Day 410 - Have I Bored U Yet?

Welcome to Wednesday, Welcome to June; yes it is June already!

I'll resume the 14 part series on Leadership Traits soon. I never intended to present it 14 days in a row but to break it up over several weeks. Remember I have BADD, Bloggers Attention Deficit Disorder ADD, so I tend to jump topics from day to day without much rhyme or reason at times.

Actually I am way short on time this morning. We are moving within the office here. We do this every 12-18 months, shift everyone around to a different location within the corporate campus. Today is that day, today I am moving 14 columns to the north and 7 rows to the east. Our buildings are laid out like spreadsheets and cubical locations addressed similar to how a cell in a spreadsheet is addressed. Have I bored you yet? Have I scared you away from wanting to work here?

Anyhow, as I am short on time, let me share some recent photos of my days...
Up to there, my son's t-shirt he wore to the YMCA last week; hilarious.

And here Andrew is at the gym getting his curl on...

Ashley waiting for her cheesecake to arrive; we were at the Cheesecake Factory, what else would one wait for there?...

Cameron cleaning his rifle, notice the cat on the chair next to him? No animals,or cats, were hurt in publishing this post...

The family photo for Ashley's graduation; nice to see the boys dressed up for the occasion...

Me at the YMCA last week, taking a breather between sets I think...

My wife and Squishy after graduation; she has not let her go since...

Ribs going into the smoker on Memorial Day; they were my best yet!

Enjoy Your Wednesday!

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 352 - New Week, Plan-Awareness-Family

source

New Week, starts today; all weeks start on Monday's in my book. The calendar may say Sunday, but Sunday is part of the WeekEND, not WeekNEW.

New Week, it happens every seven days without fail, ready for it or not, it is here for you!

Are You Ready For It?

Myself, I am ready for this week. How do I know? Because I have a trio of things working for me.

ONE - Plan... I have a plan for the week, it is as follows...
Eating plan contains a F/C/P nutrient mix of 25% / 25% / 50% with no more than 2000 calories a day.
Exercise plan consists of 3x Cardio, 3x Weights & Stretching with each of those six.
Employment plan focuses on leading via accountable goal setting, open communication, mutual trust and just recognition.
Enjoyment plan starts today attending my daughters soccer game, and everyday this week I'll have fun at work, home and on the blogs.

TWO - Awareness... I am aware of what is to gain for executing my plan, and what is risk should I choose not to.
Anything I/we need and want is attainable if I engage my plan honestly and earnestly.
Everything can end in a heart beat if it's certainty is taken for granted or assumed.

THREE - Family... I have the rich fortune of a supportive family. My immediate family I've spoken of here previously on several occasions. Recently, motivated by the need to rally support in my cancer battle, I made my situation known to my family coast to coast. The word I sent out saw some supportive words returned to me.

An Aunt of mine who engaged in this same battle in the 90's shared a very strong & sound approach to the beast, she said, "I chose to assume that I would beat it and refused to allow the fear to grow any more than I couldn’t help." 
-Strength and Strategy decides battles, wins wars. I find her approach to contain both and I embrace it.

Another Aunt of mine offered very unique aid in my quest for both health and victory, she said, "So I could drink a liter of water for you or eat your brussell sprouts. I think your plan is sound, just keep at it and keep laughing."
-Anytime someone offers to eat brussell sprouts for you, take them up on it I say. While those veggies will certainly benefit her more than I, her reminder to keep laughing is key to getting well and staying well.

Like I said, I have the rich fortune of a supportive family.

How about you?... Have a Plan for the week?... Are you Aware of the stakes?... How does that someone, or many someones, in your Family support you?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 351 - Opening Day, Family Day, Now Sunday

Last day of spring break. For the kids, no doubt they are less than thrilled. For me, I'm Ok with it. Time to get on with the 83 things I have on deck at work, time for Cathy to get on with her own concerns where she works, and time for the kids on with finishing this school year.

