Flying to the Other Side of the World…

What’s the longest plane ride you’ve ever taken nonstop?
Los Angeles to Sydney has to be right up there. Ours was
a little over 14 hours, but the strangest thing is we left on
a Thursday and landed on a Saturday. I’m finding it very
strange to be a day ahead of my friends and family in the
US.

Like right now, it’s 10:00 Wednesday night but 4:00
on Tuesday morning at my daughter’s house in Colorado.
If I’m ahead by a day, why do I feel like I’m always behind?
I guess it’s like learning a new language…until you get the
hang of it, you first think in your native language and then
translate it to the new language in your head before you speak
it. Eventually you actually can think in the new language.

Anyway, that’s what I’m hoping. Thank God for the internet,
though, because I just downloaded a widget off of Yahoo
Widgets that puts clocks on my desktop for any big city in
the world! So far I have Denver and London (for all the UK
friends I’m making on my social networks). At least it cuts
down on the brain damage.

Want to Super-size That?

Our flight was typical…crowded, noisy (a baby close by…
good practice for testing my patience since my grandchild
is due in June:) and LONG! They offered me five more inches
leg room as we checked in for just an additional $188.00.
I felt like I was at McDonalds (Would you like to supersize
that?) If you haven’t flied in a while, wait ’til you see first class!
Now that’s livin’!

I’m NOT complaining though. The flight was smooth, landed
early and to watch my first sunrise on the other side of the world
was INSPIRATIONAL! Customs and Immigration was surprisingly
layed back…probably because Joe is an Australian  (not like the
USA when Joe was turned back in Atlanta, GA.
Haven’t heard that story? It was an eye-opening doozie!).

Unlike the last time I flew to Sydney 28 years ago, all of our
luggage made it, although the box we had to pack and send
because of our overweight suitcases (Watch part 2) was busting
at the seams. Nothing lost, however, that we know of.

Vices are Expensive in Australia…Monetarily and Psychologically.

Unintentionally, we got sidetracked by the Duty Free Store when
their 2 for sale on liquor (grog as they call it here) caught our eye.
It was the very pleasant sales woman that sealed the deal, convincing
us of the great bargains we were getting. As it turned out, it WAS a
good deal as liquor (especially American imported liquor) is VERY
expensive here.

Just as a side, cigarettes are expensive too. One pays dearly to
indulge in vices here! (You should see the pictures
hey have on the cigarette packs!…warning of horrible diseases as
well as SHOWING pictures of them…totally gross!) I was surprised
to see small scale gambling as well, once again with warnings of
of the horrible affects of gambling addiction. (They make it hard to
feel good about vices here;-D)

Getting Lost… Easy to do In Sydney!

Getting a car to rent at the airport was fast and easy…Budget
priced (hah) and unlimited mileage. It was a perfect car to get
lost in Sydney for a couple of hours before we found the beach
we were looking for…Bondi Beach which was the first place my
hubby jumped into an ocean…EVER and so it brought up fond
memories for him. It now brings up fond memories for me!
Come back for part 4 as we’ll take you on a tour of the 6th
sexiest beach in the world!

CLICK HERE to view Part 1 and 2 of the Grand Australian Adventure

 What Does it Take to Leave Family, Friends & Belongings?

I was born and raised in Pueblo, Colorado, leaving it for the first time when I
graduated from high school to attend college up north in Fort Collins.
I couldn’t wait to get out of there and experience college life even
though it meant leaving my boyfriend and family behind. Two years
later, I made the move to the big city of Dallas, Texas to finish my
business degree and start my corporate career in fashion retail.

I LOVED Dallas and the college I attended there, a very small private
college centered on business, based on the free market enterprise
philosophy. There were just 600 students, 8 of which were girls (I kid
you not!…it was awesome!) After graduation, I was accepted into the
executive training program at a large department store conglomerate
with 10 stores in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and worked my way up to
buyer of budget dresses before I realized… after 7 years, I was
homesick for my home state, family and skiing!

So my fiance of 10 years and I parted ways and I moved in with my brother and his wife
temporarily while I looked for a retail position in the Aspen and Vail
areas. A high end ski shop called Gorsuch Ltd hired me to manage their
newly bought Keystone Ski Area store. Shortly thereafter I met my
future husband, Jozef, at a Christmas party neither of us were actually
invited to.

That was in the winter of 1980 and at the end of
that ski season, my Czecholslovakian/Australian ski instructor invited
me to travel Europe with him and here it is almost 30 years later, 2
kids, 1 stepdaughter (who now has 5 beautiful children herself), 2 dogs
and a cat. We’ve lived in a dozen places since then in some AMAZINGLY
BEAUTIFUL homes, but ended up back in Pueblo several times… mainly
because of my family (Joe’s family  is back in Slovakia).

When Things Aren’t Working…
Either  Decide to Change Them or How You Perceive Them

The USA treated us pretty well for many of those years , but in the last 7
years, something changed, not only in the US, but across the world and
for us at least, many of the infrastructures set up to provide
stability, balance, protection and safety fell away, exposing us to
some pretty tough challenges…

Like floods, drought, accidents, injuries, financial roller coasters, deaths. We’ve
lived through them with flying colors and learned alot.

