Tid Bits

It is unusual for me these days to blog on a day other than Monday. But I just have some thoughts I wanted to express. First of all I am at peace these days. It has been a hard thing for me to come to grips with. I am not 16 anymore, I cant play video games and sports all day long. I can no longer not work and hope to get money from my parents to go out at night (although if you are offering we could discuss it). It is a realization that I have never wanted to come to. I would prefer to do those other things all day everyday. Or just go to school and come home everyday. But it has taken me 13 years to come to grips that at some time I had to face life as it is and will be. For 13 years I have literaly agonized over what I should do with my professional life. There wasnt a day that passed by that I didnt think about it. Not a evening that passed by that I didnt spend hours late into the night researching different paths and their fit for me. My lovely wife has done the same for me on many occasions. We had prayed about the topic tons and tons of times. We had chosen paths that we thought were good paths only to see something spoil them. Our most recent thought was for me to get a Masters degree in Speech Pathology. Which I think would have been a good fit, but it is a 2 1/2 year pursuit. So I had to decided if I wanted to keep up this charade of trying to chase education and happiness (professionaly) in yet another avenue. In the end I decided to take and go for something I have been interested in and something I think is a good fit for me as well. I expressed interest to my company that I would be interested in coming back full time for this position only. I told them I would not come back full time for any other position. I spoke with the manager of the department, interviewed the next day and was hired that same day. I even got a slight raise, all of my stock options back, as well as my bonus structure, so it was a nice deal. Most would be surprised to hear the position is in corporate America. I believe it is the only position/field in corporate America I could ever excel at. The position is in the Training and Development department. I am a Trainer. I start full time on Monday in that position. My job is to train the companies employees on our software products and also train our external clients on our software products. I feel at peace with this decision. I know it is in the best interest of the family and it is a position that is a good fit for my personality. I am going to start a graduate online program at UNT in the spring. The degree will be in Applied Technology and Performance Improvement. I will be seeking a masters and hopefully some day a PhD in this field. I like this because it will help me accomplish my goal of becoming a director of training and development for a company, but also help me some day be able to teach the subject in a college someday. So it feels nice for the first time in my life to be settled. To feel like I am not anticipating a change or looking for something else. It feels nice to not worry about it anymore. This is the bed I have chosen to lye in.

I feel so blessed to have a wonderful wife and two wonderful, healthy children. There is a co-worker whose wife had a baby a few months after Ayden was born. The baby has had serious health problems from the minute it was born. The most recent news I heard this morning is that the baby has a disease that has only been seen in like 10 other babies before and none of them ended well. The baby is having seizures and is on heavy medication and is probably mentally retarded to some extent. It has been difficult for him and his wife. They are a very young couple. I think his wife is like 20. I feel for them. I dont know why some babies have the challenges they do. A few years ago a gentleman came to speak at the Mckinney Stake Center. He had written a book called "One Tattered Angel" and he was speaking to the stake about it. It was one of the more memorable speeches I have ever heard. One of his daughters was born in severely bad shape. She defied all the doctors odds and went on to live her life (although still a brief one). He talked about the impact she had on the family and how it changed and helped them all. Anyway, I dont know how Heavenly Father picks and chooses what families will get these special children. I know I am not knocking on the door to get one because I dont know how well I would hold up. Anyway just some thoughts I have had. Take care.

End of week 16

Well 4 months has passed amazingly. I know my weekly goals are falling a little behind but progress continues to be made. I weighed in at 234 lb's today. So I lost another 4 ounces, but that is not bad considering I had a binge day. In total I have lost 42.6 lb's thus far. This week is the first week I have ever gone over my allotted points in a week. I binged yesterday, mostly out of depression for my fantasy football team. It dropped to 0 and 3 yesterday. But I got up this morning and got on the exercise bike for 45 minutes. I am going to try and do that about 5 days a week from now on. My weight loss should start picking up again. I am excited to get into the 220's.

In other news my dad, my grandma scott and my sister emma came and visited us yesterday. They came down from Wyoming to bring a horse to my Aunt Jennifer. It was good to see them. None of them had ever met Ayden so it was nice for them to be able to see her.

Ayden just a few days ago rolled over from her back to her stomach for the first time. She is still not able to roll over from her stomach to her back.

I won my fight with the fresh water district. For those of you who haven't heard we were getting $200+ water bills every month, and our most recent one was almost $500. Well we have been fighting with the water management company for months now and then they threatened to turn off our water. So I had to go to the county offices and go on a 3 hour goose chase to try and find someone who had the power to make things right. I finally found myself on the 4th floor of the county offices speaking with the director of human resources for denton county. She was nice enough to give me a list of names over our fresh water district. After calling several names on that list I finally got in touch with the general manager for our district. He said our water definitely would not be turned off and that things would get fixed. Indeed they were. Our outstanding balance at this point was about $750. We got that marked down to $350 and the water issue is fixed from this time forth. What a beating that was for us.

End of week 15

Well yet another week in life has come and gone. All is well in the world. In weight loss news I weighed in this morning at 234.4 lbs. Last week I weighed in at 237.2 lbs, so I lost 2.8 lbs this past week. I told Tina today that I am only about 17 lbs heavier now than when her and I met, so I am getting done there. I was 217 lbs when Tina and I met. I haven't been that low for 5 years now and about 5 years before that. Ayden is doing really well. I have posted a bunch of pictures of here and stuff on the photo album since we didn't put any up there last week. I took some lessons from Rocky Balboa when we watched it the other night. It was a pretty good movie. The part where he is talking with his son and telling him about life and how it hits you and hits you and you either keep going or you fall down. I know there have been times and things in my life that have almost made me stay down and not get back up. But I have a wonderful wife and son and daughter and they encourage me and keep me going.

Even though professionally I feel like a failure, I feel successful in my family life. I feel like I am a good husband and father. I just don't know if those things are enough for me, I know they should be and I am happy about those things, but being unhappy for 2000 hours a year is depressing to me. I always expected way more out of myself. Maybe that is because I am competitive and never envisioned being at the bottom of the economic food chain. But at the same time money only matters to me to the extent we have enough. I want to enjoy my work or more directly put I need to enjoy my work. I have an odd personality type and the types of jobs I could do and be successful I would most likely never enjoy. In other news Ayden is doing very well. She is just so cute and makes me smile every time I look at here. Tina is a wonderful mom and takes very good care of her. Here are a few pictures of me and make sure to check out the photo album. There are a couple of new videos up there of Ayden as well. Me and Chris's fantasy football team sucks right now.

End of week 14

Well nothing gained, nothing lost this past week. I still weight exactly the same. I am going to have to start doing some consistent cardio now I think to loose the amount of weight I want to loose every week. Thus far I have lost 39 while doing pretty much no cardio. Other than that all is well. We finally got our water usage straightened out. Now we just have to get our bill past bill straightened out. Imagine water bills as high as $500 dollars. The meter was screwed up. For example from the 2nd of August till the 17th of August we supposedly used 32,000 gallons. In the 17th they changed our meter for the 3rd time. Since the 17th till today which is about 23 days we have only used 3,000 gallons. So it was majorly screwed up. Ayden is doing well. She is a bit harder to put down for naps now. She doesn't really go quietly into the night anymore. In other news, my joint venture fantasy football team just got the crap kicked out of them this past weekend. Hopefully things are going to get better or it is going to be a long season. It is a slap in the face as you get older and you suddenly realize that you are not going to be a big league baseball player or a FBI agent or a Spy or a doctor etc... You are most likely going to work at a Corporation, doing your 8-5 shift every day for 40 years. That is a depressing notion for me. But it is one that I have finally come to grips with. It doesn't mean I like it but I know at some point I have to establish myself in a career to make a good living for my family. I just have to hope that somewhere along the way i find something that I enjoy or at least develop some of my side interests and hobbies.

End of week 13

Well after taking the week to recover from my previous weekend of hiking I lost 2 lb's. I have now lost a total of 39.4 lb's in 13 weeks. I currently weigh 237.2 lb's. I am making good progress every week and still haven't added exercise as part of my regular schedule. School started this past week. Looks like it is not going to be to bad. I am taking 2 graduate courses and 2 undergraduate courses. All is well with Ayden and Tina, nothing really new to report. I havent put pictures up for a while but I have them up there now, there are some new ones of Ayden and me and stuff. Sorry I dont have a lot to write at the moment. Take care, thanks to all of you who have helped me in my weight loss efforts, it has been a big help.