Jaime just left my place after being here for a week. While it was AWESOME seeing her, I know she’s much better off now. She’s left to go on a cross country road trip, landing wherever her heart takes her.

Hearing her excitement is making me SUPER NOSTALGIC for when I used to do that. On the same note though, it feels nice to a routine going on.

While Jaime was here, she gave me a book that she created for my birthday. The book was freaking AMAZING… so I made a video where I read it to you.

And like I said, other friends gave me ridiculously heartfelt and awesome things as well. I know I already blogged about it but you guys didn’t get to SEE it. In alphabetical order:

Brian sent me a beautiful bouquet of roses.

Joshua surprised me by putting this swoonworthy poem in my screen door:

And Otto gave me this AWESOME framed letter that made me positively melt:

I know you can’t read the picture, so I typed everything out that it says:

50 Things I Love About Rachel Rofe

1. You’re super-loving
2. You’re amazingly smart
3. You care about others
4. You’re perfect at listening
5. You’re adventurous

6. You’re kind
7. You’re more talented than you realize
8. Your smile brightens the room
9. You’re giving & charitable to others
10. You look for win/win solutions

11. You have immense integrity
12. You’re trustable
13. You’re sweet
14. You’re always there for a friend in need
15. You give your best 100% everyday

16. You live life to the fullest
17. You create that which you want
18. You’re creative
19. You read
20. You’re honest

21. You always express how you truly feel
22. You’re super positive
23. You look at the good in everything
24. You make friends easily
25. You’re funny

26. You love learning
27. You travel
28. You’re great at business
29. You’re open to new things
30. You always do good by people

31. You’re playful
32. You do whatever it takes to succeed
33. You’re spiritual
34. You always bring your A game… especially in Uno
35. You’re a striver

36. You’re very enlightened
37. You work hard
38. You never complain
39. You’re wise beyond your years
40. You think for yourself

41. You’re independent
42. You’re a great cuddler
43. You inspire others
44. You’re calm and centered
45. You’re thoughtful

46. You’re extremely considerate
47. You cherish quality moments with friends and family
48. You build people up
49. You’re confident
50. You’re constantly growing youself

Bonus: You’re Great at life!

I love you Rachel and wish this is the best year of your life to date and things only get better and better from here forward.

—

I just had to share, because all of these made me feel SO MASSIVELY GRATEFUL and reading Jaime’s book opened up all the memories from my birthday again.

You know you haven’t posted in a while when someone asks you to make a blog post as a birthday present to him.

I’ve been WAY busy lately, but here are some quick updates, which I can hopefully expound on soon…

-I’m going to Buenos Aires tomorrow for a month with my boyfriend (!!!).

Two things about that:

1. Buenos Aires – YAY!

2. Yes, boyfriend! And some people left some comments on the boyfriend test such as,

“I think you are beyond a qualities list and gone into the world of make believe.”

or…

“I sincerely think you should settle for having at least two boyfriends ’cause you’ll hardly find all these traits in one single person.”

….

But I’m happy to say that Otto meets EVERYTHING on the test (except for blue eyes, but that’s okay), and a lot more. In fact, I told him I don’t even have the imagination to list out everything that he encompasses. Dude is INCREDIBLE – makes me really happy I waited for 4 years before getting into a new relationship.

- I sold yayFOOD! The new owner is a really incredible guy. He tried out the diet himself and has lost 12.5 pounds in 3 weeks! =)

There were quite a few people who bid on the site and I didn’t vibe with all of them – I think George (the new owner) is the best match, and am psyched for him.

- When I get back from BA, I think (you know my plans change all the time, but as of right now…) I’m going to get a home base in San Diego. Otto and I are possibly going to get a place together… depending on how we feel after BA. We’ve already been living together since early January and then we’ll be together all through February…

But who knows, maybe we’ll decide it’s better to have space when we get back.

- I’ve been working on an awesome new site that I’m super-stoked on, it’s about one of my passions and it’s something that’s pretty fulfilling to me. The site has been doing really well & I think it’s going to be my new baby.

Okay… guess that’s it for now, I have to go return my rental car and pick up our laundry before we peace out!

I just deleted every single Internet Marketing post I have on this blog.

I’m going to put everything I.M. over here from now on… and make this site all about my personal life, experiences, etc.

I think the separation will make posting in both blogs much more enjoyable.

