Great Retreat, Healthy Honey Now Walking

Our church had the most attendees ever at Forest Home last weekend - around 420 people and lots of kids. Our speaker, Jim Burns, had a great acrostic for maintaining/improving relationships - AWE. AWE stands for affection, warmth and encouragement. I really appreciated when he said, (my paraphrase) "If you have reservations about affection, I have three words for you. Get. Over. It." I agree wholeheartedly. Human beings need that good stuff. Jim Burns's stuff can be found at: HomeWord.com. I find him to be much more conservative than me and still, he's got something to say that's truly worth hearing.

My honey and I worked KP for all the meals. I was the big enchilada for KP and got good reviews. Just like the retreat itself, we had the most people I've ever seen setting up and cleaning up at meals. They made it so easy to lead. The KP'ers took initiative and hardly a discouraging word was heard.

Marianne and I have been playing a game we call Password. It's been a long time since I've seen that show, so it may not be exactly Password according to Hoyle(?). One person thinks of a word and then gives a one word clue. The other person gets one guess and then the "giver" gives another one word clue to the "receiver". Sometimes you get the word on the first try like when I said "Redenbacher" and she guessed the word was popcorn. She only took two word clues, sidewalk and concrete, to get pavement. (Guess which word took her six clues?!) We even played Password as we were falling asleep.

Monday morning after we got home I weighed myself and found things going in the right direction. I was down to 117.1 kilos vs. 118.5 last week which means a loss of approximately 3 pounds. Tuesday was our anniversary and we started off by walking almost three miles at Batiquitos lagoon with our dog, Mellow. It was great to spend the day together and nice of our country to have a holiday on our anniversary. (A Veteran's Day aside - Marianne's brother-in-law was in Vietnam and her grandfather was in the horse cavalry(!) in WWI. We are not quite sure if we got the whole story about her uncle who we were told died after hostilities officially ended in Korea when her mom was a kid. My dad was in the Navy, but didn't see action in Brownsville, Texas and my uncle Fred served, too. Kicked my dad across the room with only his reflexes coming out of a nap once, but that's another story. My brother almost went to Vietnam. I'm pretty sure he got a low-medium draft number and then the war was over.)

We went out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse and shared some mild wings and the Alice Springs Chicken. More Password with just the two of us. The Alice Springs Chicken works for the high protein/low card lifestyle if you substitute broccoli, which they serve crisp, the way we like it. Oh, remember not to use that sugary dipping sauce to keep the carbs low.

All of the above and technology problems combined with Palomar College being closed MONDAY meant that I didn't get back online until yesterday. You should be hearing from me more often in the near future. Keep walking.

Walking Batiquitos and Twitter

My wife and I have been walking at Batiquitos lagoon recently and in case you live in San Diego County or you're willing to come here, remember Batiquitos. I really haven't walked there since I was a kid with my older brothers and there was no Four Seasons or any houses to speak of. My dad used to refer to this as "the slough" and we used to smell it miles away in Leucadia in the 70's. I think that odor doesn't happen as often now, but then, I live farther away from the water as a dad than I did as a son.

Sunday morning we walked three miles and last night at dusk we did two. I remembered back to a time when the falling darkness would have been mucho scary. Lots of people on a Sunday morning. As the stars came out Tuesday evening, not so much - we found ourselves alone for the final leg back out of the dark "forest". Either way it feels good to walk. Maybe we'll walk on the beach tonight. We'll see.

I have been following people and vice-versa on Twitter recently. Some of those folks are walkers, too. It's good to be connected to other walkers, exercise junkies and such so we can keep each other encouraged and motivated. You can click on the title of this post to see my profile on Twitter. I hope to see you there.

Walked And Walked At Comic-Con

Comic-Con is huge. Over 120,000 visitors over four days padded the San Diego Convention Center. Last year I was really hurting afterwards. My feet still felt the impact this year, but all the walking I've done has gotten me used to it so it was no big deal. I was really tired one day and decided to take a nap at 6:45. I got up the next morning at 6:15. I haven't gotten that much sleep in years. Come to Comic-Con next year, but register by March [!] if you want a 4-day pass. Be prepared to walk and walk and walk and then walk some more. Why not train for it starting today?

Click on the title of this post to see some images from a very talented artist I met. His name is Francis Vallejo and he is a student at the Ringling [Yes - THAT Ringling. Who knew?] College of Art + Design in Sarasota, Florida.

Don't Sit Down!

Back in 1993 I made an amazing discovery. When I come in the house, if I simply don't sit down I will get the next task done much sooner. Seems simple enough. The key for me is remembering to stay standing up.

This morning I took the dog for a little drive and got the paper. After giving the dog a little food, I set down my drink on the kitchen table and stood reading the paper for just a minute or so. I went back downstairs and got the dog and we went right out and started walking.

A few weeks ago I started breaking my day into three mini-days. I learned this over ten years ago from a life insurance organization started by a man named Hubert Humphrey - no relation to the politician. My understanding is that Humphrey started this practice and taught it to us. At one time I felt it was a little silly, but I have found that now that I am choosing this, I like it and it helps me focus on getting things done.

My dog, Mellow, and I walked about three miles and I got back to the house just before 8 am, the end of my first mini-day. Because I didn't sit down I had time to do the best I have done for three weeks before 8 am. I know this for sure because after I got back I sat down and I have been at the computer a little under an hour.

Incidentally, I was also motivated after I stepped on the scale and got a pleasant surprise. I had expected to "break even" for the week, but my new number is 117.7 kilos which is just under 259 pounds. This is the first time I've been under 259 pounds in 11 or 12 years.

I am walking. You can walk. Please walk today. No matter what.

(Don't sit down!)