Lyving Well

Weight Loss Wednesday

2008-10-15T08:27:00.002-04:00

As I announced 2 weeks ago I have embarked on a new weight loss journey. I am happy to announce a large measure of success on this front. I am currently down approximately 15 pounds.

My day consists of eating a tossed salad with chicken around 8 or 9 am, and then around 4 or 5 pm I have 2 glasses of carrot juice. I am up to running .8 miles and walking .8 miles a day.

If you want to see what inspired this change, go to http://www.judges3-17.com.

Weight loss Wednesday

2008-10-01T16:11:00.002-04:00

It has been awhile. Been very busy, dad in and out of hospital two more times, busy at work, and busy at home. All that being said, I am going to try to get back at it.

Weight loss update-

I did not meet my goal for vacation and went on vacation as a fat man. But there is hope. I have a few bets going targeting end of year weight loss. So far my strategy for losing weight is proving fruitful. I will keep you all updated.

Financial Friday

2008-07-18T15:01:00.000-04:00

I think the template is fixed. I will verify that this weekend when I get to my desktop which has firefox.

Financial-With the current economic climate, I am going to feature a collective effort we can all make to help the economy and the impact it will make. I write this from a premise that an economy where the consumer has less debt is stronger than an economy where a consumer has more debt.

The weeks idea-Don't go to, buy, or rent movies for one month. I read today that we spend 90 billion a year on movies. 90 billion is 7.5 billion a month that we are throwing away on entertainment. This does not include the popcorn, drinks, etc.

After a month then go see what you want. Hollywood will not starve from one month lost, and we will have an extra 7.5 billion dollars to pay down debt. Wow, 7.5 billion less debt. That would be awesome.

Next week, a new idea.

Mental Monday

2008-07-14T15:01:00.001-04:00

Mondays are all about expanding our minds and keeping them healthy. One of the best ways to do this is to learn new things. For me, I have put my speed reading and language learning on hold so I can fix my template. This is definitely new territory for me. Here is to healthier brains. Hopefully, I can get more in depth in my posting again once I fix this.

Spouse Saturday

2008-07-12T22:28:00.001-04:00

I love my wife.

On a completely seperate note, I noticed that my site is unreadable in firefox due to template problems. These must be fixed.

Financial Friday

2008-07-11T15:01:00.001-04:00

Well life knocked me away from keeping up here again. My dad being in a motorcycle accident and being in the hospital has taken its toll on my time. However, I am still here and trying to pursue my freedom.

To that end, I will be launching a new venture last week. I am very excited about this, and I am laying the foundation now for a great roll out. I will keep you all posted when that happens. It should be no later than next Friday.

Current venture updates-

Feed your Family/ Feed the World- slow and steady wins the day and that describes our progress. Yes I would like it to be faster, but I can be patient.

Magazine- Due to some misrepresentations from the previous owner, and her absconding with some funds due us, this is not going the best. This should be solved by next weeks announcement.

Until next time...

Fatherhood Tuesday

2008-07-01T15:01:00.000-04:00

What a month this has been. My ten year wedding anniversery, my oldest childs birthday, increased obligations at church and more. Not complaining, but I am sorry for dropping the ball here. Time to pick it back up.

I posted the following on a forum I am quite active in The Fastlane To Millions. It illustrates one of my more proud moments as a dad. I hope you enjoy.

Post 1:
For the past few months I have been working out the details of an invention I have been working on. A couple weeks ago we were getting our kids ready for bed. Me in the bedroom getting some dressed, and my wife in the bathroom overseeing the teeth brushing.

I hear her say "that is a really good idea Jonah, you should tell daddy." So my 4.5 year old son comes and tells me his idea. He see his sister has a toy that does x, he said, "they should make a y toy that does the same thing."

I was blown away. Not only was this a good idea, it was infinetly more marketable than the idea I had been working on. Within a day, I had 2 companion product ideas as well.

Today I began working on the sketches to submit with the patent.

