New Year's Resolutions

I know you have all been waiting in breathless anticipation for my New Year's Resolutions. Well, all your dreams are about to come true. Some of them have parts but I'm planning on making them all a reality.

1) Continue to Lose Weight
a)Lose at least 100 pounds in the calendar year 2011
b)Drop 4 pant sizes and 2 shirt sizes
2) Increase My General Health
a)Run a mile in under 15 minutes (this was originally 10 mins but 12-15
would be okay)
b)Ride 10 miles on my bike in under 45 minutes (not the exercise bike)
c)Learn to rollerblade (I have rollerblades but have never used them)
d)Compete in a 5-K (I may have to walk some of it but I'll do it; and
maybe 'Compete' is a wrong word, maybe 'Participate' is better)
e)Work towards competing in Stoneman Triathlon here in Springfield in July
2012 (This is shooting kind of high on the difficulty scale but hey, a
guy needs goals, right?)
3) Pass 3 CPCU Exams
4) Curse Less (I'm not saying I'm totally cutting out swearing, because that would
be really dam.....whoops, DARN hard for me at this point but I'm going
to make an effort to cut it down)

Well, that's all I got. I think those are some fairly far-reaching yet imminently attainable goals and resolutions. Did that make sense? Heck, even if it didn't, who cares, I'll make up for it by saying something, anything, that makes sense in 2011. It's bound to happen. Happy New Year's everyone and what are your resolutions?

New Year's Eve

Well, it's the end of the year 2010 as the last few hours count down to midnight. It's hard to believe that the year is basically over. But, a new one is about to come around I'm looking forward to it. I'm not sure if I've said that about many of the past few years. Many years I'm thinking about starting to change my life or try to and lose some weight. This year though, I'm 5 1/2 months into it and that's extremely exciting to me. This isn't new and just isn't a "resolution", I've been consciously trying to change my life and am making a real concerted effort to follow through and succeed. I have no "end date" in mind for this undertaking, I want it to continue the rest of my life.

I ended this year by riding my exercise bike for 36 minutes and made it 10.1 miles. The last 6 minutes were spent riding fairly easy after churning out 8.76 miles in the first 30 minutes. I felt pretty great afterwards and am really seeing progress. I'll be doing a year-end weigh-in tomorrow morning so I know what my '2010' weight loss ended at although my official weigh-in will still be Monday. This will also set me up to know my weight loss and progress for 2011.

To my all my friends, readers, followers...be safe this New Year's and be careful. Happy New Year's to all of you and I hope that all of your 2011s are wonderful and get off to a great start!

New Year's Eve Eve

It's Thursday and the dread is building inside of me. Only a few more days until my vacation is over. I'm not thinking about it much because I've felt pretty good about how things have gone. I've had a good time off, a good Christmas, and a good birthday. I've watched some television, watched some movies, listened to some podcasts, rode my exercise bike alot and cleaned things up around the apartment. I have gotten some new stuff and gotten rid of old stuff. I've gone through a bunch of clothes that were too big anymore for me so that's been pretty good. I have a couple bags of clothes in my trunk right now that will be donated soon.

Other than that, things are well and my eating has gone pretty fabulously for being off of work. I'm pretty proud of that since being off of work and just being home alot has gotten in my way alot in the past. I'll post my New Year's Resolutions either tomorrow night or Saturday, I'm not sure yet but they are coming soon. Hopefully you all can wait a little while longer for them and know what I'm trying to do in this new year. I might do a little recap of what has been good or bad in 2010 as well. Just seems like the right thing to do just as a wrap-up for myself so I don't forget all the things that have happened.

They Say It's My Birthday

On this day, we celebrate my birthday because well, it's the day I was born. I was born December 28th, 1976. Soooooooo, for all of my non-math friends out there, that makes me 34. My dad called me earlier and asked if I felt another year older. The answer really is no, although it's crazy to me that I am almost 35. I know, I know...all those over 35 are groaning but give me a break! When you got to 34 I bet you felt kinda crazy that you were almost 35. And to those friends of mine younger than me....shut up! HAHA! I say that to all of you with the proper amount of kindness, I swear.

