Friday 23 July 2010

I've been having a very busy summer. First with summer school, both teaching and taking classes, and then visiting my Dad in Dresden (Germany) where he's on his penultimate assignment with FIFA before retirement.

Beautiful city, Dresden is. It has rebuilt itself from the ashes of total destruction in WWII and subsequent Soviet occupation to become an elegant, vibrant city with a very high quality of life. This was my second time visiting my Dad there and the first with my husband. Lots of walking, visits to churches, museums, galleries, a FAB opera house and sitting in cafes chatting and people watching. Happily I was able to sample the delicious Saxon cuisine without going overboard, which I am really really pleased about.

At my last weigh in I had dropped a further 2.5kgs (around 5lbs) to bring my weight to 71.5kgs/158lbs.

In other news I have started a vegetable and herb gardening venture on my patio. I got a bunch of seeds and am attempting to grow lettuce, tomatoes, sweet peppers, dill, basil, parsley, etc. I think I've started a little late in the season, but we'll see how things go.

I see from my comments, I've won a few awards during my absence. Thank you to everyone who has given me an award. I will be around to your blogs today to thank you personally and will honour the suggested guidelines in my next post. Meanwhile, I was tagged by Journey Beyond Survival a while ago and the question was:

What are 5 things you would do if you were a billionaire?
First this is a ridiculous amount of money, more in my opinion than any one human being needs or should have, so I would have to give most of it away.
  1. Bank 100 million and plan to live off the interest
  2. Give 5 million to each family member, 2.5 million each to my friends and 1 - 1/2 million to random people who I know are having a hard time = 100 million approximately
  3. Select 10 - 20 issues I feel strongly about and finance their improvement = 800 million approximately.
  4. That's it.
  5. Ditto
What 5 things would you do if you were a billionaire?

5 comments:

  1. If I were a billionaire, I would pay off each of my children's, my niece's and sister's houses.

    I would donate or fund the research on the cure for cancer.

    I would complete fund and support our local non-kill animal shelter.

    Take my whole family on a cruise around the world. I mean rent the whole ship just for my family.

    Then I would retire and enjoy my grand children.

    Hey this was fun.. Have a great weekend and congrats on the weight loss.

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  2. I was just wondering about you! Glad to see that the lack of posting was for happy reasons:)

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  3. A long time ago, when I thought I would have more than one child and that at least one of them would be a girl, I was going to name her Diana Dresden. To me, Dresden = Phoenix (rebirth) because of its history. I'm glad you got to go visit your dad there and take the hubs with you.

    Hmmm... I think my list would look a lot like yours. Pay off the debt, bank some for the future, help out friends and family that I know NEED help, college for my granddaughter, schooling for the boy. I'd go back to school myself. Buy my grandmother's place in Wales and move there. Donate the rest. I don't NEED billions of dollars. That money can do better things out there in the world than in my pocket.

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  4. I like your list, I wish I had money like that to do all the philanthric things I would like to do. I envy people like Bill Gates who have the money to help others in so much need.

    Well done Nona on your achienments so far, it's a great result.

    I'll be starting to blog again soon so stay tuned.

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  5. I would give it all away also....set myself up, set my family up...random people like you, then animal charities and other things close to my heart...too much to think about!
    Fantastic effort with your weight loss:)

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