I'm Back!

I'm back home from my long weekend out to visit my grandmother.  I can't hardly express how glad I am to be back in Colorado.  Maybe it's because I grew up here and so I'm just not used to that weather, but I find the heat and humidity in Arkansas to be very oppressive and uncomfortable.  It's a beautiful state with so much green, but I feel kind of lazy when I'm there.  I used to visit my grandmother in Illinois, but she's 93 now and can't really take care of herself any longer (or protect herself from my one remaining worthless, loser uncle) so she had to move to Arkansas to be near my cousin.  Colorado was also an option for her, and she's claimed that she wanted to live here here whole life; but if she actually did something she wanted to she'd have less to complain about, and we just couldn't have that.  Do I sound bitter?!  Spending time with that woman drives me up a wall, and makes me feel like a bad and impatient person.

I guess I owe my cousin big-time since she's with her on a regular basis and deals with all of this stuff.  I told my mom that while I'm trying to be understanding because I realize my grandma has lost three of her four children, I have a hard time with my grandma and her constant negativity.  My mom, who's a much kinder and generous person than I'll ever be, told me that we just need to be supportive because my grandma's had a really hard life and has been depressed for a long time.  Now, this is my dad's mother, so my mom's mother-in-law to whom she's so wonderful.  My mom's not even related to her by blood and she's nicer to her than I am.

But it was nice to spend some time with my kids and it was great to see my cousin.  She and her husband are building a house on a nice piece of property.  The only blight right now is that the woman from whom they bought the property insisted that her house remain up until she dies.

Here's their house and you can see the old house in the left corner.

The old house sitting in front of their new house.

The peaceful view from their family room with my daughter looking at paint colors.

I love the Crepe Myrtle flowers.

Arkansas does have some nice lakes and trees.

Of course the other problem I had on this trip is that we ate too much, and moved too little.  So I wasn't very pleased when I stood on the scale this morning and saw that my weight went back up.  I wasn't terribly surprised, just disappointed.  So I'm going to have to really focus on my food this week if I intend to show any progress with my weigh-in this coming weekend.

Traveling

I'm getting ready to go visit my grandmother with my mom, sister-in-law, my kids, and my nephew.  I won't really have time to post again until probably next Monday.  I'll leave you with a picture of our impressive thunderclouds until we meet again!

Managing Expectations

Some thoughts about my choices surrounding mental and emotional well-being.

I've been doing some additional thinking about what I read in Leo Babauta's Little Book of Contentment.  The main thrust of the book is that we need to let go of "ideals" that we create for ourselves which we can't possibly meet, and instead learn to appreciate life as it is in order to feel contentment.  I liked the message, and his writing style is very calming and soothing.  But I still have a hard time accepting that advice.  I was raised to always try my best and to not even bother if I was only going to something "half-assed."  My dad thought Yoda's line in The Empire Strikes Back should be our guiding philosophy of life:  "Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."

That philosophy made me reluctant to try things if I didn't know that I'd be good at it.  I think the way this showed up the most in my childhood was my unwillingness to do more than one new math problem without having the teacher check it to make sure I was on the right track.  Now, I'm actually really good at math so I was generally correct, and I imagine it probably drove some of my math teachers up a wall that as soon as they taught us something new I'd do one problem, then stop and get their approval before moving on.  As an adult I still see this cropping up problematically from time to time.  When I make the inevitable mistake, I really feel bad.  I turn red, I get all upset with myself, and generally want a hole to just open up in the ground.  I do take ownership of and admit my mistakes, apologize for said mistakes, and create a plan to reduce the chances of it happening again.  But it's never going to matter how well I plan, I'm a fallible human being and I will continue to make mistakes.  I know intellectually that it's alright to mess up and the important thing is to learn from the mistake.  I also know intellectually that I can't grow if I don't try new things and sometimes fall short of my own expectations.  But that knowledge doesn't really change the emotional reaction that I have to this day when I "try" and fail.

I know that I can manage my reactions better when I manage my expectations; I've seen this in action.  When I started at my current job about 2 1/2 years ago after working at my prior company for over 12 years, I had to deal with a great deal of change.  I had chosen to move on for several reasons, and I still think from a career trajectory standpoint it was the right thing to do.  But I had made some sacrifices:  The schedule didn't work as well for my family; the commute was longer, but I could use public transportation so I naively thought that would make the commute bearable; I took a fairly substantial pay cut in order to focus on one role instead of the multiple roles I had taken on over time at the last job.  But I thought it would all be worth it when I could work more reasonable hours and have every Friday afternoon off.  The new job schedule was 9 hours Monday through Thursday and 4 hours on Friday.  Of course I generally work more than 9 hours the first four days of the week, and I still get into work at about 6:30 on Fridays so I work closer to 5 1/2 hours each Friday.  But for awhile I wasn't even getting out of the office at noon on Fridays.  I was getting really upset and frustrated because my schedule wasn't meeting my expectations.  (And hungry, because I wasn't packing lunch on Fridays.)  But then I took a step back and realized that I needed to prepare for the possibility that I'd have to work past noon on Fridays.  I started packing a Luna bar in case I couldn't get out on time.  Managing my expectations curbed the frustration, and made me more appreciative of the days when I did get out on time.

So I do know that the way we mentally frame a situation changes the way we react to that situation.  Which means that it's highly likely that if I followed the advice in the book, I really would feel more contented.  I have a fantastic life filled with wonderful people and more blessings that I can count.  But I still tend to focus on the outcome and reaching the destination rather than enjoying the journey.  Although I will say that I've nearly always managed to just enjoy time spent with my family with very little concern for the outcome.  I just wish I could figure out how to enjoy the journey professionally.  I still haven't reached the audacious professional goals that I dreamed about in high school.  I found my old creative writing journal a few months ago and was reminded of what I'd written in response to a prompt about my plans for the future.  They didn't actually seem that unattainable at the time, and maybe I could have chased those dreams if I hadn't decided starting a family was more important.  Although I'll never regret that decision, so in some ways it does help me to experience gratitude.  I also realized in reading through the journal that I was under a great deal of pressure (probably mostly self-imposed) to be the perfect student.  Just more proof that I've always had an issue with my innate imperfection.

Summary of my choices around my physical well-being.

I was pleasantly surprised when I stood on the scale this morning,  My Saturday dinner binge didn't totally derail my weight-loss efforts.  Don't get me wrong, it didn't help, I just don't have to start back in a deficit this week.  My planned workout this morning didn't happen because I awoke at 3:45 in the midst of an acute allergy attack.  I'm not sure what it is that I'm allergic to, but my nose wouldn't stop running, so leaving the house wasn't really a good option.  So instead I did some activities with the weights and got on our Wii fit.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get in a good jog in the morning.

Back to Reality

My husband and I had a nice weekend away celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary.  I ate more than I should have though.  I really do need to figure out how to eat smaller portions when we're eating gourmet food.  Especially when the meal is served in courses that seem like reasonable portions taken one at a time.  I'm kind of grateful that I didn't have a scale to stand on this morning as it likely would have been very depressing.  But I'm really planning on focusing my efforts this next week and having encouraging results next Sunday.

This is a picture of a beautiful stone church between Allenspark and Estes Park.

But now it's back to reality and I've got lanudry to do and then back to work tomorrow.

Photos from the Hike

My husband and I got in a nice hike today, although it wasn't the hike we were planning to do.  You probably heard that Colorado had terrible floods last fall.  The trail to the old mountain homesteads was washed out and closed.  So we went up into Rocky Mountain National Park and attempted to hike up to one of the lakes, but that trail was also washed out by the floods.  You can see in some of the photos below how much erosion occurred.  Even the trail we finally ended up on had some diversions in places where the original trail just didn't exist any longer.

My husband teased me about how many pictures I was taking, but he was sure to point out some good photo ops to me.  I'm not attaching all the pictures I took, just a few of the highlights.  Enjoy!

Anniversary in the Mountains

I'm writing today's post while I'm on a weekend getaway with my husband celebrating our 15th anniversary.  This is going to sound really cheesy, but I'll explain:  I literally married the man of my dreams.  When I was in college and dating someone and the relationship wasn't going well, I had a dream about my future husband.  We were in the car driving home and I looked over at him and thought how much I loved him.  We'd been through our ups and downs but we were friends and partners and making this work.  We drove up to our house and our older daughter and younger son were playing in the yard.  I woke from that dream feeling very peaceful and knowing that the dream showed me what I really wanted out of a relationship.  So I ended that other relationship and held out for my dream.

My husband told me that when we first started dating I was a little intimidating because I was so direct about what I wanted in a relationship.  I just thought, "if I'm not getting exactly what I want, there's no point in continuing to date."  My husband recognized how strong I was and never tried to take over and solve my problems for me.  He was always willing to do half of the household chores.  He enjoyed hiking and spending time in quiet just as much as I did.  So everything worked out and we got married.  We did have a daughter and a son, just like in my dream.  We have had our ups and downs, but we are best friends and partners and we enjoy each other's company.  I also like myself better with my husband; he brings out the best in me most of the time.  So my dream did come true, and I'm so glad I held onto it and insisted that was what I wanted.

There won't be a weigh-in this week since I don't have a scale up here in the mountains.  Instead we're going for a long hike to look at some old mountain homesteads today (I'm sure I'll get some great photos to share from that hike), and we're going out to dinner at a restaurant run by a couple from Austria where they serve a delicious five-course meal starting with a heavenly cold berry soup.  I hope your weekend is wonderful also!

Some of the views from around where we're staying.

Last night we sat by the river and watched the stars come out as bats flew by overhead.

Moon Shadows

I didn't get a post written yesterday because I left work to walk the two miles from downtown Denver to the highlands and meet my family so we could take my mother-in-law out to dinner and celebrate her retirement.  We got home pretty late and I just didn't have it in my to write a post before crawling into bed.  The walk was really nice though, it makes me feel like I earned a little bit of my dinner.  It's completely uphill, after all, the area is known as the "highlands" for a reason.  I also have to use a pedestrian bridge over I-25, so it's noisy for part of the walk, but it's still kind of nice to use your feet to get around.

This morning I noticed how interesting the light patterns were on the floor, so I decided to take a few minutes and make a photo.  The brighter light is from the street light outside, and the dimmer light is from the moon.  Of course I starting hearing Van Morrison's Moon Shadows in my head.  I decided it would be worth it to take the time to set up my tripod and get the picture because it's such a rare phenomenon.

I set the ISO to 2000, opened the aperture fairly wide, and adjusted the exposure to +3.  The camera was set on aperture-priority mode so it automatically selected the appropriate shutter speed.  I looked at the image that I got and it beautifully captured the shadows and shapes, but it was really red due to the overexposure.  So I changed the image to black and white, and was able to basically capture what I was seeing to share with all of you.

I also wanted to share a photo that I took a few weeks ago of some our blooming ground cover that I ran across again and liked, and a couple of pictures from Sorrento, which was my daughter's favorite stop on her European tour.

Don't Waste That Food!

I was raised by my parents, who were raised by my grandparents, who grew up during the Great Depression.  Waste was one of the WORST offences possible in their homes.  They barely had enough to get by growing up, so when they placed food in front of you, you were expected to eat it.  ALL of it.  I think this was one of the factors that contributed to my dad's issues with his weight.  I know I've struggled with feelings of guilt if we have to throw food out.  I actually dealt with these feelings when we cleaned out the refrigerator this weekend, and when I was cleaning up after dinner the other night.  

It never fails that I wrap up the leftovers and put them in the refrigerator, and then don't feel like eating them or need something more convenient to carry to work.  Nearly every weekend when we clean out the refrigerator, I end up throwing food out.  But it was really bad the other night when I was cleaning up after dinner.  My husband made fajitas on Saturday night for my daughter since she hadn't had any Mexican food while in Europe and was craving it pretty badly.  My husband also made a gigantic bowl of homemade salsa because he knows we all love that.  The problem was that he wasn't able to get Roma tomatoes at the grocery store, so he'd ended up buying a different variety that wasn't as meaty.  So when he roasted them on the grill, they soaked up too much of the smoke flavor and they were bitter tasting.  The salsa was fine for the fajitas, but it wasn't something we wanted to eat on our eggs or with chips.  So my husband told me to dump the entire bowl down the sink after dinner.  If any of you shop at Whole Foods (a.k.a. "Whole Paycheck") you know how expensive their produce is; but it's usually worth it because it's fresher and tastes better.  Dumping a bowl filled with Whole Foods' tomatoes and peppers felt wrong.  Really wrong.  

I also deal with these feelings when I'm eating, and I'll fully admit that there are times when I eat more than I need or even want, simply because it's on my plate.  Other times I'm stronger and I remind myself that I should stop eating when I've ingested enough food to fuel my body.  Although I do hear my grandmother in my head telling me that it's not right to waste food.  Then I remind myself about a conversation I had once with an acquaintance of mine.  We were discussing the idea of wasting food, and he said, "I suppose it's still wasting food if you eat it and your body can't use it."  This was a game-changer for me.  It was a whole new way to think about waste and although it didn't completely assuage my guilt, it did help me to talk myself through my guilt.  So while I do still feel twinges of guilt, I often remind myself of this statement and it helps me to pay attention to how much food I actually need.  

Ultimately food is just fuel for our bodies.  Although I know I use it both socially and emotionally, which is the real reason I struggle with overeating and have a difficult time keeping my weight where I want it to be.  Another thing that causes issues for me is that my husband is such a foodie.  Cooking is one of his primary forms of creative expression, and his feelings get hurt if we don't enjoy his cooking or eat enough of it.  I'm not trying to blame anything on him, this is his choice and it's fine for him since he doesn't really fight his weight (some men are very lucky in that regard).  But it is one of the underlying factors that I need to find a way to deal with appropriately if I'm ever going to make real and permanent changes in the way I eat.  But I am trying really hard to remind myself that not wasting food means not eating food that my body can't process and will just store as fat.  Because there is almost no scenario where I'll have to live off of the stored fat in my body, so having it there is just wasting food!

Weekly Weigh-In and Father's Day

No good news to report on the weigh-in.  I really thought I was making some progress this week with my approach to eating, but it didn't manifest in the numbers.  I'm not, however, giving up hope yet, because I think if I keep doing what I was doing this week, I will see a change in my weight.

Weight:  135.2

I'm struggling with Father's Day this year.  I want to celebrate my husband who is a good father to our children and for whom I'm so grateful to have as a partner in this parenting adventure.  But I'm having a really hard time with all of the ads and news since this is the first Father's Day I don't have a father.  At work I got an email from an airline with the subject line:  Surprise Dad With a Visit!  I subscribe to the Good News feed on Huffington Post (because I need that to offset all the bad news out there) and there was a story with pictures of dads and daughters on their wedding day.  It was very sweet, but I couldn't manage to look at very many of the photos.

I knew today was going to be difficult, so I can't claim surprise.  I just hope that I can manage to keep it together well enough not to impact the celebrations we have planned for my husband and my father-in-law.  I also hope my daughter can hold it together and not dampen the celebrations today.  She came back from Europe and we picked her up from the airport on Friday night.  She was happy to be home and to see us.  She even made her little brother give her a hug.  But starting yesterday afternoon around 3:00 PM when the time change was really impacting her, she's been pretty challenging.  She thinks we're being totally unreasonable not just letting her sleep whenever she wants to.  It took less than 24 hours for her to go from being happy to see us and grateful for the trip, to thinking we're awful and unreasonable.  Teenagers!  I guess this is just payback for the way I treated my parents at that age.  It's really too bad that my dad isn't here to see me suffer the way I made him suffer.

Chicago Photos

This morning I was walking through a part of downtown Denver that I don't normally see on my way to an offsite meeting.  I was appreciating the early 20th century architectural detail on some of the buildings and was reminded of all the interesting buildings in Chicago.  I took several pictures last year when I was there twice; once for business, once for pleasure.  I thought I'd share of few of these pictures and provide a break from my usual nature photos.

These pictures are from a business trip in March of 2013.  They were all taken with my camera phone (which wasn't even the same quality as my phone now) and aren't as technically good, but they do capture some of the ornamentation and achitecture.

These pictures were from the summer of 2013 when we spent a couple of days in Chicago before heading out to my grandma's farm in eastern-central Illinois to visit the family.  Since this trip was for pleasure, I had my camera with me and most of those are better photos.  Although the three pictures starting with the Field Museum were also on my camera phone because we were visiting several museums that day and I didn't want to haul my big camera around.

The pool at the Hotel Intercontinental

It's sort of interesting to look back on these and remember when I wasn't spending as much time honing my photography skills.  I can actually view the difference in quality resulting from additional practice between last spring and summer.  I know some of the difference is due to the camera quality and megapixels; but I like to think that some of it is due to more focused and deliberate practice.

Missing My Girl

My daughter left for Europe on Monday, June 2.  I've spoken with her twice on the phone, and we've texted several times, but it's just not the same as having her here at home and I miss her.  We get to pick her up at the airport tomorrow night around 7:00 PM and I can't hardly wait!  I hope she's prepared to get a huge hug, right in front of everyone at the airport.  (Does that embarrass 13-year olds even after they've been gone for a long time?  Probably.)

I'm so glad that she earned this opportunity, and that we were able to send her on this trip.  I know she got to have an experience that not everyone will get.  I hope her eyes were opened to other cultures, she'll have amazing memories, and that she'll have forged a stronger bond with some of her friends.  But I'm ready to have our family back together as a whole unit.  I've enjoyed the time with my husband and son and am truly appreciative that I got that time also.  But there's nothing better than the whole family under the same roof.

I guess this is just a teaser of what it'll be like in only five short years when she heads off to college, and we'll almost always be a family of three.  I know that I'll be fine when that day comes, but I also know that I'll have to work hard to get to fine.  One of the most important ways that I define myself is as a mother, sometimes I'm not entirely sure who I'd be without that role.  I guess this is why it's so important to nurture my other interests and my relationship with my husband now, so that when I reach the point where I don't have children needing me all the time, I won't feel totally lost and rudderless.

AfterShokz Review

I like to listen to music when I work out, especially when I'm jogging or running because I think it helps me to keep my pace up.  I've mentioned before that I have miniature ears and I have a problem with ear buds.  Even the child sized ear buds are almost too big.  I did find a pair that I could wear if I put the smallest bud covers on, but they weren't the highest quality and it was extremely frustrating when they weren't working because it made me less likely to want to run.  My husband heard about a new product called AfterShokz which don't actually go in your ear.  They use bone-conduction speakers so you put them next to your ears and your head sort of works like an antenna.

I thought I'd give those a try since the size of my ears wouldn't matter.  One of the reviews that I read did say that other people could hear them, so you couldn't necessarily use them in all of the same settings where you'd normally use headphones.  I've never been one to use headphones in particularly noisy settings because I'm not willing to turn them up loud enough and risk damaging my hearing.  So that wasn't a major drawback for me and I went ahead with ordering them.

I've had them for a couple of weeks now and I've run with them several times and really like them.  Since they don't go in your ears you can still hear the ambient noises around you.  So I can have my pounding music which helps me to run faster, and can still hear the rustling of the leaves in the wind and the birds and insects singing.  They're also better for safety reasons because for the few times when I have to leave the trail and cross the road I can hear cars.

I went ahead and got the bluetooth version since I didn't really want to deal with the cord that tends to shift while I'm running and I have to constantly mess with it.  One time I had a little trouble with the music breaking up, but that was an isolated incident that hasn't been repeated.  I did have an issue on Monday morning when I had used them with my tablet over the weekend and they were still paired with it.  My husband was still sleeping since school's out for the summer so I didn't want to go back into my bedroom and risk waking him up, so I did without music Monday morning.

Overall they work well and deliver good sound quality.  I would recommend them to anyone who likes music while working out or even just walking around because they're so much safer since you can still hear what's happening around you.

My roses are blooming

The moon last night

Generational Differences Myth

OK fair warning, I'm climbing onto my soapbox today because of several articles I've read lately.  I'm so tired of being bombarded at work with messages about how we need to understand the generational differences so that Baby Boomers and Gen X (me) can relate to Gen Y, a.k.a. Millennials.  People have been crying some version of "these kids today" since the beginning of recorded history.  I think it's probably safe to assume that it's actually been happening since the human lifespan grew long enough for folks to be around when the younger generation started to grow up.  I just don't buy into generational differences as a major factor in dealing with others.  I think it has much more to do with life stage, and individual differences.

My generation was once the "entitled young whipper-snappers" in the workplace who were troublesome for the Baby Boomers to deal with.  Then we started getting married and having families, and we settled into mostly the same patterns as the older generation.  I've heard people refer to Gen Y as "digital natives."  I get that, but you know what, I grew up with computers in my house and school too.  I wasn't using them before I could walk, but we had a computer lab in my elementary school and I took programming classes starting in Jr. High.  Technology has changed, and continues to change a great deal, but I use it and learn it.  It's not a big deal.

I think the only real difference is where we happen to be in our lives.  I'm raising a family right now, so of course that's what is important to me.  But I work with people close to my same age who never married or had children, so they actually still enjoy going out and partying and having happy hours.  It's not because of their age, it's because of their lifestyle.  I know Baby Boomers who have always enjoyed technology and stay on top of it better than some people who are younger than me.

I guess this bothers me so much because it feels like ageism.  Trying to deal with anyone based on broad, sweeping generalizations about their gender, race, age, or any similar factor feels very wrong to me; like we're ignoring Martin Luther King Jr's dream of his children being judged on the content of their character instead of the color of their skin (or some other superficial characteristic).  We're all people just trying to do our best, with our own struggles and on our own journey.  If I was in charge, we wouldn't keep paying "experts" exorbitant amounts of money to "teach us how to deal with entitled Millenials."  Now I'm all for free speech, so they could keep writing and talking about it if they want; I just wouldn't allow businesses like mine to financially subsidize them any longer.

OK, time to step back down from the soapbox.  I'm actually glad that I can still be stirred emotionally and feel passionate about something, though.  In my attempt to control my stress, I was wondering if I'd still be able to get worked up without getting stressed out.  I'm happy to report that this didn't stress me out, but I do (obviously) feel passionately about the topic.

One of Those Days

Have you ever had one of those days where for some reason you just don't feel like you're firing on all cylinders?  I'm not sure exactly what my problem is today, but I'm feeling inadequate.  It makes me not want to even write a blog post because I'm fighting the thought, "why would anyone even care what I have to say?  What makes me think I'm interesting enough to even be writing a blog?"  Do you ever wonder what you have to offer?  Some days I'm not sure why anyone would be interested in hearing what I have to say.

I'm decent at math, but I'm not one of those amazing super-genius types about which TV shows are made.  I can take nice pictures, but I'm certainly not supporting myself on my photography.  I'm providing a safe and loving home for my children, but I don't have any amazing parenting answers.  I have one child who just does what she's supposed to do (I don't really know why) and another child who becomes defiant and difficult EVERY SINGLE TIME he needs to accomplish something, like a chore.  I'm really working on making good choices, but I fail at least as often as I succeed.  I've been seriously trying to lose weight for 20 weeks and have less than 2 pounds to show for it.

Why, oh why would anyone be interested in anything that I have to say?  Maybe because it really does help motivate other people to know that regardless of how hard I try, I'm still a fallible human being.  Maybe if someone as imperfect as me can manage to make good choices on occasion, then it will give others hope that they'll be able to do the same.  I do hope that honesty and sharing my struggles inspires someone else to keep trying, because it really is about the journey, not the destination.

Weekly Weigh In

If you could hear me, you'd hear the deep sigh I'm fetching right now.  I essentially maintained this week, going up by 1/10th of a pound.  The only thing that's ever really worked for me to lose weight is strictly counting my calories.  I don't know why I just don't want to do that right now; I'll do good a for a couple of days and then it's like my subconscious is sending up a rebellion and just won't do it.  This is incredibly frustrating.  I'm not entirely sure what I need to do to get my head back in the game here, but I hope I figure it out soon, this is kind of pathetic twenty weeks in.

My daughter called this morning while she was enjoying a late lunch in Venice.  Of course it was about a quarter until five here, so there went my day to sleep in.  But it was good to hear her voice after more than a week.  We'd exchanged texts, but this was the first time I'd actually spoken to her.  I get to pick her up from the airport on Friday evening, and I can't hardly wait!  It sounds like they're having an amazing time and seeing some wonderful sights.  Hopefully she'll have a couple of pictures that I can share when she gets back.

My son and I went on a bike ride yesterday morning.  I know this may not seem like a big deal, but my son was a late learner on the bike so it was a real milestone.  My husband wouldn't ever let him use training wheels, and the bike he'd picked out when he was six had a strange design with the pedals in front of his legs, so he couldn't get the proper leverage to really pedal.  Finally last summer (when he was nine) he learned how to ride that bike, but he just never got very smooth.  So for his tenth birthday he got a new bike with a more traditional design, and he rode fabulously yesterday.  Now I need to get a new bike because I was just using my husband's old bike that he'd given to my daughter.  I figured there was no need for all of us to have our own bikes since my son couldn't ride so we couldn't go on a family ride.  Now that's a real possibility, so I guess I need to spend more money.  Oh well!

I'm getting ready to go back to work tomorrow, physically and mentally.  I am really making an effort to have the proper mindset heading into the week so that I'm not so miserable at work, or so stressed out that it manifests in physical symptoms.  Since all of the tests the doctor ran were negative, I'm convinced stress is the cause of all the health problems I've been having, probably including the weight that seems to be here to stay.  So part of being healthy and making the right choices is properly dealing with stress.  Wish me luck!