My house is a 1962 two level with a colorful interior and a wonderful garden. There are many places to cuddle up, great conversation circles, or to dance. There are 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, remodeled kitchen and beautifully landscaped front and back yards.

There's also an enclosed flower garden with a goldfish pond. It's romantically lighted for a quiet, intimate place outside. It is a quiet and safe neighborhood with good schools. It is within minutes of I-270 and Red Line Metro. Driveway, plus pleny of free street parking.

Address and directions are here.

House flooring and upgrades:

First floor

• Hallway - tile floor replaced original linoleum
  
• Kitchen - tile floor replaced original linoleum, new granite counter tops, dishwasher, large fridge/freezer, gas stove top (replaced original electric stovetop), new electric oven (replaced original electric oven), new larger sink and top end garbage disposal, cabinets painted and new knobs, exhaust fan replaced, under sink water purifier added, added GFI outlets and new circuits and outlets for kitchen area
  
• Dining room - wooden floor refinished, removed original BBQ grill, added extra cabinets for kitchen storage
  
• Bathroom - new tile floor, new sink and vanity, new bath wall tile
  
• Master bedroom - wood floor refinished
  
• Master bathroom - new tile floor and shower tiling
  
• Bedroom 2 - original wooden floor
  
• Bedroom 3 - wood floor refinished
  
• Living room - wood floor refinished, sliding door to backyard and mini deck/steps added, projector TV mount and wiring added

Just repainted

Basement

• Basement - carpeted (replaced original tile), new wall panels, new ceiling, new electric wiring, new lighting, two windows replaced, 3 built in bookshelves, laundry shelf, washing machine and drier, built in storage shelfs
  
• Upgraded electric panel to larger size
  

• Repainted

I am back in Rockville for two weeks, and I noticed the atmosphere of fear and control as soon as I arrived at Miami International airport, where US citizens are greeted by para-miltary police and large dogs as they deplane. The fear is even stronger in the DC area....

Imagine this: you are citizen a in country where the government controls what websites you can view. If only a single page on a website is said to be illegal (as defined by the government!) the whole domain can be taken down overnight using DNS blocking, even though thousands of other pages in the site are harmless. And DNS blocking means that where ever you are in the country, at home, work, internet cafe you can't even get to the website URL. And by law all the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that you use to access the internet like Comcast, Verizon etc must block the sites too. It would be like if one person in a city like Washington DC was suspected of doing something illegal then the government would close down all communication with every resident of the city, no trial, overnight.

So what country is this you say? China, Iraq, some other place where the government censors their citizens’ internet viewing because of the fear that truly free information might be dangerous? Yes you would be right. But soon to join this "special" group of countries is the United States with the PROTECT IP act just passed in Congress. You might say that the act is only aimed at illegal copies of movies. But laws such as this that give wide powers of censorship and control to the government have a history of being stretched and abused. You only have to look at how the PATRIOT act has been stretched in the last 10 years to allow wiretapping and email eavesdropping of American citizens.

And most recently the Senate passed The National Defense Authorization Act to allow for the indefinite detention without trial at Gitmo of people including US citizens. And the government is asking the Supreme Court for the right to GPS track anyone without a warrant, which Justice Breyer described as "Orwellian government". Additionally these kinds of laws promote an atmosphere of fear in companies and individuals. People start to self censor. The clock is ticking back to 1984 as you read this...

More on the detention act from Mike Adams

The National Defense Authorization Act is being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn’t apply to Americans, but toward the end of the bill it essentially says it can apply to Americans ”if we want it to.”

This bill, passed late last night in a 93-7 vote, declares the entire USA to be a ”battleground” upon which U.S. military forces can operate with impunity, overriding Posse Comitatus and granting the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate and even assassinate U.S. citizens with impunity.

Even WIRED magazine was outraged at this bill, reporting:

Senate Wants the Military to Lock You Up Without Trial
…the detention mandate to use indefinite military detention in terrorism cases isn’t limited to foreigners. It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.” Source

The passage of this law is nothing less than an outright declaration of WAR against the American People by the military-connected power elite. If this is signed into law, it will shred the remaining tenants of the Bill of Rights and unleash upon America a total military dictatorship, complete with secret arrests, secret prisons, unlawful interrogations, indefinite detainment without ever being charged with a crime, the torture of Americans and even the ”legitimate assassination” of U.S. citizens on right here on American soil!

