The above pictures are of my dad and his wife ice skating for their first time.  They went, took lessons, and then got out on the ice.  He told me it was a great experience and they are anxious to do it again.

What a joy for me to hear him so excited about something like this.  I’m looking forward to still having a sense of adventure even as I get older, and someone to share it with.

Cheers Dad.

(bonus – can you guess where these were taken?)

Weight loss is a precarious and personal thing.  My wife and I have struggled with it for years. Until recently we’d not had much success in longer term and consistent weight management. A couple of things changed this year.

My wife chose to give Weight Watchers a try.  I was skeptical at first. This was the group where a bunch of folks sit around every week and console each other right?  This was the group that wanted you to buy all of their food products right?  The group where folks are always trying funky things to lose weight. You can see I had some rather biased opinions.

I agreed to put aside my concerns and disbelief for my wife’s sake.  She was ready to make a new commitment for us both to get healthier. I have my own reasons that I need to lose weight, she has hers.  So we embarked on this part of our journey.

Nanna J has lost 50 lbs since that first meeting.  It’s a dramatic change.  She’s been really making it happen.  And she’s bringing me along.

Since we started, I’m down from 284 to 248.  It’s not been easy though.  Constant choices need to be made.  It requires making decisions not so much minute to minute, but planning in advance what we’re going to choose.  It’s also been a decision to more consistently weigh and exercise.

The truth is that we’ve done one other thing – learned to accept that we’re human.  We’ve decided to accept our own failings.  That includes knowing we’ll sometimes have Dairy Queen when there’s no healthy reason to choose that for dessert.  It’s knowing that we’ll skip exercising days that we should.  Being able to allow for those days has been a huge help.

Many people give up when they have a bad day, but you can’t do that.  The best help though is a cheer leader.  There are never enough in a person’s life when that person is struggling with weight management. My choice here has been to cheer my wife on as much as possible, and to follow her path as best I can. I believe it’s helped.

So today I’m sharing this with you because I’m extremely proud of my wife.  She’s always been beautiful to me anyway, but it’s great to see her taking me at my word and finding a way to see herself as beautiful and fulfill her own vision of herself.

Please join me in cheering her on. You can leave a note here, or just click through to her picture above.  She’ll know you care.

Thank you.

I love having such fun online friends.  Jill Foster is one of the friendliest.  She just got tagged with Seven Things You Didn’t Know About Me, and decided to share the fun with me. Hers list is very interesting and she really dug up some unusual things to share. I’ll try to pick some interesting things as well.

1. I didn’t learn to swim until I went to boot camp for the Navy. Tried taking lessons as a kid but never got over water anxiety. Boot camp gave me no choice. Surprising plus for joining the Navy.
2. I married into having a 5 year old.  The lady I married, Sharon, already had a young son. He turned five within two days of us getting married.  Talk about a radical lifestyle change.
3. I have participated in a seance.  Did this when I was a much younger man with a group of cohorts to raise spirits of old St. Charles. Not the most productive use of my teen time.
4. I went to a strip club one time.  This was back in my Navy days.  One of the guys on our sub was insistent it would be a great time while we were in port.  Biggest waste of money ever. Girls looked drugged and it seemed so demeaning to them and us.
5. I was born with a extra toe on my left foot.  The extra toe came with webbing between it and the last two toes on that foot.  The extra piece is gone now but the left two toes are still together.   Brother born with same defect on right foot. We are not twins.
6. I used to play Dungeons and Dragons and other pen and paper RPGs when I was a teenager.  Playing and being the game master were both things I enjoyed.  Other games included Champions and Traveller.
7. My wife and I met while working at Jack-In-The-Box together.  She was one of the first women in my life I’ve used the term b*tch about. Go figure.

Bonus item: I had the hots for Tina Turner when I was younger.  The voice, the face, the legs. N’ough Said.

I’ve tagged a few folks lately with things, so I’ll set this one out for picking on someone else.  However, if you feel motivated to share something about yourself, feel free to link back here as your inspiration point.

Yours,

Todd