Next week file patent and create sales sheet.

end of next week, beginning of the following week, start calling manufacturers about licensing.

If all goes well, my son will be one of the youngest patent holders in the U.S.

All because my wife took the time to listen.

Post 2:
This was really cool as a dad on many levels, but the three best parts were-

1. he did not fuss and say "why don't I have something that does that" which is typical

2. he looked for a solution and thought outside the box, a little scary considering he is only 4.5, I am afraid he will be able to out reason me by 10 instead of 15 like I was hoping

3. when I showed him what I created on photoshop today and asked him what it was, he said "oh, that is y that does z" In his mind it is already a reality, it is just a matter of waiting for its arrival. That was cool. FYI, my photoshop skills are extremely limited, so his mind created the reality more so than my skills.

Financial Friday

2008-06-06T15:01:00.000-04:00

The Economics of Gardening-

Gardening is one of the quickest, healthiest, and most fun ways to improve your personal economy. I will give examples below, but before that, I must first let you know that when I garden, I only garden organically. So if you are into ingesting all those chemicals, you need to figure in those costs into you calculations.

Strawberries-
Five years ago I bought 6 strawberry plants for $10. Due to poor placement, 2 died the first year leaving me with 4 strawberry plants. Traditional strawberry plant care calls for you remove plant runners (the means by which strawberries create new plants). The theory behind this is that it keeps the 'mother' plant from reducing its energy and allows it to put more into nexts years fruiting, thus yielding bigger fruit.

Since I was more concerned with filling in my strawberry patch than I was with gigantic fruit, I did not listen to this. Each year our harvest would grow.

This year, I finally decided to measure the amount we have picked. In our first picking we have picked 8 quarts. At $4 a quart, that is $32 we saved by growing our own. Not bad for a $10 investment. Based on what has yet to ripen, I predict we will get another 12-16 quarts out of the garden.

Boiled down, a $10 investment now yields about $100 worth of produce each year.

Tomatoes-

I love growing tomatoes, but I do not like eating them. That is where my kids and my wife come in. This year I planted 4 plants which cost me $12. This should yield close to $250 worth of tomatoes. Very little work is involved in growing tomatoes, so the yield is quite nice.

Blueberries-

This year we planted two blueberry bushes. They seem to be growing quite well. They will not fruit this year, but they should create a bountiful harvest for years to come.

Random Thursday

2008-06-05T15:01:00.002-04:00

For this Random Thursday, I will update you on my projects.

Christian Focus Magazine-We just finished sending out the final issue created by the previous owner, and we are about to put to bed our next issue. It is more work than I had anticipated, but it is fun and I am enjoying it greatly.

Feed Your Family Feed The World- We are negotiating with someone to be our sole distributor. This should remove our need for warehousing. I anticipate break even by the end of next year which will be nice.

Amish Family Pantry-Trafic has been slowly increasing. Our keywords ranking has been go quite well. This has been a fun experiment. We will see what it delivers.

Weight Loss Wednesday

2008-06-04T15:01:00.000-04:00

One minor success, and two failures highlight this weeks report.

Success-I made it through this week abstaining from the wonderful ice cream treats available to us in our snack cabinet. Oh how I miss them. Even more so, I miss Mountain Dew, but I succeeded in making it through another week Dew free.

The next step for me is to remove all candy bars from my diet. This will leave only pop tarts as having any appeal in the snack cabinet. I also have tic tacs at my desk. So I am reduced to tic tacs and pop tarts.

Failure- I failed to do my full work out this week. I was tired and it just did not happen. I need to redouble on this.

Also, I failed to lose any weight, so now I am behind.

Hopefully next week will bring better news to report.

Fatherhood Tuesday

2008-06-03T15:01:00.002-04:00

So far, after being a father for almost 5 years, I have two favorite books on parenting.

On Becoming Babywise by Gary Ezzo- This is the best book I have read for starting out as a parent. Through the recommendations in this book, all of our children slept through the night consistently by 8-9 weeks old. A must have book for any parent.

