30 days of resolutions

Long time no post...I have been doing a lot of personal development reading.  And I have joined a leadership business called LIFE.  This business has put some incredible information into my life.  Because of that information I have a better marriage, better financial understanding, a better relationship with my daughter, and a desire to help other people get some of what I have.

But, with this wonderful information comes a list...no, a plethora of activities that I want to do to continue to improve myself.  It is interesting that life was good I was fine with it being good, and could have gone on in good indefinitely.  But now that I have seen better I want to continue to improve.  I want to get to great, or marvelous, or maybe even magnificent.  So here is a list of resolutions (in chronological order) that I am going to do for the next 30 days.  Because change is a slow process and if I want to make the change from good to great I have to develop some new habits in my life:

Wake up on the first ring
             This is set for 6:40 right now but I am going to roll that back 10 min a week until 6:00
Read the Bible for at least 15 min
             I am currently working through the new testament and I am at Luke
Eat a healthy breakfast
             high protein, low carb, and delicious
Make it to work on-time
             believe it or not, this one is difficult for me
Work out 3 times a week
              running and resistance training
Get two peoples numbers to call to STP per day
             this is a LIFE thing and it is the main action in the business side of it
Listen to one LIFE or TEAM cd per day
             essential for improving myself
Read for 15 minutes out of a Top 5 book
             also essential for improving myself

I think that will do for now!

B-dubs and no weightloss

Last night I went to buffalo wild wings with some of my coworkers.  It was $.50 wing night, so we thought it was a good idea to take advantage of it.  I had one beer, cause I was driving, and a dozen wings and french fries.  I was so hungry by the time that we got there that my mind kept trying to convince me that I needed 18 or 24 wings, but I stuck with 12 and was stuffed by the time I finished.  I probably could have gone with 6 wings, but I was proud of myself for not ordering more than 12.

Today I got on the scale and I was still 230.  I didn't go up or down.  On top of B-Dubs, I had a ginormous shake for lunch.  I used peanut butter because I was talking to a guy and he said that it is really good for curbing hunger.  I definitely used too much, cause I felt sick the rest of the day.  I am going to stop putting everything I can think of in the shake (all fruit and veg of course) and start working on making something that is a little tasty.  I almost gagged on my afternoon shake.  It was awful!

I also made it to the gym and did another crossfit workout.  I definitely am looking forward to taking a day off.  I have to go to the gym with some friends tomorrow, but I think that I might take friday off.  I will probably go out for drinks Friday night, so I don't think that I will want to workout on Saturday.  Maybe that should be my day off.  My body is hurting...in the good way that tells me that I am using more muscles than I usually do. The only time it feels any kind of good is when I am about five minutes into my warmup run.  When the blood is pumping and I am cruising along.  Other than that it is all pretty painful.  But that will pass in the next couple of weeks and pretty soon I will be having to really push myself to get sore again.  But MAN, does it hurt today!

Weightloss

I made it to the gym again today.  I had to modify the crossfit workout because I can't do pull-ups right now and I can't do vertical pushups yet.  So instead I did thrusters, pushups, and walking lunges.  It was pretty intense, I wasn't able to go continuously through a round after the first set, but I did better than yesterday.

If the scale is to be believed, then I have already lost four pounds.  Of course I was wearing slightly different clothes, but that shouldn't make that much of a difference.  Either way, it is weightloss.

I am going to have to modify my diet once again.  I just get too hungry in between meals and it is making me have an upset belly after I eat.  I have decided to take a single piece of fruit in the morning and one after lunch.  This way, I am sticking with the vegan theme, but I am able to eat a little something to stave off the hunger.  I am going to try it tomorrow and see how it goes.

A Whole Lotta Change!

Ok, so a ton has happened since my last entry.  We didn't make it through the shake diet.  We made it two days and in the evening of the second day we had to eat something.  I went into this not realizing what a psychological effect chewing has on me.  It was incredibly difficult, not to eat so little.  I have dieted before and that is not something new, so I was prepared for that.  But the lack of chewing was just too much for me.  I did manage to lose a couple of pounds while I was on it.  So it was hard to justify eating, but it was something that had to be done.

Then, the following day I found out that I had to leave for Texas.  I am spending five months here and Jessi and Lil D are going to try to come out twice during that time.  Our parting was the hardest part of this current adventure.  Jessi and I have never been apart for this long.  We are definitely used to being apart, but we have never spent more than about a month and a half away from each other.  D and I have only been apart for a couple of weeks.  I know that Jessi is capable of taking care of the house and our daughter, and I thank God that she is.  It has been forced on her, but she has always risen to the challenge.  I am a lucky man!  But the thought of being away has been tough.  The act is never as difficult as the thought.  Physically being separated is the easy part.  The hard part is the emotional toll that it takes on me.  I haven't cried myself to sleep yet, but I am pretty confident that it is coming.

