Dear Friend,

I’m in a bit of an Internet pickle right now.

It seems that our gang has managed to use over 10 gigabytes of bandwidth this month on our wireless air card.  As a result, I have to wait until August 9th before I can get on line for any length of time again.

I am afraid the real problem was that I forgot to turn on the security protocol on my local wireless router, and other folks at our last campground just went to town running up my wireless bill without me knowing it.

Oh well, I guess that was my screw up. Fixed it tonight, but I still have to wait a few days bvefore we can get back online.

I’ll try to post daily nevertheless.

We are in Iowa City, Iowa right now, visiting friends.  Heading to Minnesota tomorrow!

See ya!

Hugh

Dear Friend,

You have made up your mind.  You are going to take the plunge.  Start your new life.  Live it your way.

Then reality socks you in the face.  What about your partner?  What will he or she think?  What if they nix the idea right off?  Or maybe they’ll just laugh – call it another of your hair-brained ideas – and refuse to take you seriously?  What do you do now?

Clearly, getting your partner to accept, and even embrace, your new lifestyle direction is a threshold issue that will determine where you go from here.  In a worst case scenario, you may find yourself choosing between your dreams and your partner, and that’s not a place any of us want to go.

But it doesn’t have to be that extreme.  There is a way, a series of techniques, that can be invaluable when you are dealing with both your precious dreams and your precious sweetie.

I have put together a free guide, 18 Secrets To Persuading Your Partner to Join Your Creative Family Lifestyle Dream! It’s built on the real life tested techniques that I an others use to make this tricky moment go off like clockwork.

Like I said, it’s FREE and it is exactly what you will need when this moment in your life arrives.

So get it here right now (http://www.hughdeburgh.com/PersuadeYourPartner.pdf).

I wish you the best of luck with your own creative family lifestyle!

All the best,

Hugh

Dear Friend,

Today my wife and I took a little detour and met with some potential new business associates for a business that she runs.

This was not my idea of a fun afternoon’s activity but sometimes you gotta do stuff, so I went along.

It could be a big deal if it goes through.  I hope she gets it.

We are in the upper midwest these days, and the weather has been fantastic.  Weather people forecast violent storms for tonight, but all I see is a big ole moon in a cloudless sky – how’d they screw that one up?

Anyway, I’m really glad that all of that money talk is over for now.  They left my wife with lots of work to do, and I KNOW she’s gonna want me to help.  I never mind helping her, but for some strange reason I’ve always hated working just for money.  You know, when I feel no passion behind my actions.  Probably a leftover from my days on the “dark side, when I really did just work for money.  That was before I discovered the creative family lifestyle message.  Nevermore will I go back there – no matter how much money they throw at me.

There is always a better way to make money, regardless of the economy.  Right now people need to learn how to make money.  So teach them!  So many sheeple out there have been pulling the corporate ropes and doing their duty for the boss for so long that they don’t know anything else.  Teach them!  People in the developing world are literally moving out of shacks and into highrises.  But there is still a lot that they don’t know about modern living.  Teach them.  People need to better understand how to manage their money in tough economic times.  Teach them!

I think that you get the point.

Teaching is a great way to make a buck during times of change.  Just not in a classroom.  Those teachers don’t earn squat!  Just ask ’em!

Talk to you soon!

Hugh

Dear Friend,

I believe that people everywhere need to be woken up to the life that they could be living.

Do you have friends and loved one’s who seem to be sleep-walking through life?  Does the energy and the light seem to have faded from their eyes?  Has their marriage lost it’s luster?

Do these folks believe that the promise of their lives, that was so clear to them as a child, has turned out to be just another childhood fairy tale?

The bottom line is, I cannot help all of these folks alone.  You know my mission by now.  When you run into one of these folks, and the moment seems appropriate, try to open their eyes.  Tell them about some of the things that other, ordinary families are doing with their lives right now.

At minimum, inspire them to investigate further.

We are at a great point of change in human history.  For the first time, ordinary people can live their life primarily for the pleasure of living, instead of just to survive until tomorrow.  This is a change of evolutionary significance.  It is also a change that will have an untold positive impact on the overall attitude of humans as a species.