(And by the way, how awesome is my new layout? )

Boyfriend Test

Since I don’t think I’ve been attracted to more than 5 men in this freaking country (I’ve been here for 3 weeks!), I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I do want when someone stellar comes along .

I’ve also realized that there are probably 3 men in the entire universe that fit everything I expect.

Now, I’ve always been pretty picky (it’s why I’ve been single for 3 years!), but the more I grow, the more quirky things I expect.

Years ago, I had an Excel spreadsheet that was a potential boyfriend test (feel free to roll your eyes, but my friend made one too – and when she started dating a guy she had rose-tinted glasses with, she gave him her test and realized he failed – miserably).

The traits I used to have were:

Ambitious, Charismatic, Chivalrous, Confident, Educated, Fashion sense, Funny, Good friend to others, Good job, Good listener, Good sexual chemistry, Happy, Has his own interests, Honest, Likes to travel, Not cheap, Not too clingy, Open minded, Positive, Reads, Romantic, Sense of humor, Sentimental, Smart, Spontaneous, Tall, Thoughtful, Well rounded, Will try new things.

Everything had an equal weight, except for ambitious and romantic (they had double weight).

After I went to Warrior Camp, it was an important criteria for me that someone went there too. I think I could let that go now, provided someone pushes themselves out of their comfort zone and has read books from authors like David Deida (one of the most special parts of Warrior Camp was when we did a thought-provoking exercise on the differences between men and women – very similar to Deida’s “Way Of The Superior Man”).

Today, I’d probably switch around a bunch of the “qualifiers” I had before – take some out, add some in. I’m thinking my list would look something like this, in alphabetic order:

Ambitious (not as important as it once was as long as he constantly pushes himself out of his comfort zone)

Blue eyes (ok, ok, that’s just a wishlist item – but usually not attracted to dark hair, dark eyes, hence this Brazilian tragedy )

Cares about others

Charismatic

Confident

Cuddler (Grade A only)

Educated (not necessarily by college, but homeboy has to love to learn!)

Exercises

Funny

Good friend

Good listener

Has his own interests (that he acts on frequently!)

Healthy (Raw foodist preferred since I’ll at least be 80% for the rest of my life, I think)

Honest

Intelligent

Loves surprises

Loves to travel (Love, not like)

No “job” (At this point, there’d be a big disconnect between me and anyone who needs to clock in and out or be at work specific hours)

Not cheap (I hate when people let money hinder them. Need more, make more.)

Open minded

Positive

Pushes me (My friend Jose, who I consider to be one of my greatest personal heroes, never let me get away with anything – and I loved him for it.)

Romantic (Non-negotiable)

Sense Of Humor

Sentimental

Sensitive

Spiritual (Another non-negotiable.)

Spontaneous

Tall

Thoughtful

Well-rounded

I don’t know if I could deal with 80% any more, though – I’m just going to hold on to the fact that someone out there meets 100%.

If you know him, feel free to make an introduction. =)

Wow, so much has happened in 15 days!

First of all, I want to sincerely thank everyone who responded to the church post. I didn’t respond right away because I wanted to think about everyone’s answers, but I do definitely appreciate them. I read them all closely, followed all links, and spent a lot of time pondering them.(I also want to especially appreciate Frank Sousa for UPSing me 2 books that I can’t wait to read: The Holy Bible and Answers To Tough Questions.)I talked to some friends outside of the I.M. world about this, too, and am still very fascinated by it – I guess it’s just a topic that’ll never have a clear answer.

In Other News…

If you’re following me on Twitter you already know this, but I decided not to go to Europe. It was really weird, but everything surrounding that trip was going wrong. I was getting incredibly stressed (which is not a word I typically feel) and bad thing after bad thing kept happening.

I’d driven to Philly from L.A. so my sister could take over my car, and the insurance company was saying she wasn’t allowed to drive it. I couldn’t find important things that I needed, people on CouchSurfing weren’t getting back to me, etc. The final straw was when I ordered an international cell phone. It came 2 days before I was supposed to leave and was missing the SIM card. When I called to ask about it, everything just surfaced up and I ended up bawling on the phone to the poor lady who answered.

There were 2 people I wanted to talk about the situation to – Jaime and Brian. Not surprisingly, when I first called Jaime, she picked up and then the line broke up as soon as she said “Hello?”. (I’m telling you, EVERYTHING was going horribly.) When I finally talked to her an hour or so later, she gave me awesome advice – to go to my “centering place” (which was a bookstore) to calm down and think about things.(When I got there I read an awesome book by Sonia Choquette – “Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit” – but that’s another blog post ).I still didn’t know what to do but I did feel a ZILLION times calmer. I got a hold of Brian, and…

He Offered Me Quite The Deal!