So to try to make this time go by more quickly, I am starting a workout routine and I have modified the Shaking diet a little.  I am still doing only vegan shakes in the morning and for lunch, but I can have an afternoon snack and a healthy (not necessarily vegan, or even vegetarian) dinner.  I will also be doing the Crossfit Endurance workouts of the day.  Well, I will be attempting them at any rate!  Here is the website. These guys don't mess around! The idea is that you do two workouts a day.  One traditional crossfit workout of the day (WOD) and a cardio workout.  These have to be split by at least 3.5 hours, but can be done in either order.  Because I am in Texas in Summer I am going to do the cardio in the morning, when it isn't too hot.  And the WOD in the afternoon, when I can stay in the gym.

Starting weight was 334, but that was fully clothed.  I am going to continue weighing clothed and hope for the best.  I have five months...I should be able to pull something off in that time!

Starting weight and day one!

Jessi and I have started a ten day reboot.  It is essentially a vegan diet that we don't eat...we make into shakes.  The idea is to super-load ourselves with vitamins, minerals...nutrients.  We are at the end of day one.  Four shakes in, more vegetables than we would normally eat in a week drank.  I feel pretty good, but I want to eat!  I don't really care which type of food.  I would be happy with popcorn.  Just something that I could sink my teeth into!  But 10 days isn't so bad.

Now to the starting weights.  I won't post Jessi's cause I am not sure she would want that.  But I am tipping the scales at 226 pounds on day one!  Hopefully we will get through it and come out on the other side a little thinner and a little more healthy!

Baby showers bring Baby flowers

Jessi offered to do a babyshower for a friend.  She has done one before. When we were quite a bit younger. This was the first one that she has done since coming into her own for party planning.  It was quite the success! I was super proud of her for pulling it off!

The friend wanted to have games. So Jessi came up with some good ones to play.  There was the sonogram scramble. Where the guest have to guess the body part on a sonogram picture.  We did the bottle chug, where adults race to see who can finish a baby bottle of applejuice first. We matched baby pictures to adult pictures. And finally tried to estimate a length of ribbon to the circumference of our friends belly.  I usually don't like playing the baby shower games, but these ones were pretty fun.  And everyone got involved which makes a world of difference. 

Delilah had a tough time. She wasn't able to nap. Which is always difficult for a baby. She was a trooper but towards the end she was having trouble holding it together.

First Day in Court

First, and hopefully the last, day in court.  Jessi and I have been trying to get our security deposit back from our landlord for almost a year now.  The carpet in our spare room was destroyed.  The cat has diabetes and before we figured it out she had been peeing outside of the litter box.  Because it was the spare room, we didn't notice it until the it was really bad.  And then we used the wrong technique to get it out of the carpet.  It was a disaster.  And the landlord thought that was reason enough for him to keep the deposit.

So, there is a surprising amount of prep work that can go into a court appointment.  I kept putting off the prep work.  I think that I was hoping that the problem would go away.  I don't do well with confrontation and confrontations involving money are my absolute worst.  I also don't do well when I am not allowed to speak freely.  Which makes court difficult for me, because it is necessary to present yourself in a manner that is respectful to the judge.  And that usually means only speaking when spoken to.  So I was scared of this particular endeavor, and because I was scared, I kept putting it off, hoping it would go away.

But back to the prep-work. First, we had to send a certified letter to the landlord telling him to repay the deposit within a certain timeline.  We did that back in September.  Then when the timeline that we had suggested past, we are able to get a court date.  That took me until December.  The court gave me a date for the 6th of February.  Then we had to serve the papers to our landlord.  With the help of a friend of mine, that was accomplished.  We had to do a substituted service, which basically means giving the court papers to someone at the home of the person being sued.

After all of the paperwork was done, we had to gather our evidence.  Which was a surprisingly little amount of evidence.  We had a few phone calls.  And a few text messages, and copies of our checks.  The interesting part is that we never actually had to use it.

We sat down in the courtroom and listened to a few cases before we were called.  Jessi and I went up to the front of the courtroom and our Landlord was there. The judge asked us what our case was and we told him.  He listened for a moment and then told our landlord that we were in the right.  And that he could counter sue us for the money that it cost to repair or replace the carpet.  And then we could counter sue because he didn't pay us in time or something.  The judge said that this could drag on for quite a while.  He then asked if we would be willing to step into the hall and try to talk it out.  Then we could come back in and if we needed him to he would rule, or if we could work it out he would just drop the case.

So we stepped into the hall and talked it out with The old landlord.  In the end, he agreed to give us six hundred dollars over the next two months.  We got the first installment at the end of the day. And we have a signed agreement to have him pay the rest!  Here's to hoping the rest of it comes!