This has been an interesting week to say the least. Monday and Tuesday were pretty uneventful. Noah worked out with me Tuesday on the Wii, we did the 2P run and it about killed me. Wednesday evening around 8:00pm I got a call from Drew while I was getting Graeme and Aegwyn ready for baths and bed. Micah had decided that he was ready to get baptized that night. He had been talking about it for a few months, and had said he wanted to wait til after his birthday, so we were all surprised. I am very proud of him for his decision. Thursday was a pretty good day at work. We had put up a dartboard in the conference room last week, and we decided to start a tournament in the office. We are all putting $.50 in each day, $.25 goes into a monthly pot and the other $.25 goes into a project pot. Each month whoever has the most wins get the pot. At the end of the job whoever has the most wins the pot, which we have estimated will be around $550. I am learning the game since I had never played before Monday. Friday is when the bottom fell out of my week. We had 7 degree temps over night Thursday, and we got up to frozen pipes. Then the toilet backed up. Since I was already running late for work, I asked Geoff to handle the toilet. I had gone out about 15 minutes earlier to warm the car up, so I headed out the door with all of my stuff, hopped in the car, backed out of the driveway, put the car in drive, and didn’t go anywhere. It took me several minutes to get the van to coast to the side of the road. I parked it and ran back inside to tell Geoff the transmission was messed up again. On my way back to the house I noticed a huge pink puddle in the driveway, so I looked out at the van and could see transmission fluid pouring from under the car. Geoff went out and somehow managed to get the van back in the yard. When I got off work I ran by the store bought a couple bottles of trans fluid. We filled up the van to almost overflowing, and flew to the repair shop around the corner. By the time we drove the 2 miles to the shop all of the trans fluid was gone. The mechanics said they couldn’t fix it we would have to take it to a specialized shop, which we now have to do sometime Monday. And in the meantime we are down to one car.

I have been very good at sticking to my exercise plan, and have put in at least 1/2 an hour each night and some nights doing as much as 1 1/2 hours. Please see my Weight Loss Journey pages for details of my weight loss progress.

I vowed a long time ago never to make New Year’s resolutions. I am not breaking that vow now, I have however committed to living a healthier life. I have been saying for months that I wanted to stop smoking, I plan on making that a reality. I have tried to quit in the past and something always seems to get in the way. I am not really sure how the best way to approach this is going to be. I have tried the patches and they do help, I have tried chewing gum but don’t really like it, so where do I go from here?

I have also started an exercise program. I got the WiiFit for Christmas and have been doing that pretty regularly over the past couple of weeks. I usually do between 1/2 an hour and an hour every day, and the exercises are getting easier and easier. The new fitness routine should be easy to follow since we are starting a new wellness program at work, and I am on the committee (kind of have to set and example for everyone else). 

And finally, on my road to a healthier life, I have once again started following the Weight Watchers plan I was on several years ago. I have lost 3 pounds over the last 2 weeks, cut my coffee consumption in half (and I am not being a total grouch about it), gotten my soda count down to 1 a day, I have switched to Splenda instead of sugar, and am trying to snack healthier.

I have said all of this to let you know that I plan on writing more regularly and tracking my progress in each of these areas on here. I am planning on posting some before pictures soon, and hopefully can post progress pictures along the way, and eventually post the after photos. I am not shy about my weight, so I will tell you that when I started my exercise on Christmas day I weighed in at about 160, I am now at 157. I am in a size 10 currently. My goals for this are to be in a size 7 and weight around 135. I don’t know how long this will take me but I am committed to this endeavor.