The faster that we get this word out, the faster humankind will live a happier existence on Planet Earth.

Perhaps some of us will even stop hurting each other.  Who knows.  We can hope.

So please, do your part.  And spread the good news of living a happier, more fulfilled life through creative family lifestyle design.

Thanks,

Hugh

Dear Friend,

You already have everything that you need to live your dream life.

Except perhaps a solid understanding of who you are.  And a bit of courage.

And a desire to be happy.  No.  A determination to be happy.

In fact, I think that it is determination that sets satisfied people apart from the rest.  It is determination that overcomes old habits.  And it is determination that stands up to the constant resistance we all face from the world – resistance to the change that we bring, simply by daring to be us.

You just have to love yourself enough to believe that you deserve to be happy.  You also have to believe that no one else’s happiness is more important than yours.  Not your partner’s happiness. Not even your kids.

You have to really, truly, love you.

And not a lot of people really like themselves, much less love themselves.

If you are not determined to be happy; if, somehow, you don’t think that your own happiness rates highly enough to justify inconveniencing those around you, then you will never succeed at being happy.

So.  Decide to be the authentic you.  Take substantive action towards your new life.  And adopt a solid determination that this is the way things will be from now on.  No matter what.

I wish you the best.

Until later,

Hugh

Dear Friend,

Today, a thought flashed through my mind.  For one moment, I wondered what the he** I was doing thinking that I could drag seven people into a little rolling box and expect to have a good time.

Well, it’s true.  If I was starting from scratch, and my life would be built around one dream (which in my case involves exploration and travel), I probably wouldn’t have included all of these other people.

You know, maybe I’d bring my sweetie to hug on once in a while, while we careened off to nowhere,  together discovering that we already have all that we need.

But, real life never works that way.  We aren’t born with wisdom, and by the time we get it, we’re too old to enjoy it.

So the only alternative for me – for any of us, really – is to take the life that we’ve got, and just make it work.  It’s either that or just sit around and complain about the fact that our current life just won’t let us live our dreams.  It’s just unfair!  Boo hoo!

Sheeze.  Nobody want’s to hear you complain, especially you.

So shut up and make it work.  And once you get going, drop me a line and tell what you’re doing and how you did it.  We can commiserate about all of the crap that we have to put up with in order to live our dreams.

Now that kind of complaining I’ll listen to!

Have a great day!

Hugh

Dear Friend,

I spent a moment today just observing the afternoon sky.

It was a very muggy day. No, more than muggy. Oppressive. But beautiful just the same.

My body was so wet that I could’ve used a squeegee as easily as a towel to dry myself off.

There was a gentle breeze, however. I could see wet gray clouds building into afternoon thunderstorms. I told my youngest child that they were just baby storms now, but very soon they would be all grown up and very grumpy.

I petted a dog that once was a favorite of my father-in-law. I told him that I knew that he missed his old owner, who passed away recently, but that my old friend was still here if he just listened carefully enough.

My youngest insisted that she saw grandpa at night – or at least she heard him walking around. Perhaps he hasn’t discovered that he’s dead yet?

I helped my mother-in-law fix a fence gate on her farm. She told me that even little things frighten her these days. Like how was she going to get that gate fixed alone?

This time she didn’t have to.

As long as there are people who care about you, things have a way of working out. At least I believe that. I hope I still believe that if I find myself in my mother-in-law’s shoes. A widow, living alone on a rural farm.

Lots of things to talk about in future posts. We are officially on the road!

As is obvious by now we stopped by my mother-in-law’s house. She had kept my youngest for a couple of weeks. When we got here, my daughter looked like a real farm girl – she’d gone native!

Anyway, I think she had fun. But she was glad to see us too.

I got a hair trim yesterday. Well, more than a trim. I had let it grow pretty long since my photo on this site was taken. Now I look like the photo again. I expect to be doing some videos soon. Perhaps some You Tube stuff. I just wanted to make sure folks recognized me.

My oldest son reassured me that I could grow it out again if I wanted.  But this time I could gentle my users into the new look so they wouldn’t be shocked by the change.  Pretty good for a ten year old.