I told him how I felt – that I didn’t know if I should go to Europe or just stay in Philly and head to Australia in January.

The first thing he said was that he’d be angry with me if I stayed at home. He said he’s never been angry with me (and we’ve gotten in some quite heated battles), but he’d really be mad if I let myself stay home and not explore like I wanted to.

He immediately told me right after that Rio De Janeiro was an option. He has an amazing 2 bedroom penthouse with an unoccupied bedroom that he’s been living in for 10 months.

I decided to go (I actually got here this morning!), and once I did, good things started happening again. The insurance company said my sister could take over the car, amazing emails were pouring in, unexpected money to my PayPal account, etc.It definitely feels much more right over here, and it’s awesome to be hanging out with Brian. I think it’s going to be a phenomenal thing and feel ridiculously blessed to have been able to live with 2 of my best friends. I’m also really looking forward to learning Portugese!

It Kind Of Sucks Though…

…To be in a country where you don’t know the language. Some people said since I know Spanish I’d be okay in Brazil, but that definitely hasn’t been the case. Portugese and Spanish have some cognates, but they say everything with a different accent here. It’s kind of like, “so close, yet so far”. I have no fear that I’ll pick it up, it’s just hard to feel ignorant.

(Also, “It Kind Of Sucks” makes a great headline. )

On the plus side, this all makes for AWESOME people-watching. They say 60-90% of all communication is via body language, and since that’s all I can observe, I’m very much appreciating that.

(The beach is going to be amazing too. )

I guess that’s it for now. There’s a few more things I want to post about soon… things that have been on my mind bigtime lately (how I feel about marketing, abortion, and a slew of other things), so I’ll try to post about them soon.

Random thoughts…

1. Wordpress keep deleting my line breaks every time I click Publish, so I have to manually add them in. It’s annoying. Why is this?

2. New blog theme… I’m a fan.

3. I made a new site with reports in efforts to build my list. Find it here and give me your feedback!

4. Grrrr, it’s hard to type from the heart when I keep reminding myself to remember the line breaks…

5. Brian and I are running a mastermind together. I’m REALLY excited about it… it’ll be with this group that I build a new $10K passive income stream. The whole angle is “90 Days To $10K”… read more here (and if you apply before September 23, it’s 20% off).

6. I got my tickets to Madrid today!!! SO FREAKING EXCITED FOR EUROPE THAT I’LL TEMPORARILY FORGET ABOUT THE ANNOYING LINE BREAKS! I sent this email to Brian earlier today:

(I think all the “dudes” make me sound insanely intelligent. )

7. My birthday’s in 5 days.

8. GRRR linebreaks, I’m going to go work out..

So it’s now Day 2 in Portland and I’m really enjoying it.Before I get to that though (which’ll probably be another post), I’ve been meaning to journal about the drive up.

(The post is kind of long, so I’m going to be writing it in copywriting-style. I’d be curious to hear if that somehow takes away from it’s authenticity for you.)

Okay, so…

The Drive Up:

The actual drive was really interesting. As I was listening to some of the songs on my iPod, they had a completely different meaning to me than they did when I took my other road trip exactly one year ago. I never would’ve anticipated that, but it was an awesome feeling. I grew a lot this year.

I got a speeding ticket on the way over. I’ve gotten out of like… 12 or so tickets, so I guess it was time to pay my dues. The weird thing is, we were having conversation before he even gave me the ticket. He was asking me about the states I visited, what I do with Internet Marketing, etc. Usually those conversations mean I get out of tickets, but I think he already committed to giving me one this time (he might have called for backup too – he thought I was transporting drugs at first) and had caught me on radar. Oh well.

So anyway, I was driving to…

The Most Awesome Sublet Ever!

As I mentioned on Twitter, I got an incredible sublet here in Portland.  I got REALLY lucky, because the lady who owns this apartment had pretty much convinced herself she wasn’t going to be subletting. She interviewed 6 people via phone before me, and she couldn’t get a good gut feeling about any of them. She’s very into energy and was super-adamant about only letting someone she felt good about sleep in her bed. It was awesome, because she used the money I paid her to fund a trip to Hawaii. She kept saying “I can’t believe I’m really going!” and now when I talk to her, she says “I still can’t believe I’m really here!”

