An Attitude of Gratitude – Day 2

Today I am grateful for:

1. Social Media having an on/off switch.  It’s not a requirement.  It can enhance your life but if it becomes a hindrance, it can easily be removed.
2. Change in the weather.  It’s days like today that make last Saturday (and hopefully tomorrow) seem THAT much better!
3. Friends and neighbors that do things like get me a Peachtree number so I am ready to go, come July 4th.
4. Quality automobiles that don’t leave me and/or my family stranded.
5. Freedom.  As often as I overlook the freedoms I do have in live, I still remain eternally grateful for the freedoms I have in life.

An Attitude of Gratitude – Day 1

Today I am grateful for:

1. A wonderful day yesterday, including time with my family, good competition for the kids, clean air, sunshine and a wonderful bike ride.
2. A warm place to sit as the cold front moves in
3. The opportunity to help others at church.
4. Domestic animals – the love they show and the fun they bring to my family is unexplainable.

Something strange happened tonight!

So we went to have some dinner before going to Cici’s fund raiser.  We went to our local sushi house and enjoyed our meal.  Very good.  A table of people sat down next to us and had a “tray” of something – that looked like Calamari (you know – deep fried squid).

Well – I wasn’t sure if a japanese joint served that – so I asked the guy.  He told me and I said “Oh, cool!  Thanks”. Well, this guy was very social and told us how good it was.  Sarah commented it was too chewy and he insisted it was not.  He then offered us a piece – including some sauce!  Well – why not.  We liked it, thanks bro – very cool.

Well, about 2 minutes later – the waiter came to bus his table.  He said “No, don’t take that!  Put it on their table! ”  I’ll be honest, I thought he said “put it on his tab” and was like WTF?  No – he just wanted to give us his leftovers.  Seemingly odd, but very tasty none the less!

Very good night overall!  Odd post dinner appetizer… but good night none the less!

Cici Fernandes – one of my favorite people!

Cici Fernandes

Last year, Sarah and I worked with team in training to do a Century.  Sarah raised a ton of money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  That helps to make you feel pretty good – but along the way, we had the pleasure of meeting a woman named Cici Fernandes.  I can’t really tell you, in words, how wonderful a person Cici is, but I can tell you she is non-stop bucket of inspiration.  She was the 6th highest fund raiser for her century.  She started the “journey” on some 50 pound 40 year old bike … finished on a borrowed Cannondale.  She loved cycling and loved raising money for her charity!  I helped her shop for and find a great deal on a bike and she is taking on the Lake Tahoe Century soon – again in her quest to raise money for TNT.

Cici’s mom died of  leukemia, so for her – it’s more than just a passion.  I know times are tough – but Cici is at it again.  She has set a high goal of $6000!  I know she will do it… I just wanted to help her out a little bit.  So -if you can- take a moment and hit Cici’s fund raising page.  Throw her a little donation.  Every penny counts and I can promise you – you will get a friend out of the deal!

http://pages.teamintraining.org/ga/ambbr10/cfernandes

Her energy and smile are truly contagious!  I’m just sharing the wealth!  Look out Lake Tahoe!  Cici is coming to town!

Not so long ago – I worked for a man

I worked for a man that didn’t let any holidays go by.  He didn’t let an opportunity to celebrate and/or compete pass us by.  It was annoying.  Being competetive I did all kinds of stupid stuff like wear a wig and a pink shirt and call myself Christie Brinkley, wear a purple pimp suit – even die my hair green (even if it looked yellow, it WAS green) and any other thing I thought would get me a borland buck or some other random trinket of appreciation.  Yes – I was annoyed by the man, he bugged me making me do all of these things.  The actually … as much as I hated them… probably made me more productive – they certainly gave me something to win, some form of motivation and something people need in the office sometimes – something to laugh about.

Today – I’m LITERALLY the only person I’ve seen in my office even wearing a green shirt.  (If your reading this late – it’s St Patrick’s Day).  Nobody has even noticed.

Gary – sorry man, you were right!!!! Thanks for all the good times.  I miss my old team.  I hope you are all well.

One year ago today

Waffle House Nutritional Facts

So say – you have a moment of weakness and your 8 year old wants waffles and you say “Ok”….

Say you stop at one of the 8000 Georgia Waffle Houses….

Say you are trying to be honest and want to log your food intake….

You go to Waffle House’s website and try to find the nutritional facts.   You will find this:

Where can I get nutritional information about your foods?

Waffle House provides great tasting food and an enjoyable meal. The items on our menu allow everyone that visits our restaurant a meal that fits their dietary needs and all of our food is cooked to order. Although we do not publish nutritional data on our food, you will find it to be the same high-quality food you can get from your supermarket. We use brands you know and trust including Jimmy Dean sausage, Bryan Bacon, Sara Lee pastries and pies and Royal Cup coffee and tea.

