This morning I saw a link on Twitter – Lonely Planet had retweeted this article about how to travel the world for free. And while I don’t think it’s as easy as the author makes it sound, it did get me thinking. I love to travel. My family was fairly nomadic when I was growing up, and although most of our journeys were confined to the United States (with one brief foray to Mexico) I caught the travel bug at a young age. By the time I was 20 I had lived in five states (Louisiana, Washington, Texas, Kansas and Florida), and had visited many of the others.

After I got married, the travel trend continued. My husband also loves to explore new places, and because we have a lot of far-flung family and friends, we have had ample opportunities to see new places, even if it’s just for a weekend (among the places we’ve stopped, however briefly: Pittsburgh, Boston, Washington D.C., San Antonio, Austin, St. Augustine, San Diego and Los Angeles).

In 2007, my parents moved overseas for job purposes. The expat lifestyle afforded them the opportunity to experience many new places and cultures, and they extended the opportunity to us. Since 2008, I have been to Singapore (twice); Bali, Indonesia (twice); Phuket, Thailand; Oahu, Hawaii; and Paris, France.

Among the places I still want to visit? Argentina, Costa Rica, Belize, Spain (particularly Barcelona), Vancouver and Toronto, NYC and more! Where would you like to go on your next vacation (domestic or international)? Any recommendations for places I need to see?

Here are some of my favorite shots from around the world (the hovertext contains caption info; click for full size image):

I have two: Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose or Cobbler’s Pose) and Viparita Karani (Legs-Up-the-Wall Pose).

In this yoga memoir, author Jessica Berger Gross details how she “lost 40 pounds with a yoga mat, fresh pineapples, and a Beagle-Pointer.” With a subtitle like that, I had to read this book.

It’s a very relatable tale. After a challenging childhood (including an abusive father and an exhausted, cowed mother), college-age Jessica finds herself an overweight, chain-smoking wallflower. Envious of her slimmer, more energetic friends, Berger Gross assumes it’s her destiny to be heavy and sluggish. However, after spending a year in Nepal, finding her true love, connecting with her yoga practice and moving to a house in the mountains, she begins to realize that she can change herself, although she has a few false starts before she finds her path.

She begins writing for yoga magazines, deepens her home practice and starts teaching classes. She attends a yoga retreat with Baron Baptiste. She gets a dog and starts walking her regularly. And she revamps her diet, starting off every day with fresh pineapple (and ending it with a lot of black bean chili).

By taking the advice of her healthier friends, severing ties with her parents and taking control of her destiny, Berger Gross eventually loses the weight and finds her happiness, though not without some struggle and a lot of hard work, proving that none of us is a slave to our past. An inspiring tale, indeed.

Ani Phyo has a new raw food recipe book coming out at the end of the month. I can’t wait!

Ani’s Raw Food Essentials will feature “simple, fresh recipes using what you’ve already got in your kitchen while also offering tips on dehyrating and more sophisticated techniques. Phyo offers everything from classic comfort foods like nachos and burgers to Reuben sandwiches and bacon, along with more gourmet dishes like risotto, angel hair pasta, and her ‘you-won’t-believe-they’re-raw’ desserts.”

You know what’s fun? Waiting a few years to start watching a great TV show. Then you can cram several seasons worth of viewing into a week (or weekend). I do this all the time — it’s how I watched Charmed, Veronica Mars, the early years of The Simpsons and more. And I recently decided to do this with How I Met Your Mother.

The show had always been on my radar, and I had watched intermittently over the years, but when free time and availability in my Netflix queue opened up at the same time, I decided to take the plunge. And it was totally worth it.

The show is centered around single guy Ted’s (Josh Radnor) search for true love in New York. Along with his best friends Marshall and Lily (the always-hilarious Jason Segel and Buffy/Angel alum Alyson Hannigan, respectively), ex-flame Robin (Cobie Smulders) and his womanizing pal Barney (the legen-wait for it!-dary Neil Patrick Harris), architect Ted struggles through the trials and tribulations of looking for one’s soul mate in the big city. He’s ready to settle down and have kids; unfortunately, he can’t seem to meet a woman who wants the same thing. The show is actually told in reverse; set in 2030, Ted is telling his children the story of how he met their mother, so each episode is part of the story and essentially a flashback.

My husband described the show as Friends 2.0, which is actually pretty accurate: you have the married couple (Marshall and Lily to Friends’ Monica and Chandler), the on-again, off-again friends/couple (Ted and Robin to Friends’ Ross and Rachel) and the happily single man-slut (Barney to Friends’ Joey). HIMYM replaces Central Perk (the Friends coffee shop) with MacLaren’s Bar, and Ted even goes on to become a college professor, much like Ross.

Despite the similarities, HIMYM is definitely its own show, with excellent writing and perfectly crafted performances by all the actors (especially Segel and Harris). Neil Patrick Harris is single-handedly reintroducing the expressions “awesome!” and “legendary” into modern lexicon, and the show has certainly reinvigorated the high-five around my house.

Check out the Season 4 bloopers (but beware, some of the language is NSFW):