Anyway – she’s really, really cool. She was talking about moving stuff out of her closet for me, taking down spiritual messages from her wall, etc. to make me feel comfortable… I told her a) I’m happy to see spiritual messages! and b) I’m only here for 2 weeks, there’s no need for her to do any of that. It’s her home.

The sublet’s in the heart of SE Portland and right near a lot of incredible things. It’s a great location.So I tell you all of this because…

It Leads Me To This Fascinating Conversation:

I talked with a hotel owner the day before I got here. I was telling him about the sublet owner, and he said “I guess there are some good people left in this world.”!?

That blew my mind.

He really meant it.

I don’t know… I just feel like… I think everyone I meet is a “good person”. Sure, there’s lots of flakes in L.A., but they’re still good people. And that’s not the whole “positive thinking” thing… it’s a fact. I’ve traveled cross country a few times, as you probably know – hit 40 states so far – and I’ve been positively surrounded by “good people”. What a self-limiting thought to really believe the majority of people aren’t “good”.

Now, trust me here…

I’m Not A Fan Of Those Think-Positive Books.

…and I try to stay as grounded as possible. Sure, I journal about things I’m grateful for. I try to see positives in everything and am 100% confident that everything happens for our highest good. HOWEVER, I think those books delude a lot of people for 2 reasons:

1) People separate themselves from reality with all the “I KNOW it’s going to work out!” stuff. Sure – positive thinking’s awesome and I strongly believe you shouldn’t let obstacles stop you… but you have to do the WORK to get out of obstacles. I think a lot of people stop at thinking positive and then wonder why it doesn’t work out.I was reading Life’s Golden Ticket by Brandon Burchard. It’s a cool book where a guy goes through a spiritual journey, and you can kind of identify your own progress via him. There’s one point where the main character sees a montage of scenes in his life, and he’s doing a lot of things he doesn’t like. He screams, “That’s not me! I’m not that person!”

His “guru”, I guess, for the sake of your understanding, replied, “That’s psychobabble bullshit.” His point was that it IS him. If he wanted to change those aspects of himself, so be it… but he had to first understand them and acknowledge them.Most people don’t do that.And the other reason I don’t like those books, is…

2) “We must truly know the darkness before we can truly see the light.” 

Jaime really helped me understand this. Before I moved to L.A., I intellectualized everything. I didn’t allow myself to feel pain, or anything sad really, because  I figured it was a waste of time. I didn’t allow myself to listen to sad or negative songs, and surrounded myself with all things positive.

In retrospect, I think that’s delusional. Not only is it delusional, but it’s an absolute crime. After growing more and allowing myself to get pissed off, upset, etc. about things… when I feel bliss, it feels 10x more real than anything I ever experienced before.I just think most people don’t allow themselves to open themselves up that, especially with the whole “think positive! just think positive!” movement.

Now, I’m not saying they’re poorly intentioned. Sometimes you have to deliver messages in increments. For example, with yayFOOD, I tell people about calorie cycling. I don’t tell them about eating healthy or anything – if they ask, I’ll tell them – but for now, the first step is just for them to learn about the calorie cycling. People can’t feel overwhelmed. I get it.But still…having zillions of those ‘think positive’ books on the market, in my opinion, isn’t doing people as much good as they think.

So anyway,

Back To The Conversation…

Despite the opinions I just expressed, I still think it’s crazy to feel like most people aren’t good people.I was actually talking to Justin Zimmerman about this yesterday. Like I said, I’ve traveled a lot.  I can immediately reference tons of amazing people that I’ve met.  I remember meeting a guy at a coffee shop in Seattle who took an entire day off to show me around. Or the guys I met at Laguna Beach who made me sleep over (there were locks on my door ) so I wouldn’t sleep in my car. Or even the lady who owns this sublet – she made me a zillion maps and notes and everything to make sure I had the best time possible.To feel like the majority of people aren’t “good”… I don’t know, it just really got me thinking a lot.

There’s a lot more I could blog about, but I feel like I should end it here. I’ll have to write more soon, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the copywriting style, the “good people” comment, the positive thinking movement, and whatever else.

Just made a quick blog post on what I’m up to, a great book I’ve read, and more…

Here were the photo shoot pictures I was talking about. =)

Grrrr, again with the bird’s nest, but I made this post at the same time as the last one.

To prove to the world that my hair is normal, here’s a picture from my photo shoot :

Thank you for indulging me. Here’s my latest video: