Day 383 - Happy BDay Cathy

This week my wife has a birthday; Happy Birthday Cathy!

I wont say how old she is, but it is a milestone birthday and it may rhyme with 'orty'. That is all I'll say, don't want to give too much away.

There you see the flowers I sent to her at work this week. Those flowers are impressive if I may say so myself. But not nearly as impressive as her well organized desk.

You can tell allot by looking at a persons workspace, lets take a closer gander at her's shall we...

Photo's on the wall board, photos of 3 of our 4 kids. No photo of me, hmmm.... there is a photo on her desk too, a cool one. It is of her & her workmates standing with the Stanley Cup which visited her work place a few weeks back; so jealous I am.

Behind the flowers is a poster of Matt Kenseth, her favorite Nascar driver. My fave is Greg Biffle, the two are team mates so all is good there.

The wall calendar on the right is a Chicago White Sox calendar. She is a Sox fan, I am a Cubs fan. Somehow, we make it work. There is a desk calendar too, a page-a-day calendar; it too appears to be a Sox calendar. I should know what it is as I gave it to her for Christmas (I know, I am cutting edge when it comes to gift giving).

Stapler, appears to be a Swingline 747 classic model, good choice. Shows a sense of faith & determination, no?

Ream of paper at the ready, she either prints allot or is ready for the coming paper-shortage of 2011.

Is your desk/workspace as organized?

Myself, I can say that mine desk is as organized if not even a bit more so organized than hers. Organization is not always a sure sign of success however. Some of the most successful folks I know are terribly disorganized overall. But somehow when it comes time to perform at what is important, they excel like few others. I envy that mysterious ability. Simply for me, success comes from a organized approach

And enough of the organization sermon; all together now... 

Happy Birthday!

Oh, flowers were not all I got my wife for her birthday, recall this post in March where she got her other present a bit early.


Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 124 - Fielders Over Jackhammers

Good Morning!

Solid day of eating yesterday. Opportunities for temptation were snubbed by my insane focus on a crazy busy day at work. The picture you see to the left is my lunch from the office cafeteria; Grilled Salmon w/ Avocado Salsa, Stir-fried Veggies and Steamed Brown Rice. Overall our cafeteria is very friendly to those looking to live healthy. Of course there is also a line for burgers, pizza and other unfriendly choices.

In the evening my son & I were headed to a local minor league baseball game. Dining on ball park food for dinner did not appeal to me. Ok, it did appeal to me, but I thought better of such appealings. Instead we chose to go to Applebee's which was on the way. I am not a big fan of places like Applebee's, Chili's, Denny's, etc... to me these establishments rely on excessive salt & poorly administered seasoning to mask their inability to bring ingredients together to create flavor. But, Applebee's for convenience it was us last night. there I chose a dish off of the Under 550 Calorie menu, Spicy Shrimp Diavolo. It filled the void in my stomach, and I doubt it was just 550 calories, I'll leave it at that.

No exercise yesterday so I still need to get in another cardio and another strength workout before Sunday's weigh in. I plan to get in one or the other this evening.

As promised yesterday's log looked like this....

• 6a - Tomato Juice, Coleslaw (yes, I made too much the night before and wasn't letting it go to waste)
• 830a - More Tomato Juice,Banana
• 10a - Milk
• 1215p - Grilled Salmon w/ Avocado Salsa, Stir-fried Veggies and Steamed Brown Rice
• 6p - Spicy Shrimp Diavolo (seen below)

Baseball - Andrew & I went to see the Lake County Fielders host the Joliet Jackhammers last night; minor league teams have the best nick-names. Here are a few pictures of the game which Lake County won 6-4...

That is 'Lucky', the Fielders mascot. He was one busy dog between innings.

The Fielders fell behind 4-0 early and scrapped their way back with bunts like this.

Yes, bunt are seldom exciting, but this one was.

Between innings minor-league style. The John Deere Tractor-Tricycle race, the winner was neither of these dudes; they crashed into each other and wiped out.

Andrew cheking the stats in the program and recalling the days when he little & pony league ball played nearby.

Have an Amazingly Healthy Day! 

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 114 - Blog With Substance

Welcome to a new week everyone.

What do you have planned for your success this week?