Spring break has been fun sans the medical madness. Brief update on that madness, went for the MRI of the left knee yesterday. Hope to get results in advance of Thursday's blood test and oncologist appointment.
Back to the fun...

Friday Cathy & I went to Chicago Cubs opening day. Great time, minus the fact that the Cubs lost. It was a first for us in that we attended the game from a Rooftop venue. If you aren't familiar with Wrigley field, the apartment buildings along the streets along the outfield have stadium seating on their rooftops. The owners of these buildings have long cashed in on the fact that the games can viewed from the upper apartments & rooftops, and of course the Cubs get a piece of their action. Here is a cell phone pic which does no justice to the view we had...

As you can see the lights are on for the game, for an afternoon game. It was a dreary, cold, rainy day. Not rainy enough to delay or cancel the game, but dreary enough to make sitting outside less than enjoyable. Luckily for us these top floor of these apartment buildings are no longer apartments. They are bars complete with food buffet & big screens; food, drink and warmth all included in the price of the ticket. So this was our view of the game for most of the afternoon...

One bad pitch, hit over the wall for a grand slam, that one pitch is the only tarnish on our great day.

Yesterday we had the G'Mas & G'Pa over for dinner, no real occasion; just because. They wanted something special, so we smoked them pork shoulder and prime rib. I was off my grilling game  as I overcooked them a tad; shame on me. Cathy made up for my miscue with a fine job on the sweet potatoes and green beans. Along the way the the two G'Mas got together and made a bottle of wine go from full to empty. Conversation was largely a mix of the college visits to come, medical this & that and of course politics. A couple of pies for dessert capped off a great relaxing day with family.

So as I said, the last day of spring break is here, another day to make great. Off now to get in some exercise this morning before enjoying NASCAR this afternoon and Hockey this evening and who knows what else amongst it all.

What are you going to do to make this a great day?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 295 - Fit For Me & Familiy

Yesterday was a day of rest where my exercise is concerned. And much needed too. The soreness from the weeks workouts and snow removal needed the day to ease some.

Today is a new day and exercise was on the schedule. And that we did first thing today. Yes, I said we... My wife, two of my sons & I headed off to the YMCA first thing to get busy. My wife joined the Y last year so that she could swim. She was a swimmer in high-school & college so swimming is her exercise of choice.

Recently we expanded her membership to a family membership so that I can go with her and use some of the equipment there I do not have in my basement and never will. That and she suggested we do so as she'd be more apt to go and swim if I went to the Y too. So how could I say No to that?

Here are a few pictures of the boys & I getting busy. Nope, no pictures of my wife in the pool. But up top there I do have one of her pitching in to remove the snow the snow plows pushed back in our driveway over night...

Cameron getting to know the fun that is SQUATS

Andrew working through a set of LAT PULLDOWNS

I've had core on the mind allot lately and so making use of this INCLINE SITUP bench was a must.

Don't be too impressed, it is inclined just one notch above horizontal to the floor.

Cameron found the CROSS CABLE FLYS a challenge

We finished with some BACK-TO-BACK MEDICINE BALL TWISTS w/ a 12 pound ball.

Since there were three of us we rotated someone in/out on each 12 count.

In the end we each had participated in three sets of 24.

 

We had a BLAST.

 

What are you going to do this weekend to have a BLAST of your own!

 

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 253 - Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

We had a blast hosting our Christmas gathering yesterday. The kids had a "blast' wearing these shirts their Mom bought for them in Florida last summer and saved for Christmas. As soon as the photo was over Thing 3 & 4 ditched the shirts quickly. Thing 1 & 2 were fine wearing them for the day.

Everyone scored nicely in the gift department. A couple of things I received; above a cool pair of weight lifting gloves and an Olympic curl bar (thought I took a picture of the bar but guess not)... and below a page-a-day desk calendar about bacon (perfect for the guy looking to lose weight)...

Hope you and yours have a very Merry Christmas!

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 224-226 Unplugged & Recharged

Good Morning Everyone! Hope all had a great weekend, and great holiday weekend at that. Did you?