The Five Love Langueges of Children by Gary Chapman- A book about loving your child in the way the need loved which may or may not be the way you naturally love.

Hope you all get a chance to read them.

Mental Monday

2008-06-02T15:01:00.000-04:00

I have been listening to "Making A Good Brain Great" by Daniel Amen M.D. Among other recommendations to garner a healthy brain, Dr. Amen, recommends trying to learn new things. He goes into the scientific reasons why this is, but honestly my brain has not advanced that far yet. Maybe if I implement his various tips, I will be able to more fully comprehend his science behind his recommendations.

To that end, I have begun to learn Italian using the Rosetta Stone. So far I am very impressed with their system and how quickly I seem to be picking it up. This serves a dual purpose for me. Not only will it expand my brain, but it will also move me closer to my goal of someday relocation to Italy.

My other chief venture in mental expansion is speedreading. For this venture I chose to use EYEQ. Through three sessions I have increased my speed by 20% to almost 500 words per minute. Once I have this mastered I will move on to photoreading.

Spiritual Sunday

2008-06-01T19:07:00.002-04:00

Today for Spiritual Sunday I pose a question?

How has the perception of spirituality changed in the American church in the last 100 years?

Spouse Saturday

2008-05-31T15:24:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I wrote about a family and marriage that faces a financial crisis. This family is on their way to recovery, and I wrote about practical steps to implement when crisis hits. Today we will look at finances in a marriage.

Separate
There has been a growing trend in the last generation and more so in this generation of marriages. This trend has been that couples keep their money separate after marriage. They split household bills, and then they have 'his money' and 'her money'. This is a recipe for marriage troubles.

Marriage is about trust and teamwork. Two people pulling together towards one common goal are much more likely to reach that goal than two people pulling separately towards two separate goals. In a team environment, the marriage finances can flourish.

Sometimes I get asked what to do if you cannot agree on a goal. This is then no longer a money issue, but a marriage issue. It is times like this where both sides have dug in their heels and will not budge that I recommend meeting with a professional marriage counselor. With the help of a counselor, you can overcome these differences.

Another issue that comes up is that one spouse does not trust the other spouse to control 'their' money. Once again, this is a marriage issue, not a money one. If you cannot trust your spouse on everything, then you have a problem. Satan will use that opening and push more and more issues through it. Love is based on trust.

Did you ever hear the phrase, "Divide and Conquer?" The truth behind that statement is that one person is easier to conquer than two. Conversely, two are stronger than one. So if you want to build a strong financial house, then two together are better than two apart.

Together

Together is just what it says. Decisions are made together, bills are paid together, money is invested together, it all is together. Even though these things are together, there are different ways to implement them.

1. Decisions are made together- My wife and I tend to discuss the big purchase decisions at length. However smaller ones, we trust each others judgement. We have built this trust over 10 years of marriage, so she knows that I will not on a whim go to Lowes and buy $1,000 worth of tools, and I know she will not go and buy $1,000 worth of new clothes. It takes time to work this out, but once you do and the boundaries are in place your marriage will be stronger.

2. Bills are paid together- My wife actually does the physical part of paying the bills. She used to be a bookkeeper, and she is very good at this. I am not. However, every month, we look at the bills together and do a check to see if we have enough to cover, or how we will cover them. So even though she is writing the checks, the responsibility is on both of us.

3. Money is invested together- My wife is satisfied if the bills are paid. She is not big on investing. I am. However, we still talk through the investments on at least a monthly basis. If I am considering a rental property, I discuss it with her. If the stock market punished me, I discuss it with her. This is not her cup of tea, but we still walk the path together.

Together you will be successful. Work together, plan together, and you will stay together.

Financial Friday

2008-05-30T15:01:00.001-04:00

Today and tomorrow are going to be a two part series tied to one event. I recently heard of a gentleman whose wife had run up over twenty thousand dollars in credit card debt and hid it from him. She was using money that was supposed to being paying extra towards their mortgage and paying the minimum balances on these credit cards.

