Get Your "Eat Pray Love" On With These 12 Steps

Following the "Eat Pray Love" book/movie phenomenon I'm sure a ton of women out there are plotting ways to quit their job and travel the world in search of love, enlightenment, adventure, and more. It's actually been a goal of mine to travel the world for awhile since I was a little kid really. I'm hoping by the time I'm 30 I'll have a nice little global adventure planned :-)

If you're a little more eager than I am to get your "Eat Pray Love" on then check out these 12 steps from Barbara Singer the author of "Living Without Reservations". Singer, who has lived in both the Caribbean and Italy, provides tips on how to both prepare and make the most of your "Eat Pray Love" experience.

1. Get Ready Mentally. Your attitude is far more important than the check book balance. Focus 100% on creating the lifestyle that you want. Be acutely aware of how you are spending your time and money...Quit all organizations, commitments. Create a totally different home environment -turn off the TV, turn on your favourite music, open the windows, eat your meals outside and de-clutter. Change up your daily routine and spend time walking or biking alone in nature. Plan your strategy.

2. Liquidate your home. Rent it to someone else or sell it. The goal is to travel light. You will be renting a room from someone else somewhere in the world (perhaps even several times a year in different locations), so all your possessions need to fit into a bedroom.

3. Get Rid of Your Car. Stop your car lease or car payments sell it then buy something under $5,000 and put the minimum insurance required by your state. You will cut 2 bills with this one move. Most of the time, your car will just sit, unused while you are out of the country.

4. Stop all re-occurring monthly charges. If you don’t spend it, you won’t have to earn it. Stop all services like cable TV, lawn care, pool care, cleaning service, car detailing, beauty treatments, all memberships, and classes.

5. Forget about Security and Responsibilities. Security doesn’t exist. It is a big lie. All kinds of unexpected events can change our lives in second- like a heart attack, car accident, getting fired, or divorced. Live today joyfully rather than spending time, energy and money on days that may never come.

6. Get Healthy. Since you will be living and travelling abroad, you need to be in good shape. Get off all medications and get in your correct weight category. Look toward alternative medicine if need be. Buy catastrophic health insurance with a big deductible and shop around for the best price. The healthy you are, the cheaper your monthly rate.

7. Get Mobile. Get a laptop and learn to get all the information about your finances and other important things on line. Stop every piece of paper mail and learn how to get what you need from anywhere in the world. Get a Post Office box at Mailboxes Ect. And have them forward you the mail every so often.

8. Living Without a 9-5 Job. Focus on the gift of exchange.You may not have money, but you have something much more valuable, time and talent. Practice thinking of ways to get what you need without using money. Always give more than you receive in cash value. Do your best and think win/win. I trade you this X and you give my Y.

9. Work on the Road. Work when it’s right, then make it last as long as you can. That’s my motto. You work in season in the states and then travel wherever you want until it is time to work again. If you have skills you can freelance your self online anywhere. If you don’t, you can still find good paying tipping jobs at restaurants and resorts at during high season for a few months in destination towns (e.g., Aspen or Key West). Then you can fly to Italy or the Carribean, rent a room for a month at a time, and go on from there.

10. Make Your Plans and Study Now. You may simply want to move to someplace new and get set up for the first time. You can do that. If you have a particular country in mind, apply for a visa before you quit your job and travel...Tons of resources at your fingertips. Work for a resort company. Work for the National Park system (Campworkers.com), find unique opportunities at Caretakergazette.com or work on boat and be paid crew (Crewfinder.com or 7knots.com), or be a live in nanny or teacher and travel with an International family (nanny services).

11. Making a Living on the Road. You don’t have to plan out the rest of your life. Break it down into little chunks. Rent a room for a month at time or plan to stay in an area for a season. If you decide to go touring you can keep costs low by staying in hostels (no longer just for youths!). There are also organizations that offer assistance to travelers, pensiones, and home stays like serva.org. Americans can even travel and work in places like American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and other places without any additional papers.

12. Be Helpful And Be Useful. - Visit without mooching - If you are lucky and have friends and family in places you want to visit, go see them, and be useful. Offer you talents. Offer your time. Work freely and wholeheartedly.

MTV Breaks Down Deathly Hallows Trailer

MTV.com posted an interesting write-up this week featuring highlights from the latest Deathly Hallows trailer. In their story MTV highlights six important moments from the trailer which is a little over two minutes long. Their six key moments are:

The Attack at the Ministry
There are only two quick shots of the Ministry battle, but they promise greatness from that scene. At 1:24, there is a shot of Ron (Rupert Grint) running away terrified, and then at 1:46, there is another shot of the Ministry employee who is pursuing him.