One of the things I’ve learned is that the more challenges you face and work through, the
stronger you become and the more faith you have that “This too shall
pass”. But that doesn’t mean you wait for things to get better. I’ve
learned to decide how I want my life to change and then TAKE ACTION to
move things in that direction.

Which doesn’t mean I’m in charge.
Whenever I try to push things too hard it backfires. So I just put the
energy out there and ask that if this is the best for all involved, let
me attract the people, resources, knowledge, tools and energy that I
need to manifest it.

It’s AMAZING what you can accomplish when you’re motivated!

I’m going to be totally honest here…

The whole insurance game is a crock in the US! We haven’t been able to
afford health insurance since 2001 when our premium for a self employed
family of 4 got up to $960/mo.! Workman’s Compensation is even
worse…especially in Colorado. The lawyers you get to fight them end
up throwing in the towel…it’s hopeless!

President Bush was no better and it wasn’t all his fault…Politicians in general were
getting sucked into the corruption game as were corporate CEO’s and
let’s not even talk about the Wall Street types! I can’t believe I was
sucked into the money game for so long…I’ve learned that it’s a game
you can’t win…just like in Vegas.

The sprint to finish with the most money, the most stuff and the most toys is a crock as
well…at the end of the day, it’s about LOVE & relationships,
service, purpose and passion.

With that mindset, it was actually an exciting experience to sell and give away most everything
we owned in order to try something new…Australia and all that it
represented to us.

So stay tuned and we’ll share the reality of picking up and moving to this incredible country and what makes it such a unique place.

CLICK HERE to sign up for a BRAND NEW book just released and authored by Debbie and 46 Other GutZy Women…”The Law of Attraction in Action II” FREE!

CLICK HERE to view PART 3 of GutZy Woman’s Grand Australian Adventure

 My Dream Comes True…28 Years Later!

Have you ever visited a place and loved it so much you said to yourself and/or others you wanted to go back and live there someday?

That thought stays in the back of your mind, popping up every now and then,  wondering if there will ever be a right time to actually make it happen. The “can’ts”, “not nows”, or “just dreaming” tend to take over when jobs, businesses, kids, older family, homes, money, health issues or other responsibilities take priority compared to making dreams happen.

I’ve lived my share of that mind game. Although I’ve taken a lot of risks throughout my life in order to live it on my terms, I’ve also backed down a lot because I had certain responsibilities to others as a result of the choices I had made. We all do trade offs…especially when we give life to other human beings and raise them as best we can.

While doing that, we get sucked into bigger homes with mortgages, multiple cars with monthly payments, lots of toys that just  get more expensive as the kids and we grow older. Year after year we just accumulate more “stuff” and it starts to weigh us down. Under that weight, it just seems like too much trouble to move anywhere else or too hard to change the lifestyle we’ve developed. So sometimes our dreams get dimmer and we decide that maybe they were just silly ideas of our younger days.

Well, I’m here to tell you that sometimes dreams actually come true when these three ingredients are in place… TIMING, FOCUS and GutZ.

Timing is HUGE! It’s Why You Don’t Give Up on Your Dreams

Several years ago, when we made the move from Beulah to Pueblo, we made the conscious decision to RENT a home as opposed to buying one. Why? So that we could be free to move if the opportunity came up. Since my Hubby has never really like Pueblo, we figured the time would come.

I honestly am not a very good home owner even though I’ve studied the money game for many years and know the benefits of home ownership versus renting. I like the freedom that comes with non-ownership.

So when my daughter graduated from high school last spring and moved into her own place with a job and college classes, my hubby and I looked at each other and said, “OK, so where will we move to?”. We discussed other cities in Colorado, California, Utah, Washington and Idaho, but nothing really excited us.

All of a sudden I remembered (drum roll, please…)
What about Australia?

Ever since Joe sent me a ticket to come visit him in Australia for 3 weeks after we first met in Keystone, Colorado, I’ve wanted to go back to experience the beaches, food and people of that magical land down under! I advised my hubby to keep his Australian citizenship even after we got married, JUST IN CASE we might want to move there some day.

Well, after 28 years, it seemed  the right time and circumstances had appeared!

Since our son was now 24 with no positive prospects for jobs or ANY other worthwhile opportunities in Pueblo and my daughter graduated and wanting to be out on her own, as well as an economy seeing its’ worst days since the Great Depression…Hey it just seemed like the PERFECT TIME to move on and take the plunge.

The Law of Attraction is an AMAZING thing!

It didn’t take long at all to put the request out into the universe and get back the answer, once we determined to FOCUS on that goal. In fact it was SCARY it was so fast and easy!

Joe asked his old ski buddy who lives and works as a ski instructor in Colorado and Australia if he knew of anyone we could stay with or rent from until we could check things out and the answer was YES…HIS PLACE! We went up to Aspen shortly thereafter to celebrate our friend’s 60th birthday and negotiated the details with him and his wife.

The Best Layed Plans….You Know How That Goes

Click here to learn the rest of the story