If you have not yet woken up to the reality of the police state we’ve been warning you about, I hope you realize we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you have no rights whatsoever in America — no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent, nothing.

Mercury is retrograde (11/24 - 12/15/11) and want a great time to clean up old projects and clutter! I am planning on doing a major purge of my stuff before storing the remainder, selling, freecycling, gifting or trashing/recycling. Also planning on scanning my photos and paperwork. If anyone has any experience with any of this going digital proejcts let me know your experience!

I have found a good photo scanning place (www.scanyourentirelife.com 1000 photos for $64).

On business records I think they are required for 7 years. I have about 30 boxes in my basement (you may recall them from the last Yule party covered in pagan sheets!) If I scan them then I (and my VA) can access the records online when needed. I have been looking at www.shoeboxed.com which charges about 15c per document (not page) and also integrates with www.evernote.com which I use all the time for storing notes, webclippings, useful emails and even photos of handwritten notes - all of which are searchable (yes even the handwriting is searchable!). I am also looking at www.officedrop.com which also integrates with Evernote - they charge by the page scanned 6-12c each or less for volume over 5 boxes.

On books I will photograph the titles on the spines in the bookshelf and load into Evernote so it is easy to know what I have and where it is. Books I don't want to read again can then be sold to a used book store or for valuable ones on Amazon which makes is very easy to sell books.

I am also looking at a CD ripping service www.ripstyles.com to convert my CD collection (about 1000 CDs) to MP3 and load onto an iPod for me. That way no CDs to carry around my world travels.

My view is that the less stuff I have the more free I am. I can always buy or borrow stuff in the future if the need comes. 80/20 rule. I have been inspired in my travels by Tim Ferris of the 4 Hour Work Week and Tynan world nomad www.tynan.com - both of who sold/gave away most of their stuff before traveling. My goal is to only travels with a few things, most of which I could replaced easily if they were lost.

Happy Thanksgiving! There will be no Wednesday Gathering in Rockville this week, back the week after with an intro to acupuncture.

Here in La Paz Bolivia I have been relaxing after all my travels, doing yoga and also got a general check up with a local doctor as I hadn't had one for two years. All is healthy I am glad to say. The check up cost $12 for the doctor and $45 for the full lab work. That is not copays - that is the full cost. And they did a great job and I didn't have to wait for an appointment - I just walked in and got the check up and lab test immediately. What a better experience to my last general check up in the States where it took weeks to get an appointment, had to wait in the waiting room for 30 minutes, and had to go to a separate place to get lab work done. And the doctor was in a hurry. Plus deal with the hassle of insurance reimbursement. I think it cost about $400 (plus my monthly insurance premium which works out to about $4000 per year). So here I got better service, cost less and the doctors are well trained and friendly. I am grateful I am getting medical care here! It doesn't surprise me that an increasing number of people with elective surgery and dentistry are outsourcing their care to other countries.

I am currently doing a 5 day fast using Blessed herbs to clean out any toxins in my body and also to give my body the extra energy to heal any old injuries. I know it sounds weird to say that I have extra energy when I don't eat but the truth is that digesting food takes a lot of energy and fills the body with waste products to eliminate too. For two weeks after seeing John of God I was detoxing out of my sinuses - also I am using Copaiba Oil which comes from the Amazon and is good for detoxing and cleaning the body. So having cleaned the top part of my body I figured it was time to clean the bottom part too!

I have been doing yoga for years and I have found it always helps me if I am feeling depressed. As a yoga teacher I have also seed the positive effect on students who are depressed. So this week's gathering on yoga for depression is interesting to me.