Godric's Hollow
Another section of "Part 1" that made it to the trailer is Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and Hermione's (Emma Watson) journey to the home of Harry's parents, Godric's Hollow. Their entrance can be seen at the one-minute mark, and even though it looks like only Hermione is walking, that is because Harry is under the invisibility cloak. There is a lot more to the location than meets the eye, though, and you can see Harry being attacked by Voldemort's snake Nagini inside Bathilda Bagshot's home at 1:47.

Ron Destroying the Slytherin Necklace Horcrux
In the scene that has long been assumed will close out "Part 1," Ron reunites with Harry in the woods and helps him destroy one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. At 1:17, Ron can be seen looking terrified of the images the Horcrux is showing them (some pretty scandalous scenes between Harry and Hermione), and then at 1:48, Harry can be seen encouraging Ron to "kill it!"

The Gringott's Break-In
Switching to moments that will (assumedly) occur in "Part 2," it might seem a bit confusing to see Harry riding alongside his enemy Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) with a goblin named Griphook (Warwick Davis) at :54, but that's actually because Hermione is impersonating Bellatrix, a scene Carter said she enjoyed playing. The shot of a half-blind dragon at 1:16 also comes from the Gringott's scene, and the dragon flying away from the wizarding bank at 1:39 is the trio's escape route to safety.

Harry's First Confrontation With Voldemort
It was an interesting move to open up the trailer with one of the final scenes in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," but the shots of Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) standing with his Death Eaters in the woods and Harry approaching them actually come toward the end of the story. "Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, come to die!" Voldemort announces dramatically in the trailer, before seemingly casting the killing curse — Avada Kedavra — on Harry.

The Final Battle
A good portion of the action scenes that are shown in the trailer are taken from the final battle sequence that will take place at the end of "Part 2." USA Today announced that the battle was expanded for the film, which means those shots of people running at each other in the woods are probably from the creative mind of director David Yates. But the wand confrontation between Harry and Voldemort at 1:59 is right out of the book, and Voldemort's final line of the trailer — "Only I can live forever" — is a daunting way of teasing the final installments of the "Harry Potter" franchise.

I have to admit I'm getting really excited about this movie. I kind of jumped on the Harry Potter bandwagon a little late (I've only read the last two books), but I'm extremely impressed with the two books I've read and all the movies they've put out thus far. The movie for the last book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," will be divided into two parts with the first part being released November of this year. I'm pretty sure both movies will be nothing short of epic. The trailer below features bits from both part one and part two.

Kelly Cutrone Atlanta Book Signing/Discussion

Renowned publicist Kelly Cutrone will be appearing at the Borders in Buckhead on Wednesday, April 28 to discuss her new book "If You Have To Cry Go Outside."

Although Cutrone is very well-known in the world of PR she gained national recognition following the premiere of her hit show "Kell On Earth" on Bravo.

I haven't read Cutrone's book yet because to be quite honest I'm not a huge follower of the fashion industry, but I've heard that it is a good read so I may check it out eventually.

For more information on Cutrone's appearance at Borders this week, click here.

You MUST Read This Book

At Barnes & Noble last weekend I picked up Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." I wasn't at all familiar with the book, but the fact that it was a New York Times Best Seller AND a Pulitzer Prize winner caught my attention. I picked it up and the read the synopsis and I was sold.

"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" is about Oscar a "disastrously overweight ghetto nerd" who's a huuuge sucker for love. The book tells the tale of Oscar and his mother and his rebellious sister Lola. We read about his relatives in the Dominican Republic and the "fuku" that has haunted his family for years.

It is a story that is both tragic and comical. And aside from being a great read "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" also gives readers a brief look at the history of the Dominican Republic. A history that I have personally never learned about in high school or college. Anybody familiar with Rafael Trujillo? I had never even heard of him before reading this book.

But reader beware, this book is so good that you might end up with a brief case of readers depression. You know, that feeling you get when you're done reading a really, really good book? The sadness, the "Damn! It's over already?" If your readers depression lasts longer than a week then hit me up for a list of some other great books. You'll snap out of it then :-)

Atlanta Nerds Unite!

For the 2009 AJC Decatur Book Festival taking place this weekend (September 4-6) in downtown Decatur. If books aren't your thing there will also be live music, food, and loads of activities. And it looks like the weather this weekend will be perfect for an outdoor festival.