Today we will take a look at how to handle this financial crisis when it hits you. Tomorrow we will at money in the marriage relationship.

Disaster
How do you dig out from a hole like this? This gentleman was/is by no means wealthy, and now he realizes even less so. One day you are feeling like you are starting to make some financial headway, and the next you have fallen into a whole. Here are some practical steps to move forward:

1. Calm Down- Take a deep breath. One way or another, you will get through this. Do not panic. It is only money. You mental well being is more valuable than this, so stay calm. You will think more clearly if you are calm.

2. Be A Detective- This is all about finding out if you have in fact discovered the bottom, or if there is another shoe about to drop. As we are told in the Bible, a wise man counts the cost before building a tower, and you need to know how much this is going to cost you before you can plan on addressing it. So dig deep and find out the truth, no matter how painful it is.

3. Stop The Bleeding- In circumstances like this, where a spouse is involved, I recommend getting the help of a good marriage counselor to walk you through this. But no matter what, the bleeding needs to stop. Whatever caused this surprise crisis whether it be gambling, drugs, shopping or whatever, it needs to stop. No sense throwing a shovel full of dirt in a hole while someone is shoveling out two.

4. Create A Plan- To do this, you need to line up the debt biggest to smallest. Physically, take each credit card bill and line it up on your kitchen table to compare. You will pay these off now from smallest to biggest. History has proven that this is psychologically more effective than worrying about interest rates. If you have any sort of savings, wipe out all but $1,000 of it and pay the rest towards the smallest balances. As you pay off a small loan, take the payment you were paying on it, and add that as extra payment on the next loan up the ladder. All the rest pay the minimum on until you get to them. Do not worry, you will get to them.

I do allow for one possible alternative to this. If most of your rates are above 15%, and you have equity available in your home, I think tapping that equity to consolidate into a lower interest loan would be prudent if and only if you have effectively implemented step 3. This allows you to take all those extra interest payments and dig out even faster. Once again, I need to stress, DO NOT DO THIS IF THE SPENDING PROBLEM HAS NOT STOPPED! You will just exasperate the problem if it is not.

5. Make Some Extra Money- Every extra dollar you make will help you dig out even faster. I generally believe that the party responsible for the hole should shoulder the lion share of the extra work to dig out of it. However, I do not think it should be 100%. You are both in this together, so work as a team even if one is pulling harder than the other.

Conclusion- Clearly there will be some trust issues after this incident that will need dealt with. Once again, I recommend doing this in the presence of a trained marriage counselor. Your marriage is more important than money.

Random Thursday

2008-05-29T15:01:00.001-04:00

This week's issue of Random Thursday comes from our site. Today I did a lot of work on the design. For me this was exhausting.

People are always throwing around the term 'Web 2.0.' I am still trying to understand Web 0.2.

I tried adding some categories of posts, grouping each day of the week together to make it more functional. Obviously there are still many changes needed which I will try to keep working on over the coming weeks if my brain does not explode in the process.

Besides this, I my brain is suffering from no Mountain Dew in over a week, and on top of that my youngest child woke up around 3 AM crying. All wakeness, and no sleep makes Kurt a grumpy man.

My goal for tonight is to get a good nights sleep. Now that The Office season is over, we have a shot at it. I hope all you get a good night as well.

Weight loss Wednesday

2008-05-28T15:01:00.002-04:00

Hosting Issues
On Thursday of last week we having some issues with our host company. Their site, and every site with them crashed and was unavailable. This affected some of our posts getting posted in a timely manner. This is now resolved and hopefully we will not see this again going forward.

Weight loss
Consumption-
I have successfully made it through a week without any Mountain Dew. An achievement I am quite proud of. It has not been easy, but I will keep on this path for the sake of my health.