Mine was quite good. For the most part I unplugged after Friday morning's post. A combination of allot planned with the family and just a need to mentally take a break from all of the structures that are my daily norm. Call it a mental vacation without going anywhere, just putting my mind at ease on other things.

A good decision too as I am ready for the new week re: work, home and health.  My brief stint away was not an unhealthy deviation from good sense. Had it been I wouldn't call it unplugging but rather unproductive.

Friday was largely spent at a wrestling tourney with Ryan which I spoke of with Friday's post. Ryan is a sophomore who wrestles on the J-V team. He was called up to the varsity team for the tourney to fill a void at his weight class; 189 pounds. His coach was upfront with him that this would be tough facing juniors & seniors many of whom have gone to state before. Just do the best you can for as long as you can and don't worry if you get your butt kicked. He lost both of his matches but he held his own. Mommadesure he knew that while he was beaten but his butt was far from kicked...

Before all of that wrestling excitement Friday morning started with my dropping Ryan off at the high school and then racing off (I almost typed 'scurrying', but I don't scurry!) to the sporting goods store for my foray into Black-Friday early bird madness. I do not hit the stores in the dark-hours on Black-Friday or any day no matter what the savings. But this store had a dang good combo deal on a 300-pound set of olympic weights and bar (pictured above) so I ventured into the madness. It wasn't too bad as the looney-tunes that camp out and lose sleep over sales had come and gone by the time I got there. Picked up a bench with leg attachment to use the new weights with. Oh these are not gifts, well I guess you can say they are for me and anyone else who wants to use them. But no wrapping paper needed. Came right home and set it all up in the brief window of time I had before it was off to watch wrestling.

Saturday was all about holiday prep. My wife and I took got in some shopping in the morning after breakfast allowing all of that day's early a.m. shopping-crazies to get in and out before us. Back home for a bit I got in the first workout on the new weights before rallying the boys to bring up the bins of holiday decorations and get that stuff out on the lawn. Well, we got started on it but soon came to remember that at the end of last year I threw away many items which were either broken down, tattered or just no longer wanted. This left us with way too little for the job. So off my wife & I went for another round in the stores to replenish the holiday decorations and as well we picked up the Christmas tree. Got a good one too, this thing just sucks up water like a sham-wow sucks money from the pockets of the easily entertained. Came home, got all of that set up and done which wore me out more so than the weights. Topped the day off by escorting my son and his girl friend to the movies. They made sure to sit on the opposite side of the theatre from my wife & I while we took in Due Date. ZZZzzz, I was ready for bed before bed was ready for me.

Sunday, a mix of fun. Up early and out the door with Andrew for a few hours of hunting on the last day of the regular gun season. We saw nothing, except other hunters; no deer for me...

We got in a good dose of cardio walking all over the public wildlife area we opted for this day. After coming home, a hot shower and a bowl of cereal; my wife & I were back out hitting various stores to try and knock out more Christmas shopping. If I had to guess we're about 60% done which means we'll go back out for the rest next weekend.

When we got home Andrew & I played darts on last time for the weekend. He has finally improved enough where he wins 1/2 the time. Over the course of the weekend he has amassed two more wins than I had so he was on the verge of winning a weekend series for just the second time. Bang, bang, I won two games quick and the weekend series was tied at 12-12... one more had to be played and nothing should ever, never-ever, end in a tie; right? Perhaps I should have settled for the tie as he rocked me in the deciding game. Man, next weekend he is so mine!

Ok, that is it; my weekend wrap up. Good fun, good time unplugging, good to ready to go for a new week.

Are you ready for the new week? 

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 167 - Fun, Need More

Our picture riddle yesterday was fun for some good guesses. The most popular guess was the tassel rope/cord on a on a graduation cap. And that certainly was close, but not quite right. My fave guess was it being "polypropolene rope to keep my black silk shorts up during runs", thanks Ann :-)

Becky over at First Steps did get it right with her guess of "the gold honor cord I got to wear around my neck at graduation". The difference being that this was the honor cord I wore when I graduated, finally, in 2007. Thanks to all for playing and congrats Becky on nailing the answer. Good times.

