I keep forgetting to mention that my blog has topped 1 million visits! Every so often I'd check that number, but it was just like trying to catch the odometer turning over; half the time I'd miss the actual moment. So it was with my blog, but I'm still amazed at this milestone. This is one involved community!

Now for the ugly truth of my calories ...

Aug. 3:
10-min. workout: No. 0/3
Calorie counting: Yes, estimated 1,888. 3/3
No night snacks: Fail. 2/3

Aug. 4:
10-min. workout: Yes, 20 min. 1/4
Calorie counting: Yes, estimated 2,210. 4/4
No night snacks: Success. 3/4

Aug. 5:
10-min. workout: Yes, 20 min. 2/5
Calorie counting: Yes, estimated 2,735. 5/5
No night snacks: Success. 4/5

Aug. 6:
10-min. workout: No. 2/6
Calorie counting: Yes, estimated 2,807. 6/6
No night snacks: Success. 5/6

Aug. 7:
10-min. workout: No. 2/7
Calorie counting: Yes, estimated 1,507. 7/7
No night snacks: Success (I stuck to fruit). 6/7

I'm rather stunned that vacation, restaurant and social eating can add 1,000 or more calories without much effort. I'm glad to be back to normal, and I'm really going to try to take it easy on the food amounts when we go away this weekend.

I had a couple hours of downtime today at work, so I printed out maps, driving directions, reservation info, dining options and more for our little weekend getaway. I find it never hurts to have too much vs. too little information, and since I had the time on my hands, I decided to go ahead. The packet of info is laughably thick for the small scale of our trip.

***

I keep forgetting to mention this too, but we have a court date set for our third-parent adoptions! It's Aug. 15. I'm not too nervous because it sounds like everything will be pretty much settled; we just have to show up. But I know I can't count on anything until it's over.

As soon as that's done, I can move SL to my healthcare, which is cheaper than NT's. Plus, we'll all feel a bit more secure.

***

Yesterday I had a meeting with a 401(k) adviser from Prudential. It counted toward a checklist of activities I can do to earn $200 of flex money for next year, so I mainly did it for that. I thought he was slightly dim because he asked to see my Prudential account, then proceeded to lecture me about gradually getting my contribution up to 15% (right now it's at 6%, plus a 50% match on 3% of that). He didn't even bother to ask me if I or my spouse had any other accounts we were contributing to. (Our retirement saving is at 9.1% of gross income, or 12.5% of gross excluding tax.) Of course I do want to up my percentage, but we're doing a heck of a lot better than 7.5% of $53K, which is the only part he bothered to think about!

I didn't bother to correct him because I was annoyed by that, and because I figured he'd try to sell me on putting all our money with Prudential.

Toward the end, I decided to go ahead and ask if he had any advice for what to do in preparation for moving to England. He actually had a decent-sounding answer! He said continue to build our U.S. accounts and keep the money in the U.S., only drawing down when it was time to retire vs. moving all the funds. He said it would just be U.S.-taxed assets at that point, so our Roth money wouldn't get extra taxed in the UK or anything as long as we kept it in U.S. accounts.

Of course I'll want to verify that, but it's the first piece of straight advice I've gotten from anyone about my situation, so I'm pleased to have something to start with. So overall the meeting wasn't a complete bust, though I struggled to keep a straight face when he advised me to check my spending and see if I was wasting money anywhere.

***

I can feel the calendar for August and September wanting to fill up, and I'm hesitating to commit to things. I'm thinking I'll skip some events so these months don't feel as hectic as the rest of the summer did. I wouldn't mind just hanging out at home and relaxing! But there are some things I can't avoid, and some I might decide are worth my time. We shall see. There's a volunteer event for a hunger relief org NT and I are kind of interested in, a launch party for a friend's literary magazine, another literary type event, one firm and one tentative plan to have dinner with friends, the adoption court date, the out-of-town thing this weekend, the state fair ... I'm feeling lazy just thinking about it all! We'll see.