Myself, EXERCISE, 4x this week minimum. EATING, balanced & sensibly portioned meals & snacks daily. FUN, if it aint fun I don't want to do it this week; sorry non-fun-stuff not this week. BLOG, The past week with all that has gone on at home I have not been as attentive to your blogs as I like, that changes today!

Thank you to my friend Marie at And then the refreshments come... for honoring me with this Blog With Substance Award!

Rules, the rules for the award are as follows:

1. Sum up your blogging philosophy, motivation, and experience in 5 words:
Hmm, sum up three things in five words; Ok, I like a challenge. Boisterous, Forthright, Tenacious, Enumerating, and Quintessential.

2. Pass it on to 10 other Amazing blogs:
I could honor so many many bloggers here. But I'll put up just 10 here somehow, enjoy the award folks, my pleasure to honor you!
Allan @ ALMOST GASTRIC BYPASS
Julie @ Julie Lost And Found
Suzi @spunkysuzi working towards a healthier me
Clyde @ The Clydesdale Project
Tish @ Incremental Improvements
Vickie @ Vickie's Voice
Bobbie @ Anonymous Fat Girl
Manda Panda @ Candyland to Bandland
Trina @ Dropping the pounds, Picking up my life!!
Rapunzel @ In Pursuit of my Inner Pin-up

There, TEN... 10 of nearly 100 I follow and am so grateful to share my days with.

As noted yesterday my son & I went to the Cubs game. They lost, 11-4, typical for me attending a game. I had trouble uploading pics from the stands yesterday, all I got off was the sunflower seed shot; so I didn't take many pics as it were. But here are a few from the game...

The famous Wrigley Field manually operated scoreboard. This was before the game started and they put up all of the zeros the Cubs were producing...











This embarrassingly I must share was my seat at the game; look at the damn I-Beam pole in front of me? When I got the tickets from Stub-Hub there was no reference at all to Limited View seating. None. Argh...

Last but not least, there is Andrew on the 'L' train texting who knows which of a handful of bff's... Notice his shirt if you can, "Failure Is Not An Option"; Amen to that...











Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

No peanuts for me, Jalapeno seeds please...

MMMMmmmm

Day 83 - Pix 4 U

Slightly different kind of post today for me, one based in pictures...

Food, I have to have food in a pic right. There on the upper-left you see lunch from yesterday, Whitefish Salad, from the South Gate Cafe where my Mom took me for my birthday. Not sure why the pic came out looking so blusih. It was excellent! What is your take on fish skin? I don't care for it much unless it is cooked up to a crunch. Like poultry skin it does allot to add flavor to the meat but I find unlike poultry the fish skin itself is not a savory and this I usually strip it off after cooking and discard.


Below is my oldest son Andrew. Wednesday night we went to see a minor league baseball game. Anyone else here like minor league baseball? The Lake County Fielders are a new single-A team that is owned by Kevin Costner which he founded for Lake County. A great idea and we went to support them. The problem, well look at Andrew. He is all wet. Minutes after buying our tickets and getting our peanuts and drinks the skies opened up in a big way. Here we are standing under a concessions canopy waiting it out. But the game was cancelled. So we will go back another day with our rain checks.

Below is a fruit stand where I like to get locally grown fruit & veggies. The day I took that picture I hauled away a steal of a deal on bing cherries. Who here doesn't like cherries?

Below is a picture of our oldest Ashley taking a chomp out of a buffalo wing. Wings, is there a better bar food? This past Tuesday I worked from home and we had a power outage. Now outages always occur at the worst time of day tight?Yep, minutes before the start of the World Cup game between Uruguay & Spain. So, power out means internet out means I can't work; perfect! Off we went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the game and eat some wings. I was good, I only ate 3 of her 12 wings and I ate all of the celery.

Below is a picture of the middle son Ryan. Here he is hamming up a shot for me to send to his mom. Why I felt the need to send her this shot I am not sure, just having fun I suppose. Subway in hand, he wasn't in as good of a mood as the picture suggests. This was last week and he had tweaked his back at wrestling camp. We were waiting for CVS to fill his script for muscle relaxers so we thought we'd stop in for lunch at the Subway next door. The Subway Diet, a joke or something to consider?

Last but not least... Click here to see my fresh off the press 30% progress pictures.

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!