The picture there is me on that day. It is actually a photo of a photo, our scanner died; hence the cruddy quality. Look at the face! Easily I am 310 if not much closer to 320 in that photo. Cheeks, chin, even my ears are fat! Not sure what exercise to do to slim the ear lobes. And the gown, it was huge. They had three sizes if I recall; Small, Large & Tent. So glad I have left the tent sizes and a chin or two in my wake recently.

Thursday was fun for me in many ways...

• Blogging, fun; so many of you posting up good news I can't get enough. I need more time to comment and draw even more inspiration from you. Oh, read a good one today here at The Right Fit.
• Twitter, fun; some of you connected up with me after yesterdays post and we got busy chattin up being healthy and goofing off a bit too. I had to let it be know to FatGirlvsWorld that the Giants will fall to the Bears Sunday night. She'll get over it.
• Work, fun; yes it was fun too. Someone tried to ruin my day with a project delay & I disarmed them with humor and understanding. Once the chip was off his shoulder we got the schedule re-set in a way that satisfied all.
• Eating, fun; I kicked butt keeping temptation at bay and chomping down on good quality choices. Well, um, maybe I did have a few too many beans in my salad.
• Exercise, fun; knocked that ball so far out of the park that it filed a flight plan with Captain Kirk. Or do you prefer Captain Picard? Sit ups, Push ups and walking. Then round two was a one mile walk/jog combo for time, the first time I timed such a combo; 15:14 minutes. So we'll use that as a benchmark to improve on going forward. This and Lake Andrea will be my personal challenges for the near future same as Stanton Hill was over the summer. Thanks Jody for giving me the inspiration to have such a personal challenge to keep exercise fresh, fun and meaningful.
• Family, fun; my wife is gorgeous, sexy and I can't keep my eyes off of her when she gets home. My daughter was accepted to her first choice of colleges and raked in a good size scholarship to boot. So now I wont have to sell as much plasma as I feared. My boys, well they didn't get in trouble yesterday so a thumbs up to them too.

October is here, I am having fun, and I want more!

What do you want more of?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 88 - Red, White & Brown

Wednesday, Wednesday - Did you know today is Wednesday?

Here are the answers to yesterday's Sam riddles...
1- ANSWER - Meat
2- ANSWER - Pour two pancakes and brown the first side. After the first side is done, flip one, take the second off, and pour the third pancake. After another minute, take the first one off, flip the third one, and put the second one back on. Cook both pancakes until finished.
3- ANSWER - An egg

Hope you enjoyed the riddles. Luke's brain got these unraveled pretty quick, well done. His first try at #3 was a caterpillar, which I got a chuckle from... don't caterpillar's have meat? :-) If I had offered a prize for first to the answers it would have been a shiny new car, but, I forgot to offer a prize. Maybe next time.

Rice, I like rice; I love wild rice. I haven't eat allot of rice recently as I've tried to keep carbs in check a bit. No, I wouldn't say I am on a low carb diet, or any diet plan. My old eating habits were a display in carb overload. Today I keep them in check better while replacing much of the bad carbs I used to eat with fruit, veggies and better protein choices.

There you see a picture of a box of wild rice I bought recently. Unfortunately I have not been able to enjoy it yet. The other night I was going to make this rice as a side dish, that is, until my kids saw the box and let me have it. They love rice, but only, and I mean ONLY white rice. And more specifically they greatly prefer short grain rice cooked in the rice steamer over long grain versions. Bottom line, they love white sticky rice, and that is the only rice that exists in their minds.

Debate on - I countered that there are tens-of-thousands of  varieties of rice on this rock we call home and that we ought to try a few of them. Red, White & Brown, all sorts of rice colors, shapes and sizes to explore and adore! Silly me, I am talking to teenagers. They have all the answers and know it all, right? On that day I relented and put the wild rice back on the shelf. Simply I was not in the mood to make it, watch nobody else have desire to eat it but have plenty of desire to complain about it. That fun will we'll have on another day.