I was in Sao Paulo Brazil last week and was amazed at how large a city it is - 19 million people - 4th largest metro areas in the world. The subway system rivals the one in NYC for size, different lines and number of passengers packed into the trains. But the system is much newer than New York's. Another similarity to NYC is the number of coffee shops and bars with tattooed tweens hanging out smoking wearing lots of black clothes! There is also a big art and high fashion scene here. And the cost of downtown apartments rivals Manhattan. But overall the city is more relaxed and happy than NY. Though I heard from a New Yorker that I met at John of God that New Yorks twin passions of success and pleasure have become a bit stale in the last year and that there is more searching for meaning. Perhaps that is partly why OWS started there.

I have found Brazilians to be very helpful to me and others. One example I was waiting in a bus for the airport (it was a 30 minute wait outside a hotel to pick up other passengers) and a guy asked if the bus could get him to the airport for a flight in a hour. The bus driver friendly said no, but offer to drive him (in the bus) to a taxi stand 4 blocks away so that he could make the flight. We then returned to the hotel to pick up the other passengers. Only in Brazil! :-)

I got spiritual surgery at John of God last week - and since then have been working on letting go old beliefs that no longer serve me. One of the ways I do this is with the Work of Byron Katie - this is very powerful stuff for breaking up old beliefs that are no longer useful or even true! So I am glad that Sandra is giving a workshop at this Wednesday Gathering on The Work (see below)

I was with about 50 other people getting spiritual surgery at the Casa last Friday morning - we all sat in a room near to John of God and the entities started working on us. I felt energy scanning across my body several times. I focused on staying in my heart space during the procedure which I think lasted about 20 minutes (but not sure to be honest as my eyes were closed and I was a bit spaced out afterwards!). Afterwards I bought some blessed water to drink for the next 8 days while recovering and carrying that hoe I felt my abdomen as though it had been cut open - perhaps not a good idea to carry items after surgery even if it is spiritual! Then 24 hours of rest - I slept a lot. I felt like I was detoxing. I felt much better the next day but still took it easy for the week. I worked on the issues that I had asked for help on myself too (eyesight, abundance, femininity, healing/manifesting skills).

I noticed my eyesight changing after a few days - then I decided to stop using my Opto-K contact lens - to act as if the healing woul fully work.
And my sight has got much better! I have using doing Carol Look's EFT eyesight MP3 http://www.attractingabundance.com/eft/improve-your-eyesight-with-eft/
and there is sure a lot of old emotional baggage I was carrying around in my eyes (and probably rest of my body too) - I recommend checking that out if you are interested as it is only $27 and clears a lot of stuff! I have also been re-reading The Secret book (which is much better than the movie if you saw that a few years ago) and reminding myself of all the Law of Attraction stuff. I have also been reading Peace is the Way by Deepak Chopra http://www.chopra.com/peace which is about creating world peace be transforming ourselves inside - he has some great insights on where violence comes from in our world and some challenging thoughts on 9/11 and the war on terror. Recommended.

I have been evolving my body and health for many years with massage, yoga, magic and more. So this week’s gathering on Body Evolution is interesting to me.

Here in Brazil I am visiting the Casa of John of God for healing and spiritual work. The Casa is located in a small town about an hour’s bus ride from Brasilia. My first healing was trusting in many strangers to help me find the right bus and get off in the middle of nowhere (it is not an official bus stop) in the dark of Tuesday night. My hotel reservation hadn’t come through but I had faith that I could find a place here and after asking at three places that were full I did. The hotel is run by a German man and his wife who moved here eight years ago for healing and decided to stay. I got to practice my Portugish (my mix of Portuguese and Spanish) at dinner and I was happy that one of the other Brazilians thought that I was from Argentina! I guess my Spanish has improved a lot over the last 10 months :-)

The next day I got up for the 8am line at the Casa - hundreds of people all dressed in white were there to see John of God who is a faith healer who has helped millions of people over the last 53 years. There are meditation rooms and a video showing John of God working on people.

Usually he works on the spiritual level but sometimes he will do minor surgery and watching videos of that squiged me out a bit - I thought I had processed my fear of blood last year at DO cutting workshop but apparently there is some stuff left there! After a wait in line for a few hours I got my turn and got a treatment suggestion of a crystal bed session - which as very relaxing 7 crystals and colored lights one for each chakra. The next day I saw him again and this time I will get spiritual surgery after which I will rest and abstain from pork, peppers, alcohol and all sexual energy (including self-stimulation) for 8 days. The first few items are no problem as I don’t eat them anyway.

