244 Days 'til my 50th Bday.

So I have decided to learn how to trade.
I have told my children, my best friend and my sweetheart, but there are many in my life that I have deliberately decided not to tell. I have not told my other best friend (we are a triad), nor have I told anyone in my family, because they will:

• laugh (provoke shame)
• tell me how risky it is (instill fear)
• tell me how it is all luck and a monkey could do as well (question judgement)
• all of the above.

My starting capital is small, minuscule actually, but it doesn't really matter where I start. It only matters where I end.

My goals:

1. pay off debts
2. create emergency fund
3. replace my income
4. retire/quit job--which verb will be more satisfying?
5. build long term wealth

With this public declaration of my plan to build a trading business, I here do officially cast off the fear based, limit defined life into which I was raised and in which until this date, I have participated.

I will retire/quit my job within 5 years. My stretch goal is to do so when my younger son graduates from high school two and a half years from now, June 2019.

This blog will serve as my sounding board, my celebration of success, my autopsy for failures, as I really have no one with whom I can talk trading. 

If you stumble upon this blog, thanks for reading.

246 Days 'til my 50th Birthday

7 years 3 months 8 days since my last blog post
8.25 hours working for someone else
2 hours commuting
1 missing key ring
too many hours fretting
1 hour for me, building my future

10 hours till my birthday

10 hours till my 42nd birthday
2 years since this blog began
1 lifetime since then

304 days till summer vacation

sigh

26 days till christmas

29 days till paradise
26 days till christmas
10 the number of years my older son completed today
8 boys bowling to celebrate 10th completed year
4 spares
2 the number of frames bowled by the youngest boy (he had to go early as he missed his nap)
1 strike
that which brings joy is spontaneous and unpredictable

the believe that you are special, special enough to bring out 6 friends on a school night, allows your heart to be gracious

No More Shall I Count

this evening, around midnight--or shall i say tomorrow morning?--begins the cycle of 1 year anniversaries.

one year since deranged-estranged husband burst into house demanding to know where my (non-existent) lover was.
one year since my underwear were stolen--ostensibly to be tested for said lover's dna.
one year since having the locks changed.
one year since being physically threatened and personal property taken by force.
one year since taking the children and hiding out at a friend's house.
one year since the 4 hour phone call between my father and deranged-estranged husband during which the slander campaign against my character began (and continues to this day).
one year since filing a restraining order.
one year since filing for divorce.

one year since the week that redefined my world.
as i enter this anniversary week, i find myself involuntarily reliving those moments.
palpitating heart.
twisted stomach.
instantaneous tears.
anxiety as i hear cars drive by my house in the middle of the night.
waking in the middle of the night just to check on the children.
wishing i still had my noisy dog, jack, to warn me of potential intruders.

i'm done.
i don't want to do this anymore.
i will give myself one more night to grieve.
tomorrow i shall take a bath (during the darkest of days last year i took sometimes three).
drink some sour peach schnapps.
crawl under the covers.
saturday, i shall arise
emerge from my cave of blankets
whole.

27 days 'til halloween

the vine on which this pumpkin grows showed up on the side of my house early this summer.

rather than pull it out--competition for my newly planted peonies--i decided to let it grow.

after countless unfertilized blossoms came and went i first saw this pumpkin on late summer's day in august.

i've been feeding it water for the few weeks and it has grown plump.

when the boys return from their international free for all, we will harvest and carve it.