When you have six mouths in the house you will frequently encounter these challenges where some like an item and others don't. Fish and veggies are constantly being debated here. Rice not so much as we usually just go sticky. But now that my wife & I are working on getting healthier I am finding myself a little less tolerant to unwillingness to broaden palate horizons. As we are adding healthier options and trying new things we too would like to see them be a bit more desirous of doing so.

That said, I am a firm believer in not needing to ever eat a food you don't enjoy. Brussel sprouts, an absolutely hideous food according to my palate. You can pound out the health benefits of brussel sprouts in bronze and I won't capitulate to eating them. So then who am I to suggest, let alone insist, they take a left turn from sticky rice to a dish of wild rice? I mean, they are still eating rice, a healthy choice, right? It is not like they insist on having a side of gummy-bears with the chicken.
 

What foods do enjoy that you wish your family shared your desire for?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Family Fun @ Miller Brewery

Day 13 - Danger Ahead

Today is a day like many others. Up around 5:30 a.m. and at the breakfast table with my gorgeous wife by about 6:15 a.m., that is pretty much the routine for us during the work weeks. And I anticipate the rest of the day to be a usual day at work, at eating healthy and enjoying some family time when back at home this evening. It's all good and I'm good with days like this.

But what about tomorrow, or, the day after? The Weekend!?!? Most weekends don’t present too much added challenge to my efforts to get healthy. This biggest challenge of weekends would be boredom, there is more free time and if not used well boredom can creep in and in days of the past I'd hit the pantry for food to relieve the boredom. Then there is a definite up side to having more free time on weekends, I have more time. More time to exercise. More time to plan for the weeks meals ahead. More time to do healthy things.

On MOST weekends those notions are true. But not all weekends are equal and this, the first weekend of May 2010, is not to be a weekend like most. It is a weekend filled with danger, filled with temptation, filled with challenge, filled with scary scary scary hurdles. Of course I am talking about food challenges. Did I say it is going to be scary?

Saturday is my nephews 1st Communion. We'll make the 2 hour drive to attend the church ceremony and then it will be back to my sister's house where she has planned a bountiful menu of delivery pizzas. Ugh, what a temptation to face at a time which will be the usual time we'd eat dinner anyhow. No doubt after the drive, after the church service, after the initial mingling at her house; no doubt by the time the pizza is served my hunger will be at a scary state and I'll be faced with the first dangerous challenge of the weekend to my success. Pizza? Thanks Sis!

Sunday is no better. Sunday we are getting the families together to celebrate the birthdays we have in May and Mothers Day even though it’s a week early. How are we celebrating that? Well how else, with a Sunday brunch of course. Oh it gets better, we're brunching at Papadeaux. Yes, I know that Papadeaux is a seafood restaurant so there will be healthy options available. But if you have not experienced a brunch at Papadeaux then let me fill you in; it's HUGE. Decadent and Sinful foods from every planet in the galaxy and lots and lots of them. So here I'll be faced with the second dangerous challenge of the weekend to my success.

So how do I get through it? My immediate thought is that if I pay attention to what is before me and am conscious of the decisions I'll need to make this weekend, then I should be fine. Otherwise if I just go into these events blind to my having to think and make decisions then I will no doubt make bad choices and do harm.

Can I handle it, I think so... Can I make the best of these challenges and at a minimum do no harm, I think so… Can I stare down temptation without starving myself and feeling like I am being punished, I sure hope so… Can I quickly book a trip to Guam and avoid it all, I think that would result in a frying pan to my head so probably the best way to face the danger ahead.

All that said I am so looking forward to these events with the family. Never do I want to dread such events because of what they may do to my health. Therefore I am just going to have to learn how to balance family festivities with healthy eating, and as well, eating out with healthy eating,

Hey, TGIF, enjoy it!

Responsibility 199... Gotta Do It!!