This week my goal is drop out the during the week ice cream. Our snack cart at work as various ice cream novelties to tempt me each day. These range from fudge bars, to ice cream sandwiches, to snickers ice cream bars. All these wonderful treats which I love to consume. BUT NO MORE! By next week I should be telling you that I made it through the week without any. Tune in to find out.

Exercise-
This week was not great. I had off work Friday and Monday which are my two exercise days besides Wednesday. However, with the various activities taking place this weekend, I did burn a fare amount of a calories. Probably not equal to, but I think close.

Progress-
Drum roll please. I weighed in this morning and am down 2 pounds. This puts us well on our way to our goals. I think the biggest factor for this was the missing Mountain Dew, but whatever it is, progress is progress, and I will take it.

Three more weeks until you get a new picture of me. Just to give you plenty of warning.

Fatherhood Tuesday

2008-05-27T15:01:00.002-04:00

This past weekend, on three different occasions, I had to witness pain in my children and be able to do very little to fix it. As Dad's and men in general we tend to be fixers. That is our natural inclination. Show us a problem and we will fix it. However that is not always possible.

The first incident occurred after we came home from eating as a family at a restaurant. This particular restaurant gives this children balloons as they leave. For this reason alone, this is one of my kids favorite restaurants.

Balloons
As we got out of the minivan and were walking towards our steps, our littlest balloon came off the string bumped into the overhang of our garage roof, and all of sudden, Dad (me) with Mr. Myagi type reflexes, snatches the balloon out of the air and saves the day.

Then my oldest daughter's balloon bumped against the overhang and popped. Tears were forthcoming like lies from a politicians mouth. She was devastated, and there was nothing I could do to fix it.

As I watched my wife comfort her, I had climbed our stairs and was on our porch looking down at them. Out of the corner of my eye, I see our middle daughter right below me, loose her grip on her balloon. Once again, my Myagi like reflexes saved the day. I reached out a snatched to string right before it was too late. Thank you Karate Kid.

Bikes
At our family picnic on Sunday, my brother in law had brought bikes for his kids to ride. These bikes were kindly shared with my children as well. This was greatly appreciated since I had not thought to bring bikes for our kids.

I was sitting enjoying conversation with a relative when I noticed my daughter riding down a hill way too fast. Her fall at the bottom was brutal. There were about 20 years separating us, and I have not sprinted that fast since High School.

Upon reaching her, I scooped her up and held her. She was bleeding slightly from her knee and elbow. After bandaging her, the tears kept flowing. She kept telling me that her knee still hurt even after the band-aid was on. My children have a belief that band-aids relieve pain, so this was difficult for her to understand.

These are the moments when as a dad you wish you knew magic. You wish you could just take their pain away immediately. But alas we cannot. Within a few hours she was back on the bike again, so all was well.

Balls
I was trying to teach my four year old son to play catch. Things were going well and he decided to back up some. The first toss at this point hit him in the leg. He said ow, but that was the extent of it. The second toss was a repeat of the first.

A dad with more wisdom would have had him move closer at this point, but that would have made too much sense. So for a third time, I tossed him the ball. This time I tried to give it a little more loft so he would have more time to watch it a grab it. He watched it all right, right up until it hit him in the eye and nose.

Slight bleeding from the nose, and many tears from the eyes. Even more so when he saw the blood. The boy freaks out when he is bleeding and this was not exception. It took about 30 seconds for the nose to stop bleeding and about 10 minutes to calm him down. Not my brightest dad moment.

Conclusion
Even though our tendency is to be Mr. Fixit, being a great dad is not about that. Being dad is about being there. Being part of your kids lives. Kissing booboos, holding through the tears, and just being there. That is the key.

Fatherhood is trial and error. However, to try and error, you need to be present.

Mental Monday

2008-05-26T09:41:00.003-04:00

Today is Memorial Day here in the U.S. Quite honestly, I am going to do nothing but get some long delayed chores completed around the house. Due to that, this will be short.