In a society where obesity is becoming an epidemic – one of the most successful restaurant chains in the country doesn’t publish their nutritional facts?  Even McDonalds – which has almost no true nutritional value has that information readily available.

Never fear though – Waffle House has something that even Starbucks doesn’t!  You can put in the start and end destinations and it will show you  ALL of the Waffle Houses on the way!

The way I see it – if the calories cant be found on the internet – it must be calorie free!

The highs and the lows

As some of you know, last Saturday I got up early, drove across town and ran a 10k.  I really wanted to see where I was, in a real 10k, with a real clock and all that.  The goal – break 1 hour.  I was feeling confident – but nervous.  Well, things went pretty much how I expected them too.  I took off too fast (first mile in 8:09) and faded a bit as the rest of the run went along.  I finished in 57:36 – so the goal was achieved.  I did feel pretty good about that.  I realized, the pacing is critical and how “easy” that first mile will feel in a race.  Mental note – Work on feeling out my pace a bit better on the first mile!

Well – that’s when things started to go downhill.  I started feeling a little bad on Sunday, about the same on Monday.  I ran with the guys at work on Monday – but didn’t feel so good.  Tuesday I felt worse and by Wednesday I woke up with a low grade fever and a pretty bad cold.  I stayed home – and felt better – but now I’m in the cold roller coaster.  Feel better… feel worse… feel better… feel worse.  The Quil family is helping a bit – but well, it’s not much fun.

Derek had his “regional” science fair awards this week.  He went up against some good projects and all in all, I was VERY proud in how he handled it.  He didn’t win an award and wasn’t upset.  I am sure he wanted to win, but he didn’t get made or anything!  Very good to see him doing good on that.  He’s fully involved with soccer now – which means a lot of rain outs – and practice 2 nights a week.  He has a lot of fun – so that is cool.

Max is playing soccer and has had one practice.  The rest have been rained out.  He is very passionate about wanting to learn to swim.  He DESPERATELY wants to “not have to wear my floaties”.  Well, after a lot of research, phone calls and stuff – Max will start his swim lessons TODAY!  Now, you have to understand that he has been in swim trunks and swim shirt since 7:00 am for his 12:30 swim class.  He’s going to learn to swim today!

This week – Sarah did something for the first time, and she did it QUITE well!  She made Army Men!  (It’s an old school family favorite).  I don’t know that she has ever made it before – but well – you would never have known!  It tasted great.

Rigatoni and Faith are pretty well adjusted to being here.  Big Tony is just going to be mad at the existence of dogs and lash out a them as early and often as he can.  Fortunately – soft paws prevent him from doing anything but amusing himself.  Those things really do work!

This week – I hope the weather turns to spring and the cold clears up.  I could use some sunshine!

He ShOoTS! HE SCORES!

Okay – I owe you all a better web update and I promise – it’s COMING!  That being said – Here is a photo of Derek and his winning science fair project!  Many of you probably helped/participated!  THANK YOU!  It was fun for everybody!

And the winner is... DEREK!

For three straight day…

I feel like I have run for three straight days. It all started on Saturday. I did the run home from soccer thing again. I went a different way and poured on the gas a bit. When it was all said and done, mapmyrun.com said I had run 5.75 miles in about an hour. I had more left – but wasn’t sure and the “climb” home hurts.

Sunday – feeling stupidly inspired, I set out on a 34 degree jaunt. I ran about 4.85 miles. Maybe more, maybe less – not sure. I was running harder to stay warm. I was pretty tired after that. I think my time was about 51 ish minutes?

Well, today I go to work and the guys email me and say want to run? I say … maybe … look at the weather and realize its about to get ugly again. UN-FUN! So … I say ok. It’s only 4 miles. Let me tell you… there is no casual warm up pace at the beginning of a lunch run. My head almost popped off we were going so hard. At least, that’s how I felt. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25859372 I guess we weren’t REALLY going all that crazy fast, but I wasn’t ready. My goal, was to stay with the guys. I did stay with one of them. The other one dropped us like a bad habit with about 1/2 mile to go. It was kind of cool as the guy with the Garmin was telling me where we were (1 mile, 2 mile…) and at 10 minute miles – I could see if we were up and down. I really think I buried myself today and hope I can show some restraint tomorrow.

I’m sad to say my last cycling endeavor was 45 minutes on the rollers on Friday. That’s okay – I’m working on a goal right now. One of the guys at Church invited me to ride to Alabama with him sometime this summer. I’ve heard it’s the thing to do on the Silver Comet Trail – so I guess I should entertain the idea.

One negative side effect of this working out – I am cold a lot. Like right now. My blood is moving slow, my HR is low … and I m cold. I guess it’s good and I wonder if I acheive my current goal of 190 – if I will be cold all the time? I won’t have all my grizzly bear fat … will I miss it? I hope to find out!

Until next time – stay warm and dry!