My mom was happy about the cut. She didn’t like the shaggy look. But when we arrived at my mother-in-law’s to pick up my daughter, I think that my daughter was a bit taken aback by dad’s new look. I had changed so much in two weeks!

I think maybe I should’ve waited to get it cut after we picked her up.

I remember when I was a kid, and my dad returned from a fishing trip to Australia with his business friends. He had grown a short beard.

Now my dad had never changed his look. And he had never worn a beard. Never. I was too old to be affected by anything as silly as a little extra stubble. But when I saw him walk off the plane, I got the strangest feeling in the pit of my stomach – like someone had taken my “daddy.” Someone stole my dad and sent this impostor in his place! That was the feeling. Totally irrational and it took me completely of guard.

Of course, I knew better. But I never forgot that feeling. And I spoke to my youngest about how she must feel. She avoided me at first. Trying to get used to the change, I guess.

I talked to her about the kitten that she had been carrying around for the last two weeks. Bo is his name. I expect Bo is going to be quite the lap cat after surviving the terror of being under the focused attention my five year old for two weeks. Either that or Bo will never come out from under the bed. I think the former, though. Bo seems to have taken a shine to her.

As have I.

Unfortunately, my youngest son and her do not get along that well. Or I should say that my son does not seem to be able to deal with competition from a fast talking, very self assured young woman who is competing for his parents’ attention.

Since my youngest has been with her grandmother, our household has been rather peaceful. Even with all of the last minute preparation for our expedition.

My younger son usually fights, not only with my youngest, but also with my older daughter. But in the last few weeks he and my older daughter have been the best of pals.

I don’t know how things will work out on our trip. I guess we will see.

We have an adult friend along to help deal with the kiddos when we need to get something done around here. She can stay with us for a month, and then will fly back, so we’ll see how we do with and without her help.

Seven people living together in a 35 foot by 8 foot space (actually much smaller when you account for all of the furniture, appliances, and cabinets)!

But we are mobile! Everywhere we go, we are already home!

I hope that your week is going great so far. So far, so good for me and mine!

Talk to you soon,

Hugh

Dear Friend,

As we ready to hit the road to Canada, I visited a local Verizon Wireless store today to make sure that my cell phones and 3G wireless “air” card will work there.  Here’s what I discovered.

As for the 3G air card.  There is a roaming charge when you cross the border.  It’s only $2 per megabyte of usage.  So if we hit the 5 gigabytes of usage that we often do next month, we are talking an extra charge of more than $10,000 for one month’s modest Internet usage in Canada.

Hmmm.  That sounds fair.  What do you think?

What are these people smoking?  Or perhaps they are hoping that at least some of their customers will simply trust them to deal with them in a consistently fair and reasonable way.   You know, the way I would expect my customers to trust me.  And I would be proud to honor that trust.

Apparently, companies life Verizon Wireless are simply more interested in fleecing folks.  I guess that they really don’t need loyal customers anymore.  Must be nice.

Anyway, take note of this.  I’m sure that other wireless carriers do the same thing.

If anyone can recommend a good wireless internet solution for a couple of months travel in Canada, I’d be mighty obliged.

Thanks a mil…or is it ten grand?

Hugh  ;-))

Dear Friend,

Tonight I finished the manuscript for my new book, Families Without Limits!

Of course, I could have edited it about twenty more times, but you got to let it go at some point I suppose.

The Warrior is purring in the driveway as my wife organizes all the stuff that we are going to squeeze into that poor vehicle.

You know, we put a full-sized washer into that baby.  A fancy Samsung, with auto balancing and “Silver Care” (whatever that is).  And a dryer, too.  But the dryer heating element only works when we are plugged into shore power, as our generator puts out 110 volts only.

My wife is a wiz at organization and packing, so I know things will be done right.

Long ago, after some uncomfortable confrontations, we agreed that she would take full charge of all packing duties.  Which has worked out great for me as it allowed me to finished that manuscript up before we shoved off.

I’ll post more about availability of the finished book as soon as I know it.

In the mean time, I hope that you have an absolutely terrific week!  Mine will be spent on the road!

All the best,

Hugh