For future Mental Monday's, here is what you can expect-

Speedreading- I am using the Eyeq speed reading course, I will keep you up to speed (pun intended) on my progress.

Learning Italian- I have wanted to learn Italian ever since High School. Due to lack of discipline, I have not to date. However, I now have The Rosetta Stone. This I will use to actually learn the language this time. Hopefully within a few short months I will be able to type a short example of what I have learned for you.

Photoreading- I have heard a bit about this on some forums I belong to. I got a copy of it, and will explore whether or not it is bunk, or legit.

Other Brain Health Info- As I come across tidbits in my journey to brain health, I will post them here for you to enjoy.

Well that is all, I must go mow the lawn before starting the rest of my list.

Enjoy the day.

Spiritual Sunday

2008-05-25T12:41:00.001-04:00

Today I finished teaching a class on the Christian Reformation. Throughout the 12 week course, I was constantly awed by the dedication these men made to bringing about much needed changes to the church.

Without fail, the reformer, be it Luther, or Hus, or many others, would make a stand on what the scripture said, only to be called a heretic by a church authority. It blows my mind that a church claiming to be founded on God's word would have such audacity.

Please do not get me wrong. I am not intending to be anti-catholic with this post. I am fully aware that the catholic church has changed quite dramatically since this time period. My comments and observations are on the church at that time.

One of the biggest battles many of the reformers fought was to get the Bible translated into the language of the common man. Many gave their lives to make this happen. This was particularly convicting for me.

How often do we so callously disregard the Word. Rarely taking the time to read and learn it. I know I am one of these. What a powerful indictment against us that someone would give his life so we can have it, and we just blow it off.

Lets all make a decision, myself included, to spend more time getting to know God by spending more time in His Word.

Spouse Saturday

2008-05-24T10:01:00.001-04:00

Today is my wife's birthday. She is finally the big 30. Obviously a milestone event and one which I should do something special for her. Something for her to remember.

With this goal in mind, and fully realizing I am not of my wife's demographic(stay at home mom with four kids under the age of five), I contacted several other stay at home mom's and asked for their input. Would they rather have a surprise party or a day without kids? Overwhelmingly, the no kids option was the top choice.

I originally thought about taking my wife out of town for the night to make it really special. Then I realized that we would be going out of town for 3 nights in June for our 10 year anniversary, and the budget constraints would not allow me to do so.

So then I was struck by inspiration. My wife's love language is Acts of Service. So I plan on becoming child free around lunch, and then offering my wife the opportunity to pick whatever she wants done around the house.

After almost 10 years of marriage, one thing is certain. What makes my wife happy, and what makes me happy are two different things. My job is and needs to be to find what makes me wife happy and do that.

That is what selfless love is about. Am I a pro? Haha, not yet, but I am working on it. Why? Because this is the legacy I want to leave my kids. A loving home that they can model for their kids, my grand kids.

Financial Friday

2008-05-23T15:01:00.000-04:00

Financial success means many things to many people. For some it is status, for others it means security, and for others it signifies power. For myself, none of these trapping hold sway with me.

For me and many others, financial success equals freedom. Freedom to give abundantly. Freedom to spend limitless time with family. Freedom to pursue dreams. Freedom is the destination, not wealth.

For me I take this mindset deeper. When confronted with ongoing expenses like high speed Internet, cell phones, cable, car payments, etc., I convert them into hours worked.

For instance, no too long ago I was making $15/hour. Once the greedy self serving politicians were through with it, I was left with about $12/hour. This means that cable currently running approximately $36/month would force me to work three hours to pay that off.

After that, I annualized it. So now I know that I need to work an extra 36 hours a year just to pay for cable. Taking it a step further, if I retire after 40 years in the work force, that means I had to work an extra 1440 hours to get to retirement just because I wanted cable. Further put, I tacked on an extra 8 months on my working life just to pay for cable.

Kind of sick isn't it. Wipe out your cable, wipe out your car payments, lower your Internet speed, and how much sooner could you be free of the job that enslaves you. The 8 months actually grows greater if you figure in the interest you could earn on these savings over your lifetime.

