, but after receiving Twilight as a Christmas gift from my uncle, I'm hooked! The funny thing is that my 18 year old sister has already read them, so whenever something exciting happens I can call her and dish just like I did with my friends in high school.

I have to say I'm surprised at how easily I was sucked in to this series. I don't normally like vampire stories (they freak me out a little bit) but I related to Bella from page 1 and couldn't put it down. It's kind of fun feeling like a kid again!