Here's a fun story, with a fun, inspirational, and at least partially dietary conclusion. As I mentioned yesterday, Wendi is in Portland this week. Can you guess what she's doing there? ... She's attending a very important event -- something that merited getting on an airplane with almost no notice (and, wow, are those last-minute airfares pricey!). Still not sure? That's okay; I'll let the cat out of the bag: We found a new home!!

We've been talking about moving to the west coast for literally years now, so it's about time, right? ?In recent times, we've really begun taking action on things in a much more profound and immediate way than ever, and it's been working out amazingly well. This home purchase was just the latest instance of it. We basically saw an opportunity and immediately went for it, without hesitation, and before we knew it we were sending paperwork back and forth across the internet to our realtor.

It's interesting, too, because we initially decided that we wanted to live in a certain very hip part of town -- which was clearly way out of our price range. When we initially sat down with our realtor, we described what we wanted -- that specific neighborhood, and at a ridiculously low price. Even though the guy was (and is) a superb realtor, and was willing to do the research for us, he basically told us that such a property would be a rare find. Nonetheless, we watched the market there like hawks for a few weeks, studying the homes there and their prices. We both became experts in one particular market (housing) in one particular part of town (the Hawthorne neighborhood of Southeast Portland, Oregon).

Looking back, I suppose a rational conclusion would have been that it was hopeless (at least in terms of finding what we wanted without being "house poor"). But then one morning ... wham! The house showed up on our radar. ?Oh, sure, it was a bit of a fixer. But, nothing we couldn't handle. We immediately recognized this as the vehicle to getting us to where we said we wanted to be without breaking us financially. So, we made the offer, it was accepted, and now Wendi is attending the inspection. ?Pending no major findings, this will be our new home.

It's the taking action part that really means something here, and that's a super thing to remember for anyone struggling to "go raw." Basically, just DO it. I don't mean you have to go full-on raw without transitioning, or go 100% raw. But, if you're struggling with a dietary issue, think of at least one thing you can do right now -- not tomorrow morning, or Monday morning, or the 1st of May. And just do it. Even if it's just something easy like, "I'm going to give up sugar for one week."

I want to end this with something a good friend sent to me recently. It's not by me, nor was it by him. It's just a little guideline about manifesting awesomeness into your life. He asked me to pass it on to as many people as possible, to not give him credit for it, and to not take any credit for it. (So, please pass it along and don't mention where you got it!). Here it is -- a method for setting and realizing your goals -- exactly as it was sent to us:

Try it. :-)