So freedom is our goal, the question is, how will we get there? Keep checking in and I will update you on my progress.

Random Thursday

2008-05-22T15:01:00.000-04:00

For this issue of Random Thursday, I am going to write about one thing that is on just about everyone's minds these days: Gas Prices. As I type this, $4.00/gallon gasoline looks like it will soon be a bargain. So what is the cause, and what can we do about it?

The Cause:
The cause of high oil prices/gas prices can be tied to one thing- the falling value of the U.S. dollar. Why does this cause oil prices to rise? Because oil is currently traded in U.S. dollars. And just like inflation in other sectors of the economy, when the dollar value falls prices go up. Plain and simple.

There are some concerns about supply side issues like drilling in alternative areas, and investing in coal to oil technologies. However, these solutions would do little to mitigate the problem. They would dampen some of the speculative run up we have seen lately, but it would not address the foundational issue of worthless dollars being used to buy it.

A good indicator as to this being the cause is the price of gold also skyrocketing. When currency values fall, commodities rise. Dollar is down, all commodities are up.

Here is an excellent article on this.

Solution:
Basically the question now is, how do we strengthen the dollar?

The only answer is for our politicians to stop spending it so rapidly. The dirty little secret is, that although the politicians love to point their fingers at the oil companies and cry, "Shame", in reality they are the cause of the high oil prices.

They spend all the money, so the print more, and when that runs out, they print even more. Currently we have three candidates, almost two, running for president in the media. I am here to tell you that all three are the same. The will all take us to hell in a hand basket. The only difference is, what decorations will be on the basket.

We need to vote every single one of these bums out. The last 30 years has shown one thing and one thing only in regards to politicians. They only care about themselves first, their party second, their supporters third, and their country last. I do not care which side of the aisle a politician sits on, overwhelmingly they are the same.

I know even mentioning the name Ron Paul will turn many of you away. Many have swallowed the lines the RNC has pushed through the media in attempts to silence him. Try for a moment to look past all that and do some research for yourself. He has real answers to these problems.

Limited spending in our government is the only hope for the future. Politicians have sold our children's' children's' children's' economic future down the toilet.

Fortunately, for those that have caused these problems, the education system in this country is so inferior, that any hopes of clearing these deadbeats out is impossible. The only thing we can do is fight this one battle at a time.

Weight Loss Wednesday

2008-05-21T15:01:00.002-04:00

Well today officially starts my journey to slenderness. First a word of warning to everyone with a weak stomach. At the end of this post I have included some topless photos of myself. I will try to include new photos monthly so you can visually track my progress.

As to my goals. I mentioned my goal of losing 28 pounds by the end of 2008. Currently I am at 208, so this should have me at 180 by the end of the year. BMI says I should be 165, so there will be room to work next year.

However, our family is going to the beach on vacation in the middle of September. It would be nice to be able to feel comfortable taking my shirt off in public again. So this would actually mean I need to lose 7 pounds a month to lose 28 pounds by the time I leave. I do think this is doable, but I need to stay dedicated.

To that end, I will give you the good and the bad news. The bad news is, I eat like I want to have a heart attack at 30. Here is a sample eating day for me:
3 hard boiled eggs
A candy bar
Plate of Pasta
Vitamin water or Mountain Dew
Ice cream Sandwich
Granola bar
Supper of usually meat and Macaroni and cheese
A bowl of cereal no milk

And that is on a lite day. On a really bad day, ad in a few more candy bars and you get the picture. Clearly this is the most obvious area to attack. We will come back to this.