Anyways, it was a good day. I bought myself a little present, the tv show Archer, Season 1 on DVD. I love that show! It's not for everyone but it's one of the funniest damn shows going. I rode the bike this afternoon for 30 minutes and went 8.34 miles which was a good distance and left me properly tired. I ended the day, besides writing this blog, by going to my birthday buddy Ryan's 8th birthday party. It was a really good time. Lots of kids bowling, a cup of diet soda and 3 slices of pizza. I had had a single cupcake earlier in the day so I didn't have any cake but there was a cool Dallas Cowboys cake with ice cream cups. It was a fun party and a nice way to spend the evening of my birthday.

All in all, 33 was a pretty decent year and I'm looking forward to 34. I'll get into that more at an end of the year with a year-end wrapup. So, in conclusion, Happy Birthday to ME!!!!

Monday Morning Weigh-In #23

The week of Christmas apparently was very good to me. I watched what I ate everyday and even when I ate a little more than I should have, it wasn't alot more or anything out of control. Weighing myself this morning, I lost 3.2 pounds this week to bring my overall total to 84.2 pounds. YEA!!!! I don't think I'll get to my 90 pounds by the end of the year but between 85 and 90 pounds lost will make me very happy. This has been an exciting half a year and really a whole year but more on that later in the week.

Merry Christmas!!!

Well, today is Christmas. I had Christmas with my family last week so I just stayed in Springfield today by myself. Although I was by myself, it was a pretty good day. I've watched some DVDs and done a few things around the place. Earlier today I rode the exercise bike for 30 minutes on a higher intensity and training setting. I got just over 7 miles but that was pretty good on the setting it was on.

I made myself a seasoned pork roast with cut up carrots, onion and baby red and gold potatoes and had that for lunch. I have 4 meals of leftovers for it so it should last me a little while. Had two lean burgers(no buns) and some peas for dinner so, on the whole, I ate really great today. I did make some sugar cookies yesterday but they just didn't taste very good. Hard to do anything wrong with them since it was prepackaged cookie dough that you just slice and bake but I just didn't care for them. I ate probably 4 or 5 of them and wound up throwing the rest of them out. I just knew they really weren't anything good for me for one thing but even though they tasted bad, I would've eaten them. I just didn't need them at all.

Well, the Cowboys game is about to start so I'll be watching that and rooting hardily for my Cowboys to finish off Christmas the right way with a victory over the Arizona Cardinals. Let's go Cowboys!

And a hearty Merry Christmas to anyone out there who reads this blog! I hope it was a safe and happy Christmas for you and your families. You've all given me the gift of support and I am deeply grateful for it. Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Music

I've been meaning to do this post for awhile, not that many will care, but as I was walking through a department store a couple of weeks ago, I found myself singing along to almost every Christmas song that was being piped in through the speakers. There were Christmas seasons when I worked at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club that I HATED Christmas music because it was all you heard over your shift and hearing the same few songs, and ones you haven't picked, a whole bunch of times gets to be old very, very, very, very quickly.

Anyways, these songs are in no particular order but these are my favorite songs come around Christmas-time. Some you hear alot, some you hardly hear or don't hear at all unless you have the CD. Here it goes, please enjoy and let me know your personal faves.

Title........................................Artist
All I Want For Christmas is You.............Mariah Carey
Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)..............Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Ornament....................................Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Old City Bar................................Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Santa Claus is Coming To Town...............Bruce Springsteen
Merry Christmas Baby........................Bruce Springsteen
That Spirit of Christmas....................Ray Charles
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)....................John Lennon
Please Come Home for Christmas..............Jon Bon Jovi
White Christmas.............................Bing Crosby
I'll Be Home For Christmas..................Bing Crosby or Michael Buble
The Christmas Song..........................Nat King Cole
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas......Frank Sinatra
Blue Christmas..............................Elvis Presley
Christmastime is Here (with vocals).........Vince Guaraldi Trio
Where Are You Christmas?....................Faith Hill

Well, those are my Christmas songs and the ones that can always bring a twinkle to my eye, a song to my lips, a tap to my foot and the Christmas spirit to my heart.