The first time I saw him at Omega in NY I had to abstain for 40 days so 8 days sounds easy - though still good practice for using non-sexual ways to relax and pamper myself!

While standing in line I realized that the power to heal myself comes from within - from god that each of us has inside. And that I can change anything in my life with a mixture of intent, emotional clearing, belief changes and physical action. I felt empowered and I invite you to consider any life area that you want to change and to list how you can do things in each of these four areas. I did that when I returned to my room on my money issues and sure helped me!

Here are some useful places in Cusco for the spiritual traveler.

South American Explorers http://www.saexplorers.org/ They have a club house in Cusco that has lots of information on tours and sharmans etc in Cusco and the whole of Peru (and other countries). They are very friendly and speak Spanish and French in addition to English. Not sure about Portugese but you can ask! They also have double rooms with shower for USD $12/day and there is a beautiful garden there to hang out in. It is a great place to meet other travelers and get tips. You can also email them with questions. Non-members can visit but to use all facilities and get discounts on tours you need to be a member which is $60 per year. There are also club houses in other countries.

• San Blas market - a few blocks from SAE. Cheap place to buy veggies and get lunch for less than USD $2
  
  

• I recommend staying in San Blas area rather than city center because 1) it is cheaper 2) less touristy 3) only 5 minutes walk from center anyway. 
   

• There are many temples and ancient stones in Cusco area. You can hike to the Temple of Monkey and Moon from San Blas in about 30 minutes. Nicki teaches a yoga class at the temple of the Monkey each week.

Today I saw several hummingbirds feeding. According to the book "Animals Speak" it is a symbol of freedom and joy. Relates to my travels. And also to the Wednesday Gathering this week on Polyamory as self Determination.

This week I am in Iguazu Argentina visiting the famous Iguazu Waterfalls here. Here is the triple border of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil and is surrounded by national parks in all directions that have preserved the rain forest since 1932. I arrived in Este Paraguay - which is a border town famous for smuggling and discount goods - though sometimes the brand name goods are knock offs. There was a wild west, almost criminal air to the town. Next day I took a taxi ride the few miles to Puerto Iguazo in Argentina and went through three counties in less than an hour - my passport got a workout with 4 entrance/exit stamps. This part of Argentina is much more affluent than Paraguay - with most of the business being tourist related.

It rained all day but I didn't let that stop me going to visit the waterfall. It didn't matter because in the boat trip we got so close to one of the water falls that I got soaked anyway! The power of the water is immense here - I really felt a connection to Mother Earth with the water and the rain forest together. There are many walkways around and on top of the falls - actually there are about 290 water falls in all arranged in a horse shoe over 2700 feet long. The river above the falls is really wide here. I was able to walk to within feet of the top of the waterfall called The Devils Throat - which is 270 degrees of thundering water. As I stood there, getting "rained" on by waterfall mists I visualized all the toxins in my body draining out to the ground just like the water cascading down by me. It really worked well to drain my sinuses and help me to relax!

If you are interested in traveling long term here are some resources that I have found useful

• http://www.sovereignman.com/ - escaping from single sovereign nation to have multiple flags - practical advice on money, passports, doing business in other counties
• http://www.tynan.com/ - nomadic life style tips and ebook. Good on saving plane costs and traveling ultra light
• http://www.locationindependent.com/ - how to get started traveling and working abroad, good on dealing with emtional objections, first steps, family issues. blog and ebook.
• http://www.vagabonding.net/ - practical tips on traveling freely and light. blog and book
• http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/ - 4 Hour Work Week - how to spend less time working and more time doing what you love. Tips on mini-retirements, outsourcing, starting your muse. blog and book

Vagabonding quote from Lavinia Spalding

"Don't think about it too much. Don't make pro and con lists. Pro and con lists are nothing but trouble. If you think about it too much, you'll just end up staying home. … My family and friends often say to me, 'I'm living vicariously through you.' Don't ever live vicariously. This is YOUR life. Live."

If you have any other website or books that you find helpful let me know