On the physical activity front of this war, I have had a measure of improvement lately. I have developed my own workplace workout which is seeming to be sticking with me on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. Still working on creating the habit on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The MWF workout utilizes my 2 union breaks per day, and 10 minutes of my lunch break. During those periods I will do the following:

20 bicep curls each bicep- 20 pound weight
30 triceps extensions- 20 pound weight
10 pec butterfly's- 20 pound weight
30 crunches- I need to up this soon
20 arm spread eagles- 5 pound weight
20 back lifts each arm 20 pound weight
15 backups- opposite of a sit up
15 push ups- yes I am that out of shape
20 hand raises each hand 20 pound weight
20 trap lifts each trap 20 pound weight

Clearly by the photos below, I am not completely up to date on all the fitness lingo. To that end, I made up the names of many of my exercises I engage in. Feel free to question what each one is if you want to know exactly what I am doing to get such great results.

Now back to the food front, my first step will be to eliminate the remaining two sodas a week I have been eating. After that, I need to reduce the snack food intake as well. Next week is my goal for the no sodas, I will keep you posted.

WARNING!! Once again, the pictures that follow may cause you to vomit on your keyboard. If this happens, do not blame me, you have been warned.

That being said, here I am in my current state:

Fatherhood Tuesday

2008-05-20T15:01:00.000-04:00

For this first issue of Fatherhood Tuesday, I want to take the time to give you my background as a father. This will be quite long, so get a cup of coffee.

Since I was young, I always enjoyed working with kids. Some might say I liked being around people on my maturity level, but those people are not worth listening to. Anyway, I usually took the time to volunteer helping to teach the kids at church when I was in High School. When I was in College, I regularly taught them on my own. It was always a joy.

When my wife and I got married, we both knew we wanted to have a large family. We waited 2 years to begin trying so I could graduate from college and find a stable job. Well we started trying and nothing happened. For two and half years we tried.

We went to the fertility doctors and there answer was that all the test came back good, they did not know what was wrong, so take these hormone pills. Whoever heard of prescribing something for something that you do not even know what it is? I found this totally maddening.

After one cycle of the pills we decided to stop. They were too emotionally difficult on my wife, so we quit. We decided to pursue other options.

We spent about a year trying to find babies to adopt. We sent the word out to everyone, we looked on our doorstep, we were even getting near considering kidnapping. Just kidding, but I wanted to give you an idea of the level desperation infertile parents achieve.

After no leads on any potentially adoptable babies, we decided to pursue foster to adoption. This required six classes with the county to certify we were able to parent.

After our first class we got a call from a friend of ours about a birth mother wanting to give her baby up for adoption. This was a perfect illustration of God at work. The birth mother was in the hospital visiting her father with a broken arm. Our friends great Aunts used to take her to Bible School when she was a child, and 'happened' to be at the hospital because one of them was ill. They 'happened' to pass each other in the hallway. The birth mother pointed to her stomach and said, "Do you know anyone who wants a baby?"

Wow, I still get a little teary eyed just typing this. There were some ups and downs in the whole ordeal until the adoption was final, but God saw us through.

To make matters better, about a month later we found out we were also expecting. So now the size of our family doubled within a year. Our oldest two children are six months apart in age. We took our daughter, our first child, home from the hospital the Saturday before Father's Day 2003. The next day, Father's Day, I spent laying on the couch with my baby on my chest. This is one of the best days of my life.

Our son was born six months later, 4 days before Christmas. To this day he is my best bud and pal. At four years of age, I am honored to be his father, and cannot imagine how our Father sent his Son to die for us.

God was not finished at this point. About a year later, we got a call from the birth mother, she was expecting again and wanted to know if we wanted to adopt this child as well. Of course we said yes. So in November of 2005, our second daughter was born. She is a lover and is so precious.

A week after we brought her home from the hospital, my wife went to the doctors to get a physical for the adoption process (mandated in Pennsylvania). Yep, you guessed it. Pregnant again. Our youngest is eight months younger than her sister. She is my little peanut. Born in July of 2006, she may be our last. We plan it that way, but who knows what God has planned.

So there you have it. Those are my credentials. Each week I will be bringing either a funny anecdote from my kids, or a lesson learned from fatherhood. I hope you enjoyed.